I like the looks of these changes. I can’t help but notice the Hawk will retain it’s kinetic lock. Is this intentional? Are you still willing to tweak such things?
Seriously though isn’t it about time you remove what few kinetic locks remain on Caldari hulls? Nobody finds it fun to lose a third of their damage because they use a non-kinetic missile. Ratter min/maxing be damned, unless you know your enemies resist profile you’re going to assume omni tank and keep kinetic loaded. For the simple fact that it’s impossible to know if it’s worth that loss in paper dps to swap to anything else to get better applied unless they always fly the same ship and their fit can be looked up on zkill to find the hole and quickly figure out if there’s enough of a resist gap to warrant a damage swap.
While these changes look promising, they don’t address the big issue I have with AFs. Note that I fly them solo; I love the way they are small enough to really benefit from good piloting and positioning while able to hit like a truck. Plus a well fit AF can actually mitigate damage enough to active tank for a long period if it can get close to the target.
So, that said, the problem I see with the whole class is their vulnerability to capacitor warfare. No matter how ineptly piloted, poorly fit, and unprepared for a fight, any cruiser with a neut will automatically dumpster any AF not fit for extreme kiting.
The increased cap is nice, but really it only buys a few more seconds. Once you are neuted out there’s no coming back. Likewise nos can’t even supply enough cap to tank a flight of warriors in a Vengeance. The increased fitting means more room for a cap booster, but most AFs don’t have the mids to lose to that without gimping themselves.
So, that said, a suggestion. Add some kind of capacitor warfare resist to the DCs when activated. Being able to cap back up for a bit to rep would be hugely useful when that vagabond warps right into your bubble, gets scrammed, and finds out he’s got a Vengeance inside his tracking. It would only be relevant in small fights and it would make the whole class MUCH more interesting since it could threaten ships a size larger if they were… dumb.
@CCP_rise
Hope you consider removing missiles on sacrilege.
Amarr shouldn’t need to specialize in three weapon systems across their ships. Amarr already has too much drone focus. I just want lasers man.
New Jaguar
It gets 13% spd bonus (wolf get 26%) instead of 18, so the speed advantage is actually narrowed. The new Jag is lacking dps significantly, even lower than the Vengeance. Not really positive about the 5% missile explosion radius buff. If you are using rocket, web+scram should allow you hit perfectly with rage (if you have a range bonus). If you are using light missile, the speed is still not enough to kite, and you are missing the range bonus. Yes the ADC is strong, but the ship itself might struggle.
The ADC.
The module involves a duration, which is 13-15 seconds. This number is problematic because the combat duration of AF and HAC are very different. For Armor HACs (especially Zealot, which is very likely to have the meta version of ADC due to the lack of CPU), 13 seconds can only barely let the first rounds of remote armor rep land. For AF, 13 seconds usually means one third of the whole solo pvp combat length, and that 24-35 cpu make it even harder to fit on the AF. Is it possible that the ship can have a role bonus like a reduction of fitting (for AF) and a extension for duration (for HAC)?
The HACs
Having this module does not just solve the HAC problems. Still, they do not apply better than BCs, and cannot navigate the damage to survive. The module MIGHT prevent them from being volleyed off the field, when the Opponent FC is not good enough. However, they still will not trade favorably to BC (I mean the ferox). Some of the HACs have fitting issues, have to sacrifice either tank or DPS.
gonna throw my 2 cents in here, I was excited about the jag changes until I tried to fit one up on sisi. The PG and CPU are so tight you have to make deadly sacrifices to make the fit barely flyable, with dps not even exceeding that of the breacher. Want Buffer good luck, medium ancillary again good luck forget dual ancillary’s. Micro Aux Power Core is practically required for any fit to get stuff to work. I hope you can look into this and give it some fitting room.
Greetings CCP. I’m not usually one to shoot off at the mouth about changes to Eve but I want to give my first impressions of these proposed changes, as HACs and AFs are conceptually some of my favourite ships in Eve.
Assault Damage Controls
the thing I like most about these modules, is that they will reward skill more then power. When properly utilized, they will make ships nearly invulnerable, allowing AFs to move into scram range on Battleships more reliably. clearly this is the intention, and one I support.
The thing that worries me about these units is how they will interact with server ticks. I fear that these could be manipulated to get more time out of them somehow. I also am interested in how they might be impacted by Tidi. Timing and server inputs are already problematic under tidi, managing at 13 second window at that point could render the module useless, or very over powered.
Assault Frigates
Thank you for the Jaguar changes. I was always a little sad there wasn’t a comparable version of the Breacher in the AF range, and now my missile loving butt has it’s wish. But I fear it will feel too much like a Caldari ship in Minmitar clothing. I am also already trying to come up with ways to abuse a medium ancillary booster in a Jaguar like you can a Hawk.
I, personally, think the Jaguar will become one of the most popular missile launching AF because of the Minmitar shield resist profile. The more balanced shield profile will not only be easier to fit defensively, and leave more room damage upgrades. I also think that ships with naturally balanced resist profiles (Minmitar and Amarr) will find it easier to make use of the ADC.
I am sad you did not get the opportunity to do HACs this time, as they are my favourite class of ship. I hope you managed to make the changes to Rapid Light Missile launchers before you finalize the HAC changes, simply because I know they will strongly impact the Cerb and some of it’s biggest uses as anti-frigate platforms.
Shadow Serp adc looks almost the same as t2 version either fix it or make it storyline with less cpu requirement like 22 cpu / 22 gj activation cost, the +1 sec duration is meh.
The biggest problem is the one that you alluded to. When some idiot decided that T3 destroyers should be created, that wiped out any utility for AF’s. Now, we are doing to see the dramatic reduction in T3 destroyers, but that is assuming that the AF changes are sufficient.
Only one class can fill the niche of a high end attack frigate (and yeah, dessies are still considered frigs), so it will be still binary. Either AF"s or T3 destroyers will be used. The smartest play would be for CCP to wipe out T3 destroyers and refund all the skills and skills and skillbooks. But we know that won’t happen.
In fact, CCP should do a major rationalization of many classes.
Considering their demonstrated hatred of T3 cruisers, wiping them from the game would make sense. This new module may end the use of many T3’s anyway. Think of it CCP. Not only could you wipe out wormhole income like the RMT cartels want, you could wipe out the headache that the introduction of T3 cruisers has clearly been for you. BTW, I loved my Loki and Proteus, neither which I have flown since you destroyed them.
Or perhaps the elimination of T2 EAF’s. With the massive buff you gave to the T1 counterparts, what kind of usage is there these days of the T2 versions?
And of course, Black Ops, that red-headed step-child that is a great idea, but you guys clearly hate. Wonder if that is because if they had good stats they would ruin the days of a whole lot of null sec botters?
Nice to see Rise increasing capacitor amount on Assault Frigates considerably - it means that he’s reading the forum as more than one capsuleer complained about their terrible capacitor in another thread.
good response. I agree. although I think the damage boost if keeping the missiles shouldn’t go up much higher because if you can apply with rockets, then you are going to be losing almost no DPS. this would in fact make it much more dangerous than its paper stats would indicate, as long as the thing was in rocket range, which given those mid slots and speed, is very likely
Still too slow to assault anything. 15 seconds of semi invuln won’t help if you can’t move faster than the target you’re trying to catch. IMO give them a high cooldown extreme speed boost with an agility penalty so they have to fire themselves at their target. Once these bastards are in orbit they’re pretty good at not dying even without this new damage control.
although I think the damage boost if keeping the missiles shouldn’t go up much higher because if you can apply with rockets, then you are going to be losing almost no DPS. this would in fact make it much more dangerous than its paper stats would indicate
Yeah, rockets do apply very well, which is one reason I’d be willing to live with some of the issues I outlined in my post rather than wanting all three to be fixed at once. (I.e. if they fixed the CPU then I could be alright with lowish DPS and the incomplete speed buff given the good application, or if they fixed the DPS then I could be alright with the super-tight fitting and incomplete speed buff given how well that DPS would apply.) I just don’t think that the good application of rockets is enough to make up for all three of those issues, though it does help.
Unless you don’t fit a damage control, you can’t even fit a ballistic control on the Hawk and the damage is kinetic only, the jaguar can use all rainbow colors.
Amarr shouldn’t need to specialize in three weapon systems across their ships. Amarr already has too much drone focus. I just want lasers man.
exactly, Amarr. Sacrilege and co are Khanid ships, and their expertise is missiles. the Amarr T2 laser boats are mostly from Carthum and Viziam which are Amarr corporations.
perhaps there could be a third ship in those lines to fill the gap (each empire has 3 T2 corps anyways). in that case there would be 2 laser ships and one missile ship.
the main issue with that is that since the rebalances, the droneboat approach as secondary for Amarr is left mostly for EWAR focused ships. this leaves the droneboat secondary doctrine for the Curse and the Pilgrim.
since those are EWAR and cloak hulls. there’s a missing gap in terms of combat doctrines, thus the Khanid missile doctrines are left for actual combat hulls.
in order to simplify things they would have to repurpose those Khanid hulls as droneboats which would enter in issues with those who like those ships for their missile flavor.
