Yep, the Arazu is a nice example of cloaky tackle at range, but I never managed to make an Arazu fit that can also kill at that range.
It’s more of a support ship to bring in a fleet (or to hunt for a fleet) than a solo ‘kill at range’ cloaky ship, which brings me back to that most cloaky gameplay is about decloaking in short range to kill what it can tackle.
Yes, that’s the point of most covert ships besides the SOE line : to work as a fleet.
Besides SOE and T3 most have paper thin tank, and that’s actually required for balancing purpose : if they could warp cloak, tank and DPS like other ships they would be straight OP.
So they need to be used strategically - or bruteforcefully, with covert jump - and with logis to allow them to survive the longing glare of ennemy yellowbox
Yep, so the new ships pretty much fall in line with the existing cloaky ship design as close range ships that warp in, decloak and try to kill, except with a new type of weapon.
This is not a topic against the ship, which may or may not be itself balanced ( I think the base hull actually is way stronger in small gang than in bigger fleet, as its mids make it a one-man swiss and brawling being only viable in <20 ppl fleet), but about the pod that deals DoT ignoring resist, signature, with damage scaling with target HP and effect ticking even when the attacker is dead / cloaked / in warp / jammed / neutralized , and how this effect in itself goes against the game balance.
The ship itself may be adapted later for balance purpose, but the only way to make the pod balanced is to nuke it out (by price of effect) once there is a trivialized way to exploit it.
According to another topic, its not as bad as every one thinks
Now that we have some data on the new breacher pods, I’ve looked through some of the ship kills involving Cenotaphs.
Here are the latest ship kills where the target was
(so I’ve ignored the ships below battleship size in this quick selection)
Cenotaph damage is 2nd place, behind a Redeemer
Cenotaph damage is 6th place, behind 3 Redeemers, a Marshall and a Panther
Cenotaph damage is 17th place, behind 16 Redeemers
Cenotaph damage is 4th place, behind 3 Redeemers.
Based on these observations we can see that the damage-resistance ignoring hitpoints-scaling damage of the Cenotaph is impressive but is usually surpassed by Redeemers and other black ops battleships.
For a battlecruiser that currently is worth a lot more than black ops battleships and will likely settle at a price not far below one, it seems to deal damage not inappropriate to their size and cost against their ideal targets.
Even if the Cenotaph pilots could still improve their skills (not sure what level the current expert skill system provides?) their damage advantage over alternatives like Redeemers would at most be a few %, nothing ridiculously overpowered like many people in this thread were afraid of.
(Also even if the Cenotaph did do significantly more damage than alternatives, which it doesn’t, only a single one of these ships can effectively be used in these fleets as their damage doesn’t stack, so that wouldn’t be a problem either.)
TL;DR: Looks like breacher pod damage is fine to me, not at all too high.
You still don’t get the problem with them. All those targets would have died anyway, with or without breacher pods. The addition of this new mechanic wasn’t nessessary for those kills, so exactly what I predicted has happened: They will be used for BlackOps Gangs where the Victory is already 99,999% ensured. The game has not become a single bit better with them, they are no benefit, just antother fancy tool for the superrich to make safe kills.
What you cannot see - yet - because of their pricetag, is how they will perform in fights (not curbstomps), where a fight that would be round about even and winnable for both sides will turn into a complete massacre in favor of the side being able to bring these ships. Because Logis simply won’t be able to keep up the repairs once 3, 4 or 5 ships are bleeding simultaneously.
But we already had this discussion, it’s pointless. All those “tests” I have seen so far are completely and 100% worthless, because they never test them in the scenario where they will be completely OP. And that is small to medium gangfights where the only chance for the smaller gang was to heavly invest into skills, fits and top-notch logi pilots. The larger group which can, once the prices have come down, what they inevitable will, easily replace 2, 3 or 4 of their numbers with Breacherpod ships. The smaller groups can’t, because they already have problems filling all the roles in a fleet that make a well-rounded composition. I don’t want to attack you, but please gather experience in small-gang fighting and you will realize how insanely broken this ■■■■ is. It will not lead to more brawls, it will lead to more kiting, more risk-averseness and less actual combat. The exact opposite of what this change wants to achieve will happen, that’s for sure.
In such a non-curbstomp scenario, would it make a big difference whether the aggressor is in a Cenotaph or in a Redeemer?
Because it looks like the difference in dps against the ideal target of Cenotaphs isn’t big to me.
What? What is this question even? It’s beyond me how someone who playes this game for that long as you do cannot see the absolutely obvious difference?
All those targets were not “optimal breacher pod targets”, thats a completely wrong assumption. They were “optimal BlackOps targets”. An optimal breacher pod target is a passive tanked ship with high-resists, usually in the 85% range, reliant on Logi Support.
Absolutions, Astartes, Proteus, Legions, Ikitursas, Damnations, Abaddons, Guardians. Because those ships usually reach 90% (even higher with overheat) resistances and that means you can count any raw-hp damage x10.
That means even if you get “only” 300 damage “ticks” (which is not even 1/3rd of the potential but on the other hand also only requires 30k rawHP), this equals 3.000 dps that conventional ships would have needed to apply to cause the same effect. It means that for every bleeding ship, you probably need a full logi ship of your own fleet to keep it alive. And that means, they cannot rep the primary target of the enemy fleet any more. It is a complete logical chain that anyone understands who flies in a small gang.
If your fleet consists of 10 Absolutions 1 Damnation, 4 Guardians and 4 Proteus you would be able to stand your ground against 30-40 Battlecruisers and could take that fight, even win it if you kill their DPS faster than they can neut/ewar/break your logis. You compensate numbers with tougher, more expensive and more blinged ships. But if you take that same fight against 28 BCs and 2 Cenotaphs you will lose everything and your chances of winning shrink to exactly zero, because after 30 seconds in the fight your ships simply bleed to death and your logis can’t keep up. It turns into a massacre. And given that the Cenotaphs can stay cloaked in the back and only decloak once the fight has begun and their targets are tackled, it is a massacre you can’t even avoid - except by not fighting if you suspect the opponent has Breacher Pod ships.
Honestly, this was the last time I explained this simple logic. I am really tired of this nonsense. CCP has made their decision and EVE will bleed for it. By having less combat, less brawling, more curbstomps, more kiting, more risk averseness. It was their decision, they have been warned, they wouldn’t listen. Fine for me. I will hardcore blueball everyone who uses such a ship. And if they become too omnipresent at some point, I will just unsub and look again in a few years and EVE has lost one more highly dedicated, highly-in-love player that has spent years to advertise for this game. Decisions have consequences and the decision for this weapon system has the consequence that EVE will lose more over it than it will gain benefit from it. So be it.
No, those ships would kill the Cenotaphs first and only a few pods would have been launched and would easily be handled by the logi.
Ah, you mean you easily take out a 250k eHP Cenotaph that has a 25% web resistance and makes 1900m/s with Afterburner that you can’t scram, while your fleet is tackled in a brawl? I wish you good luck! These things can apply the DOT on multiple ships, tank crazy long under their own logi repairs (I mean, the enemy side will have some logis too, even if it’s only T1 ones, but almost no one flies entirely without remote support). And then they pull range or disengage and jump the gate/wh if you can’t kill them in under 60sec. While you keep bleeding and getting pounded by their DPS wing.
AH! So now you are changing the hypothetical fleet comp. You made no mention of logi before. Not to mention, those Cenotaphs need to be within 6km, so are in range to feel the full dps of the smaller fleet. Even with 25% web resist, they can’t escape being tackled by a whole fleet. They will die in short order, just like any other BC in that comp facing them. You are vastly overestimating the Cenotaphs.
I am just thinking in realistic scenarios. Sorry for not explicitly telling your right from the start.
I honestly don’t care for them in LS, Nullsec or HS. I live in WHs, I fight in WHs and I believe the best fights imaginable, without blobbing, without hotdropping and without huge bluetrains are happening here. Many fights do happen directly at a hole, and the Cenotaph can always decloak, tag ships with the DOT as long as the tank holds, then jump the hole (even under aggro) and clovert-cloak on the other side. So unless you split your fleet (which is a death-sentence for the smaller group anyway), it will often have a good chance to securely escape and come back for a second round once the DOT has worn off (but well, the fight is over by then if they did their job well).
Also you vastly overestimate how many webs a small gang has with them, the fewer ships you have, the more you need to spread up scrams, webs, TDs, damps among your ships. It’s not like you can instantly put 6 Webs on that Cenotaph. And even if, unless you have a Vindicator with you, it won’t get slower than around 400m/s, which means it can still pull range while you can’t follow if you are scrammed (which your ships will be, if you fight outnumbered).
I always get the impression you guys think about those ships being used by Joe Casual warping at zero, having no tank, just standing there and waiting to die. But I am used to assume my opponent is a professional, has the best fit available, knows exactly what he is doing and has a good plan. And under these circumstances, they have the potential to be absolutely game breaking. Give it 6 months, prices have to come down and we will have to see them becoming more common.
And we haven’t even talked about the absolutely nonsensical mechanic behind them. Ignoring Resist + HP scaling damage + CovertAbility in one package is an absolute NoGo.
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