Recommended Thalia Buff for fleet engagements

Council Of Stellar Management Assembly Hall
1

Cons vs Deacon:

  1. Explosive Resist Hole: Warrior Drones and autocannons are the Thalia’s worst enemy.
    An active Enduring Explosive Armor Hardener is required on every Thalia.

  2. Signature bonus negated by Skirmish boosts.
    A Deacon with Skirmish boosts has a 28.3 sig radius, a Thalia has 23.8
    This means the deacon’s +7.5% to armor hit points (which is cumulative) outshines the Thalia’s sig bonus whenever there are skirmish boosts. There will almost always be skirmish and armor boosts from pontifex/magus in any fleet with either thalias or deacons.

  3. The Thalia has the same drone stats as a the Deacon, whereas the Oni and Exeq have a flight of medium armor in lieu of the Aug/Guard light armor drones.

Now let’s use a sane and cheap fit for both of them. I don’t care how either outperforms the other with super blingy tournament fits (and frankly neither does anyone else).

For both (therefore getting the same repping power and cap use bonus).
Highs: I-ax Enduring Remote Armor Rep x3.
Rigs: Small remote repair aug (tech one) x2.

Deacon Cap Stable:
Deacon Lows:
400mm tech II plates.
DCU II
Reactive Armor Hardener
Multi-spec Energized II
Cap power relay II

Deacon Mid:
1 MN Enduring AB
Enduring Ewar mod or Sebo or web/scram (your choice)

Thalia Cap Stable:
Small cap bat II
1 MN Compact (a downgrade from enduring)
Any Tech II EWAR mod or tech II sebo or web/scram (your choice).

Lows:
400mm compact (a downgrade from tech II plates)
Cap power relay II
Enduring Explosive Armor Hardener
Reactive Armor Hardener (no damage control, you need a reactive vs RLM’s and autocannons!)

Thalia Variant

Mids:
Small compact p-acid bat.
1MN Enduring
Any named EWAR/sebo of your choice.

Lows:
400mm compact
Multi spec Energized II
Damage Control II
Coreli A-Atype Explosive Coating (these are always cheap, less than 250,000 ISK.

EHP: Deacon, Thalia, Thalia Variant: 16,800 vs 9,190 vs 10,800

Speed and agility (measured by align time):
Deacon: 1058m/s and 6.56s
Thalias : 1126m/s and 6.37s

Thus, the extra mid slot of thalia is forced to be a cap battery, while both the Deacon and Thalia can fit an EWAR mod or sebo.

The only advantage the Thalia has is it can bring a single tech 2 ewar mod over a named, whereas the Deacon has twice the EHP.

For swift moving wolf packs, where cap stability isn’t even considered, the Deacon be dual propped (while still having significantly more EHP than the Thalia!) and the Thalia will have zero tank is they dual prop.

Given the above, I propose the following buffs:

Give the Thalia a n% capacitor size bonus per level. We’ll start with n = 12.5% for this thread.

Allow the Thalia to have 5 light drones deployed and a drone bay that can hold a total of 15 drones for combat, ewar or repping. This would be +5 drone bandwith per level.

Like the Exeq and Oni, they should also get +100% to logi drone transfer

Move one High Slot to Medium and reduce the logi cap bonus from 10% per level to 3% per level. If the Thalia pilot wants the same repping power as the Deacon, then he needs to deploy and manage his logi drones.

At the same time, removing the third high slot fixes the powergrid issues.

Give a minor bonus to all EWAR modules (one half the bonuses given to any EWAR platform).

This allows the Thalia to bring two partially bonused Ewar mods and pack of light drones (that need not be logi drones) at expense of half the EHP of the Deacon.

2

So if I understand correctly:

  1. Thalia has a resist hole that is unfortunate considering your type of engagements
  2. You prefer the extra EHP of the Deacon (and Kirin) over the tiny signature of the Thalia (and Scalpel)
  3. The Thalia has the same drone stats as the Deacon (how is this even a point)

Sounds to me like point 1. and 2. mean you should probably use the Deacon in your circumstances.

I don’t really see why this means the Thalia needs a buff though. What if you’re fighting an enemy that uses another weapon type than the resist hole of the Thalia? What if the enemy is using weapons that are severely diminished by target size?

Yes, a Deacon can reduce it’s signature with command bursts, but this applies to the Thalia just as well. Your argument is equal to ‘The armour hit point boost of the Deacon is negated by Armour boosts’, which you have to admit, is silly.

3

All fleets with thalia or deacon will have skirmish boosts.

28.8 sig vs 24.8 sig (deacon vs thalia) makes the thalia sig bonus moot.

With such a mass ive explosive hole and subpar ehp, it dies to one volley of anything explosive. It needs to use its +1 mid slot on a battery to compete witha deacon’s cap as well.

4

Skirmish boost is irrelevant, it applies to both ships.

Without skirmish boost:
Deacon: 34
Thalia: 28.8
Deacon is 18% larger

With skirmish boost:
Deacon: 28.8
Thalia: 24.8
Deacon is 16% larger
(which is a minimal difference to the unboosted 18% difference, which is explained by stacking penalties of signature radius bonuses)

Bigger Deacon size, combined with slower ship speed my Pyfa tells me the Deacon is getting about 30% more damage than the Thalia from weapon types that rely on signature radius (I picked torpedos) than the Thalia.

While the Deacon has 37.5% more armour from their ship bonus as counterpart to the small sig of the Thalia, this only makes sure the buffer of both ships is similar.

For sustained incoming damage it’s more useful to have a smaller signature radius when you have other ships to repair you (in a fleet with other Thalias) while for burst damage the buffer and sig radius are both useful. Yet if you’re up against enemies that can perfectly track your Thalia (they brought small weapons, webs and paints), the buffer of the Deacon is a better option.

In short whether sig radius or buffer is better is not a clear case. As in everything in EVE: it depends.

A bigger difference is indeed the resist holes and the slot layout of these ships. And to that I say: pick the right tool for the job.

5

No one shoots torpedos at frigs.

Try with medium auto cannons or RLM’s.

What does PYFA say now?

6

With medium auto cannons the difference is about 24% better application on the Deacons.

That signature radius bonus may be more significant than you think.

7

Are you setting the angle of attack at 90 degrees or the average of 45?

In real life you can’t fly 90 degrees against the enemy turrets the entire fight.

What did you get from RLM?

Those Nova RLM’s look pretty scary!

8

About 34% damage difference at 90 degrees, 20% at 45 degrees.

As I said, if you manage to get close to perfect tracking (close to 0 degrees, paints, webs) this difference disappears and the buffer of the Deacon will be better, but it all depends.

There will be circumstances where the Thalia is better and circumstances where the Deacon is better. And that’s good for the game, as that means players can pick their own tool for the right situation, or create a situation that’s good for their tool.

While I don’t know if the Thalia needs a buff or not (I rarely fly the ship), I just wanted to say that you use the wrong arguments for such a buff.

9

When you go roaming in enemy space with a frigate gang, the enemy is guaranteed to bring the following (unless they are brain dead).

At least 1 Cerebus
At least 1 Svipul

Since they already know your logi is thalias, they’re comming with Nova missiles and T2 autocannon ammo and warrior drones.

The explosive hole, combined with with half the EHP of a deacon = dead thalia.

The thalia is only good as a response to an enemy fleet that decides not bring warrior drones. These roaming fleets will often have a a couple of kikis instead to kill enemy frigs, which again punch through the thalia’s explosive hole and have infinite tracking.

The deacon will sport a reactive armor hardener and a damage control and twice the EHP to catch reps from another deacon before it dies. This makes a deadspace remote repper fit a safer investment on the deacon as well.

The deacon can also withstand a hardswap of enemy drones.

There are very few reasons to use a thalia. With the AIR Signature boosters expiring in March, even more so. The only reason Thalias have been seen roaming lately is because of the booster.

10

I think the biggest difference between the Thalia and Deacon is the slot layout, which causes the main difference in EHP between Deacon and Thalia.

One difference in EHP between Deacon and Thalia is that the Thalia has survivability in a smaller signature radius versus some extra flat HP on the Deacon (external sources of boosters and bursts to either armour ir signature radius are irrelevant as they apply on both ships).

This is a fair difference, sometimes one and sometimes the other ship will be better because of these bonuses.

The other main survivability difference is that the Deacon has 5 low slots where the Thalia has only 4. Whether this loss of a low slot in favour of an extra mid slot is a very common choice in EVE and as always depends on the circumstances.

You’re showing circumstances that favour the Deacon: near perfectly tracking enemies, no need for an extra mid slot, resistance profile favours Deacon… etc.

I recommend you use the Deacon in that case.

The Thalia isn’t bad, it just has strengths in other scenarios. And if we need a buff to the Thalia: I would recommend CCP in that case to create more scenarios where the strengths of the Thalia shine. Ewar is easier to shrug off as Thalia with an ECCM script in the extra mid slot, for example.

11

Being jammed is the least of your concerns in a wolfpack.

Speaking of ECM.

Currently I only bring out a Thalia defensively with two faction jammers (or two tracking disruptors) with the following fit:

Highs
Small I-ax enduring remote armor rep x2
Small Ancillary remote armor rep (pulse when needed)

Mid
2 Faction Enduring Faction Jams or 2 Tracking Disruptors
1 MN enduring

Low
400mm steels II
IFFA Damage Control
Reactive Armor
Coreli A-type Explosive

Cap Control Circuit II x 2

1 Hob II

The Ancillary Remote rep can be run indefinitely with reload, and both ECM’s can be run for 4 minutes and a single ECM can be run forever with the ancillary armor rep.

Two Baker Nunn tracking disruptors can be run permanately with the small ancillary remote rep so long as we factor in reload. TD’s do a number on the Trig precursor spools.

The above fit has no resist hole and 11k ehp and costs 32 mil ISK with 11.18 ecm points (13.12 with heat).

With two Baker Nunns loaded with optimal range scripts you can hit the enemy twice for 50.4% optimal range debuff and 60% with heat.

The small ancillary also has insane output with heat, allowing the Thalia to reach Tier 1 Cruiser output for the duration of the heat.

If the enemy has a decidated webber (loki/huginn/hyena), then remote sensor damps are the Ewar choice. Stopping their webs also impedes their dps, and can also be cycled through trig ships to reset spools.

For total cap stabilty in the above fit you can invest an extra 10 mil in a Quafe Green Apple and the following four rank 1 implants:
EO-601
RA-701
EM-801
EW-901 (if using ecms); SL-901 for sensor damps; WD-901 for tracking disruptors.

Final note on Thalia balance:

It’s resists are only good against rails.

It also has a larger EM hole than the Deacon, and enemy Retributions are also a dime a dozen these days, and are often the preferred frigate dps response to Enyo/Thalia…oh yeah…with a webbing svipul or two to drive it home.

The Thalia is solely defensive platform that requires undocking with the correct Ewar and armor hardener to best a deacon. It also requires the enemy fleet to be incapable of siccing their drones on you.

The only other way you’d see scapels and thalias used more (without modifying their hulls) is if they can jump through blop cynos.

12

I am more grateful that the Thalia has better kinetic resists considering the Caldari meta we live in, Minmatar explosive dmg is a rarity in the pvp field. And warrior drone damage isn’t exactly the best, and if valkyries are tracking your armor frigate very well, you’re doing something wrong, like being anchored at cruise speed.

If anything I’d be more inclined to use EM weaponry vs the thalia knowing most of them come with a explosive hardener.

13

Which is why Retributions are the preferred assault frigate vs thalia gangs.

Also don’t understand the suicide talwars with their explosive rockets.

Brave literally sacced an initial wave of 15 pure tier 1 talwars (with only one set of preloaded faction novas) + five pure tier 1 brick dragoons (with 5 neuts and neut drones!) to kill our four thalia pilots, then reshipped with the kitchen sink to kill the enyos.

I think they would have killed 2 deacons (at most) due to resists and higher EHP.

14

I am more inclined to think its not even a problem surrounding the thalia, it could be spies feeding far more info to the enemy than they need, doctrines, location, real time fleet movements, and exactly what ships to use. They might even know this long before your fleet is even assembled.

15

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