Revenant Marauders nerf - glory to the gankers!

Communications Center General Discussion
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The 100% hitpoints bonus for shield extenders was the single most useful
change that Marauders and BS in general had ever seen, in regard to be able
to contrast and SURVIVE the blasting plague that gankers pose to any capsuleers
in new Eden and beyond. Removing the single most useful feature for defending
our most costly ships against them whilst retaining all bonuses for alpha destroyers
is a love letter to the gankers empire.

This is bad.

All the time invested in trying to change this unbalance has been rolled back with a single twist.

I hope figures will show this is a bad move, and if gankers would, they could still have had
a great time in ganking the Marauders. If they could still gank 300K Ehp vessels, there was
no need to nerf the Marauders. I hope this is rolled back because the point was and still is,
that Marauders should not have a base Ehp tank equal to its T1 counterpart, when those hulls
are valued multiple billions. And they are basically paperfoil tank against gankers. Once again.
Once again.

This my current Vargur fit. 156k Ehp. Is it overpowered? Lets look at it in a couple days…

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That’s a tad bit dramatic. Gankers only exist in Hisec, not in all of New Eden “and beyond”, like where, in the real world? Don’t think so.

If you’re so afraid of gankers come join the fun in Lowsec, problem solved.

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Zkill for Osmon prior to the Marauders buff

Marauders ganked ~2-3 per day

After the Shield tank buff

~2-3 per week

I can only say, have a look at zkill boards for most active PVE Hs system.
Osmon being one of them.

And then ther is Uedama… which for whoever flies a Marauder is a gamble to fly through at whatever time. Every time there is an Event, the bulk of the action takes place in Hs.
And Uedama is unavoidable.

Vargur being number 1 offender where in Lowsec? It’s possible…
I rarely fly in Lowsec, and never something bigger than a cruiser…

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EVE is a funny game.

What’s bad for one player can be good for another.

For example this buffer Marauder nerf is bad for the niche of high sec Marauder PvE pilots.

On the other hand it’s good for gankers, but it’s also good for miners, haulers, industrialists PvE players and traders who supply new Marauders and modules.

Now I’m no high sec player so I have no horse in this race, but even for pretty much everyone else outside HS this change is a good one: one of the biggest ISK sources in EVE and a big cause of inflation in EVE is Pochven PvE. This Pochven PvE is done by mostly buffer fit Marauders, at least until now.

Just take a look at Marauder losses in Pochven in zkillboard and look at their fits, it’s fun.

Anyway, this change was a big nerf to a cause of inflation in EVE and it will help us all.

I think it’s a good and healthy change for the game.

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@Queotzcatl I understand that the Marauder was a great ship to circumvent attacks in Hisec and I understand that its nerf is a hard pill to swallow. However, the nerf comes as something of a good news for those of us who do not multibox. CCP explained in the patch notes that the Marauder was a ship frequently used by multiboxers and they came up with a solution as far as the Marauder by making its defenses revolve around active tanking.
In their words:
“…the hope is that this will increase their skill floor and make them harder to use as ships of the line and be more difficult to multibox efficiently.”
I don’t know the solar system known as Osmon but Uedama is known clusterwide and is indeed hard to avoid for many capsuleers. I don’t have a majik-wand answer to Uedema except to say Don’t Fly Through It.
Uedema separates Amarr from Caldari space and the two main trade hubs in the game. If some capsuleers want to risk millions of Isk for a 10% margin by flying through Uedema and get ganked then I’m not shedding a tear because that’s just greed and they shouldn’t cry when gankers come for them.
There is also another dimension to all that and it’s the fact that players need to adapt to changes. A game that never changes doesn’t evolve and becomes stale. Changes invite or force us to think out of the box and come up with new solutions. I’m sure that the denizens of Hisec will come up with solutions to the Marauder nerfs.
I chose to live in Lowsec because I knew early on that there were going to be players who prey on other unaware players, just like in other MMOs, and I didn’t want to fall victim to ambushes without having anything to reciprocate with so I thought since I’m sure to lose ships I might as well lose them while having fun and be able to respond to attacks instead of floating in space like a lame duck.

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This nerf is another example of bandaid fixes and lazy design crumbling at some point.

First: The +50% Bonus for Plates and +100% Bonus for Shield Extenders should have never been given, instead 3200mm Plates and XL Shield Extenders should have been made. Why? Because those would have been required (much) more fitting resources, thus asking for sacrifice to get their power instead of giving a bonus for free. You would have to downgrade something else to fit them. High PG/CPU requirements would also have made sure that they can’t be fit on Cruisers and to BC/CS only if they sacrifice basically everything else (the heavy weapons, MWD+MJD, CapBatteries…).

If they had made it this way, the pilot had to decide: I want dual 3200 Armor Plate, okay, so I can’t fit HeavyNeuts any more. Or Smartbombs. Or a HeavyCapBooster. Is it worth that? Or do I need these, then I can’t fit MegaPulse Lasers any more and have to go with DualHeavies, sacrificing Range/DPS. Or I need to fit PG-Rigs instead of Capacitor/Armor Rigs. Choices, good. Free Boni, bad. And a Massmultiboxer who needs max-tank to be able to switch to the right client in time would probably need to make quite some concessions to get that, lowering the performance of the whole fleet and making it more engagable by others at the same time. One strike, two hits.

Second: The main problem with Marauders currently isn’t their buffer. Well it might be in PochvenPvE, but seriously, nerf Pochven ISK printing and you have solved that problem. Their main problem in general is their insanely oppressive combination of DPS+projection. Marauders should excel in standing their ground, sieging a position. But they shouldn’t have any range- or application-boni to just eradicate ships even from far away. Removing all Range boni but only giving them DPS and Tankboni would give them a MUCH better spot in the ship meta, balance wise, because FactionBS would have a way to perform comparable again by being more mobile and reaching far away targets or mission/site goals much more easy while moving towards the next ones… And other, mobile PvP ships have easier ways to outmaneuver them, forcing them to reposition (by unsieging…), which makes them more vulnerable and less oppressive.

Edit: Ah, and before I forget about it: If “Triple Ancillary XL ShieldBooster Fits” are a problem (thats why you nerf the CPU on the Vargur, right?), DO THE LOGICAL THING: allow only ONE Ancillary Shield Booster per ship, like… you know, Ancillary Armor Repairers? Ancillary Remote Armor Repairers? Ancillary Remote Shield Transfers? You see a damn pattern? Allowing to fit multiple of these has been a huge imbalance since the implementation, and them running totally capless while Ancillary Armor Reppers need paste AND cap is another. Fix that already, you will get rid of another unnessessary exception, making your game more balanced, more easy to understand and learn for new players. (See: K.I.S.S. method).

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Most companies “tweak” features a few percentage points.

Not CCP.

100% baby!

“The inmates are running the Asylum”.

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Just you wait 'till they introduce gem slots to modules into which you can put overpriced triglavian quantum gems that grant 50-150% bonus depending on rarity and which you can only buy or acquire in-game by spending PLEX and no other way. :wink:

:psyccp:

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There were 5 Marauder kill in Pochven, I checked all of them.
All had Shield or Armor rigs extenders, and only one Golem, had a triple anc Shield fit.
Am I missing some fun part???

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How about Runewords Laser-Nanotech-Crystalmodifications that give Super-Duper-Boni™ when arranging these gems in a certain pattern? You would need to buy a lot of mystery Lootboxes of course to get some of required Runes Gems, of course. It shall not be easy!

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That’s such a loaded nasty term, just call them quantum fluctuation cubes or something. :psyccp:

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Oh, did I say Lootboxes? No, no, of course Quantum Fluctuation Cubes! Of course! Nobody has the intention to sell Lootboxes in EVE Online!

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This is Osmon Zkill. Zero Marauders kills.
Expect tis to change dramatically in the next weeks…

And indeed, I avoid Uedama, since I got ganked once already in a Golem… prior to
the tank shield buff. Flying Marauders anywhere in Hs was dangerous. And Uedama
is just a Hs node, you cant play Hs and just dont fly through Uedama bc theres gankers.
Thats not how to play Eve. You want a ship that can at least put up a fight if caught.
The shield buff was the single most impressive and GOOD change Eve PvE players had ever seen. It was the first time something like this was tried and maybe it had been exploited in
otherwise blunt scenarios.

There will always be a blunt scenario. Give defenders more appropriate tools.
The Marauders class needs the Shield/Armor tank back.
It has been a long fight to get the Marauder class appropriate Defence tools.
The fight is on.

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XL shield extenders seems good but there are XL meta already and those are for
carriers and other Dreadnoughts class ships.
Devs would need some half-way meta perhaps to not overlap the two, but I can see
it’s an alternative. Why you think it would have changed something in CCP perception
that Marauders are overpowered now? People would still have used them in the same way
as they did under current-removed conditions, and thus would have suffered the same
nerf-cure… or has the XL modules way a logical answer to that?

This is my Golem fit. Double Shield extender rig, triple CN Shield Extender. 265k Ehp.

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Marauders are a carebear ship.

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Of course. Until those who fly it figure out that the good tank days are over.

But then

So which is it? :thinking:

Again I can only reiterate. Adapt.

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The number 1 carebear ship is the Catalyst.

Also, easily the most “risk averse” ship in Eve Online.

100/1

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get your facts right, XL Shield Boosters for example exist forever and the are clearly not for Capital Ships. The modules for Caps are Capital Shield Extenders.

Edit: and sorry, that Golem Fit is bad. Having survived a Gank doesn’t make it good unless your goal is to tank ganks all day long. It has way too bad application for an ISK printer. But thats probably another topic. A well fitted Rattlesnake or Machariel probably farms faster than that Golem.

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The fun part is how the majority of Pochven marauder losses (you can look further back than one day) aren’t using repairs at all, and that this strategy is what the nerf was aimed at.

Or maybe you don’t laugh at seeing a list of buffer-fit Marauder losses in Pochven. In that case it may not be fun.

Regardless, buffer fit Marauders were a problem and they’ve been nerfed for the health of the game.

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Based on what? Your crystal ball? Or your chicken little the sky is falling fear mongering?