Whenever you ask what the plan is for the assault Frigate rebalance, the answer is that CCP doesn´t know what to do with them, that they haven´t found a role for them. Well, back when the HAC rebalance was introduced, it was that they wanted to make them more resistant to eWar, that´s why they got more locking range, sensor strength and capacitor to fight damps and neut. Increasing speed was to dangerous just to make web less effective and there isn´t anything against tracking disruption without making them track too good in general. But there is also to add that back then, there didn´t exist the eWar-Resistance yet.
So rolling up that idea again, giving the assault line of ships a eWar resistance bonus of, lets just assume, 15% per Level, it would make them quite powerful in solo and small gang fleets where eWar is very important, while it would be a bonus that isn´t very useful in larger fights, as there you barely see any eWar beside target painters (and scram) applied.
Like this you could even justify that they only have the damage of T1 ships, maybe a bit more, and are slower compared to their T1 counterpart, as even though they are slower, they can only get slowed down by a small amount when webbed. Imagine, an AF would still fly over 500m/s with AB and under heavy Vindicator Webs.
I know this kind of idea has brought up already in different iterations, but I would still be interested in your thoughts about making the assault line fully resistant to eWar
They are being looked at soon™ and will get (hopefully) proper buffs. The mwd sig bloom one is okay and can stay. They just need proper speed, a tad more base cap, agility and maybe 5% more damage but thats debatable.
To me, Assault ships should be tougher and have more firepower than their T1 counterparts. For the following, assume that when I say T2 I do not include the Recon class cruisers.
In terms of speed, T1/2/3 cruisers shouldn’t have much variance.
In terms of tank, from strongest to weakest: T2, T3, T1
In terms of DPS, from strongest to weakest: T2, T3, T1
The problem in all of these cases actually has nothing to do with the Assault ships. The problem is that they’re more or less eclipsed by other ships.
Assault frigates would be just fine if not for T3Ds. T3Ds absolutely wreck them. Yes there are others too, but none so blatant. I say this as someone who regularly flies a T3D given how obscenely powerful it is relative to most other ships you’ll encounter.
Assault cruisers would be just fine if not for the fact that they get eclipsed by T3Cs. It’s incredible to me that a ship which is supposed to be “generalist” (also known as a jack of all trades but master of none) remains far superior to any other cruiser that can be flown, and this is even after the balance pass nerfed them. Sure they’re more expensive, but that doesn’t stop them from being pwnmobiles.
Sure, you could just buff the stats, but CCP stated multiple times that they don´t want them to be just straight out improved versions of the T1 counterpart. That´s why they say that they want a role for them, something in which they specialize, not only have higher stats and that´s about it.
But if you only look at their tank and DPS, you get exactly this, better versions without anything special, that´s why I think that their initial idea with the resistance to eWar was a good step, and should be thought more throughly, now that eWar-Resistances exist.
But t3s are straight out improved versions of the t1s and t2s across the board with no drawbacks when they’re supposed to be weaker than t2s and less specialized but we see t3s having the highest DPS of the class and some of the largest tanks.
They should - by the lore - be Fighter killing platforms par excellence.
Capsuleer Frigates as a ship class were invented - in lore - as a counter to the original iteration of Gallente Drones, back during the war when the Gallente stole the Caldari homeworks.
It would make sense for he AFs to be the hard counter to Fighters, in the both are iterative improvements upon the original concept.
They’re still well out of line with reality. There isn’t much that a svipul gang can’t engage, their only real counter is something like corms out-ranging them… but if they’ve half a brain they can easily warp off before they start getting blapped.
Pound for pound, T3Ds are still waaaaay above their weight class.
None of which really improves them, because it’s not often that you see fleets using much ewar. No need when you can just blap things.
If you want assault stuff to have a dedicated role, give them “a large fleet of cruisers” as a role… which is where they are now. Consider cerbs; you never really see solo cerbs, you always see a ball of them anchored up, volleying stuff while they motor around the grid. “Better stats”, especially defensive stats in this case, are what make them more useful in those situations without making them ridiculous.
Or… they could just wind up and take another swing at T3Cs, nerf those broken boats into the generalized ground they belong in.
A T3C with a full combat fit should be just ever so slightly less effective in a straight up fight than an Assault Cruiser.
A T3C with a full ewar fit should be ever so slightly less effective at generating tears than a Recon ship.
A T3C with a cloaky fit should have more gank than a T1 cruiser, and about the same tank.
A nullified T3C should not be able to win a fight to save it’s life. It’s built to run away, let it run away. Improve agility, penalize tank heavily.
I say EWAR and I mean all forms of electronic and cap warfare.
Maybe even give them something that doesn’t let scrams under the +2 warp scram to turn off their MWD.
if they had say a built in 25% resist to cap, ewar and other forms of blah blah. they would help with their defense.
Maybe they could use some better stats here and there. but I forgone and tired of the kiting game… and would rather see ships fighting 0-50km vs the current meta that is like “oh look Jim, that guy is burning away from us and can hit us from 1 AU away”
Ewar, while strong in solo and smallgang, doesn’t scale as effectively into fleet warfare as well as volleying things does. That’s the key here.
Better defensive stats is a good way of achieving Pervert’s goal, but I disagree that that’s the goal we should be aiming for.
A gang of T3Ds will likely destroy an equal size gang of AFs. Currently, this is a problem because they share the same role. A gang of T3Ds will likely destroy an equal size gang of explo-frigates. This ain’t a problem because of obvious reasons. We just need a change in community perception. Making AFs a completely different role does exactly that. Let T3Ds become the mainline small-hull fleet ship.
Now do the same for HACs.
Cerb fleets are a thing because they have two projection bonuses and two damage bonuses - I believe it’s the only HAC to do so (oh, and capless guns, and good lockrange). They’re the exception, rather than the rule, and I don’t think the entire HAC line should be changed to be more amenable to what Cerbs do.
For what it’s worth, instead of putting ewar resistances on ships, I’d instead give effectiveness bonuses to TCs, MCGs, and SeBos, but give extra resistance bonuses to Batteries. I’d also give all of this to low-slot equivalents too. Have them become great anti-support ships that deliberately don’t take over the role of mainline DPS ships.
Nah present tense. T3s still get 800-900 DPS and absurd tanks. Theyre the top end cruisers far above t2 and faction.
Anyone on the hac front ID like to see the sacrilege become a laser boat or drone boat.
I do t get why amarr have a third weapon system they have to learn. Theyre supposed to be lasers first and foremost. I like lasers and I love the maller, but there’s no where to go with the combo except the devoter cause the sac makes no sense as an amarr ships even if it’s khanid.
I see there are two Ideas here in which direction thise ships should get ballanced, but honestly, do we need stronger Fleer Ships. As said before, the idea with the eWar resistance doesn’t mean much in large scale combat, but in small scale or solo it does, and that’s the idea here, giving smaller entities something they can use, without giving the larger ones a tool that scales into the overpowered
Hmm. In my opinion the HAC class is fine and if you say the t3 are still too much, then they should get tuned down more.
The assault frigates used to be a way to punch above its ship class but get outclassed by them t3 destroyers. Maybe you lads should consider bringing logi with you next time.
It could well be broken as ■■■■, but what if HACs got a 1% resist bonus per HAC level, and AF got a 2% sig reduction per AF level? The HAC is already pretty tanky, so it seems to fit their current designs, and an “Assault” vehicle is always light and nimble IRL.
I personally still view the “assault” line of ships as a “ship of the line”. Ships intended for slugfests, where the goal is mobility over alpha.
Consider for example, a fight against attack battlecruisers… an oracle fleet for example. Very nice alpha strike with beams. Tracking is reasonable enough to hit cruisers, destroyers… an AF fleet should be able to get in under their guns and not get immediately deleted by a couple destroyers escorting the BCs.
Or an arty baddon fleet. To me a HAC should be the counter to a BB alpha fleet… MWD sig bonus, “barely good enough” tank to survive an alpha strike if they’re glancing. At this point in time a BB alpha fleet has not troubles applying to cruisers. But as said, to me the HAC should be a good counter for an alpha fleet.