Back on topic… considering that Black Ops ships have a lot less DPS, they certainly could still have the plate/shield bonus. It might incentivize them to operate solo on more occasions.
They are indeed used in JSpace too. Not that often, but if you want a covert fleet that can lure someone in a trap by only showing ~3 ships but having 5 others cloaked nearby, they are quite good damagedealers “by surprise”. It’s not very common, but I have seen it.
Also some groups use them as rolling ships, utilizing their ability to speed-up under cloak, so they can reapproach the hole very fast. And the point that you can align, cloak, decloak, warp without any delays is also pretty neat if you think you are being watched by someone who is just waiting to catch your rolling crew.
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Plate and shield bonuses does the opposite and encourages fleets of them.
The best solo blops fits I’ve seen were active tanked.
I though there were fleets of them already? If active fits are the best - why would a shield/plate bonus matter?
The fleets are passive tanked, and are problematic to kill if they get their EHP bonuses back.
If you want to encourage more solo blops play an active tank bonus does a much better job than bringing the plate and extender bonuses back. But I don’t think blops are in need of a buff.
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Maybe cynos are more in need of a nerf…
Oh they are definitely, but the funny thing is, CovertCynos would need a bit of an exception (aka slightly less nerfing ^^) to remain usable at all.
This game has 3 major problems at the moment:
- Power Projection, which includes Cynos/JumpDrives and Ansiblex
- Citadel Design, which includes combat capabilities, timers, core-mechanics and asset safety
- Massmultiboxing, explicitly people using more than 2-3 accounts simultaneously for farming or combat
I’d add “unnessessary overcomplexity” as another one, but imho thats more an annoyance, not so much a coffin-nail like the other ones…
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I don’t either. But this competition was being shoved down my throat around here whether I liked it or not.
That’s today. My question and after a quick google search, I cannot find its original specs? To answer Arthur, I would have to remember what those were.
That’s what the original iteration reminds me of. Probably why they got nerfed before I could fly them even way back when. While they had weak firepower…
Catch your prey while under cloak, surprise the ■■■■ outta the target and kill it before any help could show up.
Now it’s pretty much…
- Pin the target with a covert cloak/covert-cyno ship
- Cyno in a fleet of 50-100 Redeemers from wherever
- GFs all around! Hilarity ensues!
Times have changed. I roll with it. But for a dream ship, I still would like to know it’s original specs.
This dates back about 10 years…
I can’t find the original specs, but it really lost its ECM role with the ECM changes.
10 yrs, not far enough back. But thanks for trying. I didn’t think about looking up kill mails.
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My Widow still is fit for full ECM role.
Drop with bombers, ‘taunt’ the target with ECM to shoot you and only your beefy battleship hull instead of the weak bombers in the fleet and if things go wrong ECM burst to warp off.
I’ve always enjoyed the role of tank in my years of playing WoW and EVE’s ECM is simply a taunt that works even in PvP. A supportive action that forces the target to stop shooting your allies. It’s pretty good.
Only for solo play is ECM less useful, but many support tools in EVE aren’t that useful solo.
Widow isn’t quite the “tank” it used to be. And ECM isn’t really effective against a solo target anymore (or really against anything you jam).
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That was my point, ECM is now a supportive role like ‘tanking’ is in games like WoW.
And when I say ‘tanking like in WoW’ I’m not referring to soaking up a lot of damage like we’re used to use the word in EVE, but mean forcing the enemy to attack you instead of your squishy allies.
ECM is just the taunt ability of a tank in World of Warcraft, and is very useful if you’re not solo.
The Widow is good at that.
In addition to the ECM ‘taunt’, with the shield resistance bonus on a battleship hull the Widow can take far more danage than all the paper-thin bombers in a bomber fleet so you can keep your allies alive by ECMing the target.
I’m not entirely sure why I trained into Black Ops. I guess keeping my options open.
Blops are fun ships and some of my favourites!
I have the same thing as you with Marauders. I can fly them all near perfectly but never use them.
Really depends on the region, I guess. In high-sec Marauders are pretty much the pinnacle for missioning. Trust me, I would much prefer to be able to use different type of ships - there’s just such a wide performance gap…
Yea, I’m trying to avoid being stuck in bastion whenever the wormholers or the roaming group of the hour pass by my system in search of targets to kill.
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