Tekeran
11-13-2008, 08:58 AM
Here is a some what unbiased review on the QR changes. I hope what he says about blaster ships is wrong :(:(
Well, it's here. QR is on TQ and all the people that were saying 'oh, it's just like that on SISI, I'm sure it'll be different once it gets to TQ' can now shut the hell up. Thank god they can't use that argument any more.
So anyway, I'll try to be as objective and unbiased as possible with my following assessment. On to the good stuff...
Speed. AFs recieved a big boost in this department, as well as their agility, particularly since pretty much everything else in the game has been reduced in speed. Comparatively it's almost a double boost to AF speeds when you think about where all the rest of the base speeds were for the other ships.
Signature radius plays a major factor now with respect to tanking damage from missiles *and* turrets (yes, it's not just the missile guys that are affected by this, despite what you're hearing on the forums).
This gives you the interesting option of using an afterburner on the smaller ships classes (frigs, destroyers, cruisers) to avoid larger ships' weapons, but at the cost of being able to be caught by smaller ships with MWDs.
I think that the tipping point for AB effectiveness in PVP is Cruiser sized ships and below. BCs and BS are just too slow to be used with anything other than an MWD, and even when fit with an MWD these classes don't even break 1km/sec with much regularity.
Due to the reduced speeds, distance has become a very important factor in PVP. Players at range can more easily maintain that distance, and the time required to close with a target has increased almost exponentially.
The agility of all ships has been increased, resulting in much faster time-to-warp, particularly with the BS classes. This makes targets much harder to lock/scram as they uncloak and try to warp away and in so doing further skews the bias of combat towards the defender.
Speaking of which... Region gates are now gigantic, and HIC/Dictor/deployable bubbles are now having a harder time covering the entire spawn area of the gate with a single HIC/bubble. Good news for the guys jumping into 0.0, bad news for the campers. Bring a second HIC, problem solved. Or do it the old fashioned way: use an Interceptor.
Missiles. I made a couple of threads speculating about the disposition of Ravens and their mission running capabilities after the patch, theorizing that ships like the Nighthawk and Drake might actually outperform the Raven after the patch, due to the reduced DPS of cruise missiles and torps on smaller (non BS) sized targets.
Looks like I was right. While I don't do any mission running with Ravens directly, I have quite a few highly skilled friends that do, and while they're telling me that there is indeed a difference with the new patch, it's not as bad as everyone is making it out to be.
Indeed, with a few changes to their setups (Target painters, for one), they're still seeing an increase in mission completion time and an increase in ammunition consumption, but it's not on the order of 10% or even 5%, but just a few minutes longer than normal for a level four mission, and approximately 10-15% more ammunition consumed than usual.
On the flipside, my buddies who pilot Nighthawks and Drakes are reporting increased effectiveness and reduced cost due to improved T2 ammunition for their Heavy launchers. I personally am enjoying the new Fury Heavy missiles in my Cerb and Lachesis in particular. Really good DPS vs. Player BS targets.
While missile DPS across the board has been reduced vs. small targets (frigs), this trend seems to be affecting all weapon types throughout Eve, as CCP is focused on rebalancing the ship classes in general, dramatically reducing the effectiveness of large weapons on small targets.
Medium drones got a large nerf, to the point of being not very worthwhile for use against frigs, both in PVP and PVE, if you have lights available. Light drones are enjoying a renewed effectiveness vs. frigs and interceptors, as the peak speeds have come down. Stasis web drones received a sharp decrease in effectiveness as well.
With the reduced speeds, bumping people off of stations is now nearly impossible. Good or bad? Depends on who's doing the bumping I guess. One more aspect of PVP that is being pushed to favor the defender instead of the attacker.
Webs. Reduced in effectiveness. Big time. I predicted (right after the original patch notes were released actually) that this was going to have a far reaching effect on Eve, and it has. As long as you have a good 4-5 guys in your gang all fit with webs, you're ok. But if you're solo, expect to see a lot, if not all, of your targets getting back into jump range before you can kill them.
The lack of web strength has really changed the balance of power between ship sizes. Again, I had projected that BCs will be the sweet spot when it comes to best combination of speed, firepower and engaging multiple types of targets. This appears to be the case on TQ.
All the mid-range weapons are looking really good on TQ, or at least, not as bad as the short ranged weapons as they are now. Medium pulse lasers have a great combination of range and tracking as well as DPS for the 24km and under disruptor range combat envelope.
Which brings us to blasters. Quite frankly, I haven't really flown any blaster equipped frigs yet (Enyo?) on TQ to give them a proper review, but I've tried out the Kronos, Hyperion, Megathron, Astarte, Brutix and Deimos. None of them are a really good option for PVP if you have access to anything else *at all*.
The Kronos has a dismal lock speed, no sensor strength, and costs a bajillion ISK. (ok, only 700m ISK, but that's just for the bare hull) Anyway, other than that, it's great.
The Hyperion- what made it great was it's 5th mid and how versatile that allowed it to be. Now that's gone, as you need to fit a second web, but even with that installed, it's still not enough to cope with the web nerf and it ends up being pretty ineffective.
Next we have the Megathron. Only a single web really hurts it, but it does have 25% more tracking than the Hyperion (with maxed skills). It's still not enough however, even with Ion IIs and a heavy neutralizer fit, to overcome the lack of web strength.
The Astarte, Brutix and Deimos all suffer from the same issue: medium blaster optimal is *really* short. Large BS sized guns can hit *fairly* well out to around 5-6km, maybe 7km, which is most of web range. Medium blasters hit from around 1-3.5km, and after that their DPS really falls off hard.
It doesn't help that the armor rigs that you need to fit on your ships kill you base speed, so that once real ship setups are compared, races like Caldari and Minmatar are dramatically faster than your blaster ships.
BS sized ships: Abaddon, Apoc, Geddon, Maelstrom, Tempest, Typhoon, all looking really good. Ravens and Golems may need a little painter help, but still feel pretty solid. Smaller ships are giving them fits however. The Rokh is still odd man out, until you get into a fleet fight. Blaster Rokhs are fun when camping gates with large gangs, but other than that, they're a little weird from where I'm sitting.
Well, it's here. QR is on TQ and all the people that were saying 'oh, it's just like that on SISI, I'm sure it'll be different once it gets to TQ' can now shut the hell up. Thank god they can't use that argument any more.
So anyway, I'll try to be as objective and unbiased as possible with my following assessment. On to the good stuff...
Speed. AFs recieved a big boost in this department, as well as their agility, particularly since pretty much everything else in the game has been reduced in speed. Comparatively it's almost a double boost to AF speeds when you think about where all the rest of the base speeds were for the other ships.
Signature radius plays a major factor now with respect to tanking damage from missiles *and* turrets (yes, it's not just the missile guys that are affected by this, despite what you're hearing on the forums).
This gives you the interesting option of using an afterburner on the smaller ships classes (frigs, destroyers, cruisers) to avoid larger ships' weapons, but at the cost of being able to be caught by smaller ships with MWDs.
I think that the tipping point for AB effectiveness in PVP is Cruiser sized ships and below. BCs and BS are just too slow to be used with anything other than an MWD, and even when fit with an MWD these classes don't even break 1km/sec with much regularity.
Due to the reduced speeds, distance has become a very important factor in PVP. Players at range can more easily maintain that distance, and the time required to close with a target has increased almost exponentially.
The agility of all ships has been increased, resulting in much faster time-to-warp, particularly with the BS classes. This makes targets much harder to lock/scram as they uncloak and try to warp away and in so doing further skews the bias of combat towards the defender.
Speaking of which... Region gates are now gigantic, and HIC/Dictor/deployable bubbles are now having a harder time covering the entire spawn area of the gate with a single HIC/bubble. Good news for the guys jumping into 0.0, bad news for the campers. Bring a second HIC, problem solved. Or do it the old fashioned way: use an Interceptor.
Missiles. I made a couple of threads speculating about the disposition of Ravens and their mission running capabilities after the patch, theorizing that ships like the Nighthawk and Drake might actually outperform the Raven after the patch, due to the reduced DPS of cruise missiles and torps on smaller (non BS) sized targets.
Looks like I was right. While I don't do any mission running with Ravens directly, I have quite a few highly skilled friends that do, and while they're telling me that there is indeed a difference with the new patch, it's not as bad as everyone is making it out to be.
Indeed, with a few changes to their setups (Target painters, for one), they're still seeing an increase in mission completion time and an increase in ammunition consumption, but it's not on the order of 10% or even 5%, but just a few minutes longer than normal for a level four mission, and approximately 10-15% more ammunition consumed than usual.
On the flipside, my buddies who pilot Nighthawks and Drakes are reporting increased effectiveness and reduced cost due to improved T2 ammunition for their Heavy launchers. I personally am enjoying the new Fury Heavy missiles in my Cerb and Lachesis in particular. Really good DPS vs. Player BS targets.
While missile DPS across the board has been reduced vs. small targets (frigs), this trend seems to be affecting all weapon types throughout Eve, as CCP is focused on rebalancing the ship classes in general, dramatically reducing the effectiveness of large weapons on small targets.
Medium drones got a large nerf, to the point of being not very worthwhile for use against frigs, both in PVP and PVE, if you have lights available. Light drones are enjoying a renewed effectiveness vs. frigs and interceptors, as the peak speeds have come down. Stasis web drones received a sharp decrease in effectiveness as well.
With the reduced speeds, bumping people off of stations is now nearly impossible. Good or bad? Depends on who's doing the bumping I guess. One more aspect of PVP that is being pushed to favor the defender instead of the attacker.
Webs. Reduced in effectiveness. Big time. I predicted (right after the original patch notes were released actually) that this was going to have a far reaching effect on Eve, and it has. As long as you have a good 4-5 guys in your gang all fit with webs, you're ok. But if you're solo, expect to see a lot, if not all, of your targets getting back into jump range before you can kill them.
The lack of web strength has really changed the balance of power between ship sizes. Again, I had projected that BCs will be the sweet spot when it comes to best combination of speed, firepower and engaging multiple types of targets. This appears to be the case on TQ.
All the mid-range weapons are looking really good on TQ, or at least, not as bad as the short ranged weapons as they are now. Medium pulse lasers have a great combination of range and tracking as well as DPS for the 24km and under disruptor range combat envelope.
Which brings us to blasters. Quite frankly, I haven't really flown any blaster equipped frigs yet (Enyo?) on TQ to give them a proper review, but I've tried out the Kronos, Hyperion, Megathron, Astarte, Brutix and Deimos. None of them are a really good option for PVP if you have access to anything else *at all*.
The Kronos has a dismal lock speed, no sensor strength, and costs a bajillion ISK. (ok, only 700m ISK, but that's just for the bare hull) Anyway, other than that, it's great.
The Hyperion- what made it great was it's 5th mid and how versatile that allowed it to be. Now that's gone, as you need to fit a second web, but even with that installed, it's still not enough to cope with the web nerf and it ends up being pretty ineffective.
Next we have the Megathron. Only a single web really hurts it, but it does have 25% more tracking than the Hyperion (with maxed skills). It's still not enough however, even with Ion IIs and a heavy neutralizer fit, to overcome the lack of web strength.
The Astarte, Brutix and Deimos all suffer from the same issue: medium blaster optimal is *really* short. Large BS sized guns can hit *fairly* well out to around 5-6km, maybe 7km, which is most of web range. Medium blasters hit from around 1-3.5km, and after that their DPS really falls off hard.
It doesn't help that the armor rigs that you need to fit on your ships kill you base speed, so that once real ship setups are compared, races like Caldari and Minmatar are dramatically faster than your blaster ships.
BS sized ships: Abaddon, Apoc, Geddon, Maelstrom, Tempest, Typhoon, all looking really good. Ravens and Golems may need a little painter help, but still feel pretty solid. Smaller ships are giving them fits however. The Rokh is still odd man out, until you get into a fleet fight. Blaster Rokhs are fun when camping gates with large gangs, but other than that, they're a little weird from where I'm sitting.