Friday 20 May 2016

Dread Meta

I don't really know what to say about dreads in the new capital meta except I can't see much of a space for them.

Like I said before, this all comes down o the uber damage projection of carriers, what with the 3500-5500km lock range and the ability to drive fighters across the grid (albeit maybe slow-ish-ly).

What this means is, yet again, dreads are stuck as a static weapon with yuge tanking capacity (I sometimes feel like Pyfa lies when it says the Phoenix has 120K DPS tank....really?) and asically the usual DPS as per yuzu berries.

The High Angle Weapons (I think this clunky term has been dropped? who knows?) like the Quad 800mm's, Rapid Torps, etc, provide a bit of variety for blap dreads. And of course, blap titans. The blapping is gud, but DPS is 3500 to 4500 and as per usual blap dreads, you ideally need some tackle and paints to really make these stand out. But that's also true of BS weapons anyway.

So I guess it's nice that you can get T2 weapons and get Barrage, Scorch, Javs and Null into your dreads, and project 60-90km at 2800-3900 DPS.

This is necessary because you're kind of stuck in place for ever. Unlike carriers. I mean, carriers used to be stuck in place more or less, slowboating about at sub-100m speeds, but now they get MWDs and ABs and can push fighters 5,500km. If your carrier can tank 5,000 DPS, it can boat out of dread range before it's tank fails.

So, I guess it doesn't really matter how you fit your Dreads. Wormhole brawl or not, you'll be leaving the Dreads at home.

I really think that, as I said before, the whole Siege/Triage module causing a static "stand your ground" fight is maybe now a bit obsoleted, even before you factor in the presence of Supers and Titans and the obvious advantages they get.

In a new era of mobile capital warfare, why would you maintain static lockdowns? Is there really anything wrng with capital ships moving about the field, dishing out atrocious DPS? I mean, caps besides carriers and supers. Dreads, in particular.

The same goes for the FAXs. Whilst everyone should, as before Citadel, be training to the Apostle (or Minokawa or maybe Ninazu) because armour capital supremacy has been handily maintained here, the FAX has also been lumbered with a frankly obsolescent gameplay "feature" that utterly destroys gameplay options for developing truly interesting capital meta.

I mean, OK, so you want to bring a FAX. A FAX can, absent decent neuts (and now with capital capacitor boosters and batteries, this is less a threat), tank 3-4 dreads for 3-5 minutes without much heat. Not too different than a pre-Citadel faction fit triage carrier, really. But it's stuck in place for 5 minutes and its major threats (carriers) can kite off (however slowly) and can also pack capital neuts (a threat). The friendly fleet has to stay within range of reps.

Dreads face the same issues, except they've basically become so amazingly unbalanced in tank vs gank (45-120,000 DPS active tanks vs 4-6K gank)that a dread fight is now a basically fruitless exercise, sans neuts. Thank goodness for capital neuts, right?

I think the Dreadnought meta is pretty out of whack. Aside from bringing Dreads in to monster subcaps, or maybe shoot a structure or two, there's nothing to really recommend them as more than a niche boat. Not that dreads ganking caps on undock won't still happen, but beyond that why get stuck in place when you could be driving fighters across the grid?

Fit 'em how you want, but my prediction is that they are unwieldy, compromised dinosaurs and we'll see them given up in favour of carriers.

Wednesday 18 May 2016

Stellaris

Apparently there's been FC's who've complained their jabber/slack pings are going unanswered due to Stellaris. Can confirm, no one's playing EVE much at the moment due to this game.

New Capital Meta?

The Citadel patch's capital changes have been interesting. Theorycraft Wizards probably haven't settled their doctrines and tactics much. Certainly, the new DPS out of carriers and high-angle dreads has been a rude shock to all and sundry, at least the first time.

The objectives of the capital rebalance was to revitalise the meta, and provide a yuuge swathe of options with fits and flexibility - this has certainly been achieved. Whether or not this is better than the old two-part ( plus supers) meta is yet to be seen, but I'm thinking yes.

There's going to be a time soon when capital mdules will come down in price from the stratosphere, and the ancilliary versions are closer to 150M than 1 billion. This not too distant future will change things a bit, but for now, we have to get used to T1 fit capitals.

I've been tinkering away, and some of my initial thoughts are:

FAXs
The FAXs, especially the Lif, are pretty undersupplied with CPU. In fact, almost all capitals are undersupplied with CPU, which might be the only thing pegging a few of them back. But this is rather uneven. The phoenix, for instance, is fairly luxo-barge rich with fitting if you don't try anything too outre. Back to the FAXs.

The Lif in particular has a particularly odd niche compared to the solo Nid of old. I guess there's not a lot of leeway with triage ships, as usual, on capacitor: it's 3 minutes or nothing. But for a ship with one job, this is a Sam Tarly not a John Snow.

[Lif, Shield T1]

Power Diagnostic System II
Co-Processor II
Power Diagnostic System II
Power Diagnostic System II
Damage Control II

Capital Capacitor Booster I, Navy Cap Booster 3200
Shield Boost Amplifier II
Gist C-Type EM Ward Field
Gist C-Type Thermal Dissipation Field
Capital Shield Booster I
Capital Cap Battery I

[Empty High slot]
Capital Remote Shield Booster I
Capital Remote Shield Booster I
Triage Module II
Capital Remote Capacitor Transmitter I
[Empty High slot]

Capital Core Defense Capacitor Safeguard I
Capital Core Defense Operational Solidifier I
Capital Core Defense Capacitor Safeguard I

This does 1 outbound rep for 4, 41s with the cap booster running. It can tank for 8m 56s with the cap booster and the local rep, but only 2 mins with a rep and a single outbound rep. This means you are very compromised while under fire (and thank fuck for the cap battery's neut resistance). Not happy, Jan.

The Minokawa can be made into a buffer fit (6.35M EHP) and 3m 24s capacitor with 2 outbound RRs. That's respectable, if you can field a couple of them, so that one can rep the other. Active tanked, it's got massive capacitor and decent CPU, and you can fit it decently without a great deal of blood, sweat and tears. This, really, is the shield FAX.

[Minokawa, Active]

Damage Control II
Capacitor Power Relay II
Dark Blood Reactor Control Unit
Dark Blood Reactor Control Unit

Capital Shield Booster I
Dread Guristas Adaptive Invulnerability Field
Capital Cap Battery I
Capital Capacitor Booster I, Navy Cap Booster 3200
Capital Cap Battery I
Dread Guristas EM Ward Field
Cap Recharger II

Triage Module II
Capital Remote Shield Booster I
Capital Remote Shield Booster I
Capital Energy Nosferatu I
Large Proton Smartbomb II
Large Proton Smartbomb II

Capital Capacitor Control Circuit I
Capital Semiconductor Memory Cell I
Capital Semiconductor Memory Cell I

The Ninazu does well. 2 RR's, cap stable. 2 capital armour reps, cap stable, for 17K DPS tank. Neut or Nos, and a remote cap transmitter. Decent, well-rounded, and easy to fit.

[Ninazu, Ninja]

Capital Armor Repairer I
Capital Armor Repairer I
Damage Control II
Centus C-Type Armor Explosive Hardener
Imperial Navy Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane
Dark Blood Reactor Control Unit

Capital Capacitor Booster I, Navy Cap Booster 3200
Capital Cap Battery I
Cap Recharger II
Cap Recharger II
Cap Recharger II

Triage Module II
Capital Remote Armor Repairer I
Capital Remote Armor Repairer I
Capital Energy Neutralizer I
Capital Remote Capacitor Transmitter I
Large Proton Smartbomb II

Capital Remote Repair Augmentor I
Capital Remote Repair Augmentor I
Capital Auxiliary Nano Pump I

The Apostle, same deal. 2 x 2 RR/RCT's, twin local reps, 17K DPS tank, and capacitor out the wazoo (like, 28 mins). Cap booster and a cap battery.

[Apostle, Basic]

Capital Armor Repairer I
Capital Armor Repairer I
Dark Blood Armor Explosive Hardener
Dark Blood Armor Kinetic Hardener
Dark Blood Armor Thermal Hardener
Damage Control II
Reactor Control Unit II

Capital Capacitor Booster I, Navy Cap Booster 3200
Capital Cap Battery I
Cap Recharger II
Cap Recharger II

Capital Remote Capacitor Transmitter I
Capital Remote Capacitor Transmitter I
Triage Module II
Capital Remote Armor Repairer I
Capital Remote Armor Repairer I
[Empty High slot]

Capital Auxiliary Nano Pump I
Capital Capacitor Control Circuit I
Capital Capacitor Control Circuit I

The CLEAR lame duck here is the Lif. It gets a mediocre local tank, but only as long as your cap boosters last. It can't rep while tanking, and it can't fit a full set of highs without giving up crucial low slots and rig slots. Not that low slots help shield capitals much, beyond the way it used to work, which was a swank blue midslot arrangement and a full rack of Dark Blood PDU's in the lows.

I'm open to suggestions at this point, but I seem to have 2 decent carriers and a letterbox of uselessness.

Saturday 14 May 2016

Citadel and the rise of the Slowtars

As they say in France: "plus ca change, plus ca inbound nerf."

I'm talking about capitals.

You know what's hilarious, but broken? Carriers.

What we are doing is, we've anchored an Astrahaus 3500km off a hisec gat in a lowsec system. We warp our carriers (3000 DPS gank Thannies, mostly) down to gate and vomit out a billion fighters. We then warp the carriers up to the Astrahaus.

The fighters have 1200 scan res, and if the instalock HIC or Ceptor/Griffin combo doesn't point the poor fucker, the fighters do. Then they hand out instablappage. If anyone even manages to hotdrop us...well, you can tank away and dock up.

It's everything that was wrong with EVE, rolled into one spot. Docking games faggotry with capitals. Skynetting. DPS carriers with ultra dumb tracking. Plus the added soupcon of POS gun style defences and structure RR for added insanity.

I mean, not broken. No.

Then there's the high-angle guns. Well, I shall admit there was a bit of a chance we all had misplaced angst that high-angle guns were going to turn out shit. It was misplaced. We all admit that now. But can confirm, tracking titans are back and blapping away happily. Happily for the titans not the victims, though.

So...when everyone stops gasping in shock about the cost of capital modules, and we start seeing people throwing their big ships around again in large numbers, we shall see the real whingeing beginning.

That's my prediction.

Also, 8.7M EHP Chimmy. Watch out.