Battlecruiser stuff

Wrote a post for cz on battleships and their lock range.

http://crossingzebras.com/adjusting-battlecruisers-and-battleships/

read read

On Attributes and Implants

I am going to write a bit about attributes, implants and clones in general here and why I don't really like them.

Attributes

Attributes provide unnecessary complexity and having the optimal way to play being to remap into maxing support skills for 6 months then move on to ships is bad game design in my opinion.

While remaps and attributes and all that shit add complexity to the system I have to ask if its really necessary. The interesting choices you have when training skills is what skill to train not sitting there telling new guys to make a 1 year plan in Evemon and optimize attributes. Trying to get max skillpoints/hour.

The skillpoint system allows people to create their own unique characters I guess but after all who doesn't just max all the necessary skills for whatever you are going to focus in so in the end it's not much choice if you are a focused player and know the few viable ways to train a character to do something. 

Attributes are currently just another hard barrier of entry and while some probably thinks that removing them would be to dumb the game down I have to say that this game needs new people. And we can't go and scare those new guys away by saying this is how you optimally plan your character. 

This might just be me saying stupid shit because the way I play is a bit different then most people. I like to min max and I feel like CCP needs to take min maxing into account when designing stuff (otherwise we will probably get Inferno FW season 2)

Another problem with attributes at the moment is that they are very unintuitive. They actually don't do anything other then to modify your sp/hr for certain skills. Especially when you come from other games where a good perception stat meant that you would hit better for example. 

I feel like the game would win hard on just simply removing attributes and learning implants and giving everyone 2700 sp/hr instead. Those of you who fully maxed your character will still get to keep the sp edge you gained for putting in the research so no tears pls. 

The whole remap system is in my opinion something thats just there because the first version of attributes sucked hard. When I started the game you had to answer a quiz for what type of character you were. There were no remaps. You could fuck up totally by answering a question that asked if you wanted to be a leader and if you said yes, you could end up with a charisma character with some corp management skills. Not very useful really. 

Learning Implants

The first problem here is with jump clones.

The standings barrier should also have been removed ages ago. It currently doesn't stop anyone from making jump clones it can just be annoying. There are multiple ways to get around the standings requirement such as Estel Aradors corp services or docking up in a freeported 0.0 station. Another thing with these is that they currently do not offer any good way to quickly swap between clones. I know that ccp wants to limit force projection with people jump cloning all over the place. But I feel like if you jumpclone to the same station where you have your jump clone it shouldn't give you a cooldown. This would work as a first step for people who want to sit in +5s all day and then jump to a empty clone when they want to pvp. 

Now with attribute implants they are also stupid in my opinion. They promote not actually undocking because you would lose your sp/hr. Now you can go and say hurr durr complexity and risk vs reward. But seriously implants are really expensive for newer people and the difference between a new guy who sits docked not playing the game and one that actually plays the game is that the one who undocks and plays eve is rewarded with being months behind the guy who doesn't play. I don't feel like sp/hr should be affected by isk and not be rewarded by staying docked and safe. 

And for those of us who uses pirate sets who will be sad about the attribute loss. I just have to say "really?". Because I know that when I use a snake set its not the sp I am after at all. The other bonuses are far superior. People who use those implant sets are usually more then enough skilled in eve and has been playing for a long time as well.

In short I want attributes and attribute implants gone because I feel like they promote a game where you don't actually play. I want more people out undocked and playing eve. Not being afraid to lose time on their skill queue.

Clones

Let me tell you that when CCP removed the clone costs I was so happy. The whole cost mechanic was so stupid and it was another system punishing people who did pvp. And it hurt older guys the most almost limiting them from flying smaller ships because they knew that if you died you had to pay a 30m isk fee ontop of your ship.

There is also the fact that it provided no gameplay or choices at all. When you got podded and the med bay icon flashed saying please update your clone, you never choose not to ever. It was just another unnecessary bunch of steps to go through and if you forgot the game would "reward" you by taking away your skillpoints so you can't fly your ships. 

I know that CCP are working on something else here to replace the clone system. Personally I would love a system with different types of pods offering different bonuses. Another thing that would be cool would be to have different types of clones with different slot layouts for implants just like ships. This would open up a ton of customization and depth and actually offer some gameplay choices when paying for a different clone then the default one.

Stuff

I know some people are going to criticize me for this post because they feel like CCP is dumbing the game down. But honestly I only want a game that can attract newer players and get them out there playing the game as fast as possible with no unnecessary and huge barriers of entry that are completely unnecessary. 

Let's end this with a funny quote from a old character creation guide:

Your Charisma score, which you can find under the Attributes tab in your character sheet. If your Charisma is 8 or higher, you should remake your character. Even if your Charisma is 6 or 7, you should consider remaking your character. - eve.wikia.com

Fanfest 2015

Figured that I should write something quick about my time in Iceland at fanfest. My trip started with a very fun ride to Stockholm with buss taking around 5 hours to get to Stockholm from my city. I spent a night at my dad in Stockholm before leaving for Arlanda airport in the morning and flying to Iceland. On the plane up to Iceland I met Niden (@Niden_GMVA) and his friend and we pretty much spent the entire trip talking Eve, Fanfest and other things.


The first thing I planned to show up to was the Tweetfleet meetup at the celtic cross pub the day before fanfest started. I got there a little bit late and it was really cool seeing that many eve players in one spot. I think I met every CSM in Iceland except Sion. Talked to CCP Guard and said hi to Rise. All in all I had a great time at that meetup and it was quite strange to have so many people knowing who I am and coming up to me saying hi, buying me a beer etc. I couldn't resist taking a selfie with Xenuria.

credit: Mizhir

It was also nice meeting the csm members that I have talked to for a while. Mangala Solaris and Asayanami Dei especially were really cool guys. The atmosphere at this place was awesome and it was nice having so many people with a shared intrest at the same place and that you could easily go up to anyone and say "Hi man what do you do in eve" and instantly start a conversation. And people were less awkward then what most people have said it would be at a eve meetup. I somehow managed to get home without saying goodbye when Mizhir got me a taxi.

Day 1

I arrived kinda early to the Harpa as I had to find CCP Leeloo for my csm badge so I would actually be let into the event. After a couple of SMSes I find her and she hands me my badge and I'm ready for fanfest. I meet up with God's apples and Liam Inkuras and we chat a bit before heading up into the fanfest area. There were so many people at the Harpa and the whole place looks amazing. We head up and gets ready for the first keynote and presentation. While sitting there waiting we see Chessur and he comes up to us and says Hi etc and that we should meet up after the first presentation. 

First thing I wanted to try out was Eve Valkyrie so Me Chessur Gods and Liam head to the PvP room and gets ready to play some Valkyrie. First impressions for that game is that it is really super cool and also very hard to play for the first time. It was amazing to use the Occulus Rift and it felt really cool. They also had some Eve 5v5 battlecruiser pvp arena setup and we played some there and don't think we dropped a single match. For every win you would get a beer token and those were put to great use. I also met up with the Camel team and talked a lot with them. In general those guys were really cool and I had a ton of fun with them. 

I went into a super packed 0.0 roundtable just to hear the cries about supers being bad or trollceptors and it was kinda fun. but in general that room was way too packed and kinda warm. 

Then comes the keynote. It wasn't as exciting to me at it was for most people because I already knew the stuff. It was kinda sad not getting elected for the CSM but I won't stop trying and I hope that CCP will announce some of the stuff I did while on the CSM soon so I can actually say that I wasn't useless. It's nice to have skynet removed at least. After the keynote we decide to head out and check out Reykjavik. I go out with Chessur and check his hostel out after hearing stories of how shady it would be from Liam but it was actually kinda nice. We go out and have dinner at some random bar and I got a hamburger that was kinda nice. The water in Iceland smells really bad by the way. After the dinner we go out shopping some because Chessur needs his healthy (green) juice and at the store we actually meet some of the chinese players playing in the tournament and we chat a bit and wish them good luck.

Day 2

We meet up early at around 8 o clock at the Harpa to watch the solar eclipse. Me and Chessur grabs some egg and bacon sandwiches outside. After chatting a bit with the Camel guys we decide to head up with them to the roof on their hotel to watch the Eclipse. 

Not quite 100% but it was close. Day 2 was going to be the one with the most roundtables and presentations to go to. The first one was a 0.0 and sov round table and I feel kinda bad for tricking F4bske to come and listen to it with me. The second one was the Lowsec and fw roundtable and that was kinda interesting to go to and on a topic I actually know stuff about. 

The next one was the fleet pvp roundtable that me and the entire camel crew decide to go to. After reading in the guidebook app that it would be about large fleets we decide to talk about small fleets there instead. There were some cool ideas bounced here. The next big one that we were going to go to was the Ship and module balance presentation. I think it was a pretty ok presentation and they finally released the new t3ds (will post some fitting blogs on those at crossing zebras when Fozzie un-NDAs the full stats). 

I had to leave early and couldn't ask any questions. Because I had the CSM panel to attend to. I don't really know what I was going to do there since I only was half a csm member. But anyway I decided to show up and first thing that hit me was that I didn't drink nearly enough beers for this. 

fc pls kill me

Since I had stuff I wanted to say but quietly said them in my head instead of speaking out. I remember some questions like that the csm wouldn't have any small gang candidate anymore but really. It's not hard to message any of the new csm members with your questions and I know I will mail some of the candidates suggestions if I just dont go straight and message ccp directly. There was also a question about what the best and worst thing with the CSM was and for me that was: Actually having people listen to your suggestion and while it sounds selfish its also nice to be able to skip all the noise that is the eveo forums. The bad thing is obviously not having people listen to you but I think I did my best to argue for the things I believed in and that mattered to me and my community of small gang/solo pvpers. 

If someone wonders why I checked my phone and smiled a lot it's because my corp kept pinging me stupid questions and apparently Twitch chat asked why I represent a corp that supports ISIS ingame and I have to say that I am also a big fan of the interbus ship identification system.

After that I went to the streaming community roundtable since I couldn't find any of the camel dudes or chessur. It was actually kind of a good roundtable and it was fun meeting and talking to those dudes. We brought up the topic of streamsniping, streaming in general and other things related. It was extra fun for me since I actually streamsnipe a lot of people and I have met all those guys there at least once. 

The next big thing coming up was the Worlds Collide tournament. I sat next to chessur gods apples and Liam and they didn't say shit about anything before the tournament (I got some small hints but thats it). But as soon as it started Chessur started talking about all the setups and what their thoughts were etc and CCP Rise came up to us and we talked a bit and Rise managed to get Chessur up on the stage to do a interview between the matches and that was cool. The first match was really fun to watch and despite what people said Camel did def not throw that match. I know a lot of people got scared when Fisty screamed at a round table that they are going to throw the first match but it was only a joke. We talked a bit about my blogposts and they told me that a lot of things were actually correct and I am happy that I managed to predict the 3-1 victory and its a good result since a 3-0 match would be to fast. 

Credit: Lord Carlos

I'll just use a picture Lord Carlos took since mine weren't that great. After they won we all went up on stage and talked a bit. Me and Chessur decide to head out and grab some food and we find a place called "American Hamborgararararar" or something that served great burgers.  I got a lobster burger that was awesome with a milkshake that was so thick it was hard to drink. 

After this it's time for the pubcrawl. It went as you would expect, playing chess at 4am with Chessur at his hostel and helping gods apples hit on 14 year old girls on Tinder in Iceland. It was hilarious and we managed to get God's apples three dates in one day at the same place. Sadly the first one no showed and he wanted extraction from the second one. 

Day 3

I wake up with a slight headache but manage to grab a taxi to get to the Harpa early. The first session that I wanted to go to was the ship and module balance roundtable. I meet up with Gods and Liam outside and we grab some blue doughnuts

They were surprisingly good. The first roundtable was actually kinda empty and I bet people were still out pubcrawling or trying to crawl to the bed at 11am. CCP Rise also couldn't make it and its understandable as the last thing I saw at the Harpa was him marching out with a big bottle of brennivin in his hands. 

We spent some time talking about supers and Rorquals and general mining stuff that doesn't really matter that much for me but its still good to know that ccp is working on it. Chessur asked what Fozzie were going to do with medium autocannons since they are pretty bad at the moment. Fozzie pretty much told him that they are being used... We also talked a bit about hmls, battlecruisers (fozzie gave me a shoutout here \o/), Assault frigs vs T3 destroyers and Liam had to leave so he asked the quality question if CCP Fozzie wanted to buff the Chameleon powergrid and Fozzie responded that he actually wanted to do a pass on AT ships some week. This followed up into the next question when a guy wanted a logi ship for his black ops drops and Fozzie told him to stop being poor and buy Etanas.

After that I headed up into the pvp room and me and some camel dudes played a bunch of matches in the eve 5v5 tournament and Chessur got drawn for the Valkyrie tournament but he sadly lost his first qualifier by 1 kill. Something nice was that during the last day they handed out pirate noobships to people winning in the pvp tournament and well 

The funniest thing here was playing with Fisty who blasted taylor swift and singing loudly while fighting people and owning guys. He also went up to ccp and asked if he could have some more noobship codes and they handed him like 20 of them. Something bad was that me and Liam pressed the enter captains quarter button that bugged the shit out of their tournament client and we delayed everything by 20 minutes or so.

The next roundtable me and my friends went to was the Future of evesports roundtable and we had some really good discussion about making tools for people to run their tournaments and maybe adding some UI elements to display ewar effects applied to a target from someone else. 

After that we tried to get into the second ship balance roundtable but it was way to crowded and we werent let in so we formed our own roundtable outside were we decided to check out the icelandic dating scene like proper nerds

Liam and Fisty doing some elite Tinder pvp.

Our entire group decides to head out for some Camel empire victory dinner at a fancy restaurant. We formed quite a big blob and hit a really good place to eat.

After this it's time for the party on top of the world. The whole party was awesome and I might have had a bit too much to drink as my friends maybe can remember. I talked a bit with some csm members and I had some Vodka or something that a Camel guy smuggled in. I also met and talked a bit with Tinkerhell who promised me a AT ship while drunk (nvr 5get) I had to get back a bit early at 2 am because I had a plane to catch tomorrow

Day 4

Time to leave Iceland sadly. I went to the airport and meet up with Niden again since we share the same flight. I manage to meet Liam for a bit and say goodbye to him and meet his dad as well.

One thing is for sure and that's that I am definitely going to fanfest next year and this was one of the best trips I have done and I had a ton of fun and it was great meeting everyone.

Worlds Collide part 4 bans

So the last blog in this series I think. The bans are in. You can find the full setups here http://community.eveonline.com/news/news-channels/eve-online-news/worlds-collide-submitted-team-setups/

Camel banned setup 2 and 5

CoA decided to ban setup 1 and 2

Initial thoughts

First of is that both teams have decided to ban two types of setups in this tournament. CoA went for the obvious "fuck ECM" ban and removed two strong ECM setups. Camel on the other hand went straight for the only two setups with logistics. Choosing surprisingly to leave out the Widow setup and who knows they might have a ace up their sleeve (setup 6 with the Confessors and Maulus maybe). I think the bans benefited Camel the most here making their choice of what setups to bring pretty easy. I think Cruiser rush setups with logistics are stronger then ECM setups and I hope that camel will be able to show this on Friday. Leaving the Widow comp in is probably going to be a surprise for most people and I am kinda surprised as well. I figured that it's stronger then the vigilant setup that I feel Camel could handle the Vigilant setup with the Curse setup for example.

Right now after the bans I feel like CoAs strongest setup is the typhoon fleet issue setup and the Cerb one. TFIs should def not be underestimated and two battleships could really be strong in a 5v5 setup despite their huge point price. The Widow comp could also be potentially dangerous but it could also be shut down really hard and I think we will wait and see. Camel obviously have something in mind choosing not to ban it.

For CoA there is not much to their bans. They choose to primarily ban ECM based setups but they also banned Camels two missile kite setups and also got some strong damp ships with it. Something dangerous here is that they have a couple of setups with really fragile cruisers without logistics. The Cerberus setup that they have could potentially be good but I think CoA really needs to watch out for all the links Camel got and the fact that they are able to project damage far out enough to at least somewhat hurt the CoA kite setups and since they lack logi its damage they won't get back.

What would Gorski do?

If I was CoA I would have banned setup 4 and setup 6. Setup 4 is a minmatar rush with a curse that's going to be really spooky against their more kitey setups and setup 6 is just going to murder with that much dps and tank from confessors and damnation with logi.

If I was Camel I would have banned the gila setup and the Widow setup. Despite having a setup or maybe two that can hard counter the widows its still ecm and they could get unlucky. And I know Widows have pretty shit lock range and camel have mauluses so who knows.

All in all I think Camel will win the tournament 3-1 and I am sorry that this blog is a bit shorter but I need to get on a plane to Iceland!

Worlds Collide part 3 Camel Setups

As always you can find all setups here http://community.eveonline.com/news/news-channels/eve-online-news/worlds-collide-submitted-team-setups/. I have theorycrafted and suggested the different fits that City of Angels (CoA) might bring in a previous blog post and now it's time for Camel Empire. I have to admit that I am a bit scared for writing this blog post because unlike CoA Camel has brought a lot of ships that I haven't actually flown much making it my first time theorycrafting for them. Therefore I ask you to take some of my suggested fits and stuff with a grain of salt. I have for example never flown a Command ship for actual pvp on tq and I have barely pvped with Heavy interdictors (HIC) since their rebalance. But I have flown with people who use them and seen them used in AT/NEO teams I have been on so.

These are the seven setups that Camel choose to bring. Before we dig deeper into each setup I just want to give some general comments and feel about all the Camel setups.

My first thought is that all their setups feel very balanced and not one stands out as a super overpowered compared to all the others. This is different from CoA who have that dual Widow comp for example that just looks stronger then all the others. Knowing what setup to ban will be very hard because they are very balanced. I will look deeper into what variations of what setups might beat each other in my next and probably finishing blogpost for this subject.

Camel has also choose to bring some kind of logistics in every single comp. Something I really like is the use of the two logi frigs allowing the rest of the ships to be very high point value. Camel has also brought a lot of ewar and many two stage ewar comps with both damps and ecm that can either just straight up damp a guy out or use scan res scripted damps with a successful ecm cycle on a logi to knock a comp down.

Another thing that Camel has brought is links from command ships and they have many setups using them. Now links are not as strong as say in the AT with 12 people since you only have 5 here but that doesn't mean that you shouldn't bring them. I think this might be the biggest mistake that CoA did. Not bringing links in certain setups. Not to talk about the fact that command ships can actually provide a lot of damage (600+ dps) while having massive tanks and two links. So they are not useless dedicated link ships here no.

Another thing that I noticed was that due to the point system Camel choose to throw in a couple of HICs in two of their setups. Both the Broadsword and Phobos are actually decent pvp ships for this format being able to deal around 450 damage. A HIC also has insane tank making sure that a ship tackled by a HIC won't get away.

I think setup #4 is probably the strongest fielding a Command ship and a Broadswoard both ships with huge tanks and actually doing some decent damage. Looking into what links Camel might decide to bring is another important thing to consider. A shield resistance link with speed and sig reduction links for example will make a missile based setup unable to damage you. Other strong setups are #2 #3 and #6

It's hard to point out a weakest setup here but for me I think that #7 is the weakest one. It really only has one dps ship with the Absolution that's able to deal around 700 dps. The dps from the sentinel and Ishkur is not something that's going to do much when they are locked to t1 drones. I could see this setup ending up with the support wing dead and the absolution neutralized by either kiting or general ewar.

Setup #1

This is a interesting setup. It looks like a two stage ewar control setup that has a lot of flexibility with fittings. The dps is missile based and can be both HAM or Rapid lights depending on what they decide to do. Since the tournament will be played in the Proteus patch they will be able to have the buffed recons. This is extra good for the rook that gained the following changes:

The first change that will make a change is the 7.5% kinetic bonus opposed to a 5% HAM and HML rate of fire. While being more or less kinetic locked is never a good thing the change from a ham/hml bonus to a more general missile damage bonus means that the Rook can now fit and use rapid light missiles. This gives the rook work excellent as anti tackle and while rlmls come with a 35 second reload time it won't bother you that much when your target will be jammed for 40 seconds. The Rook also received a much needed power grid boost (thank me) allowing it to fit hams and a large shield extender without being forced to sacrifice a rig slot for a ancillary current router. The Rook also gained some much needed speed but it will still be really slow barely hitting 1500 m/s without any nanofibers. Something to note is that the Rook still only gets a range bonus to HAMs and HMLs and not Rapid lights. The other buffs it gained are pretty straight forward.

So moving onto potential fits for the Rook. As always with these type ships knowing what balance of tank midslots/ecm is hard and its going to end up being a personal preference. There is also the choice between running multi specs or racial jammers for it. I would probably run a mix of racial jammers seeing how they are better at jamming drones and have more range. 

This is the first setup I made for rapid lights. I went with a standard set of warriors but seeing how much control Camel have I wouldn't be surprised if they choose to run with logistics drones helping keep their logistics alive vs the tiny incoming dps. As you can see the Rook isn't toothless and can actually provide decent dps that's applied almost perfectly. Something to note here is that the RLML range isn't actually that great and the HAMs on the rook will be able to reach the same range as these. Just looking at this setup in general I would actually bet that they are going to run heavy assault missiles on most ships. I could be wrong though but it seems stronger seeing how much damage they will apply while keeping stuff under control. Here is a similar HAM fit.

While HAMs won't apply as good vs frigates they will deal more consistent damage and not have long reload down times. Same goes for the Caracals.

A standard Rapid light Caracal that they might bring could potentially look like this

This is pretty much a standard tq roaming fit with the warp disruptor swapped out for a extra damp allowing for some extra ewar to help the Celestis out. A kiting missile team with damps can and will probably work vs a lot of setups and we have seen them multiple times in tournaments. For a Ham Caracal there isn't much variation for the good fits. 

This is almost a standard pvp ham Caracal but I've replaced the warp disruptor with a Invul field since you don't need a warp disruptor in tournaments. The Invuln could easily be swapped into a ewar module if that's what Camel chooses to go with. 

The Celestis is what I feel might be the weakest ship in this setup. It's a t1 cruiser that's going to provide damp support. But it will almost certainly also be shield tanked. The Celestis lacks any damage bonus at all but its still able to field 5 medium drones and have 3 gun/missile slots. I think that Camel will probably continue with the missile theme here fitting the Celestis up with some token missile launchers. Or just skipping that and going with drone link augs for extended drone range. 

The number of damps you bring is really going to be important. It's really hard to get a decent shield tank going on a Celestis so I wouldn't be surprised to see some dual tank action going here with all those mid slots. Or they could even choose to skip the shield tank fully and just go all out damps. This ship is really straight forward at first but then you realize that there are a ton of different modifications that all come with their pros and cons. Do you want a sebo or not? How much tank do you want? What lowslots should I go with more tank, dps or speed? 

I feel like there are so many ways here it will be hard to predict a final fit but if I had to try it would probably be some super long range kitey version. Now this is probably not going to be anywhere close to what camel does because there are so many versions that can be made on this ship but whatever.

Setup #2

Another two stage ewar setup using missiles. What I really like with this setup is the heavy utility you get from every single ship here. Both Flycatchers can serve as anti tackle/tacklers and provide ewar at the same time. The Keres is the same and can damp down logis or even scram a dps ship. The Widow is the ship here with the most utility and damage here. The ship is basically a t2 scorpion that is able to deal damage at really far ranges with cruises. I am almost certain that this ship will be fit up with cruise missiles as a main weapon. Applying damage shouldn't be that hard with the help of your two Flycatchers. Flycatchers are almost exclusively a light missile ship and I think that's almost 100% what Camel are going to roll with here. 

Probably choosing to alternate one with web and one with a scram to be able to fully tackle something. The Flycatcher is a a really good anti tackle ship preforming somewhat similar to the old RLML Caracal giving really good support with its high number of midslots and projecting damage far away that applies very well.

Setup #3

Now this on the surface to every victim of a 0.0 Ishtar blob this just looks like another sentry comp. But there is a real possibility here that they will bring a more brawling oriented fleet with heavy drones, especially if you consider the Eos ship bonus.. In either case I will theorycraft and show some fits for both variations. Let's start with the Eos. This is a really important ship in this setup and it is able to bring links to the entire fleet and rock a 125 mbit bandwith allowing for a full flight of either Sentries or Heavy drones. The first choice Camel would have to make here is what links to bring and how many. I think that dropping a gun for a third link is something I would really do seeing how your major source of dps is going to be drones anyway. 

The Eos gets a link bonus to both Skirmish and Armored links letting it choose between the following 6 bonuses:

The first and most obvious link I would choose here seeing that I have logistics ships in my fleet would be the Passive defense link giving my entire fleet ~26% more armor resistance. The second one that I would choose that's really important to have is the Rapid deployment for skirmish giving my fleet 30% more speed. Speed is always very versitable and one of the best things to have in eve. Many fights are won depending on who can control the range. The last link is a bit more free of a choice depending on the setup in my opinion. They could either go with faster reps helping the logi or any of the remaining two skirmish. I would probably go with the less sig or more tackle range if I was going to catch someone and heavy drone them.

The nice thing with drone setup is that they have huge drone bays allowing for a very versitable combo of drones. The Eos also has a hybrid tracking bonus so I would fit rails to it allowing damage application while you move towards your target. The ship is absolutely not fast at all though. 

The next big ship in this setup is the Ishtar. Since they have armor logi I think it's safe to assume that this Ishtar will be armor fitted. This opens up a lot of the 5 midslots that the Ishtar has for some very interesting modules. Depending on if they are going with Heavy drones or Sentries there could be some big variations here. A heavy drone setup would most likely choose drone nav computers and some web and additional supportive ewar such as a damp or two. While a Sentry setup would go with more omni directional tracking links. Here is a potential heavy drone version of the Ishtar that could be used for Worlds Collide:

Setup #4

The first thing that strikes me here is a Minmatar rush setup for five people. Camel have been known for favoring a curse in their Minmatar rush setups for some extra utility and strong neuts + drones. The difference between the Sleipnir and the Eos here is that I wouldn't go with a 3x link on the sleip and instead opt for two links. Most likely shield resistance and speed or tackle range. Now we shouldn't take the weapon system on both the Sleipnir and broadsword for granted. They could also be arty fitted using the Curse for shutting down incoming tackle.

As you can see the Sleipnir is extremely tanky and provides a ton of dps to the field. It's not a ship you want to be shooting first or be tackled by because you are not going away. Same goes for the Broadsword if you get tackled by this you are not getting away easily. 

Just look at those stats to anyone who doubted the heavy interdictors pvp viability. One might say that Nulli Secunda really was ahead of their time with their broadswords in AT. And this ship only costs 11 point something worth comparing to a heavy assault cruiser at 12. Sometimes a single point allows for way different setups and more flexibility or upgrading a ship to a bigger version. And after the HIC rebalance where they got more combat capability and moved the resistance to a role bonus they really aren't that bad. I love the fact that Camel decided to bring out some HICs in their setups.

The ewar backbone and support ship in this fleet is the Curse. It's able to provide super strong neuts at a long range making sure no light tackle or bigger ships even will be able to screen off a sleip or hold a logi. The curse offers 37.8km medium energy neuts that are double as effective as neuts on other ships. But Neuts are not the only thing a Curse is able to bring to the table. The ship has bonused tracking disruptors that will shut down one or two ships and a full flight of medium drones with a damage bonus. The Curse is a ship with a incredible high skill cap. Knowing information such has how many cycles do you need to neut ship x, what scripts should I use in my tracking disruptors, am I managing my cap while running 5 super cap hungry neuts. All this while making sure you are positioned correctly and having a ton of buttons to click. It's not easy to fly this ship and I would actually rate it as one of the hardest ships to fly in eve at the moment. So much stuff can go wrong but you can also win so much with the neuts.

Obvious variations here is tracking disruptor vs invul field. 4 medium neuts vs 3 and the lows if you want more speed or more damage. All in all I would rate this as one of Camels strongest comps and I wouldn't be surprised if CoA decided to ban it.

Setup #5

At first glance this comp is just strange. A couple of really underused Gallente ships with two heretics and a t1 logistics ship why? But then I efted a bit and looked closer. It's not a fast setup but it is sure enough going to dish out some major pain. I predict that camel will favor rails for their superior range and being more flexible with dealing with longer range setups. But this is nothing certain! By using a speed link on the Astarte you can get the Phobos up to over 2k m/s heated allowing it to land heavy tackle while your Astarte move in and lay down the hammer. 

But let's focus on that this is going to somewhat kite but at the same time be really tanky. The Heretics support this theory by being a much better light missile ship then a rocket ship. 

Here is a couple of fits for what I think will they could be able to bring, Minor personal changes could be dropping a energized plate for a reactive hardener. Both these ships are insanely tanky and nothing you ever really want to primary but they do so much dps at the same time. And when supported by the Heretics I feel this could be a really strong fleet comp. I think this fleet lacks ewar though but who knows there might be some random supportive ewar on the heretics. 

That's variation one of this fleet comp. The second variation would be to fit blasters and using skirmish links on the Astarte and tackle with Heretics and the Phobos dishing out even more damage.

Setup #6

This setup is really strong. The dps and tank from double Confessors is highly flexible and able to take smaller ships town pretty easily and then move in on larger. Lasers mean that you can swap crystals instantly and you can go from 360 dps at 7km to 200 dps at 50km and all between. The Damnation got range bonuses to HAMs and HMLs so you can get decent range on it using heavy assault missiles. The ship like all other command ships is super tanky and doesn't even need many tank modules to still reach over 100k ehp. This setup seems a bit weak to being kited but a info linked Maulus will help.

One thing I wonder is why Camel choose the Damnation in this setup and the Absolution in the next setup. Having a beam Absolution here would make this setup a lot stronger. But I guess this makes it stronger against neut based setups since the entire setup would be dead otherwise.

Now this is a pretty standard HAM fit and like I said it's not very fast at all. I guess there could be a possibility that Camel chooses to go with HMLs instead. I know they don't got a very good reputation on TQ and I have to agree but against a target they know is unlinked with confessors capable of killing tackle a damnation can actually deal out decent dps with the HMLs. It would also make sense because dealing no damage because you cant get in range with your ham is worse then dealing some damage with HMLs. And to be fair the dps isn't that bad with HMLs supported by Info linked target painters.

The confessors are almost certainly 10MN ab beam fit with two random ewar modules in the mid. Beams are superior over pulses in almost all ways here. They have similar dps but way more flexible with range. Somethings to consider here is how much tank you want to bring and 10MN ab or 1MN MWD. Something like this would be hard to break with links and logistics: 

and something like this that's better at mitigating damage with a oversized prop mod and can take care of itself with a good pilot.

Something this setup will be really good at is going to be crushing ecm based setups. You could do the sensor integrity link combined with sharpshooter confessors and the damnation is already hard to jam so.

Setup #7

I actually think that this is their weakest setup. It's lacking damage and have a couple of very weak ships like the sentinel and blackbird. Even with damnation links the Ishkur should die pretty quick. I don't think that primaring the Guardian or Absolution would be a good idea as both are most likely ultra tanked. Most of the dps from this setup will come from the Absolution being able to deal around 500-900 with beams.

Something to keep in mind is that the Absolution has bonuses to information warfare links as well as armored. I think that there is a very good chance that we will see some super strong tds and jams in this setup. Using Armor resistance with the electronic superiority link. All in all. This looks like a pretty slow dpsing setup trying to control control control and making sure that no support ship gets tackled or die will be crucial. I don't think a ship like the absolution needs much tank and its probably better to fit more damage on it seeing how its more or less the only dps ship in this setup. 

This fit gets over 800 dps in close range and can project good enough I think.

Closing words

As I said in the start Camel has managed to create 7 setups without anyone sticking out super much as being either to weak or just way to strong. Banning against them will be hard and knowing what they theorycrafted is even harder. In general I feel like Camels setups are much stronger then the CoA setups. They are using a heavy amount of links, ewar and logi in almost all setups and especially ewar and logi are hard to deal with in a smaller match. I think CoA should look into banning #2, #4 or #6.

My next blog will probably be finished in a couple of days before I will be on place in Iceland cheering on Camel!

USA! USA! USA!

Worlds Collide part 2 Chinese setups

You can find all the setups here: http://community.eveonline.com/news/news-channels/eve-online-news/worlds-collide-submitted-team-setups/. For this blog post we will focus on the Chinese setups, general theorycrafting and potential fits. The next blog will be about the Camel setups and after that I will post a bit about what setups beat what and general metagaming.

So lets start with what they have submitted.

Setup #1

So in this setup we have a double Orthrus backbone supported by a Vagabond, Confessor and Crow. To me this looks like a general kite setup using rapid light Orthruses and a vagabond for their major dps. 

The Orthrus is clearly the most important ship in this setup and the entire setup is depending on their piloting skill. Catching a Orthrus is usually not something you do easily but Camel are smart enough to bring links in almost every setup so who knows. This is one setup I can see accidentally boundary violate. One thing to keep in mind that this is a tournament setting and there is no warping off so you actually don't have to tackle a orthrus in order to kill it. Just being able to project damage far enough is enough

One thing that stands out at first is the complete lack of a dedicated ewar ship. Orthruses are actually very weak to damps and have a pretty bad lock range. 

The Orthruses have two maybe even three possible fits (mwd rlml kite, 100mn and HAM) depending on what City of Angels wants to do. The first one is a standard xlasb + lse mwd kite fit with rapid lights.

The open midslot could be a ewar module like a damp or target painter or a defensive web.  The dps drops to 564 with caldari navy missiles. There will be some minor variations to this fit of course like using a lock range rig or a damage control but in general this is one of the suspected fits I think they will run on the Orthrus. Something cool that they might do is actually to 100mn afterburner fit their Orthruses. This would make tackling them extremely hard with the defensive scram. The other potential fit is to HAM fit and brawl. This is more unlikely to me though because they lack logistics in this setup. 

The Confessor should be a pretty straight forward beam confessor for killing anti tackle and providing additional ewar with its two open midslots. This ship will almost certainly be fitted with a oversize propmod and beams. 

Something like this is probably what they are going to fly. This ship is really flexible with the gun range and can swap ammo types instantly and hit out to 50km+ using Aurora. The midslots will of course be swappable for any type of ewar. Two damps is a very big possibility as is defensive ewar such as remote sebos. All in all this is a pretty straight forward ship that will bring even more anti tackle to the table. 

The Crow is a decent filler ship for 3 points. It's going to be a afk support platform most likely as crow dps is not really something to talk about. I see this ship just bringing 3 ewar modules straight up with either damps, tps or remote sensor boosters/remote eccm. There is a possibility of this ship using scram web and be like a suicide tackle to rush anything coming in. I would probably not have choosen a Crow for this spot as a Talwar or any other destroyer costs the same and can actually bring some damage to the table. This could support the scram web theory and that they wanted the extra scram range on a interceptor. Another problem with the Crow is the worthless lockrange this ship have making it next to useless for offensive ewar. So this will either be a tackle ship or a defensive ewar ship.

The Vagabond is the last ship in this setup. I honestly wouldn't have brought a Vagabond as the last ship but I am not a chinese AT winner so what do I know. The Vagabond doesn't have nearly enough range and projection using medium autocannons. Its definitely the weak link in this setup. I would probably have downgraded the Crow to a Merlin so I could replace the Vagabond with a logistics cruiser, Swap the Vagabond for a Ishtar or any other good faction or t2 cruiser. This is one of the problems with the rule that setups can only use a certain ship once forcing variation. The Gila for example is locked out as the obvious replacement for the Vagabond. Another good choice would be to actually downgrade the vagabond into a Heavy dictor. This would allow you to bring a t1 ewar frig instead of the crow and that could be huge for this setup as it lacks ewar.

I don't think the lack of logi is all that bad with this setup it looks like it's designed to never take damage in the first place and if CoA manages to do that they could grab a win with it but who knows. It's obviously a good small gang setup for normal pvp but then you can bring ogbs and faction fit your Orthruses...

Setup #2

A super strong drone kite setup capable of insane dps. A lot of people have been saying that this is one of CoAs strongest setups and I don't know if I actually agree. It's obviously a strong comp that will probably use drone nav comps and super fast drones or just go all out on the Gila tanks. Once again CoA lack Ewar and Links something that they should have considered bringing in my opinion. This is one of the few setups where they actually brought logistics ships so that's nice at least. 

So let's talk about why I don't feel like this is as strong as people predict it to be. The first thing and most obvious thing is that the Worlds Collide tournament rules say that you can only bring tech 1 drones. In general this means a dps drop of 125 for a Gila using Valkyries with three drone damage amplifiers. That's not the biggest thing though compared to the 875 m/s in speed you lose and the hp on the drones. These drones will actually not be that hard to shoot down compared to the augmented drones with 20k ehp we had in the alliance tournament. 

Another thing is that drones from gilas and worms are very vulnerable to ewar. Something a couple of camel setups can do.

Let's continue with theorycrafting the fits for certain ships in this setup. First up the Gila. This is a super versitable ship and really hard to actually theorycraft for. I'm leaning towards CoA bringing super tanky Gilas considering the fact that they brought a logi this round. This is a probable fit.

This could work out pretty well with that high tank + a Scimitar. Another possible fit would be to skip some of the tank and go with either a bit more Ewar such as damps or just straight up go for something with speedy drones using drone nav comps. I am not sure that will be as likely now seeing how we will only have t1 drones but who knows.

The worms are actually not going to do so much dps as people seem to think they will. They two major ways to go down with regards to fitting them. Either they serve as a more kitey support ship using assigned drones and ewar in their mids or they just go in as tackle ships. I think that tackling will probably be their major role but CoA needs to be really careful here and have really good tackling pilots. If you go in to early you just get murdered and if you go in to late your Gila gets tackled and killed. I think they will be having fits looking something like this

Having one Worm with a web and one with a scrambler probably. Bringing full tackle and decently high dps. Not much variation for this fit. You could get a nosferatu on there if you really wanted.

I don't know if I am such a big fan of the more ewar support versions. The worm actually lacks the lock range to highly abuse ewar modules but I guess something like this is doable

Setup #3

At a first look this is most likely the strongest setup CoA has brought and it's almost certainly going to be banned. But regardless of that let's talk a bit about what makes it so strong. First up is the Widows. This ship is pretty much a t2 Scorpion being able to provide a ton of ecm while having over 600 dps projected over the entire arena. They should be able to easily jam the entire enemy team. 

One danger they face is when they lose the initial damp war because they aren't smart enough to bring remote sebos for the Widows because once the jams start landing the daredevil can go in freely and deal around 400 damage and allowing Widows to perfectly apply damage with their 90% webs. But if jams won't land the frigs will die instantly especially the Taranis. Apart from having super strong ewar this setup also has a ton of dps. Each Widow bringing 600 and Daredevil bringing 400 up to a total of 2000 dps + a dead Taranis. 

Once again I don't agree with the interceptor choice here. I feel like a support destroyer for remote sensor boosters would be a better choice then a Taranis. A ship like a cormorant with it's 4 midslots for example. Making sure those widows get the initial jams on is so important and I hope CoA understands this. 

All in all I think this is the first setup that screams instant ban for me. Two Widows are just too strong for a 5v5 format. 

Setup #4

At a first glance this isn't one of their strongest setups that I fear they will be forced to fly because it certainly won't get banned. The only real dps in this setup is coming from the two typhoon fleet issues. Now the TFI is not a weak ship at all but I feel like its overpriced costing 19 points per ship. Something that could be interesting here is fitting them up with rapid heavy missile launchers. That's actually one of the few ways I could see this setup being able to win is if they manage to instantly remove a logistics cruiser or something for Camel. But I highly doubt it as Camel knows how to fly their shit and I trust that Camel have excellent logi pilot. The TFIs will also have problem doing enough damage against the camel links and ewar bringing them down.

Let's get down to the most important thing here what the potential TFI fits will be. First up is a RHML Rush that will focus on just straight up rushing and heavy tackling a logi or ewar cruiser and removing it quickly. This setup could do good if they manage to neut links off or get neuts + tackle on a logi cruiser. 

Rigs and midslots are as usual up to some minor changes depending on their individual pilots. Being able to deal and apply 2k dps from two tfis will be devastating if they don't get perma tackled by a linked frig or just can't catch anything. 

Another possibility is to run cruises with the merlins providing defensive ewar and counter tackle trying to kite with the TFIs. 

Sensor booster could be another target painter depending on what ewar the Merlins have.

The other ships in this fleet is most likely just throw away tackle or ewar merlins. Once again they choose to bring a interceptor over a support destroyer. I don't even know what the Ares is supposed to do here, other then to rush in and jihad tackle something. 

Setup #5

This looks like a pretty standard super high dps gallente rush setup. The Oneiros here reveals that they will go with armor tanks on all their ships. This is somewhat dangerous for the frigs seeing how armor reps land at the end of the cycle. But they should have plenty of hp and a ton of dps to bring with it. Camel doesn't have that many super high kite setups so who knows what will happen vs a gallente rush setup like this. 

I highly doubt that CoA is going to actually do a railsetup and the vigilants will probably be fit something like this: 

I think that CoA probably didn't fit a eccm on their vigilant and went with some random ewar or maybe double web for some reason.

This is probably one of the setups where I would warp in dps at 0 and logi at 30. Then depending on what you face either rush enyos in to tackle and then vigilants after to fully tackle someone. I would watch out for damps and if I notice heavy damps I would fly logi in with the dps ships. 

I saw a lot of people on Reddit complaining that this setup doesn't have any projection and while that is true it's obviously not the point of the setup. Enyos are actually really fast and should be able to heat down and tackle a cruiser + survive long enough for a vigilant that is actually also kinda fast for a armor cruiser to get on the target. Keep in mind that the enyos will have over 10k ehp and a oneiros that if its good will have pre cycled reps on them. For the enyo I would fit them something like this

This brings the total dps up to around 2200. That's a lot of dps for 4 ships to deal with the current point rules. I don't feel this setup is strong enough for a ban though and there are Camel setups that can and will beat it.

Setup #6

This setup could also actually do a lot of damage to camel seeing how some of their setups lack the damage to break a Hyperion. What's most likely is that all the support frigs and the Caracal will die and then the timer runs out as the Hyperions are under heavy ewar. What CoA needs here is a fast initial tackle on something that's important for the enemy. I don't think two Hyperions can break a command ship in 10 minutes with a logi helping the cs though so they must once again trust in good tackle pilots grabbing something important to the enemy while the slow Hyperions make their way over. 

These type of setups using self supporting Hyperions are not actually that uncommon and we have seen them before in New eden open. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bNpX1maOkaI&list=PLQvKSs1k6DLPupFqSJOXP-Y6afuT9X-7f&index=106

Another piece of intel here is this loss from their version of the Alliance tournament: http://killboard.nl/en/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=738267

Here is one match showing a similar concept. It all depends on your tackle frigs being able to either catch and damp down a logi and get the hyperions to burn down a couple of cruisers or just simply catching the logi with Hyperions. Something that's easier said then done vs a team like Camel. The Caracal feels misplaced but I guess it's for removing ewar frigs and tackle frigs that can hold your Hyperions down.

Setup #7

The final setup and actually one of the strongest if you look at it. It's a kite setup similar to the first Orthrus setup that they brought but this time they actually have some ewar. Like always it will be about winning the damp war and this is something camel have done great with by having two staged ewar with both jams and damps making sure the Keres can't shut down them. Despite this I feel like this is one of the stronger setups. The Cerbs will be able to kite very well dealing a lot of dps from a long range away. The two variations here will be if CoA goes with the more common RLML setup or go with HAMs. Due to the bonuses on the Cerb it will be able to kite no matter what weapon system you choose.

The Cerbs will probably look something like this:

For rapid light missiles or something like this for HAMs:

Both very straight forward fits but I feel the ham version has the most variability. Depending on how deep they want to brawl with regards to midslots and rigs. Webs and or target painters with tank rigs is actually more probable here for them to fit. But who knows. Next up is the Cynabal. This ship will most likely fit autocannons and be a great anti tackle platform with a lot of midslots for ewar. For CoA will probably go with HAM cerbs with a autocannon cynabal for tackle removal providing this setup with great flexibility regarding range and being hard to tackle with a keres, strong anti tackle and a ceptor for some additional tackle work. 

I guess I have to take the possibility of CoA bring a arty Cynabal as well. Arty Cyanbals are extremly strong against bad tackle pilots but once again this is camel empire we are talking about. But who knows maybe with enough TPs and a good tackle from the Ceptor a Cynabal might be able to one shot some of the lighter frigs. 

This could be good paired with the rapid light Cerbs. This is one of the setups I feel like that random ceptor will actually be pretty useful since they have a Keres with them.

Closing thoughts

All in all I think the Chinese setups are not as weak as people seem to think they are and I feel that some comps could get a victory against certain Camel setups. They fell into the trap of making one setup look extremely strong compared to the others making it a easy ban choice though and I would be surprised if the Widow fleet isn't going to be banned. The last ban is a bit more uncertain and I haven't actually theorycrafted the camel setups hard enough to make a post about what setups beat what to say now but I am leaning towards either a #7 ban with the Cerbs and Cynabal or banning the Orthrus. I feel like the Gilas are overrated in power and their drones will fall from the skies like birds with broken wings. T1 drones are just not strong enough against camels fleets having both logi and ewar to counter them. 

Worlds Collide part 1

Worlds Collide

Worlds collide is a eve pvp tournament that is going to be played at fanfest. It features the winners of our alliance tournament Camel Empire vs the Chinese winners of their tournament City of Angels. The tournament will be played in a 5v5 format. It seems like ccp are going to put in some serious effort on this tournament and it is probably going to be a major event at fanfest with some great production value. The winning team will take home a Victorieux Luxury Yacht for the entire server. This ship is pretty much a super nullified cloaky shuttle that will warp super fast. 

Rule set

The full rule set can be found here: http://community.eveonline.com/news/dev-blogs/fanfest-2015-worlds-collide/

Lets start out with the obvious. It's a single best of five tournament. The teams must bring all 5 pilots compared to say AT where you could go with less people and higher point ships. This makes real sense once you realize that ccp flew these guys out to fanfest and they probably want them to actually play when they get here. The arena has the same size as the AT one with a 125km radius from the middle beacon. We will probably see some boundary violations even with fewer pilots and less to worry about on grid.

One interesting thing to note is that the game will be played on the Proteus patch instead of Tiamat that we currently have. The biggest thing this means is that we won't have the Svipul. We will however have the recon rebalance and confessors making them look like pretty strong choices. The players will be provided fully maxed characters for this tournament and I feel like this is a really good idea since tq players are going to have way more skillpoints and it provides a more even match where skills matter more then skillpoints. 

Both teams will be able to see all 7 setups submitted before the tournament and ban two of them.

The biggest difference between WC and AT comes up next and it's one of the reasons this tournament will stay very competitive.

Let's talk about this, This makes theorycrafting really hard for this tournament and it provides a trap where you could put all good ships into one setup and then have it banned. I think this is something some of the Chinese setups might have fallen into. I will talk more about this in an upcoming blog about theorycrafting for the worlds collide tournament.

For the setups each team has 45 points to build a team from. They may not bring more then 2 of each ship type. You can only bring one logistics cruiser or two logistics frigs and only one tech 1 support cruiser. No alliance tournament ships are allowed of course seeing how they seem to be handed out like candy on the Chinese server and I don't even know if they have all of them.

Here is the point list for all ships. 

The good

Command ships at 16 makes them a really good choice seeing how much utility they can bring to smaller fleets with links. Some other intresting points is that heavy interdictors are one point less then heavy assault cruisers and due to their rebalance they are actually decent pvp ships now. While having a ton of tank. Due to the sizes of this tournament I think ewar ships will be really strong and EAFs at 6 points or t1 ewar ships at 4 seems like a good investment. A interesting thing  is if you choose to pick a Confessor over a t1 cruiser. I feel like they are kind of equal combat ships but a Confessor is super versitable. 

The bad

T1 battleships, faction and pirate seems super overpriced. You can get a black ops for the same price as a t1 Battleship. I have no idea why you would pick a battlecruiser either seeing how hacs are less points. Bcs can fit links though so they are not super useless but still. Other ships that I would never field are covert ops ships, bombers and t1 industrials obviously. A command ship seems better then a strategic cruiser as well for the same points. Same goes for using a strat cruiser for logi since a t2 logi cruiser is way less points and generally better for this type of setups.

The tournament has the standard only logistics modules on logistics or strategic cruisers and no faction stuff rules. Ancillary shield boosters are also limited to one per ship. One major thing that's different from the AT is that Worlds collide will only allow t1 drones. This is huge as it limits drone setups a lot. The only implants allowed will be mindlinks and fitting implants ee-60x and eg-60x All the way up to 6%s allowing some more flexibility on their fits. Energy transfers are not allowed so we won't see some tinker setups here.

Closing words

This will be my first blog on the worlds collide subject. Future blogs will look deeper at the setups provided and have some deeper meta discussion with bans, fits and general predictions of what setups are strong against what and who I will think will win. 

On the Scylla upcomming balance changes

Upcoming balance stuff

So CCP recently posted a dev blog outlining the upcoming balance changes for Scylla. You can find it here: http://community.eveonline.com/news/dev-blogs/balance-changes-coming-in-scylla/

The tl;dr version of it is: Ishtar nerf, Skynet kill, T3 hp nerf, med rail nerf.

Whats happening?

First up is the Ishtar. CCP decided to split the heavy drone damage bonus and the sentry damage bonus. Giving the Ishtar a 5%/lvl damage bonus for sentries instead of a 10%/lvl. In reality this means that you go from 700 dps to 580 dps with Garde IIs for example. There is nothing here about the other problems the ishtar have such has having insane fitting space because you don't need or fit guns. Or being super hard to catch because you can either fit a oversized afterburner or many neuts in the high slots. All in all it's a good start and will def do its job to make sure the ship looks balanced on the damage dealt graphs...

After that we have the T3 Cruiser hp nerfs. Tengu is getting 5%/level of hp instead of 10% and the Proteus and Legion will get 7.5% / level. There are also some super small changes to sig resolution that most likely wont have as big of an impact. The increased buffer for the active tanked subs is really nice and I like that change a lot. It's not often we see active tanked ships used on the battlefield anymore apart from the usual ancillary tanked stuff I guess. I don't even know what to say about the passive regeneration bonus for Tengus I guess the carebears gotta have something. 

I do not think this is enough at all. The Ehp to dps ratio of t3 cruisers is currently insane. They also scale incredible with links and I honestly do not think its ok for a cruiser to tank more then a battleship while having less sig then a destroyer and aligning like a destroyer. With a tiny bit of "pimp" (deadspace resistance hardeners are not even expensive these days). You'll easily hit 200k ehp and I've seen fits approach 500k ehp for a cruiser. If you want a super tanky medium weapons platform I'd rather see command ships. I also think that the loki should have gotten some ehp nerfs with the others. While the ship isn't hitting the 500k ehp of proteuses or tengus it can still get over 200k ehp. It is more of a support ship though and uses a inferior weapons platform so who knows maybe Lokis will rise or not. I will hold on with more extreme indepth shit here because ccp said they are working on reworking all the subsystems and are obviously not done.

Skynet is being removed... Oh boy I think you already knew how happy I am about this. I read the eveo forums and see the hordes of people that I see skynetting every day (CALLOUT: DARKNESS. alliance you all suck). Using a Nyx to farm havens with a Thanatos is way to much easy mode. I definitely agree with CCPs choice of removing assigning. I'm not sure removing warp drives will be a good thing though. I thought it was when we first got shown the things since right now a method of handling skynet is to trap fighters in long warps. But then I read a bit on Reddit and forums and I kinda agree with the fact that removing warping fighters remove some flavor. I would love scrams or points to stop them from warping though so you can get some kills. Or maybe that's why they got a scan res nerf because fighters fit stabs now :). I've already posted a blog post about Skynet and I am happy that ccp understood that this gameplay is not really good for the health of the game. Read more here: http://gorsking.blogspot.se/2015/02/fuck-skynet.html

For the rail nerf.

The dev blog says this "rails show a pretty significant advantage in damage done over beams, arties and heavy missiles, as you can see below:"

This graph shows the popularity of the different long range weapon types in the game. You can see the fall of hmls after they got removed from the game and the rise of rails as they got buffed a bit. You might wonder why beams are not doing more damage in pvp. I also used to wonder that beams are extremely strong at the moment then I realized that there are not many good platforms that use beams and there are many ships that can overlap the range of beams using pulses + scorch. Especially at the medium sized level where it really only is the Legion, Phantasm and Absolution. Compared to say Rails who have good platforms even at t1 ship level with the Moa and Thorax. Both contributing highly to the usage and this making the weapon seem like it is doing more damage in pvp because its better when its in reality just easier to get on cheaper ships. With that said I think the rail nerf probably was a bit necessary. I will need some testing here for sure before I can yay or nay it. It definitely helps artillery a bit. A weapons class I haven't talked much about.

Medium arties could find its way back with the general t3 nerfs. Arty Lokis could be a thing. I've already flown arty Rutpures and Arty Cynabal is probably one of my favorite ships to fly at the moment. The Muninn probably still needs another mid. The problem with arties is that on the medium sized level their range isn't that great and the dps isn't that great that you want to stay far away. It is pretty badass when you one shot a approaching interceptor though :p

Let's move on to the thing that triggered me to write this blogpost and the thing I saved for the last.

The tiny text about Battleships and Battlecruisers. Let's split this up for BC and BS since both have some separate problems and some don't have anything to do in the game at the moment.

Here is the Graph CCP posted for starters.

Battleships

I'll start with the battleships since I think they are the easiest to comment about. CCPs only argument for these ships being fine is currently a graph showing the damage dealt for many of these battleships. Looking at the graph we see a clear over representation of Caldari. I wonder why... Oh that's right Cruise Ravens is a actual fleet comp that nc. uses. I don't know how effective they feel it is but we have one major alliance using it as a fleet concept bumping the damage way up. There is also the little problem where a battleship does 2-3 times more damage then a cruiser. But let's not waste all the graph talk for battleships we need some for battlecruisers as well.

Battleships today are plagued by low warpspeeds and slow align. They are individually strong ships though and every battleship is able to bring a lot of dps to the field and use large weapons for some really good ranges. The warpspeed problem is mostly countered by warpspeed rigs. That's the nice part with battleships they are still going to be decently tanky and fit all the strong utility things like heavy neuts or smartbombs with one or two hyperspatial rigs increasing their warpspeed to something manageable. A great change CCP made for the battleships is the -50% cap for the mwd. It really helped diversify some battleship fits and the heavy cap injector while really good isn't that mandatory anymore and it opens up for MJDs, random ewar like painters or just straight up more tank.

Every time a battleship enters the field you have to make a lot of new tactical choices. First off you need to decide if its worth it or not to go within point range. Battleships be able to hit this far most of the time and you go into the heavy neut range something that will end bad if you stay for to long. The second choice and a bit more active one is to watch out for the MJD effect and go in for scram if you want to actually hold your target at all. 

Battleships have clear weaknesses and are with few exceptions really weak to frigs. They are large and slow and easily kept down with Ewar as well. In general more agile ships and better pilots will be able to drift in and out of the dangerzone where battleships do damage to slowly take them down.

In general I think battleships are in a OK spot. Pirate battleships are actually in a great spot in some cases and I would def recommend everyone to get a Machariel they are awesome!

Battlecruisers...

I don't even know where to start. Like medium autocannons I ask what is the point of these ships at the moment? Especially the combat battlecruisers. I honestly don't think a warp speed change is everything that's needed here. But let's start with that. I feel like battlecruisers don't have the luxury that battleship have with fitting warpspeed rigs at all. They neither have the fitting or can actually sacrifice two or even one rig slot.

I know this is probably a tiny tiny buff for starters for warpspeed but I would want the battlecruiser warpspeed to be upped to 2.7 so there is a nice even 10% decrease in warpspeed for both destroyers and bcs. It might seem minor but I think everyone who has done pvp knows what huge difference even half a second might make when warping.

Something that certainly didn't help was overnerfing the cane and drake. These ships were overused yes but really the drake fleets was never good. They were easy to fly and the goon perma mwd drake was a perfect example of this you basically had 1 button to push. There really was no need for CCP to remove the drake from the game along with heavy missile launchers just because a lot of people used them. Mostly because they are easy to use.

The thing battlecruisers and destroyer have over the normal ship classes is a role bonus. The destroyer have a actual useful rolebonus that helps them in combat. Battlecruisers have some shit that helps them fit links. This is a old dream that obviously doesn't work anymore. Fitting links on a bc is a relic of old we have better things now. I would really like to see something better here like a straight up damage bonus.

Something another player Prometheus Exenthal has suggested is to give battlecruisers a new special microwarp drive module that allows them to both mwd and mjd around. While this is a cool idea im not sure I like it as it will further make long points useless. And it doesn't solve the problem where battlecruisers don't actually project damage on the field or bring anything useful on the field while being super slow. I mean a Raven is faster then a Drake at the moment...

The blog ended with what they are going for next. Bombers (season 2), Supers, ECM and missiles were listed so who knows maybe we will finally see missiles actually be good or most likely just see light missiles get nerfed because they are used a lot in pvp.  Apparently they want to shake up the combat meta but I don't see how any of this will change the speedy small meta.

This post probably went a bit to bitter at the end but I got triggered hard by the bs/bc stuff. I don't think I can even say how happy I am that ccp killed skynet. They have my permission to do some "bad" things to the game now :p