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Author |
Thread Statistics | Show CCP posts - 9 post(s) |
oodell
Thunderwaffe Goonswarm Federation
9
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Posted - 2014.10.16 16:36:00 -
[1] - Quote
I mostly agree that these changes are needed. The agility and warp speed is one of the main things that tipped bombers over the top recently. Making them easier to defend against is good.
This does NOT address the huge imbalance of bombs against certain types of ships. The 100% dependence on sig radius is bad, in my opinion. Augoror Navy Issues can take around 112 shrapnel bombs with full boosts and heat. A shield rupture can barely take 7 - less with a MWD on. There are problems with the Megathron vs Rokh and battlecruisers as well.
You'd have to tweak the numbers, but why not drop the sig radius of bombs from 400 to ~250-300 (thus making sig tanking ships a bit easier to hit) while adding an explosion velocity attribute? If this was the case, fast-moving ships (read: shield ships which generally have higher mobility) would take less damage than today, assuming they're moving, but sig tanked ships like Augorors and Megathrons would actually be killable in certain situations. Shield ships can use their higher mobility to protect themselves, armor tanks can use their superior sig. I haven't run the numbers on this, but it seems a reasonable way to balance this problem out. It would also mean frigates which are moving at MWD speed may not take damage at all, unlike today where a fleet can be stripped of their light frigates quite easily.
The above could also potentially help shield BS, which are all but useless right now, and battlecruisers, which are vulnerable due to their sig.
Lockbreakers are still in a bad place and won't see any usage.
It looks like the Nemesis is still completely awful PGU wise, at least it isn't the slowest to align anymore.
At the same time, the cloaking change doesn't really do anything other than make life miserable for everyone, including blops drops, cloaky gatecamps and other roles. |
oodell
Thunderwaffe Goonswarm Federation
12
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Posted - 2014.10.20 08:58:00 -
[2] - Quote
This doesn't solve any of the problems. It just makes bombers more annoying to use for everyone, and not much else.
I keep saying this: The biggest problems with bombs are due to their 100% tie to sig radius. Shield BS, battlecruisers, shield cruisers and MWD frigs all melt for this reason. The polar opposite of this is sig-tanked setups like ANI's which can tank an obscene (112) number of bombs with boosts and heat.
At the same time, I don't have much issue with a 50-man bomber fleet pulling off a well co-ordinated run against a megathron fleet today.
So here is what I would do:
*Add explosion velocity to bombs, like torps *Reduce explosion radius from 400 to say ~250 *Keep bomb HP like OP *Keep the slower align time like OP *Remove the cloak changes
With explosion velocity as a factor, more mobile ships have a better defense against bombs due to their higher speed, on top of being more difficult to hit in the first place due to ground zero being static after a fleetwarp is committed. Theoretically, shield ships are generally more mobile. Having MWD on might be a good option to mitigate bomb damage. Armor retains some of their advantage as sig is still a factor.
Obviously the damage formula would have to be carefully worked out, but that's the concept.
This will also reduce the number of target options a multiboxer can feasibly go after with a single squad, which is what the vast majority of them run. They could try to move to two squads, but this is much more difficult., expensive and logistically difficult. If you look at the kills multiboxers get, the vast majority of them are shield cruisers, destroyers and bc's, outside of single-target attacks.
The cloak changes are clunky and widely disliked. You say that bomb runs happened before and they will after this reversion, but that was before people adopted anti-bomber techniques like perimeter bubbles, pre-hic warpins and the like. Or even had the presence of mind to think bombers were on field. This change also severely hurts cloaky gate camps and blops drops. |
oodell
Thunderwaffe Goonswarm Federation
13
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Posted - 2014.10.20 18:34:00 -
[3] - Quote
You could also co-ordinate with other subcap fleets to web anchors down prior to a bomb run.
It would also buff void bombs a little bit, as shutting off prop mods would be very useful for increase bomb damage yield.
Maybe even webbing bombs?
Damage formula needs some work I think, the difference between the rokh and the mega is still a bit big in my opinion (although armor can still have some small advantage)
One thing that would be really nice to keep is the ability for bombers to ruthlessly exploit mistakes. That's something I really like with bombers and cloaky ships in general. Explosion velocity in the damage formula works towards that. If you mess up your insertion to the field (ie. don't use defensive hics or perimeter bubbles) you will be vulnerable while not moving. Also getting dragged unexpectedly or similar would have bigger consequences.
The other thing is, I don't think armor ships should be buffed at all versus today, so adding velocity will be tricky to balance. That's why I suggested dropping the explosion radius down from 400 to 250 or something to level the playing field a bit. This would apply higher damage to sig-tanked armor fleets to compensate for the buff they get from velocity. It shouldn't make much difference for shield fleets. |
oodell
Thunderwaffe Goonswarm Federation
13
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Posted - 2014.10.20 20:32:00 -
[4] - Quote
I would love for alphafleet and battlecruiser fleets to make a comeback, but it's not going to happen without some change to the damage formula. |
oodell
Thunderwaffe Goonswarm Federation
13
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Posted - 2014.10.20 21:08:00 -
[5] - Quote
I didn't even think of attack battlecruisers. It would be great to see them in nullsec again.
The cloak changes also go against the whole 'wait for a mistake' mentality. Today you can keep a bomber fleet on a jump bridge, or even 30km off a fighting fleet, waiting for them to change align, bubble themselves, turn on MWD or stop moving. You won't be able to do that decloaked, multiboxed or not. |
oodell
Thunderwaffe Goonswarm Federation
14
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Posted - 2014.10.20 22:15:00 -
[6] - Quote
Small groups of bombers are anathema to shield ships, particularly cruisers. That's true if it's one person multiboxing or a group of people in a fleet. The main advantage multiboxed bombers have is simply their ability to bring enough bombs very quickly without the logistical and setup mess of a group of people. If a multiboxer preloads this effort himself, well good for him. The cloak nerf makes setup and organization way worse for groups of people and slightly more annoying for a multiboxer.
The cloak change doesn't do anything to fix the problems with bombs against the vulnerable ships. Shield ships are broken against bombers to begin with, it just so happens that they're an easy and obvious target for multiboxers, since they can be nuked by a single squad fairly easily.
Rain6637 wrote:If you dislike the idea of ISBoxer, you should like this cloak change.
Wrong. Multiboxers already have to work around dozens of barriers, adding one more isn't going to change anything |
oodell
Thunderwaffe Goonswarm Federation
14
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Posted - 2014.10.20 22:33:00 -
[7] - Quote
Disagree on what? I just told you I can work around the cloak change. I'll just curse Fozzie every time I have to warp anywhere. It doesn't fix the root cause. |
oodell
Thunderwaffe Goonswarm Federation
15
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Posted - 2014.10.20 22:56:00 -
[8] - Quote
'throttling the density of cloakies in space' doesn't add anything for the amount it'll **** everyone off |
oodell
Thunderwaffe Goonswarm Federation
16
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Posted - 2014.10.23 19:09:06 -
[9] - Quote
It is a separate issue. A single squad of bombers, mulitboxed or not, devastate shield ships no matter how fast they are moving, or any other metric. A single squad (or even any reasonable number) of bombers are next to useless against Sig tanked ships like ANIs.
The root cause of the bomber imbalance is the 100% dependence on Sig in the damage formula. This is driving all doctrine development.
The cloak change might make it harder to land a run for less experienced FC's, but when it does land it'll still be maelstroms oracles and ruptures dying, not megathrons and armor cruisers. |
oodell
Thunderwaffe Goonswarm Federation
17
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Posted - 2014.10.28 23:57:21 -
[10] - Quote
glad to see the awful cloak thing go away, but we still won't be seeing alphafleet again anytime soon. |
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