Monday 8 April 2013

Eve: the battleship revamp

Amarr

Abaddon - unchanged

Apocalypse - cap use bonus replaced by a large laser tracking bonus. Gains grid and cpu. Loses tank, total cap and drone bandwidth, gains speed, sig, targeting range and cap recharge.

A really good deal for a ship that was already one of the best battleships. Expect Apoc-based doctrines to be popular in nullsec big fleet fights. Will be rough flying logi against these things (as logi rely on being hard to track to survive).

Armageddon - previous bonuses replaced by drone damage and hit points and neut/nos range bonus. Faction heavy neuts will reach 43.5 km. This takes the classic neut Domi and brings it back strong in an Amarr hull. This will be exceptional for small gang work - heavy neuts are beastly.
It also changes to a 5 launcher 5 turret set up so flexible with options for any gun or missile. I can see people using torpedos on these boats. Loses grid, gains CPU. Gains lots of tank, lots of cap, a huge drone bay upgrade and will be harder to jam. Penalised slightly on sig and speed.

I predict this will be one of the most popular battleships in low sec and high sec pvp. We may even see null fleets of geddons taking on slowcats by neuting and torpedoing them. Or blastergeddons!

Caldari

Rokh - unchanged

Raven - gaining a mid and losing a high, also gaining 1500 grid and 50 CPU.
Losing some tank and drones, gaining speed and sig radius bonus.

I'm unsure about this. A slightly faster slightly slimmer waddling duck is still a waddling duck. I don't know how much help the agility will be and whether it justifies losing the tank. Still we've also been told they'll try to improve Cruise missiles for Odyssey. Very nice to gain the mid, I guess that slot could be used to compensate for the reduced shields. Overall a definite buff.

Scorpion - gains a little tank and cap. In practice the use of this ship won't change much.

Gallente

Hyperion - gains a low, loses a mid which is very good for an armour tanking brawler. Promises of local armour tanking being revised at some point.

The real problem with the Hyperion is that buffer tank is just so much better at the moment in a fleet of any size. If I take out 20 dudes, some in battleships I'll probably have several logi ships (maybe t1). A ship with a +resists ship bonus boosts their reps and this ship, with its bonus to self-repping, doesn't boost the logi. And if it's fit for local tank then it doesn't have enough buffer to last long enough when shot by a dozen comparable ships. So it only works in very small gang and in Eve a small gang is usually bait for a larger one.

Megathron - gains a mid and loses a low. The idea is to support creative fits like dual prop (hell, we may even see triple prop MJD MWD AB megas get used). Its bonus to large hybrid damage is changed to large hybrid rate of fire, a slight buff (as reducing the speed of each volley to 75% is a greater than 25% damage buff). It loses one heavy drone and some armour but gains speed sig, cap and a little bit of shield.

Not overall a great deal for the Mega, it's likely to remain rarely used.

Dominix. Loses its hybrid gun bonus for a bonus to drone optimal and tracking. Gains a ton of tank and some cap, but it's fatter and heavier. Really good times ahead for this popular ship. We may also see alternative turrets being used ie projectile or laser turrets since the ship no longer prefers a certain type.

Minmatar

Maelstrom. Unchanged.

Tempest. Gains grid, a ton of tank, cap, targeting range and sensor strength. Sig penalty. A great ship just got a lot better.

Typhoon. Ship bonuses will be missile rof (unchanged) and explosion velocity (replaces projectile rof bonus). Loses a high, gains a mid, adds a launcher slot for an underwhelming total of  launchers. Gains cpu, tank, cap, agility, targeting sensor strength. Drones reduced, sig penalised.

It's an improvement to take it away from split weapons and it's picked up some small buffs. Maybe some people will prefer it to the Raven, especially if they want to armour tank it. We'll need to see the mentioned cruise missile and armour changes to properly evaluate this ship.

2 comments:

  1. With regard to the Mega, a 25% ROF Bonus increases damage by 33.3% whereas the prior (ie: current) damage bonus increased damage by 25%, hence a 8.333% damage buff, at least until you have to reload.

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