Great post, Stitch. I agree wholeheartedly. My main problem with the Mael is the terrible align time and speed. Even the Praxis, which, according to CCP is the slowest ship in game, is faster.
This is half of my problem with EVE currently from a purely visual standpoint. The damn thing has 8 turret hard points, the Hyperion has 8, but only uses 7. Can we please stay fucking consistent with this. Add an additional High slot that isn't a hardpoint if you need to, but don't just remove turrets for the sake of balancing. Fiddle with bonuses and raw values, not the visual component of the game. Just something that really bugged me with the Hyperion in particular, seeing that missing turret is just stupid. Other than that, agree on most other points, you're spot on with removing a low and going all in on Shield tank, especially once you factor in the ROF bonus. Currently It's really hard to fit the ship to be as effective as a Hyperion given it's shield tank can be strong, but at the expense of its tackle options.
I think the maelstrom should get a slot layout like the macherial and have a similar use to it, as a cheap fleet fit. It already has one of the highest powergrids in the game, it has no issue fitting arties at all. The active rep bonus should go to the tempest as it is better suited to it with its 2 spare highs and fitting room.
My rule for fixing battleships, ive had this for years and its pretty simple at the core. 1 utility high or 5th midslot rule also the "5th midslot" rule changes if their are shieldtanked For instance, the mael needs 2-3 mids for tank. so like the abbadon, apoc, megathron and rokh it only has 4 usable mids Give all of these EITHER a "5th" midslot or a utility high. note the ships that are strong/fine atm. Hyperion, has 5 mids AND utility high (and that dank as fuck rep bonus) Armageddon. 2 utlity highs (and the ability to turn more into them, as its main damage is drones) Tempest, 2 utility highs AND a 5th mid dominix, drone OP. Typhoon. 5th mid and utility high Raven, utility high (and enough mids) The ships that struggle, or have no place, are ships with neither. u cant fit smartbombs, neuts, enough tackle, tank, or just a prop to avoid people getting under your guns. for solo its just painful, for smallgang you dont have the tools for the job, and for big fleet fights... this change will not hurt ships that ARE being used in such situations (a 5th mid or utility high would not ruin the arty baddon. tho if its a utility high it would lose some alpha, same situation for the maelstrom, however that can be offset by bonus's)
I think it really should be a dedicated gun platform centered around gang and fleet fights. Same with the Rohk, Baddon, and Hype, I think CCP was trying to make the tier 3 battleships dedicated ships of the line. What I'd do is give all the 8 gun battleships a 10% per level damage mod for high alpha. And a tracking or range mod after that. No rate of fire mods, long firing intervals allows some fun tricks while the guns are on cool down. Make alpha fleets great again.
Alpha fleets are already the dominant fleet style. The races all follow a similar trend: Amarr = More fleet orientated armor ships Caldari = More fleet orientated shield ships Gallente = More solo/small gang orientated armor ships Minmatar = More solo/small gang orientated shield ships This is further supported by the traits each race's ships consistently get: Amarr = armor resist (better for fleets) Caldari = shield resist (better for fleets) Gallente = armor rep bonus (better for solo or small gang) Minmatar = shield rep bonus (better for solo or small gang) There are of course exceptions, but those exceptions are typically specialized ships (like the claymore getting a shield resist bonus and the Eos getting an armor resist bonus) or it just happens to work better due to base T2 resistances (such as minmatar and the Muninn) The Hyperion is one of if not the best solo battleship and has very little use in fleets (armor rep bonus isn't useful there). It used to have 8 guns and different bonuses, but CCP changed it during the T1 battleship rebalance back in like 2013. There is no need to change it to a fleet ship and eliminate its role as a good solo/small gang ship. The Maelstrom should be Minmatar's version of the Hyperion. A strong brawler with utility and can actually use the shield boost bonus. Its current layout does not support that. It is still a mediocre artillery platform, but the tempest is not really that much behind it and has more flexibility and is cheaper. Also, you won't see CCP make insane alpha doctrines viable, because they completely negate logi and also can be used in things like suicide ganking. A 50% bonus to alpha on an 8 gun battleship would be nuts. You could easily get to 20k alpha. The only ship that can do that currently is the Vargur, which costs 2B+, we don't need that capability on something that cost 300-400m as they'll just be spammed everywhere (in and out of fleet fights). Expect every lowsec and nullsec gate camp populated by insta-lock webbing/tackle ships and 3-4 of these alpha maelstroms at range just deleting w/e they catch.
Just give the maelstrom more cpu Because in its current state its effectively a 6m4l ship because you almost always had to have one low slot for coprocessor
Adding only more CPU doesn't fix the main issues it has as a solo ship. It lacks the mids to get a proper tank, while retaining prop/tackle. Not having a utility high for neut pressure makes it really weak against all the cap stable battery ships that can tank 1k+ dps. Nuets are really important in the current meta as they can help stress active tanks, or neut off tackle to help you escape from blobs.
Feel like CCP consistently looks at Minmatar ships, in general, like the forgotten step-child. Fitting is horrid in comparison to the other factions and they don't offset it with more tank or dps. Speed is "supposed" to be part of the tank, but as you can see here, this battleship is the slowest... Its just as obvious in other tiers. Exception being the Loki which used to be king before the Nerf bat a few months ago. That was my pride and joy. #CCPlease return Team Rust to some sort of glory or at least equivalence.
Loki is still king, dude. People LOVE to fly it! Also imho Minmis are in a good spot. Amarr is absolutely underutilised. Basically non-existent in PVP apart from some enterprising individuals in speed tanked Zealots ...
@@StaK_1980 Agreed for sure. amarr are the ones with the short straw atm. leaves rooms for idjits like me to make meme fits. like a nomen style maller.. NOONE EXPECTS THE NONBRICKTANKED MALLER!
They used to be the most overpowered ships in the game, and yes the speed made that possible. What happened was autocannons got nerfed, Matari ships gained a bunch of inertia, other ships got faster, and tanks got much larger. Back in the day you barely had to have a tank, when you weren't speed tanking you were gyrostab tanking.
I love me some minmatar love. You put out great content and I'm thrilled every time you upload, even after however many years. Cheers, m8!
1:06 thats an epic scene
Great post, Stitch. I agree wholeheartedly. My main problem with the Mael is the terrible align time and speed. Even the Praxis, which, according to CCP is the slowest ship in game, is faster.
This is half of my problem with EVE currently from a purely visual standpoint. The damn thing has 8 turret hard points, the Hyperion has 8, but only uses 7.
Can we please stay fucking consistent with this. Add an additional High slot that isn't a hardpoint if you need to, but don't just remove turrets for the sake of balancing.
Fiddle with bonuses and raw values, not the visual component of the game.
Just something that really bugged me with the Hyperion in particular, seeing that missing turret is just stupid.
Other than that, agree on most other points, you're spot on with removing a low and going all in on Shield tank, especially once you factor in the ROF bonus.
Currently It's really hard to fit the ship to be as effective as a Hyperion given it's shield tank can be strong, but at the expense of its tackle options.
I think the maelstrom should get a slot layout like the macherial and have a similar use to it, as a cheap fleet fit. It already has one of the highest powergrids in the game, it has no issue fitting arties at all. The active rep bonus should go to the tempest as it is better suited to it with its 2 spare highs and fitting room.
My rule for fixing battleships, ive had this for years and its pretty simple at the core.
1 utility high or 5th midslot rule
also the "5th midslot" rule changes if their are shieldtanked
For instance, the mael needs 2-3 mids for tank. so like the abbadon, apoc, megathron and rokh it only has 4 usable mids
Give all of these EITHER a "5th" midslot or a utility high.
note the ships that are strong/fine atm.
Hyperion, has 5 mids AND utility high (and that dank as fuck rep bonus)
Armageddon. 2 utlity highs (and the ability to turn more into them, as its main damage is drones)
Tempest, 2 utility highs AND a 5th mid
dominix, drone OP.
Typhoon. 5th mid and utility high
Raven, utility high (and enough mids)
The ships that struggle, or have no place, are ships with neither. u cant fit smartbombs, neuts, enough tackle, tank, or just a prop to avoid people getting under your guns. for solo its just painful, for smallgang you dont have the tools for the job, and for big fleet fights... this change will not hurt ships that ARE being used in such situations (a 5th mid or utility high would not ruin the arty baddon. tho if its a utility high it would lose some alpha, same situation for the maelstrom, however that can be offset by bonus's)
I think there should be a major rebalance there (also: armageddon should be a Laser boat, not some drone /missile abomination... :( )
I think it really should be a dedicated gun platform centered around gang and fleet fights.
Same with the Rohk, Baddon, and Hype, I think CCP was trying to make the tier 3 battleships dedicated ships of the line.
What I'd do is give all the 8 gun battleships a 10% per level damage mod for high alpha.
And a tracking or range mod after that.
No rate of fire mods, long firing intervals allows some fun tricks while the guns are on cool down.
Make alpha fleets great again.
Alpha fleets are already the dominant fleet style.
The races all follow a similar trend:
Amarr = More fleet orientated armor ships
Caldari = More fleet orientated shield ships
Gallente = More solo/small gang orientated armor ships
Minmatar = More solo/small gang orientated shield ships
This is further supported by the traits each race's ships consistently get:
Amarr = armor resist (better for fleets)
Caldari = shield resist (better for fleets)
Gallente = armor rep bonus (better for solo or small gang)
Minmatar = shield rep bonus (better for solo or small gang)
There are of course exceptions, but those exceptions are typically specialized ships (like the claymore getting a shield resist bonus and the Eos getting an armor resist bonus) or it just happens to work better due to base T2 resistances (such as minmatar and the Muninn)
The Hyperion is one of if not the best solo battleship and has very little use in fleets (armor rep bonus isn't useful there). It used to have 8 guns and different bonuses, but CCP changed it during the T1 battleship rebalance back in like 2013. There is no need to change it to a fleet ship and eliminate its role as a good solo/small gang ship.
The Maelstrom should be Minmatar's version of the Hyperion. A strong brawler with utility and can actually use the shield boost bonus. Its current layout does not support that. It is still a mediocre artillery platform, but the tempest is not really that much behind it and has more flexibility and is cheaper.
Also, you won't see CCP make insane alpha doctrines viable, because they completely negate logi and also can be used in things like suicide ganking. A 50% bonus to alpha on an 8 gun battleship would be nuts. You could easily get to 20k alpha. The only ship that can do that currently is the Vargur, which costs 2B+, we don't need that capability on something that cost 300-400m as they'll just be spammed everywhere (in and out of fleet fights). Expect every lowsec and nullsec gate camp populated by insta-lock webbing/tackle ships and 3-4 of these alpha maelstroms at range just deleting w/e they catch.
Just give the maelstrom more cpu
Because in its current state its effectively a 6m4l ship because you almost always had to have one low slot for coprocessor
Adding only more CPU doesn't fix the main issues it has as a solo ship. It lacks the mids to get a proper tank, while retaining prop/tackle. Not having a utility high for neut pressure makes it really weak against all the cap stable battery ships that can tank 1k+ dps. Nuets are really important in the current meta as they can help stress active tanks, or neut off tackle to help you escape from blobs.
Feel like CCP consistently looks at Minmatar ships, in general, like the forgotten step-child. Fitting is horrid in comparison to the other factions and they don't offset it with more tank or dps. Speed is "supposed" to be part of the tank, but as you can see here, this battleship is the slowest... Its just as obvious in other tiers. Exception being the Loki which used to be king before the Nerf bat a few months ago. That was my pride and joy. #CCPlease return Team Rust to some sort of glory or at least equivalence.
Loki is still king mate.
Loki is still king, dude. People LOVE to fly it! Also imho Minmis are in a good spot. Amarr is absolutely underutilised. Basically non-existent in PVP apart from some enterprising individuals in speed tanked Zealots ...
@@StaK_1980 Agreed for sure. amarr are the ones with the short straw atm. leaves rooms for idjits like me to make meme fits. like a nomen style maller.. NOONE EXPECTS THE NONBRICKTANKED MALLER!
They used to be the most overpowered ships in the game, and yes the speed made that possible.
What happened was autocannons got nerfed, Matari ships gained a bunch of inertia, other ships got faster, and tanks got much larger.
Back in the day you barely had to have a tank, when you weren't speed tanking you were gyrostab tanking.
yeeeey
Ahh my first BS