Monday, December 10, 2012

Destroyers - The Shoe Horned Ship CLass



My favorite class of ships in game, I may have mentioned a few times in the past is cruisers. Cruisers contain a balance of DPS, speed and slots for tank or Ewar, Also relatively cheep. Retribution has breathed new life into that class, but there is one ship class I have always wanted to love that I feel is getting more and more boxed in, Destroyers. The out lining problem with destroyers, is that CCP tells you right out they are the ultimate frig killer, which can be damn true, but its like CCP is unconsciously driven to keep them just that. Destroyers in my opinion are the pour mans way of dealing with AFs, who’s extra tank while maintaining agility makes them even better frig killers and they can take on most above class ships as well. Destroyers are by far now the slowest pvp ship class besides battle ships and armor BCs. Cruisers now outpace them, with a little effort, frigs far outpace them, and AFs and BCs can reach close enough speeds that a dessy is likely not to escape. One additional problem is that everyone sees a destroyer, and usually try’s to avoid them with their frigates for dear life, because they know without thinking that you are there to kill them above all others. At least cruisers or AFs could be looking for any ship class, but the destroyers game plan is written all over their face.

Now with CCP Fozzies mission of teiracide, all ship classes are being broken down into specific "roles", but dessys roles are still only anti frigate and gank boat. We even just got handed a new set of four destroyers, but instead of making them fit another role, they made them fill the same role as the old ones, just using different weapon systems. In my opinion while I think the new dessys are fun, is kinda lame. That also brings us to T2 destroyers, CCP may claim they haven't got around to rebalancing the T2 versions yet, but I’m not 100% certain they will, since they seam to be shoehorned into being suicidal 0.0 SC bubblers and usually die in their own bubble. Not to mention costing a whopping 50 mil for about a Merlins EHP, and CCP seam ok with that role. Over all while dessys can shoot at bigger ships and win, and they do have great dps for a frigate sized ship, they are overall under used and lack vision.

A few ways I would try to liven up the destroyer class would be to first introduce roles, make the old Dessys faster with a little less DPs, and make the new ones tankyer with a bonus to some form of Ewar. Give the Algos a bonus to Ewar effectiveness of drones, the Talwar a bonus to web range, so it goes out to about 15kms, the Dragoon newt range out to about 15kms, and the Corax a big bonus to lock time or something. This will make the two roles a little more unique, but not really to far from the direction they where leaning anyway. Next Make the T2 interdictors have FULL T2 resists that their cruiser HAC versions have, one additional low or mid slot, and make their base stats more like that of the current destroyers. Next make a new Class of T2 Dessys based off the new destroyer models that can fit a single Warfair link modual, with a decent tank, Keeping their Ewar bonus, but reducing their damage output. This will Give frig gangs a link ship or two to take out on frig roams, without having to drag along a T3 cloaky cruiser. I think frig, and Dessy gangs deserve their own dedicated fleet command ship, so they can stay mobile and will also be able to survive on grid once CCP Fozzie fixes off grid boosting. Finally I wouldn’t mind a 3rd T1 dessy class similar to Tr3 Battle cruisrs, A dessy class able to fit 2 Medium guns, with low sig, low ehps, and 400% bonus to their weapon system damage, but a reduction in rate of fire, which should still make them mighty fine gank boats, but maybe not too OP. I’m not exactly sure what this class would be needed for, but just imagining a mini dreadnought makes me smile. Make Destroyers good at killign frigs, but dont make it their full tiem job.



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