Domination on The Ebon Hawk is now a farce

[Nemarus]

Yet more proof of the fact that the best matches when it comes to GSF will always have few (if any) bombers or gunships in them. Because then it becomes what everybody always wanted to see: dogfighting. Not people playing snipers in gunships, and not people acting like engineers in TF2 letting their automated sentries doing all the work for them when up against a bomber.

 

Whether others agree with you or not, please try not to derail this thread with broader topics.

 

This thread is about Seismic and Interdiction Minelayers, and nothing else.

 

No amount of soapboxing is going to make the devs suddenly remove all Bombers and Gunships.

 

But targeted, measured feedback, with mathematical evidence, may get the devs to make desperately needed balance changes to the most egregious problems.

 

More posts does not make better.

[-Streven-]

I realize that the traditional scout approach to sat circlers has been to swoop around the sat in close range high speed pursuit. However, unless you are trying to maximize the sex appeal of your flight pattern to barn swallows, that has never been the best solution to sat humpers except on C in Lost Shipyards.

 

The effective way to clobber sat circlers is to take two or more ships with medium or long range weapons, and do a pincher maneuver in the vertical plane. Do it correctly, and the sat circler will always be in the field of fire of either the top side group or bottom side group of your sat clearing team. Fin weaving can still make missile locks a pain, but it doesn't do much good against blasters and railguns.

 

Mind you, I'm not disputing that it's a disproportionately large pain in the rear to dislodge a swarm of minelayers, but with C at Lost Shipyards a possible exception, some of you have been exaggerating the impossibility of doing it with anything other than an equal swarm of minelayers. Maybe even exaggerating the difficulty.

 

As far as the lack of oomph from the anti-mine components, I'd fully agree that they could use a buff. Standoff range and length of effect seem to be the most common requests. Not sure that lingering effects would be easy to work out balance wise though. I'd start with a hefty buff to range/radius, say 10-30% and then work from there.

 

"Damn the torpedoes. ... go ahead. ... full speed.", has never been a particularly wise approach to dealing with minefields for those that are explosion averse. They are supposed to hurt if you fly into them.

 

*Edit

As a primarily strike fighter pilot I sort of feel like scouts and gunships 'normal' flying styles aren't well suited to dealing with mined sats. Basically, I've been going vertical on humped sats since about a week after early access for subscribers started, so I don't normally run into mines on my strikes. Hop, in my scouts, and it does happen, but it happens 'cause I'm derping along in scout mode rather than flying intelligently. Usually kissing a mine or two is enough to wake me up and start thinking again, at which point they're no longer a problem.

 

*Edit some more

 

What bombers really do from my view, is slow down clearing a sat to the point that it's relatively easy to reinforce the sat faster than it can be cleared. Spread out all the nodes by another 20 - 50 km and I probably wouldn't be bothered by them at all because the reinforcements would arrive too late. I guess you'd have to triple the length of the matches or something too. So bad solution, but I think time to flip node is actually much more of a problem than scouts using a LemmingsTM approach to mine clearing.

 

This, this, and so much of THIS! I'm mildly shocked that anyone flies into mines. They glow big and red. When you see a minefield you should slow down and shoot the mines. HLCs pop mines in one shoot from 6900m away. Quad lasers can do it from 5600m away. Once the mines are gone engage the poop bandit and take him out. Every time he poops shoot the mine first then continue ramming lasers up his tail pipe.

 

Anyone who flies close to a satellite when a bomber is present has some serious lack of tactical problem solving skills.

 

I do agree that the real issue with bombers in domination is the amount of time it takes to clear them out. You usually can't finish the job without his backup arriving first to run you off. Go ahead and nerf bombers but if people would figure out how to deal with them in general, they wouldn't be nearly so dominate in domination maps. .

[Armonddd]

This, this, and so much of THIS! I'm mildly shocked that anyone flies into mines. They glow big and red. When you see a minefield you should slow down and shoot the mines. HLCs pop mines in one shoot from 6900m away. Quad lasers can do it from 5600m away.

 

What scout uses HLCs or quads these days?

 

More importantly, what scout can shoot mines from the other side of the satellite?

 

Once the mines are gone engage the poop bandit and take him out. Every time he poops shoot the mine first then continue ramming lasers up his tail pipe.

 

And in the meantime, he's stalling you -- and stalling means winning in domination.

 

Anyone who flies close to a satellite when a bomber is present has some serious lack of tactical problem solving skills.

 

So we're being punished for playing the objectives in an objectives-based format, and that's not a bad thing?

 

...Seriously?

 

I do agree that the real issue with bombers in domination is the amount of time it takes to clear them out. You usually can't finish the job without his backup arriving first to run you off. Go ahead and nerf bombers but if people would figure out how to deal with them in general, they wouldn't be nearly so dominate in domination maps.

 

You can't simply "deal with them in general". They head for a satellite, and they take it. If they don't actually flip it for their team, they cause massive amounts of disruption, often requiring two or three enemies to abandon their other fights and objectives to deal with the bombers.

 

A bomber on a point is, quite simply, unreasonably powerful. This is partly due to the fact that his weapons are overpowered, and partly due to the fact that sitting on a node is an ideal tactical position that requires zero skill to recognize or take advantage of. Say what you will about gunships, but finding a vantage point that's both out of the way and gives a clear view of the battle isn't always easy. Bombers, though? Just go sit on the point (which you're required to do anyway) and lol as your buttons kill everything.

[tunewalker]

simple fix.... make capture radius 6km-8km. Edited April 15, 2014 by tunewalker

[Morgrid]

Alas, recently in another post on these forums, I described my build--someone on my server saw the post and quickly spread word of the build to the rest of the server.

 

And now Shayd, you see why I never talked about what build I used on my bomber?

 

Alas, I'm going to write up a nice long reply to this, but the gist of it is going to boil down to "people need to step outside of their comfort zone".

[Morgrid]

simple fix.... make capture radius 6km-8km.

 

Another simple fix: Make Interdiction mines a secondary weapon.

[Verain]

I see the type 2 battle scout class forums have isolated the next problem: a bomber on a node cannot be trivially soloed with skill laser cannons alone.

 

Clearly, since bombers already dominate the traditional scout roles:

 

Bombers move effortlessly between nodes.

Bombers have two missile breaks, like scouts.

Bombers have excellent maneuverability.

Bombers have amazing speed.

Bombers dominate at turn fights.

Bombers dominate at unpredictable burst damage.

 

 

Given all that, it's too much that a bomber can pop two mines on a node, and, if a type 2 battle scout happens to be asleep there, might actually bleed his own blood. If only there was some method to move away from a mine. If it perhaps had an onset time, or less than 10k explosion radius, you know, any of those.

 

 

 

 

Keep being upset, because as long as you've broken down the math on seismic and interdiction mines to "more than my hull", the only obvious conclusion is that the devs were incapable of adding these two numbers together and comparing the resultant sum to the hull of the type 2 battle scout. Since type 2 scouts can't get 29% damage reduction from armor and crewman (which works fully on mine damage), and can't take 20% extra health- in fact, the poor battle scout has NO OPTION but to gear fully for dogfighting supremacy with evasion stuff at all times. Since he has no other choice, he should obviously be super amazing at bombers despite having chosen to literally choose every single option to be as poor as possible.

 

 

And definitely the idea that maybe bombers are supposed to have a role in this game- something that is currently limited entirely to holding nodes- should be given no consideration.

[Llama-Eight]

What scout uses HLCs or quads these days?

 

More importantly, what scout can shoot mines from the other side of the satellite?

To me, this comes off as a complaint that you can't take on any given scenario in a particular ship/build. Maybe you should switch your Sting/FF's BLCs out to Quads? You'll be a lot more effective against mines.

[Kalphitis]

And definitely the idea that maybe bombers are supposed to have a role in this game- something that is currently limited entirely to holding nodes- should be given no consideration.

 

Just because the bomber may be designed to hold nodes, doesn't mean it should have the discrepancies being discussed in this post. Bombers with concussion/seismic mines can hold satellites fine -- so why should somebody be able to choose interdiction/seismic instead for a significantly better advantage?

 

What you said Verain, is like saying "The Gunship was made to shoot targets at long distance, stop whining about it being overpowered." Well, yes, I agree -- but that didn't change the fact that one of its components was overpowered and has since been adjusted (and rightfully so).

 

Just like the Ion railgun, Seismic currently goes too far and needs toned down a bit.

[tunewalker]

Actually I dont know that seismic needs a tone down, as much as EMP weapons need a boost up. Currently no one takes these to become competitive they only do 180 damage (i know what the tool tip says, but i have never ever seen a fighter/bomber/gunship or anything save turrets take that level of damage from them so I refuse to say they do damage that simply put they dont do. Its not armor either as EMP is supposed to have 100% armor pen) Also they only lock out 1 mine and only for 15 seconds. The long lock time + laughable damage and debuff is why no one really takes EMP missiles if they want to be competitive.

 

 

Example: you could hit 8 people with an EMP missile and still only do 960 damage, thats less overall damage then any other missile at that range and lock time. Ion's litterally obliterate shields and Concussive hit for 1k. EMP same range assume ALL of your enemy group up to insane close distance and you manage to get a 3 second lock on time with out getting blown to bits and your reward.... still less damage then any other missile at that range and a minor anoyance to the enemy that will soon be gone.

Edited April 15, 2014 by tunewalker

[Armonddd]

To me, this comes off as a complaint that you can't take on any given scenario in a particular ship/build. Maybe you should switch your Sting/FF's BLCs out to Quads? You'll be a lot more effective against mines.

 

At the cost of doing extremely little to anything else in the game, yeah.

 

I don't mind when different lasers have different specialties, but the problem is that quad laser cannons and just plain regular laser cannons need a lot of support to provide anything near the level of firepower I need to do my job (which is, by definition of the scout chassis, to kill things dead quickly). That means I need to take rocket pods and targeting telemetry/blaster overcharge. Doing so means giving up booster recharge, which means I have to take barrel roll if I want any semblance of mobility.

 

That build was viable before 2.7, even though I hated it. Compared to a build with BLCs and booster recharge, it has more burst damage with cooldowns (and a lot less without), significantly less dogfighting capability (which is what I play this game for), and less than a third the mobility. Blackbolts can run a similar build, but because they have access to S/E converter, they lack mobility. Again, though, they're simply poor at fighting around any form of cover, which includes all objectives.

 

With the barrel roll nerf, there's just no reason to play it anymore, which means we're back to bombers hard countering scouts with very little effort or skill involved.

 

I would be almost OK with bombers being able to kill me with little chance of retaliation if it were hard to do so. As it is, these siege engines pick a point and I have to either burst them down before they get there (which is pretty hard and practically requires a crit streak), or I simply abandon that point. I can't use the range advantage from quads to pick off mines and then go for the bomber; either he's going to start shooting me with HLCs (which, against a scout, land a kill in about two and a half seconds, or about half the time it takes the scout to kill the bomber), or he's going to circle the satellite and stall until he gets his mines back, which resets the situation except his team now has more points.

 

You can't just say "oh, take different lasers and your problems will be solved". Changing laser choices on a T2 scout, with the exception of switching between RFLs and lights (which you shouldn't be doing), is a major decision that significantly impacts your playstyle and, thus, effectiveness.

 

Quads are pretty good at shooting mines out in the open and give you a range advantage when assaulting a point, sure; that doesn't mean they're good at shooting the bomber laying mines on the point. Scouts simply have no viable counters to a bomber that knows what he's doing.

[Akoga]

I see the type 2 battle scout class forums have isolated the next problem: a bomber on a node cannot be trivially soloed with skill laser cannons alone.

......

 

This guy gets it.

 

The game has evolved, try to keep pace.

[Armonddd]

This guy gets it.

 

The game has evolved, try to keep pace.

 

Way to ignore the whole thread and only read the guy who ignored half the thread.

[Akoga]

Way to ignore the whole thread and only read the guy who ignored half the thread.

 

I read the whole thread. The gist is that people feel bombers are overpowered . I disagree with that. I feel the people complaining are most likely playing a ship and spec that is an an inherent disadvantage to bombers. I for example have no issues with bombers when I play them because I shoot their mines and find them to be tough to kill but balanced.

[Eldrenath]

The one thing that I was going to keep my sub for in SWTOR once ESO came out was GSF. Bombers came out, made it drastically less fun, and my sub is now cancelled (I don't say this to open a discussion about ESO--I like it some do, others don't, I don't care about that. I'm talking about GSF here). Sure, I very well might come back to SWTOR in the future, it's a good game with a lot going for it. But were it not for bombers I'd have kept my sub active just to play GSF a few times a week. My favorite game style by far is domination, and it's simply not fun for me with bombers in the game.

 

I know some people like them, that's fine. And I was able to deal with bombers (I was no master but was able to compete with them by changing tactics, different builds, etc). But in addition to the imbalance described here, they just make the game dynamic much less fun in domination in my opinion. I play games to have fun, period. So, sub cancelled. As I said, I very well might come back to SWTOR--but if I do, I will not participate in GSF at all if it is in any way like it is now. It just isn't fun for me.

Edited April 15, 2014 by Eldrenath

[Zoom_VI]

I read the whole thread. The gist is that people feel bombers are overpowered . I disagree with that. I feel the people complaining are most likely playing a ship and spec that is an an inherent disadvantage to bombers. I for example have no issues with bombers when I play them because I shoot their mines and find them to be tough to kill but balanced.

 

This would be a valid counter argument if we could change our loadout once we see the opposition, however we can't. The way it is now we are making blind guesses. If my scout uses BLC and I get a match against a bunch of bombers I'm going to hate myself for 10 mins, and if I go quads and get a match against a bunch of scouts and strikes I'm going to hate myself.

 

Basically we could just flip a quarter when the queue pops, and if we get heads we will enjoy the match and if we get tails we are going to hate life for ten minutes.

 

The reason this compliant primarily comes from scouts, is scouts get the short end of the stick when it comes to this because we don't get any versatility within a build, we are not like bombers and gunships where one prototypical build can cover nearly all opponents, nor are we like strikes where we can carry different weapons for different situations, in the end scouts are stuck with a situation where we are either super-effective or almost useless depending in the opposing team's composition. That gets old fast.

 

Seriously RPS balance being used by GSF sucks, not that the RPS is imbalanced, but it just sucks in terms of QoL.

[dailus]

This would be a valid counter argument if we could change our loadout once we see the opposition, however we can't. The way it is now we are making blind guesses. If my scout uses BLC and I get a match against a bunch of bombers I'm going to hate myself for 10 mins, and if I go quads and get a match against a bunch of scouts and strikes I'm going to hate myself.

 

Basically we could just flip a quarter when the queue pops, and if we get heads we will enjoy the match and if we get tails we are going to hate life for ten minutes.

 

The reason this compliant primarily comes from scouts, is scouts get the short end of the stick when it comes to this because we don't get any versatility within a build, we are not like bombers and gunships where one prototypical build can cover nearly all opponents, nor are we like strikes where we can carry different weapons for different situations, in the end scouts are stuck with a situation where we are either super-effective or almost useless depending in the opposing team's composition. That gets old fast.

 

Seriously RPS balance being used by GSF sucks, not that the RPS is imbalanced, but it just sucks in terms of QoL.

 

I dont mean to offend, but maybe you need to branch out your selection of ships a bit more. I really dont care to pilot gunships or bomber so I run 2 scouts, and 2 strike fighters and select the ship based on the game mode and the group make up of the opposing team. If loadouts could be changed you could still have the same issues because the opposing team can change ships mid battle.

[Nemarus]

I see the type 2 battle scout class forums have isolated the next problem: a bomber on a node cannot be trivially soloed with skill laser cannons alone.

 

Clearly, since bombers already dominate the traditional scout roles:

 

Bombers move effortlessly between nodes.

Bombers have two missile breaks, like scouts.

Bombers have excellent maneuverability.

Bombers have amazing speed.

Bombers dominate at turn fights.

Bombers dominate at unpredictable burst damage.

 

 

Given all that, it's too much that a bomber can pop two mines on a node, and, if a type 2 battle scout happens to be asleep there, might actually bleed his own blood. If only there was some method to move away from a mine. If it perhaps had an onset time, or less than 10k explosion radius, you know, any of those.

 

 

 

 

Keep being upset, because as long as you've broken down the math on seismic and interdiction mines to "more than my hull", the only obvious conclusion is that the devs were incapable of adding these two numbers together and comparing the resultant sum to the hull of the type 2 battle scout. Since type 2 scouts can't get 29% damage reduction from armor and crewman (which works fully on mine damage), and can't take 20% extra health- in fact, the poor battle scout has NO OPTION but to gear fully for dogfighting supremacy with evasion stuff at all times. Since he has no other choice, he should obviously be super amazing at bombers despite having chosen to literally choose every single option to be as poor as possible.

 

 

And definitely the idea that maybe bombers are supposed to have a role in this game- something that is currently limited entirely to holding nodes- should be given no consideration.

 

OP here. It was my fault for starting my post with the data vs. Scouts. I should've known you'd get turned off by that and reply without fully absorbing the rest.

 

For what it's worth, I am no Battle Scout pilot. I mastered it well before 2.6 and took it off my readied ships list, and it's never come back. I made many forum posts declaring them to be overpowered, and I was thrilled that Bombers shut down their dominance in Domination, and I have no issue if Bombers, in general, continue to hinder T2 Scouts--I know that if there were no Bombers, T2 Scouts with BLC's would once again rule Domination, because they're still broken. I am more concerned about T1 Scouts though--not because I play them in Domination (I don't)--but because it's one of the two ships new pilots are stuck with.

 

My concern is that this particular Bomber build (not ALL Bomber builds) is overpowered against everything, such that the best (and in some cases only) viable counter against it is itself (in Domination).

 

But anyway, I am legitimately curious how you feel about the rest of my post, so here it is again but with all reference to Scouts stripped out.

 

Every competitive Domination match on my server is now won by whichever side fields more of these (or a slight variation thereof).

 

The key component of this build is the combination of Seismic and Interdiction mines, both of which deal direct hull damage. Stock, these two mines deal 895 AOE hull damage every 20 seconds (every 15 seconds with a T1 upgrade to each mine). That will kill all other mines and drones on a satellite, and will leave everything that survived slowed by 50% for 15 seconds.

 

Fully upgraded, the two mines deal 1107 AOE hull damage every 15 seconds. Imagine a weapon that you don't have to aim, which hits every enemy near a satellite with a proton torpedo every 15 seconds. And if they don't have significant armor, it's as if the proton torpedo crit. That's what the Seismic/Interdiction combo effectively does.

 

After 2 volleys (which can occur in a burst window of anywhere from 3-18 seconds depending on initial detonation vs. cooldown), all mines, drones, Strikes and Gunships--even if they build for armor--will be dead. Using deflection armor and hydrospanner, Strikes and Gunships can get just enough hull points to survive 2 volleys. Otherwise, the only other ship class that can survive 2 volleys is another Bomber.

 

One of these Bombers can be countered--with difficulty--by a single Imperium with highly upgraded Repair Probes, EMP Missile, and Deflection Armor.

 

Two of these Bombers can only be countered by two of these Bombers. Nothing else has the hull points and damage reduction to survive.

 

This isn't opinion. It's math. There's no effective counter to so much burst AOE hull damage (those three modifiers strung together should tell you something is wrong here). EMP Missile/Field will shut down the Interdiction Mine for a while, reducing the damage by just over a third. But even then ... the Seismic Mines continue to flow. And if there are two Bombers, two Seismic Mines every 15 seconds is still enough to kill anyone on the node very fast.

 

I did the calculations back just before 2.6 released. I've played this Bomber since then, 3-capping with ease. This isn't just a defensive ship--it's a great node-taker too. Overcharged Shields and armor-piercing HLC rounds let me quickly clear the turrets from a node on approach. Then I slip amongst the fins and start dropping my mines. At that point, it's only a matter of time before all of the node's defenders are dead. I call this build the Siege Engine, because it's not about skill--it's just about time. If defenders don't stop me before I get under the node (which is hard given Overcharge Shield + Engine to Shield Converter), it's over.

 

Sure, defenders may chase me around the node. And when 2.6 first came out, the vast majority of Bombers were Dronecarriers with drones and Seeker Mines--but the Seismic/Interdiction Bomber has no fear of those. Between Overcharged Shields and Engine-to-Shield Converter, I had no problem absorbing normal shield damage as I LOS-kited around the satellite and waited for my mine volleys to clear out all the defenders. Even slight shield-piercing is no concern, considering Bomber has best-in-game hull/armor. Of course, you know who doesn't have a problem keeping sustained damage on me, while ignoring all of my shields? Someone flying the same Bomber.

 

Gunships with Ion Railguns can be a nuisance, but it would take three of them working in close coordination to keep sustained LOS on me. And anyway, if three Gunships are having to counter one Bomber, that's more than a fair trade for my team. Even if I couldn't capture the third node for my team, I could always keep enough pressure on it that the enemy had to focus on defending the one node they had.

 

So I exploited this build to great effect since 2.6. I got bored occasionally and would fly my other ships, which I'd mastered before 2.6, but I soon realized it was about ten times easier to win a Domination match if I just kept flying my Razorwire--even before it was fully upgraded. Plus I enjoyed shutting down all the Dronecarriers and Battle Scouts, and I liked that I was helping my guild and PUG teams have more fun. With me single-handedly ensuring we had one node, my teammates could fly what they wanted and not worry as much about working hard to win Domination.

 

Alas, recently in another post on these forums, I described my build--someone on my server saw the post and quickly spread word of the build to the rest of the server. Now tons of people on The Ebon Hawk are using it. Honestly, I don't know why it took so long for others to figure out how broken this build is, but now they know, and Pandora's box has been opened.

 

As a result, Domination on The Ebon Hawk is now purely about who brings the most of these Bombers out to play. Some people try slight variations on the build, using Charged Plating for example (this is mainly to help survive the Seismic and Interdiction Mines from other enemy Bombers of this type). But ultimately it's simply numbers that determine which team wins. If you have more Seismic/Interdiction Minelayers, your team is very likely going to win.

 

I'm sure people will say, "Just use more Strikes with EMP" or "attack Bombers from long range". Yes, those should be the counters, but they do not work in practice. Several ace pilots using highly upgraded ships and VOIP coordination can occasionally counter one or two these Bombers with great effort. The problem is that the same skill and coordination is not required of the Bomber pilots. I'm an ace on my server--one of the best 5 pilots easily--but I can go on derp-mode when flying one of these things. And even I have trouble trying to counter one when flying any other type of ship (and believe me I've tried them all). Either way, the best counter to one of these Bombers is another one. The best counter to two of them is two of them. The best counter to three of them is three of them, and so on.

 

The worst part is that new pilots have absolutely no chance against these things. <redacted> and Rycers/Starguards are powerless against this Bomber build. I've seen many matches where a new pilot dutifully goes toward the satellite to try to help his team, dies, and then says in chat, "I don't understand!" "I just keep dying before I can do anything!" "This is stupid." The Rycer/Starguard has neither EMP Missile nor an Armor component. It is fodder.

 

The crux of the issue with this Bomber build is that the best defense against Seismic/Interdiction Mines is high hull points and armor. And which ship has highest hull points and most armor? The Bomber. This, combined with the fact that the Bomber doesn't need LOS to damage others on the node and ignores shields, is a large contributing factor as to why this Bomber is its own best counter.

 

So what are some quick fixes that could help mitigate this situation? Here's some suggestions, in order of simplest to most ambitious:

 

 

Potential Seismic Mine Fixes

 

1) Increase cooldown of Seismic Mine to 60 seconds, 40 seconds upgraded

This would allow Seismic Mines to continue to be dangerous deterrents, but it would make it harder for you to use them for node-clearing. It would also make the choice between them and Seeker Mines more interesting (I know that Seeker Mines already have the "advantages" of wider radius and up to 3 deployable mines, but neither of those really come into play very often in combat--the trigger/explosion radius of non-Seeker mines is plenty, and most mines are triggered shortly after being deployed, making multiple deployable mines not useful).

 

2) Make Seismic Mine only damage the fighter that triggered it

Part of the problem right now is that even if you are careful when near a node and fly smartly to avoid the mines, all it takes is one person on your team to mess up and trigger the mine, and everyone near the satellite takes the damage. This change would limit the damage to the person who triggered the mine. It would also allow superior numbers to more easily deal with these Bombers (as opposed to right now, where having superior numbers just adds more targets for the AOE hull damage).

 

3) Make mines deal damage to the Bomber that deployed them

To be clear, I am not saying mine damage should affect allies--that would allow griefing. I'm saying a Bomber should be vulnerable to its own mines. This would make it so that once a Bomber has mined an area, it needs to stay out of the area until those mines go off, or else eat the damage. Honestly, this change alone probably wouldn't fix the problem, but it'd help make minelaying a bit more thoughtful.

 

4) Make Seismic Mine damage distributed across all targets caught in the blast

If a Seismic Mine hits one target, it deals 565 damage. If it hits two targets, each suffers 283 hull damage. If it hits three targets, each suffers 188 hull damage, and so on. This would allow the Seismic Minelayer to remain a strong defense against 1 or 2 ships, but its effectiveness would fall off the more enemy ships that are attacking/defending the node.

 

5) Create some interference mechanic that prevents mine stacking

This would be tricky, but basically prevent mines from being placed too close together--even mines from different Bombers. This would make it so that multiple Bombers do not stack effectiveness so efficiently.

 

 

Potential Interdiction Mine Fixes

 

1) Change hull damage to normal damage, increase amount

Honestly, I'm not sure why Interdiction Mines deal hull damage. And I don't see how BioWare did not anticipate that Interdiction + Seismic would result in burst hull damage capable of effectively "two shotting" Strikes and Gunships. Plus Interdiction Mines' slow debuff is already very powerful. They should do comparable damage to Concussion Mines, without any shield piercing (they get the Interdiction effects instead). Make them subject to the same deployment limits as Concussion Mines. Basically make the choice between Concussion Mines, Interdiction Mines and Ion Mines interesting--right now anyone who can read a tooltip and who has ever played a Bomber knows Interdiction Mines are massively superior due to their dealing hull damage.

 

2) Increase cooldown to 60 seconds, 40 seconds upgraded

If the Interdiction Mines continue doing direct AOE hull damage, then their cooldown needs to be increased. But honestly, they really should not do hull damage. Letting them do hull damage just makes them way too superior to Concussion or Ion Mines, especially since you can combo them with Seismic Mines for 1107 AOE burst hull damage.

 

 

Other Possible Fixes

 

1) Make EMP Weapons create a long-lasting field in which mines cannot be triggered

Given how long it takes to fire an EMP Missile, the effect needs to be much more dramatic. Disabling a System is just not going to cut it, especially against multiple Bombers who can still deploy Seismic Mines as normal. Instead, EMP Weapons should create an effect that destroys all current mines and prevents mines from being triggered and drones from targeting for at least 30 seconds. If someone is going to devote an entire Secondary Weapon to an anti-Bomber weapon that does very little damage, then that weapon needs to be a HARD COUNTER to all Bombers, not a slight inconvenience.

 

2) EXTEND SATELLITE CAPTURE RANGE

I've asked for this since October closed beta, so I doubt it's going to happen ... but if the capture range for satellites were double or triple what it is now, this problem would be much less severe. Multiple Bombers could still mine a satellite thoroughly, but it would at least take coordination to cover the whole capture zone. Plus Strikes would have a bit more breathing room to chase and harass the Bombers without being having to be in the mine zone. Plus this change would just allow more true dogfighting at the satellite, instead of so much sat circling, and it would make more of the Domination maps relevant to who actually wins, instead of them being window dressing you see in the background as you sat-circle.

 

I know that making any post about balance is going to invite criticism, both thoughtful and inane. All I will say is that I bring this criticism as someone who has been exploiting and abusing the power of this Bomber build since 2.6 launched. I've enjoyed my easy wins, and I felt justified in getting them because I'd come up with this build on my own, after careful theorycrafting.

 

But now droves of pilots are using it on my server--not because they derived it themselves, but because it was the hot topic of discussion on the [Gsf] channel one night. And this mass-use has created a wall of unplayability for new pilots stuck in the starter ships. It's reducing the fun and variety for veterans, and its making new pilots stop flying altogether. It's dramatically reduced the viability of Strikes, Gunships and other Bomber builds in Domination.

 

I implore BioWare to at least take a look.

 

In the mean time, I will keep trying to find other counters to this build, but ultimately the math is pretty unrelenting. It's just too much burst AOE hull damage against ships that don' t have that much hull or armor. In Deathmatch you can avoid it, but in Domination the rules of the game dictate where you have to be to win.

 

So what are your thoughts, Verain? Just ignore Armondd for a bit and talk to me. I'd really like to have a legit conversation.

Edited April 15, 2014 by Nemarus

[Zoom_VI]

I dont mean to offend, but maybe you need to branch out your selection of ships a bit more. I really dont care to pilot gunships or bomber so I run 2 scouts, and 2 strike fighters and select the ship based on the game mode and the group make up of the opposing team. If loadouts could be changed you could still have the same issues because the opposing team can change ships mid battle.

 

I do fly other ships, however I do not enjoy doing so.

 

Also it seems rather clear that the devs intended players to only have one of each type of ship, which means one loadout, the ability to take a cartel variant is a extra bonus, but should not be considered a fix.

 

Also I think the devs thought that players would happily play different ships all the time, and somehow failed to realize that most players stop playing other ships once they find the one ship that fits them the best.

[Zoom_VI]

For the love of all that is holy can people please stop quoting the OP, that thing is like a mile long.

[Verain]

Bombers with concussion/seismic mines can hold satellites fine

 

Scouts with light laser cannon can shoot just fine.

 

 

Of course interdiction mines are situationally better. You can place one less mine at a time, and it does damage direct to hull- like a third as much as a concussion mine does.

 

-- so why should somebody be able to choose interdiction/seismic instead for a significantly better advantage?

 

Interdiction and seismic are clearly meant to work together to deal direct hull damage on demand, and a lot of it. Generally, a good idea is to not be close to the mines in a ship you carefully selected and built to be terrible at mines.

 

Just like the Ion railgun, Seismic currently goes too far and needs toned down a bit.

 

Seismic can't lose much damage before a dual explosion of seismic + interdiction doesn't two shot a scout. Since this appears to be the primary threat of bombers, I can't really get behind that.

 

I could get behind ion mines being buffed, though.

 

 

Actually I dont know that seismic needs a tone down, as much as EMP weapons need a boost up.

 

EMP does need to be improved in both cases. While the radius of ship mangling is appropriate, the radius of mine sweeping needs to be dramatically increased- likely doubled. This is mostly because the mine aoe range is right about equal to the scout's EMP range, and then there's the small matter of dealing with the entire rest of everything. Given the short duration of mine cooldowns, the EMP radius could be raised to 6km for this. I've posted this as a 6km red blast for mines and a 3km blue blast that does what the current one now to ships.

 

 

I'd like to see that before we delete the bombers as the rest of the thread begs for.

 

Another simple fix: Make Interdiction mines a secondary weapon.

 

Do you understand that this is like saying "delete them"? Of course you do. You think you are being clever. "hee hee this way I'll totally mess up anyone who bought both seismic and interdiction. Now he'll have a 0 req lesser mine, and he won't be able to deal hull damage twice to my scout. And of course interdiction mines aren't as powerful as seismic mines so no one will pick them and all that req will be wasted. And the dev "mistake" where they never realized that bombers can hurt scouts will be fixed, and the game can be peeling Xed battle scouts out from under nodes for ever and ever"

 

 

 

At the cost of doing extremely little to anything else in the game, yeah.

 

The bomber seems to have made that choice by selecting bomber. He's not generically useful, he's very focused.

 

If you pick the dogfightiest ship in the game, and then the lowest range weapon in the game instead of a medium range weapon that strikes outside the mine range, and then companions that don't help with mines, and a hull that doesn't help with mines, and as a result of all of those decisions you suck at mines? That's a good thing.

 

 

 

I would be almost OK with bombers being able to kill me with little chance of retaliation if it were hard to do so. As it is, these siege engines pick a point and I have to either burst them down before they get there (which is pretty hard and practically requires a crit streak), or I simply abandon that point.

 

 

The fact that entrenched bombers have no effective mine counter is a bit of an issue. But you know who needs to be poor versus bombers? Type 2 scouts. If you can burst one on his way to the node, solid. That's a massive weakness of the class, and one no other class shares.

 

Pretend that you COULD get them off the node. So the bomber picks his bomber, does boost until nearly empty, recharges out of los and sensor range, and then finally charges the node. You pick him up, boost to him, and shoot him nearly to death through all his cooldowns. He gets to the node and sets up the ineffectual mines you and your ilk would leave him with, and then you kill him dead all by yourself.

 

 

WHY would he have EVER taken the bomber in the first place? Off the node he was helpless. On the node, under what you want, you have a fair chance at beating him. You don't deserve a fair chance at beating a minelayer on a node, you have every other advantage. If you had a fair shot at beating him once he got to the node, why not just be a battle scout in the first place?

 

 

 

You also chose the ship worst at bombers. Since this is a team game, you and a friend can burst the bomber down while he and his friend can't stop you. Or you could be on a bomber as well. Or you could have a bomber on the node and attack the enemy bomber. Or you could be a gunship and when your friends tell you bombers are coming, try to nail them with an ion railgun. Or you could be a clarion running repair probes and charged plating and be able to help a team at a node. Or you could be a type 1 scout with thermite torpedo and be able to hit the bomber with that from out of his range. Or you could call for help, because the bomber has defenses, but very little offense.

 

 

You have every option, yet you are choosing to try to get them nerfed into uselessness. Yes, they are dominant on a node. That's their job. They get to be better at it than you.

 

 

Way to ignore the whole thread and only read the guy who ignored half the thread.

 

Sadly, I summarized the thread.

 

 

 

 

Look, I think the boy bomber- the minelayer- is simply the best ship in the game at node defense. It's NOT fair. But it clearly isn't INTENDED to be. My only gripe is that what is probably intended as a counter- the EMP- is worthless against them. Buff that to actually be able to clear a minefield (I 100% assure you, ships with EMP are hard fail against minefields) and then you'll have specialized weapons that neutralize them long enough for them to be yanked out.

 

Nodes are meant to be a goal of the team. It's fundamentally ok if a bomber- or more than one- need a team effort to peel out.

 

 

The other question I have is, where's the other ships? I'm very glad that shield ignoring mines brush off the type 2 scouts, but where are the charged plating type 3 strikes, and the gunships, and your OWN bombers? If you can't win with a bunch of 2 shippers nosing around the map running into rocks, that sounds intended, though frustrating to be grouped with them.

Edited April 15, 2014 by Verain

[Nemarus]

Sadly, I summarized the thread.

 

The other question I have is, where's the other ships? I'm very glad that shield ignoring mines brush off the type 2 scouts, but where are the charged plating type 3 strikes, and the gunships, and your OWN bombers? If you can't win with a bunch of 2 shippers nosing around the map running into rocks, that sounds intended, though frustrating to be grouped with them.

 

You may have summarized the soapboxers who replied, but you did NOT read or parse the original post.

 

For the love of the Force, read my original post and stop debating with an OCD Type 2 Scout addict.

 

Type 3 Strikes do not work as counters. Gunships do not work as counters. EMP do not work as counters.

 

If you get more than one of these things on a node, NO ONE--not Strikes, not Gunships, not Dronecarriers--can get close to the node, and LOS prevents EVERYONE from killing them. The only recourse then is to bring the same Bomber as a counter, which is precisely why Domination on The Ebon Hawk has collapsed into elephant mode.

Edited April 15, 2014 by Nemarus

[Verain]

OP here. It was my fault for starting my post with the data vs. Scouts. I should've known you'd get turned off by that and reply without fully absorbing the rest.

 

 

It's not that, it's the rest of the thread is clearly that.

 

 

 

First, you have an compare to proton torps. Protorps ignore armor. None of the mines do, though. Armor is HUGE. Most ships refuse to wear it- they assume those components are WRONG, and then they complain about mines. A battle scout can reduce mine damage by a third. Two strike fighters by over 90%, one of which can heal.

 

 

It also makes having a bomber or two on your team pretty much necessary. I think this is a good thing too. I wouldn't mind some changes made to punish teams that stack bombers a bit beyond what is reasonable, nor would I mind seeing the EMP field changed to actually be useful against a minefield (currently it's a deathwish to use it).

 

There's no effective counter to so much burst AOE hull damage

 

Besides reducing it by a third to 90% with choices, or simply not being on a node. It's not BURST damage dude- you have to fly close to a mine, it doesn't drag you over to it. That's "standing on a trap" not burst damage.

 

Bombers are visible and slow. Mines have an arming time and a sound effect.

 

 

I've played this Bomber since then, 3-capping with ease.

 

If you play the game well, you'll do well. If your team never takes bombers, your bomber will be wildly valuable, moreso than normal.

 

Someone on your team should want to play the bomber. Since the bomber is slow, can't turn, can't escape missiles and has weapons you have to opt into in order for them to damage you, guess what? They need to be solid at the area denial that they do.

 

 

"The worst part is that new pilots have absolutely no chance against these things"

 

New pilots have absolutely no chance against any thing. They float like winged ham sandwiches, waiting to be eaten. The fact that they are helpless against a bomber makes them worthless to be paired with, but they are worthless against pretty much everything already.

 

And to a degree, this is an issue. Starting with two niche ships only is a poor way for pilots to be treated this far in the game. But even if you gave them decent ships, it wouldn't matter too much. I mean, the boy bomber costs 2500 and the girl bomber 5000. The boy bomber is just a couple games away for a new pilot. But yet there are always two ships. And they wouldn't take the damage reduction hull or whatever anyway- even the good pilots in this thread make like four component choices that suck against bombers and then want to be good against bombers.

 

 

" Increase cooldown of Seismic Mine to 60 seconds, 40 seconds upgraded"

-> Delete bombers, terrible idea, no.

 

" Make Seismic Mine only damage the fighter that triggered it"

-> YOU should be the one triggering your seismic mine. You watch enemies who are in range of the blast but not the trigger, and then lay a new one. The old one detonates, hurting him and his friends. The devs have confirmed this is intended. It's also the most cool thing about even playing the bomber.

 

"Make mines deal damage to the Bomber that deployed them"

-> Delete bombers, terrible idea

 

"Make Seismic Mine damage distributed across all targets caught in the blast"

-> No, those who clump should be punished. Saber lash makes no sense in reality. Groups of enemy pilots will trivialize the bomber role.

 

"Create some interference mechanic that prevents mine stacking"

-> This could be ok if it was interference between two allied bombers. Double Razorwire at a node is probably a bit too good.

 

 

I'd be much happier if the EMP fields just did their damned job. The dev silence on this is, I think, the only really puzzling thing. I play bombers and an EMP scout and I don't fear EMP scouts in the slightest on my bombers (they are lucky to hit me with their aoe emp without dying), and they often can't even hit both mines on a node without triggering one (almost dying) and EMPing the other. This is very poor for a component whose intended purpose includes this, and the mine destroying (not system disabling or engine disabling) part should be greatly increased in efficiency.

[Nizzemancer]

While I'm nowhere the best pilot, I'm normally between middle and 3rd place total while playing, today I played a game where the entire opposing team spammed mines like this and I ended up bottom 3.

 

another thing I noticed when I managed to lure a bomber away from the cap point and into a dogfight was that it turned around just as fast as me, and I've specced for faster turn. Bombers are indeed OP.

 

This is on Red Eclipse btw.

[Verain]

Type 3 Strikes do not work as counters. Gunships do not work as counters. EMP do not work as counters.

 

A solo gunship doesn't peel a node, but two do. Type 3 strikes really do help a lot. I wouldn't call them a hard counter, but they can snipe mines with quads, detonate some with charged plating up, chase the bomber around the node and heal allies who fly in and out hitting the bomber.

 

EMP needs buffs.

 

If you get more than one of these things on a node, NO ONE--not Strikes, not Gunships, not Dronecarriers--can get close to the node, and LOS prevents EVERYONE from killing them. The only recourse then is to bring the same Bomber as a counter

 

Bring one ion gunship, one minelayer, and one scout. The ion gunship opens and clears mines, the minelayer and scout go in. The gunship can stay beneath the node normally, and this forces the minelayer to the top, where the scout can harass as he has inadequate LOS. The gunship needs to shoot an ion at ANYTHING nearby the moment it deploys but before it arms- I'm almost positive this does no damage to the hulls of the allies. This 3:1 rapidly kills the enemy minelayer, who has a long respawn compared to scouts or gunships. The friendly minelayer holds the node and the other two are free to return to the action. This even works if the enemy minelayer is being defended by another ship, in some cases, but it absolutely shreds him if alone.

 

 

Many variations of teamwork also work to rapidly remove a minelayer before help can arrive.

Edited April 15, 2014 by Verain