Domination on The Ebon Hawk is now a farce

[FridgeLM]

We KNOW what would happen if bombers couldn't hurt the other ships- no one would play them.

 

In addition, under this scenario, literally everybody would fly a battle scout if they wanted to be competitive at all just like the bad old days.

 

Verain's right.

Edited April 25, 2014 by FridgeLM

[Armonddd]

Bombers need to solo you on a node. You can solo them anywhere else, right? It's their one job. You just want them to not have it.

 

I hope you realize why this is not a legitimate way to balance a game.

 

That so many players can cry about this but can't be arsed to take the 29% reduction generally available to them is of course also hilarious.

 

That 29% actually does nothing to increase survivability. Do the math, or check the other thread where I did the math for you.

 

In addition, under this scenario, literally everybody would fly a battle scout if they wanted to be competitive at all just like the bad old days.

 

Verain's right.

 

No, as is unfortunately becoming the norm, he's not. There are plenty of things a bomber could do to support his team without hurting other ships. There are plenty of things a bomber could do to support his team by hurting other ships without killing them. Hell, there's plenty a bomber could do to support his team if all he had were HLCs. Verain, unfortunately, has decided that the support role means "I should be able to blow everything up", when that is in fact the damage role. From there he has, apparently, decided to be blind to all the ways a bomber could fulfill an actual support role -- things like what the Clarion and Bloodmark do.

 

And even if we follow his ridiculous hyperbole and suppose that no one ever flies a bomber, there's still plenty of appropriate builds on the other eight classes of ships. It wouldn't be just battle scouts, and it never was just battle scouts.

[Armonddd]

Incorrect. You see, shields regenerate- quite rapidly, in fact. Mines by their nature hit once every cooldown cycle. If the mines actually cleared your shields from both sides guaranteed, the next mines would be hitting around a 600 shield, almost 800 with turbo reactor, and around 700 with regeneration. The mine would have to be able to chew through all that shield and THEN do the hull damage.

 

If you had quick charge shields? The shields would regen in about four seconds with F2 active.

 

Uh, no. Six seconds of regen on a Starguard with QC and power to shields is 248 regen. Throw on a turbo reactor and you're looking at 99 regen during the "recently consumed" time frame and 302 for the next 1.4 seconds. Neither of those are anywhere near enough to fill a 1440 pool, and after 15 seconds they would be over a thousand even without a shield component. All of your numbers are wrong, and of course assume that you're fighting at a satellite with no turrets and no backup for either side.

 

Because the bursts of damage are SO infrequent and can even be triggered at whichever time is optimum for the blastee, the mines have to do hull damage, or they are bad.

 

Yeah, no. When you're circling a satellite on a bomber, you are in control. You get to decide when the damage pops out, and everyone else on the satellite just gets to deal with it. Sure, they can count the cooldown to predict when the mines will come out, but you don't have to use them on cooldown. Sure, you can try blowing them up as they come out... but half the time the game decides that even though the damage flytext shows up and the kill announcement pops up and the devs have explicitly stated that destroyed mines do no damage despite the explosion graphic, you blow up anyway.

 

The problem here is that in this world, a bomber is bad on a node, because he can't kill anything at all ever.

 

Support does not mean you get to kill everything. Support means you, you know, support your allies. That can be either by softening up targets (which shield damage seismics would be good at, since they hit everything on the node) or actually supporting allies (the way the command ships do).

 

And I hope you NEVER get to design this game, or scouts or whatever won't be able to score a kill without "NPC turrets and your allies lasers".

 

Way to assumptions, bro.

 

Mines need to make an area DEADLY. Not just turn your shields warmer colors. Every request like this is just such a thinly veiled class deletion demand that it's honestly ludicrous. We KNOW what would happen if bombers couldn't hurt the other ships- no one would play them.

 

The only sentence in this paragraph that isn't a contradiction is the thesis, which is an opinion stated as fact (or alternatively an incorrect statement of fact).

 

Turning shields warmer colors is deadly. Against everything that isn't a bomber or, in some cases, a gunship, warm shields means you are in danger of dying you need to fly defensively right now or you will be shot down.

 

Shield damage mines would still do hull damage, in cast you didn't realize. If the target had low shields, it would do more than just turning shields warmer colors.

 

Claiming "delete delete delete" when no one is saying anything like that is really getting old.

 

No one has ever made the claim that bombers should not be able to hurt other ships. Talking about what would happen in that scenario is contradictory to the rest of your paragraph, and also ignores all the support bombers could give without firing a single shot.

 

A bomber puts his mines on nodes. If you are dying to them, try flying anywhere that isn't where the mine is. Then the mine doesn't do damage to you.

 

You are literally suggesting that people throw the match to try to counter bombers.

 

There is a massive difference between a ship that can deny an area- with a massive windup, I might add- and a ship that just runs around gibbing people.

 

Right. We have the latter (on both bombers and gunships), and we're asking for the former (we'll let the gunships keep their gibbing for purposes of this thread).

 

"Out of 120,000 cubic kilometers, this 100 cubic km range was just SO TEMPTING I just HAD TO FLY IN THERE AND DIE welp better head to the forums and post in all the threads where we cry endlessly about bombers!"

 

382 km^3 trigger for upgraded seekers, 268 km^3 trigger for stock seekers, 14 km^3 trigger for stock mines, 33.5 km^3 trigger for upgraded mines + blast radius of stock mines, 65.4 km^3 blast radius of upgraded mines, 113 km^3 blast radius of stock seismics, 178 km^3 blast radius of upgraded seismics, and probably around 3,000 km^3 of viable combat space in a domination match.

 

Be better at math.

[KcirSirrah]

I have no freaking idea why you all are hating on the bomber so dang much. The bomber is a very lethal ship, I will give you that; but ONLY if you gear it right. All of these suggestions I have heard are insane. One person mentions reducing a bomber's flight and burst speed so it takes longer for us to reach a node???? It already takes an insane amount of time to reach a node for a bomber. This post in my opinion was created by the OP for the sole purpose of whining and complaining because he gets his butt destroyed whenever he is playing GSF. If you want to get better play more and upgrade your ship. A bombers mines are useless when a GS can sit 15000 meters off and slug rail them to oblivion. Not to mention while he is doing that, the bomber has to worry about you little mosquito scouts and your 4 second lock on missiles.

[Nemarus]

In addition, under this scenario, literally everybody would fly a battle scout if they wanted to be competitive at all just like the bad old days.

 

Verain's right.

 

Verain's a troll and is not interested in reasonable discourse or accurate math. He deals primarily in absolutes.

 

However, you are right that the "bad old days" were in fact very bad, and BLC Battle Scouts ruined Domination at least as much as SIM's do now. That being said, I think with SIM's, we've thrown out the baby with the Battle Scouts. Do we really want to say that a Strike is not allowed to get close to a node if a SIM is there? Or worse, do we want to say that a Strike and Gunship have to leave a node its team owns as soon as a SIM gets under the satellite?

 

I think Bombers are perfectly able at creating Scout-exclusion zones using Concussion and Seeker Mines. Let's look at the math.

 

The notorious Distorfion Field BLC Battle Scout has 1170 Shields and 950 Hull. A Seeker Mine upgraded does 882 straight damage. A Concussion Mine upgraded for extra hull damage does 950 damage to shields or 1095 to Hull, with 20% shield piercing.

 

So let's say a Bomber drops both a Seeker Mine and a Concussion Mine, and then a DF BLC Scout "body pulls" into them.

 

The Seeker Mine will hit first due to its wider radius. It brings the Scout's shields down to 288 on the front arc.

 

Then the Concussion Mine hits. First 20% of its base damage (I'm being conservative) goes straight to hull. That's 190, bringing the Battle Scout down to 760 hull. Then 760 damage hits the Scout's shields. The shields reduce 288 of that. The rest is multiplied by 1.16 (because of the hull damage upgrade) for a total of 548 hull damage, leaving the Scout with 212 hull.

 

The Scout has no shields on one arc and 212 hull left. It can be destroyed by just about anything. If the Scout takes Directional Shield, it will fair better and take only minor hull damage, and indeed it could then retreat for a moment and regen its shields--and during that time they are vulnerable to other foes, such as Gunships, Drones, Strikes, and even the Minelayer itself.

 

The nice thing is that Strikes, which are meant to be significantly more hardy than Scouts, and which are meant to be able to engage a variety of ranges, could endure at the satellite for a much longer time without having to retreat. This would give them the versatility which is supposed to be their specialty.

 

Plus that above thought experiment assumed we get rid of Seismics and Interdictions completely. What if they were just adjusted to me more anti-Scout focused? Take Interdiction Mines for example. Make their damage not shield piercing, bump it to an amount equivalent with Concussion Mines, and then--in addition to its existing massive mobility debuff--add a massive Evasion penalty (like -20%). That specifically targets Scouts and would leave them effectively sitting ducks for 15 seconds. Turrets, allies, or the Minelayer itself could take them out.

 

Seismic Mines could still deal massive (shield affected) damage, maybe with significant (but not total) shield piercing. And in addition, they could massively reduce enemy accuracy or prevent missile locks for a time.

 

That's what support is supposed to be. I do some damage, but more than that I debuff the enemy or buff allies in order to turn the tide of the battle our way. And the nice thing about debuffs and buffs is that, assuming they dont' stack, you reduce the overall efficiency of Bomber stacking and you encourage a wider variety of ships to be used.

 

In short--I fully agree that Bombers should remain a hard counter to Scouts. But they should do so in such a way that they are not a hard counter to everything else that doesn't run Charged Plating (against which they are still a significant challenge).

 

And by the way, don't even bother replying Verain. I already know what you're going to say. I don't even care at this point. I'm talking to all of the others who are interested in discussion and reasonable debate.

Edited April 25, 2014 by Nemarus

[Nemarus]

I have no freaking idea why you all are hating on the bomber so dang much. The bomber is a very lethal ship, I will give you that; but ONLY if you gear it right. All of these suggestions I have heard are insane. One person mentions reducing a bomber's flight and burst speed so it takes longer for us to reach a node???? It already takes an insane amount of time to reach a node for a bomber. This post in my opinion was created by the OP for the sole purpose of whining and complaining because he gets his butt destroyed whenever he is playing GSF. If you want to get better play more and upgrade your ship. A bombers mines are useless when a GS can sit 15000 meters off and slug rail them to oblivion. Not to mention while he is doing that, the bomber has to worry about you little mosquito scouts and your 4 second lock on missiles.

 

Maybe you should learn to read my OP. I "geared the Bomber right" the moment 2.6 shipped and I abused that build for several months, winning every Domination match handily. Then I posted what I was flying and now my whole server does it, and Domination is now ridiculous.

 

And the fact that Bombers are comparatively impotent unless built a specific way indicates a balance issue one way or another. Either Seismic and Interdiction Mines are overpowered, or everything else is underpowered. We know the developers do not intend for a ship to have only one viable build--that much is not up for debate.

[KcirSirrah]

But what you are clamoring for is a nerf due to one build being a pain in your butt. I run all 3 bombers on the Imperial side and I have to tell you it is insane for a bomber to fly until they get their upgrades into at least T3 where they will finally be able to hold their own for their team. I have no idea how many times when I first started out playing the bomber how many times I got killed by a GS or scout as I was flying that slower than molasses in winter time ship to the fight. But now that bombers have a build that is showing we wont lie down and just fly a scout or sf or gs you all want to whine and complain. Like I said before, if you don't like the bomber sitting at the node then go destroy him. It is not very hard if you do it right.

 

I also just noticed what your underlying issue is. You are in Eclipse Squadron. Your guild has delusions of grandure and think you all are hot to trot in gsf. That is until Aimbot, Swansea, Rhodogast, Mae'thon, and Tolgid come in and hand your behinds to you.

Edited April 25, 2014 by KcirSirrah

[Sidenti]

*sips scotch*

 

This is just amazing stuff. Well done, forum jousters!

Edited April 25, 2014 by Sidenti

[Armonddd]

In short--I fully agree that Bombers should remain a hard counter to Scouts. But they should do so in such a way that they are not a hard counter to everything else that doesn't run Charged Plating (against which they are still a significant challenge).

 

I feel like the game shouldn't have hard counters to anything -- hard counter being, in the original SSB meaning, "this combo kills you regardless of anything you try to do".

 

I do not support the kind of rock-paper-scissors balance hard counters inherently create.

 

So let's say a Bomber drops both a Seeker Mine and a Concussion Mine, and then a DF BLC Scout "body pulls" into them.

 

The Seeker Mine will hit first due to its wider radius. It brings the Scout's shields down to 288 on the front arc.

 

As a side note, I wonder if it'd be possible to fly in at the right speed and angle and get hit by the conc first?

 

But what you are clamoring for is a nerf due to one build being a pain in your butt.

 

It's really more a nerf because there's no viable counter.

 

I run all 3 bombers on the Imperial side and I have to tell you it is insane for a bomber to fly until they get their upgrades into at least T3 where they will finally be able to hold their own for their team.

 

I tell you what: I'll go try that with one bomber (I have no intention of playing the inferior bomber or paying irl money for the third) and tell you how hard it is. My impside character hasn't touched them, I think.

 

Ok, done. Lasers and mines are T3, charged plating and engines are T2, large reactor is T3, everything else is unimportant.

 

See how silly this argument is?

 

Like I said before, if you don't like the bomber sitting at the node then go destroy him. It is not very hard if you do it right.

 

I know a number of aces that have been trying since the patch landed to figure out how to blow up a half-decent bomber on the node without exposing themselves to massive damage. There's really not been very much progress on that front.

 

I also just noticed what your underlying issue is. You are in Eclipse Squadron. Your guild has delusions of grandure and think you all are hot to trot in gsf. That is until Aimbot, Swansea, Rhodogast, Mae'thon, and Tolgid come in and hand your behinds to you.

 

Ad hominem doesn't help you any, especially when all of those people also play impside with the guild groups.

 

And, of course, our pub characters have all lost at least as many battles against Eclipse Squad as we've won.

Edited April 25, 2014 by Armonddd

[dailus]

Then I posted what I was flying and now my whole server does it, and Domination is now ridiculous.

 

This is a complete exaggeration. I play daily and I play both sides and it has been rare that things have gone completely lopsided. Are matches sometimes challeging? Yes, but for a variety of reasons, players skill, mismatched matchmaking, group make up. Saying that one particular bomber build is making domination matches a farce, now that is ridiculous.

Edited April 25, 2014 by dailus

[Armonddd]

This is a complete exaggeration. I play daily and I play both sides and it has been rare that things have gone completely lopsided. Are matches sometimes challeging? Yes, but for a variety of reasons, players skill, mismaiched matchmaking, group make up. Saying that one particular bomber build is making domination matches a farce, now that is ridiculous.

 

Your experience and mine have been completely different. It's rare that I find a domination match without at least a couple of these bombers.

[FridgeLM]

Verain's a troll and is not interested in reasonable discourse or accurate math. He deals primarily in absolutes.

 

However, you are right that the "bad old days" were in fact very bad, and BLC Battle Scouts ruined Domination at least as much as SIM's do now. That being said, I think with SIM's, we've thrown out the baby with the Battle Scouts. Do we really want to say that a Strike is not allowed to get close to a node if a SIM is there? Or worse, do we want to say that a Strike and Gunship have to leave a node its team owns as soon as a SIM gets under the satellite?

 

I've read his posts and other than a penchant for hyperbole that I can identify with, I don't agree with your assessment.

 

Battle scout era was objectively far, far worse to play in for anyone who didn't want to fly a battle scout. Why? Because battle scouts (and gunships) were the only ships worth flying. Why? Because battle scouts are the kings of sudden burst damage and had defenses that were too good. Their defenses got nerfed, which is good, but that did nothing to their completely ludicrous damage output.

 

What's keeping them from running roughshod over the meta? Bombers. Specifically, minelayers. There's a far, far greater variety of ships being flown (by pilots who know what they're doing) in the current meta than before, and it's because the threat of mines keeps battle scouts more under control.

 

To your question re: mines working to deny areas to other ship types - I've not felt nearly as threatened by mines on a strike fighter as on a (speed) scout. Their damage output is not significant enough to genuinely threaten a build like my Quell's before I can kill them. So I don't accept your premise that the very presence of a seismic mine - by itself - is enough to discourage a decent strike pilot from approaching a node.

 

Here's how I feel about the mines available: Seismic and concussion mines are fine. Seekers and ions are trash and should be buffed if they're to be competitive with alternate choices (main reason I consider the drone carrier to be an inferior bomber is how ineffectual seeker mines are to anything but scouts, and even scouts aren't hurt too badly by the mine alone). I could be persuaded that interdiction mines provide too much damage for the CC they also provide - I don't run them myself, prefer concussion for the +1 default cap.

Edited April 25, 2014 by FridgeLM

[Zoom_VI]

Maybe you should learn to read my OP. I "geared the Bomber right" the moment 2.6 shipped and I abused that build for several months, winning every Domination match handily. Then I posted what I was flying and now my whole server does it, and Domination is now ridiculous.

 

To be fair you where not the only person that had that idea, I proposed the interdiction/sesmic build in Jung Ma's pilot channel, but it was shot down because zomg drones, and has a scout pilot myself I didn't bother pursuing it.

[Nemarus]

I've read his posts and other than a penchant for hyperbole that I can identify with, I don't agree with your assessment.

 

Battle scout era was objectively far, far worse to play in for anyone who didn't want to fly a battle scout. Why? Because battle scouts (and gunships) were the only ships worth flying. Why? Because battle scouts are the kings of sudden burst damage and had defenses that were too good. Their defenses got nerfed, which is good, but that did nothing to their completely ludicrous damage output.

 

What's keeping them from running roughshod over the meta? Bombers. Specifically, minelayers. There's a far, far greater variety of ships being flown (by pilots who know what they're doing) in the current meta than before, and it's because the threat of mines keeps battle scouts more under control.

 

To your question re: mines working to deny areas to other ship types - I've not felt nearly as threatened by mines on a strike fighter as on a (speed) scout. Their damage output is not significant enough to genuinely threaten a build like my Quell's before I can kill them. So I don't accept your premise that the very presence of a seismic mine - by itself - is enough to discourage a decent strike pilot from approaching a node.

 

Here's how I feel about the mines available: Seismic and concussion mines are fine. Seekers and ions are trash and should be buffed if they're to be competitive with alternate choices (main reason I consider the drone carrier to be an inferior bomber is how ineffectual seeker mines are to anything but scouts, and even scouts aren't hurt too badly by the mine alone). I could be persuaded that interdiction mines provide too much damage for the CC they also provide - I don't run them myself, prefer concussion for the +1 default cap.

 

A fair and reasonable post--thank you for contributing positively to the discussion

 

I will say that it's been my experience that the "+1 cap" upgrades are usually not worth much, since when you're under threat all mines detonate shortly after being deployed. The only time you're able to build up a field of multiple mines is if your node isn't under attack for a while ... and if that's happening it usually means the match is not a competitive one anyway.

 

And I think Concussion Mines are naturally not as good at synergizing with Seismic Mines because in most cases, the Concussion Mine is just hitting shield, and the Seismic Mine is only hitting hull. I tend to think that to optimize, you either need to combine two mines that both do straight damage (affected by shields), so that one takes out the shields and then one hits the hull with full force; or otherwise take mines that both do hull damage (which I think ends up being overpowered right now)

[Zoom_VI]

I've read his posts and other than a penchant for hyperbole that I can identify with, I don't agree with your assessment.

 

Battle scout era was objectively far, far worse to play in for anyone who didn't want to fly a battle scout. Why? Because battle scouts (and gunships) were the only ships worth flying. Why? Because battle scouts are the kings of sudden burst damage and had defenses that were too good. Their defenses got nerfed, which is good, but that did nothing to their completely ludicrous damage output.

 

What's keeping them from running roughshod over the meta? Bombers. Specifically, minelayers. There's a far, far greater variety of ships being flown (by pilots who know what they're doing) in the current meta than before, and it's because the threat of mines keeps battle scouts more under control.

 

To your question re: mines working to deny areas to other ship types - I've not felt nearly as threatened by mines on a strike fighter as on a (speed) scout. Their damage output is not significant enough to genuinely threaten a build like my Quell's before I can kill them. So I don't accept your premise that the very presence of a seismic mine - by itself - is enough to discourage a decent strike pilot from approaching a node.

 

Here's how I feel about the mines available: Seismic and concussion mines are fine. Seekers and ions are trash and should be buffed if they're to be competitive with alternate choices (main reason I consider the drone carrier to be an inferior bomber is how ineffectual seeker mines are to anything but scouts, and even scouts aren't hurt too badly by the mine alone). I could be persuaded that interdiction mines provide too much damage for the CC they also provide - I don't run them myself, prefer concussion for the +1 default cap.

 

You realize that because A happened before B, that does not mean A caused B?

 

The reason Battle Scouts ran over everything in 2.5 is because of three things, the first was how potent evasion was, the second was dominion was the only game mode in town and since bombers where not around the best way to win dominion was melee snubfighting.

 

As long as bombers exist battle scouts will not ruin the meta, you could half bomber's effectiveness and bombers would still tone down Battle scouts.

[Nemarus]

To be fair you where not the only person that had that idea, I proposed the interdiction/sesmic build in Jung Ma's pilot channel, but it was shot down because zomg drones, and has a scout pilot myself I didn't bother pursuing it.

 

I don't claim to be the only one. Simairi on my server was doing it from the start, and I believe Imperius was fielding one as well when he wasn't flying his Droner.

 

And honestly, dealing with one of them was never too bad. It's the recent trend of pairs stacking on each node that is the problem, especially for new pilots stuck in T1 Scouts and Strikes, which are pretty much fodder for them.

[Nemarus]

 

I also just noticed what your underlying issue is. You are in Eclipse Squadron. Your guild has delusions of grandure and think you all are hot to trot in gsf. That is until Aimbot, Swansea, Rhodogast, Mae'thon, and Tolgid come in and hand your behinds to you.

 

I'm friends with all of them, actually. I urged Aimbot to come to our server. I fly with him and Swansea whenever I'm on pubside. I fly with Kelril (Rhodogast) often when he comes Imperial side. Mae'thon is in my guild with his Imperial alt. Tolgid I've only had a match or two against, but he and I have exchanged mutual compliments several times.

 

And more than that, many of them have actually weighed in on this thread in support of my OP comments:

 

Here's what Aimbot had to say on the matter:

 

We call that build a "Press 1 to win" build. It's disgusting. There's no reason to have something with so much imbalance in the game at all. YOU LITERALLY CANT DO ANYTHING AGAINST THEM while they're circling, holding the node, and being annoying. Any strike / scout is asking for it. And GS is gonna get pissed wasting his time. Any bomber will.... well, there isn't a whole lot of deep thinking from the mind of a bomber (a jest, but as the build name implies, it doesn't take much thought to lay a mine and blow it up). Dominations aren't fun when it's like that. I prefer to actually engage in combat, not watch someone circle something where I can hit it at all, and none of my teammates can pull the bomber off (and as a GS, I shouldn't be anywhere near a node anyways)

 

And Mae'thon has been in the thread consistently, but here's one of his early replies:

 

Also don't see why seismics need 100% shield piercing. They're basically dumbfire protorps with massive area denial capabilities... in exchange for about a third the range, which is ok because you don't need huge range with area denial.

 

Rhodogast initially proposed that Charged Plating was a viable counter, and we've discussed that possibility. But even he has put forth:

 

I know you've touched on this in in-game conversations, but making seismics and interdiction mines be limited ammo, comparable to protorp quantities (or even fewer), would seem to be an obvious solution. It also makes ammo refill suddenly much more interesting.

 

Rhodogast / Kelril

 

As for Swansea, he hasn't commented in this thread, but when he first arrived on the server, he had no ship even readied except for his Flashfire. Then he got shut down in Domination by my Seismic/Interdiction Bomber and decided to build a Razorwire himself. The irony is that he was going to use Seekers and Concussion Mines before I told him he wasn't using the optimal build.

 

And here's some other TEH pilots--all Republic aces--who have commented on the thread to agree with me:

 

Itkovian:

Agreed. The issue here isn't that they can't be killed, but that they are extremely effective at their role while requiring almost no skill to use effectively (its mostly down to knowing how to LOS the gunships). Meanwhile, they require extensive skill to dislodge, so there is a massive disparity in skill required.

 

All in all, the suggestions for Seismic/Interdiction mine seem most sensible, particularly the Interdiction one (it is astounding that they do direct hull damage, quite frankly, given their primary effect).

 

An excellent post as always, Nem.

 

Rhint:

A well-reasoned approach to an interesting problem, Nem.

 

 

This has NOTHING to do with factions or guilds. The ace community on TEH are pretty close and friendly with each other, and most of us at least moonlight on the opposite side from time to time.

 

And most of us aren't even flying these ships because 1) winning or losing is not as important to us as having fun, 2) these ships are boring to fly once the "OOH WOW BOOM EASYKILLS!" glow wears off, and 3) they ruin the experience for new pilots (who have no possible counter to them) and hurt the GSF community as a whole.

 

Now, would you care to admit you made some incorrect assumptions and save what little face you have left? You are entirely free to disagree with me, but do so based on game theory and math, not on inane childish crap.

Edited April 25, 2014 by Nemarus

[Armonddd]

What's keeping them from running roughshod over the meta? Bombers. Specifically, minelayers. There's a far, far greater variety of ships being flown (by pilots who know what they're doing) in the current meta than before, and it's because the threat of mines keeps battle scouts more under control.

 

Gunships are also a strong check against scouts (generally one ship or the other will die quickly, because someone decided that was good balance). Minelayers are far from insignificant; any time the other side has a refueling dock with auto-hit hull damage lasers, there's a problem that no one can afford to ignore.

 

To your question re: mines working to deny areas to other ship types - I've not felt nearly as threatened by mines on a strike fighter as on a (speed) scout. Their damage output is not significant enough to genuinely threaten a build like my Quell's before I can kill them. So I don't accept your premise that the very presence of a seismic mine - by itself - is enough to discourage a decent strike pilot from approaching a node.

 

I agree, you shouldn't be discouraged by the presence of that one mine. You should still be plenty cautious, though. That one seismic takes out 35%-47% of your hull, depending on your build. It is a guaranteed three shot, possibly a two shot after some mastered HLC damage (remember, you're approaching, so if the bomber knows where you are he can probably peg you a couple times). And, if you're fighting a good bomber, he'll blow up the mine before you can shoot it, and you'll take the damage you weren't expecting.

 

Oh, by the way, interdiction mines still exist.

 

Here's how I feel about the mines available: Seismic and concussion mines are fine. Seekers and ions are trash and should be buffed if they're to be competitive with alternate choices (main reason I consider the drone carrier to be an inferior bomber is how ineffectual seeker mines are to anything but scouts, and even scouts aren't hurt too badly by the mine alone). I could be persuaded that interdiction mines provide too much damage for the CC they also provide - I don't run them myself, prefer concussion for the +1 default cap.

 

Consider that seismic and interdiction mines have 100% shield penetration, and concussion mines have 20% shield penetration.

 

Hull damage is scary. If you want to get rid of hull damage, it takes a while. The best way to patch up your hull is to have a bro with a Clarion -- but those are rare and tend to draw the attention of anyone who realizes that repair probes are good.

 

If you don't repair the hull damage, you are now much more vulnerable to burst. In some matches, there really isn't anything you can do about it, because no one's flying a support ship.

 

The fact that seismic and interdiction mines ignore shields completely means that, in practical situations, you simply can't afford to approach a satellite with a bomber on it unless you're at full hull. And since shield piercing gets thrown around so much, that's frankly not an uncommon situation.

[FridgeLM]

I will say that it's been my experience that the "+1 cap" upgrades are usually not worth much, since when you're under threat all mines detonate shortly after being deployed. The only time you're able to build up a field of multiple mines is if your node isn't under attack for a while ... and if that's happening it usually means the match is not a competitive one anyway.

 

And I think Concussion Mines are naturally not as good at synergizing with Seismic Mines because in most cases, the Concussion Mine is just hitting shield, and the Seismic Mine is only hitting hull. I tend to think that to optimize, you either need to combine two mines that both do straight damage (affected by shields), so that one takes out the shields and then one hits the hull with full force; or otherwise take mines that both do hull damage (which I think ends up being overpowered right now)

 

I didn't say the +1 upgrade, I always take the range upgrade on every mine. Concussion mines by default have a cap of 2, interdiction is only 1.

 

I've not met a single bomber on Pot5 who is as good at holding a point solo as I am (I had a lot of practice flying a Quell as a proto-bomber in the bad old days), and I use concussion + seismic. They sync up well enough in my opinion. This is combined with the fact that the two concussions by default equate to a much larger area of denial.

 

You realize that because A happened before B, that does not mean A caused B?

 

The reason Battle Scouts ran over everything in 2.5 is because of three things, the first was how potent evasion was, the second was dominion was the only game mode in town and since bombers where not around the best way to win dominion was melee snubfighting.

 

As long as bombers exist battle scouts will not ruin the meta, you could half bomber's effectiveness and bombers would still tone down Battle scouts.

 

Completely disagree with your three reasons.

 

Evasion was nowhere near the reason battle scouts were (are) the best dogfighters. The actual reason is their burst damage blows every other ship (at that range) out of the water - which is a problem because their turning rate is matched only by speed scouts, who have nowhere near the damage output.

 

Domination being the only game mode actually was worse for battle scouts - unless you're honestly going to sit here and tell me battle scouts don't dominate TDMs that have few to no bombers, in which case lol at the sheer delusion.

 

If you reduce the effectiveness of bombers you'll only encourage the rise of (more) battle scouts. They may not get to be as bad as they were thanks to the (minor) nerfs they got in 2.6 combined with the missile lock break nerfs, but they're still objectively the best dogfighters. Something needs to be able to seriously threaten them at close range and force them to fly more carefully or else they win every battle on paper except against a gunship who gets the drop on them.

 

I agree, you shouldn't be discouraged by the presence of that one mine. You should still be plenty cautious, though. That one seismic takes out 35%-47% of your hull, depending on your build. It is a guaranteed three shot, possibly a two shot after some mastered HLC damage (remember, you're approaching, so if the bomber knows where you are he can probably peg you a couple times). And, if you're fighting a good bomber, he'll blow up the mine before you can shoot it, and you'll take the damage you weren't expecting.

 

Using the example of my quell, a fully upgraded seismic mine with the upgrades I use on it removes ~37% of my hull. After hydro spanner it's 23%. Seismic mines have a 15 (20 if unupgraded) cooldown. Calling something a three-shot when it takes at minimum 15 seconds to perform the three actions (assuming first mine is already out and cooldown is ready) is extremely disingenuous. And if any bomber is stupid enough to poke his head out at my Quell and try to fight me I'll laugh and face check him - sure, his shields are strong but he's much better off trying to hide from me than eat my quads and missiles. My quell is built for survivability, a build like mine isn't afraid of dinky HLCs from a ship that can't even get a capacitor upgrade.

Edited April 25, 2014 by FridgeLM

[Armonddd]

I've not met a single bomber on Pot5 who is as good at holding a point solo as I am

 

Which side do you play?

 

Evasion was nowhere near the reason battle scouts were (are) the best dogfighters.

 

Uh... 44% passive evasion made scouts pretty broken. Active 100% evasion for a whopping six seconds (or three plus a missile break) was pretty amazing too.

 

The actual reason is their burst damage blows every other ship (at that range) out of the water - which is a problem because their turning rate is matched only by speed scouts, who have nowhere near the damage output.

 

Turning rate is unrelated to burst damage. See also: gunships, who have superior burst damage and range with inferior turning rate.

 

Domination being the only game mode actually was worse for battle scouts - unless you're honestly going to sit here and tell me battle scouts don't dominate TDMs that have few to no bombers, in which case lol at the sheer delusion.

 

Earlier today I lost a TDM 50-14 or something. Our two best were Flashfires; their two best were Quarrels. No bombers involved.

 

the (minor) nerfs they got in 2.6 combined with the missile lock break nerfs

 

The 2.6 nerfs were far from minor. Maybe you don't understand the difference between 44% evasion and 33% evasion. I'm not going to do the math because I'm lazy, but suffice it to say that evasion is more valuable the more of it you have; this is why the 10% base evasion a scout has is so critical.

 

Oh, and by the way, power to blasters now only buffs damage by 10%, not 20%, and bypass was nerfed from 35% to 11%, both of which are a serious nerf to burst capabilities.

 

Also, you keep writing "battle scouts" when you mean to say "scouts who use BLCs". Stop that, there's a lot of exceptional players who don't use BLCs.

[Kuciwalker]

OK, fine, I will roll an alt on TEH (I'll call it Alex@jm) sometime this weekend.

[Rollory]

I can understand how people can have flown bombers and still think a slightly different build isn't a problem. Dronecarriers in particular are right exactly where they need to be. I know for me it was hard to really believe minelayers could be that big an issue until I saw it in action, first by Callem flying one while I was supporting him, then by flying it myself and watching far too many people flail uselessly against it - up till then I was figuring I just didn't understand how to fight them yet.

 

Nem's math can't be argued with. I think in practice the situation is rarely so simple as he makes out (he gives the example of a 50-second lifespan for one plated bomber against 2 others; in 50 seconds, an awful lot of other things can happen) so the consequences aren't necessarily as severe as he suggests, but the math is right.

 

Rhodogast / Kelril, The Ebon Hawk

[Armonddd]

Using the example of my quell, a fully upgraded seismic mine with the upgrades I use on it removes ~37% of my hull. After hydro spanner it's 23%. Seismic mines have a 15 (20 if unupgraded) cooldown. Calling something a three-shot when it takes at minimum 15 seconds to perform the three actions (assuming first mine is already out and cooldown is ready) is extremely disingenuous.

 

You're assuming literally nothing is happening other than him pooping out a seismic every 15 seconds (has to be 15, because it'll only do 37% damage if it's fully upgraded vs your mastered reinforced armor + shields companion) and you're pushing hydrospanner after the first hit. That situation never actually happens, though.

 

And if any bomber is stupid enough to poke his head out at my Quell and try to fight me I'll laugh and face check him - sure, his shields are strong but he's much better off trying to hide from me than eat my quads and missiles. My quell is built for survivability, a build like mine isn't afraid of dinky HLCs from a ship that can't even get a capacitor upgrade.

 

All he has to do is gamble that you're running a full evasion build (which a lot of people do) and hit you with two HLC rounds. Two HLC rounds + 2 seismics = dead evasion quell (remember that he can stack seismics on his own, much less with a buddy). 1 seismic + 1 interdiction > half a strike's hull, and at that point he can face tank you better than you can face tank him. Against your build specifically (I'm assuming you don't have charged plating or you would have mentioned it by now), he's popping out 1052 damage every 15 seconds, all straight to hull. If he turns around to face tank you, he only needs to get off 11 shots (5.5 seconds) for the kill, and that's assuming he never breaks your shields. Can you kill a bomber with charged plating in 5.5 seconds? I'd be pretty surprised.

[Ramalina]

However, you are right that the "bad old days" were in fact very bad, and BLC Battle Scouts ruined Domination at least as much as SIM's do now. That being said, I think with SIM's, we've thrown out the baby with the Battle Scouts. Do we really want to say that a Strike is not allowed to get close to a node if a SIM is there? Or worse, do we want to say that a Strike and Gunship have to leave a node its team owns as soon as a SIM gets under the satellite?

 

Speaking of exaggeration, 2/3 of the strike builds can get close to bombers just fine. Reduced to 1% or 6% the hull damage from one or even two SIM bombers is perfectly manageable.

 

The trouble is that the builds that do that are like taking a trip back to the bad old days when it comes to getting clobbered by BLC scouts and by gunships.

 

Personally I suspect that the whole armor/armor piercing mechanic needs another look. The way it's set up now there's to much tendency toward extreme rock paper scissors style hard countering. It's just that before the bombers showed up no one had any reason to care about the problems that posed.

[FridgeLM]

Which side do you play?

 

Empire.

 

Uh... 44% passive evasion made scouts pretty broken. Active 100% evasion for a whopping six seconds (or three plus a missile break) was pretty amazing too.

 

Yeah, it was pretty stupid. It made it so only gunships and other battle scouts can kill them - because when gunships and battle scouts hit something they hit for much more damage than other ships. So, really, evasion only exacerbated the problem with burst that already existed, and made them even more so the only viable choice for anyone who wanted to be competitive.

 

Turning rate is unrelated to burst damage. See also: gunships, who have superior burst damage and range with inferior turning rate.

 

Turning rate is very related to dogfighting, so when you combine the best turning with the best short range burst damage you have an OP combination.

 

Earlier today I lost a TDM 50-14 or something. Our two best were Flashfires; their two best were Quarrels. No bombers involved.

 

Grats, I lose games with crappy teams too. With pilots of equal skill, battle scouts would completely trash TDM without bombers - they're by far the best dogfighters and their raw speed ensures they get the most powerups, which partially negates the threat of gunships who are nowhere near as able to hunt for them.

 

The 2.6 nerfs were far from minor. Maybe you don't understand the difference between 44% evasion and 33% evasion. I'm not going to do the math because I'm lazy, but suffice it to say that evasion is more valuable the more of it you have; this is why the 10% base evasion a scout has is so critical.

 

They're minor from my perspective in that they turned what was by far the very best dogfighting ship into just the best dogfighting ship. The only thing to address their burst damage was the tone down of shield pen, which hit other ships too and (in my opinion) is nowhere near as important as outright lowering BLC damage and nerfing armor pen across the board.

 

Oh, and by the way, power to blasters now only buffs damage by 10%, not 20%, and bypass was nerfed from 35% to 11%, both of which are a serious nerf to burst capabilities.

 

Both of these changes effected all ships, battle scouts are still in the same relative position after these changes. I'll acknowledge that their TTK was lengthened, which is objectively good, but it's still too short compared to other ships.

 

Also, you keep writing "battle scouts" when you mean to say "scouts who use BLCs". Stop that, there's a lot of exceptional players who don't use BLCs.

 

I don't care that they don't use them. Battle scout problems are not limited to BLCs, blaster overcharge is also part of it. I do agree that BLCs happen to be objectively the best primary weapon component on any ship that can use them, but it's the combination of everything they have that is an increase to their damage output that is the problem, as compared to strike fighters who have sidegrade system abilities (or now with the command variant, utility system abilities).