Omen
Overpowered. I'm convinced the ship system is the problem. 100% hit rate, hard flux, low flux cost, EMP, decent damage to frigate-grade armor and hull, clears fighters and missiles, low cd... the list goes on. 8 DP omen doesn't sound right, so I think the ship system should be nerfed in a way that hurts the shade as little as possible. I think EMP emitter damage against shields should be changed to soft flux.
Afflictor(p)
Overpowered. Simply too good at 6 DP, similarly due to its immensenly powerful ship system. Definitely deserving of 8DP deployment cost, so that the normal afflictor can stay as it is. Alternatively it could have its ordnance points drastically lowered, to 30 or so, so that it at least couldn't get all of AMB+max caps+two needlers.
Scarab
Underpowered. It was nerfed from 60 to 55 ordnance points in 0.95.1a, and while the nerf was deserved at the time, other ships and playstyles have caught up and surpassed the wolfpack tactics fleets of that time. As of now, scarab feels weak for 8 DP. It should have its 5 OP back. Another thing I would like to see on the scarab is to have its two back small energy slots given better firing arcs. At the moment I think they're best left empty, but changing the arcs to something like the middle slots on a centurion would make them usable, and likely open up some interesting new builds.
Railgun
Very slightly outperforms alternatives in the small ballistic slot. Was changed from 7 to 8 and then back to 7 OP before, so meddling with the cost is probably not a good idea. What I suggest is to lower its damage per projectile, then buff its firing rate and flux cost, so that its performance against shields is unchanged but performance against armor lowered.
IR autolance
While situational, when it's good it's amazing. Just a bit too good for how cheap it is. Moving from 8 to 9 OP would do the trick, I think.
from top to bottom;
Omen is largely balanced at 6 DP, it is a master of support in a unique way for frigates which is great, but it has some key caveats.
1. Omen firepower is overall conditional. Antimatter blaster helps but makes omen risky from dying during the burst of flux. Without AMB, omen firepower is very slow but very reliable when compared to any brawler though especially TT Brawler which is one of the best frigates next to things like LP bralwer. Lasher, Vanguard, Scarab, Tempest.
2. Omen has horrifically low armor and hull. While this isn’t always the biggest deal for a frigate so long as it’s fast with good shields, any sort of burst damage is always a guaranteed death for Omen if it can’t escape in time. I routinely find Scarabs (I use them a lot) with some damage on armor and hull, still alive and kicking. I rarely see an Omen with damage; either it shield tanks or it dies.
3. Omen gets exponentially better the more of them you have since emp arc emitter ignores friendly hitboxes, but they need to get close and risk death to exploit this strength. Some ships will die if you get unlucky. Is that really so strong if it has the risk of losing ships with no real counterplay? Meh.
4. Omen emp arc emitter is easily overwhelmed by saturation missiles/fighters, making it a nearly helpless frigate. This isn’t a problem too often and you can attempt to mitigate it in a few ways, but it’s a key weakness. If omen emp arc emitter deals softflux damage I think it will be a ship I never take, ever. It’s pretty helpless without that damage that allows it to hold its ground, I’d probably prefer using Centurions in that case.
However, if we have to nerf the Omen, I think a neat nerf/sidegrade would be to make the small missile a small synergy. This will both make for more possible builds and also nerf missile autoforge for the omen, the hullmod only applies to missile mounts, not synergy or composite or universal. Omen gets big value from it so I’d consider this overall a gentle nerf with something cool attached to it as well.
Scarab I disagree. I’m ignoring SO here because I haven’t used SO scarab enough to have a strong opinion, so everything I say here is about non-SO scarab. Scarab is sort of like the opposite of Omen, exceptionally powerful in small numbers but it doesn’t stack very well if you spam a lot of them. I’ve had the most success using 1-3 of them in a fleet, but depending on the build and your fleet’s playstyle i think up to 6 is reasonable. This is because temporal shell is absolutely busted but it has a key moment of weakness during its some 12 second base cooldown and low top speed for a high tech frigate (still a good speed though). The AI scarabs don’t seem to intelligently use temporal shell, so if you have a whole lot of scarabs it’s just pure luck if they will be able to support each other during their system’s downtime. However, if you only got a handful of Scarabs they are absolute monsters. They’re the ultimate PD frigate, far better than Omen and the ultimate frigate hunter killer, when you tell it to kill a frigate unless you have an avoid command nearby that frigate will be dead as quickly as a shade or afflictor could kill it, except Scarab doesn’t have to worry about beams picking away at it! Or as quickly as a LP Brawler, but with the added benefit of being able to be a PD ship simultaneously. Just ask me if you’d like more info, Scarab is a pretty complex topic that I’ve been looking into for the past half a year. I wouldn’t give the Scarab any buffs.
It’s also absolutely gross if you pilot it yourself with neural link. Just, near infinite value. You can single-handedly kill all carriers and frigates all on your own and let your fleet handle the big boys. Slap on an ion cannon and you can even help disable the bigger ships at key moments.
Afflictor and Afflictor P I don’t really disagree but there’s a thread
here that you may like to read and contribute to on that subject.
Railgun - I think this weapon is overvalued by players. It’s great but it has key weaknesses namely comparing it to the light Needler and the Light Autocannon.
It deals slightly less dps than light Autocannon per OP - 23.8 vs 25.
It has a chargeup which makes it slightly awkward to use which reduces the value of its perfect accuracy.
It has worse flux efficiency per dps than both, which is the biggest downside by far.
If you reduced its hitstrength I would almost never use the railgun and instead use the light Autocannon and Light Needler wherever possible. I already sometimes use LAC instead. Don’t get me wrong though, Railgun is still like one of the best small kinetics, I just don’t think it’s worthy of any big nerfs.
IR Autolance - I don’t think it needs any nerfs necessarily? It has this big issue where it will very often use too many of its very limited magazine shooting at shield when it’s at max magazine, making it have less total magazine in practicality. It also tends to use up its small magazine against armor most of the time. It’s mostly just HEF which makes it insane.
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Topic: Anything desperately in need of Balance Pass next version (Add yours here) (Read 30650 times)