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Cross Atu
OSG Planetary Operations
Covert Intervention
2249
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Posted - 2014.06.05 23:05:00 -
[1] - Quote
Brokerib wrote:TLDR Assaults are still underperforming. Even if the Alpha Scout changes work as intended, the Logi-slayer will re-emerge as the Assult of choice. Assaults need a buff.
Agreed. However LogiFrame =/= Support Logi Fitting.
Avoiding the return of the killer bee swarm is important but there needs to be a rework on Logi suits and fits not just a nerf.
Support Logi (and I cringe that I have to make that distinction in the first place) are already barely viable even as it stands a further nerf will likely see that last bit of viability evaporate.
Further 1:1 meta level suit comparison cannot tell the whole story, ISK, and more importantly SP cost to run a suit must be accounted for as well. A logi suit which has spec'ed into and fielded a full suite of equipment plus mods in all slots has put more into their fitting SP/ISK wise, thus is at a higher "risk" level than a 'killer bee' who's focused only on DPS/HP (or an assault who's focused the same way). True balance requires a viable Assault suit without nerfing the logi to the point that it's non-viable and without dismissing the fundamental risk vs reward dynamic which should be maintained/established game wide (to wit; if your SP and ISK investment to field a fit is higher, your potential earnings and tactical effectiveness should scale up accordingly).
0.02 ISK
Cross
Cross Atu for CPM1- An emergent candidate
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Cross Atu
OSG Planetary Operations
Covert Intervention
2251
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Posted - 2014.06.06 00:22:00 -
[2] - Quote
Jaysyn Larrisen wrote:Spot on as usual, Cross.
I rarely believe that nerfing something actually equals a "buff" to something else. You also bring up a pretty interesting discussion on ISK / SP investment by relative suit.
Couple quick thoughts...
1) I like the double grenade option. That actually introduces tactical flexibility similar to how the commando suit approaches things with 2x light weapons.
2) Perhaps rebalancing module slots would also work. It never made since that the Logi suit has better highs and lows than the assault...it has little if anything to do with effectively running and employing critical combat equipment. At a minimum I think equalizing the slots would work.
3) I think if you required an equipment slot in the logi suits in a similar fashion (the ubiquitous "red box") that you do with weapon slots that would help quite a bit. That's where the logi equipment bonus for CPU / PG resource cost reduction can really come into play.
4) Perhaps lower the the CPU / PG resource cost of grenades for Assaults as well.
5) I'm not sure that the racial bonuses for the suits are there. This is a huge topic and I would refer you to some of the pre-1.8 threadnaughts. Basically, it was pretty widely understood the role / racial bonuses (particularly for Assaults) was lackluster at best.
Responses listed in order
- Adding another nade slot to increase assault suit combat flexibility seems worth looking at. It gives them something unique which the suit badly needs and it fits with their 'high gank' role theme.
- I'm honestly rather in favor of normalizing both base stats and high/low mod slots (by race), this way the logi can at best be "as good" as the assault suit and it's bonuses are still not geared for combat. If we give the assault a little bit more gank such as the nade slot that would further provide role distinction. And normalizing the base stats on the two suits keeps logi suits from being utterly useless (as they nearly are now for support in competitive play).
- I'm usually opposed to requirements as much as possible in a sandbox game. This however is the exception. I've been an advocate for this idea since before the CalLogi skill buff was changed and I still support it now. Further I'd say it shouldn't be "have one bit of equipment" but rather "have something in every equipment slot".
- I'd be comfortable with giving this a try, some sort of innate total ammo buff for racial weapons would be another way to go. In both of these cases it would also give support play a bit more relevance in that there's likely to be a bit more of a use for hives (if your squad is doing well).
@ Thread: To truly fix the Assault, we need to give it more role definition than "I'm faster than a Heavy, more tanky than a scout, and I can kill any logi 9/10 times". If that method is employed the assault role will always either be UP or OP because of it's flexibility. We need to add incomparables to the Assault role to make it shine, not just fiddle with the numbers.
0.02 ISK
Cross
Cross Atu for CPM1- An emergent candidate
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Cross Atu
OSG Planetary Operations
Covert Intervention
2280
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Posted - 2014.06.06 16:18:00 -
[3] - Quote
Ghost Kaisar wrote:Ryme Intrinseca wrote:This would drive logis to extinction. Not really. Amarr Logi is still needed for links Don't rep without a Min Logi LOL at Nanohives when they aren't either spammed or dropped by Cal Gal Logi still is king of scans Also: Assaults only have equip slot. Logi's will still have a role. Just not as a slayer.
Ghost, in the present state of things, without this change
Amarr Logi - Are hardly fielded, and they have to stay in that single suit the whole time for the bonuses to work so if that suit isn't survivable their buff doesn't matter.
Min Logi - Are one of the few viable fits out there, but they're already super squishy and while repping the speed that is their hallmark can't benefit them with respects to staying alive, making them even more fragile would make them even less viable and it's not "don't rep without a Min Logi" it's "don't rep without a min logi, stacked self reps, or a cloaky scout with a repair tool onboard" nerf one of the three and you'll see less of it on the field.
Gal Logi - Unless the numbers for Alpha were changed between deployment and when I last looked at them it's still Cal Scout who is the king of scans with the Gal Logi falling behind. The Gal Logi is also less combat viable on average and they aren't seen on the field very often.
Cal Logi - Yep hives are pretty weak without a Cal Logi, but you've identified the counter to this in your post, spam them. I warned CCP prior to the equipment nerf that this is what would happen and it's been the trend. Hives are carried with a squad less and just spammed out prior to a suit swap more. The repeated nerfs to hives have bleached out their tactical uses and resulted in a down turn of the Cal Logi as well.
Assault Equipment - Support Logi are already less combat viable than the assault, making them even weaker will make them even less common than they already are. Even at present it's usually better to have another gun in the fight than to have someone dedicated to support actions. A squad of six assault suits has six equipment slots between them and can cover most of their needs, why would they want to 'carry' a logi at the cost of being short handed in the fight? Even the extra equipment slots for larger amounts of deployables provide little merit as once the assault with that gear dies they respawn fully restocked.
For the most part Logis already don't have a role, not a functional one and this will push it even further into a marginalized state.
A final note on earnings - Logi can pull down massive WP, this is largely due to how weak the role is (wait, what?!?)
due to a weak support role within Dust the number of logi is small, the number of effective logi even smaller, which results in minimal competition for earnings of possible support WP i.e. the pie is divided between fewer players. You see the same effect if only 1-2 players on a team are effective AV against a team that is AV heavy (I'm far from the best AV player and I've gone 2/3 with over 3000 WP running pure AV).
If there were only 3 players on your team trying to be slayers, and the rest were running support you'd see the support players on average earning very little and the slayers racking up massive total points. It's not a 1:1 comparison of course, but the trend is there and worth paying attention to.
0.02 ISK
Cross
PS ~ Kagehoshi has this nailed down in his thread, the assault really do need some love but beating the logi into an even less functional state won't make the assault competitive and isn't needed to do so.
Cross Atu for CPM1- An emergent candidate
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Cross Atu
OSG Planetary Operations
Covert Intervention
2280
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Posted - 2014.06.06 16:25:00 -
[4] - Quote
Baal Omniscient wrote:Cross Atu wrote:Brokerib wrote:TLDR Assaults are still underperforming. Even if the Alpha Scout changes work as intended, the Logi-slayer will re-emerge as the Assult of choice. Assaults need a buff. Agreed. However LogiFrame =/= Support Logi Fitting. Avoiding the return of the killer bee swarm is important but there needs to be a rework on Logi suits and fits not just a nerf. Support Logi (and I cringe that I have to make that distinction in the first place) are already barely viable even as it stands a further nerf will likely see that last bit of viability evaporate. Further 1:1 meta level suit comparison cannot tell the whole story, ISK, and more importantly SP cost to run a suit must be accounted for as well. A logi suit which has spec'ed into and fielded a full suite of equipment plus mods in all slots has put more into their fitting SP/ISK wise, thus is at a higher "risk" level than a 'killer bee' who's focused only on DPS/HP (or an assault who's focused the same way). True balance requires a viable Assault suit without nerfing the logi to the point that it's non-viable and without dismissing the fundamental risk vs reward dynamic which should be maintained/established game wide (to wit; if your SP and ISK investment to field a fit is higher, your potential earnings and tactical effectiveness should scale up accordingly). 0.02 ISK Cross Thought free-flow: The only thing I can think of that would negate the logi-slayer without nerfing the logi's survivability would be to give the logi suits a damage resistance bonus as well as a damage output nerf at the same time.... and even if that was something the community was up for, implementing it could be tricky. You would have to give a % nerf per tier to weapon damage which would only get more cumbersome the further up you went in the skill.... Unless you made the damage reduction a part of the suits themselves. Would that even be possible? Like a 5% damage reduction built into logi suits? I dunno, anyway.... This has been another episode of "Baal Omniscient's been up all night and has been letting his mind wander". Join us next time for rambling thoughts on HMG ranges, swarm launcher lock-on bugs and how bad low-tier nanohives are.
o/ Baal,
Turn your concept inside out, when it comes to balance between the medium frames and avoiding killer bees we need the assault to be a better slayer than the logi. And the assault already needs some love to be viable within the game wide meta as it's currently somewhat lacking. The answer then is not a change to the logi suit but a change to the assault suit, specifically a buff to the 'gank' potential the assault has.
 Give the assault role/racial buffs which enhance their potential damage output
Fix the manifold issues with equipment and support play
At which point both specializations now how a tactically viable niche once more.
Worth noting that basic stats, all of them not just mod slots, would likely need a rework in light of the above, but that's refining polish not trying to use pure slot alteration as a solution.
0.02 ISK
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Cross Atu for CPM1- An emergent candidate
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Cross Atu
OSG Planetary Operations
Covert Intervention
2281
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Posted - 2014.06.06 16:46:00 -
[5] - Quote
Brokerib wrote:This is probably my scout bias showing here (most of my fits are sub 300 EHP), but how much health does a Logi need to be viable in combat? Because what we're talking about with the modules is really health.
Correct, especially for a support player we are talking eHP (not just HP) when it comes to mods.
I'll take this from the perspective of my own Scout and Logi play, and answer your question;
a support logi needs substantially more HP than a scout to be combat viable.
When running my slayer dragonfly suit, cloakless with STD and MLT mods only I have minimal HP, and pretty low eHP leaning heavily on speed and avoidance tactics/target selection to survive and slay (as well as hack from time to time).
I have a much better KDR in that suit than in my duel tanked eHP stacked support logi frames (from any of the races, I have all 4).
The support logi does not have the speed of a scout, nor the eWar awareness or stealth, but possibly as important they have to be with their squad to do their job so they lose target selection as well.
They don't have the eHP of an Assault on a slot by slot basis, and if they're doing their job (assuming they're completely eschewing the slayer role) they don't have the 'dps tank' an assault does, and they still don't have the option to define their terms of engagement, their more resilient squad mates are doing that. (or the whole squad is being ambushed).
They lack both the dps and the eHP of either heavy suit, and while they are most certainly faster than the heavy (unless the heavy is stacked for mobility and the logi is stacked for HP, in which case the heavy can close that speed gap) they still can't define the terms of engagement and frequently have no recourse for employing their speed to survive.
To top it all off if a logi is being effective it's fairly obvious (repair tool out, using the injector, scans going out etc) and they will be primaried, something that their lower eHP and bright yellow color help make happen in short order.
Brokerib wrote:Using the module layout I've suggested, along with the current modules and base values, you end up with the following (using the Min and Amarr as examples of the lowest and highest possible, and assuming proto skills on all):
Min Logi
4 x complex shield extenders
3 x complex plate
= 951
Ama Logi
3 x complex shield extenders
4 x complex plate
= 1075
Now compare with the Assaults:
Min Ass
4 x complex shield extender
4 x complex plate
= 1128
Ama
3 x complex shield extenders
5 x complex plate
= 1271
Less than 200EHP difference between the racial Assault and Logi. And that's assuming everyone is brick tanking. At that level of EHP, I would have thought a Logi would be quite survivable in combat?
Now how about if the Assaults aren't brick tanking, and decide to fit something additional (one high/one low)? The Assault fit looks like:
Min Ass
3 x complex shield extenders
3 x complex plate
= 935
Ama Ass
2 x complex shield extenders
4 x complex plate
= 1078
Which is pretty much bang on with a fully bricked Logi. An Assault gets to fit one high and one low slot, and still run the same EHP as a logi of the same archtype, while the Logi gets to run 3 more equipment and one less weapon (Min) or two more equipment (Amarr). Does that seem unreasonable from a balance perspective, within the scope of the current modules and base stats?
I understand I'm not accounting for the rest of the base stats (speed/regen/precision/etc), but from a straight fitting perspective it makes sense to me.
Not accounting for the base stats however is somewhat problematic especially assuming max stats in all. The assault gains more on those +% skills as well as starting out with a higher base. This is a problem because we can't (and shouldn't) push the assault so far that the scout or heavy become UP by comparison so if the assault derived HP from fittings is in a good and survivable place accounting for their base stats then the logi will almost certainly be UP.
To seek assault balance they need a buff which defines and supports their niche, not a relative buff which makes them more desirable by weakening other roles (support or not).
As I've posted elsewhere one of the best solutions to the "killer bee" conundrum is to require a logis equipment slots be filled. This is not a total fix on its own as the assault would still need love to be viable in the wider game, but support players are already running full equipment load outs so the new requirement cost the niche/role nothing but it does make the "killer bee" harder and more costly to fit as those equipment slots eat up ISK, SP, and PG/CPU to fit.
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Cross Atu for CPM1- An emergent candidate
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