Changes Coming to Pirate Ships?

Several months ago (or is it a year?  Who can keep it straight anymore?), CCP re-bonused some of the pirate frigates and cruisers and rebalanced a whole bunch of them.  Amid the changes, my dear, precious Cynabal, suffered some nerfs.  There was much weeping, and many tears.

On the other hand, the Worm and Gila were given purpose again, a welcome change from the ignominy they wallowed in for the several years prior. But, in providing them with purpose, CCP went a little too far, making both of those ships best-in-class damage dealers.  The Worm can easily get 250 dps and the Gila can breach 850 dps, both while kiting.  Suffice it to say, they’ve quickly dominated all of the fleet comps because of their significant advantages.

On the other hand, have you ever tried fitting out some of the other pirate ships?  It can be quite a challenge because of powergrid and CPU issues. Typical fits don’t quite work, and often need both CPU and powergrid 603 implants even with maximum skills… something which simply can’t be done. So, while the Gila and Worm became powerhouses, the remaining pirate frigs and cruisers always remained less than they could be as a result of “not quite enough” syndrome.

And, worst of all, one of my favorite ships, my dear, beloved Cynabal, was left to rot from nerfs.

But all of that may be changing soon.  And, I emphasize, “may”.  

An enterprising redditor was fishing through CCP’s Chaos server and discovered some adjustments to pirate frigs and cruisers that have raised quite a number of eyebrows.

In most cases, we’re seeing a lot of standardization among HP amounts and power grid that should make it a bit easier to place the kinds of fits you may want.  But in some cases, we’re seeing significant buffs as well.  I’ll let you read all the changes, but I’ll outline them below (I’ll exclude :

Cruor: an 8% increase in armor HP, more speed, and double the drone capacity.

Succubus: boost in role bonus from 150% to 175% to small energy turret damage.

Worm: elimination of a low slot and hp bonus to drones (the damage bonus remains)

Ashimmu: boost in role bonus from 100% to 150% to medium energy turret damage.

Cynabal: additional high slot, increased velocity, better power output

Gila: elimination of a low slot and hp bonus to drones (the damage bonus remains)

Phantasm: boost in role bonus from 150% to 175% to medium energy turret damage.

As you can see, CCP is starting to realize that the laser damage from pirate hulls are in need of some help.  Whether a 25% boost will cuti t or not is up for debate, but this, combined with the PG and CPU boosts, should make for some nice fitting possibilities.

The big story for most of Eve is, of course, not only the elimination of the hp bonus on Gila and Worm drones – making them just as fragile as anyone else’s drones – but the elimination of a low slot.  That’s a big change, and should cut down the dps considerably.  For the Gila, it only translates to about a 60 dps drop.  But for the Worm, pilots will need to choose between dropping about 20% of their dps or reducing their tank by about 25% by dropping the DCU.

That’s a huge trade-off, and Gila and Worm pilots will rightly scream bloody murder about such a massive nerf.  Fortunately, we don’t need to care about their opinions, because those two ships were cancer, and anyone who unironically flew them was a terrible person.

I say this is the big story for most people, because for me, my Cynabal getting an extra utility high and the powergrid necessary to sustain a second neut is a godsend.  A second neut is going to reduce the threat of the one type of ship that really poses a risk to a kiting Cynabal, scramming tackle.  Apply two neuts to a frigate trying to slow you down and you can rip him to pieces.  Just watch out for snipers exploiting the brief time you’ll be slowed down.

And, I’m definitely excited by the prospect of doing a bit more dps in a Cruor or Succubus.  Both ships, along with the Phantasm and Ashimmu, always seemed to be interesting options for solo play, but never did enough dps to really be viable. And, when I would fit them up, I’d be constantly frustrated by the fitting limitations.  I’ll have to play around with them to see if that’s changed now, but I’m optimistic.

Granted, these changes are all possibilities at this point, as a change appearing on Chaos is even less certain of reaching Tranquility than those on Sisi are.  But, the fact that CCP is looking at rebalancing and the ships they’re tagging for nerfs and buffs are all encouraging.  We’ll have to see if these changes hold, but I’m very excited for the future!