Ferox Followup with Fozzie

So CCP Fozzie responded in his thread on battlecruiser changes and I am not going to go over everything he  said but focus on the topic near and dear to my heart. The Ferox. He said:

Why is the Ferox keeping the optimal range bonus? A damage bonus would be stronger for blasters and nobody snipes with a Ferox! 

There's a couple of things going on here. I completely think that PVP Ferox fits will continue to be mostly blaster fit after these changes, I want to be clear that we are not trying to force people into rails with the optimal bonus. However there are a few reasons we decided on keeping the optimal bonus:
1) The Blaster Ferox works quite well with the current stats, and the optimal bonus is in fact useful with blasters (especially with Null or Void ammo, as well as alongside a TE module) and creates a nice (if subtle) gameplay distinction between the Ferox and other blaster ships. We were weighing the option of switching the bonus to damage, but chose to add the extra turret instead. This way the blaster Ferox fits get more DPS while also keeping their range benefit (at the expense of tighter fittings).
2) We have metrics on how people are fitting their ships, and many of you may be surprised to know that the most common highslot modules fit to Ferox in the game are named 250mm rails. There is actually a significant number of people using the Ferox for turret based PVE that many veteran players can easily overlook.
3) The issue of balance between long range fit Combat BCs and Tier 3 BCs is an important one. In the end the solution will likely revolve around making sniping with medium weapons and sniping with large weapons more distinct. I'm not expecting people to use RailFerox fleets in pvp after this point release, but while also keeping a strong BlasterFerox alive I want to put the ship in a place where it can benefit from any changes we make to both help medium rails specifically, and the balance between medium and large long-range weapons in general.

I can agree that the current blaster Ferox has a decent performance curve going for it in various situations, primarily due to a big tank that does not require low slots. I can also see the point on 250mm rails being the most common fitting due to I remember mission running in the Ferox with rails back when I was a newbie (and it only had 5 turrets, take that youngsters!). So simply choosing to tweak the current fit to make both camps happier with just a 7th turret is an obvious path to take.

Point 3 is where it gets interesting. He says "[i]n the end the solution will likely revolve around making sniping with medium weapons and sniping with large weapons more distinct." That is interesting. What I expect this means is that right now there is no real attractive reason to choose medium railguns for a particular range when large rails on the "Attack Battlecruisers"; for most use cases the large guns will always do more damage and the edge cases where they don't are not plentiful enough to call for medium guns.

However, if things can be tweaked such that the large sniping guns have more trouble hitting targets, just enough to make FCs consider reshipping to BCs with medium sniping setups, than keeping the optimal range bonus on the Ferox will be a good option to take to make both Rail-rox and Blasterox setups viable.

Exciting Times.

I'm Infamous!

Last night I was out roaming and jumped into Aeschee and saw a pod sitting there, on the gate. Neutral to me. Well, I'm in a Ferox which can take a few blows from the sentry guns so I figured, what the hell.

Now, I'm in a slow assed blaster Ferox with scram and the pod is 26 km from me, It takes me a dog's age to lock and even get in scram range of the guy. He must have been stupid or AFK, because he did not move a meter.

POP!

Basic implants, nothing to write home about to mother.

A few minutes later I get an evemail.

I'm infamous!

Yes, the pod I popped determined I needed a bounty on me. Fifty million ISK. I feel so special! I was getting jealous of all the people with bounties while I had none, but now I do and I actually earned mine.

I feel so wanted...

Shopping Spree

I was going to blog about the decent night of PvP I had last night, working solo and with a fleet in my favourite ship of the moment, the dual prop Dramiel, but there was nothing spectacular so I'll spare you the gory details. I will say though that I mistook an Executioner for a Crusader and a Crucifer for a Sentinel at different times. Need to bone up on Amarrian ship class names apparently.

Instead I'm going to talk about the ships I purchased in a shopping spree with my very last EON Magazine paycheque (except the Harpy which I got from trying SOMERBlink lotteries, my only win on 150 million worth of tickets, making it one expensive assault ship).

Many of these ship setups I stole from various sources which I will credit here.

Guristas Worm Frigate

This I plan to use as a brawler in small gangs where someone else is fast enough to get the initial tackle. Teh Worm has impressive drone DPS and a good sized tank to be the second ship in. I stole this fit from the infamous Nashh Kadavr.

Minmatar Vagabond Heavy Assault Cruiser

I stole this ship previously from Kovorix from Bringing Solo Back podcast fame (please come back guys!) and had fun with it until I lost it to Sansha rats on a gate during an incursion (doh). I wanted to give it another spin so I bought it again. Dual propped for maximum flexibility in determining engagements (or gtfo), big tank from the booster until charges run out, and nice DPS with good tracking and range (compared to blasters).

Caldari Ferox Battlecruiser

You'll notice a theme in a lot of these ships: Ancillary shield boosters. They are perhaps too good. This Ferox is my own creation and is a pretty simple PvP ship designed to take on cruisers and destroyers that stray too close to my webs and scram. Because its a Ferox, people sometimes underestimate it and let it get closer than they should. Plus it looks badass.

Caldari Harpy Assault Frigate

I usually fit my Harpys with blasters and go full on DPS, but I decided to try a kiting ship this time that wants to fight outside of scram range. Not sure I can pull it off but I'm willing to give it a whirl.

Gallente Incursus Frigate

I haven't had a chance to try and Incursus since the upgrade so after I lost a Rifter to a Tusker pilot frying one, I decided to scout out killboards and stole this fit from a Tusker killmail. Afterburner fit means its not a fast tackle but if it can get a hold of something, the scram should keep it close unless its a target with afterburner and webber. Once in range, the blasters and drone do an impressive amount of damage and the dual reps should keep the Incursus in the fight.

Minmatar Sleipnir Command Ship

Ever since I foolishly lost my Sleipnir at the end of August, I've been aching to get a new one to replace it as my flagship PvP battlecruiser sized vessel. I have an Astarte that has gank but not an impressive tank making it good only for gang situations close to home. This ship boasts the best of both worlds with a good amount of cruiser tracking DPS and a nice solid tank thanks to the ancillary shield booster and the ship's native bonuses.

When putting it together I inserted a few faction mods here and there that I had lying around. We'll see if I can prevent myself from losing it foolishly this time.

* * * * *

I expect comments from this post will include people telling my why one or all setups suck. I welcome such criticisms as I have no illusions to my ability in PvP in this game. 

FInally, these posts always have someone asking which program I am using. Its is called Pyfa and can be found here. I highly recommend it.

Brawl

Last night I logged in and looked for a fleet. There was a roaming plexing fleet ready to PvP if the Caldari came knocking so I jumped into a blaster Ferox and joined up.

We worked some plexes in Old Man Star for a while and then moved into Ladister where the fleet commander found another plex is run down. I was getting itchy so I decided to scout into Old Man Star while we waiting.

There was one war target in local, HazeInADaze, which I knew was flying a Caracal thanks to a scout in Heydieless. I used the scanner and saw it floating around planet VIII environs. I kicked into warp to land at the planet figuring if he's not there, I'd scan around and see if I could find him.

As I came out of warp, there was no Caracal on grid. But there was a neutral Punisher only a few thousand meters away. I may be in faction war but I'm still an anarchist at heart, so I of course started locking and primer my scram and web. The Punisher was looking for a fight because he locked and attacked me back (locking first and saving me the GCC too). This is the great thing about Feroxes...

No one runs from a fight with a Ferox.

Historical Side Note:

When the tier II battlecruisers were released, the Ferox became immediately obsolete as the Drake did everything the Ferox could do but better (excepting sniping at long range which was not all that useful on the damage-poor railguns). With 7 high slots but only 5 optimal range bonused turrets and 5 unbonused missile hard points, fitting problems for the 250mm rails, slow speed, it was outclassed at everything by the Drake and/or Brutix (with 7 bonused hybrid turrets). As a result, the Ferox became a joke and was practically only produced as a build component for Nighthawk and Vulture command ships.

But over time the small improvements to various things have made this ship slowly move into respectability. A sixth turret was added. Caldari ships were given a bit more agility once, and then again when hybrids were revisited. As part of that balancing, hybrid weapons took less powergrid to fit and they got damage increases, and blasters got tracking improvements.

As I engaged the Punisher, the other shoe dropped. You see, this frigate was a member of the Blue Republic far from their home grounds up in the Forge where Red Versus Blue takes place. And he was not alone. Out of warp came a Condor, Rifter, two more Punishers, and a Kestrel. I admit I consigned myself to destruction as I saw the Condor put a nice 20 km range point on me, but I was heartened by the lack of Tech II ships to bring the damage. I launched drones, turned off the initial overheating on my tackle gear, and got to work.

I finished off the initial Punisher and targeted the next closet frig, a second Punisher. My shields were 75% when he went down too. I started working on the next Punisher but switched everything put my guns to the Kestrel figuring he would be a squishier target. I was right about the Kestrel, and then I finished off the third Punisher.

In the middle of this the war target Caracal I was originally hunting warped in and decided to try and tip the balance by throwing his firepower on me. I was about 33% shields so I figured I was in trouble and called in the fleet to come and try and catch him gloating over my wreckage.

I ignored him and turned my attention to the Rifter and Condor. My drones were still untouched so I ordered them to attack the Condor that had his point on me in case I wanted to try and run. Hmmm, my shields are going down but not that fast. The Condor and Rifter made a run for it before I could get into range and I swung my ship around to charge the now-alone cruiser. Lucky for me he did not run and as my armour dropped I ripped into the Caracal and it flew apart at the seams.

And I was alone. I called off the fleet as there was no more targets to engage and warped off (without my drones) to let my shields recharge.

* * * * *

About 8 minutes later I realized I forgot my drones so I warped back to planet VIII at zero to get them. And what should I find looting wrecks? That Blue Republic Condor. He must not have been paying attention because I locked him and scrammed/webbed him. And well, a tackled Condor is a dead bird.

I picked up my two remaining drones and went back to base.