Today i had 2 pvp (team battles, T3) games in a row where most of the team on one side was using frigates (lots of guards). Both times we lost because we could not stop the frigball from just rolling toward our spawn soaking everything we threw at it and blasting our pitful attempts at stopping them. I assumed the best counter against frigs were Gunships, but even if i could badly damage them i struggled to finish any of them off before the whole ball would turn it’s attention to me. Well, maybe we lacked gunships to do the job, or maybe our team lacked appropriate firepower, but it seemed to me they hardly needed anything else than frigs (most armed with Coils) to win the fight. Guards with coils seem quite popular lately, pilling up kinetic resists don’t seem to really prevent ships from melting before them (even my command with high kinetic resists would lose it’s shields in seconds).
Anyone feel the game balance has shifted to frigs lately (at least in team battle)?
you dont have to go anywhere, it is all happening in one place, slow tanky ships are the most suitable for the mode, always were always will, there is no way aorund it
Today i had 2 pvp (team battles, T3) games in a row where most of the team on one side was using frigates (lots of guards). Both times we lost because we could not stop the frigball from just rolling toward our spawn soaking everything we threw at it and blasting our pitful attempts at stopping them. I assumed the best counter against frigs were Gunships, but even if i could badly damage them i struggled to finish any of them off before the whole ball would turn it’s attention to me. Well, maybe we lacked gunships to do the job, or maybe our team lacked appropriate firepower, but it seemed to me they hardly needed anything else than frigs (most armed with Coils) to win the fight. Guards with coils seem quite popular lately, pilling up kinetic resists don’t seem to really prevent ships from melting before them (even my command with high kinetic resists would lose it’s shields in seconds).
Anyone feel the game balance has shifted to frigs lately (at least in team battle)?
Bunch of nope here. Covert ops and gunship seem to be a good combo, but a command would help too.
easy soution to a frigball is a LRF with long range coils. that damage buff vs frigs will weed out the puny ones and then the covops and gunships can dive in to murder the rest whilst the LRF supports out of range of the enemy coils
easy soution to a frigball is a LRF with long range coils. that damage buff vs frigs will weed out the puny ones and then the covops and gunships can dive in to murder the rest whilst the LRF supports out of range of the enemy coils
Unfortunately, if the solution to frigball is to take out your own frigates, it’s no solution at all.
take my frigs away and I will find a new game to play
Agreed. Touch my Frigate, and I’ll break your face !
@ OP : It’s team battle, you can’t have your tiny wee fast ship win at everything. If you want Frigballs out of Team battle, Then I want all fast wee ships limited to Frigate speeds in detonation… ( I hate that game mode)
Unfortunately, if the solution to frigball is to take out your own frigates, it’s no solution at all.
Then suck it up and learn how to play a Frigate. Try supporting your team in an engineer.
Bunch of nope here. Covert ops and gunship seem to be a good combo, but a command would help too.
Those ships are all good at taking out a lone frigate, but as i could experience with my gunship, not that great when fighting a group of frigates in formation (mostly guards, some engies). Well, if i had a squad of them it might have been a different story, but it was a pub fight. The darn coils just make it a no flight zone…
@ OP : It’s team battle, you can’t have your tiny wee fast ship win at everything. If you want Frigballs out of Team battle, Then I want all fast wee ships limited to Frigate speeds in detonation… ( I hate that game mode)
Then suck it up and learn how to play a Frigate. Try supporting your team in an engineer.
I play all the classes, i don’t mind switching ships. I just mind when there is a block of ships i can’t fight against because my team isn’t making a block of ships of it’s own. Also, none of the ships i had was any good at taking focussed fire or fast enough to dodge it; all i could do is hide and take shots at exposed ships until their whole frigball was there and we could no longer do anything about it. I blame coils for that situation, most frigs have them lately and i find it really hard to fly through a hail of exploding shells while trying to be in range to shoot back.
I play all the classes, i don’t mind switching ships. I just mind when there is a block of ships i can’t fight against because my team isn’t making a block of ships of it’s own. Also, none of the ships i had was any good at taking focussed fire or fast enough to dodge it; all i could do is hide and take shots at exposed ships until their whole frigball was there and we could no longer do anything about it. I blame coils for that situation, most frigs have them lately and i find it really hard to fly through a hail of exploding shells while trying to be in range to shoot back.
Hmm… so far my experience - based on RU server gameplay - seems to be the opposite. I have the impression many of the “better” T5 players falling back to play T3, due to large matches/shorter wait/easier wins, bring the T5 meta game with them. ECM spam, loads of Inties, etc. Probably specific for RU servers also the vaunted “nimble/vernier gunship” setups, combat healers (Styx) as damage dealers, non-speed tacklers, etc. Pretty much what you’d expect in T5, thus over the last few weeks it feels increasingly like T5 “light”, just that many of the T5 tactics are not quite as effective in T3 setups/builds.
Cordinated Frigballs I’ve seen little, just the usual bunch of “to many useless LRF players” in speed games etc., and to me THOSE don’t count as “frigball” when most of the time it’s so easy to take one or two of them out from behind without much effort in the right ship (with camo), and the rest then starts to turn around, negating their shared killzone and disrupting their tactical setup.
I don’t really have the feeling I die much more (except after my usual tactical mistakes) to Coil Mortars than in the past - in fact I seem to remember this to be much more an issue on non-RU servers.
Hmm… so far my experience - based on RU server gameplay - seems to be the opposite. I have the impression many of the “better” T5 players falling back to play T3, due to large matches/shorter wait/easier wins, bring the T5 meta game with them. ECM spam, loads of Inties, etc. Probably specific for RU servers also the vaunted “nimble/vernier gunship” setups, combat healers (Styx) as damage dealers, non-speed tacklers, etc. Pretty much what you’d expect in T5, thus over the last few weeks it feels increasingly like T5 “light”, just that many of the T5 tactics are not quite as effective in T3 setups/builds.
Cordinated Frigballs I’ve seen little, just the usual bunch of “to many useless LRF players” in speed games etc., and to me THOSE don’t count as “frigball” when most of the time it’s so easy to take one or two of them out from behind without much effort in the right ship (with camo), and the rest then starts to turn around, negating their shared killzone and disrupting their tactical setup.
I don’t really have the feeling I die much more (except after my usual tactical mistakes) to Coil Mortars than in the past - in fact I seem to remember this to be much more an issue on non-RU servers.
Most of the gametypes favor fast ships, that’s why we don’t see too many frigball. I’ve been playing for months now and the other day it was my first time i seen a cluster of frigates that refused to die. According to one of my corpmate it’s not a rare thing in team battle (the big cigar map might be the frigball heaven). I agree though, the t5 meta-game is quite common especially when playing on the RU server.
Most of the gametypes favor fast ships, that’s why we don’t see too many frigball. I’ve been playing for months now and the other day it was my first time i seen a cluster of frigates that refused to die. According to one of my corpmate it’s not a rare thing in team battle (the big cigar map might be the frigball heaven). I agree though, the t5 meta-game is quite common especially when playing on the RU server.
It’s not so rare the frigballing in those days, and not only in team battle. I’v seen capture the beacons played like that (and won easily with a little bit of coordination).
Breaking up a frigball is easy even with a command. All you need is a weapon with a high rate of fire and some ion missiles.
That imply using a specific ship with a specific setup; i had a gunship with a golden assault rail and EM missiles, that’s the highest DPS ship i had on hand at the time. That game lacked teamwork on my side, several times i brought one of their frigs to the death’s door but none of my teammates finished them off.
