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EVE Evolved: Odyssey 1.1 and PvP balance
It's been just under three months since EVE Online's exploration-focused Odyssey expansion went live, bringing in a new hacking minigame and significantly buffing the underused tier 1 and tier 2 battleships. With a complete rebalancing all of the tech 1 sub-capital ships now complete, CCP has turned its attention to some of the oldest tech 2 ships in the game: Heavy Assault Ships and Command Ships. Developers have been testing out changes to these ships on the test server and hitting up players for feedback since Odyssey went live, and the results are finally ready to deploy. Odyssey 1.1 will go live in two days time on September 3rd and contains some pretty big changes that are sure to shake up the PvP landscape. Medium-sized long-range weapons have been buffed beyond all recognition, and a buff to active tanking may soon make it viable in PvP. Heavy Assault Ships and Command Ships have been beefed up, the Dominix is getting a small nerf following its absolute dominance in the Alliance Tournament, and the Nosferatu energy vampire module may be about to make a return to PvP setups. In this week's EVE Evolved, I analyse the upcoming Odyssey 1.1 patch and what the new ship balance changes mean for the average player.
EVE Evolved: New Ancillary Armor Repairers aren't up to the task
EVE Online's Retribution 1.1 patch went live this week, overhauling armour tanking and rebalancing some ships that traditionally fit armour tanks. Last week I looked at why people usually choose passive buffer tanks for PvP over active tanks and how the Ancillary Shield Boosters changed all that by giving shield users a huge free burst tank that can often outperform a front-loaded buffer tank. The new Ancillary Armor Repairers look similarly amazing on paper with their ability to consume nanite repair paste to triple repair output, but how do they stack up against their shield-based counterparts? Now that the patch is out and I've finally got my hands on the Ancillary Armor Repairers, I'm not sure they're any good. They're limited to one per ship even though most active armour tanking ships use dual or triple repairer setups, and they can run for only eight repair cycles before running out of paste. They're also only 68.75% more effective than tech 2 repairers and still require the same amount of capacitor. Ancillary Shield Boosters may provide a slightly smaller 63.33% repair boost over tech 2 boosters, but they can cycle at double the rate of Ancillary Armor Repairers and don't require any capacitor. In this week's EVE Evolved, I look at what makes Ancillary Shield Boosters a strong contender in PvP and show that the new Ancillary Armor Repairers just aren't up to the task.
