A little EvE history lesson
When I started EvE in December 2007 the corp that I joined lived in a low sec system in Derelik. The corp was specialised in covert operations and had an industrial backbone. Everybody in the corp was encouraged to train for stealthbombers and recons. As my corp mates suggested I started as Caldari character and trained the usual for pve. I also skilled for the Manticore and for the Falcon. As I got more experienced it sometimes was my duty to cover the incoming freighter from Jita to our home system. The freighter had to do the three low sec jumps and it obviosuly needed protection. Often there were HICs or battlecruiser on the first low sec gate that camped the entry system. The solution to get your freighter in was the Falcon/ Rapier combo. The Rapier would be within 20 km from the gate cloaked. Meanwhile the Falcon pilot would be cloaked 170 km off the gate, with nothing else fitted than a damage control, two signal distortion amplifiers, racial ecm modules and dispersion projector and augmentor rigs. As soon as the freighter jumped into the low sec system the Falcon decloaked, locked the pirates on the gate and would immediately overheat the ecm modules and jam everything hostile on the gate. The Rapier decloaked afterwards and webbed the freighter to the next gate. The corp never lost a freighter moving through low sec. This was standard procedure in the whole EvE cluster and pirate tears could be harvested everywhere. Back in the days the optimal range and the jamming strength of the Falcon was so overpowered that "Because of Falcon" became an EvE meme and led to numerous nerfs to both jamming modules and the ship itself since than.
Fast forward to EvE Rubicon
For a long time Electronic Attack Frigates were an outclassed, underwhelming ship class. The usual null sec grunt did not skill for them. Only in the limited combat area of the Alliance Tournament it was considered useful and CCP's tiercide effort had to change something about that. This is what CCP Rise proposed about the upcoming changes:
GOALSI think both the goals and the design highlights are reasonable. Usually CCP is rather carefully with boosts for a good reason. Let us take a look on the currently proposed stats on the EAFs to figure out if CCP followed their own design rules!
Make them more useful Make them sensible in relation to the new t1 disruption frigs Avoid overlap with other classes (interceptors and disruption frigs?)
DESIGN HIGHLIGHTS
Increased the range bonus from Electronic Attack Ship skill on all four ships significantly Slightly increased base hp Slightly increased maxvelocity Increased lock range significantly Increased cap recharge from 1.33/sec to around 2/sec (this is a big deal)
- Keres: 21.6 km scram (overheated), 57.6 km disruptor (overheated), 2x 54+90 km dampeners with -58.44 % range dampening each, 106.25 km lock range
- Kitsune: 4x 122+48 km ECM with 10.8 strength (overheated), 115.37 km lock range
- Hyena: 2x 45.5 km web with -60% speed bonus (overheated), 68+90 km target painter with +56.25 % sig radius, 103.13 km lock range
- Sentinel: 3x 72+36 km tracking disruption with -65.66% optimal each, 103.13 km lock range
Uh oh. That is some huge overlap between EAFs and Combat Recons. The Kitsune, while having two thirds of the jamming strength of the Rook, has a 2.5 times longer optimal. The Hyena only has a 6.5 km shorter web range as the Huginn and outperforms it for target painting. The Keres and the Lachesis share their stats, same applies to the Amarr. With the signature bonus and the much larger cap bonus these ships are made for kiting. You can also easily fit and run a named 10MN afterburner, have all ewar mods active and you still never run into any cap issues.
Since CCP Veritas still has not found a way to get rid of OGB without melting the server I have to assume that nearly all small fleets and most elite solo pvpers use either a CS or T3s for fleet boost. Now here are the stats with the same fits as before with skirmish and information warfare links applied:
- Keres: 28.4 km scram (overheated), 75.8 km disruptor (overheated), 2x 73+90 km dampeners with -71.04 % range dampening each, 157.01 km lock range
- Kitsune: 4x 160+48 km ECM with 14.2 strength (overheated), 169.79 km lock range
- Hyena: 2x 59.3 km web with -60% speed bonus (overheated), 91+90 km target painter with +75.66 % sig radius, 152.4 km lock range
- Sentinel: 3x 97+36 km tracking disruption with -79.81% optimal each, 152.4 km lock range
Wow! That combined is some serious speed kiting ewar superiority! Obviously Recons have not been touched yet by the CCP devs but most likely they will be rebalanced in the upcoming months. But for now there is no reason to keep flying a Combat Recon. EAFs outperform them, are easier to skill and only cost a third of a Recon. I actually hope that further iterations on EAF will change this or you might hear a scream more often: "Because of EAF".
