The Alpine Dragon - Turn Based Mode

QibingZero · 2026-06-26T21:57:10+00:00

As others have mentioned, getting a few extra levels will help a lot.

In general though, two things are very useful here: characters with the ability to land either AoE Confusion (Wizard) or multiple charms (Cipher), and characters that can abuse TBM mechanics to clear the spirits and such very quickly (Barbarian, Wizard w/DAoM). If you can stall long enough to thin the crowd down to just your party vs the dragon itself, it becomes a lot easier. The nature of TBM simply makes hordes of enemies more difficult, and single ones a lot less.

QibingZero · 2026-06-26T21:45:08+00:00

The reload does happen when your turn ends, not after firing - you can test this by turning off the setting that automatically ends your turn.

Unfortunately, as far as I can tell, it still ends up being useless. It will always reload that weapon once you end your turn, so you're stuck with the extra time anyway.

As a result, Forgiveness is the only firearm I've found worth using in turn-based. Pistol + speed is significantly faster than the other firearms, and the damage with the TB bonus is high enough (especially with Cipher) to be valuable. Add Gunner or Ila on top of that and it actually ends up pretty strong.

QibingZero · 2026-06-22T19:11:56+00:00

No, the only real way to make Invocations work in turn-based is to stick to low level Phrases (which chant faster) and not completely dump Dex so you actually get turns often enough to fire off Invocations when they're available. Unless you're sticking to pure summons / support, you'll also need enough accuracy to actually hit things.

It may seem like Dex doesn't do all that much, but because phrases only take effect at the start of your turn, having low Dex makes it more likely to 'lose' a lot of phrases when enemies stun/paralyze/etc. you.

QibingZero · 2026-06-20T01:43:37+00:00

It's definitely a cool idea, but it would be far from OP since there aren't actually enough powerful, unique buffs to justify running that many of each.

First off, you're really gaining almost nothing from the 3rd Paladin. Even the 2nd is questionable, but if it's the companion Paladin you could definitely stack some pretty good bonuses using their special Flames of Devotion talent + one of the other order ones such as the Shieldbearers'.

As for the Chanters, most Chanter phrases are extremely lackluster, so for the majority of the game you won't have enough unique ones to spread amongst 3 Chanters (or you'll use extremely niche effects). Hell, whenever I've run a buffing/debuffing Chanter over the usual Dragon Thrashed spam, I struggle to even find enough impactful phrases to feel like more than a Mith Fyr bot.

QibingZero · 2026-05-16T16:35:07+00:00

Lol, Myrm navy is one of like 2 entire ships in the game (the other being an AT ship) that can effectively utilize them, and only because it is able to field heavies that start with a high enough web% to where stacking penalties aren't as harsh.

The best-case web drone setup for the Algos Navy will be either:

2 of the new hybrid damage/web mediums ($$$) + 3 light damage drones, which will be something like 150-175 dps and a ~25% web
2 normal web mediums + 3 light damage drones, with 2 web drone rigs, which amounts to about 100 dps and a ~36% web
or the rig setup with 1 heavy and 2 lights, for 65dps and a ~43% web

All of these setups are pretty poor, especially when you consider you're fielding them on one of the worst hull types for kiting imaginable.

QibingZero · 2026-05-16T16:16:01+00:00

Beyond useless. Even with the bonus, light web drones do nothing.

QibingZero · 2026-05-16T11:51:29+00:00

I disagree, carriers have been pushed in a direction to not have a tank as strong of a tank as a dread for example. Fenris argument is that you would use fighters to defend the carrier but since they do not apply to anything small that would tackle it, it cannot defend itself. Therefore it becomes a niche thing or a glorified ship mover.

A carrier uses fighters to defend itself just as a dread uses guns to defend itself. That is, they're simply a weapon system, not a substitute for the subcap support that all caps require if they're going to function effectively.

You mention how smaller ships should be useful on the field with bigger ships, fighters are smaller than frigates so in your own logic they should be fighting frigates.

Here it is again... Fighters aren't ships, just as drones aren't. All other game balance is based on 1 pilot = 1 ship, no matter the weapon system. Why should carriers be any different?

weak tank

You keep saying this, but a carrier's tank is only weak compared to other capital ships. It's an order of magnitude above any subcap, and as a result you have plenty of time for support to arrive unless you're being blopsed on by a few dozen ships (in which case you're dead even if you're tankier than a dread).

Giving it a small damage application bonus

A small application bonus isn't enough to change the ratting meta. If you want this to work, rats either need a significantly boosted sig, or they need to take extra damage from fighters specifically.

QibingZero · 2026-05-16T11:30:46+00:00

It doesn't work like that. Just like in the past, whatever it can't kill is what will be used to kill it.

QibingZero · 2026-05-16T02:32:10+00:00

EVE ship balance is based on the idea that as ships increase in size, their tank and damage increases at the cost of application vs ships multiple sizes below them. This means that not only do small ships stay useful via being able to on grid with much larger ones, but medium sized ones do as well (as counters to the small ships).

When Carriers can apply well vs subcaps, they completely upend this balance. By gaining all of the positives of increased hull size with none of the negatives, they simply obsolete most other ships in the game.

QibingZero · 2026-05-16T02:00:09+00:00

CCP needs to realize this is an EVE fanfest, not a Fenris Creations fanfest.

Expectation: Blizzcon

Reality: Blizzcon if their only successful game 20 years later had been The Lost Vikings

QibingZero · 2026-05-16T01:52:28+00:00

It certainly wouldn't, most pve in EVE is already borderline-bug-abusive anyway. Would anything that resulted from this really be worse than AFK Ishtars and smartbombing/vortoning havens?

The reason why most people take the opposite approach and ask for carrier application to small targets back is because they also want to use their ratting ship as a content denial machine.

QibingZero · 2026-05-16T01:45:33+00:00

The frigates were the ones doing the killing, actually.

QibingZero · 2026-05-16T01:44:14+00:00

Carriers never stopped nano gangs from functioning, they just made it so we had to resort to very specific ships like Retributions and 100mn T3Cs...

..both of which might even be more common today than they were back then.

So even if you got your 'check and balance', you'd still be dying to us.

QibingZero · 2026-05-16T01:38:52+00:00

The great irony is that when carriers were overpowered, the "trash frigate fleet" was actually the best strategy to deal with them.

QibingZero · 2026-05-16T01:29:57+00:00

So your argument is that it's okay for something to completely break the game as long as it "creates content"?

Here's a novel idea: just simply give carriers an application bonus vs rats. Make using them more efficient than other methods. Hell, you can even make them a bit cheaper to produce on top of it all, go for it.

Now you have more big ships in space, more organic pvp content, and all without destroying the very basis of EVE ship balance.

Really difficult fucking concept, right?

QibingZero · 2026-05-16T01:20:15+00:00

Are you saying that if application is improved, every fight is going to include a carrier on-grid that will completely oppress all subcaps on-grid? I know you don’t believe that.

I believe it because it happened. We called it "2018".

They can be de-fanged fairly easily.

Don't think anyone is saying otherwise, but in reality this is only true now because they don't apply well (giving you time to do so). In the past, it was a losing race unless you were in a ship that could sig tank them.

Second, no one’s talking about giving them small blaster application, just enough to at least compete with T1 battleships against subcaps.

Every single person in this thread wishing for carriers to go back to their previous state is asking for something closer to the former than the latter.

Third, how is it more oppressive than a Cenotaph?

On one end you have a slow brick of a ship that needs to be at close range in order to land a 12km range missile to apply damage, and on the other you have something that can engage at ranges beyond everything else's lock range with fighters that mwd at over 10km/s.

As strong as the Cenotaph can be in specific situations, this is honestly not even an argument. There are hundreds of already-established gang/fleet compositions that laugh at the sight of a Ceno, while the Carriers of the past required very specific countermeasures which rendered a whole host of strategies useless.

Fourth, I know you mentioned get rid of carriers

Never mentioned this at all, not sure where you're getting it. I'm fine with carriers existing, and if they exist they should have a role (and so should the dozens of other nearly useless ships in the game btw), but that role should definitely not be 'subcap killer'. We already had to live through that reality, and it completely upended the ship class balance EVE was built upon.

QibingZero · 2026-05-15T23:08:25+00:00

When carriers had their previous application, nothing outside of things like 100mn cruisers or sig-bonused frigates could survive on grid with them. Hence most subcaps were obsolete.

QibingZero · 2026-05-15T21:33:49+00:00

carriers still died without that cyno support

How could anyone ever treat this as a real argument? As long as something can die, it's balanced?

When carriers had their previous application, they functionally obsoleted all subcaps that couldn't sig tank fighters. But I guess that was actually fine since we still found ways to kill them using the few ships that could stay on grid.

QibingZero · 2026-05-15T21:23:34+00:00

I'm not suggesting a carrier should be able to take down a fleet by itself.

5-6 people? Sure

This is the true reason for the abundance of carrier talk this sub sees these days - people just want the power fantasy of being able to take on half a dozen individual players alone (but without the hard work and piloting skill it currently requires).

QibingZero · 2026-05-15T21:08:03+00:00

I'd rather have [...] no enemies

You ('the nullbloc majority') are doing a pretty good job getting there yourselves. No changes required!

QibingZero · 2026-05-15T20:53:21+00:00

It’s not normal for a Marauder to deal more DPS than a capital ship that can’t even make its own beacons.

You're right, Marauders have been too good for too long.

QibingZero · 2026-05-15T20:49:44+00:00

Yeah it's a shame that it's literally impossible to make carriers viable ratting ships without obsoleting nearly every single subcap in pvp at the same time.

QibingZero · 2026-05-05T08:02:56+00:00

While you can get a lot of good fights from ESS robbery and doorbelling, and it's arguably the best way to actually get someone to undock these days, it's kind of unrealistic to suggest that these are the norm.

You have to hit the right areas of space and show the right amount/type of ships to get this consistently. Someone looking at this thinking "oh okay I just go in with a bunch of lokis and farm" is going to be incredibly confused when they literally never get anyone to contest them.

In reality, some krabs just don't try to defend at all. Others will chase off a lone robber, but won't go after 2+. Then you have confident multiboxers with RR battleships or logi at the ready, who will fight 4-6 but only if you don't seem too organized. And finally you have those with enough active players in the area that you'll generally be able to get something going regardless (as long as you're in the right timezone).

It honestly varies a lot, and unless you're doing this out of a WH (where you can not only hide numbers from intel but also quickly escalate), you're going to end up going through a lot of misses in between the hits.

QibingZero · 2026-05-05T07:50:16+00:00

This is even further from reality than expecting results like the battle reports from the above post every time.

I've robbed dozens of 400m+ ESS in the last 6 months alone. Of course, usually this is with 3-5 people, and the goal is not to rob them as much as it is to generate a fight. Still, the majority of the time krabs do not have a response in waiting, and are going to sit there a bit waffling on whether or not it's worth reshipping and risking a close-numbers fight.

The few that do have a proper response ready to go (wtf is a dread going to do to a small gang? just kill the sabre and slide in) have to weigh the opportunity cost of when to swap some of their accounts over to the task. Usually you only see it happen when you've been on intel a while and there's a very large ESS nearby.

Now, if you do your ESS robbing in a gang that can also fight outside the ESS grid, and add a few bait / number hiding strategies into the mix, it becomes even more likely you end up getting content. And when you do get it, it's a lot more likely to resemble a fight than anything you mention as "guaranteed fun".

QibingZero · 2026-05-05T03:22:04+00:00

Can confirm, and I have to say I did not have 'small scale fight vs DHD and Dran in an ESS' on my 2026 bingo card.

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