The Heavy Assault Cruiser rebalance was announced last October at Eve Vegas, alongside a redesign of their Assault Frigate counterparts, as well as the introduction of the Assault Damage control. With the exception of the recent March release, and a series of tweaks to the role bonuses and slot layout of the Ishtar that dominated the Halloween War, HACs were last iterated on in 2013.

This pending HAC redesign was initially slated for January/February 2018, later pushed back to evaluate the impact of the ADC on the class, and then finally removed from the news page entirely. I’d expect to see an announcement at the Fanfest in a week. Given CCP Rise’s reply and the CSM Winter Summit minutes, it’s clear that the developers are not being allocated sufficient resources to implement game design changes. I understand that there’s apprehension about accidentally creating the next pre-nerf Ishtar, but the timeframe is unreasonable.

Before I delve into the various problems that HACs face, there’s a question that should be asked, “In a sentence, what is the role of this ship class?” If that question can’t be answered, then the roles are likely poorly defined. I can apply that same line of questioning to most every other class and end up with a meaningful answer, irrespective of how weak or powerful the hulls in that class are. Battlecruisers are generally inexpensive platforms with moderate maneuverability, high signature, an average health pool, some utility, and have solid damage and projection. Covert Ops are a split class with one half of the line specializing in bombing or ganking with torpedoes, while the other half focuses on exploration and probing.

HACs are unique in that they’re the only class that doesn’t have a satisfactory answer to this question. Part of the reason this test can’t be applied to HACs is that the role bonus to MWD signature simply don’t make sense on half of HAC hulls. There are a number of HAC fleet doctrines that alliances are currently experimenting with that are now viable such as the armor and shield Ishtar, Muninn, and Eagle, or in the case of the Cerberus, simply perform better with the introduction of the ADC. All of these HACs have something in common in that they’re mobile medium range platforms that perform well in medium scale fleet doctrines. The Vagabond, Zealot, Deimos and Sacrilege are collectively not seeing use in fleet combat besides niche fast tackle roles. There are a couple different directions that the developers can go to introduce meaningful roles for the underutilised set of HACs.

Besides changes to the base stats of HACs, the direction that I’d like the class to take would be to split the HAC line in half, with each race having one HAC on each side of the split. With some exceptions, this split already exists informally in terms of what propulsion module is typically most useful on the hull. Providing separate role bonuses to each half would be the first step in allowing each hull to specialize, and give HACs a wider variety of roles as a whole.

The Muninn, Ishtar, Cerberus, and Sacrilege would retain their current MWD signature reduction bonus. The first three are already seeing use as mentioned earlier, and the Sacrilege will hopefully will be in a position where it has a use case, most likely in wormholes, despite having a number of other armor missile boats to compete with. For the most part, this half of the class is the easiest to change via stat modifications since their role bonus and engagement profile is already fairly well understood in the current meta.

Welcome back, AHAC

In addition to base stats changes, the Vagabond, Deimos, Zealot, and Eagle would receive role bonuses to afterburner speed and base signature reduction. Combined, these would allow for better transversal matching and a reduction in incoming applied damage. The Vagabond does make use of its current MWD signature reduction while closing range on a target, but an MWD bonus is no longer useful when the hull is being scrambled and webbed at autocannon range. The Eagle is the HAC in this half that needs the least by way of upgrades. In the case of the Deimos and Zealot, this would be a step towards reintroducing the close range armor HAC as a viable fleet doctrine.

Given a bump to the base stats of the Zealot and Deimos such that they have projection and health pool parity with the afterburning shield Loki, alongside the added utility of the ADC and role bonuses, both hulls would act as toned down versions of their pre-nerf Strategic Cruiser counterparts. Anchored or piloted correctly, they would be difficult to track with long range battleship weapons and would offer noticeable damage mitigation against medium artillery and railguns.

Stagnation in the meta has been a significant problem over the last couple years that has resulted in both FCs and line members becoming bored and disengaged. AHACs would be a relatively mobile offensive doctrine with a specialization and combat capability that is proportionate to their cost. Their implementation would increase the depth of fleet combat and be a healthy and welcome change. T3Cs needed to be toned down, but their role in New Eden did not need to be removed outright.

I was invited to the Strategic Cruiser focus group knowing that one of the design goals CCP had was to reduce the combination of raw hp and resistances that made the Proteus and Legion as powerful as they were. Unfortunately, the changes went too far in the opposite direction and both hulls are no longer viable as an armor fleet brawler. Additionally, the reduction to the strength of the evasive maneuvering Skirmish link made signature tanking significantly less viable.

Would this result in AHACs being as problematic as T3Cs?

It’s a fair question, but no. One of the attributes that made T3Cs as powerful as they were was the electronic subsystem. Lokis were ridiculously hard to kill, could effortlessly shrug off EM damage from everything that wasn’t a tracking dreadnaught, and their webs had a massive zone of influence that slowed or outright stopped anything within 55 km. Proteus with faction disruptors would lock down a massive portion of a hostile fleet along with their FC, and forced the opposition to commit to the brawl, or pull upwards of 65 km of range before being able to warp out. Legions had energy neutralization subsystems, but these primarily saw use in wormholes where they functioned as miniature Bhaalgorns that were harder to apply damage to and had lower mass.

These armor HACs would have none of the ewar options that made T3Cs what they were. With the changes to Strategic Cruisers, the current armor Loki is no longer the concrete brick that it used to be, is expensive, and would be significantly slower than any AHAC. The faction point Proteus is now comically slow, forcing HICs or Interdictors to be used as tackle options. We’re also in 2018, not the Halloween War era of 2013-2014, or the Shadoo era of screaming at fellow PL FC Carbonfury back in 2011. The checks and counters to T3Cs are fairly well known and understood by FCs in the modern era.

Regardless of whatever change CCP makes, Eve is complex and there are a number of factors independent of HACs as class that work against the line, and is why iterative design is a necessity. Even if the Vagabond has more midslots than lowslots, medium autocannons are an awful platform. The Ferox lost some damage in March, but needs a reduction in optimal range. Active tanked FAX are overtuned to the point where they can easily repair 100k EHP/s, and as such cannot reasonably be killed by HAC fleet, or any subcapital fleet for that matter. Having said that, we’ll have to wait and see what gets released at Fanfest.