A G'Vrahn thread!**now with added poll!**

[Target]

@ Ghost Recon
It just seems that you are saying the G'Varhn is perfectly fine. If i've misread sorry .
The Fireraptor i used as a comparsion is cause they do a similar role. The Fireraptor probably is the worse war lvl ship anyaway & needs a big upgrade.
Most Narn players take G' varhn & not the Bin Tak is the problem. There is no reason to take a Bin Tak, The Bin Tak brawling compacity is at range 8" which isn't hard to avoid with speed 5 lumbering ship. It's pretty much a no brainer which is better in most situations.
So you are saying that the G'Varn just needs a little tweak or not?

 

[Methos5000]

My point about the sniper and brawler is that the G'Vrahn does brawling better then the Bin'Tak and given the Bin'Tak's speed it would function better as a sniper.

I know full well the roles I stated are reversed. However the stats of the ships indicate the G'Vrahn with its AJP and Interceptors and maneuverablity it a much better close up ship then the slow lumbering Bin'Tak. It like calling the Psi Corp mothership is a close range brawler when it is clealy statted to be a sniper ship.

Regardless, the G'Vrahn fills both roles better then the Bin'Tak thus rendering the Bin'Tak effectively obsolete. Which, if I recall correctly, is the whole point of this debate to begin with.

 

[GhostRecon]

@ Ghost Recon
It just seems that you are saying the G'Varhn is perfectly fine. If i've misread sorry .
The Fireraptor i used as a comparsion is cause they do a similar role. The Fireraptor probably is the worse war lvl ship anyaway & needs a big upgrade.
Most Narn players take G' varhn & not the Bin Tak is the problem. There is no reason to take a Bin Tak, The Bin Tak brawling compacity is at range 8" which isn't hard to avoid with speed 5 lumbering ship. It's pretty much a no brainer which is better in most situations.
So you are saying that the G'Varn just needs a little tweak or not?

I've said it needs a small tweak for awhile now, in the course of this thread...

I don't know how else to say or phrase the point I'm trying to make.

There are numerous other factors that need to be accounted for when you balance the G'vrahn, when you change it. By making the Bin'Tak a more viable choice, and reducing the G'vrahn's capabilities, how does that affect the Narn fleet's performance? All people have established is they want to make the G'vrahn less of a choice, but in doing so, do you reduce the overall capability of the Narn fleet? Is the Bin'Tak capable enough to be a choice in light of these changes? Or will people just make different choices regardless? Or will they just chose the G'vrahn anyway?

What if boresight was "fixed"? How does that affect the overall game balance, and the balance of those fleets that are heavily based on boresights? How does that affect the Narn?

People havn't answered that question, they simply assume by reducing the G'vrahn and making the Bin'Tak a "better choice" by giving it Slow-Loading E-mines, everything else falls into place.

By changing even one ship, you affect the entirety of how that race plays, because you change how people pick their fleets.

Is it for the better? Or worse?

You can't just say "Oh the G'vrahn is so good, nerfing it will fix things and make the Bin'Tak a better choice" without accounting for, or considering how that affects the entire fleet, how its performance is affected. The best we have is how the Bin'Tak performed in 1e.

As I ended my post before:

I am not saying I do not think the G’vrahn doesn’t need toning down, as I have iterated repeatedly, to no apparent avail, I think it could definitely do for some. I -AM- saying we need to take a look at everything else and consider the all the factors that are causing the problem. We need to find the causation, and not just make some correlations that could, may, or are part of the problem.

Try the battles again with boresight fixes. Try them again without boresight fixes. Try them without boresight fixes, but G’vrahn fixes. Etc. Correlation is not causation. People talk about playtesting, well, do some playtesting, and cover every angle.

 

[Target]

The G'Varhn & Varnic & Thentus (Thentus not so much) are what i'd call Hunters & would say they don't need the E-Mines. The G'Varhn without e-mines is still a damn good ship Hunter. Im not saying they have to go but the it still would be very viable choice & it would to the job it's intended to do. At the moment it does Bin Taks as well.
I really don't believe a tweak to the G'Varhn would wreck the Narns balance but looks like we will have different opinions on that.
Sorry if it took a while to get what you meant.
No hard feelings

 

[Gunnvaldr]

You should see the Drazi look at this ship & go " What the hell! But we are meant to be the kings of forward beam firepower ".

I don't if seen anyone post lets strip her down of her weapons or even make her 62 hits like the Drazi ship which also doesn't interceptors.
It's not the first time people have said she a tad overpowered but since people have seen what they can do on a regular occurance thanks to the tourney. It's become a bit more visible.

My poor drazi, of all the tech they got from the ISA it's the blasted artifical gravity. Only thing useful about the gain, besides comfort, is you extend the operational time before the ship has to dock for rotation. But that's pointless in B5 ACTA since it doesn't have anythign to represent that.

Drazi Fireraptor is another debate all together, the point I'm trying to illustrate is if a Drazi player looked at his most unused ship in his list and compare it to the G'V, in which it is most visible, I would understand for the drazi player at least to cry BROKEN!

having said that the suggestions I am reading, regardless of tone, are insightful in the matter. G'V is a hunter-killer. It really wouldn't need it's e-mines to be effective. the deduction of some hit pts and increase to the Bin'Tak would be a good way to balance, it would be on the similar line to the marathon (hunterkiler) vs. omega (brawler), or the liati (hunterkiler) vs. secundus (brawler).

I initally voted it isn't broken, but I must admit now slight adjsutment like these mention above would make the ship more themed and 'balanced' no?

 

[H]

ok Firstly, it's Tyre, trust me, I'm english, my people with a healthy mix of picts, normans, saxons and vikings, and probably roman influence developed the language, so also note Colour has a U in it! :twisted:

secondly. IF the G'Vrahn was a key component that a change or removal crippled the narn fleet, I would say Gool GR i see what you mean, BUT, IF you removed this, the best warship in the game, how would the dynamic of the fleet change, well, you could take the Bin'Tak, probably the 4th best warship in the game, you would have to accept it is slower, and less maneuvreable, and probably a little less shooty at range. Meaning perhaps you used different tactics and different support choices. however none of the other ships would need any balancing. IF however the G'Vrahn happened to ba a primary raid choice, I would be more concerned. As the ship is top end and used rarely certainly if you are involved in tourneys at raid, it's not as big a deal. this one chip being at an extreme to either end of the fleet is less likely to have an overall impact than a major change to a raid or skirmish choice. That is the Beauty of this problem in some ways, it does not require a complete overhaul like the Gaim for instance, it requires, if anything in fact, a minor tweak, which could be as simple as changing it's mines to one shot. How would this affect balance of the fleet? you might consider taking an extra Dag'kar instead of a Var'Nic maybe.
I think we want the same thing out of all this, we are just approching it from very different angles!

 

[Foxmeister]

I've lined up a game for next Monday, a 5pt Battle, and as I said I would earlier in the thread I'm leaving the G'Vrahn at home and taking a Bin'Tak. Given that I took away having to choose between the Bin'Tak the G'Vrahn, I'm actually looking forward to it - it'll be nice to use a ship that has some real offensive weaponry to the rear. If the Bin'Tak had the SL e-mine, and the G'Vrahn a one-shotter, I think it is a choice I'd feel more inclined to make for tactical reasons and that can only be a good thing for a Narn player!

I just wish the Battle level choices were more compelling. When you get down to it, 2 Var'Nics is a far better proposition than 1 G'Quan or any of its variants (YMMV of course!). I'm still persevering with the G'Lan, simply because the G'Quan hull is so iconic and I think evern Narn fleet should have one!

Regards,

Dave

 

[Foxmeister]

ok Firstly, it's Tyre, trust me, I'm english, my people with a healthy mix of picts, normans, saxons and vikings, and probably roman influence developed the language, so also note Colour has a U in it! :twisted:

Well done for standing up in the defence of the English language! You are a man of honour sir. Somebody write this man a cheque! (No offence to our american cousins of course....)

Regards,

Dave

 

[katadder]

well due to me having non boresight init sinks and the narn not really then i can happily say that boresight didnt have any effect on the game.
in fact the only time the warlock didnt have a boresight was because there was nothing in foreward arc and it had a no SA crit which would also stop your raking fire etc.
boresight I really have no problem with. what I and many people have a problem with is the power of the g'vrahn. yes it was in a battle lost to the minbari, but that was a problem of stealth more than anything, the narns couldnt see me. but in the battle aganst EA with arguably the 2nd top warship of the game the g'vrahn ran rampant eventually outmanouvering even the delphi to get its foreward arc guns online.
even if the g'vrahn only had a one shot e-mine it still packs more beams than any other warship as well as some ion torps and not bad secondaries. would it change the outlook of the narn fleet? no, people would just maybe use a bin'tak more which is a good warship in its own right anyway. changing this minor thing on the g'vrahn would not unbalance the narn in any way shape or form.

 

[Foxmeister]

even if the g'vrahn only had a one shot e-mine it still packs more beams than any other warship as well as some ion torps and not bad secondaries.

Sorry for being a little pedantic, but there are a few Warships with more beams than the G'Vrahn - just not in such a manoeuvrable package. I can name 2 of the top of my head - the Sharoos and our old friend the Bin'Tak!

As to the secondaries, sorry but they are quite poor for a War level ship outside the front arc - definitely tipping the scales on the "bad" side IMHO.

Regards,

Dave

 

[H]

ok, maybe I think he was meaning in one arc

 

[Centauri_Admiral]

I'm going to propose a collective decision on this at my local club; and house rule it. As we have all now, thoroughly discussed, those of us that are in favour of a tweak I think that tweak should include swapping the emines between the G'Vrahn and Bin'Tak; and perhaps dropping the interceptors to 2 instead of 4. Fairly minor changes really. If this gets the majority vote in our club, I think we could get some playtesting done, and see how [if at all] these changes impact the G'Vrahn.

As we all say, it may inspire the narn players to use the Bin'Tak for tactical reasons, as opposed to being forced to use it by peer pressure.

 

[katadder]

yeah i meant no other warship can get as many beams onto one target.

 

[Burger]

Except the Vorlon Light Cruiser and Fireraptor

 

[H]

well light cruiser gets 4 less dice, but is quad damage. the fireraptor does indeed get more dice... but half of them are single, half are slow loading, and the range on both is less than the mag gun

 

[Burger]

Well I am assuming we are counting DD as double, TD as triple, etc. So G'Vrahn has 6x double + 4x triple = 24. VLC has 6x quad = 24. Fireraptor has 6x triple + 6 single = 24.

Next up comes Tashkat with 10x double = 20. Quite a lot have 18.

 

[H]

fair comment, however you need to take into account the slow loading on the fireraptor TD beam, lowering it on average over the others

 

[Burger]

Nobody mentioned damage over time, we could be talking about maximum burst damage

Oh Corumai has 24 also, but all SL.

 

[H]

again fair enough, but of course you get a better picture of a ships ability if you factor in two turns of firing... until suchtime as we get super slow loading over 3 turns

 

[Burger]

If I drop my weapons to super super super super slow loading can I get 400% more ADs? :lol: