5.0 Hotfix 12 - Christmas Hotfix

[Antonio]

Since 5.0 release missiles have been the most efficient guns for all capital ships. So much so, that even after the efficiency nerf a couple of hotfixes ago they remained the most efficient guns without nerfing anything else, and they stayed like that to this day. Because of the highest efficiency, coupled with missiles scaling better with numbers + range (two things that scale massively well the more people you have) it was no surprise missiles were dominating fleet fights. After all, why shouldn't you use them in fleet fights if you know they are the most efficient weapons you can fire, you know you essentially have infinite ammo, you know they have the tied highest range, and you know they utilize that range perfectly because you will always force a reaction from the opponent due to their fire-and-forget nature?

A missile's effective range, range at which you can realistically hit a target, was always the max possible range listed (3k for cr/bc, 4k for bs), and the missiles scale better than any other gun with range as they get more speed. Any other weapon has a much lower effective range. For instance a light mortar maybe has a 3k effective range against Ish'tars and Nephilims, but it already drops to around 2-2.5k against light battleships, 2k against battlecruisers and 1k against cruisers. The ammo nerf keeps them as viable in duels and smaller skirmishes as ever, while nerfing fleet fights where they were overperforming. Higher damage per shot aka removing spammability is a double edged sword, where if you land them you are rewarded more, but if the opponent deals with them they are rewarded more.

Of course, missiles have counters to compensate for that highest effective range and efficiency, which remains the highest overall even after the range nerfs. They can be dodged (not really possible in a battlecruiser+, and difficult in a cruiser when forced to run in a straight line, but otherwise doable), CMed (unreliable and quite difficult when you have 25 CMs and the opponent has 90 ammo per missile type) or flaked (reliable, but quite heavy on the core. Ironically, you end up spending more core deflecting the missiles than the person firing them, and you took all the risk while they took 0). Yet with all those counters, neither of them tackle the fundamental issue of missiles enough, hence the nerfs. Edit: One very important factor since 5.0 release is that missiles cannot be CDed anymore, which is a huge buff all-round before all the other buffs. Losing the biggest counter to missiles probably contributed to their power as much as range or any other insane stat.

In short missiles had:
-essentially infinite ammo
-highest range
-high spammability
-highest efficiency
-always forced a reaction from the opponent, no matter how far away they are within max range
-got better with range
-scaled extremely well in fleet fights

The last 4 are still true which is why I expect missiles to continue to be good in fleet fights. Just not as a quad missile BC, or full missile caps in general, and they will be a bit less rewarding for how risk-free they were primarily due to their insane range. They are still fire-and-forget, are the most efficient guns you can fire, and they will continue to force a reaction from the enemy player, so I doubt they're going anywhere from the meta.

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