Anything made by humans is prone to error, and massive multi-player online games are prone to massive multi-layered errors. This is especially true when it comes to game balance.
The traditional mantra in online games has been pretty straightforward. If something is completely unbalanced to the point its simply game breaking or reduces overall enjoyment the best way to bring attention to the problem is not by complaining on some community message system, its not by crying about it in game, and its certainly not by blogging about it -its by completely abusing the unbalanced mechanic to your advantage. When everyone is utilizing only a few skills, characters, items, or whatever it is, people stop playing and bad press is generated. This in turn forces companies to spend resources on the game or lose revenue. Tip the scales overwhelmingly in one direction and you get a response.
Eve has proven to be a different beast entirely. The game has grown so big almost no one has actually experienced every part of it. This is especially true of PvP. Most Eve players rarely even leave high-sec. This translates into gaping holes in the PvP system not even being experienced by a large portion of the player base. The end result? Balance adjustments can't be forced by simple and absolute abuse of over powered mechanisms, at least not in any timely way.
What does this mean for us, the players? ABUSE AWAY! So lets take a look at broken mechanics that can work for you. DISCLAIMER: The following techniques well make people cry, questions your sexual orientation in local, and set you red.
ECM
Okay so this might seem obvious, but its always stunning to me how rare ECM pilots are, particularly good ones. ECMs can effectively remove enemy players from the fight at a 1:1 module to ship ratio. They are guaranteed versus frigates, T1 cruisers, and most Minmatar ships. If for some reason one module doesn't do the job just use 2 on a particularly important target... Like your enemy's ECM ship.
For new pilots ECM ships can be hard for one simple reason... You are despised by all enemies. You will be primaried and unless you know how to handle this you're going to die. When and how to use ECM properly and survive takes time and practice, but the payoff is.. well, game breaking -its as simple as that.
Boosters
You see a lot of tearing on the forums about how underpowered active repair is. When it comes to skirmish battles nothing could be further from the truth. A standard Large Armor Repairer does about 800 points per cycle. However fit on a Hyperion with the proper skills, rigs, and boosters this one repper does over 2000 points per cycle. Fit 2 reps and you're repairing 40% of your armor in less then 10 seconds. When the amount of enemies involved in an engagement is low this is simply unbreakable. Active repair assault frigates were good before the last patch... They are truly amazing now. What can I say here.. Bait, bait and more bait.
The skill books needed for boosters are expensive, but depending on the kind of PvP you're doing they can pay for themselves pretty fast. Once again, a totally broken mechanic.
Passive Targetting
This one is just wrong. A large part of skirmish PvP is about who has aggression and how. This is especially true in Low Sec. If you catch possible prey making a mistake and think you have the alpha to one-shot them passive targeting can get you a free kill. This is almost never used and can really surprise people.
This list goes on and on...
A lot of attention is given to how broken super caps and titans are (which they really are), or how unfair the Drake is, but in reality these are just the most obvious in a huge list of balance issues within the game. So I say to you! Abuse and abuse again! When you find something you think is totally one-sided you may be right!
Remember, there is no "unfair" in Eve. There are only winners and losers. Let the guy who cries after you blow his ship up think otherwise, not you.
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