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CCP want fewer missile spaming at 0.0 sec. That's why they want nerfing drakes.
That's why they created caldari tier 3 BCs with guns (the original ideas was tier3 BCs with torpedo launchers).
Too many alliances using drakes in 0.0, check the fleet battles there in null sec. Missiles and drones create lag,so this is the CCP solution against players.

imho the drake should be buffed because caldari ships are not often used in pvp anywhere like gallente ships are

If there isn't something wrong with the Drake there is something wrong wth all other missile ships.

If there is variaty strongly depends on point of view, a lot of people here say the Drake should be looked at because every one is flying it (No variety).
CCP thinks it does to many things to well (Or at least says so in the meeting)

Now I never will stop you making a HAM drake though I'd suggest they bring in 2 new ships where there is now one will be more HAM friendly than the other.

Keep the Drake but turn it to a Navy faction, maybe adjust it a little to fit that role.

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For example when you look at the Caracal and the Raven.

Caracal has bonuses on 3 types of missiles, though it's all but impossible to fit one of them the other only works marginal and the only fit that make the ship shine is with rapid assault launchers, The Raven has bonuses for both Cruise and Torp though to low in power, cap, cpu shield and slots to make a working Torp raven that can should anything smaller than BS.
While the Cruise Raven is only usable in PVE.


Now I don't say missiles are fine, Cruise missiles definetly should be looked at.


But I think it would be a better solution to look at those ships like Hybrids, While both Caldari and Galente are able to fit Blasters and railguns, their ships are specialised for one or the other.

That will bring "Variaty" in the number of ships flown and give us the posebillity to fly certain ships more effectively, Would be nice to fly a working Heavy missile T1 Cruiser in to battle. Or a Ham T1 Cruiser for that matter.

Although I've heard of this popular believe, I've a hard time buying it when CCP puts so much time money and effort in, Missile grafics and new ship models.

New Drake will have 8 lauchers, given this (Eve Online Facebook page): www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150961517219394.436182.17614129393&type=1

So it will most probably lose the kinetic bonus (else it would be a dps buff, I doubt that), but what else will it lose? And what will it get instead?

Speed/Range instead of Damage would be the logical thing to do for a Caldari ship

Actually, it is likely that there will be weapons tweaks going in at the same time as tiercide. Sometimes the ship is the issue, sometimes it's the weapon.

Why isn't the Prophecy popular then? It has a resist bonus, just like the Drake.

Perhaps the issue is the ease of fitting tank and DPS to the Drake, where the Prophecy being an armour tanker needs low slots for tank and DPS? The issue might also be the ease of projecting damage at any range using missiles. Perhaps heavy missiles need a nerf, so that a Drake can only reach 50km and an optimised Tengu can only reach out to 80km?

No other medium size weapon system has that damage projection capability while still being mobile. Sentry drones have severe drawbacks (you have to deploy them), combat drones have to travel to the target (during which time they can be shot down). Missiles can be blown out of the sky using smartbombs, which most battleships will have fitted to combat drones in the first place.

There's more to the popularity of drakes than simply being a huge EHP buffer. Changing the bonuses on the ship itself isn't going to change the main reason they're popular.

If CCP really want to reduce lag, they'll make the long range missiles (cruise, heavy + light) into low ROF high damage (aka volley) missiles, much like artillery.

Good point. Higher ROF means more missiles on the field. If this was done in the interest of decreasing lag it's a pretty poor choice.