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Wondering if my character is now next to useless (Drones)
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Aelarn Morslade
Saybersoft
#1 - 2013-04-13 22:49:20 UTC
Hey guys,

I returned to Eve yesterday after a year or two long break. My character has just over 4 million SP's spent, of which more than 2.5 million of them are in the drone category. My memory is terrible, but I think I was working on building up to a Dominix drone boat, right now I am flying a Myrmidon.

People in the help channel today were saying that drones got big time nerfed quite some time ago and that drone boats are not nearly as effective as they used to be. Now as a returning character who is already lost from not remembering 90% of what's going on in this game, it's even more disheartening to hear that the 2.5 of 4 million SP's you have spent got nerfed to oblivion and that you "should be respeccing in something else."

What do I do? Did drones really get gutted that bad? Is the goal of a Dominix now moot and I should try working on something else?

Feeling overwhelmed and disappointed all at the same time. I almost want to just let this account go and start new from scratch.
Elena Thiesant
The Scope
Gallente Federation
#2 - 2013-04-13 22:56:55 UTC  |  Edited by: Elena Thiesant
Drones are fine in missions, you just have to pay attention (and maybe not use heavies, they're just too slow). A lot of the whining is from the AFK-mission types. The 'nerf' was that the AI will switch targets now and will attack your drones.

Myrm with 4 sentries is a perfectly effective L3 mission runner. It got rebalanced earlier this year, more bandwidth, one less turret. Domi's gettin a rebalance in June, losing the hybrid gun bonus, gaining a second drone bonus. The new drone damage amplifiers really help, not sure if they were added before or after you left, they've been buffed a bit recently.
Aelarn Morslade
Saybersoft
#3 - 2013-04-13 23:09:26 UTC
The drone amps look new. Thank's for your reply.
Baggo Hammers
#4 - 2013-04-13 23:29:09 UTC
Dominix can run any L4 mission. Also look into Micro Jump Drives. Made for sentry ships.

If you don't know where you're going, any road will take you there.
Daniel Plain
Doomheim
#5 - 2013-04-13 23:52:26 UTC
drones are fine, people just fail at adapting.

I should buy an Ishtar.
Dheeradj Nurgle
Hoover Inc.
Snuffed Out
#6 - 2013-04-14 00:29:12 UTC
Do you have two braincells to rub together? If yes, you are smarter than all those people who shout Drones are useless.

Adapt, Grow, Don't be an idiot.
J'Poll
School of Applied Knowledge
Caldari State
#7 - 2013-04-14 01:48:00 UTC
Don't listen to all the whiners who now rage because they can't farm missions anymore while AFK.

Those are the guys that fail to understand something that Darwin already found out ages ago and used it in his book 'On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life":

Charles Darwin wrote:
Survival of the fittest.


The whiners are the people who just fail to adapt to a new way of using drones and can't / won't understand that you actually have to manage them.

So as long as you manage your drones (pull them back when they get aggro, etc) you are just fine.

Personal channel: Crazy Dutch Guy

Help channel: Help chat - Reloaded

Public roams channels: RvB Ganked / Redemption Road / Spectre Fleet / Bombers bar / The Content Club
Merouk Baas
#8 - 2013-04-14 02:26:06 UTC
Drones are fine, are used by a lot of ships as a secondary defense system, not just Gallente. And, 2.5 million points in a weapons system is just the beginning.

I would be willing to bet that if you started from scratch and made your dream character specialized in Amarr or Minmatar or whatever you think is the best, by the time you got to veteran status (2-3 years of training, flying the ships you wanted), you'd have 2.5 million points in drones anyway.

Your character is not ruined.
Flavor of the month will change again, many times, maybe even this summer.
Amarr and Gallente have specialized drone ships now.
All big ships need drones for defense.
Drone interface and drones in general are slated to be revamped soon.
Tau Cabalander
Retirement Retreat
Working Stiffs
#9 - 2013-04-14 05:42:11 UTC  |  Edited by: Tau Cabalander
I currently own:

* Two Rattlesnakes (Guristas BS drone boat).

* Two Gilas (Guristas cruiser drone boat).

* One Vexor Navy Issue (Gallente cruiser drone boat).

I plan to buy a third Rattlesnake (third alt has 17d left on Gallente Battleship 5, already has Caldari Battleship 5).

Why do I have so many drone boats?

I like doing missions with them. No ammo use. Great at all ranges. Can do all damage types.

My ships are all setup to rep drones. Works great. Using a NOS can also help with capacitor issues, and to increase threat. Multiple ships can spider-tank and cap transfer too.
mkint
#10 - 2013-04-14 15:43:14 UTC
I've got 11 mil sp in drones. yes, drones were nerfed. yes it was insulting because drone mechanics have always sucked so hard. they've always been nothing more than a necessary evil, not something actually fun. but no, the nerf was nowhere near being game breaking. most of the time I don't even notice that anything changed.

Maxim 6. If violence wasn’t your last resort, you failed to resort to enough of it.
Cameron Zero
Sebiestor Tribe
#11 - 2013-04-14 16:46:39 UTC
Aelarn Morslade wrote:
Now as a returning character who is already lost from not remembering 90% of what's going on in this game, it's even more disheartening to hear that the 2.5 of 4 million SP's you have spent got nerfed to oblivion and that you "should be respeccing in something else."

What do I do? Did drones really get gutted that bad? Is the goal of a Dominix now moot and I should try working on something else?

Feeling overwhelmed and disappointed all at the same time. I almost want to just let this account go and start new from scratch.



Even if drones had gotten nerfed to the point of uselessness (they didn't), you'd still be better off keeping your current character and changing focus into whatever you'd start a new character doing. After all, sure, 2.5m of your SP are in drones, but the other 1.5m is still worth something.

That said, drones did NOT get nerfed into oblivion. The only people really upset about the change were the ones who weren't actually playing the game anyway. (Warping into a mission, aggroing everything, then launching drones and walking away from the computer for an hour isn't "playing the game".)

Drones are fine. They're still very, very useful. They just take more management, is all.

"I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. …"
Skeln Thargensen
Doomheim
#12 - 2013-04-14 17:34:09 UTC
Baggo Hammers wrote:
Dominix can run any L4 mission. Also look into Micro Jump Drives. Made for sentry ships.


this. faction sentries if you can't use T2s (i still can't 19 days to train...) and all the damage mods, drone control units and ominidirectional tracking you can fit on it. you can get optimal with the wardens well over 100km. swap to gardes when thigns get closer and you can mop most of the room up easily.

forums.  serious business.
Sebastyen
Catskull Horizons
Grimskulls
#13 - 2013-04-15 18:56:23 UTC
I fly drone boats and I do very well at least against Angel Anomalies in NULL. I am by no means a pro but I can pull on average 15-20mil ticks in my dominix and 23+mil ticks in my rattlesnake using sentry drones. For me that seems to work very well so dont let the sky is falling cries affect your thinking. get out there and use them drones as they were meant to be used and not as a way to afk through missions which is how it used to be.
Inxentas Ultramar
Ultramar Independent Contracting
#14 - 2013-04-15 23:28:33 UTC
Sebastyen wrote:
I fly drone boats and I do very well at least against Angel Anomalies in NULL. I am by no means a pro but I can pull on average 15-20mil ticks in my dominix and 23+mil ticks in my rattlesnake using sentry drones. For me that seems to work very well so dont let the sky is falling cries affect your thinking. get out there and use them drones as they were meant to be used and not as a way to afk through missions which is how it used to be.


I find truth in this statement, Angels rats tend to be light on the drones. I use lights (albeit not in dedicated boats) and they work fine. Do try to decisively decimate Elite frigates, they will tear into your drones eventually. Everything bigger then that just flat out fails to track them, or considers my howitzers to the the bigger problem. Under the previous AI I used to see Angel battleships focus-firing (and missing 100% of the time) the drones. That DPS is now properly applied to your ship!
Makkal Hanaya
Revenent Defence Corperation
#15 - 2013-04-16 08:47:53 UTC
J'Poll wrote:
Don't listen to all the whiners who now rage because they can't farm missions anymore while AFK.

Those are the guys that fail to understand something that Darwin already found out ages ago and used it in his book 'On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life":

Charles Darwin wrote:
Survival of the fittest.


Herbert Spencer, an economist, coined that phrase after reading On the Origin of the Species... Darwin used the term 'natural selection,' which has a different meaning.

Render unto Khanid the things which are Khanid's; and unto God the things that are God's.
Kyra Quinn
Garoun Investment Bank
Gallente Federation
#16 - 2013-04-16 11:17:02 UTC
I'm not really familiar with how drones were before but it's only really an issue if you didn't figure out the logic behind drone aggression. I do exploration in a Gila and had massive issues with it in the beginning as my drones kept being attacked and me wasting a lot of time with getting aggro and all that. Now that I did figure out how it works and adapted my strategy and target choices it's not even an issue anymore. If I, being a newbie, can figure it out and make it work then anyone can.
Malcanis
Vanishing Point.
The Initiative.
#17 - 2013-04-16 12:04:38 UTC
Daniel Plain wrote:
drones are fine, people just fail at adapting.


Requoting this for emphasis. The Damage Amps and new drone mods are a huge buff to drones.

The new NPC aggro rules are a big nerf to the "launch drones, go eat lunch" AFK mission style.

"Just remember later that I warned against any change to jump ranges or fatigue. You earned whats coming."

Grath Telkin, 11.10.2016
Celeste Taylor
Ruby Dynasty
#18 - 2013-04-16 12:49:43 UTC
I started off with a Navy Dominix and rather low drone skills and found I had better luck running missions with a Navy Megathron. Recently however I dumped about 10m sp into drone branch skills and found that training in that field made the Dominix awesome at missions. I believe that it is much easier to getl the level 5s that make the biggest impact on a Dominix (at least for missions) much faster than all the level 5s to max out the efficiency of most battleships.

So for now my ship of choice is a Domi while I get my gunnery skills to 5 for the next few months (since I switched to Per/Will for destroyers/bc like so many others) then back to Int/Mem when my annual remap is up.
Sabriz Adoudel
Move along there is nothing here
#19 - 2013-04-19 00:27:23 UTC
Drones remain strong if used intelligently. You just lose a few more of them to rats than you might be used to.

Also the Vexor is now an utter terror in PVP.

Signed: Someone else with Drone Interfacing 5, Heavy Drone Operation 5 and a fair number of other points in drones.

I support the New Order and CODE. alliance. www.minerbumping.com
Zaph Kiel
Aliastra
Gallente Federation
#20 - 2013-07-07 20:01:08 UTC
I also have just returned to the game only to find that i can no longer do level 4 missions. I am furious. CCP has made drones INVIABLE in pve. I fail to see how an npc battleship can acquire lock on a drone in 3 seconds flat, and more importantly, how it can even hit them as they mwd and/or orbit. I want some kind of compensation for the damages caused to my account, the refunding of sp for example.
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