Ships & Modules

I just resubbed after an extended break (several years if I ignore a 2 week stay post Odyssey to try exploration) , and just trying to get a proper overview on things. More specifically, the ships I used to use.

I've got over 10 mill sp invested in missiles, but they've obviously changed a lot since I last played (2010). Apparently, HAM's gotten nerfed then buffed, HM's has gotten nerfed into uselessness, and RML's have.. er, not too sure. So how would I go about using missiles these days? What ships are good, which should I avoid?

Before I quit, I used the Drake a lot. I also used Caracals and Kestrels. I'd be interested to hear about both pve and pvp really. Fits would be nice as well, but not really necessary.

The Drake was basically my go to ship (So much so that even at 45m sp my BS skills are so low I can't even use t2 launchers) Apparently, HM Drakes are worthless now? Are HAM Drakes still good in pvp, or should I start relying on other ships? Hell, HM's in general, are they even worth using at all? I also see that the Tengu is much cheaper than it once was, should I be looking into getting one of those (then again, I hear whispers of incoming T3 changes, so I might want to hold off on that...?) What about the Cerberus and Nighthawk? Way back when both were sort of obsoleted by the Drake being that much cheaper and basically fulfilling the same role, is this still the case?

As for the Caracal, I didn't use it often, but when i did, I used RML's on it due to the Caracal being unable to fit anything else. Apparently, RML's turned into a godly FOTM weapon while I was gone (how the heck did that happen?), and were promptly beat with the nerfstick. I did see that other thread on RML's, so i won't be asking too much about them being useful or not, but I do wonder, can Caracals viably use HM's or HAM's in any way?

As for the Kestrel (and Condor), apparently rockets unsucked and are now awesome, so I guess that makes me happy. Yaay. Does this mean that the Hawk is awesome as well?

Also, rigs. Rigor rigs should be on every missile boat now, no?

I'm sorry for asking what must be a bit of a tired topic. I've tried googling and searching on the subject, but there have been so many changes it'r really hard to get a good overview on things, not to mention that much of the top results are extremely dated. Anyway, thanks in advance for any replies :)



Also, CCP why u nerfin mah missls.

- all the "unguided" missiles (rockets, HAM and torps) are now affected by the explosion radius skill and rigs, so that's a big massive buff right there.

- HML got rebalanced so their dps is in line with their range, and since they get massive range compared to other cruiser weapons they thus get low dps.

- missiles have issues applying their damage and because of that you want to use rigors (that's why the old regen fit LVL 3 drakes are terrible and you're better off using an active tanked fit with rigors).

- cruise got buffed quite a bit and are really good now for pve

- caracal got buffed a ton, drake got nerfed but is about to get a buff. Caracal works just fine in either HML or HAM fit, depending on use and scenario

- LML TD/damp Condors are a menace atm, same for the Crow



On the whole missiles got buffed a whole lot, only HML got nerfed.

Hm, I guess it's not as bad as I first expected.

So the age of the solo/gang Battlecruiser is basically over? What changed? What would you guys recommend using as a fallback cheap lowsec pvp ship instead? Hawk? Caracal? (Sidenote, the Caracal can fit HAM's now? )

Would using a Caracal with Ham's be a good lowsec roaming ship? From the limited amount of time I've spent in lowsec after coming back, there seems to be a lot of destroyers and cruisers roaming around, but the Caracal was always kinda weak sauce compared to other cruisers.

EDIT: Oh yeah, the new missile Destroyers. I heard that the Corax were basically the worst of the bunchm is there any truth to that? Haah.

BC overall got nerfed a bit, because they were silly and everything else got buffed instead. So instead of seeing gangs of Canes now you see a myriad of different cruisers and whatnot. So overall the solo/small gang has become even more kiting focussed. The CBC (the old tier 1 and 2 BC) will get a MJD allowing them to "blink" 100km forward unless they're scrambled (just like MWD isn't shut down by long points), and that means that anyone wanting to a kill a CBC will be forced to get in short range (assuming no point range bonused ships).

So the meta for frigs and cruisers tends to be kiting and the new meta for CBC will become brawling. Whether that's good or not depends on the pilot and the situation, but they will have a niche that some people will enjoy and will make others rage because they're losing out on a juicy BC kill.

I don't know about tengu being the least common pvp t3, Maybe you havent flown in a tengu fleet.

The last time I've flown anything Caldari larger than a frigate for PVP was the pre nerfed Drake nerf. I'm not saying Caldari is terrible for PVP but there's better options for general PVP. EWAR is the exception where Caldari shines.

For level 4 missions Caldari have some nice ships... Raven, Navy Raven, and Golem. They're great because you can take them pretty much anywhere and mission without having to worry. The Drake was once a good choice for low skill pilots but with all the nerfs I would recommend a MJD Raven instead.

For incursions guns always seem to be preferred but that's nothing new.

The 100MN Tengu is pretty much the most survivable T3 on its own in Eve, whereas Loki/Proteus are the mainstay of any Armor T3 fleet and the Legion.... well, the Legion can be decent with HAMs or as neuting ship but that's a rather specialized thing.

I'd say Tengu gets more pewpew use than Legion tho, especially in small gang and solo scenarios.

Back to topic:

Missiles are pretty decent. Still the ultimate no-brainer-PvE weapon and a very viable choice in PvP.

Well ALL hacs look sad when compared to the ishtar. That is not a fair comparison . Compare the cerberus to the Deimos, Munin, etc and it suddenly look quite good.

Larger ships suffer from blobbing a little worse than they used to. The warp speed changes means if you're in anything larger than a cruiser you're going to take longer to make any given warp than it used to take you. At the same time anything smaller than a cruiser is going to make the same warp faster than ever before since the changes affect the time it takes to accelerate and decelerate as well as actual warp speed.

Even if you manage to divide a gang of smaller ships in a larger one by warping around as soon as you stop to fight you can be 100% sure that the rest of the gang will get there faster than you remember them being able to. This is also part of why frigates are flown more often than ever, the ability to get into warp fast and decelerate out quickly means that chasing a BC you will often warp after he does and still beat him to grid where he's going. From there tackle should be pretty easy with the BC landing on you...

The medium MJD might help BCs as you'll have to scram it or it can disengage and if you are in scram range you're playing right into his wheelhouse, the MMJD comes out tomorrow so I guess we'll see what the future brings. I'm just recently starting to see BS reappear in low sec more often (which is to say more than never as opposed to frequently) and they are very frequently sporting MJDs when you do see them. Again coming in to scram it is often a scary proposal but if you don't do it, he'll MJD and warp before you get your kill.

The good news for you is that caldari have some pretty good missile frigates, especially the condor. Light missiles and MWD with either damps or TDs for maximum rage. Toast if you get caught but otherwise you can kite with your ~70 dps for months.

EDIT: Frigate proliferation is especially prominent in FW areas of low sec, if anything worrying and larger than you comes on d-scan in FW space while you're in a T1/faction frigate you can just duck into a novice plex and he can't possibly get to you in there. So you can easily wait him out without even having to dock up.

Well it is when you consider the drake lost dps when using other damage types. That 16% dps loss is a pretty huge nerf to it's power really.

Almost like they really want you to fit some C&C modules to your CBC and actually use them as disposable AWACS systems.