Ships & Modules

Get some fast ship and missiles are unlikely to noob you..

Like the other BCs? MWD sig bloom completely negates any effect speed has on reducing damage to larger ships, making it possible for Heavy Missiles to hit with full damage all the time, way beyond the range of turrets.

If you turn off the MWD to reduce your sig, your speed drops so much that missiles hit again with full damage.

Of course, transversal has no meaning, meaning that while you can completely avoid any medium+ turret damage in a small, fast ship, heavy missiles will always hit with some damage. Yes, very low, but >0.



Better tank, and much easier damage application. CCP has tried to balance this by giving them lower dps, which is pretty good in theory. In practice looks like this disadvantage is completely negated by numbers and the fact that you can stay out of range of others... and in the case of Tengu, the dps isn't really even lower than the other T3s.

Discussion is obviously open whether or not these are problems in a larger context, I just see the fact that Drakes completely dominate New Eden popularity contest is a sign of some sort of imbalance.

I see the popularity of these ships stemming from their ability to be good in both pve and pvp, a very rare thing for eve ships. It's this inability of the other ships to perform the 2 different roles that is the real issue and hopefully one that ship balancing will resolve. I don't see any problems with missiles nor with these 2 ships.

It's a nonsensical question.

What drives the numbers in the statistics is wether large fleet-oriented alliances use the ships or not, not what weapon system they use. You are still confusing popularity with potence. You shouldn't balance a game around popularity (trend), you should balance it based on potence.

Wether HML should be rebalanced or not is an interesting discussion, but the amount of kills in a given ship is completely irrelevant to that discussion: the way you presented the numbers.

That's why i used the Rokh example. They use rails. If they keep being used by PL you will soon see them in that top 10 list.

This is the problem with scale, it's impact on balance and the continued problem of trying to balance the game without scale in mind (and rather around trend in large scale, which is what is being done).

In essence, what that list show is what the "PL side" and the "Goon side" use - not what ships are in need of being rebalanced.

In the meantime the rest of us will continue to kill Drakes with counters to them and look baffled when you say there's a problem with them.



Let's look at the theory of it, shall we?

Gallente are more or less the direct counter to "Drakes and Tengus" (Drakes are also countered by larger things hitting their battleship sig, being outranged, having their HML countered by sig-speed relatives and their single-type damage bonus countered by high-KN resist profiles, their EM/TH holes shot, their low mobility and reliance on tackle-support; Gallente essentially do all of that). Tengus don't have as many weak points, but some in common.

It also work up to almost any alliance-level scale (possibly barring Goonswarm, who are able to continuously field meta-fleet level numbers on their own). The reason Gallente do not see more popularity has to do with breakpoints in large fleet-scale warfare and a political life that almost exclusively deal in coalition- or multi-coalition sizes today; turning the entire game into a twosided nomadic affair.

The game was never balanced around that, and it's an awful mistake trying to pursue that from a design-perspective - rebalancing parts of the game around it (as with Tier 3 BC). Most alliances in this game, still today, have issues frequently fielding fleet sizes above 100 on their own. If we're looking at less than 100 ships in fleet most counters are still highly effective against Drakes, including Gallente.

The problem isn't that "Drakes" re-counter any counter to Drakes.

The problem is that "more Drakes" have re-countered essentially any counter to Drakes.

The problem is that scale broke the balance. The problem is "more" not "Drakes".

The problem is that continued development trends see catering to numbers, and pushing scale or volume.



The same as before...

The best way to balance "Drakes and Tengus" is to balance scale. They are direct products of imbalanced scale (Drakes due to allround performance and affordability when scaling up, and Tengus as a counter to current large-scale trends of HML and BS-turrets). Why are Tengus popular? They counter Drakes and Maelstroms.

See your top10 list.
(at least up until a certain scale, when the only other option is supercapitals; enter the titan discussion).

There's also economy, but that's being adressed (dronelands, ring-mining etc.) even if reaction is slow and it's long overdue. What remains interesting to see is how the new mechanics will scale to and balance numbers.

I may be making some broad sweeps here, but do you see how everything connects?

Your answer to the OP is itself nonsensical. The statistic cited by CCP Diagoras is simply "jumps through stargates." PL and even Goons account for a drop in the bucket of all jumps through gates in the game. Jumps through gates are coming mostly through the much larger high sec population. And here is where the stat is very telling, it's about PVE. The word has been out on this game for years. Train for a Drake and then a Tengu and PVE is on easy mode.


Yes you are making broad sweeps. The OP's quoted stat is aboout pve use if anything. The majority of what it is catching is the heavy disproportional use of Drakes and Tengus for pve in high sec mainly. But of course the pve content in the game favors drake and gtengu use in low sec and null sec as well. Hello still nigh unprobable eccm'd low sec tengus. Hell, wormholes are even filled with Drakes and Tengus, due to passive shield buffer/regen/rr and no rat countering of missile spam, and that's not resulting in jumps through stargates.

And as much as the OP's cite catches pvp use when fleets jump through gates it is catching the simultaneous overuse of Drakes by everybody, not just Goons. http://eve-kill.net/?a=top20 This page will change on May 1 so for reference it lists Drakes as #1 on kills - 317k, #2 Maelstroms 105k, . . . #5 Tengus 54k.

BTW the Tengu use in pvp is not just PL. And look at the disparity between Drake and Tengu on stargate jumps as against their places in the top 20 use on kills. Most Tengu use is low risk pve use. I don't know how you think "PL and Goons" use of Tengus and Drakes in pvp respectively accounts for these stats. Everyone uses these ships. Many alliances use Tengus and Drakes (and Maelstroms). These ships are used by everyone for reasons of expensive but powerful, cheaper and sturdier, and ability to alpha, respectively.

You do have a valid argument about scale. But that is a different problem than the OP's cite. Again the stargate jumps is even more telling than the evekill stats in that it is catching all use and mainly pve. So here we have two excellent indicators of a huge imblance in Drake and Tengu use in both activities. Your scale argument would have more validity from the eve-kill stats.

The Drake problem is multifaceted. For both pvp and pve it has an overpowered tank. In pve people can extender and purger it up for laugh at rat dps passive regen tanks until they train into a tengu. For pvp you can get a BS sized buffer tank, or a smaller but still good tank with ability to perma mwd, all while hitting for full damage at 0-70+ km. Sure the damage is not awesome but you are correct in that in large enough numbers the lesser dps to that of an ac Hurricane doesn't matter, especially since those ac Hurricanes have to get within normal web range to apply their greater dps.

The OP's cite is to a stat that just further illustrates that this game is Drakes and Tengus online for pve. Combine that stat with the eve-kill stats on pvp use. Drakes and Tengus online. CCP has already talked about forcing fitting choices with alterations to heavy missile shield ships by either nerfing HM range directly while introducing mods to compete with present tank or bcu mods to regain that range, or buffing TDs to include missile affecting script(s) and definitely to range, or both.

As for the tank, in pve there are hints that they finally recognize that BC shield regen is out of whack having an almost BS sized shield but an almost Cruiser regen time. In pvp it appears they are considering taking the resist bonus away, or alternately the proposed forced fitting choices might break up the ease of LSE + BCU in pvp.

Yes, but now we're not debating CCP Diagoras, we're debating the notion that popularity would somehow be grounds to build a game around.

If there's any list in particular me and Roime use as examples in our conversation then it would be...



Though of course, the notion that popularity do not reflect actual potency is as valid for PvE as it is PvP.

Considering how powerful and easily attainable droneships are in PvE, their lack of popularity can be seen in the same light.

The "broad sweeps" i referred to was not generalisation, but rather connecting various pieces that lay out the puzzle of the game in a somewhat rapid pace, that would be hard to follow without pre-context knowledge. For example, i'm not explicitly saying that the popularity of Drakes relate to economy, and how recent speculation after proposed changes have already begun to impact part of the cost-efficiency "issue" with them. Though i am inferring it.



Surely so, but not everyone drive policy
(which is part of the problem, not enough large-scale alliances do these days).

If you paid closer attention you would see that i didn't specificly refer to Goons or PL (the use of citation marks is an indication) and rather the paradigm they influence. I had to put a name on it, even if the political climate is not as simple as that. What i'm referring to is more abstract trends or ideals. Whoever came up with and who made it iconic, to spread it's popularisation. Did RDN and NCdot use Tengus because of PL? Likely, yet not important.

The notion that the Tengu would be "OP" did not spread until PL et. al. had profiled them for fleet-scale PvP, is.



Well, as mentioned the argument base in the eve-kill stats; or more so, the argument is that even the eve-kill stats do not reflect the power of a ship - merely it's popularity in a select portion of the game that churn very high volume.

That is also part of the larger argument against the "scaling". You will see similar remarks being made by other posters on these forums. Large fleet PvP when scaling have a negative effect on the vibrance of the game. In many ways. The obvious, that current trends of force-projection leave large swaths of space empty (aka. AFK empires); but, you can also look at statistics there to form an example.

A 30-man corporation netting 10 kills per day, would assume a 3000-man alliance netting 1000 kills per day.

So not only is the action boxed into isolated regions (and the game would thrive from more local conflicts), but as a direct result, there is also less action in volume. As we clump up we find less emergence and spend more time trying to find action, with poor results.

I'm not making a comparison between solo PvP and large fleet PvP, i'm simply referring to frequency of individual engagement at all scales. We have less of them today.



I can take a Dominix and achieve something similar in a variety of situations. It may not be the same, but it is definately similar. My passive tank is more than enough, my damage and projection is equal or better. The Drake's damage selectability comes at damage and the drones at either range or pace of application. Drones may require attention from aggro, missiles require reloads. You can dabble back and forth, but none of those differences make the Drake horribly OP and the Domi worthless.

As for non-empire or mission-based PvE, it's best done in capitals (capitals, drones).

PvE as with PvP: It reflects popularity, not power. Few people today would call L4 missions powerful.

PvP as with PvE: The missile accuracy equation is far more simplistic (no TD's, no transveral etc.). In certain situations that is an asset and in certain situations that is a drawback. TD don't need to affect missiles since all you need to do to affect them is alter your sig-speed relative. The advantage is simplicity and the drawback is simplicity. Turrets equally so, yet with complexity.

Balance scale will "force" all those things, not picking at isolated systems (and ruin existing balance elsewhere).

Yes because they are soooo much better than turrrets for Pvp The only place missile systems are argueably better than turrets in in PVE and you want to balance a game that is supposed to be all about PVP based upon PVE?

So lets add this up, in your top 10 killers there are 464434 turret ships and only 371549 missile ships. Yep sounds like turrets need a nerf to me...

1 Drake 316880
2 Maelstrom 105287
3 Hurricane 91155
4 Tornado 63733
5 Tengu 54669
6 Abaddon 48649
7 Rifter 42930
8 Thrasher 42795
9 Scimitar 36186
10 Oracle 33700

6 ships out of this list use at medium to long range weapon systems. I am not so savy in large fleet warfare but to me it seems that the problem here is in AoE warp inhibiting modules that completely prevent warp to zero tactics.

May be if there was a script for a HIC that would negate the effect of AoE disruption within a certain AoE around it(smaller than the first) it could open whole new doctrines of close combat.

You're wrong. Here I am sitting with rocket, light missile, heavy missile, HAM, cruise, and torp specs all at 4. I have other characters as well that use missiles. Now if you want to say i have a hatred of heavy missiles you could be closer to my estimation of heavy missiles, but it would not be irrational. You see I would probably hate heavy neutron blasters if they had the same overuse statistics on eve-kill that heavy missiles have.

I've presented lots of rational arguments and the stats that we have available to show that we have a huge imbalance in heavy missile and drake use. What have you presented but labeling my argument and evidence as "irrational hatred." And then inferring something from a sentence I wrote that is not there. The reason I said that about Black Legion was you guys are (or were ) known for flying Munnins but you seemed to have converted to drakes like everyone else from my quick perusal of your killboard at that time.

As for Hurricanes, how many months did they top the killboard? And what exactly was the ratio to second place? And, so where are they now? Oh look, safely down in 3rd, not 3 times the number of #2 in first place. Meanwhile the Drake was tops before them and after them assuming you are correct that they topped the board. If Hurricanes did I'm sure it was a brief reign and the margin was nowhere near 3 to 1 over the second place ship.

Is this really the best you can do is throw out some half baked ad hominem on me and straw man about canes? Pretty sad. I know I've seen better arguments and reasonable analysis from you in the past. Hopefully it's just an off day for you.

edit- as for my comparitive feelings about turrets and missiles, I've stated in the past before the projectile buff that CCP could be overdoing it on arty alpha and fall-off buffs with TEs etc. Yeah, heavy missiles getting a nerf risks ridiculous Maelstrom and large arty stats. but then that could be corrected simultaneous to a hm nerf. Also, before that I posted that the collective amarr buffs were possibly overdone in reducing base armor em resist from 60 to 50 and not 55. I think you'll find that I consistently gravitate toward caring about balance for a few years now. I will plead guilty to having been an amarr whiner as a noob (although tbh amarr and lasers were total ass stink in 2006) before the buffs and before i fully appreciated the benefits of crosstraining.