Ships & Modules

Drakes have been tops prior to CFC recent use. Stainwagon use was a big boost a couple years ago.

My memory of month end stats differs from yours. But I admit I don't have a way to post prior month end stats from eve-kill. If you have a link to month end stats from eve-kill for the last few years, please post it.

Or if anyone from eve-kill reads this please post it.

You're reaching pretty far back there sherlock. You know why that happened 3 or so years ago? Because people kept bringing brick regen drakes to fleet battles expecting to tank pvp fleets like they tank whole rooms of npc. Then some smart poeple went wait a minute, it's all about buffer and rr. By jove, this BC can get a BS buffer and still put out enough DPS out to 70+ km to get the job done. But sure if you want to cry about how people rejected your purger rigged drake 3 years ago go ahead.


Yes, please do roll in a Myrm fleet. You have incredible bandwidth, why it's as big as a Vexor's. And your dronebay capacity is endless. So all your abundant and incredible DPS is indestructible and your Myrm fleets will surely kill any equal sized drake fleet and laugh at any smartbombs or bombs that attempt to get near your drones (or guns or missiles for that matter). Or hey, if you for some reason have to warp out I'm sure everyone will be able to wait for their scout drones to motor back. Or, I'm sure noone will mind being anchored in place with their 3 sentrys. There is no downside to immobility on a battlefield.

Damn, why have we all been flying in drake fleets when we could have been owning everything in Myrm fleets. Who needs an alternate universe. Do it. Do it now.

3 years ago would be the beginning of 2009. And anyway that was an approximation. But indeed, some smart person(s) were the first to realize that massed buffer Drakes with logi support could compete with BSs.

However, thank you for pointing out that probing developments in the game that ended the sniper battleship reign, and further economic boost to using drakes once medium rigs were introduced, allowed those smart people to recognize the Drake was essentially a BS and could be used the same way.

Both your post and mine refute Misanthra's inability to recognize that while an animal may not itself evolve, the environment around it may change to its favor thus allowing it to propagate in huge numbers.

Fleet type abilities are of course variable. Maels need a sufficient number to alpha depending on the buffer their opposing fleet has or logi type. AHACs work pretty well against Drakes til you reach about 200 in each fleet and then the AHACs lose. etc.

I'm not denying that there are counters to Drakes. You and Malcanis seem to be fixated on this. However, you don't see Myrm fleets massed like that. That is my point. No other BC with the exception of the Hurricane is going to appear in large fleet warfare. And the cane fleets are a niche role, you certainly wouldn't want them alone slugging it out if saving sov or a moon depended on it, whereas you might prevail in such a contest using a Drake fleet. That is what makes the Drake unique in its class.

Add to it the pve advantages and that is why we see heavy missile Drakes vastly outnumbering other ships on the twitter stats about stargate jumps and with its also overrepresented cousin the Tengu accounting for lopsided Heavy Missile Launcher II activation stats as well. We shall see though if CCP is serious about ending Heavy Missile Drakes and Tengus Online later this month, hopefully.

You seem fixated on use of Drakes by Goons. While the CFC is a large block of pvp pilots it is not just they that use them. Drakes predominate in smaller gang warfare as well, because everyone wants that cheap powerful tank.

Fine you have a point that blobbage is a problem. Noone would argue with you there. But those blobs don't choose any other BC except occasionally Hurricanes now do they. Even with the introduction of the tier 3s Drakes still predominate. You seem to think that if somehow CCP broke up the large fleets Drake dominance would disappear. It wouldn't, it doesn't. 30-40 ship roaming gangs very often are drake centered.

I have explained itt why drakes need, and CCP has decided they need a nerf. Heavy missiles are on their radar. That is why we are getting info that TDs will get a script(s) to affect them. They will be called weapon disrupters apparently. The Drake resist bonus is slated for elimination. I hope they nerf shield regen for all BCs. It's stupidly skewed. These things might be enough to end the Drake fleet dominance. Although one wonders whether window licking lack of concern for range or flight direction will ever allow those other factors to knock them out of top place. As long as the statistical ratios aren't so stupid maybe that will be enough to make the game more dynamic. No matter how you complain about scale of fleets it will not change that CCP has finally decided to do something about drake and tengu overusage.

Sure other missiles may need a buff to not be rendered even less used in pvp. I would love large missiles to be buffed slightly in dps or alpha (cruises) or maybe the explosion factors (torps). But when Heavy Missile Launcher II gets 7+ million activations in a day and the second place module 800mm AC II gets 2 million and then salvager and tractor at 1mil, and when Drakes are the vast majority of ships actually used as indicated by stargate jumps how do you deny that the game has degenerated into Heavy Missile Drakes and Tengus Online?

I think you finally said something that displayed your real concern- "That solves your specific problem without ruining a set of ships or the race that fly them." This nerf is not coming in isolation. A whole load of balancing changes appear to be coming among them tiericide. Wouldn't you rather be optimistic that other Caldari ships become worth using and not just the Drake and Tengu? I would. I would love to see so many of the unused ships in this game gain some utility back. Really, no matter what race you fly in this game it's a rush to BC and tech III. HACs, combat commands, combat recons are all underused. Tech I Cruisers are useless fodder (except maybe the Blackbird) in pvp. You rarely see roaming cruiser gangs, it's all BCs and even then mainly just Drake and Hurricanes.

You complain that somehow these skewed stats are the result of player desires for "numerical advantage". Do you have a solution to it? I doubt it will ever go away. Do you seriously think if there was no blobbage there would be no Drake supremacy? A cheap battleship alternative is going to somehow lose favor if somehow the drive for "numerical advantages" are eliminated? Really, open your mind past complaining about the blob. That blob, and many smaller gangs, and much of pve use, has been settling on a specific ship to a ridiculous extent, the Drake. Finally, CCP grudgingly has recognized he solution is changing the ship. No Drake addict should be crying. It's had a very long life at the top of usage.

You are hilariously ignorant about pvp, it's pretty entertaining for you to type out an essay-length post without any indication you know what you're talking about.

The only large-scale drake-centric fleets are perma-mwd HML drakes that are almost exclusively used to counter AHACs, and they don't even do that very well. They get completely crushed by battleships, which tank twice as hard and do over twice as much DPS at the same range. The only really widely-used and effective small-gang drake doctrine is nanodrakes which are pretty well eaten alive by tier-3s or, again, battleships. Tengus are either used with 10mn ABs in large fleets, or 100mns in small gang/solo. This somehow translates to drakes/tengus online? lmao

Aside from the above fleets, people tend to fly drakes in gangs with BCs/HACs because:

- If you train caldari and missiles, this is pretty much the only viable pvp DPS ship you have other than the tengu
- They're extremely low-priority targets, having lots of tank and doing poor dps (and not really being able to fit neuts) so if you fly a drake every fleet you're not likely to lose it
- (outside nano-drakes) don't require much actual skill to fly, since you don't have to manage transversal and hardly have to manage cap

Pretty much every pots-and-pans HD gang I've run into has some idiot in a drake that basically whores on every mail and doesn't really do much dps or contribute to the fleet at all. Yet people fly them, because no one shoots at drakes.

Also the reason there are so many HML II activations and tengu gate jumps is because a ton of people bot in tengus.

You're an idiot for not taking these things into account and just using the raw numbers of "HMLs and Drakes are popular!" and shoehorning that into your preconceived notion of drakes and tengus being overpowered.

For the record I don't really care about drakes and don't fly them because they're slow, they do horrible damage, no one engages them (because they're either bait or take forever to kill), and they're boring to fly.

EDIT: I thought it was funny how you thought that a nerf to the drake's passive regen would keep it from being flown in fleets, that's some comedy gold man

How many times do you have to be told that Drake fleets aren't "dominant" by people who actually regularly participate in fleet fights before you finally admit it?

I mean give us a number here; how close are we to reaching the goal?

It seems you have a lot of attachment to noob ships seeing as you have stayed in your npc noob corp for almost 3 years now. I think your noobship is getting a graphics upgrade. No word on it being nerfed. I hope not for your sake.

Anyway, nice trolling I guess

Well, I think you may be too focused on the latest Drake fleet theories. My killboard investigation and experience is that the 2 LSE and two resist mod pvp drake is still in use and it has a better tank and range than a 2LSE 1 resist mod 425ac Cane. But really the more telling thing is I keep referring to the stats. Tier 3s are not topping Drakes on eve-kill. Someone(s) is flying all those Drakes and not tier 3s. I've said it multiple times but you don't want to hear it. I'm not arguing that Drakes can't be countered. But Drakes are still being heavily used because they can do things Canes can't. Perma MWD with 70km range and a still beefier shield tank, whatever. People are not getting 300k kills with Canes. PVE activity is not filled with Canes like it is with Drakes.

"I'm not denying that there are counters to Drakes. You and Malcanis seem to be fixated on this. However, you don't see Myrm fleets massed like that. That is my point. No other BC with the exception of the Hurricane is going to appear in large fleet warfare. And the cane fleets are a niche role, you certainly wouldn't want them alone slugging it out if saving sov or a moon depended on it, whereas you might prevail in such a contest using a Drake fleet. That is what makes the Drake unique in its class."



But are Zealots accounting for first place and 300k kills and a 3 to 1 ratio over second place on the eve-kill stats? This is a red herring. This thread started about gate jumps and how Drakes are topping that. Zealots are not. The day Zealots have these same stats I'll be here applauding CCP's impending nerf of them. If Canes take the exact same place after a Drake nerf I'll be applauding CCP if they announce a Cane nerf. BTW, this could be happening with tiericide anyway. I really wish CCP would get on with introducing their balancing changes. I would love to see that the hitherto tier 1s will have a role and some utility roughly equal to the present tier 2s. We've waited a long time.


Well I made some billions in highsec vanguard farming. It got rather boring. I'm glad they nerfed incursions. The reward for risk was stupid. But yes it is good that they made at least one PVE environment that disfavored drakes and favored turret users. Meanwhile we still have wormholes also helping to skew the pve drake and tengu usage. It's funny to read the recruitment threads for wormhole corps. It's all you should at least be able to fly a drake and tengu or work toward them. The system effects and sleeper mechanics on the whole have heavily favored them. What were the devs thinking. We already had heavy pve drake use and they intorduced a large new pve environment that further favored them.

Ok, your argument has some merit. I suppose the first thing I would ask in response is which came first the chicken or the egg? You see it is a feedback loop. People went hey, my pve heavy missile passive regen drake won't die like other options and can even do level 4s albeit not very fast. They told others about it. Those other new folks rolled Caldari to get into a Drake. Then comes the Tengu. Hey an even better Drake. You save on weapon skills but you might have to active tank it or rely on logi support but no big deal. It puts out great damage at great ranges.

Sure those folks then benefitted when people stopped poopooing the regen noobs x-ing up and said buffer that thing and we'll create a pvp fleet around it. And later oh look we could instead perma mwd the thing. Oh and great we can get some nifty fits and fleets with those tTengus also. I just would like to know that Proteus, Legions, and Lokis were used as heavily as well. That wormhole corps wouldn't for the most part be knowingly saying your really should at least be able to fly a drake and tengu pve, and nullsec alliances would be saying let's roll out the pvp Legion fleets in roughly equal measure to choosing Tengu fleets.

I would love it if other ships got a or more of a missile focus. Prophecy, Cyclone are obvious candidates. Some of the frigs and cruisers as well. I think CCP may be realizing that Racial differences may not need to be so stark. Gallente have some ships that use missiles. Almost every Caldari ship has a drone bay, albeit a small one often as there do have to be thematic differences.

I love mixed fleets for pvp. Monoculture fleets are so boring. Rokhs and Maels living together is a wonderful world in my eyes. Cyclones and Drakes would be too. Now if we could also see armor Harby and Cane fleets rolling around with a similar utility that would be even better. I sincerely hope tiericide diversifies the eve battlefields and pve environments.

Welp, that does it for me for a while I think. It's quite taxing to have all one's arguments misconstrued and have people say ignore the stats. Anyway, CCP is going to finally get to it "soon." They really need to get quicker about balancing and stay at it. And also to take more measured steps at it instead of sledgehammers or massive buffs.