Ships & Modules

Not really, no. Goons use the Drake due to immense maneuverability on the grid. Wait, what, Drake maneuverability, wtf are you smoking?!? Let me explain:

Essentially, there are two variants of the pvp Drake. There's the classic Drake with huge buffer (100k+ ehp) and then there's the nano Drake (or PODLA Drake), which sacrifices a lot of this buffer for faster speed. The Goon Drake is a variant of the later, but sacrifices entire tackle and a portion of the buffer to be able to permarun MWD and remain cap stable. This means that in large fleets, a pilot will ancor on the FC, who actually flies the entire fleet, while the pilot will just shoot at the designated targets. Thus, the Drake fleet's primary task on the field is to hunt down or chase away enemy support, while the Maelstrom alpha fleet pounds on the core of the enemy forces.

So how do you kill Goon Drake blob? Simple really - prevent it from permarunning MWD, say, by lowering cap recharge rate. There, problem solved, while the Drake isn't made entirely useless in smaller groups or pve, as most suggestions would have it.


Oh, btw., what's a "BS level buffer"? A Tempest or a Raven will be hard pressed to get much higher than what, say, a Hurricane or Harbinger can get, while the navy Scorp or Abaddon will easily field 30-50% more tank than the classic Drake - while still easily passing it in damage. I personally view the classic Drake as a sort of "reverse tier 3 BC" - while the tier 3s wield BS-level damage (Naga for instance actually outdamages Rokh), they get cruiser-like ehp. In contrast, the Drake gets BS tank (or in some cases passes it, such as the Tempest), while wielding cruiser-like damage. Of course, if you have a couple of hundred friends around you, even cruiser-like damage stings :p

EDIT: one other thing - when CCP initially talked about the Drake, they mentioned they'd be willing to lower its defenses in favor of more offensive power, making it sorta "mini Raven" (ignoring the fact that normal raven is fairly mediocre right now). Since I actually prefer the PODLA variant of the Drake myself to the Brick, I'd prefer this change. In Back to Balancing Future, they mentioned shield tanking, but no mention was made of this new "offensive Drake". I wish I knew if that option was still on the table :/ Then again, given that Minmatar are getting a proper missile line now too, perhaps they should be the speedy offensive type, as it suits their playstyle more, while Caldari should stick to their immense tanking potential and lower overall damage. In any case, the future is going to be fun, bring on the BC/BS changes! :D

The drakes advantage was not in its DPS, which was dropped slightly by the missile nerf. It is its crazy passive shield tank. Very few battleships can match the passive tank of a drake.

A drake with the right fit can have a passive shield tank with over 100k ehp and over 200dps shield regen. To put that in perspective, a Raven with a faction X large shield booster reps 800hp per 4 second cycle or 200dps shield rep. A T2 shield booster is lower with a 5 second cycle. And that Raven will not have 100k ehp.

What this means is a battlecruiser (smaller than a battleship) can have a passive shield regen that matches a faction X-larger booster active tank without needing any cap to sustain it, and can still fit over 100k ehp in addition to the huge shield regen. A Raven, which should have a better tank being a larger ship (a step up from the Drake in skill progression) has to fit several faction or even dead space mods and burn huge amounts of cap just to match the lower ships tank. No other battlecruiser can touch the tank of a Drake, and battleships need to burn way more fitting resources just to match it.

When such a ship that is supposed to be inferior, at least on a raw tanking ability level, would be vastly superior to other ships of not only its own class, but higher class ships, it just seems over powered to many players.

As a whole the Drake really does not compare to any battleship. Sure it can out tank many of them, but its DPS is really low when such a tank is fitted. Basically every mid slot, low slot, and rig on the ship is dedicated to tank to get it to that point. But with such a tank it can't really even run level 4 missions solo, it doesn't have the DPS to break the tank of many NPC battleships. So while it could fly around the missions site all day without dieing, it won't complete the site either. A Raven or Scorpion can get an amazing tank if you max the tank before fitting DPS. It is still hard to beat the Drakes tank, but even with that low base DPS it is far more than double what the drake can do for damage.

I used to use a Drake to tank level 4 missions, and a 100% DPS Raven to fly in and clear the site while the drake had agro. But with the new A.I. that is far less effective. While I do believe the drake could use a slight shield nerf, If you fit it for good DPS first and then add tank it is far more reasonable, and puts out way more DPS.

Comparing Medium weapon systems with their max damage ammo....lolol.

So what you are saying is you do almost 60-75% of the dps of everyone else, but 3-4 times the range and no tracking issues.

Also, the drake has always been an issue since the nano nerf....just took people 2-3 years to figure it out.

Too easy a route into it , giving a new player massive EHP when they hadn't earned it ( IMO)

Genuine shame for skilled and committed Drake Jockeys, but there was an inbalance for me in lo-sec with too many cocky kids showing off in their parents Drakes.....

Glad they've gone, sorry for the professionals though.

When a ship gets too popular AND is successful, the people who die a lot insist that those ships must be OP, and it MUST be nerfed. Heaven forbid someone actually have to TRAIN to use a ship... that would just be wrong.

The one thing I heard years ago that I though was crap until I actually got there was like this: got in a head-to head with another Drake, HAM fits on both, but he had BC 5 and a few other L5 skills, and I didn't. I lost. Handily. Asked him what the trick was, and he said "BC 5". Seems simple enough, but people need to realize that just because you can climb into that Drake or Raven, it doesn't mean you can fly it.

Been training up an entry-level Minnie toon to take into FW, and I've approaching 6m SPs with frigate and dessie specialization, and I think I'm almost ready to use this toon. Yes, she's been training for a few months. T2 fits, Nanite skills for repairing, T2 hulls on frigate and dessie (soon to be Cruiser), and I'm almost ready for this toon to start playing. Learn to fly what you're crawling into, and the "nerf" or "buff" screams from the Easy Buttoneers won't matter.

Prior to the nerf the Drake could project in insane amount of DPS out to long ranges. Compared to long rang turrets it was superior even with the delayed DPS. Add that to the insane tank you can get out of it and you're left with an OP ship. If they swap the resist for range bonus I would hold it to the same asteem as the other BC.

What a wonderful tear filled thread. Keep it flowing fellas.

Ok Ginger, how bout this :



Clearly YOU are an eve authority. Popular ships just get popular in a vacuum. It must be the BEAUTY of it. It couldn't have something to do with a TANK that is better than the other ships in its class. Or the 70km RANGE with more dps than the other BCs at that range (pre-tier 3).

No you are right it's because people are BUTTHURT about dying to drakes. And of course NOONE but drake pilots train BC5. Your anecdote is so illustrative of why people lose fights.

Anyway, all this wringing of hands, gnashing ot teeth, pulling of hair, will not change the situation. Your op BC will no longer be king of the hill. And the Cane got a harsh nerf but nowhere near the amount of whining on the forums as you drake addicts. So adapt to a more even playing field.

When the tier 2s first came out everyone wanted a Myrm. In no time at all it was nerfed heavily from 125m3 bandwidth to 75m3. Then followed 3-4 years of Drake and Cane dominance, and on eve-kill drake was regularly #1 by a multiple of whatever was second place. But, if you turn out to be correct that drakes will get hardly any use now, which I highly doubt, you won't have to wait 3 to 4 years for an adjustment. At least there's that.

edit - oh, and as for experience, you are a character created in June of 2012. I've got ya by 6 years. So either rethink that zinger, or post with your main

This is all just very simple, if you don't like the Drake, don't fly it; if you don't like missiles, don't use them. For turrets, guess you'll just have to continue to wait for the targets to get into your range.

All ships in EVE were made for different reasons and applications. It would really be boring if all the ships could have the exact same fittings. If all ships had a choice of weapon systems, who would chose what? Launchers? Turrets? Whatever chosen, then you have to accept the parameters that each has.

But the give and take, if you want more dps, at any range, or better tracking, you may have to give up some other slots that can be used for a better tank.

Still, why a nerf with heavy missles? Is it that they were too powerful? Had too much range? (they can still hit out to 65+) If the problem was with the Drake, again, why nerf heavies? It affects every ship that uses heavies. Maybe what should have been done was to nerf the Drake's tank, because as it has been said, "it could have a better tank that a BS."

So now, really, so what if a Drake's heavy missiles got nerfed. It still has the tank. There's mention of Drake blobs, well they aren't worried in the least. If they had 10, now they may bring 15; if they had 15, they may bring 20.

The nerf is not that much of a problem, people will just work around it.

-Jaz

Nah the drake and Myrm were nerfed shortly after relase. The myrm because it had 5x heavy drones, the drake because you could get a 2000dps passive tank out of it. Passive drakes were crazy at their release, you needed 3x gank battleships to take one down most of the time.

That being said, the drake as it stands with the changes is a very solid, even cheaper ship to fly. It can't switch damage types effectively anymore, but with HAMS (Which are now awesome) it does solid dps, at decent range, with acceptable agility, and great EHP. It just can't do OK damage, to 60km anymore. But hey, the Cerb and Nighthawk need a role right? =D