Ships & Modules

nonono, high-sec mission drakes can easily go into excesses of 400+++ dps passive regen.

A pvp buffer drake with 90k EHP can still get about 150+ dps passive regen. - Even without fitting regen mods.

A full-brick high-sec fit would have core purgers, shield power relays, shield rechargers, 2 LSEs, and 2 hardeners or so.

A buffer fit will have 2 BCS on low, the other slots can either be DCU and powergrid stuff for kids with noob fitting skills.
2 Extender rigs, 1 resist rig.
Without a point on med slots, you can have 2 LSEs, 3 Hardeners, 1 Prop mod.
For gadgets, you switch out 1 lse and/or 1 hardener. If you like bricks, you lose the prop mod.

Holy thread necro, people! Ima offer my two cents and dev comments re: drake balancing and maybe that'll clear up some questions in case people forgot.
To quote Fozzie:
The damage per second of heavy missile ships like the Drake seems low, why are you making it even lower?
- I believe the main source of disagreement here comes from comparisons between Heavy Missiles (a long range weapon platform) and short range weapons like autocannons or blasters. Once upon a time Heavy Missiles were the only medium missile system, and therefore shared features from both close range and long range weapons. Later Heavy Assault Missiles were introduced and were quite good, but Heavy Missiles still overshadowed them since they did similar damage at close range and HMs had the advantage of stellar long range performance. There are legitimate problems with many long range weapon systems at the medium size, but the fact that people have gotten used to comparing Heavy Missiles with short range guns should be taken as one of the signs that Heavies are far too good.

Why are you nerfing the weapon system when the real problem is two ships?
- It is true that the use of heavy missiles is very strongly concentrated on the Drake and Tengu at this time. There are some problems with those ships that will need to be solved in time, and we also need to make ships like the Caracal, Cerb and Nighthawk more viable with Heavy Missiles. But doing that rebalance requires a stable foundation to build upon, and the truth is that Heavy Missiles were skewing the balance of everything they touched. The fact that the Drake is so dominant at long range damage when it has no range bonus, and the weakest damage bonus we give ships (5% per level to just one damage type) makes balancing through the ships themselves unfeasible. Once we get Heavy Missiles to some semblance of balance we can begin the work of making sure each individual ship is viable without having to go back and redo our work right away to compensate for a midstream weapon change.

Not to mention they were the most frequent ship flown and weapons system used. Once upon a time Gallente ships didn't really make the top 20.
Just my humble thoughts :-)

Because its got an EHP regen that makes its tank equal that of the Pirate BS rattlesnake - the Drake has the best passive tank in the game - at least among sub caps (I haven't looked at the caps). A standard T1 ships having a better passive tank than T1, Navy, and even the pirate BSs, while having a smaller sig radius, more mobility, and comparable DPS is OPd.

Radgette,

yes, I could have use artillery in my example, but I didn't.

I could have also given it launchers and added in some drones, but I didn't.

It all was just an example for what I thought would be a simple explaination, but nothing is ever simple on the forums. I didn't think I had to cover each and every detail. It wasn't an end to all either.

I also could have mentioned the Cyclone, Ferox, Prophecy, and the Myrmidon, but again I didn't.

I understand the basis on why the Drake needed the nerf. (but actually it didn't, it still has it's great tank, heavy missiles got the nerf.) If the Drake got the nerf, then so did the Cerebus, Nighthawk, Caracal, etc.

If I said the sky was blue, I'm sure some would say that they think it's more azure. We don't have to split hairs.

. . . and thanks for the insight. I didn't know damage was reduced outside optimal . . . let me go write that one down.

-Jaz

I never understood the fascination for brick fit Drakes in PvE, 60-70k EHP is more than capable of taking on a level 4 mission if you go for rat specific resists and don't just sit there spewing missiles, an AB mitigates some of the BS damage and you can still fit 3 damage mods in the lows for close to 500 DPS (scourge furies and drones).

I think most of the hate for the Drake came about because of it's popularity and damage projection, the projection has already been nerfed and with the upcoming removal of the passive resist bonus from active shield mods, it's tank is about to get nerfed to.

So, you are happy when CCP breaks things and makes them OPd so you don't have to think, right?

From your multiple posts, I can tell you have severe cognitive disabilities.... I don't know how you can think I was saying that the Drake was being nerfed.

Hasn't been said much in this thread, though a bit off-topic perhaps:

The point of tiericide is to remove "tiers" within a ship class (the higher skill the ship required to be flown, the more hardpoints it had, and better stats).
The old tier 1 BCs (Ferox Brutix Proph Cyclone) thus gain module slots fitting base HP ect, and the tier2s lose the same, getting the two to equal power.

Now the Drake being tier two means that it has to lose a few bits so it has the number of slots the old tier ones had.
If it was tier one, it would be gaining instead.

Now I do wonder if after the change, people will still call for it's nerf or not.

CCCP give us Prop Missile Mods ( with some radius bonus) -low slot!!!