Ships & Modules

You use a mag stab for your unbonused guns, its kind of a waste since you should use a second drone damage amp instead
Also for max drone dps you should use 4 ogres instead of 3 so its not really maxed out. Seriously train sentries it makes things so much easier and I doubt you are far away from tech I sentries which will also do the job!

idk. can we stop the smartassing and stay on topic?

last address to the smartassing:
4 ogre vs 3/2 hamms is 12dps diff in EFT. point is, i switch from 5 hamms to 3/2 when the time is right so 2 stay on target and thats more then 12 dps.
you know what? lets be exact here, just for the sake of it, i am in the mood:
2 hamms on target for me is 86 dps
switching from 5 hamms to 3ogre 2hamms takes around 10 secs (travel time etc.) so thats 860 damage.
EFT gives 363 dps for 2 hamms/3ogres and 375dps for 4 ogres.
that gives you 2 functions: f1(x)=363x+860 and f2(x)=375x they meet at 71,7.
that means after 71,7 seconds 4 ogres will have done the same ammount of dmg as 2 hamms 3 ogres and from then on will do "more" dmg. usually i only switch to 3/2 when against 3-4 BS. after 71 seconds u know...
kk thx i pass...

on the "magstab" topic:
because of drone aggro:
before i field any drone i kill frigs with guns; in this situation magstab+drone dmg offers more dps
when i kill dessys, cruisers and bcs i field light scout drones; in this situation magstab+drone dps equals 2 drone dmg mods
(with travel time included dual drone dmg amp is less dps)
in the "ogre phase" dual drone amps give me 20 dps more and its also the least dangerous, shortest and last phase...
so the magstab kinda helps me to gap the lamedronezone and get to the ogre phase faster u c?



and yes, to answer my beginner 100mill fit with a 300mill isk tech II sentry fit when its clear that i cant use ANY sentry yet and judge my fit as "bad" even though its just sth different and in itself quite balanced, is as the other stuff:

u n r e l a t e d

and yes bro, i know, sentries are good
what is with titans r they strong too?
sry when im a little punchy here but cmon u guys....

for the others:
thx for backing up the claim and sharing your exp and view :)

please describe what you see

idk man, where should i start, drone skills give idk 50k range? and then there is an item that increases that for 20km...
ok maybe all drones other then sentries became close range weapons now... ?

we are not talking about sentries
i addressed sentries as being not affected at all by the changes
and yes, i know that they are awesomesauce
and i also said that i am addressing this for people that need to use everything BUT sentries
what you basically imply is "ok yeah they are ****** up and not viable in PvE anymore but who cares, there is other better stuff later in the game"

i kinda settled with this view aswell, thats why i did this post, to tell ccp that light-heavy drones are ****** up in PvE
that afk mission runners are not affected and that the only people affected are those beginners until month 2-3 wich choose drones

Well sorta the point I was getting at is that sending regular drones out 50-70km always basically sucked, even before the aggro changes. There were still plenty of missions that would have groups or waves that would aggro your drones and so you risked losing them that far out. They also spent so much time flying that it was very inefficient.

So yea any real drone based Mission runner has been using sentries since well, forever.

This thing has been explain over and over and over again, sadly until people learn how to use search function of both forums and google or bing or yahoo or w/e your pref search engine is these topics will still get started over again...

To get back to the topic, changes are welcome in my opinion and require people to be present and active, lets not forget the old days where cap stable double rep domies would just go into the mission, pop drones out and go eat lunch or something to return to all npc's dead and mission completed. Similar to afk mining... Anyhow the changes that have been made affect only elite npc's and only they are affected by agro changing ability. What that means is that normal npc's will not ever change agro from you to your drones. Learn the names of elite type npcs and deal with them 1st or use the very simple tactic of poping drones out, wait for agro shift, bring them back in, wait for the agro to come back to you and then resend your drones and you have around 2-3 mins before they change agro back again... And where did you get that idea that sentries arent affected by agro shifts? I have had my sentries targeted numerous times in some missions by elite destroyers and cruisers...

People have suggested using sentries for the number of reasons and the most important one is they dont have to fly and orbit their target to be able to do damage. Sending drones to 50-70km away is just plain dumb because of time lost and infectiveness. You came here for advice then accept what people are telling you. If you want to be afk and do stuff in eve then reroll to a miner.

And why in this golden age of domi mission running boats with mjd's would you still be using a myrm... But it's your choice, you can do w/e you like to do with your toons.

I see someone trying to use a close range weapon system at long range.

Level 4's with a standard T2 tank/Meta guns-fit Myrmidon or Dominix are completely doable, no faction-fit stuff necessary. Heck, I've run some in a Vexor, just to prove it could be done. Your ship choice and fit choice, up to a certain level of efficiency (and a rather high one, at that, to be honest), really makes not much of a difference. Thus endeth the 'my fit über!' portion of this discussion.

NPC aggro on drones has become a major issue, to the point where Sentry Drones V is now considered almost mandatory. That said, 4 (Myrm) or 5 (the rest) T1 sentries are completely viable at SD IV. The only time I use heavies any more is during Angel missions, due to their explosive weakness and tendency to orbit at close range. Everything else is killed either with Garde's, Wardens (they seem to have received a stealth tracking buff somewhere, they work great down to about 25 KM now), and mediums or lights, but only inside 10 KM. Anything further out, and even with Gal Cruiser/BC/BS V, and Drone Durability V, your drones will die before you can recall them. Even non-webbing rats will web your drones, and, when that happens, I hope you brought spares.

I use target painters on all of my mission ships, as well as guns, I have just over 16.5 million skill points in Drones, all of the Gal ship skills to V, and I STILL can't keep Hobgoblin II's alive @ 15 KM reliably, much less Hammerheads or Ogres. For now, and the foreseeable future, until the long-promised revamp of Drones occurs (probably in 2015, I'd imagine), sentries will be the weapon of choice for any range past 15 KM.

Ogre II's are all you need for even elite frigs. Pop them out l, wait till frigs target them, pull them in and wait till you're retargetted. Pop Ogres out again as long as you don't get additional spawns you can AFK at this point.

My Ogres pop elite frigs in seconds even when orbiting. In unbonused ships it still works but takes a little longer.

It's not just the instant recall of sentries, it's that they can actually take some hits and they dont MWD back thereby adding sig bloom and taking even MORE damage.

Sentries, for PvE, are about right. Downsides, upsides: basically balanced. Other drones are thoroughly lackluster. It's a shame, I like them.

Edit: Is there an argument or making drones ewar immune? Being webbed really is lethal for them. Can't see any PvP implications there.