Ships & Modules

After frigs, dessys, cruisers, BCs, BSs, and now faction ships and tech II starting, it appears usage stats in pvp are beginning to even out.

http://eve-kill.net/?a=top20

Because that page will update and then reset on Nov 1st, I'll list the month to date stats for October so far:

Tengu 45.5k
Zealot 42.5k
Ishtar 39k
Proteus 37k
Dominix 31k
Naga 31k
Hound 30k
Prophecy 29k
Sabre 25k
Brutix 24.5k
Loki 24k
Tornado 24k
Thrasher 24k
Caracal 23k
Hurricane 22.5k
Vexor 22k
Capsule 20.5k
Talwar 20k
Talos 19k
Harpy 19k

So here we have the top 20 ships used for kills all in the same general region for numbers. And pretty much all the weapon systems appear to be represented as well as ship sizes. No Drake at the top with 2 or 3 times the numbers of the second place ship. Now the 2x multiple takes the entire list of twenty ships to be seen. Nor is there a top heavy representation of one weapon system like there was with HML Tengus and Drakes, as occurred for years prior to the rebalancing project.

So, even though one month of data does not provide certain evidence of the balancing success, the data so far implies some success of the re-balancing team's efforts. Many of us post and have posted criticisms of the decisions made and being made when the new stats are posted in F&I threads. I certainly will continue to do so, as I'm sure many others will. While I still have worries about past flawed decisions not yet manifested as an imbalance. And, while lag in player discovery of clear advantages in setups, economy, or a combination of the two (as occurred during the old HML Drake's reign) could still occur. I posted this because I thought the team deserves some guarded and/or preliminary praise for their work.

I'm sure many can perceive the current state of affairs similarly or differently. But at least our game is still healthy (arguably healthier than ever). And no ship or weapon system is head and shoulders getting more use than all the others. That is a good development.

Hear, hear!

The reason why draeks used to be #1 was cause they were flat-out the most (cost)efficient fleetship, heavy missiles used to be a total nobrainer and best weapon system in game (you're a fool if you decline that claim), but that got fixed. Also, the average drakeblob got 1-2 volleys onto a hostile before it exploded, thus many drakes got on kms as drake, using the weapon of *drake*, while autocannons were THE smallscale weapon of choice, mainly cause vagabond, stabber FI, cyna and hurricane were some of the few ships that actually worked besides the drake. They weren't part of such huge fleets in average, allowing them to score kills listed as 'cynabal' - '425mm AC'....

Hope that helps!

I agree with this. It's a shame that the Drake was over-nerfed.
I remember the days when all the 'leet' pvp'rs called it the 'lol Drake'. And in general, I don't think it was vastly overpowered, I just think it was a step up ship for missioners to start PvP in. Lots of missioners = lots of Drakes into the foray= skewed numbers.

Not trying to de-rail the thread though. I like the current numbers posted as well. I fly all kinds of ships, and I like to think they have a decent chance if flown right.

delete me

they buffed gallente, and as a pure-gallente pilot i welcomed the changes and resubbed. i wish other game devs had cojones as large to do proper PVP changes.

Not to indulge a derail, but -- The time period to which you refer was about 4 years ago. This was because bears sampling pvp would turn up for fights with purger instead of extender rigs, and sprs instead of bcus. They expected to perma tank a pvp fleet like they do blinky red crosses and didn't understand the concept of applying meaningful damage to the enemy.

Once some real pvp-ers realized the power of a resistance bonus married to decent damage at 70km (and after the scan probing changes that killed sniping and favored mid-range, and after rig sizes were introduced) it became obvious that having all this wrapped up in a cheap package (as compared to a BS) was gold, and the rest was history FOR THREE ******* YEARS LOL.

The Drake is not a bad pvp ship tbh, and heavy missiles are still fairly good v alternatives since medium long range gun tracking was nerfed. In my experience recent damage application is more troublesome with terribly tracking med long range guns than with heavy missiles. That is unless one is gate camping with arty for alpha, which is not really exciting pvp (even while it can be exciting loot piñata blapping ). However, so many former Drake pilots got used to the many benefits of the former Drake and Heavy missiles that once those were changed they can't shake the memory and comparison to its former glory, and thus won't fly the thing anymore.


Valid points. Amarr indeed appears to have sunk to the bottom again. I've argued before that beam lasers need something to give them a distinctive flavor. Their optimals are sometimes the same as projectiles but they get such limited falloff that they end up with less effective range. Just slapping across the board damage buffs to guns does nothing to give anything redeeming to beam lasers, like arty alpha or rail range and dps. Beams could get great tracking or a better optimal than arty to compensate for the crap falloff. But this is for another thread I suppose.

However, there has always been an odd over-representation of projectiles on the eve-kill stats. Even while the Drake was dominating in numbers it was so. I suspect this phenomenon has something to do with how the game and/or eve-kill records (-ed) weapon use. At this time it seems so many killmails display ship used but weapon unknown or the ship itself listed. And if a weapon is recorded it is invariably a drone. The databases are not being updated for the new names on modules or whatever.

I disagree 100% about the balance factor.

Frigs are still useless in fleet, as they can be completely **** on by cruisers / webs / neuts and still have no effective way of combating this. Frigs (especially AF's) Serve no purpose in fleets, due to the fact that their speed is low. With HAC's / Navy cruisers hitting 4.3k/s+ Unheated, what is the point of a frig? Currently- the only effective frigs, are the malus, keres, stilleto.

Destroyers: Still 100% pointless, outside of dictors- which at least have some kind of role. Destroyers are slow, have low HP and no projection. Cruisers do their role 100% better, 100% of the time.

Cruisers: T1 cruisers got a huge boost, but the speed at which these ships achived now, is borderline insane. To compete in solo / nano / small gang- the speed barrier has just been pushed that much harder, and the list of effective ships has dwindled. However because of this, T1 cruisers + HAC's are currently the best ships in the game bar none- so at least that is a good point.

BC: All of the BC's besides the proph (for sentry drone use) suck, and really are completely outclassed by the ABCs, which IMO have completely broken the game. Something serious needs to be changed with them.

BS: Still extremely niche game play for solo / small gang. Currently sentry domi is the most OP ship ever, and sentry sniping is a superior play style to all. The new bastion mode, does nothing to PvP and is a joke of a game play mechanic. The MJD is also, gimmicky at best. Sadly with the new rubicon changes, BS's are going to be at even more of a disadvantage.

Weapon systems:

Autocannons: This entire class of weapons had been severely nerfed by the TE changes, and frankly is **** poor. The projection this weapon system offers, even on projection based hulls (LIke the Vagabond) is a joke. The fact that this has not been looked into already, is sad to say the least.

Arty: Not enough was done on the latest balance change, still require too much fitting room, still have abysmal tracking.

Pulse: Best Turret in game currently, paired with a ships innate optimal bonus, and Life is good.

Beam: Like arty, take way to much fitting, way to much cap, and have abysmal tracking to ever be used seriously in PvP. Pulse will always be a better choice.

Blasters: Like auto cannons, hit really hard by the TE nerf. On some straight brawling hulls, they can still work- however on kiting ships like the Talos / Diemos, it completely killed that playstyle. That sucks.

Rails: Small rails, and large rails are ok. However med rails, still didnt' get enough love on the recent balance patch. They have horrible tracking, horrible cap use, and horrible fitting. Still have to totally gimp your fitting to use them.

Missiles: Rockets are bad, HMLs were nerfed into the ground (and RHMLs are going to suck huge balls, because of 0% Application bonus) HAM's can only work in very specific situations. So what are you really left with? RLM and Cruise. Cruise is only left for ships that have an innate application bonus (Typhoon). So Missiles have lost a ton of usability in PvP

Drones: Sentry drone sniping is currently >>>>>>> Than any other weapon system, at any other range, with any other transversal. it is currently the most OP thing in the game- and it should be looked at.

So in closing:

For people to look at the 'most popoular' weaopns / ships / kills and use that to determine balance are simply daft. What you see on that screen, is simply what the FOTM is inside the nul block fights, nothing more.

What use is there for those flavours if half of them were like corpse stench?

It would be cool if we had absolutely different and equally viable ships, but I understand anyone who has given up on the puzzle of making such ships long time ago.

The "Rebalance" was, is a failure. CCP or maybe players had silly expectations. There is still 1 - 3 ships that outclass everything in their prospective ship classes.

So what if the Rifter was "dethroned". The Merlin was always the better ship anyways. Now players have more choices? They did before. However, it takes a "BOOST" to shine a light on viable setups for the other ships.

To those who believe the Drake is somehow bad? No, YOU'RE BAD. However, there's now a cost to performance calculation with regard to the Caracal and Drake comparatively.Still! A blob of Drakes still outperforms most battlecruisers under 50,000m.

What about the relative velocities (Frigates, Destroyers, Cruisers) seem to be hella stup1d.

How about the COMPLETE SILLINESS THAT IS TRACKING DISRUPTORS AND DAMPERS? I'm not going to say the boost to those modules made them op. Those modules were already OP just not used that much by the general rabble. Now they are and its thanks to CCP boosting them even if it was slight. THere was no need for it but v0v

What about OVERLAP? There are as much Minmatar missile ships as Caldari ones and some are as good or better. Same for amarr and gallente. Dragoon > Algos, Talwar > Corax, Prophecy and good solo (fleets) > Myrmidon... I mean WTF?

I will give CCP some love for battlecruisers. Clearly all tier 3 bc's are good but now instead of the Drake being better than the rest its now an amarr drake (Prophecy) that's added to the list. Also yes! A single nano-Drake or 2 or more Can still WASTE multiple cruisers and frigates. Add links and nothing has changed for that ship. However, Cruisers are a lot faster now and while killing frigs in a heavy missile drake was not easy in the past without a web applied. It's slightly harder now but they still go down quickly enough unless OVERTURNED ASSAULT FRIGATE.

Gallente is still a sh!t r@ce overall. Minmatar are still good all around; Amarr are still meh everywhere else other than Oracle and up (Exceptions; Dragoon, Slicer, Omen Navy, Curse). Caldari have been winning EVERY BOOST SO FAR and might be the best race for a new pilot to train PERIOD or close enough; Minmatar and Amarr.

Still, If you train Minmatar or Amarr you have near identical Caldari and Gallente ships. Infact if you want a full mix you train Amarr. Which has Missile, drone and Turret ships v0v THAT IS OVERLAP.

Want missiles? Don't train Caldari because Minmatar offers the same sh!t. Want Drone ships? F*ck Gallente, train Amarr my n*gga = /

The funny thing is I argued for something like this but I was focused on a SINGLE weapon system. Every RACIAL ship would use lasers. SO MANY PLAYERS DIDN'T WANT THAT SH!T BECAUSE OF DIVERSITY AND WHAT NOT. I was like. Then you need to accept that some ships will be better than others or WAY BETTER THAN OTHERS. If you want equality then make them all the same. Otherwise STFU. Needless to say NO 1 AT THE TIME WANTED OVERLAP. NOW ITS ALL OVER THE PLACE AND ITS LIKE v0v I find it funny. Whatever, 99% players in this game are bad @ PVP in my opinion so I don't expect much.

I'm honestly starting to believe that if you're not a seasoned, non-******** fleet commander or solo pilot. You should probably not give your opinion on anything COMBAT related in game. BROS will tell me I'm dumb and that they've been telling me that sh!t forever, but I suppose now I'm just accepting it.

DOES THAT SOUND BITTER?

v0v I'm an old man and I've been playing this game for TOO LONG and my back hurts and I'm cold and tired. Ha ha ha! Old people... What was this thread about?