Missions & Complexes

I am running my first L3 mission in my new Drake and am finding it impossible. Even with 17k shield hp, 62 hp/s recharge, and 77% resist against what they are firing at me, I am unable to tank shots for more than a minute or two. The mission has me surrounded by about a dozen or so BCs and elite cruisers, all comfortably missiling me from 60+km. Their DPS is huge. My shields are a quarter gone by the time I have landed one or two missile strikes on my first target.

Since they are jamming me I had to switch to FoF missiles, taking a huge DPS hit. Now when i warp in I cannot even kill 1 BC before my shields are down and I have to make a run for it. I played around with a few different builds, spent some 10 mil on upgrades, and still cannot tank effectively.

Any advice? I know I need to train my skills but if all L3s are this hard and time consuming... I mean I have lost so much money now just on ammo.

It sounds to me like you either got a mission with triggers that spawn extra waves, and you've shot them all, or you got a mission like Recon where you're not expected to kill everything, just to observe and leave. (I'm not familiar with "Cut-throat Competition," unfortunately.

You can always ask people nearby for help. Missions aren't instanced, so you're not necessarily alone within them.

I'd recommend looking missions up on http://eve-survival.org if you're having trouble. Pay attention to the damage types the rats do, and the damage types that are effective against them. [EVE Survival is down ATM, but it should be back up; it's a great resource.]

I am tanking rat specific they are shooting kinetic and some thermal so I have all resists set to kinetic except 1 for thermal. I tried an active tanking fit and it did not even have the recharge with a booster to maintain a steady shield level - while draining my capacitor heavily. Warped out with half capacitor and like 1/4 shields. I'm just not understanding how all the websites say that a Drake can solo tank any L3 or L4 mission.

I'm fairly sure that I recall doing this mission in a month old character before the HML and BC changes. It was a pain even then. If I recall correctly, I ended up warping in and out of the mission several times (killing 1 BC each time) to reduce the pocket before I could handle it.

Besides posting your fit (which would let the people here give you good advise on improving your ship), you could always try asking for help in local. There is a good chance someone might be willing to assist you.

Edit: To answer your question about difficulty, I recall this being the most difficult level 3 I had done at the time. They are not all that bad.

It can be the ship, if the ship is not fitted correctly for the task.

for rigs, do you mean defense field extenders?

i dont pve alot. but last i looked auto targeting missiles were awful. get the caldari navy scourge heavies. they give you another 40 dps.

read up on the triggers so that you dont agro the whole room at once.

im not sure what rigs you are using but make sure you are using the medium core defense field extenders.

i would also drop the DCU for another BCU. if you arent agroing the whole room at once then having the extra 30dps is worth it. Also look at training shield upgrades to lvl 4. it will give you another 5k in hp just upgrading your shield extenders to t2

also you should be able to leave your AB on for longer without the DCU which will allow you to take alot less damage pending you arent flying directly at the NPCs

You definitely need skills for something like this:

High

6x Arblest Heavy Missile Launcher meta 4, Scourge Heavy Missiles

Med

2x Rat Specific Hardeners tech II or Adaptive Invulnerability Field tech II
2x Large Shield Extenders tech II
2x Shield Recharger tech II

Low

1x Shield Power Relay tech II (Change to 3x Shield Power Relay tech II for more Tank)
3x Ballistic Control System tech II

Rigs

3x Medium Core Defense Field Purger I

Drones

5 Light scout drones (I love warriors)

I'm being told to change scourge auto-targeting to regular scourge and change my shield extender rigs to shield recharge rigs, but here is my concern with that:

- The mission rats are perma jamming me, rendering regular missiles useless. I cannot get within range of the jammers because they spawn 65km away from the accel gate with all the others in between so I have to kill them last

-Shield extender rigs increase shield capacity and shield recharge rate because the time to recharge doesn't change but the full amount does, so it is a double benefit, where shield recharge rigs only increase 1 attribute. I don't see how the recharge rigs would make me able to tank better.

maybe im to late but i just read eve-surv cut-throat competition. just kill the shipyard as it will repair the defender ships. and i assume you blopped the moa class cruiser which is a trigger. So now u have alot of damage on the field which also gets remote reps.

PS passive tanked drake is ok, navy drake should be active tanked in my opinion so