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So, I waited with baited breath for the new drone modules and today I finally got a set on Singuarlity.

I estimate that these modules will cost ~100m like most faction dps augmentors do.

I was aware of the DPS nerf to my Ishtar, I was hoping the faction DDAs would help this.

They didn't really.

What gives, CCP? You expect me to pay 400m to raise my DPS by 48.4? (6.5% over t2)?

I'll admit this is sad to see. I love my ishtar, and even though I don't like the garde dps nerf coming, I figured I'd live with it without much complaint.

Really depressing though that with 4 faction DDAs you can't get to pre nerf stats.

And think, you would need gal drone specialization V too. A 20 day skill.

It's kind of insane the drone nerfs coming over the ishtar.

Anyways, I've always been a dedicated drone pilot. I flew drones before the DDAs and drone aggro changes, I flew them after, and I'll fly them after this.

It's sad though, that instead of nerfing the ship that causes problems, you nerf the drones, effectively nerfing every ship that can use them.

Funny thing, you can kill drones.

Ishtars have given me and my alliance problems at home ( they've given all of eve problems from what I understand), they are tough, maneuverable, and because they don't have to fit guns, they have tons of fitting for nothing but tank and mobility.

A few weeks back though, a battlecruiser fleet I was in managed to drive off an ishtar fleet, by simply killing their drones. Crazy I know. The ishtar's dps was crazy too, logi could barely keep up ( I went into 80% structure myself before they saved me) and we did lose a few. However free fire on drones cleared out enough that they were forced to leave the field, and we won.

Drones are unique in this sense, and sentries are a battleship class weapon. However they seem to fall short on the ishtar. Once you fit for tank/dmg mods to get that crazy ~750 dps post nerf, you don't have the CPU for the turrets. If you Armor tank, you aren't getting that crazy dps.

However a mega with 4 faction Magstabs, parallel to this ishtar, pulls around ~700dps depending on cal navy antimatter or javelin. That doesn't count their drones though. Simply add mediums and they pop well over 850 dps. The hyperion with 5 sentries and a full wrack of guns can do the same.

Fine though, the ishtar is a cruiser hull, and therefor shouldn't have the same theoretical dps as a battleship sized hull. If the ishtar was a problem, why not nerf it directly, instead of nerfing every sentry using drone boat in the game?

As for making the other racial varients more desirable, not having four 20 day skills for them would be nice. It makes sense large hybrid, cruise/torp, projectile, and laser skills each take 20 days, they are all different weapon systems. However both sentries and heavies have 20 day skill trains, and then each race has a 20 day specialization train. It would make more sense to have " heavy drone specialization " and "sentry drone specialization " instead of 4 different 20 day skills.

Anyways wall of text aside, yes I am buttmad. Not because of a nerf, but because I feel they are nerfing the wrong thing. It's like they think if they nerf gardes enough, people will use the others. This is true, because garde damage is getting so low that it is slowly becoming useless against even serpentis, since serp dmg hole is kinetic anyways. In pvp gardes rarely have the range to be effective, if the battlefield is moving at all. They should just nerf the ishtar and be done with it.

With the heavy changes, they might actually become more viable for pve at this rate.

While this is a well written post that I agree with, I more wanted to bring CCP's attention to the somewhat weird properties that the faction DDAs are displaying

did you not.... even try?? heavy drones.... really??.... navigation computer..... tracking amps.... + dmg amps... adds up quickly.. you can flip target in fleet fights and be pretty effective all while kiting....

you know what, nvm, keep up with my killboard next patch

I just checked on the test server and the faction DDA now only take 20 tf CPU vs. the 30 tf for the Tech2

Tech 2 give 23% damage boost and the faction give a 25.8% damage boost.

There's no deadspace low-slot damage mods for any other weapon system - so it stands to reason there won't be one for drones, either.

I could not find any 5-run BPC on any of the new faction drone modules. Hopefully they will add them at a later time.

RIP my dominix- it loses over 100 dps, and even with the faction ddaas, it doesn't reach what it had before :/

Let's face the facts tho: The Ishtar stood out by a lot to other HACs.

Even if you nerfed damage output by another 100dps it would stay the most used HAC. It's not a bad thing that it can't achieve 800+ dps that easily anymore.