EVE General Discussion

lol

CS's relate to HAC's just like your fugly Drake relates to cruisers. Never forget this. But I don't see you proponing for cutting off like 50% EHP from Drake, which surely will get it in line with your thoughts above, so that it has a little more EHP than cruisers.

LOL, damn pharisees!

I wasn't actually thinking so much of Max. Skills, as functional skill levels. You're right though, and controlled bursts is only relevent to lasers and hybrids; but, I might add, Guided Missile Precision is only relevent to HMs and the like, so training for a HAM Drake is one Rank 5 skill less requirement.

Really, I was actually suggesting the many statements here about Drakes req. less training, was more the result of Turrets and Missiles than the actual base skills. The relevent skills to actually fly and tank a BC are all essentially the same. Managing the guns/missiles is something else.

I was also suggesting bumping the BC training times up, by adding skill req.; to make Cruisers a more interim training goal. With the req. to train Leadership 5 and Gunnery or Missile Launcher Operation 5; that will increase the time between Cruisers and BattleCruisers to some degree.

If people fly the cruisers early on, they will see their usefulness; rather than being biased towards a Battle Cruiser. Unlike Destroyers, at least; Cruisers don't entirely skip the Food Chain. Unless you actually want to fly one; there is no reason to train them, beyond accessing Interdictors.

Cruisers still need a buff, which should be then applied to HACs to move them up the food chain. Add another little buff here and there too, for those that need it.

Trust me I have tried to come up with a "useful" Caldari Cruiser set up for my new guys to use and it simply just goes to Drake every time. The Caracal is really only good at being an Anti frig cruiser. The Black bird is really only good at being a ECM boat.

Sure they are both pretty good in those specific roles, but they are not Ruptures, Vexors or Thoraxs. Amarr at least get the Arbitrator which is actually a pretty decent Cruiser that is capable of taking on other T1 Cruisers.

Now I actually like T1 cruisers and I'd love to run T1 Cruiser gangs with the new guys vs having to push them toward Drakes but the simple fact is you have to have very high skill levels to make the Caracal even remotely stand a chance against a Rupture or a Vexor and then it's still most likely going to die in fire.

This means the only real logical plan is to push the new guys straight to Drakes because at least they will have a ship that can soak up some damage even if their DPS output is low as a new player. It's really simple the most effective ship Caldari has even for a new player.

Now with some theory crafting and adding in LOLs Caldari can come up with a workable gang of Blackbirds & Caracals together, but in all practicable applications a Gang of Ruptures, Vexors, Thorax or Arbis is going to be more effective in both getting fights as well as winning them.

Where exactly should I look at? I don't see anyone here. So you'd better post with your main.

That's something you could have used to advocate bringing Drake in line with Caracal in terms of firepower ("should output approximately the same DPS") and EHP ("slightly less" for Caracal). Caracal surely has got to retain "ability to manage range and advantage on the battlefield, solo or in fleet" over Drake.

btw I've noticed a trend with these Nerf the Drakes whines.. Of course in the past no one ever said Nerf the Drake it was always LOL you fly a Drake? Despite the fact that the Drake was never buffed or changed in that time frame.

However every since people figured out the Drake was an effective low budget counter to the null sec BS & Hac fleets it's been "nerf the Drake" every time there is a big war over the last year or so. Ironically there are large null sec wars with armadas of Drakes being used aside Tengu's with devastating effects on the sniper Maelstroms & Tempest, so once again it's time to "nerf the Drake".

In all honestly to fix that issue it would only require a reduction in locking range for the Drake which would then require the pilot to gimp his tank a bit to fit a sensor booster.

Well the only thing the Drake and the Myrm have in common is they both have the same defence bonus the tier 1 BC of there race have. Every one else have a tier 1 for def and a tier 2 for off. In the case of the Drake its giving it a tank it should have never had, and with the Myrm its gimping it's DPS.
Every ones crys of "it's the only good caldari ship" or "it's the only good ship for noobs" are partly right. The Drake as it was lowers the value of the other ships, why fly a corical or moa or ferox one theres drake? Why train skills higher or do T2 one theres drake in less time? That out look tainted my views as a noob for quite some time. Every ship I go it I tryed to fly like a drake and most can't. How many other ships tank that hard for that price? But this buy no means is how I am to day, I branched out tryed new things and learned that most hulls can as part of a team do a job.
This drake change you fear will only make you have to alter you thought proses and reevaluate how you fly. As far as the whole level 4's thing go's how much tank do you lose vs. damage increase? Most fits I've seen use two racial hardeners any way so its not like you have no tank now. Odds are you will still get 6 mids and 5.4k starting shields. For PvP your missiles will hit sooner and more often.

Although I personally don't agree with the removal of the shield resist bonus, (the rest doesn't really matter tbh) I believe the approach on the balancing is quite wrong, since CCP also plays LoL quite often and likes the game (as me) I'll give a simple example as what not to do, why choose champion A when B does all that A does, but better ?

The same applies to EvE and it's ships, with the added variable that the cost of the item is also weighted when making a decision over what to take into the battlefield.

Right now, the drake in PvP is quite often used in blobs, and quite good at it, but then, the hurricanes are too, the rest, not so much, actually on the contrary, they pretty much suck, so for many the obvious course of action would be nerf canes and drakes to put them in line with the rest. I disagree, canes and drakes are pretty much the entry level ships for PvE/PvP for many players, resilient ships that will last long enough for the player adrenaline to show up, contrary to their counterparts, where you're most likely dead before the fat lady starts singing (aka, you start shooting and adrenaline starts pumping), and in a PvE stand point, many new players either get stuck at lvl2's for too long, or they aim at drakes to get to lvl3's, now we all know how mind numbing and dull is to mission, now this nerf will make new players even more bored with missioning and more angry with the game for how mind numbing it is, so, for battlecruisers I would say the best course of action would be to bring tier2 BC's up to par with canes and drakes, would diversify the choice for new players in a PvE stand point to get to lvl 3's faster (and not to have to skill a drake for it) and would allow more diversity in PvP.



Although I agree with the point you make, I disagree with the comparison, is there supposed to be a leap between tiers ? Wouldn't it be better to have a different perk between tiers instead ?, you bring the Omen into the argument, Omen's have a wonderful tank, really awesome bait ships, a typical case of specializing a ship, we have tier3's now, they're specialized glass cannons, why not specialize better all the crappy tier1 bc options (and many tier2's compared to canes and drakes) to bring them to par instead of the easy route ?



This I agree, T2 are not worth their money, but, it's not nerfing drakes that will make people choose the nighthawk instead, simply put you need to buff them to make them more appealing and make them worth the money they cost. Right now, imho, they don't, probably the amarr command ships do worth their value the rest doesn't. HAC's wise we end up with the same issue as everything else, you have a race that their race perks favours them in battle more than any other race, thus shadowing all other options, nerfing minmatar is effectively killing the race perk (speedy glass cannon afaik) thus rendering the race useless, why not go the other route, and have the rest on par with minnie (right now I don't have any suggestions how but then you guys are the ones paid to think about it :P)

Then again, I don't think the current problems of command ships are a direct result of the drake over shadowing them, they just aren't worth the bang for the buck, too expensive, for what they offer in the battlefield. HAC's wise, hell, caldari is probably the worst race of them all, a strong example of what should be balanced first.



That issue is not related to a ship overshadowing the others, but the lack of niche/perks on the other ships. Hell, why should I bother flying a Moa, when any of the other options are way better ? Let's think it through in a new player perspective (like I caught sometimes in noob channels) New players often don't have the support skills up high enough to fly well ships, often times they don't even have the tracking skill at all, a Moa, with rails, no tracking is the most boring mind numbing experience in PvE ever, why should I even bother, how are we going to explain a new player why they should fly Moa's, we can't there's no point, not because drakes overshadow it, because at this time they can't fly BC's, the same applies to many tier1 options, even mining ships, it's not because drake's exists ppl step over tier 1 mining ships and rush to drakes to mine them is it ?, it's because their don't have any perks that justifies flying them over the others.

The Maller has a resistance bonus and a damage bonus (less cap use = use bigger lenses = DPS bonus). The Abaddon has a resistance bonus and a damage bonus. The Rokh has an optimal bonus (and thus DPS bonus by allowing one step up the hybrid charge damage ladder) and a resistance bonus. Resistance bonuses are good for ships intended to fill an assault or brawling role: resistances amplify the power of logistics.

What is Ytterbium thinking? It really sounds to me like the reasons for nerfing the drake are being invented to justify a decision that has already been made.

Drakes have a purpose: they fling missiles across the darkness. It it is perceived that they have "too much" tank, simply increase the recharge time of battlecruiser shields. Of course, I won't complain about switching 5% kinetic bonus for a 5% RoF bonus: that means the Drake will be doing more DPS overall (and contributing to higher consumption of heavy missiles). The drake really doesn't need a long range missile ability. If anything, the range of heavy missiles should be reduced a little.

One small tweak at a time. No more massive changes, please?

Yes, please! Nerf Drake! But please!!! Buff NH at the same time!!!

Why exactly?