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Drakes - Do they need a nerf?

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Author	Thread Statistics \| Show CCP posts - 8 post(s)
darius mclever	Posted - 2010.10.04 20:57:00 - [1] the irony. after all those years of people laughing on drakes and how useless they are in pvp. anyway back to the topic: caldari always had been pretty good on damaging from range while other stuff tackles. and the drake isnt much different. though while the other BCs have often problems with fitting a similar good buffer, they can usually get at least similar (theoretical) dps. and the volley e.g. from 720 canes can make pretty short work of things before logistics can safe people.
darius mclever	Posted - 2010.10.04 21:31:00 - [2] uhm ... also the Tier 1 BCs are pretty good when piloted and fitted properly. you might want to take a look on kil2's or garmon's or endless subversion's videos. and tbh ... in LR BC fleets i would much rather sit in a ferox (resist bonus ftw) than in a brutix or harb. (if there is no drake on sale.)
darius mclever	Posted - 2010.10.15 15:22:00 - [3] Originally by: helmut cheddar Edited by: helmut cheddar on 15/10/2010 15:13:36 makes me laugh that a ship that has not changed in god knows how long barring a NERF to it's ammo and that everyone used to say was good for nothing except PVE is all of a sudden "OMG TOTALLY OP !!!" because people have figured out a use for it. A counter will just as quickly emerge and u'll all be *****ing about how useless it is again the irony is ... the got a bit FOTM, because they are a quite effective counter to AB armor hacs. :) and they can be beaten so easily. people just need to put some brain into it.
darius mclever	Posted - 2010.10.15 22:03:00 - [4] Originally by: Jita mcheck Problem is nto only drakes but the nice bonus of shields and missle systems. Heavy Missiles out range nearly every other long rang weapon system and do full dmg out to that range. Railguns are less popular because missiles are better. Heavy missile range is a huge issue. There is nto enough of a downfall to using missiles currently. You totally missed post number 26? Quote: They are not as slow as the BS sized weapons and the travel time is not a huge negative factor. The irony ... standard missiles, heavy missiles and cruise missiles have the same missile speed. they only differ in flight time. that means all have the same travel time until they hit a target. and on a full range fight, you will waste lots of missiles, because the target dies before they hit. Quote: I believe missiles need a reductionin range and a decrease in speed. this nerf would affect the two most prominent ships..the drake and the tengue. Both ships are able to outperform other ships of the same class at specialized roles while also being a jack of all trades.(build me a better sniping SC with RR, there is also a reason drake armies are so common). been a long time since I read so much crap in one paragraph. Quote: Secondly the down side of shields is not being noticable in it's effect. the bigger the shield the big the sig radius. this is by far a lesser penalty than being slower and less manoverable. Armor tanks fitting a battle ship sized plate can expect a signifigant impact to thier ship. Conversly a large shield extender does very little to negativly affect a drake. I would like to se the down side of shields be more noticible. With passive regen and no real down side shield tanking is becomeing very very common and armour gangs can't keep up and offer no benifit comparativly. a drake with extender rigs and 1 LSE has about 378m sig radius. that means even BS sized weapons hit for almost full dmg. a mwding drake gets hit for full dmg even by capital sized weapons. if you think that isnt a big difference compared to e.g. 240m sigradius of an armor tanked hurricane. And funnily ... a shield tanked drake (1038) isnt much faster than a fully trimarked hurricane (1025) and the harb/brutix are just about 140m/s slower. shield tanked all other BCs out run the drake heavily.
darius mclever	Posted - 2010.10.16 05:17:00 - [5] Edited by: darius mclever on 16/10/2010 05:18:59 kalia: you are aware that explosion velocity of all missiles got reduced during the speed nerf? and explosion velocity is what matters for the dmg taken. i would even call it a bug that you could outrun missile speed in the past. while you cant outrun the missile speed easily anymore, you can still negate tons of dmg because of the explosion velocity. and that is pretty balanced to turret boats. and it is funny how many people ignore post 26 in the discussion. :)
darius mclever	Posted - 2010.10.16 11:49:00 - [6] Originally by: ViolenTUK The Drake has seen the least amount of nerfs over recent years. The only nerf I remember that was aimed at the drake was in 2007 I believe when the shield recharge time was increased to reduce its passive tank. What we are seeing is most of the races ships taking nerf after nerf and in comparison drakes now appear to have advantages. I am not addressing the drake issue directly itÆs just that some of you may have forgotten just how much CCP have systematically run around crippling all of our ships. We donÆt need CCP to cripple another one of Eve ships. I cant remember any BC nerf since the drake nerf. can you point me to some i might have forgotten?
darius mclever	Posted - 2010.10.16 12:41:00 - [7] Originally by: Duchess Starbuckington In no particular chronological order: Hurricane - Projectile buff Harbinger - Laser buff Myrmidon - Drone bandwidth nerf? I didn't play far back enough to see what this was like before they reworked the drone system but I hear it was hilariously OP. No particular buff to speak of, although I suppose the projectile buff could apply as the AC Myrm is pretty good. So, what nerfs exactly? buffing other ships isnt exactly a nerf for the others. as it might just balance out the buffed ships compared to the others.
darius mclever	Posted - 2010.10.16 18:18:00 - [8] Originally by: Sig Sour The Drake is great, has been for many years. If the tactic pepople are using for them right now does not have a counter, a counter should be created instead of nerfing a ship that is balanced just fine when its not in a blob. try warping a bunch of amarr BS on top of them. they melt quiet nicely. ;)
darius mclever	Posted - 2010.10.19 14:27:00 - [9] Originally by: Cipher Jones Thats a terribad PvP fit why would it need nerfed? It is actually a pretty good fleet pvp fit. although one might drop one TP for a sensor damp for more annoyance.
darius mclever	Posted - 2010.10.20 20:32:00 - [10] Originally by: CCP Chronotis The follow up really to this is should it be the only ship that does not have to choose between tank and gank. It is certain the range and buffer plus focused common skill set make it favourable for post-dominion fleet fights. and that as I stated in my original post, the ship in small gangs or scenarios is very much more balanced since this focused setup is less appealing there where fighters are close ranged and in small numbers med slots count more. Talking balance: Fitting any of the other class ships, you are instantly forced into a choice when trying to fit weapons of equivalent range and power. Most will sit at around half the EHP of the drake when trying to do so, whilst the combination of factors (lows for PDU and BCU) and med slots for tank enable it to deliver a pretty awesome package for fleet fights. It is a hot topic internally as the number of drakes present in fleet fights is rising dramatically in the last six months and with this behaviour change we are witnessing a large impact on performance as the missile usage causes high additional load. i think one thing you want to factor in, drakes are often used to counter armor tanked HACs with AB.

darius mclever	Posted - 2010.10.20 20:49:00 - [11] Edited by: darius mclever on 20/10/2010 20:51:06 so instead of workaround the missile issue with nerfing drakes so they get less popular ... how about fixing missiles instead? (and yes i use missile boats a lot, in different flavors)
darius mclever	Posted - 2010.10.20 21:49:00 - [12] ok ... I have to ask ... you look at the popularity in fleet fights ... since when was the passive recharge in fleet fights enough to save you? i just compared our alliance shield fits. yes the drake can tank 187 dps with passive recharge. but i highly doubt that that causes the 30k EHP difference e.g. to the cane fit (120dps tank from recharge). also ... I would love to fit 3 BCU without any fitting implants, but i'm not sure the 3% cpu implant is worth it, so i stick to a PDS. most of the other fleet BC fits run with 3 dmg mods or 2 dmg mods + 1-2 TE. A bigger problem for most other BCs in fleets, locking range. the drake can easily get 82.5km (75km before bonuses) so it can actually lock at the range of its weapons. cane (61.9km), harb (68.8km), brutix (75,6km) would happy if they could even lock that far. most of the times they have no problem hitting at the same range as the drake, if they can lock. so e.g. a cane, looses another mid or low, just to be able to lock at its combat range. also ... I would be interested ... how does your internal research factor in the dmg difference at close range, where every turrent based BC is far superior to the drake (see post 25) questions over questions.
darius mclever	Posted - 2010.10.21 14:20:00 - [13] Originally by: Don Pellegrino How can the Drake be nerfed without compromising it's small gang capabilities? Even in fleets it is not overpowered, any competent opponent will counter them easily. A few weeks back everyone was "AB armor hacs are totally overpowered because our fits/fleets cant handle them". now people figured out how to fight them (e.g. with drakes) and suddenly drakes are an issue. I predict the next wave will be "abaddons with 1400s are to overpowered". again a ship with resists bonus, that gives you enough time to get reps in the current lag situations. As Admiral Mendel said, fix the underlying issue so the extra buffer from the resist bonus isnt such important/needed anymore.
darius mclever	Posted - 2010.10.21 14:25:00 - [14] Originally by: lol internets No, you see, MC is one of the beginner alliances abusing the Drake and ships not requiring alike, so your average player skill and SP would be far too low to base everything else off. If you were from a better alliance with a history of success I would believe you, but alas as you are a member of an industrial empire corp you really have no right to talk on this matter. you are bored of ganking russian ratters?
darius mclever	Posted - 2010.10.22 00:56:00 - [15] Originally by: chatgris snap who says you have to play the range game with them? what forbids you to do a quick warp on grid to a spot far enough to warp right on top of them? suddenly you can even attack them with close range battle cruisers. if you let them dictate the game, you will mostlikely loose. just as they will mostlikely loose when they let your gang stay on top of them. some people make it sound CCP added the drake 6 months back and it runs over everything. If you want to fix something, then fix the lag so the increased EHP of the drake dont matter that much anymore. then i can finally go back to my shield harb.
darius mclever	Posted - 2010.10.25 01:13:00 - [16] Originally by: Kalia Masaer The main balancing issue with drakes and heavy missiles is that they are very effective against, AB Hacs, Turrets BC's both long and short range, and short range BS's. It leaves them very few weak spots. What has essentially happened is that people have finally realized that the speed nerf made missiles a useful weapon system. Try and tackle a drake in a ceptor then try and tackle a arty cane or and ac cane. The drake will kill you no matter how skilled you are. The Arty cane will have a hard time killing you as you approach if you are a skilled ceptor pilot and can't touch you at all once you get close. The AC cane can't do anything to a good ceptor pilot who will just stay out of range. Tell me there isn't something wrong there. Yes the drake won't do stellar damage to fast targets but it will do damage when turrets won't. That is what has to be fixed. The problem is that heavy missiles are too effective over too broad an array of targets. Then with the drakes BS level HP on top of that people wonder why it is being called overpowered. you just described the main difference between missiles and turrets. missiles consistent damage over the whole range, lower damage at close range, for the price of delayed dmg (which can mean that the missiles burn out before even hitting). another disadvantage is that you can speed tank missiles even when moving away from them in a straight line. try to do that against a turret boat. A turret boat might even instapop said interceptor, when it is stupid enough to approach in a straight line. and even when EFT tells you, that your turret boat does less dps at 70-75km, you might still outdps the drakes, because of the 15seconds it takes for the first drake volley to hit. (see post 25) you might be even warped out before the first volley even hit you. and as a small hint ... when you try to tackle a drake try to stay as far away from it as possible to keep maximum speed, unlike you would do with a turret boat. increases your chance of survival a bit.
darius mclever	Posted - 2010.10.26 12:40:00 - [17] Originally by: Xerb Erebus Originally by: Psihius drakes just do a better job with tanking and shooting that a Raven. try with bc from other races to do lvl4/lvl4 wh space, good luck. nerf drake pls. you sir are an idiot. I successfully ran lvl4s solo in: phantasm (shield buffer) cynabal (shield buffer) hurricane (shield buffer) cyclone (active tanked) cerb (shield buffer) zealot (active tanked pulse and beam fit) hawk, retribution although for the AFs it is more fun to do them in a group. most of the fits used are my PVP fits, just with the MWD dropped for an AB. the hac fits even run c3 WHs solo. the common believe that you need a BS to run lvl4s in decent speed is pretty funny. it is just the most boring way to do it and most people can do them semi AFK in a BS. and as others said ... if you use PVE performance to nerf a ship for PVP you failed even more.
darius mclever	Posted - 2010.10.26 19:05:00 - [18] Originally by: Pinky Starstrider Edited by: Pinky Starstrider on 26/10/2010 18:44:36 The EFT DPS numbers are stupid anyway. Missile ships do not have instant DPS. So the calculation of Volley DMG/ROF does not work the same with them. (you can check this if you would like.) According to EFT that fit does 462 DPS, with a launcher ROF of 6.3(aprx)s A volley of 2919 4626.3 = 2910 This would work if Missile chuckers had instant damage, which they do not. @75K it will take these T2 Missiles: 75000/5625 = 13.3 seconds. 2910/13.3 = 218DPS. edit* the drake in question doesn't have a point so if lone firgs friends are slower than your lone frig flys off. i am sorry to burst your bubble. while the first volley would have something like 15s delay. the 2nd volley would have exactly the delay of your ROF. and your ROF is not 13.3s. so yes the turret boats have an initial advantage of almost 2 volleys until the first missile volley hits, but thats about it.
darius mclever	Posted - 2010.10.28 18:16:00 - [19] Edited by: darius mclever on 28/10/2010 18:20:37 Originally by: Malcanis http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1E9uVtP7IQ4 http://dl.eve-files.com/media/corp/skyral/thefirewall.mp4 if you want to download it. Dont worry about drakes. They're easily countered. nice work!:) observations from my few fights with drakes in the last days: 1. perma running mwd Even if i wanted to cut it off so I wouldnt drift out of the range of the hostile ships so quickly it just doesnt react in time. happened often enough that it took like 1-3 minutes until it actually turned on or off. that said ... i went for leaving it runing all the time, even when orbiting a fleet anchor. so for now i am happy about that cap recharge bug. 2. weapon and targeting lag in the same range as the mwd, i missed a few primaries because i couldnt lock them before they died. especially ewar mods seems to get stuck more than the turrets, at least for me. 3. cant comment on the shield recharge, because i wasnt really shot at. what was amazing ... in the last fight as soon as the hostiles warped off in one fight the server load dropped instantly and i almost capped out because i didnt notice the cap usage/recharge went back to normal level. the server recovered almost instantly. discussed the whole lag/overload issue with a friend and we wonder if it would help if you slow down the tickrate if you get too many commands per second. so by default lets say we run with 100 ticks per second, if you notice that the server reaches the maximum, you slow down the "time" on that node. what would normally have a cycle time of 10s, would get 11s, if thats not enough 12s and so on. that would reduce the number of events per seconds again and might bring it back to a level where the server can react more smoothly. the idea would be to keep the total events/s at a rate that the server can manage. (edit: fix typo)
darius mclever	Posted - 2010.10.28 19:11:00 - [20] Originally by: Exploited Engineer Unfortunately, missiles provide a strong incentive not to group them - avoiding overkill (which wastes ammo and dps). With guns, overkill only wastes a few shots from the current salvo, but with missiles, you waste some of the damage from the salvo that killed the target as well as any missiles currently in flight towards the now-dead target. This leads to the problem that there is quite a bit of incentive (dps-wise and ammo-wise) to leave the launchers ungrouped or use small groups only, while there's only the incentive of convenience to group missile launcher (especially since defender missiles are basically never used in PvP). that doesnt make a whole lot of sense. if you see the target is close to die, you would waste the same amount of ammo in a turret boat (brutix e.g.) as you do in your drake. if you fly missile boats long enough, you can get a pretty good idea when it is still worth so send in another volley or when it might be better to send the missiles at the secondary. i think in heavy fleet fights that might even be some good knowledge for turret boats, because of the cycling issues.

darius mclever	Posted - 2010.10.28 21:25:00 - [21] Originally by: Pinky Starstrider A volley of missiles is not tracked as one it is tracked as a group of individuals. This is easily seen when one or two missiles are destroyed on the way to the target. Grouping or ungrouping will have no effect on the number in the sky. The only real way to do it is to remover missiles as an object entirely. givin launchers a variable RoF depending on distance/velocity and making the missiles instant damage. This eliminates missiles from range, and as an esteemed colleague pointed out will cause the DPS at long range to drop somewhat. This will kill all the complaints in this thread, more balanced DPS at range between the BC's, (when you get close your DPS will increase without changing mods/ammo), and no missiles spiking the server. they only turn into multiple objects when the missiles burned out, until that they are one big missile with the combined HP and dmg of all missiles in the group.
darius mclever	Posted - 2010.10.29 17:10:00 - [22] Originally by: Roderak Pleem Also, after further review, I did see bouncing missile graphics in those videos too. If that is extra math being done in the server, then something is not right. ok just an assumption but: 1. client side missile object "hey i am at the position of my target ship, server please tell me if i can explode" 2. server side missile object "I am still in the queue to be calculated please wait, but you can do bounce animations on the ship while waiting" a few seconds later: 3. "hey client side missile, you can explode now, I did 250 dmg to the ship" they might have used different "words", but all in all that might be what happened.
darius mclever	Posted - 2010.10.30 09:34:00 - [23] Originally by: Exploited Engineer Originally by: Kiran No other battlecruiser has these bonuses applied other than shield boost on the Cyclone. Um, I think the Ferox would like to have a word with you. And the Prophecy and the Brutix have bonuses to armor (resistance/repair). and the myrm (rep bonus). so it is actually just the harbinger and the hurricane, which dont get a tanking bonus.
darius mclever	Posted - 2010.10.30 10:42:00 - [24] Originally by: Exploited Engineer Originally by: darius mclever and the myrm (rep bonus). so it is actually just the harbinger and the hurricane, which dont get a tanking bonus. True. However, I believe resistance bonuses are generally out of line with damage bonuses. A +25% resistance bonus actually requires an opposing ship to do 33% more damage, while most "pure" damage bonuses only give 5% more damage per skill point. (Exception: ROF bonuses - +25% ROF actually increases DPS by 33%). This could easily be fixed by lowering any shield/armor resistance bonuses of ships to 4% per skill point instead of 5%. did you notice that most ships with active tanking bonus get 7.5% per level? summing up to 37.5% more tanked dmg? the only disadvantage is that resist bonuses also help RR.
darius mclever	Posted - 2010.10.30 13:26:00 - [25] Originally by: Rhinanna Smartbombs are the only viable defence and thats only possible on BSes really. oh yes? my hurricane fit can use 2 medium smarties just fine. and i bet under lag it could even perma run them, as the cap recharge will be broken. hooray for bugs. ;) and there are more counters to them. range would be one of them. a burned out missile wouldnt do any damage to you. sadly in current laggy situations stuff like LR hacs dont work so well. Quote: I would agree that one element of the drake could use a SLIGHT nerf, I think targeting range would be the way to go so that the long range drakes need to lose a mid to tracking computer or low to a tracking enhancer. This would still allow the drake to perform as well as currently as shorter ranges and in small gangs without allowing it to retain it's current massive tanked sniper status that no other ship can reasonably obtain. first of all i think you meant to say sensor booster or backup array. not tracking computer/-enhancer. anyway ... in current laggy situations drake slip over their own locking range often enough. also it can happen easily that their missiles burn out before hitting.
darius mclever	Posted - 2010.10.30 19:37:00 - [26] Originally by: Miss President Drakes need a nerf only to an extent to match other Battlecruiser size vessels. 1. Why do we see such a huge increase in drakes in fleets. A: Drake is a noob stick mobile, it's got a ridiculous tank, it shoots missiles any where you point it to, it can target paint and doesn't take much skill to fly. A: Drakes are cheap, fittings are cheap, even T1. wrong. 1. they become popular as counter to AHACS 2. they become more popular because it is one of the battlecruisers, that has a reasonable chance to survive in current laggy fleet fights. Quote: 2. FCs hate to face lots of drakes, they take long time to kill for a low time to destory to isk killed ratio. WHy bring 1 hack when for the price you can bring 3 drakes. 3. If you ignore them they will hurt 4. No other battle cruiser in game requires so little skill, and effort to fit it and fly it correctly. There are many uses for drakes, and not only a fleet fight, it's a good ship with good tank. Passive tank for PVE is great, and doesn't need a nerf. I think it will be difficult to reduce it's noobstick role in fleets and not ruin a PVE ship it is. the amount of skills for flying a drake properly is the same amount you need for a fleet cane or fleet harbinger. stop lying to yourself.
darius mclever	Posted - 2010.10.30 20:16:00 - [27] Originally by: Rhinanna Quote: oh yes? my hurricane fit can use 2 medium smarties just fine. The range of large smart bombs is what allows them to block missiles effectively. Hint: http://killboard.the-initiative.com/index.php?a=kill_detail&kll_id=80144 they are using medium smarties too. Quote: Quote: and there are more counters to them. range would be one of them. a burned out missile wouldnt do any damage to you. sadly in current laggy situations stuff like LR hacs dont work so well. The whole point of this is that you can't fight drakes at range..... A long range HAC fleet will get owned by a drake fleet for this exact reason. Running away where you can't do any damage to the drakes isn't a counter.... its simply running away. a smart LR hac gang will stay at 90km from the drakes. show me what drakes will hit at that range. and they are even faster the drakes and can dictate range. =) Quote: Quote: anyway ... in current laggy situations drake slip over their own locking range often enough. also it can happen easily that their missiles burn out before hitting And generally in these sort of situation the drake is the only craft that can hit anything at all, so its still performing better than anything else. sure most BC fleets will have that problem. but LR BS fleets e.g. wont.
darius mclever	Posted - 2010.10.31 21:45:00 - [28] Originally by: Cosmic Brownies Originally by: cyndrogen If you think drakes need a nerf take a look at this video: firewall As you can see even a small fleet can rip through this drake wall with innovative fittings. Oh you mean a fleet of BS's? Try the firewall with arty canes and then we'll talk. you mean like this?;) Quote: [Hurricane, firewall] Damage Control II Power Diagnostic System II Gyrostabilizer II Gyrostabilizer II Gyrostabilizer II Power Diagnostic System II Y-T8 Overcharged Hydrocarbon I Microwarpdrive Large Shield Extender II Invulnerability Field II Invulnerability Field II 650mm Artillery Cannon II, Tremor M 650mm Artillery Cannon II, Tremor M 650mm Artillery Cannon II, Tremor M 650mm Artillery Cannon II, Tremor M 650mm Artillery Cannon II, Tremor M 650mm Artillery Cannon II, Tremor M Medium 'Vehemence' I Shockwave Charge Medium 'Vehemence' I Shockwave Charge Medium Core Defence Field Extender I Medium Core Defence Field Extender I Medium Core Defence Field Extender I needs a few fitting implants but well. armor hacs with smart bombs are way more interesting. though I had no time to work on fittings for those yet.
darius mclever	Posted - 2010.10.31 22:59:00 - [29] Originally by: Cosmic Brownies Originally by: darius mclever you mean like this?;) Inferior range and the other half of the firewall was using sensor damps to shut out drakes. Oh and medium smartbombs suck. they were also using armor tanks.... but i leave that to your own creativity. regarding the medium smart bombs ... I would suggest you look at the init killboard what they are using. and maybe also check how much dmg a medium smart does and how many HP HML have.
darius mclever	Posted - 2010.11.05 17:32:00 - [30] Originally by: Quark Valhala http://www.eveonline.com/ingameboard.asp?a=topic&threadID=1410401&page=1 FLARES!!! and you will not have to nerf ****... spawning even more objects in an already overloaded system will definitely help the situation.

darius mclever	Posted - 2010.12.13 01:42:00 - [31] Edited by: darius mclever on 13/12/2010 01:42:18 Originally by: Ulstan When you have rock < paper < scissors < rock, and suddenly you make rock not worth flying (BS fleets) scissors will appear overpowered. Afterall, they always beat paper! But nerfing scissors so that paper beats scissors will change nothing. You need to unnerf rock to fix this problem. this must be the reason why you see lots of maelstroms and apocs in fleets now.

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