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Jester’s Trek – Misses the target
There’s been a lot of chit-chat about four changes to the Drake that CCP proposed to CSM6 during the December summit:
it would lose the shield resistance bonus and the 5% Kinetic damage bonus; and instead,
gain a rate of fire bonus and a missile velocity bonus.
We’re told that such a change would re-balance the Drake which currently “does everything too well”. We’re also told it would potentially add more uniqueness to the Nighthawk, which is presently overshadowed entirely by the Drake.
Let’s get that last point out of the way first: there’s currently not really any good reason to fly a Nighthawk, other than how cool it looks. A Drake can do the same job nearly as well, for one fifth the cost. In PvE, a well-fit end-game Drake does about 370 DPS without drones; the Nighthawk does 435. The 65 DPS is not really worth the extra ISK put at risk for ratting; get a Tengu instead; just as much DPS at far lower risk. For missioning, while you might start L4 missions with a Drake, you’ll soon be drawn to other platforms than the Nighthawk. All in all, these proposed changes to the Drake aren’t going to change that. You can’t buff the Nighthawk by re-balancing the Drake. The Nighthawk needs someone to look at it, please. Onward.
So… is this a nerf? Kirith Kodachi thinks so. So does Seleene.
I’m not so sure.
First, let’s make things really clear: this change is intentionally aimed at PvP Drakes. We’ll get to why in a second. Drakes are hugely common in PvP because they do consistent, reliable DPS, their fitting is really hard to get too terribly wrong, and they’re easy ships to put newbies into with little effort. Enemy FCs ignore them until last because the Drake is the very epitome of a defensive ship. Almost no other ship in EVE can match it on defense.
However, that defensive nature means that Drakes have long been regarded as well-balanced PvE platforms. CCP now proposes to strip that defensive nature away.
What’s that resistance nerf going to do to the Drake? Well, EHP for a max skilled pilot of a Drake with no fittings is going to drop from 24.6k EHP to just over 21k EHP if my math is accurate. A fairly typical heavy tank PvP Drake (double-Invul, double-LSE, double-CDFE, single anti-EM rig) will drop from 81k EHP to about 76k. More significantly, the PvE triple-Purger Drake will go from being able to omni-tank about 300 DPS with passive recharge to about 175 DPS.
Yeah. This is a pretty big change, and — ironically — it’ll hit PvE Drakes a lot harder than their PvP brethren.
Why is the change so significant? The Drake is all about the resists. Today, a double-Invul PvE Drake with no Damage Control has an average resist of 72%. The resist-nerfed Drake’s average will be 62%. I wrote about how important even a few percentage points of resistance are a couple of months ago. Those percentage points are even more important when the ship in question isn’t active tanking. To quickly summarize the point I made in that post, 62% resists means that 100 points of shield recharge becomes 263 effective shield hit points. 72% resists means that same 100 points of shield recharge becomes 357.
On a Drake, depending on your fit, that 100 shield points recharges every six or seven seconds. Let’s say it’s 6.5 seconds. That means the higher resist Drake picks up almost a thousand more EHP per minute, meaning it can passively tank some combination of two or three more rat battleships, six more rat cruisers, or 12 more rat frigates. The difference adds up fast! We wouldn’t see a lot of Drakes in L4 missions after this change; they wouldn’t be able to survive them. Their ability to tank L3s will have to be adjusted with a lot more mission-specific tanking and careful flying.
The PvP Drakes are not going to be impacted as much. PvP Drakes close the EM hole and fit Damage Controls by and large, so the resist nerf won’t hit them as hard: their resists, on average, will drop from 73 to 65. It’s a 7-point change instead of a 10-point one, still big but not disastrous.
The big impact on the PvP Drakes is going to be on the flip-side… all those offensive changes. The kinetic damage change looks like a nerf, but it really isn’t. Today, you can look at a Drake and think “kinetic damage”. A lot of PvP ship classes out there right now that often fight Drakes — AHACs, for instance — go out of their way to close their kinetic resistance hole. With Drakes able to vary their damage to whatever type of damage is required, their effective DPS is going to go up a fair bit. And the missile speed and rate of fire buffs are going to make brawling HAM Drakes — currently relatively uncommon — absolute close-range monsters.
But let’s be clear, here: CCP isn’t looking at these change for the good of the ship. They’re looking these changes for the good of their servers. They’ve had a strong desire to punch the Drake in the mouth for about a year now and are just looking for the right time to deliver that punch. CCP claims that Drake missile volleys — particularly in large numbers — are a big cause of server lag. These changes really effectively do two things to the Drake:
make them easier to kill and more likely to be killed, so they’ll die faster and fire fewer missiles; and,
make those missiles that they do fire hit their targets faster, lessening server load from calculating missile tracks.
It’s clever. But will it back-fire?
After all, there’s another way to use that range bonus. Right now, FCs across New Eden know that HML Drakes — the most common type — can engage defensively at about 70-75km, and offensively (while chasing a target) at 55-60km. The missile speed boost is going to increase those ranges by 25%. Energy Locus Hellcats will no longer be able to hit Drakes for good damage at 70km the way they can today because the Drakes aren’t going to be there any more… the Drakes will be at 80 or 85km, outside of Locus Hellcat range. AHACs, meanwhile, can no longer count on their 80 or 85% kinetic resist to save them; those Drakes are going to be firing EM missiles at them instead.(1)
Lots and lots of people are looking at these potential Drake changes… and getting excited about them. As a result, we might see more Drakes on the PvP battlefield out of this kind of change, not fewer. And we might see them just emphasizing the skirmishing role they were never intended to take in the first place. Do these changes constitute a Drake nerf? Do they really?
Well, yes: they sure are for the PvE Drakes! But that wasn’t the intent. While this proposed change to the Drake is sure interesting, I think it misses the target.
(1) I almost typed “Thunderbolts”, but they’re not gonna be Thunderbolts after tomorrow; they’re gonna be Mjolnirs.
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Nice, i do like this change, it will mean each launcher will do 70.4 dps as opposed to the typical 66 using the kinetic bonus. 4.5 more dps per launcher but across the board, em hitting as hard as kinetic and explosive. Yes resistances will drop but the dps and range increase will make it more viable for pvp. Over will be screwed, passive recharge and resistances will go out the window, but for pvp it will just fit more hardeners
30 percent less tank with resists in the low 70's instead of 80's across the board.
fuck ccp
Sweet mustache, pal.
That's a real man, asshole… Until he puts his leather cop suit on.
i snort-loled
Waaaiiii-Emmmm-Seeeeee-Aaayyeeee!
Firstly, a point of order: "73 to 65" is an 8 point difference, not 7.
And along those lines, while 8% difference might not seem like much, you need to look at resists as what they let through which is what really matters. 73% resist will let through 27% of damage, 65% resists will let through 35%. If you look at it as 73% vs 65% it's a small 12% comparative difference (73/65), but if you look at how much damage is being let through it's a 29% comparative difference (35/27), which is quite significant.
Yeah, good catch. A little bit of rounding error crept in. Still, it's not going to make all that much difference if my math is accurate: 81.5k EHP versus 76k EHP for a typical PvP Drake.
If CCP likes guns more than missile spam in fleet fights, they really need to just overhaul missiles so they are less useful in PVP and more a PVE thing. Perhaps change them into extreme alpha, low RoF type weapons (which would be fairly logical), thus limiting the missile spam at any given time. As you pointed out, the proposed change pushes the main missile boat from PVE towards PVP, not the other way around.
Missiles are extreme alpha low ROF weapons.
I think artillery is the only thing with better alpha and lower ROF.
Its why you can't go wrong in a drake. If its a fleet fight and the enemy is buffer fit a drake's alpha is a death sentance. Drop just faction missile drake fit into eft. No damage rigs or lowslots. Any month old newbie could fit a half way good faction missile drake, and all the meta levels of launchers alpha for the same damage.
I said "extreme" because I meant much more than their current numbers. HML that have a 30+ second cycle time. That kind of thing. Well aware of the current dps/rof/alpha of missiles.
to sum this up, ccp might nerf the drake but in reality it will not really change anything, just like their titan nerf.
oh so very true, much like the super carrier nerf too. Many of these "oh its a great idea" come through and are never thought out well. I still think the drake should keep its KN damage buff and go with the RoF bonus instead of the resist. Since this would keep it in line with the REST OF Caldari. As all of Caldari ships that fire missiles (or have a damage mod TO missiles) it is KN bonus.
Maybe nerf its sheer HP some as well, and add that 8th launcher in that it needs to balance out its model for that "missing" launcher thats on it. Either that or redo its model.
im indecisive ….
* as a missil vendor love the change now my other HM will sell for more
* as a Drake L3/L4 missioner i feel hurt when they mess with my Tank.
- well for L3 missions i can always use my Hurricane and for L4 i can always use my Typhoon but i enjoyed the pve Drake.
on the other hand if i find a decent fit for L4 missions for my drake the changes could be good as not all pve missions is kinetic dammage. the downside is now the missils will cost more as i fire more
you could always active tank the drake using a large shield booster and reworking its cap with some rigs.
OR you could fly the Rokh for lvl 4 missions. People forget that that thing is a tanking monster. Great resist and great shield recharge. You just have to train for the T2 rails….
Why should Drake be able to do level 4 missions? You want to tackle level 4 missions, get yourself into a BS. It takes longer to train, buy and fit, but that's EvE for you.
what titan nerf? they still track everything -_-
fuck you brian
Minus a low slot would be a better nerf.
Damn, you just had to make ccp aware of it, and here i hoped for pvp drakes
Thanks for doing the actual maths, I had worked out what the impact was in a general way, but had not pinned it down. My issue is that the Drake enabled low SP pilots to compete against higher SP characters, also the ship was generally targetted last so they had a chance to be in a battle for an extended period. Most of the people I play Eve with think that the so called elite players pushed this as they were sick of losing their pimped specialist ships to low SP pilots in drakes.
CCP have made it more difficult for low SP players to do level 4's with this and removed their ability to have an extended period of fun in PvP. As CCP was looking for ways to keep newer players I think this is a massive own goal.
I actually like the changes, but regret the diversity of this, a heavy tanked BC vs a cane which is a low tanked heavy DPS ship, perhaps they can add resists to the cane and reduce DPS, but I am only kidding…
The drake will still be the best battlecruiser out there… eaven after "the nerf"
how much did ccp pay you to present that nerf as a good thing?
you should hate yourself when you get that bloody money.
my kids hate you. surely, so do i
lrn2read
So basically instead of fixing their crappy infrastructure to accomodate a popular ship they just nerf it?
SO by the rule of fantastic reasoning any ship that becomes the PVP'ers mainstay will get nerfed to buggery because
A: Servers as usual as shite and
b: They are like some Politically correct quango thats needs to have diversity and when the majority of people are usuing a particular ship they try to force you to use something else.
I hate the phrase "It does everything to well" as this usually means it does everything it was designed to do (for once) but because the other ships of it's type don't do as well they to make it worse instead of rebalancing the ships of it's kind to be as good.
Buff cyclones today!
More Brutix!
Get that Fer—-haha no.
That bonus range and missille speed makes a huge change for the Drake so you cannot ignore it as before and make your timing warpout escape. I still think the Drake is not gonna die easy, and with missille spam from 100km you will have to come out with sniper fleets.
It makes the Tornado and Naga fleets the ultimate response to the drake fleet.
I wouldn't be so sure. a Drake with an AB goes a little over 300km/sec. With decent transversal (if the drake pilots aren't complete tards, they'll get this up asap) a Naga or tornado will have a hard time hitting it for decent damage, especially since the Naga will be stuck using iridium or tungsten ammo and the Tornado will be stuck using depleted uuranium, or even proton charges. Drakes would have no such problems, as the sig radius of the new teir 3s are fairly large and missiles can blast those just fine from 90+km out.
Also, I'm not including nano-drakes, which go even faster.
Any Republic Fleet medium range can be fire at about 80km plus falloff for example the RF Depleted Uranium does 7128 damage at 78+90km and no loss of tracking.
So yes, the Tornado can do serious damage with volleys like that to the Drake.
An afterburner drake? Really? Transversal isn't going to save a drake being shot from 100+km out.
ok, fine. then put an MWD on it. It will still have good transversal. Plus, in order to reach 100km out, you would need to use Iron or Tungsten rounds for the Naga and Proton or Nuclear for the Tornado, all of which have horrendous DPS. You may be able to get away with using Lead rounds for the Naga, but rails are still weaksauce when compared to arties or beams.
You have no fucking idea how tracking works. Shut the fuck up.
Another reason not to resubscribe – they cannot leave well alone….!! Ah well we have spinning ships wtf!
the drake should stay as is, the nighthawk needs buffed as its overshadowed by the other command ships more so than the drake
seriously who gives a fuck about faggots that still need to do lvl4s in a drake
move on to the raven or whatever morons
Nerf? The logis standing in the back just got in range. Seems like the drake just became nastier. A battery of them will shoot harder, adapt for best damage, and hit farther out.
Is rate of fire bonus really a smart way to diminish server load? The spam'll be 33% higher for the same number of drakes. Sure, there'll be a few less in the air due to speed – but people will be fighting at greater ranges.
didnt read article, is it about carebear tears?
Totally agree dude. It's NOT a nerf. First thing I thought when I heard of this was "What will all the noobs do?" So many of them don't have missile skills but it's easy to get a battlecruiser skill. So at least they get a % resistance boost.
But all those elite PVPer types that go out in drake nano gangs will still be fitting their max skill missiles to the thing and it will be even more powerful.
Is this not the group of people CCP is trying to nerf?
Another CSM Fail IMO.
Still waiting on the drone regions bounty nerf… they've been talking about it for a year now.
Not to mention with the new t3 battlecruisers these drakes will melt EVEN faster already.
Not necessarily. Only if the drakes are retarded enough to fly straight at them or sit at 10km away…
They can just gth! why would someone want to fly a Naga with medium missiles. and why the hell should tier 1 and 2 bc for caldari virtual have the same tank. I tell ya what SWTOR is looking better everyday. your balancing wrong again. tier1 bc's are crusier killers, tier 2 are tier 1 killers with med damage and tank without speed IE (hurricane is too fast), and tier 3 is fine where it is with super damage no tank and speed. Stop play politics with our ships.
You mean Glitchwars The New RMT?
never played it just drooled over the trailers. but if all the game start to suck there is always thumb wrestling the mushroom head.
Next of the menu, Tengus lol
I can't be assed to do the math but if RANGE INCREASES, and rate of fire increases depending on speed of missile isn't there the potential for more missiles to be on the field (not sure if missiles fired at target killed before landing are counted and contribute to lag)?
Yes. More missiles will be on the field at once, meaning that this is 'nerf' won't do anything for CCP server side. I'm all for seeing the new bonuses for the drake; it'll make my hammy drake that much more deadly…and I can finally take off that sensor damp. lol
Missile range comes from two factors – velocity and flight time. The velocity bonus increases the range by making the missiles go faster, so unless the target is at maximum range this change will usually mean that the missiles will actually spend less time existing (between launcher and target) by reaching the target sooner.
That will be offset by the RoF bonus though. The missiles will be launched faster, but also removed faster.
So, the tl;dr version:
-Drake 'nerf' isn't really a nerf
-CCP's reason for changing the bonuses is because of server load, which is a load of crap, as MORE missiles will be out at once.
-PVE drakes are now crappy. Too bad, get into a Rokh and own level 4s.
-HAM Drakes will now own your nanocanes face.
1. Excellent article! I enjoyed reading it.
2. IF what is being postulated here about server load due to missiles is correct, I say
"Shame on you CCP. Are you up to your old shenanigans again. Fix the problem not the symptoms. Sort your gear out… Don't fuck up my game"
I see the Drake as primarily a PvE tool, so this may actually harm new players again. The care bears also need love too!
>>> Save the Drake, Save the Game! <<<
All damage type HAM drakes.. prepare for the new whelp fleet of choice..!
For PVE I'd imagine people would just go to the Raven and the servers would feel the same strain, perhaps more. Not every Drake pilot bothers deploying drones but Raven pilots sure as hell do. Cruises got nothing in Frigates.
Bravo! This review and opinion piece is spot on. The proposed changes will adversely affect PvE Drakes while barely touching PvP Drakes, which depend more on buffer as opposed to passive tanking. In fleets with logistics, it won't make much of a difference because those are buffer fits. For PvP, I also agree this is more of a stealth buff. Give it more range and broaden it's damage profile? Sure. Hell, put this way, perhaps I was wrong about it being the same as the Hurricane. Now it'll be flat out better.
Man Nerfing is like flavor of the month
As a line FC for my alliance, I am constantly fighting drakes as they're one of the most used ships in PVP, regardless of the type. I've been terrified of these changes since they mentioned for just the reasons Jester outlines. PVP drakes are going to get a LOT meaner, and drakes will be even harder to counter with less agile platforms. This is no nerf, and jester hit it right on the head, I hope CCP reads this and takes it to heart.