The latest news from the 8th Annual Eve Online Alliance Tournament has entered the second set of qualifiers. 64 teams made from some of the strongest corporations from across the EVE Online galaxy have come together in a winner-take all tournament to see who is the biggest and the best in team based PvP.
Part of the announcement from the Interstellar Correspondents has peaked my interest. The most commonly fielded ship so far in the tournament has been the Caldari Drake Battlecruiser. For years the Caldari Drakes sleek design and 7 punishing missile silos have often made it the PVP player’s ship of choice by unanimous decision.
If a new player would asked me what did I like about the Drake I would have to say that its one of the most powerful ships due to its bonuses to heavy assault missiles and its powerful shield resistances. What does that mean to someone who doesn’t speak EVE-enese? It means it packs more punch for PvP ammo per level that the player has trained and the shield resistances give it better defense all around. Plus it looks damn cool!
The Battlecruiser
It has more punch, more power and few of the drags that the larger battleships bring with it plus all the versatility and fun of the smaller cruisers.
Here are the ship size basics for fighting ships in EVE Online: Frigates< Destroyers <Cruisers <Strategic Cruisers <Battlecruisers <Battleships <Capital Ships (Motherships, Titans, Etc.) Please note, there are a ton of other ships as you get higher in training level and they are in tiers. A Drake is a tier 1 Battle cruiser, but it does not have a Tier 2 version. Meanwhile its partner, the Ferox, which is primarily a gunship has the Tier 2 version that’s in the Command Ship class; they are the ever powerful Vulture and Nighthawk. While the skills to fly command ships take months of training time, the Drake and other battleships have a shortened training session. This makes the battlecruiser a perfect middle of the road ship for the young roving pirate, the mission runner and the wormhole excavator.
What is a Buffer Drake?
Ah, the word “buffer” in EVE refers to the ability to recharge the shield’s power without the use of the ship’s power core. Power is the most important thing in long battles. You can have some of the best DPS in the universe, but if you run out of juice midway through the fight, then you are usually out of luck. You can set your “build” of the ship with many different ways to recharge your shield and that makes you both a tougher target if done right, and a DPS horror that has an unending supply of power to rain death on your opponent.
I use battleclinic.com for all my hints and tips on how to gear or as I call it dress a ship. I also use EVEmon and the EVE fitting tool to make sure that all my skills, gear and modules coincide with the ship I am trying to build. How bad would it be if you went out and bought all these awesome modules just to find out that you couldn’t use them because of missing skills or that your powergrid and CPU can’t handle it.
Is it really all that?
46 members that have been involved in the tournament has used them, with the tier 2 Rook coming in a close second at 44. Also, in the 2010 Quarterly EVE newsletter, the Drake is the second most used ship behind the Hulk thats a Teier 2 mining ship. There are over 15,000 Drakes in use that is over 2.25% of the total of ships used across New Eden.
I have used the Drake many times in PvP skirmishes and heavy duty missions and have only lost one. That debacle was mainly due to my stupidity in controlling a massive amount of aggro. But I have recently bought one for the average price of 25 million ISK and am waiting for some parts to come in off the market before its ready to set sail.
Long live the ISD Bahamut III!
You can follow all the tournament action at the HD stream here. Don’t forget to leave me a comment or if you want to group or shoot at me you can find me online at Anansi Ink’Tmi. If you have any questions or comments please feel free to drop me a line anytime.
Until then…
Play safe,
Inktomi