Orgres and Wardens and Gardes, oh my
Posted: 2010-01-03 Filed under: eveonline | Tags: dps, drones, pve, pvp, sleepers, wormhole 6 CommentsAs my skillbook would tell you, I fly gallente frigates, gallente cruisers, battlecruisers and gallente BS. Also caldari frigates, but that doesn’t really relate at the moment. Regardless, I have hull upgrades V and armor compensation at III across the board. The problem I have, tho, is offensive capability. As a Miner, I’m getting my ABC skills to IV but after that, I’m going over to improve my drone skills.
Bty, this has nothing to do with me getting completely outdpsed by the new guy with his shiny Ogre IIs last sleeper site.
I’ve got drone interfacing at IV, combat drone interfacing at IV, scout drone operation at IV, Sentry drone operation at II(facepalm) and Heavy drone operation at II(double facepalm). I’ve been told by various older players to train drone interfacing to V first, and the 20% damage bonus makes me agree. But what after that?
In the WH, sleepers target drones first, so having sentries seems better over ogres since you can recall them instantly as opposed to pressing recall and watching it explode 6km away from you, reducing your dps by a fifth.
But are sentries better in other applications? WHs are fun, but if CCP, I dunno, starts enforcing their “no WH long habitation” and make PoSes run out of fuel four times faster or make WHs show up on the overview or something, I’d like to have a fallback plan.
Anyway, which is better for missions, fleet fights and gang PvPing, sentries or heavys?
k162space 
I prefer sentries in missions, especially going against Serps/mercs (I assume serps will be your main target as your Gall). Heavies have a place as well in missions for those really close orbiting ships. A domi with sentries and 2-3 OTLs will tear everything apart.
For pvp though, sentries are vary situationally dependent. I’ll let someone more experienced than myself help you out there.
I also prefer sentry drones for missions but they can be troublesome in some cases. The optimal ranges are very important and if the enemy is at multiple ranges you may need to carry more drones than you expected. This means I love a good Dominx or Ishtar.
I asked the same thing a couple of weeks ago in my corp forums. As you I had to make a determination as to which to train to V first. Based on the replies and comments in corp channel I gather the following:
– As you pointed out you want to do Interfacing to V first. This bumps damage on all drones, so having this done first while you train heavy & sentry to V is a smart move.
– Sentry are a lot of dps, plus are the only drones that can benefit from a rig (sentry damage augmentor). Since they don’t move they are safer to use with Sleepers and saves the use of the navigation computer (faster drones) or link augmentor (control distance) mods that may be beneficial with heavies. Paired with some railguns they will give you a good amount of dps for Sleeper sites or L4 missions. Definitively not for PVP.
– Heavy drones are very close to the dps provided by a Sentry, but there are no rigs for it. They are also very slow, so the use of a navigation computer mod is recommended. The good thing is that you can put some blasters in the Ishtar or Domi and move between targets since they will follow you. They are also great for PVP. With the Ishtar or Domi drone bay you can have enough drones to counter all shapes of ships which is a big plus in a pvp fight. Facing an assault ship up close when all you have are large railguns is a fail situation. A good combination of drones (maybe including a sensor dampener or a tracking disruptor in the mix) can definitely change the outcome of the fight.
I recommend Interfacing V -> Heavy V -> Sentry V. I will suggest Ishtar for plex/ratting in null/low sec space while Domi for L4 missions in Empire. The Ishtar speed and agility is a big plus in the lawless parts of space where you may need to warp out fast to cloak before a gang of reds jump you.
I live in a class-3 Pulsar wormhole and solo every mission type with my drones. This misunderstanding about drones and Sleepers is that Sleepers go after drones first, which they don’t. Sleepers will go after the biggest threat to their survival. If your guns put out more DPS than your drones, most (not all) of the time, the Sleepers will ignore your drones to take care of you, the damage dealer. I use a shield-tanked Ishtar, and my drones do more damage than my guns. Ogre II’s, Garde II’s, Warrior II’s, and Vespa EC-600’s are more than enough to survive a Sleeper site. As with any good mother, (in Greek mythology, Ishtar was the goddess of fertility) you have to keep an eye on your baby’s and their health. I usually orbit the Sleeper BS’s to outrun their guns, and then I just let the Ogre II’s do the heavy damage. That being said, the Sleeper will shift to the damage-dealing drones, and I may pull the targeted one in to break the lock, or pull them all in and just redeploy them. If you spend a little bit of time in a Sleeper site, the Sleepers will show a pattern which you can use to figure out the best drone option to take care of them. And as for the damage, my Ogre II’s do just about 500 DPS on their own, which out weighs my Garde II’s without rigs (again, shield-tanked with rigs…) and I’ve still got 2 more skills to get up to level 5 for max damage. But at Sentry V, you can use the T2 sentries for ALL races which is nice!
Hope this helps!! Convo ingame or shoot me an email and I’d love to run with you to work on drone tactics and fittings!
also, i totally agree on Dante’s recommended order of training! Interfacing is tops!!!
Sentries vs Heavies is pretty much the same argument as rails vs blasters. Heavy drones are incredibly slow – only deploy them when you are within range of your target.
On the other hand, sentries are good for shooting the Sirius towers. Failproof sleeper tanking – use ECM. They will target you above all else.