Gardes! Gardes!
Hi All,
After the latest expansion, I thought I’d give the beastie a wee run to see how she’d fared with the sentry nerf. Figures wise things weren’t too different, with overall DPS dropping from just over 1100 (combined guns and drones) to just under.
The biggest difference was optimal. I was running two federation omni tracking links (w/script) to ensure the drones were hitting very close to gun optimal… about 43km. This enabled me to take out frigates while they were heading in with both weapon systems still being effective at hitting due to lower transversal. Under Carnyx, optimal has dropped to just under 30km. The upside is falloff. It’s now over 45.
In practical terms, applied DPS is a little less – but as far as PvE goes there is not too much difference. Prior to Carnyx, I have seen the garde IIs hitting larger targets (under target painter sig bloom) at 70km. Not well, it must be said, and the DPS was utterly anemic. It is still possible to do so now.
Given that we’re talking an unbonussed hull (NI Mega) as far as drones go, I am very much unsurprised they needed to look at doing a nerf sooner rather than later….
H
Aggressive Logistics 
Because PvP.
You are looking at a navy mega mission boat. Sentries have been good for missioning, even a little too good, but not really a problem. Nerfing them again when they already did less than heavies was not really needed, except…
That for PvP the range, tracking, flexibility and above all instant dmg application did make them powerful, especially in the common Ishtar platform (and navy vexor and to a lesser extent rattlesnake and domi).
They could have nerfed some of those ships a little more, but chose to continue to nerf sentries while leaving heavies strong enough to still be PvE viable in those ships.
Well, that was what I was inferring…. š