Theorycrafting the Hecate

This is the fourth and last part of my theorycrafting posts on Tactical destroyers. You can read the other parts of the series here: Confessor, Svipul, and Jackdaw. This new article is based on the stats posted by CCP Fozzie. I’ll go through what a Hecate will be able to do with some potential fittings, and discuss what I think will be the cookie cutter setups for this ship. The Hecate is the new Gallente Tactical Destroyer; a blaster based platform with some interesting bonuses. Let’s start by going over the general stats posted by Fozzie:

Firstly, we have the pretty standard 5% per-level rate-of-fire bonus that will do a bit more damage. Next is a huge tracking bonus at 7.5% per level. Blasters already have very good tracking, so it won’t benefit those as much as it will with rails. This bonus will allow rails to track even in brawling situations, as long as you can web your target down. Lastly, we have the standard 5% reduction in heat damage that all tactical destroyers get. For the role bonuses, we have a sizeable damage boost to hybrids at 50%, alongside a fitting bonus for a probe launcher.

Defense Mode

This mode is the one I generally consider to be the strongest on all tactical destroyers, and it is no exception here. I think the Hecate received the strongest defensive mode of all the tactical destroyers. Defensive mode for the Hecate will give you a unique 33% structure resistance that, with a damage control fitted, will push your structure resistance to 73%. Along with that, you have the standard 33% armor resistance that the Confessor and Svipul get. The last unique thing for the Hecate, is you get a reduction in cycle time for local armor repairers. This will drop the cycle time down to three seconds, from 4.5 seconds unheated.

Propulsion Mode

Like the Jackdaw, the Hecate actually has a very interesting propulsion mode. This is how I think the propulsion mode—in order to minimize the power of 10MN Afterburners—should have been done on all of them in the first place. The Hecate gets the same 66% agility that the Jackdaw gets, but also gets a 66% MWD speed and cap use on top of that. This means that AB fits will be pretty rare, as they can’t take advantage of the speed bonus. Here are a few tables showing the align time and speed on an unfitted Hecate with all V skills:

As you can see, the ship will be as agile as the Jackdaw, and you will actually be able to push align times around one second if you fit for travel. The velocity and agility of this ship with a microwarp drive is nice, and you will definitely be able to slingshot good kiters with ease.

Sharpshooter mode

The range bonus from this mode will help you fight against people kiting you at scram range if you happen to run blasters. Rails, with their long range, are the type of weapon that will benefit the most from this bonus. The other stats on this mode are also pretty good, such as: lock range and sensor strength, if you happen to run into some EWAR. The layout on this ship is: High slots: 6 (5 guns) Mid slots: 4 Low slots: 4 The slot layout is pretty flexible, and allow setups such as dual webs or shield tank as well as more standard armor tanked fits. The Hecate has ten effective turrets after bonuses are applied. This is one more than the Svipul or Confessor; the Hecate will be able to put out a ton of DPS. The Hecate will have 187.5 tf of CPU and 67.5 MW at all V skills. This is more than enough for most fits. It is quite limiting for 10MN fits, but with the lack of speed boost from Propulsion mode, I don’t see them being very popular.

Fits

The Hecate is actually quite flexible with fits. Having four mids and four lows opens up a bit of variety in regards to fits. Let’s start with a standard fit that will provide fun encounters in FW space.

This is a pretty standard blaster brawl fit with dual webs. I chose to go with smaller guns in order to fit the nosferatu. Since the Hecate has a bonus for cycle time of local armor repairers, I don’t advise running an ancillary repairer. For rigs, I went with structure tank. First of all, armor tank rigs don’t really fit here; secondly, the ship has a beastly structure tank with these on.

This is a dual rep fit. This will actually be kinda hard to fly, and you’ll have to closely watch your cap. The tank is pretty strong though; it should be fine as long as you’re not under too much neut pressure and don’t forget to turn MWD off.

This is another fit I predict will be very popular in lowsec and FW space. It’s basically a big scram kite Comet. With my first iteration of this fit, I had the same dual web as the blaster fit. Here though, you ideally want to stay at around 10km, where, due to range, using the Nosferatu will be problematic. Because of this, you will have cap problems if you decide to run without a cap booster.

And lastly, we have a more kite-oriented rail fit. This will fill a similar role the Confessor does in small gangs, when providing anti-tackle support. The Hecate will be stronger though; providing a lot of DPS at long ranges. It will require you to be staying on top of your mode changes. Therefore, it will be a bit more skill intensive than the brawl fits, where you can pretty much press defensive mode and ctrl space, and then kill people.

Fun fits

The first one here is really obvious. Structure resistance means structure tank right?

Honestly, the DPS is really good, and almost 14k EHP in structure is pretty amusing.

Triple rep! This fit will shine even more if you slam some a-type reps and links on it; it will be able to tank entire fleets of frigates. I choose to go with an energized plate over a damage control here. It’s really a personal choice, because with this fit providing 33% structure resistance, you will almost always be in defensive mode. That gives us some fits for the Hecate. Personally, I think this will be the strongest of the tactical destroyers. The combination of high DPS and incredible tank in defensive mode will give it the ability to take on every single small ship in the game, and come out on top. The Hecate is very agile and has a good top speed—unlike the Jackdaw—and you will slingshot lesser skilled players with ease. The mid slots on the Hecate allow you to run dual webs or a cap booster eliminating all problems you usually have with blasters and active tanks. In the thread, CCP Fozzie mentioned that they will have problems with capacitor and I kinda agree, but Hecates have more then enough fitting to get both a nos and a cap booster on. Another fun thing about this ship, is that it can fill the role of the longbow sniper Cormorant decently. You can even do some fancy stuff to be “un-probable”. So what do I think about the power of the Hecate? Honestly, like all the other tactical destroyers, it is once again way too strong, with defensive mode being the main offender. 33% structure, 33% armor and 33% faster rep cycles – it is going to be the strongest one of the four.