Theorycrafting the New Confessor

CCP Fozzie recently announced a new round of changes to the Svipul and the Confessor. You can read the announcement here. This article will discuss the impact of these changes on Confessors and the current cookie cutter fits, and then look at some new opportunities these changes open up.

The changes

The Confessor is the Amarr tactical destroyer; its most common fit is a 10MN afterburner version with beams. Pulse versions exist and are just as deadly. Compared to the Svipul, it’s much harder to fly and needs some thought from the pilot. Because of its lasers, it’s extremely flexible with range selection, and can project full damage to much longer distances than the Svipul. Let’s see what they’ve changed:

First off, there’s a new role bonus granting a massive 50% damage, but you lose two guns in the process. The end effective DPS is the same as before the changes. However, by using fewer guns that deal more damage, you are able to overheat for longer. These changes significantly reduce CPU and PG requirements for a full set of guns, which will help pilots fit long range guns despite the fitting nerfs to the hull. Next is a round of fitting nerfs removing 18 powergrid and 10 cpu. This means that a fully skilled Confessor will go from 100 pg to 77.5 pg and from 237.5 cpu to 225 cpu. These fitting changes will not actually affect the 10MN beam fits very much but they will hit dual rep fits and plated fits hard; 400mm plate fits will probably have to drop a gun tier—or more—than one fitting module. We also have a major speed loss, and a significant reduction in agility. Here is a table showing the speed pre patch vs. after patch. All fits are without any modules except the prop mod on an all V character for simplicity.

I personally like these changes. Having a tactical destroyer chase down a frigate was, in my opinion, just wrong. This will make flying a kite Confessor even harder, but it shouldn’t be an impossible job. Another thing to note here is that 10mn ab is going to be slower than a 1mn mwd. Something I also think is a good thing.

As you can see, especially with the 10MN fit, we lose quite a bit of agility here as well. This will make it much harder for brawling confessors to stay under the guns by keeping a good orbit. I think these changes are going to affect the number of T3Ds that die in combat. Before the nerfs they could usually just align out and heat a oversized afterburner and be out in no time. Now they will be a bit easier to hold down. I know personally that one or two seconds is a lot when you are in structure trying to warp out. This is especially true for the 10MN Afterburner where its a six second difference. The last item is a small cap and shield regen change. I don’t think these will affect anything at all, especially the cap change, that with less guns draining cap, probably won’t do anything significant.

Cookie cutter fits

I currently think the Confessor has two major themes that most Confessor fits aim for. For its cost, we have the what I feel to be the most popular and one of the best anti tackle/small gang ships in EVE at the moment: The 10MN beam Confessor. We then have the more solo oriented 10MN active tanked pulse Confessor that was a common sight in Factional Warfare before the Svipul plague swept the lands. Let’s start by talking about the 10MN beam fit. This is probably the Confessor fit I am most experienced with, and have had great battles with:

This ship has a pretty high skill cap. Knowing which modes to use when and to keep targets within range using an oversized prop mod while maintaining good tracking can be very hard. It can reach out to 52km with Aurora and sharpshooter, and is really good at killing smaller ships at those ranges. Luckily, the fitting nerfs won’t hit this fit very much. Dropping the Nanofiber for a Micro Auxiliary Power Core even lets you drop the ancillary rig in favour of another Locus rig or Polycarb or whatever choice you feel like. You will have to drop the scram for a webifier though, because of the CPU nerf. The final fit will look something like this (Pyfa screenshot):

It’s basically the same fit and concept behind it, with some minor changes that really won’t affect performance much. Next is the more commonly used solo fit used especially in Factional Warfare: The dual rep fit with pulses. This fit is able to active tank most incoming DPS when using dual active armor reppers and defensive mode. It is a brawler that can disengage due to the oversized prop mod, and get out of close orbits where your guns can’t track.

This is more or less what the fit looks like today. Some people like to go all out on faction ab and A-type armor reps, but I like to keep it cheap. If we straight up import this fit to the new patch, we end up being 9% over on PG, missing a total of eight powergrid. Not really a massive sum by any means. The only way to get out of this cleanly is to drop a Nano Pump for another ancillary rig. You could drop a energized plate for an auxiliary power core and replace rigs with resistance rigs, but that will give you less hp/s then you would get with ancillary current routers. Double Ancillary rigs also opens up the possibility of fitting A-type reps if you feel like being a big spender.

New possibilities One of the more interesting changes was giving the Confessor two utility high slots. While some people will leave them open or try to fit a probe launcher there, I feel that there are more possibilities here. A dual neut, while probably not as likely on the Confessor, would be a big deal. Another thing that might be a bit more popular are remote repairs allowing Confessors to spider tank. Combined with the defensive mode and a 10MN afterburner, these reps will be really effective. First, a 10MN pulse remote repair fit:

This fleet will alternate between scramblers and webs with your fleet, and you should make sure you have a good mix of each. Each Confessor is able to repair 236 DPS on a friend in defensive mode, before links. I know it is a lot of fitting mods, but getting that 10mn afterburner on is so crucial. It allows you to disengage if you notice a blob on dscan. There are of course 1MN versions that you might prefer, like this:

This is a version that has to commit pretty hard if you’re going to war. Having almost 14k EHP before links,there is some customizability here. For example, you can drop a heat sink for a Micro Auxiliary Power Core and be able to fit three tank rigs instead. I went with the first choice—dual heat sinks—because I feel this ship has enough tank already, and I don’t want to sacrifice more speed. Here is another concept fit for a dual neut Confessor. While I don’t think this will be as good as it will be on the Svipul it’s still something worth checking out:

Final Thoughts

I like these changes more than the first round. After this, oversized ab fits that are pretty forgiving when piloting will be less strong. Seeing oversized ab tactical destroyers chase down and murder frigs will also be less common, even if frigs still can’t go straight up 1v1 vs. a tactical destroyer. They are small changes that actually will help a lot without totally killing the ships, which is good because the ship class is really well designed and offers a high skill cap. The mode switching mechanic is unique and really fun to use.

When I was on the CSM, I posted a list of changes I thought the T3Ds needed, and provided feedback on the Hectate and Jackdaw. During the period before the current nerfs, I thought the propulsion mode on the Hectate was done right.  However, with these changes to agility and speed, I really want to wait and see before nerfing the oversized prop mod further. This might actually have fixed that problem with tactical destroyers being very forgiving with the pilot making mistakes and being hard to hold down. It also makes more sense that 1MN MWD is finally faster than a 10MN afterburner. Another thing I complained about is the incredible power of the defensive mode. I have always said that 33% resistance is way too strong. It started to show with the Svipul being almost unkillable and it will become worse with the Hectate.

All in all, I think that these changes are a great set of nerfs to the Confessor. They will still function and be good in a fleet, but will require a bit more skill in keeping your distance to the enemy, and making sure you don’t align with a oversized prop mod on. Stay tuned for part two for the Svipul, and what the patch has done for that ship.   Thanks to Namamai for the Pyfa file and Kadesh Priestess for fixing it. Final thanks to Fatyn for teaching me English.