EVE Revenant introduces two of the most unique and exciting ships the game has ever seen. Between their cloaking systems and their unique damage-over-time weaponry, there's a lot that can be done with the Cenotaph battlecruiser and Tholos destroyer. Your challenge, should you choose to accept it, is to get theorycrafting. That could mean creating unique ship fits that capitalise on their potential or it could mean detailed descriptions of how and where these ships could be used to great effect in the battlefields among the stars. It's up to you whether you select one ship or both and whether you enter via video or text. Authenticated images of the new ships in action will secure you major bonus points!
While I’d prefer not to discuss exact fits for either ship until I actually get one, I can already see several game-changing applications for both the Cenotaph and Tholos class ships.
First of all, we’re likely entering a new era of active tanking. Anything sub-capital with a standard buffer (especially armor) will suffer against this new weapon. There are only two ways to remove the effect: wait 75 seconds for it to expire, or dock in a station or use a system gate— last two require the absence of an aggression timer. So even if you de-aggro instantly, you’re still going to take at least 60% HP damage. If you’re on a smartbombing armor Abaddon with less than 59% HP, you’re essentially dead, no matter what, its a death sentence.
The first application I see is for removing camps, baits, or soloers. Since the weapon's range is limited, I think this ship will work well alongside the Arazu or Falcon. The Arazu could decloak, dampen the target’s scan resolution, then allow the Cenotaph to decloak, apply the debuff, and recloak before the target can lock onto it. Countering this with drones might work, but it’ll be interesting to see how disco-BS camps adapt to counter the new threat.
Another potential use is as an “executioner.” If a target’s HP is already down by 25% and it’s passively fit, they’re doomed. Normal ships engage in regular combat, then this thing decloacks and debuff the enemy, then both can disengage as target is a walking dead.
Since this weapon ignores all damage resistances, I’ll have to reconsider my future Nexus Rattly fit for farming marauders. More likely, I’ll use my marauder to bait would-be baiters—running event sites as usual, then immediately engaging any Rattlesnakes, Praxis, or other ships that flag and try to steal a loot. I could then decloak my Cenotaph to finish them off. The Nexus event is bound to have a lot of mind games and counter-baiting.
For medium and large fleets, the impact is hard to predict, but one thing’s certain—these ships will be high-priority targets, as no FC will want them plaguing the fleet every 10 seconds.
The two new ships already have a serious impact on the market, although thy have not really broken through to space yet. The curiosity, but also the hype have pushed the prices up to incredible hights.
The new ships in action, spreading havoc on the Jitamarket
The new ships have a good number of highslots and very good dps boni on both autocannons and short range missiles (rockets, HAMs). Without fitting any damage mods, they fly in the range of battle fitted T2 destroyers. Of course the breacher pod launcher, only one per ship, bring the new mechanic of DoT to New Eden. These ships are the first destroyer and battlecruiser capable of fitting a CovOps Cloaking Device. They can warp cloaked to launch sneak attacks and should be able to take BlackOps bridges, opening up an entire new way of using them.
Both of the new ships are clearly short range brawlers by intention, the high number of med slots allows to fit dual propulsion modules and quickly burn towards a target with the MWD, while making use of the Web-resistance with an AB in case of getting scrammed. Overall, the large number of medium slots gives the ships good range control needed to apply their high dps at short range and space to make use of their incredible shield boost boni. They have a higher base HP in their shields compared to many other ships, so you can fly them actively tanked, without worrying too much about heavy alpha strikes.
The Cenotaph and Tholos both have a limited number of lowslots. They are not designed to use and dps increasing modules, but generally prefer additional speed, agility or fitting resources. Nevertheless, fitting dps mods into these slots will greatly increase the damage taken by enemy ships.
A few more things about the breacher pods. It turns out they do not stack. Just like command bursts, the strongest effect will damage the targeted ship. No matter how many pilots shoot the same enemy, it takes only damage from the strongest pod launched. In addition, the maximum damage applied is not strictly the dps shown in the info table, but scales with the size of the ship. Large ships can take up to 200 dps from small pods and 1000 dps from medium pods, but small ships never take more than 1% damage, no matter how much theoretical dps should be applied. Finally, although the description states the pod would tear the ship apart from the inside, it actually takes shield and armor hp into the equation aswell. It does not immediately affect the hull hp like the gravity hazard in Zarzakh.
I see no immediate use for this ships in my area of the game, as they are far too expensive to be flown regularly at this time. Still, I think they will add some interesting perspectives to small and large-scale battles. Depending on where the prices settle, they could be incredibly effective alone because of their high dps and short cloak reactivation delay. I can't wait to learn more about them and maybe even fly one myself!
