Cenotaph overpowered Dread/Fax killer?

EVE Technology and Research Center Player Features & Ideas
1

Hello everyone,

I’d like to start a discussion about the Cenotaph, the new Battlecruiser recently introduced to EVE Online, and its growing impact on overall game balance, especially when it comes to Dreadnoughts and FAXes.

Most players are already aware that the Cenotaph is an interesting and unique ship. We’ve seen it used effectively in PvP, including high-sec ganks, where 4–5 Cenotaphs can reliably destroy a Freighter. While the cost is higher than a classic Catalyst gank, it requires 5-6 times fewer pilots, which already makes it extremely efficient.

However, what concerns me and many others I’ve spoken with is that almost no one is openly talking about how badly Cenotaphs affect capital balance, particularly Dreadnoughts and Force Auxiliaries.

The Core Issue: Hull Damage and No Counterplay

As we all know, Dreads and FAXes are designed around extremely strong local tank, but this tank applies only to shield and armor. Hull has no meaningful local reps, and this is exactly where the Cenotaph becomes a serious problem.

The Cenotaph’s breaching mechanics allow it to completely bypass the core defensive identity of capitals.

The most commonly suggested counterplay is “just keep range”.
But this is where the design contradiction starts:

  • Dreads and FAXes are slow
  • They require Siege/Triage to function properly
  • Siege/Triage completely immobilizes them

So in practice, “keeping range” is not an option for the ships Cenotaphs are most effective against.

Real Numbers, Real Problem

From our own testing and combat experience:

  • 3–4 Cenotaphs (≈3-4B ISK total)
  • Can destroy a Dreadnought in ~40 seconds
  • With virtually zero risk
  • And no clear, reliable counterplay

This is the key issue: risk vs reward is completely broken.

Siege / Triage Makes the Problem Worse

This issue becomes even more severe once a capital commits to Siege or Triage:

  • For 5 full minutes, a Dread or FAX:
    • Cannot move
    • Cannot receive any remote assistance
    • Is fully committed to the fight with no escape option

This is an intentional and well-understood risk of using Siege/Triage.

However, breaching pods continue to apply full, uncapped damage during this time.

So we end up in a situation where:

  • A capital is hard-locked into vulnerability
  • Denied all external help
  • While a small number of subcapitals can freely and safely burn through its hull

This creates a one-sided interaction where commitment mechanics designed for capital-vs-capital warfare are instead exploited by subcaps with no equivalent commitment or risk.

Smartbombs Are Not a Real Solution

The only partial counter we’ve found is smartbomb spam, but this solution is deeply flawed:

  • A Dread can realistically fit only one smartbomb
  • To block breaching pods effectively, we had to:
    • Position 4 full battleships
    • Fit only smartbombs
    • Use them purely as a human shield wall

Even then, once Cenotaphs started going 0m from dreads:

  • Breaching pods hit the Dread almost instantly
  • The pod impact happened before smartbombs could intercept
  • Meaning the supposed counter fails mechanically, not just tactically

If this is intended behavior, then the counterplay simply does not exist.

Why This Is a Bad Design Direction

This situation is unhealthy for several reasons:

  1. Capitals lose their role identity
    Dreads and FAXes are supposed to be powerful, committed battlefield assets. Right now, a handful of Battlecruisers erase them faster than many capital engagements.
  2. No meaningful escalation required
    Killing a Dread should involve capitals, supers, positioning, or real risk not a small, mobile subcap group with near-zero downside.
  3. Encourages low-risk capital hunting
    When the optimal play is “bring 3-4 Cenotaphs and delete a Dread,” something is clearly off.
  4. Breaks strategic counterplay
    If the only answer is super spam smartbomb setups that still don’t reliably work, then the mechanic itself needs revision.

Possible Adjustments

I’m not arguing that the Cenotaph should be useless - it’s a cool ship with an interesting role. But some limits are needed, especially versus capitals. For example:

  • Reduce or cap breaching damage against capital hull
  • Allow capital resistances to apply to breaching pods
  • Introduce diminishing returns when multiple Cenotaphs focus one capital

Additionally, we are still testing this, but there’s a strong possibility that Cenotaphs can destroy a Rorqual during an active P.A.N.I.C. module, which, if confirmed,would be extremely concerning.

Closing Thoughts

This post isn’t meant as a rant, but as a genuine balance concern shared by many players I’ve spoken with and surveyed. The Cenotaph in its current state feels like a hard counter to capitals without requiring capital-level commitment, and that’s not a healthy place for the game to be.

I’d really like to hear thoughts from other players especially capital pilots and hopefully see CCP take a closer look at this interaction.

Fly safe,
o7

1 Like
2

Wow, someone knows how to use AI. The pods were recently Nerfed

2 Likes
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I won’t hide the fact that I used AI to format the text to make it look nicer, tools exist to use them. but overall, the entire problem wes described and tested by me and the group I play with. Could you describe in detail what this nerf was about and how it affected the performance of breaching pods on Fax and Dreadnaughts? Test we did were done around 1 month ago so maybe there were some changes we didn’t notice.

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  • Cenotaph

    • Breacher Pod M Damage Duration reduced from 50s to 40s. (From 75s to 60s with max skills).

    • Breacher Pod M Maximum Damage reduced from 800 to 600 (from 1000 DPS to 750 DPS with max skills).

    • This is a large reduction to the total amount of damage done per breacher pod, especially against larger ships, with max skills this is a reduction from 75,000 to 45,000 maximum damage per pod.

This is when Catalyst was done.

1 Like
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Yeah, so the test we did was correct. 3-4 Cenotaph can easily destroy Dreads and Fax, Average Hull of Dread/Fax ready for fight is around 170-180K. The aproach we did was Cenotaph sit cloacked close to dread or off grid, while dread enter siege module one Cenotaph aproach use breaching pod and insta warp away. Dread/Fax can’t do anything for 5 minutes. you just repeat proces untill dread dies. In case there are interdictors then instead of warping away cloack after launching breaching pod ofc only when there is clear grid it might not work perfect in big fights, but if you do it right 3-4 Cenotaphs can easily kill dread/fax and risk is minimal especially that their price droped to just 630M ISK. As we mentioned, smartbombs are partly a countermeasure. If you position a smartbomb battleship correctly between a dreadnought and a fax, they can stop some of the breaching pods until the Cenotaph flies in. If you are less than 1000 metres from the breaching pod target, it will almost immediately hit the target.

(So the biggest problem we did notice is Siege Module, Dread/Fax can’t recieve help or react in any way when they enter it, it takes around 3-4 minutes for good Cenotaph players to destroy dread/fax, so the only real way to counter it is reduce Breaching Pods Damage to 300DPS Max, so it takes 6 minutes, enough time for Siege/Triage Module to deactivate, and Dread recieve help from others in fleet, or just add that these Ships also get bonus to Hull Repairers because currently Capital Hull Repairer II repair 2160 HP per 57s)

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What kind of “test” was that? Your Caps have reppers, often two of them, do they? And the Breacher Pods don’t stack.

I just checked a well-fitted Phoenix Navy Issue with a CONCORD shield booster “reps” 47.000 shield HP every 5 seconds. During that time the breacher pod would have done 3750 damage (750x5) and 4 cenotaphs of 650dps gun damage each would (together) have done 520 more raw damage (against 80% shield resistances) (650x4x0.2). That means your crew of 4 Cenotaphs can do roughly 1/10th of the damage my Dread can tank (capstable, forever). Since math doesn’t lie, please explain to me how they would even remotely be able to kill it?

1 Like
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I doubt that.

The damage doesn’t stack, so throwing additional Cenotaphs on the target while the first breacher pod is still ticking for 40 seconds doesn’t do much at all.

And repairing the damage of a single breacher pod should easily be repaired by a capital ship in siege/triage if they have a single capital-sized repair module.

Besides using chatgpt to do your formatting, did you also use chatgpt to do your tests?

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Generally, the process seems to be:

  • “ChatGPT, I don’t like this thing about Eve. Write me a post supporting my dislike of it.”
  • Copy/paste result without checking the facts in the result.
  • Shock that their post is full of misinformation and errors.

I write as a hobby, and use Claude to bounce scene and plot development ideas off of, and the number of times I have to correct it on information I gave it about my story is astonishing.

1 Like
9

Shield and armor boosters. Remote shield and armor reppers.

The counter to breachers is boosters and reps.

1 Like
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Closed at request of Op.