5 Ways To Increase Your Damage Output In A Fight

In PVP there is a sort of complex evolving math equation that takes maybe several hundred different factors into account to decide the outcome of a fight.

The most important of these are Damage Output, Tank Capacity(rep or buffer), Damage Application (tracking, radius, velocity, range, etc), Ship Type, and probably some more I'm missing.

In today's Article and Video we are discussing ways you can maximize your damage output over the course of the fight.

But before we start you need to make a shift in the way you think about Damage Output. It's not just DPS or Damage Per Second that matters.

Many people look at the DPS number in Pyfa or EFT and then expect that to actually happen, when in many cases it falls very short.

The better way to think about it is Total Damage Applied.

If you can apply 30k Damage over 3 minutes with a Kiting Omen Navy Issue to a buffer tanked Gank Vexor while avoiding his damage (Kiting Blasters, Killing Drones) then you win even though he does 700 DPS on paper and you only do 300.

In EVE everything is situational!

Now that we cleared that up, let's look at the 5 ways to increase your Damage Applied in a fight...

  1. Overload Early - This is one of the most common things people mess up. They think they should wait until the fights already decided and they're dying to overload their guns or tank. By that time it just doesn't matter anymore. The best time to overload is at the beginning! There's so much more to this, so you should watch my Overloading Guide, it's one of my favorite guides.
  2. Get Drones on Fast and First - The two most important keys to this are dragging your drones out instead of right clicking to launch and assigning a good hot key for "All Drones Engage" and "Return Drones to Bay."
  3. Get Damage on First - If you are in a 1vs1 fight against a ship similar to yours, then every sliver of an edge could decide the outcome. One thing worth practicing is getting your damage on your opponent before he gets his on you. In the example I use in the video of 300 dps a small 3 second lead is 900 damage potentially. For a frigate that's pretty massive. Practice and Get Crazy Fast!
  4. Maximize Damage Application - First know your ship, know every thing about the ship you're flying. Study it in EFT or Pyfa and understand the range of your guns or missiles. Understand how falloff works, tracking, transversal, sig radius, etc. Next, monitor your damage notifications. Train your self to watch for misses or bad hits. Have a plan of how you will react.
  5. Use The Right Ammo - Knowing the damage type your opponent is weak against can effectively increase you damage output. Learn the basic trends and resist holes by studying EFT/Pyfa and flying the ships your self. Then understand the Range of different ammo. Learn the limitation of T2 Ammo. Know when to use what.

Those are the basics, but I go into much more detail with some great example in this video lesson I just did...

Watch Full Screen

If you enjoyed this video, you should check out one of the PVP Guides they contain even more amazing lessons, videos, and tips to help you become a PRO PVPer as quickly as possible.

 

About the author

In 2010 Abbadon21 was the first person to create Narrated Instructional PVP videos for EVE Online. This started a new era of EVE Online and opened up high level "PRO" PVP to everyone. Abbadon21 is also the Founder of EVEProGuides.com, which is EVE Online's oldest and most trusted source for high quality PRO Guides.