Old Enemys In New Places

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    Seams We are not the only ones in search or greener pvp pastures, Joatmo and I where roaming around a couple days ago and ran into a old acquaintance of mine Berzerk’ah, who is in Gallente warfair, we saw she was around in a daredevil which I knew would be a mighty tough fight for our two T1 frigs but we decided to go to a small plex and wait to see if she came after us. After a bit of waiting she showed up on short scan and then came in on us, we where quick to get the tackle and Ewar on but my single TD wasn’t enough for her rails and she slowly picked me apart then she had her way easily with Joats Incurses which has no range dictation ability at all, we had her in low structure when we died so it was a close good fight. We went back and reshipped into weaker dps frigs but ones that had much better range dictation and came back for round two. To our surprise we found DARKSTAR an old member of the Molden Heath club roaming around in a Rifter, and we soon found out he was roaming with Bazerk’ah, whom had reshiped to a Firetail. Once again we went to a small plex and waited for them, and it didn’t take long before they came in, I immediately called Bazerk’ah primary in her Firetail and as you will soon see from her fit, while she tanked us well she was MWD fit and had no way to get her guns into range to hit us well. After she went down we started in on DARK, his Rifter was even more tanky than Bazerk’ahs firetail but because he had a cap booster instead of a web he also had a hard time dictating range and even tho Joat was in structure he was able to pull away and we finished DARK off. We strongly suspect they where receiving loki and maybe even legion links during that fight, but due to their inability to dictate range and our expert piloting we where able to take the win against superior linked ships. We had some laughs and gfs in local; Joat and I had gotten our revenge so we went home happily.

Winter pvp Vacation home

 

In light of Retributions removal of static 1-2/10 plexs from low sec, frigate pvp in the MH area had dried up; so we took some excursions over to Mimatar FW to find frig fights. We found frig fights aplenty, of varying degrees of difficulty and numbers. Allot of the older FW pilots are more accustom to frig pvp which gives us much tougher frig fights than we are used to, not to say we haven’t had the skill to still win most of the time. Some of the frig gangs tho use 1-2 link ships and fights against them are usually more about killing a few before we all die since the speed, tank and tackle differences from links in fast frig fights make the linked side at a serious advantage. On the other hand there are also plenty of pvp noobs in the area who even if in well fit or T2 frigs cave in seconds, so the area has an over all nice balance. After a couple of weeks taking trips over there we decided to move over to Galente FW space since we felt like a change of scenery, but still wanted to fight FW people.

We picked a relatively centralized location in the Galente/Caldari war zone, which while making us close to both sides actually makes us far from both major hot spots that seam to be in the top and bottom corners. We also found that there is a much higher number of frig blobs or small groups of frigs flying around with links, and far less FW noobs trying to take sites. We believe this is because Galente have taken almost full control of the war zone and there are far less little skirmishes about because the Caldari side have been pushed back into high sec. Regardless we are up for the challenge of fighting the tough fights and looking for the good fights. So far we have been having a decent time, winning about 60-10% of our fights and efficiency, bad thing is that because we are sticking to almost pure T1 frigs and are willing to fight things much tougher than ourselves we tend to over extend ourselves and loose a few of us before our quarry goes down. We are meeting high results against the brawling gangs we have ran into, but we are having trouble fighting the kiter gangs, especially the Malus gangs which are now the fear of frig gangs. The problem with the kiter gangs is we have to fit for more speed and our fits become less optimal for fighting brawlers, which means we then run into a brawler gang while looking for kiters and we lose. Our other set back is that because of the winter holiday our numbers have been stiflingly low, people are starting to log back in, but we really don’t get more than 4-5 people in fleet, and we usually kitchen sink our fleet because we don’t all have a good number of different fit frigs here yet. We have a few frig fleet comps that should work well in the future so we hope to have more luck.

 For those who don't know the reason FW is so good for frig fights is because of the FW plexs, there are multiple szes of plexs that each has a ship size limit on what can enter. Novice is none T2 frigs, small is Dessys and frigs, and so on. So what a frig gang can do is run into one of these plexs and only the ship class they want to fight can come in after them. Many times we have landed on a cruiser and frig gang camping a small plex, gone into the plex and only the gangs frigs could follow, upon relising they fucked up and their cruiser buddy’s where left behind they usually die quite fast. The other reason is because FW is a really good way for noobs to get into pvp, and since they are noobs they will likely be flying around in mostly frigs. While this was more previlanrt over in mimatar FW soace these guys are fun to hunt solo in groups of 1-3.

Destroyers - The Shoe Horned Ship CLass

My favorite class of ships in game, I may have mentioned a few times in the past is cruisers. Cruisers contain a balance of DPS, speed and slots for tank or Ewar, Also relatively cheep. Retribution has breathed new life into that class, but there is one ship class I have always wanted to love that I feel is getting more and more boxed in, Destroyers. The out lining problem with destroyers, is that CCP tells you right out they are the ultimate frig killer, which can be damn true, but its like CCP is unconsciously driven to keep them just that. Destroyers in my opinion are the pour mans way of dealing with AFs, who’s extra tank while maintaining agility makes them even better frig killers and they can take on most above class ships as well. Destroyers are by far now the slowest pvp ship class besides battle ships and armor BCs. Cruisers now outpace them, with a little effort, frigs far outpace them, and AFs and BCs can reach close enough speeds that a dessy is likely not to escape. One additional problem is that everyone sees a destroyer, and usually try’s to avoid them with their frigates for dear life, because they know without thinking that you are there to kill them above all others. At least cruisers or AFs could be looking for any ship class, but the destroyers game plan is written all over their face.

Now with CCP Fozzies mission of teiracide, all ship classes are being broken down into specific "roles", but dessys roles are still only anti frigate and gank boat. We even just got handed a new set of four destroyers, but instead of making them fit another role, they made them fill the same role as the old ones, just using different weapon systems. In my opinion while I think the new dessys are fun, is kinda lame. That also brings us to T2 destroyers, CCP may claim they haven't got around to rebalancing the T2 versions yet, but I’m not 100% certain they will, since they seam to be shoehorned into being suicidal 0.0 SC bubblers and usually die in their own bubble. Not to mention costing a whopping 50 mil for about a Merlins EHP, and CCP seam ok with that role. Over all while dessys can shoot at bigger ships and win, and they do have great dps for a frigate sized ship, they are overall under used and lack vision.

A few ways I would try to liven up the destroyer class would be to first introduce roles, make the old Dessys faster with a little less DPs, and make the new ones tankyer with a bonus to some form of Ewar. Give the Algos a bonus to Ewar effectiveness of drones, the Talwar a bonus to web range, so it goes out to about 15kms, the Dragoon newt range out to about 15kms, and the Corax a big bonus to lock time or something. This will make the two roles a little more unique, but not really to far from the direction they where leaning anyway. Next Make the T2 interdictors have FULL T2 resists that their cruiser HAC versions have, one additional low or mid slot, and make their base stats more like that of the current destroyers. Next make a new Class of T2 Dessys based off the new destroyer models that can fit a single Warfair link modual, with a decent tank, Keeping their Ewar bonus, but reducing their damage output. This will Give frig gangs a link ship or two to take out on frig roams, without having to drag along a T3 cloaky cruiser. I think frig, and Dessy gangs deserve their own dedicated fleet command ship, so they can stay mobile and will also be able to survive on grid once CCP Fozzie fixes off grid boosting. Finally I wouldn’t mind a 3rd T1 dessy class similar to Tr3 Battle cruisrs, A dessy class able to fit 2 Medium guns, with low sig, low ehps, and 400% bonus to their weapon system damage, but a reduction in rate of fire, which should still make them mighty fine gank boats, but maybe not too OP. I’m not exactly sure what this class would be needed for, but just imagining a mini dreadnought makes me smile. Make Destroyers good at killign frigs, but dont make it their full tiem job.

EvE Retribution - A stealth Pirate buff?

 Eve retribution has been released, and with very few bugs and or extended down times, I am dully impressed I have to say, eve retribution is shaping up to be one of my favorite expansions yet. "But Beck there are very few new features, just a bunch of rehashing." If that’s what your thinking you fail to see the diamond in the ruff. Here is the list of changes that has positively affected my life as a pirate with Eve retribution, and likely allot of pvpers besides pirates.

1: Gate guns no longer shoot drones! - This means that no longer will drone boats be gathering dust for pirates whom wish to take gate guns. Previously gate guns would all but insta pop your drones leaving drone boats out over half their dps.

2: Gate and station guns are no longer persistent - This means if you take gate guns then warp off and come back to a gate they will no longer hoot at you as long as you don’t commit a crime again. Previously frigates whom GCCed had to stay docked or avoid gates in fear of being insta poped, and even cruisers had a hell of a time. No longer, go kill someone, then continue your roam as soon as your ready!

3: GCC is no longer as it was, if you commit a crime, you just become a suspect which means people can shoot you, (for pirates not much will change there) which means you can go suspect on a high sec gate, de agro and jump trough and no more concordadoken!

4: The tracking camera is by far the most awesome UI feature ever! No more fighting the camera to Dsca, watch where a target warps, or to keep a target in your sights, click on them on the overview and watch as you keep perfect track of their every move!

5: A second line of targets! Ever been an RR/dps domi? r shoot a friendly you where supposed to rep by mistake? Well add friends to the second target lien up and almost never have that problem again! Logis rejoice

6: All the T1 cruiser and frig buffs across the board will make pvping in smaller ships not only more fun, but more affordable while still packing a punch! Some of my new cruisers reach BC dps easy.

7: The targeting icons and item tips are way easier to read and helpful, getting info faster and when the target icons flash brighter red for more damage helps you register threats better.

8: Bounty’s finally make sense and if you get a big enough one on your target can make killing them an even better payoff. Also can be set by corp or alliance heads on local enemy’s to encourage the younger members to go after them

Some negative things

1: The limited engagement timers are only 5 min, which is much shorter than the previous 15 min personally agro timers.

2: Gate guns not shooting your drones means they are shooting your ships more, you used to be able to set out drones to kinda let the gate guns chew trough them so you could tank a bit but no longer, but no more.

3: The camera tracking can bug out some times and make it harder rather than easier to track a target lol

4: That Damn safety button! I hate turning it off every time log in! Hate it!

5: Podding people isn’t worth going old GCC, so we are podding way less.

6: The removable of 1-2/10 DeD plexs has kind of killed allot of the activity in the systems that used to hold them, which is seriously sad.

Over all almost everything in the expansion is a net positive to pirates, and it wasn’t even meant for us.

Now in the Top 10!....thousand

  

  So after Reading Rizzles post about his BC stats I decided to go take a look at mine, TEXN has its own kill board, and Dred uses Eve-kill so I haven't even looked at BC for quite awhile.  What I found when l looked was something I had wanted to happen for a long time, but awhile back stoped caring about. I am as of Oct 22 2012, in the top 10k pvpers on BC. Which no matter how many people whine that BC is not the best kill board, I think its the most used even slightly above EvE-kill. I always wanted to be in the 10k on BC and ahve that little red line track my progress, some meaningless mile stone saying im a decent pvper, especialy since im a pirate and allot of my killes are with less than 5 people. While I think of my self as an acomplished pvper, who had dabbled in solo and large fleet pvp, I wont claim to be a supurb pvper but I enjoy it allot and i fly with some good guys in TEXN and Dred. So Even tho im pretty stoaked about this, just reemmber its not about being the best, its abotu havign fun on the journey. 

     Speaking of awsome pirate pvp, watch Sard Caids Twitch channel, hes been play testing some of the new ship balances on the test server. 

Rep That Breached Bulkhead!

So yesterday Must have been armor rep day because it starts out with Me and Coild taking out a pair of dual rep SFIs along with Kira in a shield Cain down into Great Wildlands in search for some fights. We get down to NDQ where Republic alliance like to hang and try to provoke them into a fight. At first they wouldn't leave their station, which is normal, but then they got a few more people online and they started brining 5-6 guys to the gate and trying to snag us. Luckily we where way faster than them and would pull range, in which they would just jump back into NDQ and wait for us to provoke them again. We pull back to SL- and wait for a couple of people from our alliance to head down and assist us to even out the numbers. Suddenly Coild reports that there is a Domi headed to SL- from NIH and we should tackle it when it jumps into us, which we do. We where hoping to kill the Domi quickly in case he was associated with RA but the good news was that he was alone, the bad news was he was tanking us quite well. We had him tackled a ways off the gate and he didn’t seam to have a prop mod so he decided to agro on me. While not a big deal his bonused Hammerhead IIs actually hurt a bit. He eventually crept back to gate and deagressed, and we started cursing because eh was at half armor still, when bam! his armor and structure melted in 10seconds. We can only assume he fianly caped himself out under pressure from the Cains newts and his constant reping. What we found in the wreak, and on the kill mail was a treasure trove of faction. While not super expensive mods he had about 400mil of faction on him and a good chunk had dropped! woot! Our help arrived right after the Domi died and we made another run at RA but they had rallied some Logi pilots and it was no longer a feasible fight even with +2 on our side. We roamed awhile more and went home after COiled lost his SFI trying to bait some BCs on a gate.

In the middle of the evening Sugar had a planed frig team fight planed with a small carebear corp wanting to try out some pvp so I went over and helped with that. it was a blast and you can read more on her blog, here: Low Sec Life Style

Later I get some intel that a flashy Prophecy is headed trough Egbringer where I live, so I undock my Talos and go hunting for him, following him into the next system, where he held his cloak quite awhile. When he dropped his cloak I did aswell and pointed him, he started moving to gate so I did aswell, but that was just a trap to get me into scram range, which I fell for. Lucky for me the talos was brawling down his thick armor tank faster than he was killing my shield tank. I was actually able to hold the Prophecy and pull damage long enough for a few people to show up and whore on the mail. I’m such a nice guy lol.

A bit later right before I was going to log, Fried told me he had a Cyclone on scan in Ubties and I told him I would head over in my SFI to help him if he needed it. It seams Coilded was also in the area because he jumped into Ubties in his vigilant right when I landed on the gate. Unfortunately the Cyclone had moved on but Coild and Fried had a pair of Myrms on scan and a Executioner. Coild finally got them narrowed down to a belt and warp in on them, landing at range. They gave chase and Friend and I warped in to assist, Friend and I went after one Myrm while Coiled went after the other one 30k away. It took us a bit to break the Myrms triple rep tank but we eventually did, and luckily they Myrm I was on primaried me, and not Fried’s Cain. After killing the first Myrm we burnt over and helped Coiled kill the second, especially since his Vigilant was starting to run low on HP. It was a great loooong fight; Myrms are truly beasts when they only have to tank three ships. GFs where tossed in local and we all went home and logged.

All in all I saw 12 armor reps fitted to ships yesterday, thats 11-12 more than I normaly see, and they say armor tanking is dead.

Time is of the Essence

So yesterday I start the day off by taking one of THCs new members out on a roam in two armor Ruppys. The good thing about armor Ruppys is they have about 40k ehp, which is similar to the tank of a shield BC, so they are able to take on said shield BCs in a pair. They lack some of the DPS but make up for it in speed and small sig. So we roam around a bit, and get a Drake on scan in Aedald, seemingly doing some sites though we never got a good fix on him before he left to Audester. Feeling froggy I giver pursuit, and we spend the next bit chasing him a few jumps back and forth before he finally jumps straight into Kira, my fleet mate and warps to a site beacon in Keno. We warp after him and find him happily ratting like nothing was going on, along with a Jag from his same corp. We tackle the Drake and lay into him, the Jag warping out immediately. (abanda-bro much?) The rats are helping us a bit, and thats good because he has a hell of a thick tank, as most pve Drakes sport. He shoots back at me and actually starts doing very decent damage, likely due to having T2 launchers and not skimping on the BCSs. but we kill him with me only in half armor, and we happily warp off with our loot.

We continue our roam around the loop, when we get a intel report from my notoriously trigger happy corp mate Coiled, that a Nano BC/cruiser gang had tackled a carrier at the sun in Egbringer, and that he had warped in at range and whored on the mail, lol. He asked us if we wanted to form up a fleet to fight the gang, but it was an off time for our alliance so he also went and asked the GP/CI guys in Bosena. He eventually rallied enough troops and they came down the pipe. I had gotten back to Eg and reshipped into a Talos, when I noticed most the gang hanging out on my station, likely enjoying the fruits of their kill and chilling. I report this to our incoming aide and they suggest I draw their fire, but a Talos isn’t very suited for taking hits especially since I would have to GCC on station to get their attention, so I switch to an ASB tempest and undock and GCC on their drake. It takes them a bit but they finally wake up and get the balls to tackle me on station, where I yell for the back up to come in and we where able to kill the majority of them, only losing Space Gals Naga.

(Heres the battle report, tho it has all of them listed on our side for soem reason)

At this time take a nice long break, but when I come back I notice in the CI intel channel that they are all in a buzz about forming up for something, so I jump back on their coms to find out whats going on. It seams that RA had killed a small Hash fleet down in 7Q, in a large armor BS gang with Guardian support, and Deepee was forming a Ahac gang to go down there and try to get a good fight out of them. My Ahac Deimos was unriged atm so I was forced to refit my solo armor stabber into a makeshift Ahac. (Which once fit for it is a great Ahac) I chill in Egbrigner, because our fleet was heading through there on the way to 7Q to take the long way, and maybe get behind the fleet, but our scout in 7Q reported that the RA fleet had entered low sec trough Khabi, so we turn around and head the fastest way to Khabi. We get there just about the same time the RA gang lands back on 7Q gate, and we engage them, taking GCC to promote a fight. Unfortunately their logi reps where too strong for us to break it seemed and it was taking us forever making head way on any tank, yet they never agroed back. They eventually jumped gate, and ran like hell back up to EO2 where they docked up for 30min while we camped their station and we smacked them in local. During this given break in the fighting Deepee got a few anti BS dreads in place in case they came back out in their BS fleet to ensure we could break trough their Guardian reps. Eventually RA undocked, and warped to the 8YC gate where we promptly followed and engaged them again, this time them engaging back. It seams they had spent that 30min refitting half their BSs with newts to cap out our logi, tho it was only working mediocrely. Our cyno gets in place and we jump three dreads in who quickly start blaping BSs, especially since the two FCs where flying duel web Ashimus which where making the primary’s easy pickings for the dreads tracking. The deagress in sight of our dreads and half their BSs and all their Logi escape. We congratulate ourselves on a job well done and cyno the dreads out and go repair in EO2 station. We here just about to leave 0.0 when we get word that the same fleet we had fought was reshipped into a shield fleet with scimi support and was on its way back to fight us, so we turn around and meet them once again on the 8YC gate in EO2, both sides engaging right away. This time RA seamed confidant thinking we no longer had dread support because they cynoed out, but our dread where still on the ready and fuled, so half way trough the fight we dropped the cyno again and dreads came in, but since we didn’t blow our laod so soon this time we where able to get the majority of their fleet to committed to run, only their logi and a few BCs escaping. While it was two separate engagements, since it was in the same spot, against the same people, and the blood hadn’t slowed all the way down from the first fight, it felt like one big fight, and one of the best I have had in awhile. We don’t get many 20v20 fights with logi support in the MH area. We mozzy back to home grinning to ourselves at a job well done.

(The battle report combined of both battles, sadly because it happened in the same system the fights didnt seperate themselves.)

Most the time in the Ahac gang the SFIs where sent around like wild men trying to gettackle or DPS on recons, which was fun but annoyign all at the same time, makes me wish it had more range.

Later on that night some of the THC guys had scanned down an Abaddon and Onerous doing a site in Enner and we ran over to help them catch it. While the Abaddon was easy to catch, his onerous buddy wasn’t. We had no scrams so where where forced to chase him quite a ways in two Cynables, both of us on the verge of caping out when he went down. Turning back around to help finish the Abaddon off.

And then after debating the new crime watch changes for a while I logged bringing a end to a long day of pvp small gang carnage.