"BLAH BLAH GET TO STAT STAT BLAH BREAK LOGI BLAH BLAH"
More or less what I got an ear full of when I got back from AFK land. Not exactly knowing what we were up against I grabbed my neut Legion and made my way over, and what I met was not exactly something you see everyday in wormhole space: a T1 Cruiser fleet. Against the squishier ships my Alliance mates already had there (namely recons) and no Logistics present for us, their fleet was fairly effective. We mopped them up eventually, killing three Thoraxes, an Augoror, and an Ishkur, plus one of the Thorax pilot's pods.
We try to catch some of them as they bounce around the system a bit, so our fleet is a bit split up across multiple holes in our static. While we are split and broken up (and still without Logistics) a Proteus lands on the static's static and jumps away, it works as intended and prompts a bubble from our Interdictor pilot on both sides of the hole which pins our fleet down. Soon enough we have a T3 gang bearing down on our heads from the same guys we killed with three Guardians and a Jamgu for Logistics and support. Everyone but me was able to burn out of bubble before their fleet landed except me, as I was Afterburner fit, so I was forced to jump into Stat Stat to escape and hung out in a safespot as the rest of my Alliance mates organized a proper fleet.
End result was three Guardians with mixed T3/Faction DPS. TFP's main FC was out running the Logistics group so I was the one to FC, provided I could get back to my fleet of course. The enemy fleet was currently sitting on our static on static side. Unfortunately when I jumped back from stat stat there was a Proteus waiting for me, I was easily tackled. Now, my neut Legions can sport around 230k EHP dependent on fit and links, so I knew it was going to take time for them to slowly kill me. Thinking I had time, I call the fleet in letting the Logistics know I would need repairs as soon as they landed. Time was not something I had though, as our Logistics landed split seconds too late, as I was starting to bleed hull when they landed. Pop I go.
I run as quickly as I can back to POS to refit into a neuting ship as I knew we had none, so on the way back I decided to bust out my new toy: a Bhaalgorn I bought just 2 hours before. In the meantime though we had issues controlling our fleet without me to be there to FC, so with no clear direction and no one (or worse, multiple) people willing to FC, our fleet was left in our Logistics wing's hands to keep it alive while I made my way back. Our Logistics wing had its own issues though as well, instead of three we had a fourth extra Guardian on grid that we were not aware of, thankfully the Logistics pilots readjusted their cap management well to get him on the chain. In the end, damn glad to have had that fourth Guardian even though it caused some commotion in the beginning.
I jump into static and warp, but I close our connection home as I jump, no more reinforcements for us. As I land on grid I know we are in trouble as I realize what my fleet's composition is made of: nearly pure DPS, almost no support: just a single Falcon for ECM and my Bhaalgorn for neuts. While pure DPS is nice, it is 9 times out of 10 never enough to break a 3+ Logistics chain.
Knowing that this would come down to who can break the cap chain of the other fleet first, I primary their Tengu and try to break it. But that is what our entire fleet was shooting way before I land so the Logistics were well established on that so I decided to switch to the actual Logistics themselves, all the while hearing Logistics coordinate capacitor chains as they try to compensate to ECM landing on them. Confused as to why they were getting jammed so much by one Jamgu, I ask, the answer was simple: ECM Drones, other wise known as 'Dishonor Drones' by the majority of solo/small gang players. (Note: I am not by any means calling x13's ECM Drone tactic dishonorable and dirty, its a fair tactic, I just wanted to include the term so I can have it relate to this post's 'witty' title, I'm so clever ^^) Thankfully despite the extra pressure from the ECM drones is lessened by the fact that we accidentally brought a fourth Guardian.
In the meantime on the front lines our Falcon pilot is getting jams off on the hostile Guardians, occasionally jamming two out of three, sometimes all three, but mostly just one. In the meantime I am trying my best to shuffle DPS around to break them dependent on where the jams land, which is one of the weaknesses of pure ECM EWar in fleets. ECM is purely chanced based on when it lands as well as, if its spread on multiple targets, where it lands. This can lead to many hurdles for a fleet to overcome when its trying to break a Logistics wing (switching targets dependent on where jams land, super dependent on the fact that they land at all to stop reps). Generally speaking, ECM should be used in conjunction with Sensor Dampeners with Scan Resolution Scripts so that when ECM does drop, it still takes more time than normal for enemy Logistics to reacquire locks, thus amplifying the overall effect. Unfortunately, at most I think we had one, maybe two, unbonused damps. Now, my neuts do amplify the ECM just a tad by making it longer to cap up and get the chain running again, it is no where near as effective as damps. The long cycle times of heavy neuts from the Bhaalgorn made for plenty of time for cap to regenerate in between the cycles (and yes I was staggering neuts). Perhaps it may have been better to neut out their Proteus to decrease pressure on our Logistics, but hindsight is always 20/20 right?
We were holding though, so I had no motivation to bail just because it was taking time to break them, so we kept at it. I call the fleet to switch to a Loki, knowing it was the least tanky of the T3s in terms of EHP and hoped we could break him with our newest set of jams. It was close, ~20% armor before reps caught.
Around this point a Dominix of theirs lands, I disregard it at the time, not entirely sure of its role as extra DPS or just neuting power or a mixture, but my Logistics, nor anyone else reported extra neuting pressure from it, so I more or less ignored it. What I did not ignore was the Armageddon that landed a little while after words as well. The combined fact that it would have T1 resists and long range neuts made me instantly primary it, again, close ~20% armor before reps caught.
It seemed that was the final nail in the coffin though for our Logistics wing, the ECM drones were starting to add up and the newly arrived neut pressure plus their much more abundant ECM compared to ours, started cracking our chain slowly. The Logistics head notifys me of it though in time for me to tell the fleet to align out, and eventually warp the fleet.
Three casualties, all Guardians, no T3s were lost, op success.
Also no kills in the second fight.
Damn... good... fight...
Now what did we do wrong? Talking about a fight after it has occurred is nearly as important as the fight itself. Things that we were lacking that could have helped:
-Smartbombs to clear ECM Drones
-Sensor Damps
-Less chaos at the beginning
-A better more experienced Bhaalgorn pilot ( first time flying one :( )
I would argue that in the end it came down to x13 having more EWar and support than we did, while we had almost pure DPS with some ECM and neuts thrown in almost halfassed. Hats off to x13 for a good showing and fights.
-----
Latter on we as an alliance make ourselves feel a little better, killing a 1.1 billion ISK Loki.
Even latter, me and a few others go camp busting in a C3 and force a high sec wormhole camp to come to us and fight on a C3-C4 connection. Small skirmish, with a killed Pilgrim, Cynabal, and Raven, with an escaped Onyx, Scorpion, and Federation Navy Comet. A nice pick me up to the earlier loss fight.
Battlereport
Over all, damn good day.
Blöd
Tuesday, August 19, 2014
Saturday, August 16, 2014
AAR: Killing That Big Blue Rock of Ice
Slow day so far today, and not that many people on either so we just have people doing their own thing. The rest of this story is thanks to one man though: Tard.
So, Tard is just derping in null sec with his Stratios looking for anything he can find. Since the hunting ground is renter space and in a farming center, there is plenty to be looking for. First up on the list is a Hulk, but not just any Hulk, a pimped Hulk. Genius.
Give it another half hour or so and Tard stumbles into something similar: another hulk, but mining Ice. That is not the main attraction though, what is though is the giant piece of ice next to him: a Chimera. That Chimera must have thought he was an ice rock as he had no reason to be guarding a Hulk in a Carrier. Doesn't matter what he should have been doing, what matters what he was doing and what we were doing to kill it. We send out a ping and get a few more people, get an Oneiros for Logistics, a Damnation for links and mixed DPS. Judging by his last loss, I figured we could use raw DPS to overpower him.
Unfortunately, we quickly figured out that would not be the case. He could tank us till downtime unless we brought something to break his capacitor. So I send two guys to grab Armageddons to whittle it down. As we were waiting for them to arrive, we defanged him and killed his 10 fighters.
It was not long after the Armageddon pair arrived that he went cap dead and we ate through his shields, armor, and hull. Boom, one less piece of ice to worry about! We snag the pod as well, but it was empty when we got it, most likely he pulled implants if he had any before he died.
GG, good gank.
Blöd
So, Tard is just derping in null sec with his Stratios looking for anything he can find. Since the hunting ground is renter space and in a farming center, there is plenty to be looking for. First up on the list is a Hulk, but not just any Hulk, a pimped Hulk. Genius.
Give it another half hour or so and Tard stumbles into something similar: another hulk, but mining Ice. That is not the main attraction though, what is though is the giant piece of ice next to him: a Chimera. That Chimera must have thought he was an ice rock as he had no reason to be guarding a Hulk in a Carrier. Doesn't matter what he should have been doing, what matters what he was doing and what we were doing to kill it. We send out a ping and get a few more people, get an Oneiros for Logistics, a Damnation for links and mixed DPS. Judging by his last loss, I figured we could use raw DPS to overpower him.
Unfortunately, we quickly figured out that would not be the case. He could tank us till downtime unless we brought something to break his capacitor. So I send two guys to grab Armageddons to whittle it down. As we were waiting for them to arrive, we defanged him and killed his 10 fighters.
It was not long after the Armageddon pair arrived that he went cap dead and we ate through his shields, armor, and hull. Boom, one less piece of ice to worry about! We snag the pod as well, but it was empty when we got it, most likely he pulled implants if he had any before he died.
GG, good gank.
Blöd
AAR: In with the New, then Throw it Away - Barghest Edition
A new chain a new set of opportunities. We had just rolled into our new C5 static and was poking around, finding a null sec connection, a K162 C5 and the C5 static. While our scout was coming back from the null sec he spotted a Tengu pop up on DScan. Two to three guys come over and sit on the hole and wait to see what happens. They guessed right and the Tengu jumps back into our static from null, and easily get tackle, but with the yelling on comms you would have thought they got a Marauder, so about 10 more people came running over in whatever they could find.
In the meantime, an Ishtar and Vagabond also appeared on the hole, at this point we realized it was ADHOC who we were fighting, a significantly bigger group than ourselves (as far as member count goes). They only brought the three ships though to combat our, well, blob. The Ishtar and Vagabond go down, as well as the Vagabond's pod, however; the Tengu was able to escape and slip back into null sec.
Knowing ADHOC usually gives good fights, we set out to find where they came from, and quickly realize they live in the K162 C5. We form up a standard armor doctrine: three Guardians with three Rail Proteus, Munnin, Navy Omen, a HAM and Neut Legion, one Jamgu, one Loki, an Ashimmu, and finally a Devoter So 14 people in total. Scout reports three Basilisks with three Artillery Sleipnirs and mixed shield DPS, so kite oriented. We are fairly confident though that between Sensor Damps from the Proteus and ECM from the Tengu we can neutralize their Logistics fairly well, the problem is getting sufficient DPS on top of them as they were now able to burn 70km+ from the hole. A Rail Proteus can only do 300-400 DPS at that range, not much over all.
We jump in and elect to sit on the hole and bet on stupid to see if we can get a kill. We can shoot very far after all, all it takes is some lucky jams and their Logistics getting their range damped too short to repair. Soon enough their Logistics are all at 100km or so while DPS are hovering around 50-70km, but thats still within repair range. They try to do some shenanigans with a Falcon but with Rail Proteus there, a combined minimum of 900 DPS easily overpowers the weakly tanked Falcon, forcing it to warp off.
Our bet on stupid works in the end though, a Barghest, piloted by Asayanami Dei, creator of the U-Boat series. is dragged into our Devoter's bubble so he is a mere 20km off our fleet, while his Logistics are 100km or so and damped. After a little convincing, his Barghest explodes. Obviously I am not on their comms so I have no true idea what was happening, but my guess was he A) didn't ask if our bubble was up or B) miss communication about if the bubble was up or not. Most likely the second one as our bubble was forced to drop shortly before he landed, which allowed for what happened next to happen.
So, a Chimera lands, at zero, on the hole, clearly entered warp as the bubble dropped briefly (so the Devoter could receive remote repairs) so he would not be dragged off. We have a split second of indecision as we try to come to terms what this could mean: He could jump back and forth closing the hole and trapping us, he could be the vanguard to warping more capitals in (Dreadnoughts this time as they couldn't take us directly with their shield ships), or be a combination of the two. With our relative limited experience in fighting capitals in a real fight, we elect to jump back out and collect our thoughts before deciding on a course of action. All we lost in the extraction was our Navy Omen which was off the hole when we jumped.
We think of several things: go back in with same fleet more or less but swap up from Rail Proteus to Blaster and bring a Bhaalgorn to counter the Chimera, bring our own Carrier, bring a Dreadnought plus Bhaalgorn combo, several options spring to mind. Before we could choose and act on said choice, the Chimera jumps back and forth, closing the connection to ADHOC. Guess we just head home now.
Good fight, shame they rolled us out, but good fight.
Blöd
In the meantime, an Ishtar and Vagabond also appeared on the hole, at this point we realized it was ADHOC who we were fighting, a significantly bigger group than ourselves (as far as member count goes). They only brought the three ships though to combat our, well, blob. The Ishtar and Vagabond go down, as well as the Vagabond's pod, however; the Tengu was able to escape and slip back into null sec.
Knowing ADHOC usually gives good fights, we set out to find where they came from, and quickly realize they live in the K162 C5. We form up a standard armor doctrine: three Guardians with three Rail Proteus, Munnin, Navy Omen, a HAM and Neut Legion, one Jamgu, one Loki, an Ashimmu, and finally a Devoter So 14 people in total. Scout reports three Basilisks with three Artillery Sleipnirs and mixed shield DPS, so kite oriented. We are fairly confident though that between Sensor Damps from the Proteus and ECM from the Tengu we can neutralize their Logistics fairly well, the problem is getting sufficient DPS on top of them as they were now able to burn 70km+ from the hole. A Rail Proteus can only do 300-400 DPS at that range, not much over all.
We jump in and elect to sit on the hole and bet on stupid to see if we can get a kill. We can shoot very far after all, all it takes is some lucky jams and their Logistics getting their range damped too short to repair. Soon enough their Logistics are all at 100km or so while DPS are hovering around 50-70km, but thats still within repair range. They try to do some shenanigans with a Falcon but with Rail Proteus there, a combined minimum of 900 DPS easily overpowers the weakly tanked Falcon, forcing it to warp off.
Our bet on stupid works in the end though, a Barghest, piloted by Asayanami Dei, creator of the U-Boat series. is dragged into our Devoter's bubble so he is a mere 20km off our fleet, while his Logistics are 100km or so and damped. After a little convincing, his Barghest explodes. Obviously I am not on their comms so I have no true idea what was happening, but my guess was he A) didn't ask if our bubble was up or B) miss communication about if the bubble was up or not. Most likely the second one as our bubble was forced to drop shortly before he landed, which allowed for what happened next to happen.
So, a Chimera lands, at zero, on the hole, clearly entered warp as the bubble dropped briefly (so the Devoter could receive remote repairs) so he would not be dragged off. We have a split second of indecision as we try to come to terms what this could mean: He could jump back and forth closing the hole and trapping us, he could be the vanguard to warping more capitals in (Dreadnoughts this time as they couldn't take us directly with their shield ships), or be a combination of the two. With our relative limited experience in fighting capitals in a real fight, we elect to jump back out and collect our thoughts before deciding on a course of action. All we lost in the extraction was our Navy Omen which was off the hole when we jumped.
We think of several things: go back in with same fleet more or less but swap up from Rail Proteus to Blaster and bring a Bhaalgorn to counter the Chimera, bring our own Carrier, bring a Dreadnought plus Bhaalgorn combo, several options spring to mind. Before we could choose and act on said choice, the Chimera jumps back and forth, closing the connection to ADHOC. Guess we just head home now.
Good fight, shame they rolled us out, but good fight.
Blöd
Sunday, August 10, 2014
AAR: And Thirds and Fourths
So several days after our two fights that were back to back, we rolled into them again, and wanted to fight again. They come at us with some kiting ships: Ishtar, Navy Vexor, Navy Omen, Cerberus, and a Shield Rail Thorax. They derp around on our static hole a bit and talk a little trash in local.
Niewidka > thats the way how u doing it ;p
Kocurto III > och camon
Kocurto III > to big fish or something ? ;p
Kocurto III > dont be pussies :p
Kocurto III > camon
We form up with ships that can project damage, not necessarily kite fit, but ships that can project well: Ishtars, Rail Proteus, Zealot plus some support. We warp in at appropriate ranges and engage popping the Navy Omen, an Cerberus, and their Thorax. And the Navy Vexor burns way off the hole, getting nearly 400km off the hole watching us. Got to say though, so glad we had links, 67km point overheated on my Rail Proteus allowed us to get both the Navy Omen and Cerberus. In the chaos all we lost was a Zealot. Was a good fight all in all.
Scout reports them shipping up though, two Guardians plus assorted T3/Ishtar DPS with an Armageddon. We decide to more or less keep our current fleet composition, just supplementing with a Carrier for repairs, which may have been overkill, but in the end the carrier did nothing anyway.
Was pretty standard, they jump into us, we shoot back. First casualty was a Hurricane of ours who died before Carrier landed on grid. The next one was one of their Guardians which got pinned down off the hole, which was their que to jump out. We anticipated this though, so we had a Devoter already in our static waiting for them with bubble up, it delayed them enough for us to get through and keep tackle. So now they are polarized and running off the hole while tackled. We elect not to jump the carrier through as that would put unnecessary mass on the hole plus we would quickly get out of rep range anyway as they were burning away as fast as possible. Its tricky maintaining tackle, as the Armageddon is capping us all out with his neuts, and they still have enough DPS to down one of our Ishtars before the Armageddon falls. The only thing more we were able to snag was a Loki before they all got out of tackle.
Was a good two fights, or I suppose four fights.
Blöd
Niewidka > thats the way how u doing it ;p
Kocurto III > och camon
Kocurto III > to big fish or something ? ;p
Kocurto III > dont be pussies :p
Kocurto III > camon
We form up with ships that can project damage, not necessarily kite fit, but ships that can project well: Ishtars, Rail Proteus, Zealot plus some support. We warp in at appropriate ranges and engage popping the Navy Omen, an Cerberus, and their Thorax. And the Navy Vexor burns way off the hole, getting nearly 400km off the hole watching us. Got to say though, so glad we had links, 67km point overheated on my Rail Proteus allowed us to get both the Navy Omen and Cerberus. In the chaos all we lost was a Zealot. Was a good fight all in all.
Scout reports them shipping up though, two Guardians plus assorted T3/Ishtar DPS with an Armageddon. We decide to more or less keep our current fleet composition, just supplementing with a Carrier for repairs, which may have been overkill, but in the end the carrier did nothing anyway.
Was pretty standard, they jump into us, we shoot back. First casualty was a Hurricane of ours who died before Carrier landed on grid. The next one was one of their Guardians which got pinned down off the hole, which was their que to jump out. We anticipated this though, so we had a Devoter already in our static waiting for them with bubble up, it delayed them enough for us to get through and keep tackle. So now they are polarized and running off the hole while tackled. We elect not to jump the carrier through as that would put unnecessary mass on the hole plus we would quickly get out of rep range anyway as they were burning away as fast as possible. Its tricky maintaining tackle, as the Armageddon is capping us all out with his neuts, and they still have enough DPS to down one of our Ishtars before the Armageddon falls. The only thing more we were able to snag was a Loki before they all got out of tackle.
Was a good two fights, or I suppose four fights.
Blöd
Thursday, August 7, 2014
AAR: Coming Back For Seconds
So a few days ago we had a nice brawl from some residents connecting via a back door C2. Before I had logged on my alliance mates had already gotten in a fight. They were outnumbered so decided to dump a carrier on grid to even the field a bit, so the hostiles all ran, with just a lone interceptor being left behind.
After I log on, we see they are coming back again, most likely with a bigger group this time to try to kill our carrier we dropped last time, as they clearly saw it. We are ok with that though, and engage, we wait for the enemy fleet to be in as much as possible before dumping our carrier on it. Unfortunately waiting meant we lost a Falcon and a Tornado as a result.
They still had approximately 20ish people, which was a bit surprising as we were expecting something to kill a carrier, instead it was just assorted Ishtars and T3s for DPS with 3 Guardians. As a result once our carrier landed and started dishing out repairs it was a clean wipe. Most jumped away but we were able to jump a battleship and close it, trapping several of them inside our system. Was a good fight but we were slightly disappointed they did not come more prepared for our carrier, which they knew we could and would field.
Battle Report
Blöd
After I log on, we see they are coming back again, most likely with a bigger group this time to try to kill our carrier we dropped last time, as they clearly saw it. We are ok with that though, and engage, we wait for the enemy fleet to be in as much as possible before dumping our carrier on it. Unfortunately waiting meant we lost a Falcon and a Tornado as a result.
They still had approximately 20ish people, which was a bit surprising as we were expecting something to kill a carrier, instead it was just assorted Ishtars and T3s for DPS with 3 Guardians. As a result once our carrier landed and started dishing out repairs it was a clean wipe. Most jumped away but we were able to jump a battleship and close it, trapping several of them inside our system. Was a good fight but we were slightly disappointed they did not come more prepared for our carrier, which they knew we could and would field.
Battle Report
Blöd
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