With summer coming up, it was decided by Absolutely Certain leadership to merge our corporation into Isogen-5, a C5>C5 group. Reason being is that activity drops a lot during summer, and that can mean death to a small group, as inactivity breeds inactivity. It was already happening to me, my finals came up, and I was not feeling an extraordinary motivation to log in every day to help PvP and find/provide content.
Content is out there and loose, you just have to find it and have the people to exploit it. This is what I wanted Protean Concept to be when I was a Director in it, and it feels good to be part of an organized, good, fun group of guys to play with.
As for this blog, detailed battle reports will be rarer now. Unless a fight it is a very interesting / fun / funny / thought provoking it will not be posted. AARs about personal / corporate milestones will still be posted too.
Instead this will be mostly me being reflective on doctrines, fights, fits, and politics in wormhole space. I already did this to a degree, reflecting on a fight and how I could have done better, but now I will be focusing specifically on that aspect rather than just recollecting events happening in game.
This will mean posts in general will be less common, but hopefully the ones that are posted will be richer in content.
A Battleship is slow, cumbersome, and tends to lack utility in a fight. It is also an excellent tool to project large amounts of damage over distance and soaking up large amounts of damage in return. Nothing exemplify these traits more than a Marauder, which while in Bastion gains range bonuses and tank bonuses, with the already natural 1000+ DPS capabilities. It also makes you completely immobile for the module's duration. What this means is you have to pick your fights carefully: know when to go, know when to stay put, and know what poses the most threat to you.
Ilaister had found 4 ratting Dominixes down the chain in a C4. We form up and move out with two Stratios, one Tengu, and a Paladin, and I guess Shaded's joke Lasergu is also with us too. A new bro follows a little ways behind in a Devoter. As Ilaister found the Dominixes they had warped off the site they were in, back to their home connection, which just so happened to be the connection we were sitting on. A Vexor jumped in and saw us sitting there, so we were spotted and the Dominixes would be warned not to jump in. All the little ships jumped in to prevent them from warping off, in our eagerness to land tackle everyone jumped, except for my Paladin, which I kept to stay for tackle, as most likely they would jump into me once they got tackled. Indeed they did, and two Dominixes jumped into my waiting arms, with some of our fleet coming back to spread tackle. The other two get away, but one was caught latter. Very simple gank.
Hesitating to jump initially with the rest of the gang netted us at least one more Domnix which we otherwise would have not gotten. So, maybe there is some reward to waiting and not jumping the gun in eagerness.
Not too long after that I was scouting on my alt, and I found a reduced C5 connection in a C3, inbound. I jump in and I'm greeted with a Slicer and a Legion sitting on the hole, part of the same group of this Venture we killed earlier in the C3. Pretty simple, form up small 3 man gang, and smack the shit out of them. I hold back with my main this time to put more attention on scout. The new bro comes up with a plan to use a passive shield bait Sigil to see if they have any more hidden somewhere. I've seen similar fitted Nereuses before, so I was expecting either a good bait or a total waste of a ship. It was good bait though, he warps off to Planet 6 and gets tackled by the Slicer. At this point the rest of the fleet was shown to us: three Navy Vexors, a Rook, and a Proteus.
At this point I do send my main down the chain to help, mindlessly grabbing my Paladin again. In the meantime we were in full scale brawl at Planet 6, over a dead Sigil, which tanked 66k damage, not bad. When I did finally arrive we had lost two Stratios, and in return killed two Navy Vexors, a Rook, a newly arrived Hawk, and the Slicer. We still had Guirdarr's Tengu tackled at the planet, and it was his expensive active tanked one too. That was a problem, as I had just realized that the C5 had a Cataclysmic effect, which nerfed local tanking, which was also what my Paladin was. I hesitated at jumping in because of it, but Ilaister eventually berated me into action and I jumped in to assist Gui, who was now breaking under the DPS pressure of a newly arrived Rattlesnake. He dies as I land on grid, but I do manage to finish off the Proteus. I MJD off and warp back home. A Heretic jumps out as if in attempt to bubble me once I jump out, but the hole is verge, as it was a very small mass hole. So I just jump out and close it, getting us a Heretic kill.
Could I have saved Guirdarr if I had jumped sooner? I don't know for sure, but I don't think so under that DPS and nerf to his tank. It is a shame we lost it, as it had been a very valuable baiting and ultra heavy tackle ship. For those interested in the stats, you can see them here. Stats are with Mid-Grade Crystals and Tengu Links, both of which he had. Also obviously outside of a Cataclysmic effected system. It was inspired by this fit, and I know he didn't seem to take much damage but that was because of him jumping a wormhole, so the session change reset it. They both can tank shit loads of damage, even under heavy neut pressure. RIP in pieces.
Was a good fight though, and it was nice to see Mr. Bait Hauler come back into play again. Thanks to our new bro for that bait Sigil, and here is to many more.
When in a fight it is important to fully process the information being thrown at you, and not be overwhelmed by it. Do not panic, do not overreact, do not jump to conclusions, do not needlessly throw away ships. However, that being said, it is hard to not overreact or not get excited when a Carrier lands on grid with your three guys.
Let us back up a bit first though. It was Ilaister, Guirdarr, and myself online on a lazy Monday afternoon. There was some solid null secs in the chain, so we were going to do some Black Ops (which we have been having somemildsuccess with) after we eat and take care of some real life stuff. Ilaister and I are back, still waiting on Guirdarr when we notice there is a new signature in the static. After a quick probe, and a failed attempt at catching an Astero, they come back in force, catching Ilaister off guard with a Rapid Light Cerberus in the home hole, using our favorite home defense weapon against us. We reform up with kiting shield Ishtars and proceed to harass them away from our home, with the help of a newly arrived Guirdarr. We manage to push them all the way back to their home hole: a C5 Cataclysmic effect. We chase, as any respectable PvP group does when you have someone on the run, but it takes us headlong into a Nidhoggur. Now, I don't know how others feel about this, but I think dropping a Triage Carrier on three guys is extreme, to put it mildly, especially since a single Logistics Cruiser would have been more than enough to tank our DPS thanks to the system's effect. We are forced to jump out, after we loose a Gila that was caught off the hole.
Now it was us on the run, being chased all the way back into our home system by a Pilgrim, two Proteus, and a Tengu. Guirdarr holds in the junction system between our two home systems to keep them occupied while we wake a few people up and get a few more warm bodies on grid. We also send a ping to Absolute Damage Inc, with the hope we could take on a Carrier together once we clean this mess up. Eventually, we are able to get a Proteus, a 1.29 billion ISK Tengu, and a newly arrived Ishtar polarized and killed in the junction system, just as Absolute Damage show up. Together we once again push them back into their home system, and keep tackle on the Nidhoggur that was still there, with the help of my alt refitted into a Scimitar.
We tend to be a stubborn bunch when it comes to capitals, welping a staggering4 billion ISK just to maintain tackle on two Carriers and a Dread over a year ago. So, once the Phoenix landed and started alpha'ing Drakes and Tempests, we naturally just threw more at them to keep their attention while another group caught up to help as well. We lost about two billion ISK before we finally settled into a stable position. That is when they escalated yet again, with another Dreadnought, this time a Naglfar at 50km from our fleet. We take a long spiral inwards towards the Naglfar and get into orbit around it, only loosing a Legion to Dread blapping as we moved in. We whittle his capacitor and tank down slowly, but we didn't have enough DPS to kill it before he exited Siege, and started receiving repairs from the Nidhoggur. He was just entering hull.
It was shortly after this when the Phoenix, which had been posing little threat to our small Cruiser based fleet, suddenly became relevant again, blasting two Curses off the field with a single volley each. That is when we decided to call it and extract, fleeing down the the new chain, (for the one we came from had collapsed during the fight) with nothing to show for our efforts. It was a good fight, but one that left a bitter taste in our mouths, and not just because we lost a total of nearly 3.5 billion total, but we brought friends along with us, and we don't like disappointing friends with a welp and no good kills.
In truth, we should have held back and reorganized before going into the C5, instead of throwing ISK blindly at them to maintain tackle by the skin of our teeth. We saw an opportunity but failed to capitalize on it, which was unfortunate. Regardless, a fight is still a fight, win or loose, and it was a fun fight. That is what we play the game for after all: to have fun.
When you have been hunting, PvPing, scouting, or really doing anything, for a long time, after a while it just sort of becomes instinctual. You don't even realize you are DScanning until you catch yourself doing it in high sec. You automatically start looking for a POS when you see a Force Field on DScan. You go straight to looking up killboards when you find someone ratting. There is a lot of things you do you don't realize you are doing, you are just listening to your gut and muscle memory.
It is when you go against your instincts is when shit hits the fan. You may want to gank him, you may want to try to get a good fight, you might want to rat in that system, but gut feeling tells you no. It is when you do it anyway is when you get killed.
See, when you are looking for a target to drop on with Blops, you tend to hunt in renter or ratter heavy systems, not PvP alliance's space. So, problem number one: choosing to hunt in Deklein, Goon central. Before any solo drop you look up the killboard of the target in question. This particular target had not lost a ship in a year and a half. Problem number two: droping on someone that clearly was either extremely lucky, or was saved every time he got in trouble.
So, here I am sitting on grid with my cyno, cloaked up, in the middle of a Goonswarm region, watching what I was 98% sure was a bait Ishtar. I sat there for what must have been 30 minutes debating back and forth in my mind weather or not to drop. Earlier in the day I had dropped on an Ishtar and killed him with little issue (thanks to Michael for scanning down his safe spot, even though he died like an idiot to Wasps). I had no concerns about breaking him, just what would follow if I bit. Perhaps that more than anything galvanized me into action, the excitement and prospect of a kill was a bit too great.
My Arazu can point up to 51km, so I cyno'd in around 40km off the Ishtar, to give myself plenty of breathing room if shit did hit the fan. The Ishtar just stayed there though, not moving at all. He did put drones on my Arazu, but at this point I am not sure if it was not just an auto-aggression from the drones. He had just gotten into armor when the Hound uncloaked and tackled me.
Now, I had a neut on my ship, so I easily turned off his point, but I stuck on grid anyway to kill the Ishtar which was now in hull. That is what killed me. I could have left, but I stuck around anyway, which brought down on my head three Panthers and a Proteus. I killed the Ishtar and his pod, and I even got the Hound, but there was no saving my Redeemer and Arazu. Greed and ignoring my gut instinct got me killed.
Ironic, as yesterday when I posted about EFTing Black Ops, latter that night I got killed. This has not curbed my enthusiasm though, as what happened was nothing more than a learning experience. If anything, it maintained it, as it just goes to show that the more you explore, and get out, and scout, and poke around in space, the more interesting things you will find.
Past two weeks or so have been interesting, a smattering of various low sec roams, a good fight, a Carrier gank, a total welp, and a heart pounding solo drop. Nothing particularly blog worthy though, in my opinion, there was not much that was special in any of those engagements. So instead I'm just going to vomit out ideas and share some thoughts and a video.
First up we have the video that inspired me to do solo droping with my Black Ops and launched me on an EFT project to build solo drop fits.
I came to the conclusion that the Widow and Redeemer are not suitable to be solo droping in comparison to the Sin and Panther. They can do it, just need to be careful with target selection. It is near impossible to active tank a Redeemer well enough to withstand punishment from multiple targets or in longer fights, so you are forced to buffer fit it, which means you have to kill the target in a set time frame. This limits target selection greatly. You have a similar issue with the Widow, except it is not the tank that's the issue its the damage application you get with Torpedoes is awful, even with Standard Crash and 2 TP's. You can kill Cruisers yes, but not near as effective as the others. It is also limited by fitting and can only fit a medium neut.
The Sin is good, but unfortunately my main character has mediocre drone skills at best, so once my Intel/Mem remap training is done I will train for a Panther instead. Ideally I would use the below fit, but there have been hints at a Black Ops rebalance soon™, so it is subject to change.
Sexy.
I have a feeling that overall though, no major changes will be happening to Blops. It is almost certain that the agility bonus of the Sin and the velocity bonus of the Panther will be rolled into the hull itself, just as they did to the old Stabber and Vagabond a few years ago. What bonuses they will be replaced with is uncertain. Perhaps an application bonus similar to the Redeemer's tracking speed, or just more raw damage. The major complaint of the player base has been two things though: Blops can't warp cloaked, and they are squishy.
Lets just say if they gave it a Covert Ops cloak my dick would be so hard it might explode. I would probably fly nothing else but that. I imagine this is what went through CCP's mind as well when they were designing the Nestor, as they could have followed the racial trend easily and given it a Covert cloak just like the Astero and Stratios, but they didn't. I imagine that we will have to be satisfied with the regular cloak on all our Black Ops. As for the squishy tank: first off, they are the only sub capital that has its own jump drive and can bridge, I will gladly trade some EHP for that; second, with mid grade slaves and crystals you can get very good armor buffer/active shield respectively. No you are not going to bring it to a fleet fight, but it is not designed to be in that environment anyway, no cloaky ships are. The tank you get is just enough for what it needs to do: get in, slaughter people, get out.
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Speaking of Battleship hulls, I've spent the last couple days thinking of how to use them effectively in a fleet doctrine in wormhole space. Now, in an environment that is dominated by mass limitations, Battleships tend to get shafted into a support role (ie. full neut Bhaalgorn or refit bitch Nestor). It does not help that they are easily countered by Dreadnoughts either, which is why when I lived in a C5 we never had a Battleship doctrine, where Dreads are easily on hand for almost any C5 organization. Perhaps things are different in lower class space and we can have some room to breath with them.
First we have to see what kind of hulls are popular and for what reasons. The most popular Battleships in wormhole space I would say are the Armageddon, Scorpion, Dominix, Nestor, Vindicator, Bhaalgorn, Rattlesnake, in no particular order. The Dominix and Rattlesnakes are mostly used for ratting, although both can hit extremely hard and bring a good amount of utility in a fleet fight. The Armageddon and Bhaalgorn are both neuting boats, excellent for killing Capitals and disrupting Laser/Hybrid DPS. The Scorpion fills a similar role, but uses ECM instead of neuts. Then we have the Vindicator, which is basically a battering ram in space, dishing out insane damage with near perfect application potential. Finally we come to the Nestor which is basically a big boy Guardian that lets near by ships refit off it.
Now for a doctrine, we need a ship that can hit hard, but flexible in multiple situations. This is why I like the Longbow doctrine so much, it had the DPS to fight in brawl range but also the range to engage kiters and force sniping EWar ships off grid (damn you Falcons!). Except the issue with a Battleship doctrine in wormhole space, is that you need to be able to fight out numbered, because you can't fit 20 Battleships plus support through a hole and expect to come back home. So, what are good force multipliers that you can fit on Battleships? The biggest one is obviously energy neutralizers, they can reduce incoming DPS from Hybrids and Lasers, break cap chains, turn off tackle and EWar mods, and turn off enemy tanks.
So, what ships have at least two utility high slots or main source of damage comes from drones? Armageddon, Dominix, Navy Dominix, Fleet Tempest, Fleet Typhoon, and Rattlesnake. Now lets add some parameters: must do at least 800 DPS. The Armageddon, Dominix, Navy Dominix, and Rattlesnake are all just shy of 800. Now you could easily fit Faction damage mods, but that gets expensive of T1 Battleships. The Navy Domi and Rattle also get a dual damage bonus, so we can just set aside two high slots for neuts and let the rest be guns/missiles, easily getting the 800+ DPS without pimp. So lets throw out the Armageddon and Dominix.
DPS means nothing if you do not have the means to apply it effectively, which is why Vindicators are so popular in wormholes, because they can apply their damage nearly perfectly to the numerous Cruisers you see in this space. If there is one weapon system in the game that is known for how terrible their application is to smaller targets, its Torpedoes. Yes, I can get near a 1000 paper DPS off of a Fleet Typhoon with Torps, but that doesn't mean I will actually get 1000 DPS. I could fit Cruise Missiles, but then I am sub 800 DPS now. You run into numerous fitting issues on the Typhoon as well, which brings up the cost a lot in order to compensate.
It works, but there are better options.
On the Rattlesnake though, we can switch to Cruise Missiles just fine, as most the DPS comes from drones, so we are breaking 1000 DPS with missiles and drones combined. Good application as well between Cruises and your Heavy Drone of choice.
It is cheap too
The Navy Dominix is basically an armor version of the Rattlesnake. It is more expensive and using Blasters significantly lowers its damage projection in comparison to Cruises, which have insane range.
Replace the RECCM with any utility EWar/Tackle needed.
Now finally we come to the Fleet Tempest, which is actually essentially identical to the one I lost a few weeks ago. Just has a slight upgrade to the Gyro's which are very cheap in comparison to other damage mods. Does just over a 1000 DPS with drones added (that is with Faction ammo, so as to have better tracking in comparison to Hail).
So much falloff, so little optimal :(
So for a Shield Battleship doctrine in wormhole space, I would almost definitely go with the Rattlesnake, it out performs the armor ones in multiple ways and is cheaper as well. Be thankful that Goons and Co. are so good at farming them. As for the Armor doctrine, I'd say its a fair tie between the Navy Dominix and Fleet Tempest. They both have the potential of over a 1000 DPS and one has extra utility mid slots and the other has slightly better projection.
Now this is not to say that Battleships are a practical doctrine in wormhole space. There are still many limitations and liabilities to the concept thanks to the environment of wormholes, but that can still hold their own I would say in lower class space. If I am lucky I might get the corp to buy a few of these so we can test them out.
This post has gone on longer than I expected, so I'll just end it here before I get off on another tangent about 10mn Worms. :)
As wormhole residents generally stay in wormhole space, with the exception of the mega Corporations and Alliance in higher class space which turn to null sec to keep a constant flow of content. You will rarely find one of us in K-Space, and if we are we are most likely hauling, or scanning for another wormhole. So when we go for actual fighting in K-Space, we tend to fail spectacularly or get very lucky. Sometimes a mixture of both.
Our high sec static was a mere three jumps from Jita, so most people were running logistics and buying things. The others were scouting the chain via our C4 static. I however, took interest in the null sec connection in our high static. Having a slight obsession with Black Ops Battleships I put my alt out poking around in a Covert Cyno Pilgrim and situated my Redeemer in the entrance system XD-JW7 and hunted with my Cyno alt. I decided to go into Catch and poke what I knew would be a hornet nest of HERO Coalition members. I eventually find a Mackinaw in an asteroid belt with an Ishtar guarding it. It doesn't faze me, but the 40+ in local does a bit. So I call for some backup.
I get a Stratios, a Rapier, and a Nemesis from my corp mates sitting on my Blops in no time. I soon have the Ishtar tackled and I bridge my fleet in on top of them. The Ishtar pops easily, but soon reinforcements arrive as expected, so I am glad I did not jump my Redeemer in as well. Only loss was the the Nemesis, a fair trade I say. As we attempt extracting from the system they attempt to chase us, and follow us about halfway back home. I keep my Pilgrim behind to keep eyes on the reinforcements streaming down towards us, and the others refit to actual combat ships, including me refitting my Redeemer. As I tab back to my alt though, he is decloaked and dying. I still have no idea how they managed to decloak me, as I was 128km off the gate in no particular alignment to anything. It is one of the shitiest but luckiest decloaks that has ever happened to me. Bye bye Pilgrim.
RIP in Pieces my Pilgrim
At this point we have refitted to heavier ships and are making our way back down the pipe. We hold two jumps out from their main staging system and send a scout on ahead. In the meantime we camp a gate, which yields two Vexors to us, plus a Sabre that we killwhored on. After sitting for several minutes waiting for a form up from them, we decide to head back home, mainly due to what they said in local.
[21:00:44] Abernie > FIGHT ME
[21:01:11] Frozenson > fight you or your hot drop friends?
Sad, as if they had done any kind of scouting they would notice we did not have the Redeemer out any longer, and even if we did, the initial drop only had a Stratios, a Recon, and a Bomber, hardly anything to be scared of when you have 40+ in local. That is somewhat pathetic. So we head back, but as we head back Tard and Abernie find a Navy Omen, the same pilot as the Ishtar from earlier, and kill him, but not before a 3rd party of 25 Interceptors came in and vaporized Abernie before he could safely extract. GG.
As we arrive back in the exit system we encounter an Ashinimu, Orthrus, and Garmur camping a null sec gate. Wary of a trap, Ilaister shoots them only, and as soon as that happens local spikes up to 15, we all get out except Ilaister's Svipul, a cheap loss compared to what have happened if we had all aggroed on gate. So we go home and refit, once again, to heavy armor and a Guardian pair for Logistics. From here, I'm going to let a video do the talking.
Yeah, they combat scanned our hole down and fought us. Then chased us into high sec thinking it was safe to engage, and got Concorded. It was a priceless experience, absolutely priceless. They thought they were jumping into a wormhole systems, but it was high sec. I could barely breath I was laughing so hard. To Concord they lost a Garmur, Ashinimu, and a Devoter, totaling 1.65 billion.
Thanks Concord!
Latter on we kind of ruined it by loosing a Stratios and a Sabre while attempting to prevent them from getting back to null sec.
Was an active day in null sec, which was painted with success, failure, derps, luck, and stupidity. Was a fun day and I would definitely welp a Pilgrim and Zealot again for a day like that.
CCP has proposed (and will probably go through with) removing Skynet, that is, removing the ability for Carriers and Super Carriers to assign fighters to people remotely. This, in my opinion, is an excellent change. The entirety of Eve is based on risk vs reward, and when people can assign anywhere from 1-3k DPS from their Carrier without putting any actual risk to the Carrier itself, that is a broken mechanic. That being said, that patch has not hit yet, so assigned fighters are still a deadly threat.
We had found a wormhole connecting from high sec and into Fountain null sec and the local residents were aware of it. Tard wiped a Claw out from under them before a 9 man Battleship heavy gang forced him back into High Sec. Trying to get reinforcements over quickly I grab my Fleet Tempest and Rott grabs his Armageddon. We do eventually arrive but we were vastly out numbered and forced to jump back to safety.
So we waited for more of us to form up, Guirdarr even brought his Vargur along for the ride. Six strong we were when we were all ready, couldn't get any better at that hour so we jumped on in. We forced a Rapier of grid first and melted two Hurricanes next. At this point a good portion of their fleet had either warped off or jumped through to the safety of high sec. So, seeing as there was not much DPS left on grid I decided it was ok to burn off and tackle a Dominix 20km off the hole. As soon as I was out there tackling him I started suffering large chunks of armor damage, which was concerning since at this point all they had left was the Dominix, a Onyx, and a Rapier. I tried burning back to the hole, but the DPS was too great and I popped. Shame, I was quite fond of that ship for the short time I had it. It wasn't until after the fight was over when I realized that they had assigned fighters, not just from a regular Carrier either, but from an Aeon class Super Carrier. That has the potential for over an extra 5000 extra DPS on grid without even risking the ship that they are originating from.
It was a good fight nonetheless, even with the assigned fighters, but it does bug me that a ship that was not even on grid with us, at risk, was able to tip the scales so easily.
There are thousands of people, corporations, and alliances in Eve. So if you are one of the bigger groups, or better pilots, or more efficient teams, your name tends to get thrown around more. With that comes respect, but also wariness from others about your strength/skill.
So when a name like Sleeper Social Club comes across your chat window or passes by on comms you tend to be put on edge. Boasting a 401 man strong Alliance (at the time of writing), they are among the largest wormhole Alliance in the game. With that tends to come large fleets, which tend to ROFLstomp almost everything.
Note: I was not actually on grid for any of the fighting, I was listening on comms at the time of the first engagement and was told not to engage in the second.
The story starts with one of our best scouts finding a fight between a Confessor and an Astero on a hole. A short while latter Gui and Irohh were coming down the chain in two Svipuls to fight. After a brief skirmish and a dead Confessor more had come through and the fight was on. End result was a dead Astero on our side and 4 dead Confessors and a Svipul on theirs.
It was only after the skirmish we realized it was SSC. So since they had come with relatively little and in smaller sized ships than what they usually came with, we reshipped and prepared for a fight again. Gui was baiting in his Sleipnir and Tard and I were on the other side of the hole in our static with a Stratios and Zealot respectively. When they came back though, they came back with their customary heavy Armor and double Guardian gang. Tard and I got out fine, but Guirdarr was not as lucky, loosing a 1 bill Sleipnir and a Crystal set.
We gave them the benefit of the doubt that they would stay scaled down and smaller sized, but it was not so, and we paid the price.
Fighting is not just a contest of DPS, repair power, EWar, but also of positioning and leaning the fight towards your terms and not your enemies' terms. The center of this fight focused on this: choosing an environment to suit us and not them.
We were looking at Isogen 5, who we had fought before (in that instance we had again forced them to fight on our terms), and we attempted to gank a Phantasm of theirs that was running a gas site. We missed the kill so we warped back to the exit hole. As we landed though we hit bubbles that a Sabre had placed, which delayed our return to the hole. We made it through without incident as an 5 Ishtars, a Gila, a Cerberus and two Scimitars landed in pursuit. Now, they had 2 T2 Logistics ships while we only had a single T1, so we expected that the fight was basically over, and we would return to the high sec exit. Not so, the FC turned us elsewhere.
Follow me Boys!
The C3 was a Wolf-Rayet effect, which bonused us and nerfed them. They followed, itching for a fight. They were dropping so fast, being forced to jump quickly or getting vaporized before they had the chance to. We killed two Ishtars on the C3 side but loss a Curse and our Logistic and a Gila plus Sabre on C2 side.
It just goes to show you that environment plays an important part of a fight, especially in wormholes with the system effects. Good fight Isogen 5, better luck next time!
So there I was, sitting in the tower doing jack shit, while others go off to try to bait a Sleipnir out of his POS. On their trip out there though, they are caught unprepared by a different group, and loose an lol Drake, Pilgrim, and Sentinel. We regroup, and get an armor gang going, with my alt in an Onerios for Logistics. The system where the original skirmish took place was a Pulsar, so it was highly detrimental to our armor tanks. As a result our entire plan was getting them to jump into us and force them to fight on our terms. To do that, we had to regain their attention first, which was easy.
They did something that we did not expect though. Since one side of the wormhole we were fighting on was a Pulsar, and the fact that their last fleet was shield tanked, we expected them to return with shield ships. They refitted as we were were killing their Cerberus and returned with an armor gang, fully equipped with two Guardians, and jumped into us with no hesitation.
I had stationed my Logistic 50km off the hole while my fleet brawled the enemy fleet. I kept everyone alive, and could have done easily for quite a while if they did not have Ishtars shooting me with Sentries, and not have had an Astero decloak on me and tackle me. Regardless, I still held for some time with my Ancillary Armor Repairer, but I couldn't last forever so I did eventually pop.
As I warp off to refit into a Guardian (as well as another person), we also loose a Deimos. As soon as we return on grid we are instantly primaried by jams, but since we were still 50km out we easily survive through jamming cycles. We easily kept alive the rest of the fleet as well, excluding a Curse where both Guardians were jammed for a brief moment. As easily we kept the fleet alive though, it did nothing to break the enemy fleet's Logistics either, so eventually as their numbers kept steadily growing, ours stayed the same, so we extracted safely with no more losses.
Well played by Conquering Darkness, their steadily escalation and jams won them that fight and it was well deserved. It was a good fight, and its good to take a loss every now and then, as it tends to teach you more than a win.
When most people fight, one side looses, one side wins. Usually the winner wants another go, and the looser wants to slink away and lick their wounds. Occasionally though, the looser just keeps on coming at you, and tries to constantly redeem themselves. That is what Absolute Zero tried to do for nearly 7 hours on Wednesday.
Note: For this first fight I was not present and the first paragraph is based on what I heard afterwords and battle reports. The rest of the night I was present.
It all started off with two Myrmidons baiting in a site in our home system, with two Guardians and misc DPS sitting inside their C4. We decide to engage the Myrms at the site and force their fleet to jump in and as they jump in we bubble them and split the fleet in half. A Myrm and Guardian die in the site. As we chase them back into their hole we kill a Myrm and Cane on the C4 side.
Two to three hours latter we see movement from them again, they are using our high sec static. So I grab an anchorable bubble and put it on their C4 in line with the high sec. Now, if anything warps from the high straight to the C4, it will be caught nearly 30km off the hole. After some time, a Vigilant and Harpy jump in from high sec, but they don't warp to the C4, instead opting to orbit the high sec, with the clear intention to fight on there. We don't want to play games with them jumping out to safety though, so we force them to make a decision: we warp a rapid light Cerberus at range from the high sec and try to blap the Harpy. Naturally, he tries to burn out and tackle our Cerberus, but he underestimates the rapid light DPS in a Wolf-Rayet effected system, so he panic warps off, straight to his home hole of the C4. As expected, he lands in the bubble, right next to my Pilgrim and he dies easily. Almost immediately after he dies a Helios decloaks next to the Harpy wreck. I am not sure why he did while I was sitting there, but it dies with a little prompting. A brief while later we do the same thing, but to an Arbitrator.
Such a pretty wreckage field
A half hour latter we are still staring at a Vigilant, which is still orbiting our high sec. We are in the middle of debating of trying to bump him off the hole but before we can make a move he bounces to a planet and warps to the C4, completely circumventing my bubble, and then jumps home. We have scouted their side before and we knew they had a cloaked Falcon and a Curse plus misc DPS in the POS, so we had no qualms at jumping after them with our gang. When we got to the other side though we found two Curses and two Falcons, which completely suppressed our entire fleet. Thankfully we only lost a Stratios.
After that small welp we resettle into kiting and sniping positions on the C4 and bottleneck them into their hole. We had most of the fleet cloaked all over the hole but we had a single Orthrus uncloaked nearly 50km off the hole. Another half hour after the last engagement a Daredevil jumps in and tackles our Orthrus, as well as a Cloak Proteus uncloaks and tries to kill it. the Daredevil underestimates, again, the rapid light DPS and melts, leaving a Proteus stranded off the hole alone, surrounded. He dies shortly afterwords.
After a three hour break, and hunting invisible Orcas we return to find them trying to roll the now verge C4 connection with a Hictor. Reacting quickly we get a Vigilant on the hole and use 90% webs and stop the Devoter they were using from getting back to the hole. Our Vigilant refits to a Phobos and bubbles up on the C4 waiting for the pod to come back. But now comes the icing on the cake: the pod jumps out to high sec, and returns 15 minutes latter in a Dominix. Without a second thought or a scout, he blind warps to the C4, straight into the bubble, and dies, and is podded.
After 7 hours of killing, we had destroyed 2.5 billion from one group, all thanks to their own over eagerness and bad scouting. All for the cost of a single 397 mill Stratios. It was a fun night, but kind of sad as well, as it was almost no contest.
Its been quite a while since my last post. When I joined Snuffed Out I thought it was because I was burnt out on wormholes, I wasn't, I was burnt out on Eve in general. The final straw was ironically joining Snuffed Out which put me into a type of gameplay style I did not particularly enjoy. After some thought I put my characters into Absolutely Certain, a reformation of my old alliance Protean Concept which lives in a C2 with C4 and High sec statics. I moved in basic equipment and proceeded to go away for two months, logging in occasionally for small pings.
I've recently been back for about a week or so and I feel much better. I am not a director anymore, I am with people I know and trust. I am playing with friends. Best of all I am in my favorite area of space again.
So I am a few days into playing again and I am scanning the chain and looking for fights. As I am jumping some holes while scouting, a Loki attempts to tackle my alt's Buzzard. He wasn't going to catch such a nimble ship unless I was extremely unlucky, but he tried anyway, so I called some friends in nearby and jumped a C3 to see if he would go for me again. I sit on the other side for a bit to wait and give us a little more time to form up; as currently all we had was my cloaky Proteus and a Stratios, with a Sacrilege and Curse on the way. As I am sitting waiting to see if the Loki shows himself, a Nestor lands on grid. Now, I have no idea who he was, what he was doing, but that shit doesn't matter, you always go for tackle when something like that falls in your lap. I point it with my Buzzard and bring my main and the rest in.
In the time that elapsed for the main group to get there my Buzzard did die, but it did its job of holding it until we got there. The Nestor jumps through the hole and I try to chase it, the rest stay on the C3 side. When I load grid he was not on DScan or on grid at all though, so I sit, along with our newly arrived Tengu. I tell Athenaa to jump through, and I cloak up to make the hole appear safe. As soon as we do that the Nestor decloaks off the hole and warps before I can get past my targeting delay and tackle him.
[ 2015.03.02 01:40:54 ] Lily Savage > ha ha
I felt embarrassed that I let a 1+ billion ship get away, but this quickly turned to anger at the realization that he has to come back through the C3 hole to get back home, and I was determined to camp there for as long as possible to get him. A pointless emotion as he came back not 5 minutes latter, on the other side in the C3; however, he called a friend in with a Golem to help him escape.
As the Nestor jumps I hang back on our side of the connection, in case he decides to jump away and polarize himself, I wasn't going to let him get away this time. That was not necessary though, as the Nestor pops with little issue. The Golem was a bigger issue though, as it was still on grid and trying to kill our neuting ships: the Stratios and Curse. Nef has to jump his Sacrilege out when he hits structure, so I jump in to replace the DPS lost. After some warping in and out from Mighty and Sexy in the neuting ships to keep them alive, we finally wore down the Golem and popped him. At this point the Nestor pilot had come back with a Paladin in a vain attempt to help. We could have killed the Paladin, he could not hit me and I was still able to use a scram despite his neuts, but both of our own neuting ships did not have enough time to repair and come back before a Navy Raven lands 70km off and forces me to leave.
It was a good fight/gank, maybe more of a gank than fight since it was PvE ships we were facing, but kills are kills, and they did not need to sacrifice an extra Marauder to us. But in the end it didn't matter, Bob was pleased.
