And I'm back. Before I get back to my tackling subject, I just want to say that yesterday night saw the Baptism of Fire of Demonia's Dominix as I did a Level 4 mission with my Bozo buddy and compatriote Madcoy Flinstone and his alt. I discovered a few things: decent tanking requires some skills, which at 2.7 million SP Demonia just don't have, and hitting frigates with large railguns and low-nav skilled medium drones is quite a pain in the derrière. On the other hand, cruisers and battlecruisers melt in record time; battleships take longer but when I do get better drone skills (read nav-linked heavies) the time will seriously go down. It's great fun though, and with the Bozo High Command in party mode in Las Vegas this weekend will probably see a lot of missioning so my bank account will feel better :) Alright, on to business.
Now that I've shown the world two of my favorite ship setups, let's talk about using them. My favorite job in a fleet is clearly that of a scout/tackler. I don't think I have the subtlety required to be a good Cov-op or Recon scout because I'm the kind of player to shoot first and ask questions later. But being a tackling scout give me the advantage of freedom compared to the other members of the fleet, although I do try not do anything rash without the FC's consent. I do get to see a lot more space, and occasionally someone red to me is careless enough to aggress the lowly Rifter only to find himself webbed, scrammed, jammed, and melting at an alarming rate. It does turn the other way sometimes, but by being very fast you can come out of some extremely hairy situations. Let's go into two of my favorite engagement styles...
The small gang
The idea here is to get some action when it's an odd time like early after the daily downtime or very late when you're feeling insomniac. The idea is to do a small gate camp in a well trafficked system and just be a major pain in the ass until a huge alliance blobs you 10-to-1. Ideally, here is the composition of such a small fleet to be successfull of getting a few kills, using cheap ships to encourage practice:
- ECM boats (Griffin, Blackbird)
- Fast tacklers (Rifter, Vigil, Stabber)
- Damage (Rupture, Thorax, Caracal)
Rule of thumb is everybody should at least have a warp disruptor fitted, and if a gang member can anchor a bubble then all the better. My dream small gang would be to have 6 guys: 1 ECM, 2 tacklers, and 3 damage dealers. Any stray wanderer (even a battleship) would find a nasty end to this small gang. The ships I've given are just examples; of course you can replace some with interceptors, Recons, HACs, etc, but I always believe in destroying more value than I'm actually flying. Enter the second favorite style of PvP.
Jihad warfare
This is simple. Get as many friends as you can. Fit ONLY Tech 1 ships with the cheapest mods you have. Follow the 1-2-3 rule for gang composition. Find a good route to roam (with known ratting spots and enemy bases on the way) and proceed to kill ships that are worth more than your entire fleet! The down side of this, you will most assuredly die, especially if a big alliance decides to drop 5-6 carriers on you. but kill, say, a HAC or battleship or 3, and you can go laughing all the way to the bank! Just make sure you insure your ship before you undock :))
The tactic is to roam basically unscouted, so as to not reveal your arrival (you will get noticed and reported on the enemy channels at some point, that's inevitable). When the gang jumps in each member warps to his/her previously assigned asteroid belt, and the lucky one to land on an enemy ratter/ISK farmer yells out "WARP TO (enter name)!!!" on comms. When you kill a Raven, you're happy. When you kill a Marauder battleship, you're falling off your chair laughing. And when you kill a badly fitted, faction-fitted carrier who doesn't give much of a fight, you talk about it for weeks !!!
How can you not love PvP after that ?!?!?! :))
Kick the tires and light the fires
o7
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