I recently wrote in the general forum about my search for meaningful content in Eve after having played and left and played and left EvE over a several year cycle. Unsurprisingly, meaningful content leaves me knocking on the door of PvP. I’ve read Feyd’s blog concerning the concept of mission flipping and what he calls the Ishkur of Fantastic and although the original blog entry is several years old, I’ve seen some semi-recent references to it in other blogs and forum posts. So my biggest question is simple, is this still a thing? I know mission flipping certainly is, but how about the ishkur? Also, Feyd claims that if you don’t have the skills for the ishkur then you can start out in an incursus and work your way up. This sounds great but I am hoping people can help me if updated fits are required and what kind of expectations I can have regarding legitimate targets… I mean, Feyd (and others) have some remarkable kills listed on their blogs, but they’re all the ishkur variety. What should I expect to be able to take down with an incursus in the context of mission flipping? I was able to scare off a thorax by orbiting at 500 and shooting his MTU but had the thorax engaged me instead of warping away, I would have only been able to apply about 96 dps on him. I can’t imagine that would have been enough. Don’t get me wrong, it was an awesome experience, but I’m looking for someone to help me set some expectations and guidelines as to what I can actually accomplish with an incursus as my skills progress. As I mentioned in the other thread, I’m more than willing to learn, but coming from a place of significant ignorance on the topic, I need some further guidance to get started in the right direction. Thanks!
TLDR: is the Ishkur of Fantastic still a thing for mission flipping? What can be expected from an Incursus in that same role?
I hadn’t heard of it before but I just read the blog entry. Funny enough, he described essentially the same build I have converged on. The mid slots are identical to what I run (this account is a new alt, but my main has many years of Ishkur 1v1 piloting)
I think where the blog post is outdated is that there are new options for tank. We have the new AF damage control module and the nano armor rep. I find the new AF damage control module to be excellent against higher-burst targets (it’s given me good luck vs destroyers), but it fares much worse against other AFs who run tanky, cap-boosted setups. It just doesn’t provide the longevity. So if you do choose to run it, be a bit more picky with your engagement profile if you have a less risky playstyle.
The ancillary rep consumes nanite repair paste for additional rep power, but has reduced rep power vs a small armor repair when its out of charges. I actually run both the ancilalry armor rep and the traditional small armor rep and use them as needed. The cap booster lets me keep them both running if needed.
For tops I actually run 3 electrons and a neut. I prefer having multiple angles of attack (blasters, drones, and neut) but only because I try to focus on 1v1s. If you want better turrets, drop the neut and maybe skimp on tank a bit or one of your mids to run ion blasters. Just depends on playstyle and how good your drone skills are, mine do a lot of damage but if they didnt I might be running ions.
That’s basically what I run in a nutshell, it’s been fairly effective for me
I’m currently training for ion blasters w/ void S ammo . . . and my drone skills are pretty darn good from lots of time using a Stratios to run DED sites. This was where I was most concerned about the age of the blog - the fittings.
I’ll be able to fly an ishkur by this time tomorrow but I don’t really fancy buying and fitting one up until I get some actual combat experience in the duel rep incursus . . . I don’t need to necessarily WIN the engagements, but I don’t want to jump in a much more expensive ship without having some actual experience to fall back on when the super heated plasma starts flying around. So right now my most pressing question is about what I can expect to do with an incursus. What are my best targets? What can I reliably break in terms of getting past their active tank, etc?
Below is the incursus fit i use in low sec, i get ~200dps on target, and 100+hp/s in reps cold. You can save a lot by fitting the tech one rigs over the t2. When you are tanking light damage leave the standard repper running full time and pulse the ancil as needed. If you are face tanking a destroyer or cruiser overheat both and let’m rip, and don’t forget to eat cap boosters when you hit 30% (the alarm will sound anyway, but this is super important). It’s a nasty little ship. People are a lot more willing to engage with an incursus over an ishkur or enyo too. They’ll assume, incorrectly, that a t1 ship will be an easy target. For the fit nazis that will tell you to swap one of those nanopumps for a accelerator i’ll say only this. It will eat more cap and the ancil will actually rep less total hp over its full breadth of charges if you fit that way. If you are losing with paste still in the repper then by all means swap the rig.
Good luck
[Incursus, Punctum X]
Small Armor Repairer II
Small Ancillary Armor Repairer
Damage Control II
Magnetic Field Stabilizer II
Small Capacitor Booster II
Faint Epsilon Scoped Warp Scrambler
1MN Y-S8 Compact Afterburner
Light Neutron Blaster II
Light Neutron Blaster II
Light Neutron Blaster II
Small Auxiliary Nano Pump II
Small Auxiliary Nano Pump II
Small Ancillary Current Router I
Hobgoblin II x1
Void S x1740
Nanite Repair Paste x44
Null S x1500
Navy Cap Booster 400 x9
Thanks for the fit! I’ll test it out when I get home! Do you find that 200dps is consistently enough to break a PVE ship’s active tank? What kind of ships do you normally target?
Edit: oh, I notice you’re using the standard damage control. Do you have thoughts on the ADC?
That is an incursus it can’t fit the adc. If it could it would be even more beastly. use your single drone to eat your target’s drones one at a time, and keep the guns on them the whole time. If i was picking targets i would avoid ships with huge drone bays, and destroyers as a whole for the most part. I have killed a few destroyers 1v1 in that exact ship, but it was close. You are still vulnerable to significant neut pressure even with the cap booster so i’d steer clear of anything likely to be fit with neuts. Keep in mind pve active tanks are not generally setup to face tank what you’ll be throwing at them AND they usually don’t have any means of forcing you to stay and fight. It may be worth testing a few targets to see how it holds up, and at 12m each(t1 rigs) it’s certainly cheap enough to do so.
I think Ranar has given you some really good advice on the Incursus. I have fought a few dual rep ones myself and they are never to be taken lightly. If you do decide to transition into an Ishkur, feel free to shoot me an EVE mail if you need any help. You might want to consider the Enyo as well if you don’t like to use drones; Enyo’s are also particularly effective in Wolf-Rayet wormholes. Between the two, I prefer the Ishkur because I think it has a lot more potential utility and the ship lets you be creative in how you use it. The Enyo is more of a powerful workhorse that you know can blast other ships to smithereens in no time.
I like the enyo over the ishkur, but you do loose some versatility for that choice. Enyo is an in your face, blasters melting kind of boat and that’s definitely my bag Ishkur can be flown that way but doesn’t have to to be effective. Saw a guy that has gotten several vni kills in his just kiting at the edge of point range letting drones and rails do their work. Heavies can’t keep up, but if you carry warriors you can run him off.
I’ve always preferred the enyo for this. Reactive armor hardeners are fun in these situations - just run the ADC while the hardener adapts if there is a lot of dps up front, and don’t forget to turn the reactive off then on again if the damage type switches suddenly. The kills there all happened before the ADC update. Since then, I have swapped the adaptive membrane for it.
The incursus is definitely a lot more limited in its engagement profile. That said, the fit below tanks 280 DPS, which is not at all bad. The tank increases if incoming dps is only of one type. With only explosive incoming dps, the fit reps 580 DPS. Its own dps outuput (176) is, however, very low and fixed to kin/therm. Combined with the absence of a neut, this might often lead to stalemates. In these cases, just say you have friends with catalysts/tornados on the way and demand ransom. The fit is also very tight - some implants might be necessary, else you can downgrade the guns to electrons or ions. Without a DC, you have no hull buffer, so make sure you stay on top of the reps. It might also be worthwhile to switch the AAR for a regular small t2 repper to have a more consistent tank throughout the fight.
[Incursus, trolltank]
Small Armor Repairer II
Reactive Armor Hardener
Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane II
Small Ancillary Armor Repairer, Nanite Repair Paste
Small Capacitor Booster II, Navy Cap Booster 400
Initiated Compact Warp Scrambler
1MN Afterburner II
Light Neutron Blaster II, Void S
Light Neutron Blaster II, Void S
Light Neutron Blaster II, Void S
Small Auxiliary Nano Pump II
Small Anti-Explosive Pump II
Small Auxiliary Nano Pump II
Fair amount of people also use rail fit incursus, because lets face it; anyone who pvps is probably not going to engage your incursus at point blank range. It is however a fun ship to fly and if you know how to use it/with some luck, you can snag a various amount of things - think ive even snagged a garmur before that came into a plex i was at.
best thing about ishkur i guess is its cheap as chips so no issues when you lose one lol
Ishkur can be flown that way but doesn’t have to to be effective. Saw a guy that has gotten several vni kills in his just kiting at the edge of point range letting drones and rails do their work. Heavies can’t keep up, but if you carry warriors you can run him off.