I have been running T1 Dark Abyssal sites in a Hawk.
Is it just me or did the difficulty level suddenly jump?
I run a rocket fit and prior to the Catalyst expansion, I rarely had problems with most of the rooms, able to complete most runs in around 10 to 12 minutes and usually not breaking a sweat.
I have both Scourge Rage and Javelin rockets but honestly for most rooms just used regular Scourge rockets that I make myself. Of course there are the ‘danger’ spawns that would provide a challenge (still figuring out the best way to deal with the Devoted Knight and the Tessera) and several of the room require the Rage rockets for the added DPS but for the most part it was a fairly chill way do some missions and earn some isk (granted it is not all that rewarding, with an average of about 4 million isk per run).
With the Catalyst expansion, however, I am finding each run and many rooms to be a close call. I upgraded to polarized rocket launchers, which gives me over 400 DPS and I still barely make it out. The rogue drones (spark, ember and blastneedles) went from being the easiest room to arguably being the hardest. I’m not sure but I think the numbers increased (I guess I did not keep track but it feels that usually I would run into 5 of them. Now it seems 6 is more common). Prior to the expansion, I would only need to run my shield booster intermittently and never came close to armor. Now I run it continuously and in my last run got well into armor with the rogue drones.
Mostly I’m curious if I’ve just run into a bad string of difficult rooms (though if so it is a pretty long string) or if others have noticed that difficulty increase.
Hawk, Accipiter
Ballistic Control System II
Ballistic Control System II
1MN Y-S8 Compact Afterburner
Small Shield Booster II
Compact EM Shield Amplifier
Medium F-S9 Regolith Compact Shield Extender
Small Compact Pb-Acid Cap Battery
Polarized Rocket Launcher
Polarized Rocket Launcher
Polarized Rocket Launcher
Polarized Rocket Launcher
125mm Light Prototype Automatic Cannon
Small EM Shield Reinforcer II
Small Bay Loading Accelerator II
Mjolnir Rage Rocket x4776
Scourge Rocket x4352
Scourge Javelin Rocket x5000
Scourge Rage Rocket x4196
Phased Plasma S x4714
(note: I have a Gypsy implant to be able to fit this. I am not able to squeeze in a type II for the Shield Extender or the Cap Battery, even without the Auto cannon, which I admit is stupid but adds about 18 DPS and nothing else fits. Honestly, ideally I’d add a Nosferatu but can’t make that fit, either).