I have seen 3 different people make guides on how to run L4 missions with the Raven Navy Issue. I have seen them done 7 different missions ranging from Serpentis, Sansha, Rogue Drones, Blood Raiders, Ammar (?), and Angels. Each perosn just changed a hardener module, torpedo ammo, and drone loadout depending on the mission. 2 of them did them in clean clones and one said he was on his mid-grade amulets he forgot to swap out, all said the purpose of their demonstration was that you didn’t need a fancy pod or officier modules as long as you knew the waves and knew how to fly a Raven.
Can the Ammar Navy Ships well flown and fitted to the same thing? I was tempted to think “no.” An Apocalypse Navy Issue is going to suffer when it hits something that heavily resists thermal damage. So therefore, I think it should be restricted to things like Serpentis, Blood Raiders and so on. I know both the Dominex Navy Issue and the Paladin can handle all the missions, but honestly I can rationalize it “their raw DPS is so big, it doesn’t matter if you’re damage locked”
I did see some fits online, but none of them had screenshots of them actually flying the ships in missions so I was wondering if they were like the people I saw running the Raven Navy ships and tried it out, or if they were just extrapolating “hey if it can run mission X, it can run all l4s.” My usual method of trying something out just involves the attempted solo fit trying and then calling for help from 6 Ishtars to wrap in if “oh ■■■■ I’m dying” but most of my corp seem satisfied to know that Raven or Dominex navy versions can do the jobs and don’t really seem to interested in knowing if Apocalypse Navy Issue was up to the task. I was wondering if there was an Apocalypse Navy Issue fit (that doesn’t use officer modules) that could handle the Angels, and then with a few simple swaps of tanking modules be able to swap to different missions. Yes the pally is a great ship, but it lacks the “oh ■■■■ I need to warp off” option.
The reason the Raven is so popular is because it is so versatile, able to deal and tank any damage type depending on the fit/ammo.
Amarr ships only do EM/Thermal damage, so if you’re doing Amarr L4s then it’ll do great, but against almost anything else it’ll definitely feel slower and harder.
Marauders don’t need that option for missions. Granted, I haven’t flown a Pally, but I’ve flown the other three Marauders and never needed it. As long as you manage your aggro and spawn triggers, you’ll never have enough incoming DPS to hurt one.
I don’t mind it being a bit slower against stuff like Serpentis or whatever, but I just want a fit that can do it. I know some of my buddies who use Gilas on certain sites (not L4s, the so called “unrated” are basically “at max capacity.” The DPS of the fit can blap certain high threat NPCs before they are a problem but if the DPS was slightly lowered and the “problem NPCs” live for 3 minutes, the lack of tank props a warp off.
If the Ammar ships are “at capacity” against Sansha, then taking out Angel or Serpentis rats slower would be trouble. On the other hand if they’re doing swimmingly against Sansha being a bit sluggish to take out a few NPCs is just an inconvenience. Just swap out one membrane specific to a damage to another, then take a bit more time on the waves. I’m not sure where the Apocalypse Navy Issue stands on this.
As for the “oh ■■■■ I need to warp off” I don’t think I’ve seen anyone need to do that in a Marauder in HS or LS against NPCs unless they were really bad at cap management. On the flip side, player characters can be a reason to need to warp off. This poor Golem from zKillboard I’m not sure why the game is like this. Do I expect 5 guys to be able to beat this Golem? Yes in NS. Do I expect 7 guys to be able to beat this Golemn in 10 seconds before CONCORD saves the day? No, but I’m clearly wrong and being able to go “Oh ■■■■, these guys are here” would be nice for the victim. It’s why when I find a site that can be completed in ship X, I wonder if ship X with a better align time can do it.
Be like what? An open PvP game where the players are the only real danger?
4 bombers should really hurt a marauder, the other guy was in a rookie ship and died to gate guns, likely due to standing. Bombers are the hard counter to the bastion module. They’re small and fast to get under the guns, and combined they were pushing over 3,200dps.
He took 33k damage. He never turned his tank on, had he done that he’d have survived that first shot. Those 4 bombers have just enough alpha damage to volley a marauder off the grid if the marauder pilot doesn’t have good shield support skills, but only if the bastion module and the hardeners are turned off.
The Golem simply wasn’t paying attention, and paid the price for that. Having the tank active on that ship would have pushed his EHP up high enough to surive whatever those 4 bombers threw at him until Concord showed up.
Battlecruisers can do most L4 missions, and if you have really good support skills, you can do a lot of them in some of the HACs.
Marauders are really quite safe to fly. Pay attention, don’t fall for suspect bait, and FFS don’t go near SOE L4 Agents with one, like in the example you posted. Osmon is a death trap for Marauders.
Oh Ok that makes sense. I was thinking “these bombers took out a maurader within 10 seconds? I’d have thought with hardeners and no bastion he really should last better than this…”
OK I can live with that. When I first saw the killmail and put the fit into Pyfa but turned off bastion I was like “wow! They ate through this in 10 seconds? That’s nuts.” I didn’t look closer into that.
I thought most T1 BCs and HACs were roughly the same DPS so a HAC was just a faster version of it’s bigger cousin. Like I thought the Ishtar was just a faster version of the Mymidon.
Thanks for explaining all this, particularly why that Golem died, for me.
A HAC with mediocre support skills is roughly the same as a T1 BC, but if you have good support skills, aka all of them at at least 4 with most of them at 5, then HACs can be better. If you take the time to train Heavy Assault Cruisers 5, they become extremely powerful. My Cerberus does more damage and has more tank than my Drake, while being significantly faster and better at clearing small rats.
L4 missions aren’t difficult. It comes down to how fast you can clear them to boost your Isk/hr.
Which is why Amarr lasers suck at it due to limited EM/TH damage. Even with Amarr agents, they will send you on missions against various NPCs, not limited to Blood or Sansha.
If you want to stick with BBs and not Marauders, then besides the Raven, there are a few other great options, with good dps at long range to avoid most of the incoming damage. Use MJD to get range. Clear room, MJD to gate.
Armageddon with Cruise missiles + sentry drones. Warden & Curator sentries can reach out to 80km+ easily. With EMP + Kinetic dmg, you got most NPC weaknesses to exploit. Navy variant is very high dps for a BB.
Tempest with Artillery sniping will work well when you gear it for max range. You can select damage type with ammo. It applies instantly even to small targets (at long range), making it more effective in missions with wide range of NPCs vs missile boats.
Basically, when you built to snipe, you don’t need much tank as almost nothing hits you besides Guristas, and you got the DPS to melt them before they cause much trouble. Large Rep + adaptive hardener is enough.
First, it is Amarr, not Ammar. People have been cruicified for less.
Second, yes they can. However only with two options:
either going for range and sniping the whole area, then the performance is - like always - mediocre. Everytime you go the sniping-route you sacrifice DPS for range… So, you get at most ~900 DPS while you could get 1300+ when brawling.
which leads us to option number two: blinging like hell. With a 2B+ fitting and a 3B+ clone you can make an Amarr Battleship tanky enough with enough capacitor reserves to survive in the middle of the fray.
Which leads us to the obvious question: Why not simply use a Paladin and jump up from an either mediocre or otherwise expensive solution to the absolute top of the food chain? The Paladin is the fastest missionrunner by a mile, it can handle L4 in a pretty cheap setup and it will surpass anything you can fit on a Faction Battleship by a huge margin.
Cause I got scared from the Kronos killmail I made a few posts ago (although it seems on closer examining, the guy probably has his hardeners turned off which is why he got blapped as easily as a Gila) so I searched for a navy ship solution since I have skills for them because…
I don’t know. I have 7 Armageddons, 30 Dragoons, and 1 Curse labeled “Neutgeddons” with full rack of neuts and noses in my assets. They aren’t PVE ships at all and I seem to have perfect capacitor warfare and Sentry skills for a reason I don’t remember. One of them even says its from asset safety from a low sec citadel from the same system I don’t have docking to so I’m not even sure what I was doing with that. I wasn’t planning to use them for missions, but I figured if I had max skills for them, then I could buy a navy ship and fit one properly for PVE.
Basically I valued “get off grid” apparently more than I needed to.
Why do I even have max Sentry skills? Last time I remember doing PVE in K space I used navy sentries since I couldn’t even use tech II sentries. Oh well, I can use tech II now so that’s nice.
Actually why do so many of my assets not make sense? So many stuff from Placid, Verge Vendor, and Everyshore are PVP ships with names that make no sense. Why is a neuting dragoon labeled “neutageddon”? Why do I have an armor logi labeled “Cap stable logi” that runs out in 50 minutes even with max capacitor skills?
Well I guess none of that is relevant to the OP. Thanks for your fitting suggestions and pointing ouit that the Golem pilot mostly likely got blown up due to not paying attention, not because battleships are squishy.
