Armor Blaster Gnosis?

I was running a chemical site in Solitude when some guy came in a Gnosis and tried to blap me. I think he got off 3 volleys before I slowboated out of his effective range and he just started missing every shot. His shields melted quickly but I couldn’t put a dent in his armor with phased plasma or fusion. The Hammerheads did just about nothing. Eventually I just got out of point range and decided to refit and go to another site. Then this happened a second time. And then on a third chemical site, it happened again, but I just stuck around on grid to see what he did after I got out of point range. I also unleased some disposable t1 drones just to see probe what he was fit with and it seems he mostly resisted thermal and explosive, but until the drones were killed I could see the Vespas doing more damage but the overal damage continuously dropping. Also he was so unconcerned he didn’t even sic his drones on mine. He killed the last 10% of the rats and then just hacked the containers. I came back 30 minutes later and could tell from D-scan he was in another chicmial site 3.6 AU from the NPC station (nothing else was in the 30 degree cone since I knew where all the signatures and anomalies were). When I was about 75% done, his signature disappeared and I saw the combat probes flying again. I tried to wrap up the site, but I saw him coming at the warp in point the gate offered and I just ran away. At this point I got the message and took 7 jumps to find a place where there wasn’t an active hunter. But this made me wonder… what kind of Gnosis fit would work like that?

May have been blaster fit and void M loaded, so not much range there. I wonder why he used a long point with blasters and no web?
And why didn’t you just kill that badly fit ships yourself? If I were to fit a Gnosis with blasters on, you can bet I will use 2x webs to keep you right there and a scram, so you don’t leave.

Remember, the Gnosis has all resistances covered, so it doesn’t matter what ammo you use, just keep shooting.
He may have had a reactive hardener on and that may have been misaligned for the incoming damage.

Looks like a Reactive Armor Hardener to me. Makes even sense if he was armor fit. Since you used “Plasma” and “Fusion” I suppose u used an Projectile-Gun fitting. You have two ways to counter his Reactive hardener with your guns:

  • Option 1: hit him with “Plasma” ammo and Hammerheads first, his Reactive Hardener will slowly shift towards thermal resistance (up to 60%), because you deal mostly thermal. You will notice your damage notifications of the drones go down and then stabilize). Then reload Fusion, switch drones to Valkyries overheat your guns and try to break him in one hard attack. Because he will have almost no Explosive resistance at this point, his hardener has to shift back with each cycle and often your are able to break an active tank this way.
  • Option 2: split your guns and load different ammo so you deal multiple damage types. His Reactive hardener can’t adapt this way and will only provide 15% resist per type, which is pretty bad compared to a multispectum membrane or even a coating (with compensation skills).

Well and of course option 3: neut him, the Reactive Hardener + Reppers need quite a bit cap to run.

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I tried, his tank was just too good. I could have fired everything at him the first site and he’d just take the containers and run since I couldn’t hold him down or put much of a dent in his armor. I could rep the damage he did after I showboated out of the way but I didn’t fancy my chances of hanging around for 15 minutes trying to kill the guy when the system had through traffic and someone could jump in on the fun.

He even mentioned in local at the drone site that he was like “ooooh… I mixed up point and scram. You’re lucky”

Can a PVP armor blaster gnosis work or is that better left to Gallante ships?

Most stuff can work under the right circumstances and piloted by a player who knows how to use the ship.

A Gnosis isn’t a particulary fast ship, so with a blaster fit it really needs to catch something very close and then hold it. Can work nicely behind acceleration gates or other areas whenyou know exactly where the opponent will land. Also works nicely vs targets that can’t move much and you can get a warpin to zero (a scanned marauder, Orca, Capital etc…). Or if the target is already hard tackled by a bait.

I personally prefer Weapon Systems with a better projection on slow ships, so I won’t be kited to death by someone with a faster ship. Medium Blasters won’t even hit with Null at standard pointrange (22-28km). Pulselasers with Scorch or Autocannons with Barrage do. And quite nice.

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He kept warping to 0 on me, but even if he didn’t all he needed was a bait ship if he needed a way to lose the distance.

Oh and a way to shut down the MWD with either scram or neuts.

So you think an armor blaster gnosis can work? Do you have an idea for a good fit if someone is going after a Retriever that can be used as a warp in point? Even if the barge has no tackle modules, I think most people if they were barge hunting wouldn’t bother warping away if they see a Gnosis on D-scan.

Yeah I know that’s why I thought I made some rather futile volleys before just going away. He wouldn’t sic his drones on me and his blasters were useless. Then I found out my own weapons were doing almost nothing and he only needed to put his repper on maybe 1/7 of the time. If I had to slowboat without my MWD (say if he just capped me out with a neut) I think I’d be dead.

T2 Hybrid Ammo

Null long range and Void short range so they are null and void…

As said, of course it can work, depending on the circumstances and your personal preferences. For starting a fight at 0, its a good option.

The details of the fit can vary vastly as the Gnosis has so many boni and so many slots.
You could use a Neut in the utility high or a Command Burst. Or you can use two neuts, sacrificing one gun. You could use dualprop, dualweb, scram, capbooster. Or an MJD escape anyone only having a point. Or dualcapbooster/dualneut/dualrep. With your Cargo of 900m³ you could even go dual med capbooster, full neuts and melt him with drone damage only, always having the gtfo option because he will be permanently empty and cannot tackle you. However projectile/missileboats will still be able to shoot you as their weapon systems don’t need cap.

For testing, I’d go with this:

The tracking computer enables you to use Null up to 20km or help you tracking an AfterburnerFrig/Dest wanting to close orbit you (switch script then and use the small neut). But you can always switch that slot out for whatever you want. Use a third web or a TrackingDisruptor (range script) or whatever you like.

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Thank you for a suggestion

I would go with a rep variant, as I really hate flying passive tanked stuff, but whatever floats your boat as they say…

Judging by the questions he asks here, I somehow doubt he has the experience and softskills to handle the by far more tricky engagement with an active tank. For beginners and simple jobs like ‘warpin to 0 → engage’ a passive tank is the better option because they can focus on range, application and maybe weapon overheat. And then either it works or it doesn’t. With an active tank you’d need to have good cap management, overheat management on the reppers and be aware not to over-rep, especially with ancillary reppers. Yes, an expert would rather chose an active tank, but he doesn’t look like one (no offense).

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Nope! I’m totally not an expert. Thie causes headaches in fleets when someone is missing and I technically have the skill POINTs to replace the missing guy but not the skills, but I now need to do something more exomplex than tackle the guy already tackeld by a frigate and then hit f1 to blow it up. Some of the ships I only know the basics from youtube but don’t get any more idea than the raw stats sicne I’ve never flown them.

I see. Why are you trying to fly an armor blaster Gnosis?

The idea sounded cool and I wanted to do something like what he did, except making a bit more sense (like… maybe a warp scrambler instead of a point?). But I wanted to know if it was a workable idea that could be executed better or if it was totally dumb. Like my idea to use a Tormentor with artillery when I thought it was a ship with drone bonus instead of its actual energy turret bonus was pretty dumb. I was prepared to accept the answer of “he was being an idiot, it won’t work” if it was true but it seems that his real problem wasn’t the whole ship design, but the fact that once he warped to 0 he didn’t fit anything that could make me stay put.

…huh?
For what reason are you fitting up an Armor Blaster Gnosis? What will you do with it? Where will you be? What is your flying style? What are your expected targets? How good are your skills?

Since all weapons get a bonus on the Gnosis, you can pick any weapon you like and use it. But you need to fit the rest of the ship to assist the weapon you choose.
All weapons require you fly different as well. Missiles will be very different from blasters or arties.

You def can but with the meta being kite, you always run the risk of getting kited and smited.

Um, let’s a couple of use cases.

Low sec small gang PVP. Targets… don’t know?

Using a bait miner in low sec and some designated bookmarks around him when someone takes the bite (hey, if I made 30 BMs 30 Km away from the barge and 10 within 10 km, surely the guy will either be at one BM or the barge itself and I can just warp right on top of the guy right?) Targets… whatever takes the bite?

And maybe… I’ll try doing what that guy did with probes and landing on top of someone at 0? Targets… battlecrusiers, cruisers, and t1 destroyers munching on angel rats?

Def as a gang it helps apply some massive DPS.

Solo it can be harder.

Eh that’s true, if solo you need a way get on top of the guy while in a gang a tackle ship can just hold something in place while the blaster ship can warp to 0 to the ship.

Practice hunting explorers in a Navy Explo Frig before you invest in a Gnosis. They are slipperier, faster, and generally more forgiving.