As the title says, I have few ideas but was just curious as to what you guys think hull and fit wise. I’m kinda torn between Rattle, Loki and Tengu. Tengu might be best where Kinetic weapons are best suited for the particular rat type, I can get really sweet rounded DPS type + tank + mobility on Loki and Rattler, well thats self explanatory. I’m also a fan of Navy Scorp, not sure if thats doable for L5s though.
Marauders may do well, but that immobility on siege mode will leave me extra vulnreable to PvP so I kinda don’t like it.
However, I’m open to suggestions, ideas, comments, general feedback.
And then there are the upcoming balance changes that will give battleships some buffs to think about.
Rattlesnake, 100%. You’ll need to use different fits for each mission. Passive tank on most of them. You’re right about marauders, I think they’re one of the worst choices for lvl 5s, if you’re going to spend that much time training for something carriers are a better choice for level 5s, even with trash skills.
Rogue Spy part 1 - passive tank with rapid heavies
Convoy attack - mjd with cruise missiles and sentries, no tank needed
breeding facility - don’t deploy drones, just shoot the closest breeding facilities with cruise missiles and warp out
cleansing fire - cruise or rapid heavies should work fine
wrath of angels - Cruise missiles, just snipe out the drug lab, bookmark and warp out. Buy scientists on contract, hand them in and come back for the ones you bookmarked for next time.
sansha on the horizon - you can active tank on this one, really high incoming damage, cruise might be best. I’ve never done this one in a snake.
I think that’s about it. Any of the other missions are either going to take way too long or are too dangerous for a battleship. You might be able to do big sting, but I’m not sure. Reclamation and The Fortress will eat your ship. Sansha Acquisition and Wyrmsbane have too many hitpoints on the structures and incoming damage. Wyrmslayer might be doable but I’m not sure. You should try that one though cuz its the best mission.
I would highly suggest making a faction puller, and getting your main’s faction standing to +7 if you haven’t already. You will have to decline a lot of missions but with two pullers you should be pretty much good to cherry pick with some practice.
You can use a Marauder if your ship creates an extra 90gj/s (on most missions). I think Marauders can do this but it’s a really expensive ship that’s ultimately going to cost you the same as a carrier, and does less damage than a rattlesnake.
Bastion mode is useless in L5s, the tractor beam is useless because there’s very few wrecks to loot, tanking bonuses are all active tank related. Despite being really strong ships, marauders are just terrible for level 5s imo. They’re just the wrong toolbox for the job.
So pretty much as I thought so far. I still might give it a go with a Navy Scorp, since I won’t be doing drones a lot of times but MJD + cruise. The scorp can pass cruise missle damage of a rattle and has far better tank cause of the built in hull bonusses and 8 mids so more utility (hit accuracy) + longer targeting range.
I am still a bit off on this as I am grinding factions on my 2nd toon. I intend to do these mainly a solo ship combat wise, my 2nd will be only to pull misssions and support in case of PvP. I’m thinking cloaky recon with dampeners or some sort of a cloaky ECM ship that can jam or dampen more then 1 opponent at a time.
Scorp navy works great actually. Anything with a passive shield tank that can spit 1k dps at 100km is fantastic for a lot of the missions. The 4% resists per level will help with the rest of the missions.
It actually sounds like you’re pretty prepared which is good. A lot of people go into level 5s with a lot of misconceptions. Many people think just because you have the standing and a ship that can do them (t3) that they will make more than they would blitzing burner missions and that’s just not the case.
If you want to exceed high sec burner ISK it will come down to the following:
Don’t spend more than 10 minutes in a mission (unless you’re learning/experimenting)
Use a minimum of 2 faction pullers. One can be your main. Corporate pullers won’t cut it.
Diplomacy 5 on both pullers.
Social 5 on both pullers.
Declining is so important. You’ll decline roughly 4-6 missions for each one you accept. Always pool your mission rewards except on storylines. About half the level 5s are just undoable. They take forever, they’re crazy dangerous, and they’re just not worth it for the isk/h ratio. Make your own level 5 whitelist and slowly grow that list one mission at a time.
As you’re learning the missions, try to see each one for what it is. Each mission is a certain amount of ISK that can be attained in a certain amount of time. Slowly shorten that time mission by mission. Learn each mission as if it is the only mission in the world. Respect each mission. When you start upgrading your operation, think things like “I want to add The Big Sting Part 1 to my roster. Which ship is best and how many systems does the agent send me to for that mission?.” Then proceed to be a baller and put a ship in each one of those systems. I don’t do the big sting, but it’s just an example. Just think big when it it comes to level 5s. You get paid big, so think big.
Also, let me just plug carriers real quick. If you weren’t already planning on it, get some carriers! Carriers can only do about 5-6 of the level 5s, but they absolutely smash those missions in less than 5 minutes. Even with trash skills and t1 fit, you can bang out these specific missions lickity-split. So I highly suggest training for a carrier, even if you have no interest in ever going t2.
Edit: After some pyfa dicking I’ve come to the conclusion the scorp navy definitely can’t do it. Not enough dps and passive shield recharge. Stick with the rattlesnake.
I made this post a fairly long while ago, to make a long story short, I ended up doing it in Navy Scorp + Arazu alt. The Scorp has massive tank + enough primary deeps to deal with almost everything. Occasionally I would also engage the Arazu. The Arazu is focused on damps though and stays cloaky which helped me when I got jumped. This worked out to be a much better combination then just Rattler. The time to actual combat completion is a bit longer but is actually safer and more flexible.
I also did the level 5 epic arcs in same Navy Scorp. Gallente arc I was able to solo outright without any help or alts, but had to warp out on the 2 biggest fights, rep then warp back in, but only once per fight so not too bad.
All factors considered, I abandoned L5s relatively quick. Just not worth it. Far too little reward for the risk + effort necessary. Only L5s I will do is the epic arcs as they come of off their 3 month cooldowns, simply to break the monotonny, as well as I can actually use some of the stuff while at it. The regular L5s, forget them, not worth it, there are better, easier ways.
Navy Scorp is not a good choice, you need over 1500 dps passive recharge… which, only the snake can provide.
Also you’re only supposed to do Rogue Spy 1 and Breeding Facility with the snake. If you did either of these… you should know that it’s not possible to get jumped unless you’re basically asleep. Rogue spy won’t even spawn enemies until you’re 100km from the warp in beacon and the mission itself takes 8 minutes, and breeding facility takes less than 30 seconds.
You could use the Navy Scorp on Convoy Attack, but the barghest is better.
The one thing I will say is i like the Arazu. Although, again… those two missions are like impossible to get jumped on so you’d be better off with a second snake
Caldari Navy Shield Power Relay
Caldari Navy Shield Power Relay
Caldari Navy Shield Power Relay
Caldari Navy Shield Power Relay
Caldari Navy Shield Power Relay
Caldari Navy Shield Power Relay
Rapid Heavy Missile Launcher II, Caldari Navy Inferno Heavy Missile
Rapid Heavy Missile Launcher II, Caldari Navy Inferno Heavy Missile
Rapid Heavy Missile Launcher II, Caldari Navy Inferno Heavy Missile
Rapid Heavy Missile Launcher II, Caldari Navy Inferno Heavy Missile
Rapid Heavy Missile Launcher II, Caldari Navy Inferno Heavy Missile
Drone Link Augmentor II
Large Anti-EM Screen Reinforcer II
Large Anti-Thermal Screen Reinforcer II
Large Core Defense Field Purger II
Warrior II x5
‘Augmented’ Ogre x2
Imperial Navy Curator x2
Praetor II x2
Mobile Depot x1
Republic Fleet Shield Recharger x1
When you land on the beacon head at a 45 degree angle above the giant drone structure thing with your micro on. You’ll have to go 80-100km so overheat. As soon as things start spawning drop the mobile depot. Once the timer is done switch the micro out for another shield recharger and scoop the depot. Put drones on the battleships and missiles on the frigates that spawn. When you warp out your ship will stop half way because you wont have enough capacitor to go the whole distance. Show passive modules and offline the shield power relays one by one so you don’t have to wait as long.
Sorry, should have re-phrased that. All the epic arcs requiring 5+ faction standing.
As for the otehr stuff, I might go back to L5s once my alt is fully trained and operational in BLOPS to replace the Arazu as a cloaky / secondary DPS / EW. It’ll make them much easier, but that will be a long ways off and I’m not sure if I will go for Widow, or Sin.
As for getting jumped, you don’t have to get actually jumped for people to come in, and I like how the Arazu worked out for that. BLOPS will be even better. They don’t know or care much what you’re runnign, they just scan down your boat and hop to it. Yea, you can stay aligned and warp out immediately, but not if you’re on your objective, so have to have a way to hold out a while.
the epic soe required nothing, so it is a l1 epic (all L1 agent are always available) ; the epic angel/guristas need 3 so they are effectively L3 epics.
(sorry for the off topic. I thought there was something I did not know about epic arcs)
Each main faction also has a “Level 4” Epic Arc that requires +5 standings with that Faction to run.
Amarr = Right to Rule
Caldari = Penumbra
Gallente = Syndication
Minmatar = Wildfire
Sigh. Am not talking the newb SOE arc or the entry lvl 3 arcs, the actual Gallente, Caldari, Min and Amm arcs. I forgot their names off teh top of my head.
But if you don’t know what it is I am referring to, once in teh game, bring up your character sheet, interactions, faction standings, it gives you a little bar at the top with sorta star shaped thingies. Move mouse over the ones for 5.0 and it gives you the list of things becoming available to you, thats where you find the epic arcs. Not SOE, not the pirate ones, the actual epic arcs. And make sure you are on the actual faction wide standing when doing this, not some corp or agent standing.
My bad, I read your sentence as an affirmation that “all the epic arcs requirE 5+standing” when you meant to replace “L5” by this “all[…] requirING 5+standing”. I thought you had made a mistake.
Other than that, I did all the L4 epic already several times ( and showtime hits VERY hard, 1500 DPS I think)
I miss the days of running lvl4s for Angel Cartel having a giant stack of ship bpcs and no care in the world except to make time for roams.Back then the cartel ships especially dramiel was regarded as OP. Also some rather cool missions there I think one of the storyline ones can drop the Ogdin enhancer implant and of course shooting concord ships in DED blockade felt refreshing
i know this is a dead thread. But I just wanted to mention I met a guy recently that uses 3 accounts, 3 tengus and can do any lvl 5 with that setup. I think this setup is the “Best sub cap solo L5 mission set up” that I’ve ever seen.
