Dear all,
A old scool pvp vet here is wondering what the current state op solo black op dropping is. Is it any good? Fun, and douable to pull off? And which new game mechanics are introduced that have a profound effect on drops in the last 7 years?
Thanks in advance,
/Mr LabratoryRat
I would like to know this as i have a redeemer i have yet to use and also any decent fits people have for dropping on and killing things would be appreciated too.
I’m assuming by solo blops you mean: 1 black-ops battleship + any hunter toons. I’d say the current state is pretty good, though the improvements have mostly favoured small gangs of black ops battleships over solo users.
Dropping on ishtars, gilas, etc. is still fairly easy, and the buffs to all the hulls are nice quality of life changes. For the more challenging and rewarding prey, things have changed a bit:
Rattlesnakes, T3Cs. etc. running anoms and DED sites are rarer, because
Marauders are significantly stronger. Expect them to be be dealing 2k dps to you during the drop now, still with very powerful active tanks.
Carriers are also rarer, but are easier prey. They don’t use NSAs anymore, and there are several fits that can solo carriers semi-reliably (blingy widows or really blingy sins/marshalls)
Key things to note with ships / tactics:
Broad tactics haven’t changed much. Capital cyno restrictions make it harder for people to counterdrop you.
Sin is still king for solo. Neuts+active shields are too good, especially against marauders. MasL is still using it to it’s fullest potential (though with extreme bling)
Widows with torps and active shields can deal and take huge amounts of punishment. A reasonably priced fit (3-5b range) can tank a carrier long enough to kill it solo, but marauders can be trickier to break the reps of.
Nano arty panthers are semi-viable for a kitey skirmishing playstyle rather than traditional hotdropping (see BjornBee vods)
Redeemers and panthers are great in groups or for smaller targets, but they struggle against marauders too much to make them more desireable for solo.
This post gives me hope for my ancient unused Widow. I always thought that if I was going to jump a bunch of bombers in I’d want to ECM nerf the things threatening them.
Does it ever work that way?
Yeah if you’re dropping with friends, the ECM on the widow is very useful. It’s why I fly it so often.
Just not really relevant solo after ECM allowed locking on the jamming ships.
Thank you very much for the reply. Very helpful.
Nice kills, hereby a salute for the nice kills you have.
Is smartbombing (7 pcs) still a thing to catch the small stuff on the gates? Besides the solo Sin dropping, as a diversification, i used a Phanter with a full rack of cormacks years ago. Set’s of 4 for the ship & 3 for the insta pod 
. Loooooadss of fun, for the lazyyy moodss.
Damn, I only have a Panther and Deemer xD
Srsly tho good post Katya.
Da fook was a 20 day post being near the top Silly forum.
Blops can jump to industrial cynos, not sure if this is intended, but something you should be aware of.
Black ops can jump to any cyno, industrial ships to industrial cynos and regular cynos, and all other jump-capable ships are limited to jumping to regular cynos.
Yes, that’s intended.
Makes for nice bait, if someone sees an industrial cyno Nereus, decides to go kill it and you can drop your blops on it to kill them. Just be aware that unlike covops cynos the other cynos are warpable beacons from anywhere in system, which makes them a bit more dangerous to fight on.
Ofc it’s, that’s why it’s called black ops, not regular ops. Deception!
Yeah, if you’re doing this solo I do really recommend using an active shield sin or widow. I missed out on an orca+gila kill recently because I only had a armor buffer panther to hand that couldn’t handle the incoming DPS
Also had a very, very close shave recently doing something silly at 0 on a structure in lowsec
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