Hello good folks of the EVE Online forums!
Today I am here to tell you about one of the best and quickest T5 running ships in the game, the Stormbringer. Yes, you heard that right, the dumpster fire of a cruiser that EDENCOM produces. I’m sure a lot of you has seen this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VuAwmwLzdzk
Well I’m here to tell you that that video is now wrong.
I’m making this post as I have finished my 50th consecutive T5 Electrical in this ship, with an average runtime of 10.08 minutes. And the kicker? The fitting, including implants, costs a measly 2.24 billion ISK for Jita sell value.
I do not have video proof of the capabilities of this ship, however I streamed a large portion of my runs on the Abyssal Lurkers discord (shoutout to Abyssal Lurkers for helping me theorycraft this) so multiple people can vouch for the lethality of this ship in abyssal sites.
So, let’s go to the beginning, where I discovered, completely on accident, just how good this ship is.
I’m a fairly high SP player, I can fly most subcaps, and so I wanted to try something new. Of course the newest thing was the EDENCOM ships, which, at that time, were let’s just say less than competent.
I don’t know what madness drove me to actually start training for these ships, but I put EDENCOM Frigate V in my queue and it was off to the races.
A couple days later I had the great idea to try out abyssal sites on SISI for fun. I bought a bunch of extractors on SISI and moved my skillpoints around until I had all relevant skills maxed for the Stormbringer.
I saw that for the T1 ammo you have a choice of either doing a majority of kinetic or a majority of EM damage, while the T2 ammo did a fairly balanced amount of both. So there were three options which initially popped out.
Dark abyssal sites were immediately out of the equation, because the extra speed of the NPCs would mitigate the damage you do.
I decided to first test out a buffer fit in T3 Exotics. I chose Exotics because out of EM and Kinetic resists, Kinetic was naturally higher for the Stormbringer and so the resistance penalty would not hurt it as much.
Now, going into the T3, I did not have much hope at all just because of all I’ve heard about these ships. I also went with the most expensive possible fit and implants I could, because you know, SISI.
I absolutely breezed through the first couple of T3s I did and my shield wasn’t even scratched. So I decided to move up a tier.
T4s were similarly a breeze and so I decided to try out a T5.
Now, I completed 1 T5 with relative ease (I got easy spawns). I decided, just for the fun of it, to try a T6. This did not go well as my fitting was not optimized (I got neuted out) by this point and I died in the last room.
So after that experience I decided to do more testing. All tests went very well and I got to the 23rd T5 Exotic before I was alerted to something, the price:
Now, all these runs had been done in a 8 bil fitting included implants, which was leaning towards the expensive side even for a T5 runner.
I realized that if I wanted something that was not only reliable but also much cheaper, I had to go with an active tanked ship, and the only way I would get a cheap active tanked fit that could also run T5s reliably was doing Electrical filaments.
The reason for this is that Electrical filaments give a 50% boost to your capacitor recharge rate, which makes it supremely easy to run active tanks without sacrificing so many slots for capacitor.
I was given a basic guideline of a fit in the abyssal lurkers discord, which I used (and slightly modified). This fit was around 5-6 bil, which is still nowhere near where I wanted it to be. Still it ran T6s fairly easily. The only problem with T6s is that the Overmind and Karybdis spawns, by far the two spawns that take the longest in this ship, had more health as compared to the T5.
So now that I know that an expensive active tanked would work for T5s, I went as cheap as possible. My first series of tests with T5 Electricals where with a measly 1 billion ISK fit including implants. I was having relative success in this fit until the 12th run, where I ran into a spawn of 5 starving vedmaks, and I died to neuts. I also had to often overheat for certain rooms, which was not optimal.
And that brings us to now. I theorycrafted a 2 billion ISK setup and started clearing T5s at a rapid pace. At around the 23rd run it was brought to my attention that I could improve upon my fit while keeping the same price, and so I used this new fit, which is the one I am currently running. Originally I had been using one Pithum C-Type hardener and one Domination hardener, however people pointed out that two Gistum B-Type hardeners would not be that much more expensive and give better stats.
So I kept on running T5s until I hit 50, which was my benchmark for a reliable fit. Now, let’s move onto the more technical stuff.
The Fit, The Tactics, and the Profit:
Here is the fit in all of its glory:
[Stormbringer, 2 bil Elec V2]
Vorton Tuning System II
Vorton Tuning System II
Vorton Tuning System II
Pithum A-Type Medium Shield Booster
Gistum B-Type Multispectrum Shield Hardener
Gistum B-Type Multispectrum Shield Hardener
Gist X-Type Shield Boost Amplifier
Republic Fleet Large Cap Battery
10MN Afterburner II
Medium Vorton Projector II
Medium Core Defense Operational Solidifier II
Medium Ancillary Current Router I
Medium Capacitor Control Circuit II
Mid-grade Crystal Alpha
Mid-grade Crystal Beta
Mid-grade Crystal Gamma
Mid-grade Crystal Delta
Mid-grade Crystal Epsilon
Mid-grade Crystal Omega
Eifyr and Co. ‘Rogue’ Evasive Maneuvering EM-701
Inherent Implants ‘Squire’ Capacitor Management EM-801
Zainou ‘Gnome’ Shield Operation SP-901
ElectroPunch Ultra M x1580
StrikeSnipe Ultra M x1500
GalvaSurge Condenser Pack M x1500
Nanite Repair Paste x200
Agency ‘Hardshell’ TB5 Dose II x20
Nugoehuvi Synth Blue Pill Booster x20
Let’s go over the fitting decisions behind this in depth.
Lowslots:
At first I ran a damage control and two damage mods, however it became clear that you need to max out your dps as much as possible especially for the dps check rooms like the Overmind and Karybdis, and so I have 3x Vorton Tuning System IIs.
Midslots/Rigs:
My original fit had me running a Gist B-type large shield booster with a medium cap booster and two CCCs for rigs.
However with a Pithum A-type Medium Shield Boost and a midgrade omega implant (my previous version had a low grade for cost) in addition to the B-type hardeners, you get more ehp/s. In addition to that, because of the large cap battery and single tech II CCC, you get a wopping 50+ gj/s (my previous fit had 30 gj/s). I had debated using a Semiconductor Memory Cell instead of the CCC, but decided I like the CCC more.
The AB is tech II because there’s really no reason to go with a blinged AB, it might improve times by a couple of seconds but that’s about it.
Cargo:
Nanite repair paste for if you need to overheat your midslots and you want to repair them before the next room (I have had to overheat my shield booster once in all 50 runs and that’s only because I was being lazy about transversal).
The Nugoehuvi Synth Blue Pill is only 4 mil while giving 5% compared to the base Synth and no side effects and the Hardshell II is only 2 mil. I have only ever had to use these drugs once in all 50 runs. I am somewhat scared of getting a bad roll with a better blue pill and I also don’t think it is worth it to pre-roll.
The ammo is self explanatory. Electropunch is the close range T2 ammo, 33km range. The second most common ammo choice, you use this against anything Battlecruiser and Battleship sized (once in range).
GalvaSurge is the most common ammo you will be using. It is the T1 close range EM ammo, 50km range, and the best application against Cruisers and down.
StrikeSnipe is by far the least used of any of the ammo. It is used on anything farther than 60-70km, which is very rare. As soon as a target gets within 57km you switch back to GalvaSurge (as by the time you’re finished reloading you’ll be in range).
Now here’s the important stats:
DPS(Overheated/Unheated): GalvaSurge (252.1/296.6); ElectroPunch (302.4/355.8); StrikeSnipe (166.5/195.9)
The dps might seem low, but Vorton Projectors have a very unique attribute, and it is this attribute which makes it perform so well in abyssals. Vorton Projectors can arc to 5 other targets within 10km of the primary target for full damage. This means if you’re hitting two or more targets at once, you are matching the Gila for DPS numbers, and in the abyss, you will often be hitting two or more targets at once.
Another thing is that the gun itself overheats so slowly you can pretty much permaheat it, and depending on what rooms you get, you can clear the entire T5 with Overheat and still have plenty left over.
Tank Per Second(Overheated/Unheated): Without Drugs (701.3 ehp/1088.4ehp); With Drugs (773.2 ehp/1199.9 ehp)
The above numbers are ehp/s with uniform damage profile in a 70% EM penalty T5. As you can see, it can take a beating.
Speed(Overheated/Unheated): 630m/s / 820m/s
You are using an AB, you have better cap and better sig than a ship using an MWD but this comes at the cost of speed. This means you pretty much only go after the main Biocache loot and ignore the nodes/subnodes. If there’s no enemies left and you are more than 10km away from the conduit, feel free to give your AB a cycle of heat just to get a little boost.
Capacitor: 7.64k effective G (27% Neut Resistance)J, 50.2gj/s
With a capacitor like that, you can take on even the strongest neuting waves with relative ease. At worst, you burst your shield booster, but I’ve never had a neuting wave that forced me to do that in all 50 runs.
All other stats are pretty much what you’d expect from a cruiser.
Now we go onto the tactics behind this ship.
I mentioned previously how the Vorton Projector was the saving grace of this ship in abyssal running. As a general rundown of tactics here’s how you play it: Neuts > Remote Reps > Webs > Paints > Damps > everything else; You also want to go for the big ships/higher health targets first.
This is how to order your targets with a couple exceptions. In Starving/Harrowing Vedmak waves you always clear the Starving Vedmaks and then the Harrowing Vedmaks, then you can follow the traditional target order.
In terms of movement, start off with setting your ship to orbit the biocache at 500. If the biocache gets destroyed then approach the wreck instead. Once you’ve reached the wreck head straight for the gate and sit on it at 0 or orbit at 500.
Now that the general tactics are cleared let’s talk about each possible room:
- Leshaks: The easiest room by far, you clear out all the leshaks first and then if there’s anything else you kill those targets next. Clear time: 30 seconds-1 minute.
- Drekavacs: There’s two clusters of enemies in this room usually, a Drek cluster which has the Drekavacs and some Kikimoras, and a Damavik cluster which heads straight for you. Kill the Drek cluster first, then the Damaviks on top of you. Depending on how much health the Dreks have when you get into ElectroPunch range it might be worth it to change ammo to ElectroPunch, but in general I usually don’t. Clear time: 2-3 minutes
- Harrowing/Starving Vedmaks: Clear out the Vedmaks first, then all the Damaviks on top of you. Clear time: 2-3 minutes
- Kikimoras: Two cluster of enemies. One Kikimora cluster and one Damavik cluster that goes on top of you. Kill Kikimoras first, then Damaviks. Clear time: 1-2 minutes
- Vila Vedmaks/Damaviks: Same tactics as the Harrowing/Starving Vedmak wave, just clear the Vedmaks first and then the Damaviks. If there’s a Automata Suppresor in range, good, if not, no worries. Clear time 2-4 minutes (based on if there’s Automata Suppresor or not).
- Overmind Spawn: Kill all webbing ships first then apply full damage to Overmind. Get within Electropunch range while still staying as close as possible to the transfer conduit. When Overmind is dead, kill any other ships that might be alive while you are on your way to the transfer conduit. Overmind is by far the longest room and if you get 3 of these in a row you are quite possibly dead, but it is a 1/3375 chance. Clear time: 6-8 minutes.
- Rogue Drone Battlecruisers: Switch to Electropunch when you get in range, kill the EM damaging ones first. Clear time: 1-2 minutes.
- Rogue Drone Frigates: Webbing ships first then free fire. Clear time: 30 seconds to 2 minutes.
- Drifter Battleship aka the Karen: Kill supporting neuting/webbing ships first, then full damage on the Karen. If you can, get into a 500m orbit on the Karen with Electropunch. If the Karen has reached the boundary by the time you get to it, keep within Electropunch range while being as close to the gate as possible. This is the second longest spawn. Clear time: 5-6 minutes.
- Lucid Deepwatcher: Use electropunch when you get into range. Very simple room: Clear time: 2-3 minutes
- Drifter/Sleeper/Lancer cruisers/Frigates: Follow general target order, you can face tank this room. Clear time: 2-4 minutes.
- Angel Cartel: Kill Cynabals first, then webbing ships, then freefire.
- Sanshas Nation: Kill Devoted Knights first, then webbing ships, then freefire. Clear time: 2-3 minutes.
- CONCORD/EDENCOM: If there is more than 3 Marshals, kill the Marshals asap, overheat tank if needed, these things put out a lot of DPS. If there’s less than 3, kill target painting ships first, then webbing, then neuts. Leave the EDENCOM ships for last as they don’t do that much damage and they also damage their friends for you (ironic).
- Dreadnought Construction Site: Don’t even try
And now for the finale, I bet you’re all wondering just how much money you can make with this ship? Well, after filament and ammo costs (ammo price going down soon hopefully), you’re looking at around 220-240 mil an hour on average.
So here it is, the Stormbringer, in all of it’s glory. I hope this helped open your eyes to the new meta of T5 abyssals. And yes, I do have maxed out Stormbringer skills on TQ now.
T6s next maybe?
Fly safe o7
(1.4 bil Medium Vorton Specialization skillbook btw)
