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good pvp fit for caldari?
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Young1
Caldari Provisions
Caldari State
#1 - 2012-06-14 17:37:57 UTC
I read so much stuff about pvping with caldari hearing there not so good. what not to do blah blah, so thought i would post my questions here.

I want to get out there and start solo pvping instead of just doing missions(hopefully then find a good alliance), i had this account since 06 but only played 3-4 months tops. I know am going to loss plenty of ships before i get the hang of it, so am looking for a cheap it, something that is missile orientated as i have no gunnery skills only been doing pvp with missiles.

My questions are:

Is it worth cross training race to get access to better t1 ships or is it worth sticking to caldari ships for pvp?

If so does anyone have any fitting for a good caldari cheap ships for pvp?

Thank you.
Mira Lynne
State War Academy
Caldari State
#2 - 2012-06-14 20:41:57 UTC  |  Edited by: Mira Lynne
Other than Niche Ships (EWAR, Logi, etc.) Cheap but effective Caldari missile ships are sort of limited to the Drake right now. The others are either not Cheap (Tengu) or not Effective (The Rest)
That beeing said: If youre not flying solo, then a Kestrel can be effective. Its a nightmare to fit with either Light Missiles/MWD or Rockets/MSE, but its cheap and it uses rockets/missiles.
On a slightly less cheap note theres the Hawk - ive been having sucess with it lately and its nasty. Ive heard good things about but never flown a Crow.

to be honest, i strongly suggest working on your gunnery skills alittle. T2 Small Hybrids are relatively easy to train and give you alot of versatility in ship types, add to that the merlin being the best T1 Caldari Frig and i see little reason not to train guns
(I Trained T2 Blasters before I trained T2 Rockets Simply because the Merlin was so much better than the Kestrel)

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Max Karma
Tri-gun
#3 - 2012-06-14 23:01:54 UTC
If you wanna get your first snag of pvp, i would join a Faction Warfare corp and start there, lotsa T1 frigate battles and such, and the merlin and drake, and cormorant are nice little ships for this, and its definitly a good start for learning pvp mechanics.
Unimaginative Guy
Dutch Squad
#4 - 2012-06-15 01:15:56 UTC
If you train t2 Hybrids just spend 3d for gal cruiser IV and you can fly brutix and Thorax which are both good solo pvp hulls
Zarnak Wulf
Task Force 641
Empyrean Edict
#5 - 2012-06-15 01:26:31 UTC
Joining faction warfare is an excellent suggestion. You will get lots of PvP experience. I also would encourage you to learn gunnery skills. You can get the basics very quickly and if you devote three months to it you'll just about have perfect support skills. It just gives you alot more options.
Otrebla Utrigas
Iberians
#6 - 2012-06-15 08:05:24 UTC
If you want to PvP in a caldari missile boat, i recommend you to start with a hawk or a crow. Unfortunately, the kestrel has a lot of fitting problems and except some very rare armor tanked kestrels, it is difficult to fit an optimal PvP fit.

The hawk is a brawler, but a long range one. The idea is stay as far as possible while keeping the enemy webbed and scrammed. Your rockets will apply full damage and the other guy will have heavy falloff for his guns. Don't get close or you will be out damaged.

The crow is a very nice kite frigate. With long point, tracking disruptor and light missiles, you can slowly nail down any frigate while you speed and range tank their guns.

And finally, you have the hookbill. It is like a hawk but cheaper and not so tough, but if you don't want to mess with T2 ships and want to PvP in caldari missile boats, you should start there.

The main problem for missile boats in caldari lineup is they are expensive. It will be better for you to start with the merlin, even if she is a hybrid boat. It is cheap ,tough and punch a lot.

After the frigates you could use some caracal anti frigate fits. They lay waste to anything in a frigate hull, and you can handle 2 or 3 T1 frigates with ease.

After that, Drake all the way.

But I recommend to join a nice PvP corp and practice with them. You will learn a lot more and you will have fun with a tackler/dps frigate to help your mates.

I'm doing my PvP training in a condor tackling big ships. And it is fun to see people rage because you tackled them with the cheapest caldari boat available :D
ChromeStriker
Sebiestor Tribe
Minmatar Republic
#7 - 2012-06-15 08:17:46 UTC
Fly a Manticore

No Worries
Daniel Plain
Doomheim
#8 - 2012-06-15 08:29:21 UTC
i can imagine a hawk with ancillary shield booster to be very effective, but you will have to invest time in caldari frig V (and probably light missiles V and/or rockets V for T2 launchers).

I should buy an Ishtar.
Otrebla Utrigas
Iberians
#9 - 2012-06-15 09:01:56 UTC
Daniel Plain wrote:
i can imagine a hawk with ancillary shield booster to be very effective, but you will have to invest time in caldari frig V (and probably light missiles V and/or rockets V for T2 launchers).

I'm currently flying a hawk with a MASB and it rocks hard. The only bad thing is I don't have Advanced weapons upgrades so i can't fit T2 rockets, but with the tank you have, you don't need so much DPS, just a bit more patience.

I have tested against other frigs, and AFs and it does a very good job, even with my current skills (4,5mil SP) agains people with more advanced skills on frigs.
Daniel Plain
Doomheim
#10 - 2012-06-15 09:21:50 UTC
Otrebla Utrigas wrote:
Daniel Plain wrote:
i can imagine a hawk with ancillary shield booster to be very effective, but you will have to invest time in caldari frig V (and probably light missiles V and/or rockets V for T2 launchers).

I'm currently flying a hawk with a MASB and it rocks hard. The only bad thing is I don't have Advanced weapons upgrades so i can't fit T2 rockets, but with the tank you have, you don't need so much DPS, just a bit more patience.

I have tested against other frigs, and AFs and it does a very good job, even with my current skills (4,5mil SP) agains people with more advanced skills on frigs.


questions:
1. what's the range of rockets on the hawk?
2. do you think 1x or 2x small would be better than 1x medium booster?

I should buy an Ishtar.
Maeltstome
Ten Thousand Days
#11 - 2012-06-15 09:45:24 UTC  |  Edited by: Maeltstome
Common misconception: caldari are bad at PVP
Reality: Caldari have ships that work in REAL PVP situations. Their solo abilities aren't as strong as minmatar or gallente, but they are still devastating none the less.

Missiles: Gaaruntee'd damage, huge range, no need for working out transversal.
Shield Tank: Regnerative shields good for multiple engagements versus armor EHP builds which are only good for 1 engagement.
Lots of spare lo-slots for damage mods/speed mods.

So here are some awesome Caldari PVP ships

Merlin: Tier 1/God teir frigate. Cheap and good at solo and gang

Crow/Hawk/Harpy: Seriously best in glass frigate contenders for t2.

Catalyst: Commonly seen as being 'bad' but is infact the number 2 destroyer besides the thrasher at close range, and the number 1 destroyer at long range.

Caracal: Excellent cheap source of damage, can fit light missiles for anti-frig and maintain a good EHP. EXCELLENT at shutting down nano ships (vagabond, shield rupture, shield cane)

Moa: Simply misunderstood. Makes an amazing blaster boat or heavy hitting rail boat with STRONG optimal. Good EHP.

Tengu: Simply the best T3

Drake: OMGWTFPWN

Scorpion: 1V1 BS King. Really, ECM, destroys other ships ability to do anything - will slowly break down most tanks while taking no damage itself.

Raven: Awesome ship. Put rage torps on it and do 1000dps to 25km, maintains an MWD, x-large Ancil booster and a point while doing this. Tanks about 500-600 dps (better than any other close range heavy hitter with max size weapons)

I'm not sure if it's because people die to blaster boats a lot, or if because EFT makes minmatar look good... but people seem to forget that Caldari is an amazing race for pvp engagements, and shine especially in situations of 2+ man gangs.

last night i gave my hurricane to a friend and i jumped in a drake, despite him having DOUBLE my EFT dps, i out-damage him on every kill mail. The combined Range, hit consistency and strong damage type make caldari very reliable PVP ships.
Otrebla Utrigas
Iberians
#12 - 2012-06-15 09:57:37 UTC
Daniel Plain wrote:
Otrebla Utrigas wrote:
Daniel Plain wrote:
i can imagine a hawk with ancillary shield booster to be very effective, but you will have to invest time in caldari frig V (and probably light missiles V and/or rockets V for T2 launchers).

I'm currently flying a hawk with a MASB and it rocks hard. The only bad thing is I don't have Advanced weapons upgrades so i can't fit T2 rockets, but with the tank you have, you don't need so much DPS, just a bit more patience.

I have tested against other frigs, and AFs and it does a very good job, even with my current skills (4,5mil SP) agains people with more advanced skills on frigs.


questions:
1. what's the range of rockets on the hawk?
2. do you think 1x or 2x small would be better than 1x medium booster?


1. With my current skills, I have 10 km range with rockets. But with Assault ships 5, and missile skills at 5, I think the max range is around 13 or 14 km. I'm not at home at this moment so i can't have access to EFT.
2. I won with arbalest rockets and MASB in a test (1v1 controlled fight) against another hawk with T2 rage rockets, with SSB and better support skills. Dunno about two SSB, but with a MASB you have a spare medium slot to fit a passive Shield hardener (EM most of the time)

Anyway, CPU is very, very tight.
Smabs
State War Academy
Caldari State
#13 - 2012-06-15 10:10:41 UTC
Caldari is fine for pvp.

Merlin and harpy are arguably the best ships in their class and the hawk is up there too. The drake and naga are very good. ECM is obviously really strong. Tengus are amazing if you have the isk. The rokh is also really strong as a solo or fleet ship.

Most of the other caldari ships are fairly average (moa, caracal, cerb etc). Some of their ships are awful (eagle, raven, raptor).

'Caldari is bad at pvp' is a bit of a throwback to 2009/2010 when they only really had drakes and falcons as standout ships. It's not really true anymore. You will have plenty of good ships if you decide to spec to caldari.
Korg Tronix
Mole Station Nursery
#14 - 2012-06-15 18:35:13 UTC
Thanks to a lot of the recent buffs to Rockets/Hybrids and tier 3 frigates Caldari now have one of the best frigate lineups.

Kestrel is a good dps support frigate for t1 frigate gangs (I think it tops out 150 area)

Merlin is arguably the best t1 frigate alongside the Incursus. Minus some basic armour skills and ship skill share a lot of skills which means easy cross train if you fancy a change.

Hookbill - IMO the best navy faction frigate, great combination of speed, utility and damage. Love the dual prop fit for catching and killing kiting frigates.

Hawk/Harpy - Arguably the top two AFs, although the Vengeance is near their level as well. Both have great damage and range with great tanks as well. Harpys work with buffer tanks with Rails or Blasters fitted and the Hawk works with all the fits that work on the Hookbill plus fitting a great active tank if you want that way.

Buzzard - Again a great frigate for straight up combat certainly surprises quite a few people. Can kill some of the turret AFs as well as basically every other turret frigate.

Crow - Great tackle although not as great for brawling

Once you get above the frigate level, you have a few good options. The ECM ships are an obvious one, the Drake is the best BC and the Ferox is surprisingy good too.

Evil: If I were creating the world I wouldn't mess about with butterflies and daffodils. I would have started with lasers, eight o'clock, Day One! [zaps one of his minions accidentally, minion screams]
Rath Kelbore
Caldari Provisions
Caldari State
#15 - 2012-06-15 23:38:37 UTC
Maeltstome wrote:
Common misconception: caldari are bad at PVP
Reality: Caldari have ships that work in REAL PVP situations. Their solo abilities aren't as strong as minmatar or gallente, but they are still devastating none the less.

Missiles: Gaaruntee'd damage, huge range, no need for working out transversal.
Shield Tank: Regnerative shields good for multiple engagements versus armor EHP builds which are only good for 1 engagement.
Lots of spare lo-slots for damage mods/speed mods.

So here are some awesome Caldari PVP ships

Merlin: Tier 1/God teir frigate. Cheap and good at solo and gang

Crow/Hawk/Harpy: Seriously best in glass frigate contenders for t2.

Catalyst: Commonly seen as being 'bad' but is infact the number 2 destroyer besides the thrasher at close range, and the number 1 destroyer at long range.

Caracal: Excellent cheap source of damage, can fit light missiles for anti-frig and maintain a good EHP. EXCELLENT at shutting down nano ships (vagabond, shield rupture, shield cane)

Moa: Simply misunderstood. Makes an amazing blaster boat or heavy hitting rail boat with STRONG optimal. Good EHP.

Tengu: Simply the best T3

Drake: OMGWTFPWN

Scorpion: 1V1 BS King. Really, ECM, destroys other ships ability to do anything - will slowly break down most tanks while taking no damage itself.

Raven: Awesome ship. Put rage torps on it and do 1000dps to 25km, maintains an MWD, x-large Ancil booster and a point while doing this. Tanks about 500-600 dps (better than any other close range heavy hitter with max size weapons)

I'm not sure if it's because people die to blaster boats a lot, or if because EFT makes minmatar look good... but people seem to forget that Caldari is an amazing race for pvp engagements, and shine especially in situations of 2+ man gangs.

last night i gave my hurricane to a friend and i jumped in a drake, despite him having DOUBLE my EFT dps, i out-damage him on every kill mail. The combined Range, hit consistency and strong damage type make caldari very reliable PVP ships.


Some of this is true. Maybe even most. But the Moa? No thanks. Too many other ships fill any realistic and useful role that the moa could attempt better than the moa.

Raven? In some situations I suppose it could be useful but I don't know if I'd go anywhere near "awesome" for pvp purposes.

I agree on the catalyst fully, unfortunately it's not caldari.

To the OP: There is nothing wrong with caldari for pvp, in fact, there's nothing wrong with any faction for PVP. Should you cross train? Eventually yes of course. Should you cross train because Caldari = bad pvp. No, you should not.

I plan on living forever.......so far, so good.