Ships & Modules

The more I play the less happy I become with my chosen race of ships. I like to fly solo because I believe it gives you a greater sense of achievement and possibly teaches you more about PVP. I still have much to learn about PVP but I'm beginning to wonder if by restricting myself to Amarr ships is handicapping my progress. I've been told before that Amarr was better suited to fleet combat but I thought surely there must be some ships that perform well enough solo to get by.

I think now it is not the ships themselves but other factors that make the race ill suited to solo combat. Lets look at the primary weapon system first. Lasers have only one attribute that can be called an advantage, damage projection. This is all fine and well and probably works well with a fleet. But when you look at it from a solo PVP standpoint it is only a brief advantage at best. This is due to the inability of Amarr ships to dictate range. Amarr ships are naturally slow and when armor tanked they become even slower.

Now lets talk about damage type. Most frequency crystals do primarily EM damage with some component of thermal. This is great against shield tanks but horrible against armor, which leaves me to believe that you can't catch what you can kill and can't kill what you can catch.

And now the poor tracking speed of lasers. Again not really a problem in itself but when coupled with ships inability to dictate range it becomes highly exploitable by enemies with faster ships and better tracking. This can be reduced by fitting a web but then brings me to the point of............

Low midslot count. Although I'm still a noob I've become convinced that every Amarr solo boat must have a web fitted. This is impossible on most frigates and some cruisers but even the few you can fit a web on leave you without a way to fit a cap booster to address the cap issues and the vulnerability to neuts that all laser ships share.

There are exceptions to all this, T2 missile boats, slicers ect but for the most part a large majority of Amarr ships suffer these problems. I could be suffering from misconceptions or "grass is greener" syndrome but that's part of the reason I posted this. Am I wrong? Amirite? Should I be looking at it differently? I just don't see the upcoming ship balancing addressing any of this.

Yep, Amarr ships are generally **** poor for solo work. With the exception of their Drone based ships and a couple of others.

For instance the Arbitrator is awesome, the TD bonus means you can kill some really crazy **** with it without too much trouble.

The Pilgrim needs to pick its targets well but it's another amazing ship from Amarr.

The Curse with 3x HML 3x Neuts can also fare very well against a huge variety of targets.

The Ashimmu with neuts + nice dps + 90% web speaks for itself, though it's unfortunately quite slow.

The Slicer is another awesome ship vs frigates. Though I'm not quite sure how it fares recently.

The Oracle can deal some sick sniper DPS too, so might be worth looking in too. Excellent in small gangs anyhow.

Harbinger http://eve.battleclinic.com/loadout/19961-PVP-Harbinger-620dps-72-8k-EHP-rigged-55k-unrigged.html

For Amarr solo frigs look at the AF's, both are pretty cool but definitely look at the Slicer too. It has range, speed and LASERS. I don't fly them often but probably should do so more often because I always have fun in them.

http://eve-kill.net/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=15119953

Was a fit I got from a blog I read. If I were to do it again I think I would go with an all passive armor tank. Also I think I need at least 2 med neuts. I was slow getting the smalls activated because of the range. I think he overshot me and passed out of range and I was slow realizing they had turned off.

I also plex while fighting. Doing so with a passive armor tank can be difficult.

Bringing an AB to PVP is definitely bringing a knife to a gun fight.

[Arbitrator, Double TD]

1600mm Reinforced Steel Plates II
Damage Control II
Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane II
Drone Damage Amplifier II

Tracking Disruptor II, Optimal Range Disruption Script
Tracking Disruptor II, Optimal Range Disruption Script
J5b Phased Prototype Warp Scrambler I
Experimental 10MN Microwarpdrive I

Small Nosferatu II
Small Energy Neutralizer II
Small Energy Neutralizer II
Small Energy Neutralizer II

Medium Trimark Armor Pump I
Medium Trimark Armor Pump I
Medium Ancillary Current Router I


Hammerhead II x5

Why:

Nos and not a neut? You have no cap booster, a small nos can feed your scram once you use all your cap to neut.
No cap booster? It feeds your cap, which makes nos more effective against you.
1600 plate? Don't be half assed, you require a totally cappless tank, which requires much higher EHP than you get from 800.
DDA and not EANM? The DPS boost outweights the EHP gain. Fights will be over quicker, requiring less EHP. If you die before they die, the EANM wouldn't have changed that - since your drones are doing much less damage. Also the higher DPS makes them burn their own can faster without running neuts for ever.
2x TD? it requires 2 before you even notice a big difference. Inzi was the pionerring king/queen of this.

There are lots of reason why the above is better for solo - but takes too long to explain and its home time :)

Not true solo but I know of a guy that used to do insanely well with a setup that consisted of dual boxing a kitsune with a tricked out navy omen (purely setup for speed, sig tank and dps, no plate, etc.) with halos, skirmish links and sig reduction drugs that navy omen was basically a frig with a lot of EHP for a frig and cruiser levels of dps/dps range (obviously not the tracking of frig sized guns but when you can out manouver most frigs transversal and sig becomes less of an issue).

If your looking for truly solo your playing the wrong game imo (or your crazy skilled) - even if you find what you think is a 1v1 fight the other guy will probably pop his cyno or uncloak his falcon alt once it turns against him.

Yes I fly a similar fit and like it very much. The only problem I have with it is running into fast frigs with TDs. Really waiting on the next patch that gives it two mids so that I can fit a MWD and a WEB. I agree it doesn't even need a point. By the time something realizes they're in trouble they're usually dead.

Here's a thing that i belive alot of players do a bit backward these days...

Amarr have one incredibly useful solo-esque ship: The Curse.

It can be fit in many ways and should become the bread and butter of your trade. It may cost a pretty penny and many players know it's potential so they can shy away from it, but it's well worth the money to get into the style of play and perfect the trade.

Engageability is a fair point, the same goes for "picking your fights", but i think those concepts have become exaggerated in EVE - and particularily for newer players who listen to older pilots, with established names, who have trouble getting fights. As a new player you won't have trouble "getting into trouble".

Next to "picking fights" what the Curse enable you to do is "take fights", which have really come to play second fiddle reading around on these forums - but is the place where you should start. Use a good ship, learn how to use it and become comfortable: first.

There are too many players these days who pre-gimp themselves and then have trouble managing the fights they get, questioning themselves or the choices they've made.

Trust me, as a new player in a lonely environment you will get fights - and those fights will not be fair. Make sure you initially have a good tool for your trade; hone it, reach a steady performance level and work from there.

Curse gives you that, and it gives you alot of mileage (in learning to utilize different modules, and training new skills to fit and play around with new modules) with options between tank types, tank-to-EW and EW-to-spank.

If you're playing call of duty, bringing a knife to a gunfight is highly advisable.