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Good Level 4 combo

Author
Maren Jensen
Perkone
Caldari State
#1 - 2012-05-16 16:21:08 UTC
I've been out of the game for a while and would like your opinions on which would make a good combo for running level 4's.

Both the chars are highly spec'd (spec 5 large guns, spec 5 HAM and HML + all 5 support skills including subsystems). With that in mind, here is what I'm thinking given one of the chars has a limit on what he can fly (no minnie) and one has no Marauder skill. I don't have the desire to cross train them any further, just working on further spec skills.

Machariel + Paladin

Machariel + Tengu

Machariel + Nightmare

Rattlesnake + Paladin

Rattlesnake + Tengu

Rattlesnake + Nightmare

Is looting and salvaging even worth while anymore? I'm not looking to speed through lvl 4's. As a matter of fact I like low maintenance mission running. I used to fly a Golem + Nightmare, which worked pretty well, though the Golem is too much work (range and TP).

I guess I could pose the question another way, other than 2 Macharials Lol, which would you choose?
Boz Wel
KarmaFleet
Goonswarm Federation
#2 - 2012-05-16 17:57:28 UTC
Maren Jensen wrote:
I've been out of the game for a while and would like your opinions on which would make a good combo for running level 4's.

Both the chars are highly spec'd (spec 5 large guns, spec 5 HAM and HML + all 5 support skills including subsystems). With that in mind, here is what I'm thinking given one of the chars has a limit on what he can fly (no minnie) and one has no Marauder skill. I don't have the desire to cross train them any further, just working on further spec skills.

Machariel + Paladin

Machariel + Tengu

Machariel + Nightmare

Rattlesnake + Paladin

Rattlesnake + Tengu

Rattlesnake + Nightmare

Is looting and salvaging even worth while anymore? I'm not looking to speed through lvl 4's. As a matter of fact I like low maintenance mission running. I used to fly a Golem + Nightmare, which worked pretty well, though the Golem is too much work (range and TP).

I guess I could pose the question another way, other than 2 Macharials Lol, which would you choose?


I run either Machariel + Tengu or Nightmare + Tengu depending on the mission. The Tengu tanks the mission with a perma boost setup (I also happen to have a full crystal set on that account) and focuses on killing battleships, allowing me to micro the gunboat and overall giving me a pretty low maintenance duo. Overall, I don't bother with loot/salvage, but if I wanted to do that, I would run Tengu + non-Golem marauder and only loot/salvage until the mission is complete.
Ditra Vorthran
Caldari Imports and Exports
#3 - 2012-05-16 18:36:39 UTC
I don’t know if it’s ‘good’ per say, but here’s what I do and it seems to work out fairly well.

I run 2 accounts. First is a Raven and second is an Apocalypse. The Apoc carries medium shield rep drones and the Raven carries medium armor rep drones with light drones in each for frigates/cruiser

In terms of efficiency it’s okay, but what I really like is the ability to cross tank. I use to run Raven/Harbinger which worked really well, but whenever the Harby was targeted, it had to run. Now I just take it in the Apoc. And with a target painter and keeping an eye on angular velocity, my Apoc helps blap the cruisers and sometimes even the frigates.

I’m also thinking of switching to an Abbadon, since the range of the Apoc is less than stellar compared to my Raven (60 km vs 93 km).

"Miners mine so I don't have to." ~Metal Icarus

Daniel Plain
Doomheim
#4 - 2012-05-16 19:47:23 UTC
honestly, if you really have this high SP levels, i'd probably just fly mach and nightmare in different missions. with two screens and an autotargeter on both ships you can easily manage two missions at the same time and each of your ships spends less time warping and more time shooting.

I should buy an Ishtar.

drdxie
#5 - 2012-05-16 20:16:48 UTC
I have so far found a tengu plus BS to be the best option. I do it differently to boz though. I use the tengu for cruiser first, then frigs that slip pat my BS guns then BS. With good skills an implant and 1 rigor on the tengu you can use fury's on cruiser's. Currently in amarr, so with the NM I split the guns, pop as many frigs as I can before they get under my guns, 1 volley from 1 beam will insta pop them, then set to work on BS. Sadly I don't have a mach or T2 AC skills, but I use a maelstrom for anything that is not EM weak. I have tried most T1 BS( Rokh, Raven(navy and SNI), dominix, but they do seem kinda meh. Have tried 2 NM's and that works pretty good too, except you need to pay close attention when agro full rooms as they are not cap stable and then also need to start using drones when ships slip through. I am a lazy missioner Big smile so maybe that is why I prefer the tengu BS combo. I have tried doing 2 separate missions at once, but I play on a laptop in window mode.. so was too busy for me.

Caldari Loving needed.. https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=1608277&#post1608277

Boz Wel
KarmaFleet
Goonswarm Federation
#6 - 2012-05-16 20:49:55 UTC
I like to put the Tengu on the BS simply because my furies hit for full damage and it takes longer to kill them, meaning I have fewer situations where the rat dies and I have missiles in-flight, resulting in wasted damage and lower DPS. You can of course micromanage the launchers to prevent this, but I prefer to spend my time micro'ing my gunboats instead.

Quote:
honestly, if you really have this high SP levels, i'd probably just fly mach and nightmare in different missions. with two screens and an autotargeter on both ships you can easily manage two missions at the same time and each of your ships spends less time warping and more time shooting.


While that can work for some missions, there are other missions where I think it's better to tag team them. For one, it's simply less micro to duo a single mission than to double up and run two different missions at the same time. Also, you can get by with fitting a pretty light tank when your combined DPS is close to 2k and you can pull the rats fairly haphazardly. Additionally, a Tengu running missions by itself will be slower when it comes to killing frigates, but pairing it with a gunboat lets you pop the frigates at range and use light drones to clear up the rest, all while retaining the Tengu's speed and ability to apply full DPS out to 115km. In short, you can mitigate one ship's weaknesses by using a second ship that compliments it nicely. You also can take advantage of fleet buffs when duo'ing the missions and, last but not least, duo'ing a mission means you only have 1 Dscanner to pay attention to rather than two. ;)
Maren Jensen
Perkone
Caldari State
#7 - 2012-05-16 22:41:06 UTC
Thanks for everyone's replies, it sounds like Tengu + Mach is the way to go. I probably could do 2 missions at once, but it's probably too busy. I want to relax, not give myself carpel tunnel :)

I built both these chars for PVP (150 and 115m sp) so the nice thing is they transfer over to PVE well. I don't have the time for the commitment to PVP anymore. I guess I'm getting old :) I just don't want to leave the game completely.

I think I'll pickup one of each, just to play with them all and use the marauder skill I trained to 5 P

Bakin Cake
X.S. Industries
#8 - 2012-05-16 23:03:45 UTC
Mach and pali. Max tank out the pali and pull room aggro while being the salvage boat and wreck everything with the Mach.

Personally i run a vargur and sentry/salvage phoon. The vargur has the tank and spank to handle full room aggro pulling in wrecks while the phoon adds sentry dps and enough low slots to be fitted out with cargoholds for multiple mission loot while having the cap to run a mwd and/or remote shield reps.
Boomhaur
#9 - 2012-05-17 03:17:24 UTC
Mach + Tengu would be the easiest to manage I imagine. If you ever felt too lazy you could also always just load up the tengu with FoF and set orbit around your Mach and call it a day. Not the most effecient but it is lazy.

Welcome to Eve. Everyone here is an Evil Sick Sadistic Bastard who is out to get you. Anyone who tells you otherwise is either trying to scam you or use you.

xVx dreadnaught
modro
Northern Coalition.
#10 - 2012-05-17 12:53:42 UTC
I was wondering about this one today... Just realised that I think the best combo would be Tengu and Ishtar.

Set the ishtar up as a Sentry platform, Have Tengu take full pocket aggro and assign drones to the Tengu, use the Tengu to direct fire with missiles and drones.

You can fit the Ishtar out with AB Tractor and Salvagers.

Sentry damage rig(s) and Omnidirectionals will be even better when they introduce the new drone damage mods that will go in the low slots.

One thing I don't like about using duel accounts for missions is the lost time for DPS when I switch screens. This should mean constant DPS even if it's not as high as could be. 538 DPS from the ishtar going by EFT, that's not including once the new drone damage mods are released. You could easily see that getting up to 650/700 ish
Cloned S0ul
POCKOCMOC Inc.
#11 - 2012-05-20 00:43:40 UTC  |  Edited by: Cloned S0ul
If you use tengu as main tank who take whole agros why not better tengu + bc tier3? naga with t2 rails antymater t1 with 2x imp +3 % to damage max skills 760dps (60km optimal) lower dps depend range but this ship can deal good damage to npc even they 120+km away while other bs like machariel or pulse nightmare need to be closer to full efficienty, Oracle pulse 1180+dps with t2 crystal good for mision like pirate invasion etc, you can bulid full dps (zero tank tier 3 bc) as dps support with items like full of mag stabs, gyro, heatsinks, target painters, sensors boosters, tracing computers, ab, and while tengu got full agro who care if zero tank on bc tier 3, while in most cases every expensive faction bs need some tank to avoid potential lose in critical situation, this mean 50% of finting slots are fited with tank modules while lack of dps, tracing comps, tatget painters modules.

Personaly i run mission with tengu as tank + naga, or depend mission oracle + tengu, bc tier 3 are awesome, they fast, agile, dps is same like other BS, even better depend fit.

In most cases i dont have time for loot-salvage i prefer bounty + lp but if people need full profit they need focus maybe on tengu + one marauder, or good faction bs + marauder, other way, do x mission save every location, after x mission swich to noctis...

Ps. For 100 +- 20mil isk people can bulid oracle with dps efficienty compered or better than nightmare, of course is paper tank and works only while main tank got full agro.
Canabi
Destructive Influence
Northern Coalition.
#12 - 2012-05-20 02:53:07 UTC
Do that **** in a drake! Passive tank. One button: FIRE ZEE MISSILES! Twisted
Jayrendo Karr
Caldari Provisions
Caldari State
#13 - 2012-05-20 03:58:26 UTC
Rattle + Rattle?
Chainsaw Plankton
FaDoyToy
#14 - 2012-05-20 05:06:43 UTC
tengu + mach sounds like a huge pain in the ass... short cycle time on the weapons, going to have to swap between the two a ton. probably waste a ton of volleys from the tengu, and not be firing the weapons on one of them for seconds at a time. if you love micromanaging stuff well it will probably be a great deal of fun, but last combo I'd want to fly.

a tier 3 bc sounds nice, but probably going to waste a bunch of time warping out, or keeping it back while you get aggro. can fit 4 damage mods and 2-3 tracking comps or painters on pretty much any battleship anyways.

my favorite combos so far have been

nightmare + paladin, it is just a ton of rofflecopter bbq killing stuff, that and I put a remote rep on the nightmare (don't remember using it much) the paladin can soak up a lot of damage.
cnr + nightmare: pretty nice kinda laid back combo. can hit out to lock range with both ships.
golem + nightmare: golem will rofflecopter battleships, nightmare can deal with all the smaller stuff. can fit a shield transporter on both ships. although for best performance need to count volleys on the golem.
gankboat + drone boat. a set of sentries on assist can really speed things up. drone boat is kinda lazymode, but sometimes lazymode is nice.

@ChainsawPlankto on twitter

EvEa Deva
Doomheim
#15 - 2012-05-20 08:05:46 UTC
OP all that you have listed will work fine, in fact 2 drakes would do the job for less then the mods in one of your fancy ships. and with alot less buttons to push.
Ishmael Hansen
Renegade Revenge Technologies
Solyaris Chtonium
#16 - 2012-05-20 11:15:06 UTC
EvEa Deva wrote:
OP all that you have listed will work fine, in fact 2 drakes would do the job for less then the mods in one of your fancy ships. and with alot less buttons to push.



With his sp's 2 nighthawks or two tengus. Stable tank if he has only one monitor so less worries and a bunchload of more dps.

A machariel + NIghtmare combo would push the 2500 dps combined, but I don't know how are missions atm so he might have trouble with the frigs and has to use the drones,
Kara Vix
Perkone
Caldari State
#17 - 2012-05-20 14:52:11 UTC  |  Edited by: Kara Vix
Rattlesnake and Machariel is a nice combo. The Rattler can agro the entire room and not worry about its shields, once it agroed the Mach can come in and kill very fast. That combo takes little effort as the Rattler needs no attention once the room is agroed on it.

Well Rattlesnake and any high dps ship is great.