Missions & Complexes

It's a little over 5 AM here here, I came back from work at 20:00 and played a little EvE and then I thought to myself that I should do a little reading on which cruiser I should pick since my Cruiser lvl 3 skills was about to finish (what can I say, I'm eccentric, wanted to be able to use any of the cruisers before I actually bought one).

Well that "little reading" turned out into 6-7 hours of research. And yet, after all that time, I still feel compelled to ask the community about this little problem I'm having because I'm not sure what to do here.

Here's how I've processed the data read to this point:

1) Augoror - worthless for missions.

2) Maller - extremely good tank, very low on dps. Can be easily fitted for newbs. This is basically the easy way out and I'd feel dirty taking it, I want to learn and understand the game not progress for the sake of progressing.

3) Omen - Terrible tank, way better dps then the Maller. Some troubles when fitting it with low skills. And I wish my choices would stop here but the next cruiser is giving me a headache.

4) Arbitrator - Drone boat, everything I have read until this point tells me this is the way to go, however , I didn't find a single guide or forum that explicitly says at what point this ship becomes viable for l2's. All the setups I've seen are fully or mostly T2 and would take at least 1 more week to get there. Also is a great choice to learn by force drone related skills for the future, since it's my understanding that after Gallente we're the next in line when it comes to drones usage.

5) Harbinger - skip cruisers and wait few more days of training and got for overkill l2's. I see this option exactly how I see taking the Maller. When I want to jump into my Harbinger I wanna do l3's not one shot rat's.

Here are the skills I think that are relevant to the topic at this hour (if I missed one tell and I'll happily update the list)

Drones - tomorrow when I wake up to read this forum it will be at 4
Scout Drones Operation - tomorrow when I wake up to read this forum it will be at 3

Electronics - 3
Ele Up - 2
Targeting - 2

Energy Grid Updates - 2
Energy men - 2
Engi - 3
Shield men - 1

Weapon Upgrades/sharpshooter/rapid firing/motion pred/medium energy turret/controlled bursts - 2
Gunnery/Small energy turrets - 3

Hull Upgrades - 3
Mechanic - 3
Small remote repair syst - 1
Repair systems - 3


Now my question to you, my dear reader, is, when exactly does the Arbitrator become viable for l2's? Because there is also the ISK problem, I play for 6-7 days and I'm only sitting on 20 mils, not a lot of disposable income. I don't wanna buy it, fit it, and get blown 5 minutes later.

Also, what would you chose if you would be in my shoes? Try to "tune" yourself in my mindset as well.

Thank you for reading this and for the eventual helpful replies . However if you're gonna leave a reply such as "meh, amarr has the worst cruisers, just train X skill and go for the Y faction cruisers, they're much better then what amarr has to offer" please don't, I've seen that line tonight quite a lot.

IIRC, it has been years since I fit one for missions, my basic armor fit was-

tractor, slavager, standard or assault launcher (possibly heavy laucher if you have good fitting skills) and 650 or 280 arty in highs (depends on fitting skills and whether you have trained projectiles). You could go with a focused or medium beam laser there also.

TD (why not snarl a cruiser while you kill the frigs ), 10mn ab, cap recharger x 2 or cap recharge + web/painter/or sensor booster/eccm/cap booster (defensive mods to address rats' ewar effects if any) in mids.

damage control, MAR, eanm or hardeners (possibly an eanm and largest plate you can fit) in lows. Usually it is not good to fit a plate on a pve ship. However, a cruiser is a little thin and plate may give you some buffer for the MAR to cycle.

medium fitting or cap or mobility or drone range rigs.

The basic shield fit was similar in highs, but an LSE or two in mids plus shield hardener(s), and afterburner

lows then would be dc, power diagnostics/shield power relays, maybe a cap power relay if for some reason cap was an issue.

rigs 3 purger.

The great thing about the Arby (and the Vexor) is that with 5 light drones on aggressive (if you know how to manage your aggro and respawns) you can usually kill the rat frigs in level 2s so fast you don't really have time to lock and target them with your high slot weapons. And if you have the skills to make a sufficient tank for level 3s then 5 tech II medium drones with drone interfacing 3 or 4 and combat drone 3 or 4 will put out enough damage to take down the cruisers and BC in the level 3s.