Warfare & Tactics

Hi,

I've bee messing around in low sec lately learning how to stay alive, evade and dabbling in a bit of PVP.. or should I say being jumped on and blown to pieces :)

I know its about picking fights and I've started getting better at using my Dscan to find suitable frigs to engage but due in part to me being a noob, not being quick enough at getting on top of my target and that I always end up against kiters, I ultimately lose the fights due to not getting in range for my blasters to be effective.

I'm flying a merlin all T1 that gives me 86 DPS (blasters within 900m), MWD over 2k speed, about 2500 hps supported by Medium Anc - shield booster. Fitted with web and scram. If the markets are being nice I fit this for under 4mil isk. Obviously as I get more experienced I'll look at different ships and fittings. But for now and based on my experience and my wallet I like the fit...

So the questions to you experienced pilots are:

Are brawlers useful in PVP? (Or have I just been unlucky facing ranged frigs?)

Is there any point using a MWD due to scramming?

Any tips on what ships I should look to fight?

Any general tips for approaching a brawler fight based on my fit?

Many thanks

Thanks.. I'm training up for T2 fits to improve my stats etc I thought 86DPS for T1 was OK though?

Is it just a case of gaining the experience to guess what type of fit people will have based on what they're flying? In terms of staying away from kiters? I'll try a AB fit tonight..

AB Brawling: If you don't have enough range to reach 20-22km you had better make damn sure you get to dictate starting range (ex. camp warp-in). Works with both active and passive tank, active is limited to low'ish dps enemies though (includes blaster at 5+ km).

MWD Brawling: Kiters are a non issue if you know how to collapse an orbit but you had better make damn sure you have enough tracking to hit an AB Brawler. Works best with active tank or shield buffer as plates take a hefty toll, you need that fast acceleration to reliably collapse orbits as not all enemies are morons

Personally run mostly with AB Slicers as it gives me the 20-22km range to ignore (read: kill) kiters while still having the speed to manoeuvre against other AB brawlers .. tracking is an issue but that is what abusing metastasis rigs is for

Alternatively, you can use a damp to draw kiters in or make them bugger off .. basically focus fit to excel at one and using tricksies to avoid/mitigate the other.

The VC's - thanks I'll message you in game for a look at those fits..

Veshta - Some really interesting points that I will play around with.. Thanks

Super - I've got Thermo training up to 3 as we speak and I'm in the process of training up to T2 fits and assault frigs.. But It's a fair while getting that sorted so guess I'm gonna have to pick my fights well or lose some more ships!!! Its all good fun :)

Thanks again

You are still gathering info and you are already doing it WRONG! ..

loosing ships is what its all about .. frigs for Goddess sake.

Brawling is all about the good fight, majority of them will end with the winner in flames and an adrenaline kick for all, picking fights to avoid losing ships should only be used when fight is a foregone conclusion (ex. blaster Incursus vs. rail DD, or entering a plex with a known kiting Slicer pilot).
The lower the cost, and frigs are as low as one can get, the bigger the balls .. take fights that you are unsure of and learn from them whichever way they go. Frigate class is damn near balanced across the board, the permutations are nigh endless and the only way to know if something will work is to try and fail (or succeed).

trust me i'm happy to lose ships and still enjoy the fight... but haven't got loads of isk so have to balance it out

Give it a go certainly, but personally I wouldn't expect much success with out strong nav skills, especially evasive manuvering.
Try it in a rail Atron, they are the most agile frig and rails can hit far. Just don't orbit, your tracking is crap.
Remember you can make up some skill point shortfall with implants. Just practice getting your pod out

Protip. The only mids you need for a kiting railtron is a mwd and a point. That leaves a lot of CPU for other things. Also, leaving a spare slot between your mwd and point acts as a heatsink which means you can overheat for a bit longer.

You could also just fit a tracking disruptor there too and go around annoying people.

What you want is a rail incursus,

Caldari navy anti matter, keep at edge of scram range, own.

Good Sir;

You really can't play the PvP game your first year. If I were you I would just forget the game exists, pay your fee for it, and log in every few days to update your training queue.

I know that seems dull but the training queue is well done and has a nice interface--it is worth the 130 bucks. If you think you deserve to play solo in your first year you can always mine by yourself in High Sec.

And if you really want the truth, you should buy a second account in tandem and train up a Loki too. You will need two ships and two character-years training to Solo PvP.

Sad but true.

your humble servent
SeaSaw

EFT has a dps graph. This is a very important feature for anyone who is interested in solo pvp. (other fitting tools may have somethign like it as well) It will give you the gun damage in certain ranges and give you damage at certain transversals/sigradius. It will also give you the missile damage at certain speeds and sig radiuses.

Keep in mind ships can't orbit other ships at 500 at their top speed. Reduce that speed down to at least half.

Turret range is not effected by sig radius. Turret tracking is. So small rail guns can hit a larger ship even if you are in close and transversal is high.

Then you need to look at how you can dictate the encounter so your ship is doing relatively better dps than your opponent.

Practice with some ships with a decent tank. At least you will have some time to see what is happening during the fight even if you lose. Generally in a solo fight more tank is better than more gank anyway.

Keep your log open so see can see how well you were hitting and how well your opponent was hitting you after the fight.