Ships & Modules

Ok first things first: you are trying to buffer tank and active tank at the same time.

For armour tanking you ONLY want to active tank in pve, meaning you drop all plates and trimarks and use repair modules.

Secondly, why on earth have you got a hull repair module? Take it out until you actually need to repair your hull, refit when you're next to a station and you can do it there to save money if you really need to.

3rd: medium rails are horrible. Myrmidon has no gun hull bonus so try using artillery instead, they use no cap and you can select damage types.

Finally: what are your drone skills like? Myrmidons are drone platforms after all and since you didn't mention if you were using hobgoblin Is or IIs I have a feeling you're flying a myrmidon with tech 1 drones.

You also have some empty mid slots that could be used for cap rechargers to help your repper.

Given the advice above, make another fit and see if we've learned anything.

There are a few things to take note of for L3s as a newer, inexperienced player with low skill points for PvE.

- L3s are mostly about taking out cruisers as fast as possible as most of the damage that is going to be done to you will come from a group of cruisers in a pocket for most missions.
- Most L3s can be completed simply by warping into a pocket, hitting an afterburner, and piloting away from the rats in a wide arc to keep them at your ideal weapon range while moving fast enough that they cannot easily damage you.
- In L3s, the frigate drones with webbing and scrambling are rare, not only that but the frigates usually die silly quick to T2 Hobgoblins, so once you aggro the pocket, just let the drones loose on frigates in range.
- There are only a few L3s that have a high amount of what is called 'alpha' damage. Alpha damage is the initial volley of damage you receive when you begin taking damage, and subsequent volleys thereafter. There are only a few L3s that you will warp into that will immediately start doing considerable damage to your ship, which puts you in more danger than you would be otherwise. The ones I can still think of offhand is the Blood Raider mission where you warp into a group of cruisers and battlecruisers with heavy EM damage that can really rip into your ship and also the repair station L3 where you warp into a gas cloud that spawns dozens of cruisers when you fire on the repair station. These missions may prove very difficult for you so long as you're inexperience with micromanaging target priorities, incoming damage, and kiting to avoid said damage.
- You want to focus on primary concepts for mission running, that means you need to learn the differences between active PvE tanking, and passive shield tanking, and striking a balance between throughput as it concerns how much damage you are applying to the rats in a pocket as opposed to how much you are receiving and all the various nuances therein.

As a general rule of thumb, most capsuleers who run missions will likely tell you that you want to do most as much damage as possible with the least amount of tank, but as an inexperienced or newer mission runner, that concept may seem rather foreign to you, or at least, it may make L3s much too nerve wracking to the point that you are more concerned with survival than with learning how the mechanics work.

Fit your ship to your comfort level, the speed at which you complete missions is not nearly as important as whether you learn the mechanics themselves and become comfortable with mission running and ship fittings in general. Learn that first, then worry about how fast you are completing them later.

Why would you active tank the Drake? It's the iconic passive shield tank ship


The Myrmidon is primarily a drone boat so you should focus on getting good drone skills for it.

You also have a hull repper on your ship... Never ever fit a hull repper. It is only a module that can be good to have in your station hangar in case you dip into hull during your mission. As already mentioned don't mix tank in any way, so stick to active armor tanking with armor hardeners for resist and one or two armor reppers. Get Capacitor Control Circuit rig instead of the semiconductor, your cap will be more stable.

Use mission specific hardeners. Omni-resists aren't good for missions, you can get a lot higher resists with specific hardeners as the rats only deal a certain type of damage depending on the mission.

i highly advise not flying a battlecruiser (especially the myrm) without t2 drones.

Go Vigilant or go home.

Personally I'd probably try to work towards something like this:
[Myrmidon, L3]
Medium Armor Repairer II
Armor Kinetic Hardener II
Armor Thermic Hardener II
Drone Damage Amplifier II
Drone Damage Amplifier II
Drone Damage Amplifier II

10MN Afterburner II
Omnidirectional Tracking Link II
Omnidirectional Tracking Link II
Omnidirectional Tracking Link II
Medium Capacitor Booster II, Cap Booster 200

425mm AutoCannon II, EMP M
425mm AutoCannon II, EMP M
425mm AutoCannon II, EMP M
425mm AutoCannon II, EMP M
425mm AutoCannon II, EMP M

Medium Nanobot Accelerator I
Medium Nanobot Accelerator I
Medium Auxiliary Nano Pump I


Garde II x4
Hammerhead II x5
Hobgoblin II x5
Heavy Armor Maintenance Bot II x1

Flying something like that ought to be more than enough for most if not all L3s once your skills are up, and if you swap out a DDA for another hardener or a second MAR when you start on L4s you can probably handle some if not most of the easier ones without having to upgrade to a battleship.

With the current NPC AI situation I don't see that heavy drones are all that useful in PvE anymore. Even medium drones don't strike me as all that useful given that they're often worse for taking out NPC frigates and spider drones than light drones are, and anything that they can hit well enough to warrant using often orbits far enough out that sentries with three omni links powering them (especially Garde IIs) can also pound them pretty good as well.

Well if you want staying power on low SP:

Myrmidon for Serpentis NPCs

5x 720mm 'Scout' Artillery I

10MN Afterburner I
Drone Navigation Computer I
3x Eutectic Capacitor Charge Array

Medium 'Accommodation' Vestment Reconstructer I
2x Prototype Armor Kinetic Hardener I
2x Prototype Armor Thermic Hardener I
Drone Damage Amplifier I

2x Medium Auxiliary Nano Pump I
Medium Nanobot Accelerator I

5x Hammerhead I

360 DPS Tankability,12 min cap everything running (more than enough), 80% Mission Specific Resists (Serpentis), 310 DPS

DPS increases by 20% just by using T2 Hammerheads.

You should never have to warp out. Adjust fit for more dps as your skills improve or as you realize you are overtanked for mission.

PS: Resists are of course NPC specific.

PPS. edited the rigs.

I use a Talos for lvl 3's.

Highs: 8 x 350 compressed coil gun. Iridium Ammo for extra range.

Mids: 10mn afterburner, target painter, 2x cap recharger (t2)

Lows: t2 armor repairer, adaptive armor plating x 2

Rigs: 2x Med cap control (t1)

Drones, 5 x damage specific to mission.

At 49km I do roughly between 200-450 dps.

I had a mission last night with a 3hr bonus window, it took me 30 mins to finish it from start to finish.

I'm in the process of getting my skills up for an armour pump in the spare rig slot.

With my current skills and this fit, my Talos is cap stable at 48.5%.

You too can use something similar, the Talos makes a great blaster boat, check on battle clinic for either version of Talos and you'll be blitzing through in no time.

Just bear in mind, you won't have the same skills as the OP on battleclinic.

If you're interested, here's my sentry fit and it does EXTREMELY well. I can clear most level 4s with it in under 25 minutes, level 3s are a complete joke.

Obviously extremely skill intensive for a BC (I have tech 2 sentries and BC V as well as above average support skills) but if you get bored of a battleship this thing is really nice to test your piloting.

[Myrmidon, armourpve]
Armor Thermic Hardener II
Reactive Armor Hardener
Medium Armor Repairer II
Drone Damage Amplifier II
Drone Damage Amplifier II
Armor EM Hardener II

Omnidirectional Tracking Link II
Omnidirectional Tracking Link II
10MN Afterburner II
Medium Capacitor Booster II, Cap Booster 800
Omnidirectional Tracking Link II

720mm Howitzer Artillery II, Tremor M
720mm Howitzer Artillery II, Tremor M
720mm Howitzer Artillery II, Tremor M
720mm Howitzer Artillery II, Tremor M
Drone Link Augmentor I

Medium Nanobot Accelerator I
Medium Auxiliary Nano Pump I
Medium Ionic Field Projector I


Garde II x4

according to whom?

you?