Ships & Modules

Any of the attack frigs.
In my opinion the Condor, Slasher, Atron and Executioner are the best T1 non faction frigates in the game for 'general pvp' right now.

By no means an experienced player pvp wise but I would think Amarr ships wouldn't be that bad. Most PvP utility mods are mid slots(AB, MWD, Points, TP, ECM etc) and Amarrs set up for armor tank which takes low slots leaving your mids free for goodies. Lots of the other ships rely on some sort of Shield setup which robs mid slots away.

What makes Amarr so bad then?

Precisely that, midslots. Or lack thereof. Punisher has only 2. The others have 3.

Tormentor and Executioner can work as kiters but lasers have relatively poor tracking close range, so they're both pigeon-holed into one role, and are particularly vulnerable to tracking disruptors (which are common on many frigate fits).

So much Amarr hate.....


OP, the truth is, all the frigs are good now but some are easier to fly and give more immediate gratification than others. Generally, Gallente and Caldari frigs are more SP friendly (Tristan excepted). The high DPS of blasters, the massive range of rails and the steady damage application of missiles do a lot of the work for you. Minmatar and Amarr are better with a bit more SP investment and good understanding of how your opponent might behave and what the received wisdom is floating about in peoples heads, ie, "Amarr's crap, esp Punishers", "Rifter's are rubbish now"

Minmatar have gotten more, well, Minmatar. They're never tanky or high damage but have the speed, low sig and damage selection to exploit your opponents game, once you work it out. The Slasher's the best example of this and the Rifter is still good, but hitting orbit and letting your ship stats do the work will get you killed.

Amarr are in good shape too. The Tormentor is a nasty piece of work (it's speed got buffed last week) and can easily go full kite, scram kite or brick brawler. The Executioner can do full kite and scram kite very well too but if you want to fight at less than 3km, fit a metastasis, it hits fine then. The ability to switch between range/damage/tracking quickly gives you a lot of options.

The Punisher's greatest asset is it reputation as a 2 mid lolboat. It is a hard one to fly without any prior pvp knowledge but once you get a bit more experience, that missing mid isn't so much of a hindrance. It's very good in fleets and can really lay down the hurt. I sometimes fit a overdrive in the abundant lows and surprise people with the unusually fast Punisher

The Punisher is hard mode though, for solo. But it's by no means crap. It just takes a bit of flying

For fleet you can do Merlins (or even Tristan/Incursus) with more DPS, more speed, full tackle and more buffer than a Punisher.

Solo the punisher is too slow to kite and and entirely lacks range control, which it needs since it gets outbrawled by rail ships at their optimal.

The punisher is not hard-mode. It is simply a bad ship.

Good workmen never blame their tools.

Just sayin'

Woohoo! someone can quote KB figures :)

My work here is done!

All arguments about ships are null and void when you turn to a player's KB. Especially if said player never brags or inflates their own ability with said ships (or any ship for that matter)

You own opinions on the ships in question are exactly that. Opinions. My opinion is different and my record shows that I am a bad pilot that consistantly makes daft choices when I am out pvp'ing (who cares I have fun).

What I do consistently find however is in chatting with my oppoonents they are often surprised by the effectiveness of my fits and pretty much agree that it is often my target selection or actions during the fight that end up with my demise not the ship/fit. And I often fight known pvp'ers not just new pilots trying out FW.

non-pro tip: think abit about what is said. KB only gives end result not the process of how said result was achieved.

Don't be a killboard prostitute. Play for the experience.



He also admitted to being a bad pilot and making bad decisions, so you can't submit those "stats" as evidence that they are bad ships.

The man has a point...saying a ship is good without any evidence to back it up should be be qualified as such. Rifter never was bad, firetail is amazing.

Also, that one dude who said that thing was right. Minmatar feel *more* minmatar after tiericide, somehow. Make no mistake, we got nerfed, but I'm still happy with how it all panned out. If you were good with minmatar before, you'll be good after. If you were okay with minmatar before, you'll be terrible.

A brief guide to the Punisher.

[Wot no suitcase???]
400mm Reinforced Rolled Tungsten Plates I
Adaptive Nano Plating II
Heat Sink II
Heat Sink II

Experimental 1MN Afterburner I
J5b Phased Prototype Warp Scrambler I

Gatling Pulse Laser II, Imperial Navy Multifrequency S
Gatling Pulse Laser II, Imperial Navy Multifrequency S
Gatling Pulse Laser II, Imperial Navy Multifrequency S
Small Unstable Power Fluctuator I

Small Trimark Armor Pump II
Small Trimark Armor Pump I
Small Trimark Armor Pump I



EHP 8213
DPS conf/inmf/scorch 184/165/131
Speed 1100
Cap with inmf 2m 8s


Firstly, about the lack of damage control. One of the things about the Punisher is that it is hard to get a fit with decent dps AND decent tank, mainly down to lack of CPU. Now, with the Punisher, with it's resist bonus and generous base armour hp, when you fit 3 trimarks, a 400mm plate and a anp, that puts you at over 8k ehp. For a T1 frig that's still pretty good and is on par with the standard MSE Merlin. You then have the spare CPU to fit 2 heat sinks. If you run Genolutions and a +3 pg you can get it's ehp even higher.

Tactics.

Number one, avoid starting at zero, but don't worry about getting a fight. You are in a '2 mid lolboat' so people will often engage you.
Ideally, you want to be 40-50km off your opponent, aligned. If they are kiters, warp off and question their manhood in local Picking your battles is important, but that's true of any pvp. There are three stages to this fight.
Stage one. The tendency amongst pilots facing the Punisher is to dive in and try to get under their guns. This is what you want them to do. As they burn towards you, overheat your AB and burn away from them. You want to prolong their approach. When in range start softening them up with scorch, they'll expect to take some damage at this point. When they are closer switch to MF, you'll still get good hits, their trans still low.

Stage two. As they establish their orbit start manually piloting in sharp vectors, generally aiming in the direction opposite to their travel. Turn off AB overheat. You can also pilot down or up so they follow 'down the plughole' as it were. Gatling Pulses are great for this as, having the highest ROF of any gun, any moment their trans drops you're getting hits. Just make sure you stay within your optimal. You'll hardly use orbit or keep at range at all. Putting the neut on them means their time in close orbit is limited and puts the pressure on.

Stage three. Hopefully you've hurt them enough that they are thinking of bugging out. This is where they get the fait accompli. Keep a close eye on them making a run for it. Hit approach, overheat your ab and be ready to switch back to scorch and finish them off. The lack of damage control helps you in this moment as you appear to be tankier than you actually are and they are encouraged to run.

I quoted dps for conflag. Blaster users can sometimes, perceiving you to have a big tank, hit approach to pound you at point blank range. They will oblige you with low trans and in that situation conflag works fine. In fact, it's necessary to try to match their dps. Anyway, unlike any other weapon system, if one ammo isn't working out you can just switch.


Now, I'm not saying this is without hard counters, it's not. I'm not saying it's easy, it does need some practice. I'm not saying this is an awesome solo boat either and Motion prediction 5 is a must. Funnily enough, one of the best hard counters is the TD Slasher sitting at 8km, but they never do that. They dive into a close orbit that you can manipulate with manual piloting and get neuted. Where the Punisher really shines is tanky dps support for small gangs. Land on grid, lock target, apply dps. It takes a while for those blaster boats to get to their high damage range. The Punisher is more forgiving in that regard. If it were ever having it's slots rearranged, I think I'd rather swap the spare high slot for another low.