Warfare & Tactics

TBH.

Now more than ever the playing fleid is balanced.

Litterally my advice is have a look at what races/weapons you like the idea/feel/looks of and trian them up and fly them. All races/weapons have frigs both T1 and T2 can do everything really.

There is no 'best' in eve. just best for a specific task, and even then 50 people will give you 50 answers to that one as well.

Fly what you like and stop worrying about 'best' and you'll enjoy eve more!

Something to keep in mind: Interceptors are awful in current meta, except for dedicated tackle in fleet ops.

Assault Ships, which are most likely the T2 ships you'll be flying, are the slowest ship type in the frig class. I say this because you mention being able to run. Truth is, most AFs are committed to any fight they engage. Some are a bit more slippery, like the Jag, but they're the exception not the rule.

Here are *my impressions* of the current AF lineup, based on my experiences in solo PvP.

Enyo: Ball-kickingly insane DPS and tank. Poor control. Unless you run a neut fit, you'll find it tends to lack control too much to solo. If facing TD fits, or kiters, you may find yourself screwed. Blasters aren't as weak as they once were, but if your weaknesses are exploited, you *will* be killed by cheaper ships. Your best bet is to try to hard burn to point blank range with neuts and try to kill them before they kill you. Alternatively, you can go for stupid tank, and just try to make TD and kite fits get bored and fly off. Not advisable though. The upside is that a nos Enyo is one of the best AFs for engage ships above it's class.

Ishkur: Suffers from some of the same problems as the Enyo, but is significantly more flexible due to it's excellent damage projection. As a result of this, and it's partial cap-independence, it generally isn't as easy to control. You may pin it down, but no matter what you're flying, a large portion of that damage WILL get through. Has many of the same options of the Enyo.

Wolf: A faster, less versatile, Enyo. Has 2 major schools of fitting. First is brawl fit. Second is kite fit. Brawl fits generally run mwd scram neut with heavy buffer, forgoing any feeble attempt at range control for the option to engage kite fits. OTOH, you can run nos with armor reps and put up a very impressive active tank. Cap-independent weapons means you aren't totally ****** if you get neuted, and the fact that once you're up close your mids are a nonfactor makes all brawl fittings basically immune to cap warfare. Kite fit generally runs arti, and focus on killing things from range with stupidly high alpha. The damage is insanely good, but TBH you will suffer in the current meta. Everyone else is kite fit with tracking disruptors, and they're *faster* than you.

Jaguar: The embodiment of the minmatar assault frigate. Nothing about it particularly stands out, except for it's sheer versatility. This is a heavier rifter, with a 4/4/4 slot layout. Rather than listing what it can do, it's simply easier to list what you shouldn't do. You shouldn't armor tank it, due to it's resist profile, but it CAN be armor tanked. You shouldn't run kite fits, because the wolf is simply better here. I've never seen arti jags be successful in solo operations. Everything else is fair game. The ships is just stupidly versatile. It can fit a decently good tank, put out pretty good damage, and has enough room left over for whatever utility you see fit. It may not be the best AF(and it is generally outclassed), but if you want to fly in true minmatar style, look no further.

Harpy: Take all the strengths of the Merlin. Now increase them. That's the harpy. Insanely good damage surprisingly good speed, and an impressive amount of tank. It even comes with a boost to hybrid range. This ship is *very* hard to control, and is damn terrifying in a brawl. You can even run rail fits on this thing. The one thing going against this is that the current meta is very TD heavy. It doesn't suffer anywhere near as bad as the Enyo, but I have personally seen Harpies fall to much cheaper TD fits. Be warned: people WILL exploit TDs against you, because everyone who isn't TD fit probably won't engage you.

Hawk: If the Harpy is the Caldari Enyo, then the Hawk is the Caldari Ishkur. It's not a perfect metaphor, but the Hawk has a stupidly wide engagement profile. Between it's good damage, excellent projection, cap-independence, and absolutely stellar tank, there are few fights a hawk can't tank. Furthermore, with a whopping 5 mid slots, the Hawk has an insane amount of options. These things are scary.

Unfortunately, my experience with Amarr Assault ships is limited, but I'll toss what i know.

Retribution: This thing is like a punisher with more damage and Optimal. I hardly ever see these things out in low(tracking disruptors are not kind to them), but they can put out a lot of damage, and have great projection.

Vengeance: The vengeance is similar to the hawk. The difference is that the vengenace trades the hawk's utility for even MORE tank. These are VERY tough nuts to crack, with rockets they will wear you down regardless of what you're using. The only real option vs these is kite fits, but then you'll never break it's incredible tank. This is not really the sort of ship you want to engage solo. But on the other hand, you'll rarely get fights in this thing.

I suggest you fly T1 frigs before going into T2 ships. Even with all the money in the world, the best ship and the best fitting, you gonna loose alot of ships.
If you get good at T1 frigs, you can decide for yourself what T2 ships you want to fly.

@Garresh
Tarnis ist still a good solo PvP Interceptor.

As above start with T1 frigs. Until you learn how to kite and slingshot, spiral and manual fly you will find frigs dying around you in high numbers. As a general rule the smaller the ship class the more technical the fighting style and the smaller the margin for error.

Start with the fact that most frig fights are done with in a very short period of time. This time frame of typically 1-3min is all there is to get to the correct range, tackle, and break the opponent's tank. Now if this is two brawlers who want to be point blank then it mostly comes down to a DPS:Tank ratio. But if it is a kiter vs brawler both have different tactics to keep or close the distance.

Not sure really with two kiters as I have never really seen it. It might be like deciding by zero for all I know and the universe inverts. I imagine though they flirt with each other until one has enough and then since (likely) they are already at the edge of point range a little bit of extra effort and they disengage

Hilariously the opposite is not true, love meeting someone who has spent most of his time in larger hulls, flying a frigate (noobs with 50M+ SP ) .. still remember the first several deaths I had in frigs, quite the 'WTF!?! just happened' moments as they are almost literally over in a heartbeat.

TD = Tracking Disruptor

If you want survivability in solo, your best bet are fast kiting ships since they have the potential to disengage from a fight and get out alive.

They tend to lack in dps but unlike brawling ships they are not committed to fights.

I personally get bored flying them because I consider them to have a limited engagement range and find the play-style unchallenging and predictable, when I get a fight I can handle. They CAN be fun because you can engage larger numbers more easily and pick off the weak but I find being able to do the same in a BRAWL ship (close range, web and scram) more satisfying.

That said, for tech II or faction you should look at the Wolf or Slicer, both are excellent long range ships. For tech I at the moment, which are currently buffed to the point where they are more or less as good as if not better than tech II.... the condor is laughably overpowered, as are a few others.

Veng/Hawk/Enyo>Harpy/wolf>Retri/ishkur>Jaguar

even though i'm a noob too, I can say that there's no BEST ship in the game. (If there were, no one would ever fly anything else, and that would just make no sense for a game like this). There MIGHT be a best ship for a specific purpose, and you'd have to know what your purpose was in order to determine what the BETTER ship might be.

For solo pvp you want a trick the other guy can't answer. An electronic attack frigate. Any of them .