Ships & Modules

That question does not have a straight up answer, it depends on many things like your fit, opponents fit, where you're fighting, risk of being blobbed, type of ship the opponent is flying, are they flying with links/implants etc

The Punisher is actually not a very good solo frigate because of it's complete lack of range control meaning most other frigs will either kite you, or run away if they aren't winning a brawl, you'll also have trouble catching anything that doesn't want to fight you.

A standard t1 AB frigate w/scram + web in lowsec can take on a large number of target and have a decent chance to win, however the things that I'd try to avoid are: Long Point kiters w/mwd (Attack Frigs/Slicer/Fast cruisers), drone bonused hulls, anything that might carry a medium neut or larger, Caracals (and to some extent other missile boats, but it depends, LML Caracals especially murder frigs), Pirate frigs. Most other things are fair game though obviously you'll win some and you'll lose some depending on the factors I talked about earlier.

With scorch on T2 pulse you can do some interesting scram range kiting. Particularly against shield fits if they don't deal properly with the EM hole. (Aka always bet on stupid). The two big troubles for Amarr I is the minimal mid slots and poor flight speeds. Both of which combine to poor effect. But the rig skills and honeycomb can help mitigate that to some degree.

In any case if you find you can't make lazorz work for you change platforms. With T1 frigs, if your cores are good, its only a couple weeks of cross train time between races.

A punisher running a kiting fit managed to get me a bit worried in my thrasher.
I was waiting on a gate for intel about the next system from my scout. We knew the neut was in system but that didnt bother us. Anyway he landed on the gate i was waiting at and jumped through.

I was 10-15km off so i didnt bother to chase becuase i thought he would be gone by the time i got there. Intel came through that the next system was clear so i warped to the gate.

During the warp i noticed that the neut had re-entered the system. I was thinking wtf he actually wants to fight. Anyway i landed on gate and jumped reported the neut was chasing me to my scout and waited sure enough he jumped in after me so i engaged him.

He immediatley activated his mwd and burned away from me blasting at my shields and keeping his distance just over 10km. This was a great tactic only becuase i had not bought barrage ammo before i left - it was like the dude knew this somehow...

When i got to half shields i decided to burn away from him. My scout turned up and hit the dude with missiles until he was forced to warp off.

Anyway the dude thought he would try his luck again and followed us to the next system and engaged my scout on the gate. For whatever reason he completely ignored me and went straight for the scout who was in a manticore iirc. He was prolly trying to kill the scout before i killed him. Luckily my scout did not engage and just jumped through the gate as he got into armor. By this time i had closed distance on the punisher and just blapped it with hail.

He was running this fit :

3 x Dual light beam laser II with gleam/aurora
Upgraded MWD
Warp disruptor II
Tracking enhancer II
HeatSink II
small armor repaier
Adaptive nano plating II

Small energy discharge elutration
samll polycarbon engine housing
small dynamic fuel valve

On the fit i was using i had dropped a nanofiber internal structure for a DC. I kinda regretted that after getting kited so easily. If my scout hadnt come to help that fight would have gone differently.

So to answer your question OP. I guess most people would advise that you run from dessy if ur in a frig but the thing is if u take the risk and have a good fit, tactic and a little luck u could do well. That being said im not a pro pvper or anything im still just leearning the ropes.

I wouldnt engage any assault frigates in a T1 frigate.

Well prepared destroyers should mince you

big targets might be ok IF you can get under thier guns. just watch out for drones. Remember to appraoch fast and at an angle. There are videos on 'spiralling' on youtube check these out.

Thank you for excellent replies.