Warfare & Tactics

I was in a FW corp for a good six months so I have a little experience in PVP; however, I don't have ANY experience in capacitor warfare, nor in Amarr ships as I've flown mainly Minmatar. Lately, I've been very interested in flying Amarr, particularly to dabble in the 5th and criminally underused form of E-War, energy neutralization. Now, I can imagine that these ships can be a bit difficult to fly at first, as your support/drone skills have to be well trained and the ship skills being maxed to get full effectiveness. I've been told in-game that a pilot specializing in capacitor warfare can be a real asset to any small gang, and can also hold their own quite well in solo engagements (mostly Curse/Pilgrim/Arbitrators). This is a brand spanking new toon btw

So the real questions are:

1) What are some tips for a pilot flying primarily neut ships?
2) How useful is it flying solo vs small gang
3) Should I branch off into other weaponry to supplement my pvp or should I just focus on neuting/nos'ing?
4) What opponents should I hunt for and which should I engage with caution if I am flying solo?
5) Do pvp corps have use for a pilot that really only flies neut ships?

Any comments, suggestions or starter builds for some ships are appreciated.

Also if this topic has been answered ad nauseum , I apologize cuz I searched the forums and found an old topic from like a year and a half ago

Disclaimer: I don't fly Nos/Neut ships a lot, but my friend Fintarue does a lot and streams his outings. You could hit him up in game for more detailed advice.

1) Learn how to manage your cap like a boss. Fin's Sentinel has something like 18s of cap life with everything running. The trick is knowing when to turn off what - usually you want to alpha neut your opponent so you keep all your neuts on and then turn half-ish of them off.

Once you get a pilot below the peak cap recharge rate you can keep 1-2 small or medium (depending on size of the enemy) Nuets on them to keep them capped out.

2) Very effective if flown correctly and you assess the situation well - trying to take more than you can handle will result in your death. This is even more true with neut ships, since your only hope, really, is to incapacitate your foe. You won't win a DPS race against most things.

3) Debatable. I'd say, other than drones, no at first. However, make sure your drones are maxed out.

4) Opponents that rely on cap of course! ACs, Arties, and Missiles of any kind are generally out - especially as you get started. Blaster and Laser boats are forgiving boats to practice on until you "get it"

5) Yes. Neut ships are useful in small gang and fleet battles (where caps are involved) though in a fleet battle expect to fly a Geddon or a Bhaalgorn

Out of the top of my head: Don't the neuting ships (or some of them) have a bonus to TD? If so, that's how you counter Projectile Turret ships.

Buy talismans. (unless you fly in null)

Seriously they make a big difference. Unless you fly a Bhaalgorn (or a cap archon) you probably don't need HGs, but the LGs are really cheap and unless you are in null you probably won't loose them.

Pods insta-warp, meaning they don't need time to align.
When your ship is going down and you hit low armor or structure - just pick a warp-to point and spam "warp".

How would one approach fighting a missile boat?

On the frigate level? I wouldn't approach it at all. Just go after the hybrid-bonused hulls.

The downsides to neut fits are that you can't neut someone's tackle off effectively, usually have crap range, can't stop drone or missile DPS, and you'll cap yourself out quickly. It only takes a sliver of cap to restart the cycle on a scram/point, and they'll get that sliver between your neut cycles. So you're very committed to every fight you take. Any missile boat will keep both his DPS coming and his point on you no matter what you do. Of course your neuts also won't do anything to drone boats...or anything that can stay out of neut range...which is very close unless you're flying something shiny.

You have certainly signed yourself up for Eve on difficult mode.

There's one Amarr destroyer that's built as a neut ship: the Dragoon, which has hedty range bonuses for neuts and energy vampires - at Amarr Destroyer V, you'll get double the standard range from your neuts, taking small neut range to about 12km.

I don't think you can solo until you hit cruisers. But cruisers aren't much later than Dessy so it's not so bad. If Dragoon had a third mid slot, it would be an absolute beast. Unfortunately, you can't run a cap booster, scram and prop. So either u slowboat it with scram + booster or run prop + booster and no scram.

Full rack of small neuts or rockets/neuts?