Missions & Complexes

I run missions. . .not because i particularly care for them, but its more profitable to mine moving rocks then to mine the stationary ones.
Ive ran missions for awhile, have basically perfect skills for my setup which was
Paladin with
H tachs and bastion
M 2 tracking comps, ab and mjd
L 4 imperial heatsinks
tracking enhancer
imperial navy eanm
and Corpus A-Type lar
R ccc2 and energy locust coordinator2

got one of the heatsinks back, and the federation ab, but lost the lar
Total lost = . . . equivalent to one large face palm

So theres my shame, the only excuses I can make for myself are petty ones, things like
-I normally leave guristas the hell alone, wrong damage type
-I have the mjd for gtfo situations, surely im fine
-I do well over 1000dps, worst case it takes 5 volleys rather then 3 to pop bs's

Then the uncomfortable truth found me.
-Shouldnt of had such confidence in my lack of tank
-Apparently 140km away from the damage dealers ISNT FAR ENOUGH!
-Bastion is great, until it is your ball and chain. Then when you do get it off, it leaves you naked.

I havent lost a ship since my early days of L4s with a poorly flown abadden. Apparently i was just saving up to lose a much more expensive ship.

When went back to hurriedly grab the wreck, all i was hoping for was the gd lar. No joy. Got all of the t2 guns back though. . .
To add insult to injury, the salvage, was nothing. Not a gd thing. Just a little poof and that erases the last remnants of the ship that was THE ship. Not even a armor plate to remember her by. Eltie t2 amarr battleship, gone forever, except of course for the forever scar that sits next to my abadden, in the combat log, reminding me exactly when it was that i got over confident. Down to the second. Very important.


So there is my shame, just had to get that off my chest.

Sorry for your loss. But i guess that happens sooner or later no matter how much veteran you are. In which mission did you lose your paladin?
I cannot fly a pally yet, i am flying a Nightmare. But i had no trouble yet with my 450 dps tank while fighting from close range to ~80km. Its hard to imagine you lost a paladin, with an a type rep over 140km?
My Nightmare almost has no tank and i would still like to even drop some more tank but i cant stack any more dps unfortunately.

Dual lar dominix does look a little more appealing now for sure.

I did lose it at 140km, but that was only after.

It started out fine, a little slow albeit due to thermal damage not being the best against gurista. I had been firing, had popped a few bs already, when i started taking a little more damage then my rep could easily keep up with. Im not stable so i have to pulse my rep, but i can leave it on for a good while if i have to, but if i have to leave it on, then im taking more damage then i like. I hadnt bastioned up yet, like usual, leaving me with options, options like re-positioning if cruisers and smaller get under my guns. My repairer was having to be left on, so seeing as how everything entering 70km optimal kill zone was dying shortly after entering, I went ahead and bastioned up to go back to pulsing my repairer.
The next wave that jumped in, jumped it at around 40km. Normally this isnt a bad thing since i can melt cruisers up until they get around 15km to me. But with this new wave i noticed that my repair wasnt keeping up, AND I HAD LEFT IT ON! This told me that things were not under control.
I had plenty of cap left, but if my repairer cant keep up and im already in bastion, then there is a serious problem. This was the first time in well over a year that I was being FORCED to re-position. Usually its done to gain more dps and save time or when im positioning for the next accel gate. Always optional, but this time it was a necessity!
A new cycle on the bastion had just started so all i could do was work on incoming dps until the cycle ran out and i could jump away. As soon bastion dropped, i aligned away and hit the mjd. It takes about 10 sec with my skills to spool up, which is fine because it gives (gave, past tense) my ship time to align out. Unfortunately in this 10 secs my ship has nothing in defense other then 1 eanm.
By the time my ship jumps 100km away, the last of my armor is melting away, Im still okay though, I may only have hull left, but im a 140km away from any source of incoming damage. Then a missle hits me. . .
My mind tripping over the oddity of it, I double check the range and yes i am certainly 140km away. Then another missle, and another! In hindsight, this maybe that last mistake this ship ever saw.
If i had bastioned up right then, my (still cycling) repair could have probably caught up. But im too busy being dumbfounded at how even 140km away, im still loosing my ship!
I try to warp out. Something ive always hated doing, something that i haven't needed to do for so long that i hesitated, fumbled the keys on where to jump. A precious second, maybe even two. Got the destination, was aligning to it, ship speeding up, my breath is held,

I jumped,

but in my pod. . .

Not sure what to say. Sorry for your loss?

I've run all of the epic arcs in a Kronos, and while some of the missions seriously kicked even the bastion tank It has never popped. And I only ran T2.

I'd drop a HS for maybe at least a damage control. 4th HS is a neglible small gain in DPS and having the hull resists can save your butt in times like this.

Obviously other mistakes you already know. Keeping track of your bastion cycle etc. You can MJD every minute so you can easily MJD bastion to rep up repeat if necessary. And when in trouble and MJD alway do it aligned to something you can warp away to.

Also call me paranoid but i also keep some tank mods and a mobile depot. Also has saved me in the epic arcs by being able to MJD, drop depot overheat tank and then refit.

Guristas shoot well past 140km

they are probably the worst rat to try and spider tank

if I may give a few suggestions for your next pally (great ship stay with it).

try out t2 pulses. scorch and conflag and bastion will have you sporting a semi all through your first few missions and the tracking amd cap usage will keep you semi erect for all the missions after. if you want even more, the reactive hardner is like an enam and a dcu had too much to drink at a wedding and did the nasty. it is an amazing module because it can get up to 60% non stacking penalised resist to a single damage type. best used with an enam and not a dcu. with that you wont even need anything more than a t2 lar.

btw I too have lost a marauder to the assault. its a nasty mission that one.

Did you aggro the whole room? I've done that mission in a Drake, and as long as I manage the aggro I have no issues. Just because you are in a Marauder, don't think you shouldn't have to manage aggro.

I'm little surprised nobody mentioned the Mobile Depot. When you're bastioned and you see that the grenade is just falling into the cesspit you can drop the depot as well, you're not going anywhere anyway. And with bastion bonuses you have enough time for the depot to activate and with activated one you can refit your ship for better tank, better cap or even switch guns if those you are using are inadequate.

This simple tactic saved my ass from worse situations (The Showtime of Gallente Epic Arc).

Did the exact mission last night on Apocalypse... it ain't that bad dps\tank wise the problem is that FUC*ING ECM all over the place... and it got like 60-70 km range on random intervals... bloody hell I just blitzed it and vowed never to face guristas with gunships again unless bastion.