Ships & Modules

Howdy all,

I am looking for a follow up to the drake as a pure PvE mission runner vessel once I have an abundence of skill points to ensure I can fit and fight the drake effectively.

A lot of people seem to recommend either the Nightmare or the Paladin for soloing level 4'seffectively and moving beyond that....

However, because I love shields over armour (not an issue for the nightmare) and because I'll be training up missile systems, how do the Mordu Legion vessels perform in solo PvE encounters? I note that they don't quite have the same damage boost as the nightmare does to lasers and they don't have the bastion mode of marauders.... But are the benefits and fitting options of the Mordu BS able to make up for this or is it really a waste of time to go for anything except the nightmare/paladin? (p.S at the moment I sit in amarr space and I am really not fussed about branching out all over the Galaxy)

A RattleSnake takes the same skills that the Mordus ship needs and turns into a 1500+ DPS PVE monster. Use that.

Mordus ships are absolutely fine in PvE (especially L4s) and will fare no worse than a Golem or Navy Raven. Since I assume you're referring to the Barghest, I'll go over a few pros and cons with this ship that most don't realize.

Pros
• It has the same passive shield recharge rate as the Rattlesnake.
• It also has an excellent capacitor with recharge rate (most players don't realize this)
• It has a much higher agility, velocity and align time than the Golem, Navy Raven or Rattl.esnake (so getting to and from missions and between gates is relatively quick). It's also fast enough that you don't need a MJD to get around quickly.
• It has more base EHP than either the Golem or Navy Raven.
• It routinely sells for less than a Navy Raven and is less than half the price of a Golem.
• The high missile velocity means less likelihood of losing volleys in-transit (you don't have to really "count volleys" with the Barghest).
• 50 Mbit drone bandwidth/75m3 drone bay (so you have more drone options available than with the Golem).
• You can utilize the new Missile Guidance Enhancer II in 2-3 low slots to improve missile range and damage application (these are passive modules, so you never have to activate them or alternate between targets - unlike target painters on the Golem). This also allows you to utilize your rigs for Hyperspacial modules.
• 9.375% more raw missile DPS than the Golem or Navy Raven and 16.6% more raw missile DPS than the Rattlesnake.
• You don't need to train Marauders V or any of the target-painter related skills to get the most out of the Barghest.

Cons
• Not currently available in black (the Golem is).

Most players who utilize the Golem fawn over it's awesome damage application. The reason for this is they primarily run T2 launchers with Fury ammunition. While on paper this does more damage than Faction, the damage application is horrible - hence why you typically need to run a Golem setup with both rigors in the rigs, 2-3 target painters and IV or V target painter skills. On the Barghest you can run T2 launchers with Faction ammunition, fewer damage application modules and get the same or better results.

Just a full disclaimer: I'm fully-trained for all ships and have used the Rattlesnake, Navy Raven, Golem and Barghest extensively for L4 missions.

Barghest with cruise and a MWD and two LSE was not bad at all before the new modules, able to orbit far away and launch missiles at long distances, didn't try after that, but I guess a midslot guidance computer with a precision would be something.

Orthrus is very good too but I prefer the Cerberus.

I may be the only one but I use the regular cruise missiles on my Barghest. And while I also fly a Rattlesnake or a Gila depending what mission it is, I can't say that I ever managed to kill battlecruiser rats with one volley either on my Raven, Navy Scorpion or Golem.
Had a Blood Raider Vengeance the other day and cleared out the first two rooms without reloading the launchers - ouch.

Yes to the Mordu's ship... I loved the barghest in pve... set orbit on the gate to 100k, mjd out and orbit it. Cruises hit all targets before the next volley is ready so you never ever waste a volley. Drones wreck any frigs that get close to you and you arent just a stationary turret like a rattlesnake is because you are babysitting sentries.

I love barghest in pve even if the second bonus is useless for pve.

Using Sentries on a rattlesnake is a sin. Pod yourself.

The Rattlesnake always does more DPS than then Barg. The Rattlesnake will always tank more raw damage than the Barg. There is no reason to use the Barg instead of the Rattlesnake in almost any PvE setting unless you have terrible drone skills and only good missiles skills.

Also some of the advice in this thread so far defending the the Barg have been absolutely thoughtless.



While this is true it ignores the fact that the raven while having less missile DPS has another 800+ drone DPS making it an absolute monster compared to the Barg.



This is garbage information and completely incorrect. The Rattlesnake has nearly DOUBLE the passive shield recharge rate of the Barg. (EHP) This is due partly to the fact that the native resists of the RattleSnake are given a Substantial boost by its passive. Even raw HP the Rattlesnake has more than When actually fit for tanking the Rattlesnake has more than 800 EHP/S than the Barg.

I don't mean for my post to be a personal attack on anyone flying the Barg. Its a fun ship and it has some very very very effective roles. However in almost any situation involving missions or NoN-Incursion PvE the Rattlesnake has more damage, and more tank, and a greater isk/hr when running missions than the Barg. If you have any questions on how to fly or how to use the RattleSnake effectively for PvE let me know and I'd be happy to post some fits and explanations. (not to mention the RS costs 313 million isk less)

You are literally saying spewing garbage and have no knowledge of what you're talking about. The Rattlesnake with no modules of any kind has a 12% greater passive shield recharge rate than the Barg with also no modules. Also if you brick tank a rattlesnake it does over 1900 dps so I'm really not sure what you're talking about but it's certainly not productive.

If by chance you mean with full passive tank it doesn't do any DPS you must be daft since it ACTUALLY does. A Rattlesnake does 1027 DPS with Missiles and Drones with no implants and no drones. This includes near perfect application to cruiser + sized targets (Meanwhile your drones have perfect application to anything over a frigate and honestly do pretty damn well against frigates we well). THIS is all while maintaining a NATIVE (RAW) 934 HP/S or over 3240 EHP/S. Not that you would ever need that much tank against any missions or signatures or anomalies (95% of the time) We're excluding Wormhole space in this entire conversation since they do require that high level of tank and other special strategies do do effectively solo.

I was, yes.


See above. If we're taking EHP numbers, once you factor in velocity and signature resolution I think the Barghest actually edges out the Rattlesnake slightly in terms of the modified tank and the effect this has on mitigating damage.

If you brick your Rattlesnake you'll be doing somewhere around 1600 paper DPS, unless you're including values for overheating, torpedoes or Officer weapons. And without a single damage application module the Fury or Rage ammunition you're using in your configuration will in reality apply about 25-50% of that.


Please stop throwing around DPS numbers as though these are the holy grail, because DPS and applied DPS are two different things. I can get a 2000 DPS+ Rattlesnake build, but these numbers are overheated, using torpedoes and have horrible damage application (both drones and missiles) - not too mention the abysmal range. A realistic Rattlesnake build will crank out around 1500 DPS and give you the option for utilizing Sentries (I sin, so sue me). This uses T2 cruise missiles launchers with Faction ammunition, since the excess DPS of Fury ammunition is diminished with loss of damage application (unless you're shooting a structure).

I won't even comment on the Thermal/Kinetic missile bonuses on the Rattlesnake, which are only ideally-suited for Guristas and Mercenaries (Drones, Sansha, Angels, etc. will take 20% or more less damage by switching to thermal). The Rattlesnake also requires a lot more skill training to make it work compared to the Barghest. I could also point out that having to run two primary weapon systems is more challenging in terms of micromanagement as well as optimizing.

On a Rattlesnake you will ideally want to run 3x BCUs and 3x DDAs (2 of each being Faction). If you want to cut down on mission running time, you'll want Ascendancy implants and Hyperspacial rigs to get it over the 2.0 AU/s mark (because it is abysmally slow getting around otherwise). If you're going to run heavy drones you'll need at least one Omnidirectional tracking link with a tracking speed script, otherwise those Geckos and Ogres can't hit anything smaller than cruisers. Ditto for your missiles, although with the new Missile Guidance Computer you can precision script it (previously your only option was to utilize rigor rigs).

The Barghest fit I fly cranks out around 1300 DPS with implants and drones. I don't really count drone DPS because I consider it "pest control". This is applied DPS, because I have lots of lows and mids to utilize the new missile guidance modules to enhance damage application. I lose a lot fewer (almost none) missile volleys due to the 4x higher velocity as compared to the Rattlesnake.

As previously stated, I've flown the Navy Raven, Golem, Rattlesnake and Barghest quite extensively in L4s. Despite having less paper DPS, a properly skilled Barghest can be just as efficient as a Rattlesnake (partially because it can get around a lot quicker, and partially because it can deliver and mitigate damage a bit better).

barghest does more eft deepz than a cnr. however without the application bonus I'm not so sure how that plays out. Also since the bonus is to damage I wonder how much gets wasted in overkill. that said the missile velocity bonus is nice as it means you won't waste volleys. Tempted to buy a barg for my afk FoF boat.

personally I run gun boats, I like the instant damage, and on marauders I never group guns as overkill will become a problem. I've come to just not like missiles, with 9k volleys from a fury barghest, overkill will be a problem, and not knowing how many missiles to shoot at a target means wasted dps. my alt has all the missile skills maxed too. I got pretty good at volley counting, but now I just find it boring.