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[Incursions/Vanguards] Vindicators and Target Painters
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Daneel Trevize
Give my 11percent back
#1 - 2012-01-01 16:09:27 UTC  |  Edited by: Daneel Trevize
tl;dr:
What's the weakest tank needed for a Vanguard Vindicator, including details on ganglinks/resist %s, number of RRs on 3xguardians vs 3xoneiros, and if an AB helps?
Has anyone noticed that at least 1 Target Painter should be more beneficial to it vs small 62m sig frigs than another stacked TC or TE/tracking rig? Does anyone fly alongside a painting HAM legion/damnation/recon?

Longer version:
So I've been doing some semi-public highsec incursion PvE, in a nice Legion as a part of a ~10man blitz fleet, and am considering if the Vindicator's worth the up/side-grade. A recap on the general points:

The gang's usually quite well composited, fitted and flown. A webbing loki, 3 logis with tracking links, a token BS(not always faction/T2) and then legions/some proteus(blasters or rails).

The quality of ganglinks varies, sometimes we've a maxed legion/loki, sometimes almost nothing. I'm skilling up my alt but atm she's a couple of weeks from decent armour & skirmish CSs/T3s, let alone maxed 4-7 T2 links + mindlinks. The legion really only wants the bonused web range, the gang the armour links if blitzing an OTA.

The legion is a beast vs frigates & fast sub-BS ships, as well as projecting dps out to 50km. With scripts & crystals juggling, it's ~700dps actually applied within 14km before heat, 500dps beyond, all instant gun-dps. When contesting, even with >500scan res, it's often 1 cycle of guns & web per target, and the lock limit of 5 is almost constantly a bother. When not contesting, it's not much slower.

On paper the Vindicator can deliver twice this dps up close on slow targets, and that 90% web helps not only itself. It should also be able to tank, and agile enough to bounce about with the cruiser fleetmates if it's not plated to hell.

I can count on one hand the number of times I've flown BSs for PvE, and they were T1 hulls with T2 fits. I read that the large sig of BSs makes them want to favour explosive&thermal resists for incursions. I'm familiar with sleepers lasers being 50:50 EM:thermal, and missiles being 50:50 kinetic:explosive, and the legion just dodging it all with the sig & AB. Are Sanshas putting out more missile-based dps than laser? Or are people just slapping EANMs on and noticing that armour tanks typically have a slightly higher EM resist to start with and so just seem to take more damage from explosive but really still balanced resists would be best?

E.g. I've seen fits with DC2, 2xfaction EANM, 1xExplo hardener, 3 MFSs that are stated as being enough, and some shield fits where resists are only ~77% before links. All without buffer mods, so <100k EHP. Is this enough? Are the armour fits running with some slaves? The other day I think we had a dual trimarked, 1600mm plated one that was slowly dropping through its buffer as we blitzed an OTA. Compared to a pure resist-based fit, is this somewhat buffered take a favoured tank of practical pilots, or should the strict %s + RR approach win out?

This leads to my second tank-related point, fitting an AB. I like to actually fly my spaceship, even the legion benefits from ~500m/s to get into web & optimal quicker when not taking aggro, and also to help tank. Can the agile plateless Vindi also benefit from a ~400m/s AB or should it just sit there and hope/trust/be poor at NMCs? I get the impression it would really help it get into optimal/web range as well as in theory tank, especially with a full set of skirmish links.

Finally, some PyFA graphs are giving a strong indication that a target painter is a big help to a Vindi. Beyond ~30km a TC would help more but the applied dps is already greatly reduced especially once drones are factored out. Being as even with a scripted SeBo you're 2-3x the locktime of a legion, the rats are going to be coming in close but still well out of 90% web range, so for the 15-25km area, pushing those frig 62m sigs up looks to be the best option and also helps all. Has anyone got experience of this?
The other option I have considered is to put my alt in a maxed HAM+ganglink legion (~400dps) with massive scan res and 2 TPs, which should help all gangmates but be a real juggle to keep mods cycling quick enough and we'll be less certain of having skirmish links. It is also twice the payout & sec status recovery though Blink

Frankly the loki's dps isn't great with ACs and 2 bonused webs, so has anyone considered a huginn/rapier for painting & webbing duties? Or a damnation with some HAMs and painters (not good dps, scan res or painting)? I know some make it into sites, obviously they can tank but are they worth the dual-boxing effort or should they only fit tracking links in such case and the pilot focus on the main account?
Aamrr
#2 - 2012-01-01 16:25:54 UTC
TPs have a 10 second long cycle time. At the rate at which you should be killing incursion rats, cycle time syncing becomes a serious issue. Worse still, TPs help your opponents in contests while tracking mods help only your own ship.

That should explain some of what you're seeing.
Daneel Trevize
Give my 11percent back
#3 - 2012-01-01 20:16:27 UTC
Alright, good point, seems there's not a great match between 2 shots per TP cycle.

How about the AB though for tanking & getting into range? Or is a 2nd SeBo/web/3rd TC best? Any tested armour tank numbers?
The Djego
Hellequin Inc.
#4 - 2012-01-02 00:23:04 UTC  |  Edited by: The Djego
Tank depends a lot on how good your logis are(sigh constantly droping below 50% armor in a 60k EHP guardian gives you a clear example of slow logis, always expect the worst case in fleets you don't know) and if the resists are good enough to hold you after they are on you. Technically, on a faction BS you don't need the 1600mm plate/extenders if the resists are good enough(70-80% across the board). Practically you want to add a tanking mod above this in most fleets for the sake of convenience, since logis can be slow, top damage dealer + OTA focus fire + light tank can be a horrible combination etc. What you look for is something like 90-110k EHP, with 70-80% resists and the rest of the slots for damage/tracking/lock speed etc. Flying a BS manually is also something you will not really enjoy much, since most of the time the best use of it is sitting still to keep the transversal low and allowing you to lay down the damage on a webbed or ranged target(I fly\flown Pala\NM a lot in Incursions). I personal go with T2 tracking + optimal and a extender rig for the NM(since it only got 350 calibration) and T2 rof + T1 optimal rig on my pala. Generally weapon rigs are more useful than tanking rigs here since you have more slots for powerful tanking modules and need more tracking/range/dps to really make the hull shine compared to smaller hulls.

The amount you of torp damage you have to take in a BS is considerable higher than in cruiser sized ships, this is the reason why people tend to use explosive/kin hardeners here, since the added dps of those really can nuke you in bad situations. Since the pala got a far more balanced armor resist profile in this regards and shield tanks got that anyway, I actually don't use them.

As for Legion vs Vindicator in Legion blitz fleets, I wouldn't vote for the vindi here, since the webs need time to kick in, actually allowing you to hit. Also the 1s crystal change time and far quicker lock time are far more useful, given that I mostly only get 1-2 shots on a frig with focus fire on it in a legion that locks 5 times faster than a vindi. AB isn't very useful on BS(for tanking), since you screw your own dps by using it far to much(transversal + bs sized guns). Even on most cruisers you will not pull off something that is really notable above legion DPS(that can be a lot higher than 700 DPS, given dedicated pilots, that you see in blitz fleets) and putting all your egs in the "I will be a little bit quicker on the OTAs" isn't a very attractive concept here, since you will run mostly NCOs/NMCs under competition and leave OTAs to dedicated BS gangs(not that OTAs take long, but NCOs are this much quicker to do).

I also totally hate the target number limitation on the legion, since it is really pain in the ass in blitz fleets.

I'm not to bad at dual boxing, but running in blitz fleets where even 2.6s rof feels like a long time while you switching targets probably needs superhuman levels of multitasking skills to make it effective. 2m, 8s was my record on NCOs and even in a maxed out, proper fitted legion you feel like lacking behind, it is just as fast/effective that you really need to get the lock when something pops up or you will not increase the gang speed at all, I wouldn't even consider to use a BS here, since the extra volley you loose by your lock speed nullify your damage advantage anyway.

Improve discharge rigging: https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&t=246166&find=unread
Arazel Chainfire
Aliastra
Gallente Federation
#5 - 2012-01-02 15:31:50 UTC
You might want to consider if there is a way to effectively get an auto targeting system 2 on your legion (you can swap the armor subsystem for the adaptive augmentor, get a bonus to armor resists, but loose a lowslot for a highslot). You don't turn the module on, you just keep it sitting there, and it gives you an extra 3 locked targets. But for contesting NCO sites, I don't think that you're going to get better then the legion, simply because the vindi locks slower and has larger sized guns. And if you are wanting to look at running NMC's and OTA's faster, you would be better in a paladin than a vindi.

-Arazel
Philip Flatline
Lousy T-Shirt Corp
#6 - 2012-01-02 17:00:57 UTC
Shield tank your vindi and join BS fleets. Leave armor for legion fleets.