Crime & Punishment

Thankyou Sir.

It was a great fight, and I am now off to bed to catch up on some lost zzz's

I perpetually find myself underestimating the blaster Moa. I'm still used to pre-tiericide Moas with the range bonus. They can't match the raw DPS or application of a Thorax...but DAT TANK....

Moa's tank was LSE, XLASB, and Improved Blue Pill. I'll post the full fit when I'm not on mobile.

And here is why Bronson Hughes never had a real chance:

1. Go to Google
2. Type "Domino Vyse" into serach bar
3. Show images
4. Drag and drop Dom's avatar picture into the search bar again for reverse image search
5. Scroll down the results until you get to the "visually similar " images
6. Google knows the truth.

I did indeed watch that fight, and it was one of the best (and longest) cruiser fights I've ever seen.
Here's to hoping that I've learned something from watching it to become a little better myself.
That Google image thing is just something I stumbled upon at work just today (life sucks pretty hard right now, have to work over shifts and didn't get to log into the game for a week now) and I found it hilarious.
I did various characters, but scoring a "Batman" is the clear winner.
According to Google, Bronson's picture is visually similar to Denzel Wahsington's Equalizer, Zimmy gets some strange weeaboo crap and Leto Thule scored an Arnold.

I racked my brains trying to come up with the right fit for our fight. The main thing I learned is that no matter what fit you bring, there is always a counter to it, particularly with T1 ships. There is a huge cointoss element to organised fights.

I was undecided between a dual damp Moa, to defend against kiters, or the dual web one that I did bring. The fact is, if I brought dual damps, the vexor would have won. If I brought all sentries in the Ishtar vs Orthrus fight, I would have likely won, but would have lost vs another brawler.

The only way to really decide who the better pilot is, is to fight over multiple rounds. But even then, if you get lucky and bring the counter each time then you will likely win regardless of player skill.

Batman?

Batman ******* sucks.

Ironman FTW.

No problem, it is definitely a bit of a weird fit if you don't know my thinking.

I wanted to try something a bit different for this fight. I still fit and fought to win mind you, but my first few fits that I came up with were boring, kitey fits that I had already done before.

My thought process was this:

1. Engage at any reasonable range. This generally excluded short range weapons, although I did consider pulse lasers with Scorch.
2. Reasonable EWar resistance. This generally favored drones and missiles (FoF), or fitting counter EWar myself (ECCM, SeBo, or damps of my own).
3. AB/scram/web to counter MWD brawlers. This would let me avoid things like blasters while dictating traversal to let rails with Javelin land hits.

Drones won out in my mind, so that pretty much meant a Vexor. The rest of my fit fell in from there.


What killed me was one piece of theorycraft that I didn't anticipate: dual webs. Domino landed right on top of me and even with my AB, I just couldn't get away from his blasters.

Two things that I could have done differently from a piloting standpoint would be to orbit at 0 to mess up his tracking and let my drones do the work instead of opening up range, or be traveling at speed when he warped to me so that he couldn't start out that close. (Oh, not to mention overheating ANYTHING AT ALL....)

From a theorycraft standpoint, neuts would have likely rained all over his parade, as would have a fast, kitey missile fit.


Keep in mind, when fitting for a no tackle necessary, prearranged, 1v1 fight with perfect warp-in ability, fits that wouldn't work in other situations (like mine) are totally viable. I still contend that if I had flown this fit better I could have won, but I knew going into it that not being the one dictating range was a significant risk.

Hope this helps. Check out the "History of Thunderdome" link in my sig for a lot of the lessons we've learned when fighting under similar circumstances.

A dual-rep, nos-neut Vexor was something I considered. But, like I said, I wanted to try something new, not something that I've flown before. You don't learn anything by always flying what you know is going to win.

Here's the Moa fit by the way. Dies to neuts and kiters. Since Bronson had already brought a few kiters, I banked on the fact that he would change it up. Luckily it paid off.

[Moa, Dominoa]
Magnetic Field Stabilizer II
Co-Processor II
Magnetic Field Stabilizer II
F85 Peripheral Damage System I

Fleeting Propulsion Inhibitor I
50MN Microwarpdrive II
Fleeting Propulsion Inhibitor I
X-Large Ancillary Shield Booster
Large Shield Extender II

Heavy Electron Blaster II
Heavy Electron Blaster II
Heavy Electron Blaster II
Heavy Electron Blaster II
Heavy Electron Blaster II

Medium Ancillary Current Router II
Medium Anti-Kinetic Screen Reinforcer II
Medium Anti-EM Screen Reinforcer II


Hobgoblin II x3

Null M x2000
Void M x2000
Navy Cap Booster 400 x32
Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge M x1000