Missions & Complexes

I've been able to more thoroughly test the Barghest as a credible alternative to the Machariel and it's pretty solid all things considered. The buff changes are live on singularity and with all the mass testing I've been enjoying (The visuals really are absolutely amazing once they fixed most of the driver crashes) I got enough SP to fly an effectively maxed out barghest to test. The buff adds about 100dps to the RHML Barghest in the form of higher volleys so it's a really welcome boost.

For the most part the RHML Barghest seem to compete favorably in the following misisons:

- Attack of the drones: This can be a bit random as the number of ships spawning is not fixed. Can make good use of a full flight of medium drones

- The assault (Serpentis): Very nice for sniping the scramming frigs in the 2nd room (always a pita for the mach) and to hit the ships in the 3rd room as soon as you land

- Gone Beserk: It can theoretically finish the mission on a single clip but with the bug/changes to the mission it might get dropped in favor of other missions

- Stop the thief: slightly quicker kill time makes up for slightly slower warp speed so either works.

- Dread Pirate scarlet: Slightly slower than Mach but not by much. No arty snipe fit possible but for people not running an arty mach the Bagrhest works fine.

There are a couple missions where a cruise Barghest would work far better and that is something I am going to test next as I should have T2 cruises now.

- Pirate Invasion (Angel): With 6(or was it 7?) BS that needs to be killed it needs at least 2 reloads of RHML making it slightly slower than the Mach although infinitely easier to tank. I think I might get better mileage with the cruise missiles.

- Attack of the Drones: Cruises might feature here better than the RHML.

- I want to believe in a blockade blitz but with triggers being random (the eve survival guide isn't 100% accurate either) it'd be a bit of a crap shoot from what I've tested so far. That said Cruises (and a MJD) would trump RHML fit.

I might revisit certain other missions too, just in case.

End of the day the Mach is still the top dog, but it's nice seeing a ship that can keep pace with it in almost all missions. I was never a fan of how the Mach looked so having a ship like the Barghest be a legitimate alternative is great.

ps. Anyone got any ideas for the new utility high? A drone link augmentator isn't really useful in any real way, an auto targeting thingy doesn't actually jive with blitzing and I already have a tractor on it. Neut to make it slightly more gank resistant? Although again, with blitzing people have trouble scanning you down before you're done with the site.

I've been testing a cruise barghest

with blockade the main issue I've had is the first spawn trigger seems random, sometimes you see it and only need 1 kill, sometimes you need to kill the whole first wave. Past that the trigger spawns in the same place and is usually the high bounty one Gist Malakim/Gist Nephilim according to eve survival, and the completion trigger I think is always the Seraphim. mjd/mwd whatever works with MWD just need to burn out away from the scram frigs. looks to take 5-9 mins depending on what happens. should carefully note the initial spawn. I've had multiple of one ship and killing one triggers the next spawn, sometimes it is the last one.

gone berserk. with scourge fury one volley the cruisers, 2 volley the hydra, 3 volley the other 2 bs. Although if you can do it in one reload with RHML that would probably be faster but I guess it involves at least some volley counting. guessing 2 for cruisers 4-6 for bs?

pirate invasion it works well, but I think I'll probably stick with the mach. lol hail, usually done before they even hit my armor tank.

AotD. never tried it. usually don't run it

smash the supplier: easy blitz. kite everything and bash the tower. although I tend to avoid it for the -2.4% amarr standings hit.

assault yea I want to try the rhml version on that. which ammo do you use? I was thinking navy for the scram frigs, and reload to fury for the last room, not sure exactly how long the warp is or if it would be better to just use one ammo and do it all in one reload?

Chainsaw, out of curiosity - what's your fit? (do you find the Barghest gets hung up a lot on stuff?)

Three Faction BCUs are basically the equivalent of four T2 BCUs, so that would give you an extra low slot for a nano or something. I'd probably go with a Faction TP instead of the MJD myself, but otherwise it's a solid fit. And yeah, it bounces off everything.

Do they have a module that reduces your physical size by 33%? Well, I'm not overly excited about the +3% DPS increase. The 17% reduction in ammunition consumption will be good. I would've preferred another low slot instead of another utility high so it had more potential as an armor tank.

Experienced the same thing today with the Hawk team burner. Nearly burned out everything and escaped narrowly. Definitely not how it is supposed to be, did this particular mission quite a few times but it is impossible now.

The nice thing about team burners is that you don't need any tank, you can just kite the NPCs. And then you can just ECM the logi ships and dunk the burner. Polarized rocket + ECM garmur seems to be the standard fit and has been working well for me. Although if you want to stick to amarr this is what I've been using, mostly for the caldari team burner. When things are normal you can ecm one logi and kill the burner with the other one repping it, although right now I'd probably just ECM the one logi and dps the other and then go for the burner. I tested it vs the gallente one and it works there too. Should probably work vs amarr, but will have trouble vs minmatar as it isn't fast enough to kite it.

[Retribution, Burner ecm kite]
Heat Sink II
Heat Sink II
Heat Sink II
Overdrive Injector System II
Co-Processor II

1MN Y-S8 Compact Afterburner
BZ-5 Neutralizing Spatial Destabilizer ECM

Small Focused Beam Laser II, Imperial Navy Multifrequency S
Small Focused Beam Laser II, Imperial Navy Multifrequency S
[empty high slot]
Small Focused Beam Laser II, Imperial Navy Multifrequency S
Small Focused Beam Laser II, Imperial Navy Multifrequency S

Small Energy Locus Coordinator II
Small Energy Locus Coordinator II

Never did Burners, but interested in finally start doing them, so I checked the guide (thank you!). But I stumbled upon two instances of 'keep at range 100km' - is this a typo? Should this be 10km?

Meaning ECM isn't required on the polarized Garmur now?

Lost a pimped daredevil to anomic agent worm. He was scrammed and he still outran me with OH MWD. BEWARE