Missions & Complexes

Ishtar can run level 4 missions, specially guristas and serpentis, however like you said is a fancy but by far not the best way.

IMO Domi will do a better work, some target painters will help you a lot managing npc aggro.

I prefer the Rattlesnake because it looks 1000 times better than the flying potato and it's tank is awesome, but that'd require good shield skills.

Hey guys just want to drop my 2 cents into the mix. I love sentry drones - they are my favorite form of DPS in EVE. I'm very very addicted and i love ships that can use them.

I'm at heart a caldari pilot - missiles/shields- I started out Drake --> Raven --> CNR and then started playing with drone skills/Galente ships like the Myrm and Domi. At the point I had Caldari/Galentee BS and Cruiser to 4 and BC to 5 I found the Gila/Rattlesnake. As a preference both because I have great shield skills and only mediocre armor skills but also because all damage mods are low slots so I prefer to use them as such....... but I love to shield tank myrms/domi. Finding the Gila/Rattlesnake which are essentially made to do that was wonderful. I can run l4's and Forlorn Dens (that is the hardest basic anomaly right? if not I mean the hardest ones that are not complexes) in a Gila. Its a beautiful ship and can do things very quickly. I actually just finished running the Caldari Epic Arc in my Gila and did all but the long low/null sec traveling in it (for those I used a nemesis). I can run the anomalies MUCH faster and easier in the Rattlesnake. I think the new myrm is spectaclar and will be play testing using those as I think they might be better than the Gila now...but can't say for sure yet. Domni is a great ship but I like them better for PVP with their ~1400 dps 150k buffer tanking than for pve. Although I've run anoms with Domi shield buffer tanks and it works pretty well lol.

Gila has
lows: 3 DDA and1 cpu II
mids: 1 omni, 2 large shield ext, and then specific resists and usually a 10mn afterburner II
highs: 1-2 drone range extenders and maybe 1 missile bay for agro.
Has 750dps with just drones (gardII's) I keep those, a longer ranged once (usually wardens but whatever damage type needed for the mission) and then a set of lights/mediums II's for smaller ships. I have found that letting the drones get agro while you sit next to them is a wondeful tanking option, since you can scoop it and redeploy the done in about 3 secs so you lose 1/5 of your damage for 1x 4 sec tick and the NPC's waste time re-targeting you or other drones.

Rattlesnake is a beautiful beast , especially for the lazy semi-afk anom runner.
Lows: 4 DDA II, 2 SPR II,
Med : 1 LSE II, 2 Omni II's, 4 fited resists
High: 2 DLA II's, 4 Cruise missiles 1-2 or torps 1-2 depending on what your doing (only get 150-250 dps out of these so its negligible)
Rigs: 3 large defense field purgers
Drones: 5 garde II's (850 drone dps), 5 curator I's (680 drone dps), 5 hammerheads II, 5 hob II's, whatever else you want to have

This is a DPS fit, if you want more tank drop an omni for another extender and a DDA for another SPR, But tanking Sansha (aka worst thing to tank with a rattlesnake) the above is enough for all anoms. (not complexes).

I recently started using an ishtar on another character to run complexes....I would recommend it over the Gila/Rattlesnake for that use alone - but I prefer the other two for mission running/price/ease of flying and would recommend the Gila to anyone who likes drones/shields as the first ship to train for!!

Note for Sentry Drone Users: The omni directional tracking links are spectacularly useful. I would highly recomend at least 1 navy or 2 navy/tech II's on every drone ship you can manage to get them on. They keep the damage you do each volley at its MAX and drastically increases your actual vs potential dps.

I'm not suprised you lost your buzzard. You should have lost your ishtars on principle.

(a) its a 6yo fit that is terrible by todays standards.
(b) bouncers are the wrong drones for federation ships. Gardes / Wardens are situationally the right types.
(c) control range of 40km should never occur on a PVE ishtar, its got 2 utility slots. fit a link aug
(d) bouncers are the wrong drones for 40km control range fits. Gardes are better suited, because bouncers start to struggle with tracking, where as gardes have excellent tracking for 30-40km shooting.
(e) the drones should go right on and kill whatever ship you are shooting at when you lose lock to the damps, and then on aggressive they should go right on and start shooting a damp source. You can stop them if they are shooting a trigger, which you can see what they are shooting by either observing line of shot or mouse over-ing the drone interface window for each drone.

once navy vexor is changed im going to have a crack at level 4s with that.