Ships & Modules

I'm a relatively new player. I skilled into this ship, noting that tackling is the cornerstone of PvP in this game.

I flew it a bunch but ended up being quite disappointed.

The cookiecutter triple damp and long point fit only really works against small numbers of large ships, where you can drop the targeting range of all your potential agressors to keep you alive whilst also keeping targets on field. Larger numbers - more danger you can't really do anything about. Also virtually useless in frig fleets as far as tackling is concerned as most will MWD out of your point range and warp off. Scram fits are tempting but prolly suicidal and even in a well protected fleets getting within range can be tough.

I didn't try shield fits as those kind of diminish one of the strongest point of the hull - the ability to fit a serious amount of ewar and tackle. Wasting a midslot on an extender seems counterproductive.

Speed fits just look frail. But after having flown a plate fit keres with 4.6k EHP ingame and getting flopped of the field in 2 seconds, I might as well just go for it. However, the hull has like ~3x inertia modifier (albeit I have another 14% to gain through skills) and it takes around 5 seconds to reach 75% of max velocity.

I tried a dual armor rep fit with a cap booster, and whilst it's quite self sufficient and can be placed in shield frig fleets to keep both defense pools up, it nonetheless sacrifices a mid leaving it either a watered down Maulus or putting it in a similar position as the typical cookie cutter build - it sucks as soon as there more than 1 enemy on the field. Although this is prolly the fit I'm most comfortable with so far. Then again, it serves less purpose in a fleet than a Maulus which is about 5 times cheaper

Fastlock builds are, whilst productive, a bit sad. It's almost as if you do the same thing as an interceptor, except you fill all your slots to compensate for everything you lack from an interceptor, you miss out on all the offensive potential, lose the bubble immunity, speed, agility, and gain about the same tank. I can't justify this fit. I can commit 2 SeBos to a fit following in this flavor; 3 just feels wrong. Outside of gatecamps this fit is prolly the least interesting.

Any experienced Keres pilots that can give me some hope and advice?

The Keres is great at what it does, damp the hell out of your target. I like to reduce their targeting range. So I use the scripts for it.

Keres can fit prop, long point, and 3 sensor damps. The rest is up to you, but definitely go for speed tanking. If you have a fleet, drop the long point for a 4th sensor damp.

Practice with a Maulus. The tech 1 frig variant of the Keres. Its fast, can damp effectively, and can deal around 100dps with guns and drones. Fun ship to fly.

The only ewar frig I would plate is the amarr one. Cant remember the name. It has nos/neut bonuses, and I dont think it can kite from very far, so I'd fit a brawl fit and rely on a Kitsune to jam the target for me while I deminish their cap.