Missions & Complexes

I wish i could give you personnel experience but I haven't done a L5 yet. That being said I've heard the Rattlesnake can solo them when fitted properlyand with good skills (I'm currently flying one and hoping to try soon). As for a 2 ship team If one of you has a good enough tank and the other DPS shouldn't be an issue. The other option is both go split tank/gank and share the aggro. As long as you both are rocking good ships ie tengu, golem, mach, loki etc. I would imagine you should have no issues.

I can tell you right now Rattler is capable of doinf 5's but you won't wanna use one. They are slow, bulky and expensive. If someone scanned a Nighthawk/Ishtar and a Rattler both in a system, Rattler would go down first.

Tengu is also capable of L5's with a passive fit but I still wouldn't bother as it costs about the same and you lose SP when you die, but it is faster and more agile.

Nighthawk and Ishtar are your best choices, Ishtar > Nighthawk though because I (think) it gets a little better DPS and is faster/more agile. Plus it can still shoot while jammed

Yeah unfortunately from what I've heard and researched solo lv5's are just not worth the effort to do when compared to lv4's. The people before me stated pretty much everything I would say. I am a Nighthawk pilot with just about everything in it maxed out, I want to try do some lv5's solo but the risk vs reward is just to high in my opinion (and added effort of watching local, etc).

Now if you wanted to do it with your buddy it gives you a little bit more options on what ships you can use. But in general from what I hear most people avoid lv5's so it may be a bit difficult to get people to join you.

You want a 3k dps tank that will work with -400 cap/s from neut towers on you. A passive rattler (full passive) with a-type resistance amps works although the dps is pathetic. Alternatively a golem or vargur with a pith x-type XL shield booster + a cloaky augoror (t1 guardian, cap transfer bonus) works pretty well. Or you can go the easy (and cheaper) route and simply use a carrier. Shame on you if you actually get that blown up in a lvl5.

I'm reasonably certain your drake can't do it although a nighthawk can run some of them allegedly. Like the rattler, you'll be stuck with terribly anemic dps however. So I still don't recommend it, just not efficient.

You can also use some of the more gimmicky mechanics to do it. One such method is using a t1 frig with a mwd to simply orbit at 100km and hold all the aggro. The trouble is it can be tricky keeping the mwd running with the neut towers and most lvl5's have many spawns, so you'll be warping out a lot regardless. I don't consider it a good method, although it will get the job done eventually.

The bigger problem is me. I will hunt you down and kill you if you do this in my area. So will virtually everyone else regardless of where you go. So you better be good at gunboat diplomacy if you want to run lvl5's with any regularity. Also, lvl5's aren't what they once were. You are restricted to navy LP and navy LP is getting tough to sell off these days. There aren't really any bounties or loot associated with lvl5's. Not anything above what lvl4's pay anyways since they are mostly towers with no bounty/loot and swarms of elite frigs which have only a 20-30k isk bounty. And no, smartbombs don't typically help, the little bastards orbit at 8km.

All you people didnt read the first post...
He said he does lvl 4s in a Drake, now if that isnt an indicator of lack of SP and/or ISK i dont know what.
OP get yourself a BS that can put out at least some DPS and stick to lvl 4s for some time.

lvl 4 is not hard for an average BS - lvl 5 solo ... nope ... not efficient as should be - in the same time you can get 3-4 lvl 4 mission without troubles :)

+1 for the name, need an alt "kings bastard sword of haste" and hunt you all day :D

LvL 5s are easy as pie.....but 1st you'll have to become known as someone who has access to a batphone and will either kick a$$ if someone interferes or will know what neutrals in local are up to and try to counter it...

If ya just wanna be some bewb in a tengu looking to "level-up" into 5s?.....well bring a pimp tengu and give it a try....what could possibly go wrong?

i did L5s in high sec out of boredom one day. (before the nerf)

1. We took a plated, high resist abbadon with no local tank and shoved it in the room and made him pissed everyone off.

2. Then we flew in the repper domi who perma repped the abbadon and also popped out sentry drones for dps.
Since the abby has full aggro, its fit with only reppers on the top and carries a local armor repper on itself incase of new spawn aggro.

3. 3rd and (optionally) we popped in a dps boat to help move things along which also had a remote repper up top to rep the domi in case of new spawn aggro.

Our only mistake was not fitting Minmatar guns on the abbadon cause the nuet towers turn off the amarr guns.

I had been farming 10/10s for some time in 0.0 and copy pasted the format here.

Its doable in 2 throw away t1 fit battleships. I used 3 just to speed it along. Leet tank/dps skills needed, as normal.

I <3 the domi....