Ships & Modules

Less than half the scan resolution of the Redeemer, less than half the damage, nowhere near the tank, it's just... uhg. Yes, ECM has the potential to be overpowered, but given that blops fleets are all about blap and run anyways, why would anyone ever fly a Widow? The Redeemers would alpha everything before you even got a lock. You wouldn't be jamming crap. It's the red headed step child that has to fit the portal so that everyone else can jump in and get kills while it stays home and cries itself to sleep. Why is the Widow allowed to be so bad?

But it can get high DPS for the projection that comes with it if you forgo ECM.

I mean if you limit yourself to the belief that Widow is an ECM boat alone, you will no doubt find it underwhelming seeing as how RNG ECM is. Putting a 1bil ship at the mercy of RNG doesn't seem like a clever idea anyhow.

Recent vids by The Honorable Third Party showed no ECM widows, and a corp member who flew BLOPs frequently noted that his group used cruise Widows in favour of ECM Widows too.

Widow damage cold. Comes fully selectable. Such bad.

Not by a long shot.

The point here is: there's more than one way to fit a Widow.

There's pretty much only one way to fit a redeemer. There are many ways to fit a widow.

ECM is not the only option. Though it IS powerful in certain settings (not really typical for blops). I.e. warlords/hydra have a very strong widow setup for AT. Also widow was by far the most banned ship in Singularity League after AL1 team showed what it's capable of (though worlds collide rules, particulary team sizes played to the widow strength there). And of course it was the only blops used for tourneys. Other blops are pretty much cloaky weaker T1 counterparts, while widow is unique in a good and useful way.

If you forgo ECM, with the generous amount of mids you can get a very strong active local tank, or a good buffer, and the DPS is nothing to sneeze at. Especially considering the projection and no damage type lock. For raw numbers you can hit 1K DPS cold with fury torps, CN BCs and implants (utility is debatable, but I imagine a ratting carrier would feel it).

A blops plex ratting widow is also nice if you don't want to bother with RR sins.
It can do 700+ DPS with furies out to 150km and 600+ with faction out to 200+. Which pretty much eliminates the need in any tank and bling beyond T2 missile rigs and faction ballistic computers. Standard crash and precision cruises are enough to not be bothered by elite frigs.

It's also one of the sexiest ships in the game.

Still doesn't excuse the abysmally long lock time. The Widow has a terrible scan resolution, even for a battleship. Add your cloak and it's worse. It's still terrible when compared to the better blops.

It cant bridge Blops but it can bridge anything with cov ops cloack, Blops jump while the support fleet is bridged.

Interesting thread. I’m heading out for some semi-solo* hunting of inattentive ratting-carriers and have been debating my BLOPS choice. My BLOPs-guy can fly them all and has high-end support skills in all weapon and electronics combat systems. I’d been planning to use the panther but had built myself a widow so was also thinking of trying it instead.

My fleet was going to be a hunter strat cruiser (probably a tanked-up scram-fit tengu but still umming and arrring on that), a BLOPs (likely panther or mebbe widow), and a recon (probably an emergency backup, plan B, sacrificial falcon). My widow thinking had it using torps, local shield-tanked, and possibly with a single multi or amarr jammer.

Gonna keep an eye on this thread to see if any more useful thinking deposits itself here. Thanks all.

* A small group of characters controlled by one player.

I'd advice against the Widow if you can fly something else. Almost every fit posted here used all 8 mids for tank/prop and not a one for ECM, so it has a wasted bonus that's just sort of meh. The Panther is also faster and doesn't take 'til Christ returns to lock.

Widow is entirely capable of not only throwing out over 1k dps, but permajamming a target ships at the same time. ECM tank.