Hands of Justice

What we have played => EVE Online => Topic started by: vacuum on December 31, 2008, 10:59:10 AM

Title: PVP Pilots
Post by: vacuum on December 31, 2008, 10:59:10 AM
Generally there are six types of PVP pilot - you're not restricted to picking one:

1. High DPS pilots
2. ECM pilots
3. Tackler/Interdictor pilots
4. Gang/Leadership pilots
5. Sniper Battleship Pilots
6. Scout

There are others - capital ship pilots, logistics and 'priest' ship pilots, but this is a start.


What do these roles break out as?

High DPS Pilots
Role: Alpha strike with near instant damage (hybrids, lasers, projectiles) or high DPS with delayed damage missiles. Offense is your tank.
Direction: Aim to fly a HAC, Battleship or BC. Focus on DPS mods and rigs, light tank

Ship Skills:             Heavy Assault Cruiser V, Battleship V, Battlecruiser V
Skills:                      Weapon Upgrades V, Heavy Assault Missiles V, Medium or Large Hybrid/Projectile/Laser V (Med for HAC, Large for BS),
                                 Torpedo Specialisation IV, Advanced Weapon Upgrades IV

ECM pilots
Role: Target negation, jamming means that remote targets will lose locks. Denial of targeting is your tank.
Direction: Start in a blackbird, progress to a Scorpion, then move to Falcon

Ship Skills:             Caldari Cruiser V, Caldari Battleship V, Recon Ships IV (V is a 33d train that XorX is currently going through)
Skills:                      Electronic Counter Measures (ECM) V, Long Distance Jamming IV, Frequency Modulation IV, Signature Focusing IV, Long Range Targeting IV

Tackler / Interdictor Pilots
Role: Get points on the target to stop them getting away, then just chip away at them to get on killmails. Speed is your tank.
Direction: Start in a frigate, move to interceptor, then interdictor and finally heavy interdictor.

Ship Skills:              Frigate V, Interceptors IV, Destroyers V, Interdictors IV,
Skills:                       Propulsion Jamming V, Afterburner IV

Gang / Leadership Pilots
Role: Provide bonuses to the fleet as well as well-tanked DPS. You will often be called primary, so tank well.
Direction: Start in a battlecruiser, move to Command Ship

Ship Skills:              Battlecruiser V, Command Ships V
Skills:                       Leadership V, Wing Command V, All the warfare and linking skills V

Sniper Battleship Pilots
Role: 150KM+ sniping of targets. Instantaneous mass damage to a single target called by the fleet commander. Distance is your tank.
Direction: Start with T1 Battleships, move to T2 battleships or sniping HACs.

Ship Skills:              Battleship V (All races have a sniper platform - though the Rokh (Caldari) is probably best)
Skills:                       Large (Hybrid | Projectile | Energy) Turret V ; Appropriate Hybrid / Projectile / Energy Turret Specialisation IV ;
                                  Long Range Targeting IV; Advanced Weapon Upgrades Advanced Weapon Upgrades IV ; Controlled Bursts IV ;
                                  Motion Prediction IV ; Rapid Firing IV ; Sharpshooter IV; Trajectory Analysis IV; Weapon Upgrades V; Surgical Strike IV

Scout
Role: Advance of fleet searching, scanning safespotted enemies, providing warp-ins for the fleet to surprise enemy. Also generate cyno fields for moving capitals etc.
Direction: Start with T1 fast ships, then move to Covert Ops and then Recon Ships. Warping when cloaked is the key. Cloaking is your tank. Requires a lot of patience, the ability to work fast when a target is found, and no desire to be on killmails (although later on, Recon ships are a deadly scout).

Ship Skills:              Frigate V, Covert Ops Ships IV, Recon Ships IV
Skills:                       Cloaking IV, Astrometrics V, Survey IV, Astrometric Triangulation IV, Astrometric Pinpointing IV, Signal Acquisition IV,
                                  Cynosural Field Theory I
Title: Re: PVP Pilots
Post by: Warcold on December 31, 2008, 11:13:43 AM
Nice and useful writeup.

Hard for me to choose, most of em appeal to me.
Think I'm closest to DPS, skillwise, but then, think it is one of the most easily reached skillset.
Tackler also seems like a light skillset, plus one that appeals to me (speed is my friend)...
Have put few skills in leadership-section, but think Mang (or was it Thera?) has lot of skills in it already, and no use having 2 captains on the same ship (fleet)
Sniper also appeals to me, but heavy on skills, so not something I will master soon.


One question about High DPS Pilots skills. You say Medium Hybrid/Projectile/Laser V. Does this also apply to Battleship?
Title: Re: PVP Pilots
Post by: vacuum on December 31, 2008, 11:15:15 AM
One question about High DPS Pilots skills. You say Medium Hybrid/Projectile/Laser V. Does this also apply to Battleship?

Good spot, and fixed. You are correct, medium for HAC, Large for BS.
Title: Re: PVP Pilots
Post by: peo on December 31, 2008, 11:22:13 AM
Are non caldari ecm ships much worse???
Title: Re: PVP Pilots
Post by: Warcold on December 31, 2008, 11:27:14 AM
Ok, say we can field about 5 pilots in PvP (seems like a realistic figure with current corp members). Is there a ideal set of PvP sorts?

Guess 1 leader, 1 tackler, 1 jammer and dps/sniper are rather interchangable?
And how does this stretch out to larger fleets? Say a fleet of 10 and a fleet of 50.
Title: Re: PVP Pilots
Post by: vacuum on December 31, 2008, 11:28:53 AM
Are non caldari ecm ships much worse???

In short, yes.

Look at the bonuses you get on the Blackbird / Scorpion and Falcon. With rigs and skills, I can jam at almost double strength from 225KM in my falcon or scorp.
That's obscene :-)
Title: Re: PVP Pilots
Post by: vacuum on December 31, 2008, 11:35:18 AM
Ok, say we can field about 5 pilots in PvP (seems like a realistic figure with current corp members). Is there a ideal set of PvP sorts?

Guess 1 leader, 1 tackler, 1 jammer and dps/sniper are rather interchangable?

HAC gang then something like:

1 tackler, 1 leader/DPS, 1 ECM, 2 pure DPS.

If it's a battleship gang, then:

1 tackler, 1 leader/DPS, 1 ECM/DPS Scorp, 2 pure DPS

5's a smallish number. I like to work with 8 in the gang + 2 scouts.

2 tacklers, 4 DPS, 2 ECM + 2 scouts (one forward, one rear)

And how does this stretch out to larger fleets? Say a fleet of 10 and a fleet of 50.

Up to about 10 the principles above apply. From 10+ it works out roughly like this:

Tacklers > DPS > ECM > Leadership > Support

No tacklers = no game.
No DPS = no kills
No ECM = no ownage
No Leadership = no edge
No Support = no backup

From 20-30 upwards we're into what we call 'fleets' rather than gangs:

Snipers really come into it at this point, a sniper blob of 20-30 battleships, with ECM support becomes incredibly damaging

tacklers > snipers > ECM >  Leadership > DPS > Support

100+ and the game changes again, but that's for another day.
Title: Re: PVP Pilots
Post by: peo on December 31, 2008, 12:41:49 PM
So, knowing what the "older" members have focused on would be a good idea :)

Also since caldari ecm ships are so much better are the other roles filled by "racial" ships as well?
Title: Re: PVP Pilots
Post by: vacuum on December 31, 2008, 12:57:36 PM
I have 2 PVP focused characters only one is in Ma'adim - the other is an ECM specialist.

Jiminy is a HAC dps monster with both medium rail and blaster spec to IV. This means on a well kitted deimos he does 600+ DPS with an alpha of 1200 from 40K. His next training objective will be to round out his gunnery skills and then focus on some engineering skills.

I may train Caldari cruiser V to get eagle bonuses, but not sure :)

Title: Re: PVP Pilots
Post by: Warcold on December 31, 2008, 01:21:43 PM
Ok, so in fact, the PvP pilot setup we're missing still is scout.
Can you add a small writeup on them too, some day?

Thanks for all the info anyway!
Title: Re: PVP Pilots
Post by: peo on December 31, 2008, 02:37:54 PM
Hmm, considering that minmatar ships often are fast do they make good tacklers/interdictors?

I think that I would be interested in filling a tackler and some sort of dps from a battleships (since it feels like you need that to be able to solo anyway or am I mistaken about the capabilities of the better "tacklers"?
Title: Re: PVP Pilots
Post by: vacuum on January 01, 2009, 10:41:18 PM
Ok, so in fact, the PvP pilot setup we're missing still is scout.
Can you add a small writeup on them too, some day?

Thanks for all the info anyway!

Original post updated.
Title: Re: PVP Pilots
Post by: vacuum on January 01, 2009, 10:46:17 PM
Hmm, considering that minmatar ships often are fast do they make good tacklers/interdictors?

In fact, yes, they do. The minmatar interceptors are probably the best for speed, and their interdictor (the Sabre) is arguably better than the the Caldari one (Flycatcher).

I think that I would be interested in filling a tackler and some sort of dps from a battleships (since it feels like you need that to be able to solo anyway or am I mistaken about the capabilities of the better "tacklers"?

No, you're not mistaken, the role of tackler in fleet gangs is to hold ships in place whilst your DPS gang beats the hell out of it. Even the high-end tacklers which have decent tanks (because they get called primary as my Onyx found out to my detriment the day before yesterday) don't really put out a huge amount of DPS. That said, by the time you can fly the Heavy Interdictor, you should also have the skills to fly the interdictor and Heavy Assault Cruiser for your race.

However, it's worth noting that 1v1, tackler ships include Assault Frigates and Interceptors, both of which can do a lot of damage to a small sized ship and take a decent pounding. So in smaller gangs, you can do a fair amount of DPS - however this isn't really a 'solo' or 'PVE' option.

Title: Re: PVP Pilots
Post by: peo on January 02, 2009, 05:54:18 AM
Hmm, considering that minmatar ships often are fast do they make good tacklers/interdictors?

In fact, yes, they do. The minmatar interceptors are probably the best for speed, and their interdictor (the Sabre) is arguably better than the the Caldari one (Flycatcher).

I think that I would be interested in filling a tackler and some sort of dps from a battleships (since it feels like you need that to be able to solo anyway or am I mistaken about the capabilities of the better "tacklers"?

No, you're not mistaken, the role of tackler in fleet gangs is to hold ships in place whilst your DPS gang beats the hell out of it. Even the high-end tacklers which have decent tanks (because they get called primary as my Onyx found out to my detriment the day before yesterday) don't really put out a huge amount of DPS. That said, by the time you can fly the Heavy Interdictor, you should also have the skills to fly the interdictor and Heavy Assault Cruiser for your race.

However, it's worth noting that 1v1, tackler ships include Assault Frigates and Interceptors, both of which can do a lot of damage to a small sized ship and take a decent pounding. So in smaller gangs, you can do a fair amount of DPS - however this isn't really a 'solo' or 'PVE' option.



Ok.
The main reason I wanted to be able to dps as well is simply since it feels like making money requires it if you aren't a miner etc :) Have to combine both pvp with pve to be able to play effectively. Of course I understand that in a group I would fill one role whatever that may be with one ship but having the ability to for example switch to a dps setup if we would have more than the needed tacklers or so can't be a bad thing.
Title: Re: PVP Pilots
Post by: vacuum on January 02, 2009, 09:47:51 AM
The main reason I wanted to be able to dps as well is simply since it feels like making money requires it if you aren't a miner etc :) Have to combine both pvp with pve to be able to play effectively. Of course I understand that in a group I would fill one role whatever that may be with one ship but having the ability to for example switch to a dps setup if we would have more than the needed tacklers or so can't be a bad thing.

See the money thread for more details; but essentially nullsec money making for DPS characters basically consists of ratting.
This means that you need to do the following:

1. Tank the appropriate damage type for the rats
2. Select the appropriate ammo damage type for the rats


Use Grismar for specifics (http://eve.grismar.net/rats/index.php), but in general:

Tanking damage types (Rat type: Damage %age type -e.g. Angels do 70% explosive, 20% Kinetic, 10% EM)

Gurista/EoM: 0.75 kin/0.25 therm
Angel: 0.7 exp/0.2 kin/0.1 em
Sansha/Blood raider/Amarr empire: 0.5 em/0.5 therm
Serpentis/Caldari state: 0.5 kin/0.5 therm
Gallente federation: 0.5 kin/0.4 therm/0.1 em
Minmatar republic: 0.5 exp/0.2 em/0.2 kin/0.1 therm
Mercenaries: 0.5 therm/0.3 kin/0.1 exp/0.1 em
Rogue drones: 0.7 exp/0.2 kin/0.1 therm

Damage types against mobs (Mob: Primary DPS, Secondary DPS)

Angel: Explosive, Kinetic
Blood Raider: EM, Thermal
Cent: EM, Thermal
Core: Kinetic, Thermal
Corpus: EM, Thermal
Dark Blood: EM, Thermal
Domination: Explosive, Kinetic
Dread Guristas: Kinetic, Thermal
Gist: Explosive, Kinetic
Guristas: Kinetic, Thermal
Mercenaries: Thermal/EM
Mordus Legion: Kinetic, Thermal
Pith: Kinetic, Thermal
Rogue Drones: EM, Thermal
Sansha's Nation: EM, Thermal
Serpentis: Kinetic, Thermal
Shadow Serpentis: Kinetic, Thermal
True Sansha: EM, Thermal
Title: Re: PVP Pilots
Post by: Jarkko on January 02, 2009, 10:40:55 AM
Off-topic to this, but are some hits totally resisted, and if they are, do they appear as "miss" in the combat text? Asking this because I see the NPC's "miss" me *a lot* (compared to before) now that I fly a Harpy, and I've begun to wonder if some shots are totally resisted and it shows as "miss" instead? Or is the Harpy just so damn hard to hit compared to a Merlin or Cormorant?
Title: Re: PVP Pilots
Post by: vacuum on January 02, 2009, 10:46:24 AM
The harpy is hard to hit, signature radius is small too. But hmm, don't know ... I'm not really a frigate specialist ...
Title: Re: PVP Pilots
Post by: Warcold on January 02, 2009, 11:21:11 AM
i know projectile ammo does both some kind of base damage plus specific damage (EM, Kin and such). From the in game descriptions it seems that only the specific damage is resisted.
But I dont know if all weapons do base damage (lasers for instance?).

But for proj ammo at least my guess is that a miss is really a miss. So maybe through smaller sign radius as vac says, or maybe you changed to another tactic? Like, to higher distance (->accuracy falloff) or very short distance & orbit (->speed tank)
Title: Re: PVP Pilots
Post by: Rubino on January 02, 2009, 11:32:06 AM
You'll get hit for 0 dmg if it's resisted.
Title: Re: PVP Pilots
Post by: Jarkko on January 02, 2009, 12:55:13 PM
maybe you changed to another tactic? Like, to higher distance (->accuracy falloff) or very short distance & orbit (->speed tank)
Yes, these both are true in fact. I engage from much further away now, except when the mission takes me straight into the NPC's (it happens in some missions) when I orbit around something as fast as I can (~800m/s) until I feel it safe to take the dash a bit further away. Basically they really *are* missing me a lot more now then :)
Title: Re: PVP Pilots
Post by: Warcold on January 04, 2009, 02:07:14 PM
Quote
You'll get hit for 0 dmg if it's resisted.

You sure? what happens to base damage then?
damage calculation is mystery to me anyway, anyone knows where i can find a writeup about it?
Title: Re: PVP Pilots
Post by: Rubino on January 04, 2009, 05:51:27 PM
I don't think there is a base dmg - regardless of what it says on the ammo type.
I often find myself getting hit for 0 dmg by rats when I'm at range.
Title: Re: PVP Pilots
Post by: Rubino on January 18, 2009, 10:32:28 AM
FYI: I noticed the other day that Heavy Interdictors are essentially HAC's when it comes to resists & HPs - they just have a little less range to their dmg output which is understandable when you factor in the range of the Warp Disruption Field.
Title: Re: PVP Pilots
Post by: vacuum on January 18, 2009, 10:42:51 AM
Right, they're pretty tough on the resist scale, and the interdiction field is useful.
They are, however, called primary first. Always.
Title: Re: PVP Pilots
Post by: peo on January 18, 2009, 10:45:49 AM
Right, they're pretty tough on the resist scale, and the interdiction field is useful.
They are, however, called primary first. Always.


So expensive to fly in other words :)
Title: Re: PVP Pilots
Post by: Rubino on January 18, 2009, 11:29:43 AM
Risk Vs Reward - anything that stops 'em in their tracks will be called primary :)