A bait Merlin farming fit

If in doubt, fire! Unless there’s a Daredevil around. In which case discretion should be the better part of valour. Unless you are Zappity, in which case go back for seconds!

There were two Merlins in the system, named identically and evidently farming to their hearts’ content. I jumped into a plex after the first, watching short scan for the second to appear. Just the sort of sneaky trick a nasty farmer WOULD play. But, to my surprise, a Daredevil appeared.

My Comet was hitting the Merlin pretty hard, but I still aligned out away from the beacon to ensure a timely getaway when the Daredevil arrived. He landed just as the Merlin hit hull which I found intensely annoying. I warped off and waited in my safe until the Daredevil disappeared and farming again ruled the day.

Rinse and repeat. Well, almost repeat since this time I stuffed up my align and the Daredevil landed a scram. I said goodbye to my Comet, thinking that I could at least take the Merlin with me. And then he warped off!

A bait Merlin farming fit! I couldn't help but be impressed as I limped home in my Velator. And annoyed that I fell for it. I will get my revenge!

Loss: http://eve.battleclinic.com/killboard/killmail.php?id=22981986

A strange Harpy

So, a Harpy. I can take him in a rail Comet, can’t I? Um, sure... I am even less convinced when I finally get eyes on him and see that he is rail fit. I certainly wouldn’t be kiting him effectively. But what the hell, let’s go.

I jump on him and land a scram and web. I disable the scram as soon as I see he is afterburner fit (I figure he won’t run from a little Comet) and set my distance to 7500m, chipping away at his shield. He is hitting me pretty hard so I dive into a close orbit and turn my guns off, leaving the job of attacking to my drones. He spots this and immediately switches his web and guns to my hobbies, making short work of them. As he does this I switch back to range and start pounding him again.

His shield is dropping pretty fast and I expect his repper to kick in any second. But then he drops into armor, just as he starts firing at me again. That’s strange! I unleash my second flight of three drones and keep hammering away, hoping to beat him down before he kills me (or remembers his reps).

And then his armour jumps up! Even stranger! Needless to say I am VERY interested in seeing his fit now so I keep up the damage until he pops.

Kill: http://eve.battleclinic.com/killboard/killmail.php?id=22981839

I don’t know what to say. It just goes to show: if in doubt, fire! 

Messing about with a SFI

A Stabber Fleet Issue was stalking me around the system while I was tootling about in my Algos. I guess he wanted some attention so I decided to give it to him in the form of an Enyo:

[Enyo, Zappity’s vampy ions]

Magnetic Field Stabilizer II

Small Ancillary Armor Repairer

Pseudoelectron Containment Field I

Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane II

1MN Afterburner II

Fleeting Propulsion Inhibitor I

Faint Epsilon Warp Scrambler I

Light Ion Blaster II, Void S

Light Ion Blaster II, Void S

Small Diminishing Power System Drain I

Light Ion Blaster II, Void S

Light Ion Blaster II, Void S

Small Hybrid Burst Aerator I

Small Processor Overclocking Unit I

I undocked to find him waiting for me on the docking ring. I told you he was stalking me. Since I don't like station games I used my insta-undock before making my way to the Medium plex. He must have guessed my intention because he landed at the same time on the acceleration gate.

We were only 10 km apart so I went straight into a 500m orbit after turning everything on. He landed a single solid hit on me with his guns which destroyed my shield but that was the only time his guns were relevant. And then he launched his drones, five Warriors which I instantly targeted and started blapping with my blasters. He didn't notice until I had killed three in quick succession. He then pulled the remaining two before launching a fresh set of five. So I started killing them, too.

His drone DPS was pretty good and my repper was running hot, slowly burning up. Unfortunately, my cap was going in the opposite direction and starting to look worryingly low by the time I judged up could give the repper a break. He pulled his last two drones back just in time and I immediately turned the repper off to let my cap recover. Just in time!

And so we settled down to it. I reloaded and repaired my repper, switched to Void and tried to break his tank. He dipped into structure but then started repping immediately. And again. And again. And again.

And again. Stalemate! I considered logging an alt in to neut him out but decided that it wouldn't be particularly satisfying after such a good fight. He had turned his scram off, either to conserve cap of to encourage me to leave I can't say. So I waited until my orbit was roughly pointing in the right direction and warped back to the station. I complimented him on his tank (which I suspect was dual repper) and we parted ways.

So no kill mail for your perusal, unfortunately. However, it was probably something like this earlier loss:

http://eve.battleclinic.com/killboard/killmail.php?id=22423499

Tanky enough for my 346 DPS. A shame - it would have been a nice kill. Still, I successfully managed my tank, heat, reloads, repairs and cap as well as the opponent’s damage. Quite satisfying despite the lack of a kill.

I land on a Novice acceleration gate in my rail Comet and spot a Tristan sitting at 140km. I can’t catch him at that distance so I jump into the plex and open the scanner window. I choose an unopened plex 20AU away and warp to it at 10, hoping the Tristan's curiosity would get the better of him.

When I land I immediately align back to the Novice and check short scan. Sure enough, a Tristan soon appears. He drops out of warp about 30 km from me (warped to 50 I think) so I overheat the burner and manage to land a scram. I don't know if he tried to get away - I suspect not.

This was a very close fight. Far too late I realised that a significant amount of damage was coming from his guns. I tried to increase my range from 5 up to 8km but was just about capped out. I hit structure and shut down the scram and burner for a couple of cycles, hoping my drones would finish him. We crept down in structure together, our reps delaying the inevitable for one of us.

And then I capped out. I hate that audio. "Your capacitor is empty." I manually activated the rails for one last attempt and happened to land a lucky shot, wrecking his hull! I was at 24% structure.

A sizable chunk of errors on my part meant this was a close fight. But against a very capable pilot, so what the hell!

Kill: http://eve.battleclinic.com/killboard/killmail.php?id=22970757

I lost a Comet today. Sigh. There I was, innocently trying to murder a ratting Hurricane, when he neuted me out and killed me!

How rude. Don't people know they are supposed to bring rubbish PvE fits into our home system?

Actually, I think he WAS farming. It's just that his targets were silly noobs like me instead of little red crosses!

Loss: http://eve.battleclinic.com/killboard/killmail.php?id=22947000

THIS is what people should bring to asteroid belts:

Thorax: http://eve.battleclinic.com/killboard/killmail.php?id=23016170

And then block my convo attempt when I realise that my victim is a noob. That's probably why I could kill him in my Incursus. I traded him his loot back when I noticed him in the same station anyway, for which I received a terse "thanks" email. I sense some butthurt. I don't like chasing people away from lowsec.

Anyway, I reshipped and headed out for a wander. Shortly afterward I was landed on by a small gang of frigates while I was trying my best to dispatch one of their corp mates. I am still not very good at this sort of thing so I will describe exactly how I died.

First, I aligned to a celestial in roughly the opposite direction from the gang. Correct so far. I was instantly tackled by a kiting Slicer but only webbed by a single Incursus.  So I killed the Incursus and then switched to Spike and Warriors for the Slicer. Too late. I think I should have burned away from the Incursus first.

Loss: http://eve.battleclinic.com/killboard/killmail.php?id=23014739

I am in the Comet of Doom. Or something. Really, I name my Velator the same way so it doesn’t hold THAT much significance. Anyway, I have half an hour to kill (yes, I’m extremely casual) so head out of Ishomilken down the chain toward the middle of the Cal/Gal zone. As I leave I see someone in corp chat mentioning that they had just been killed by a nasty Coercer. Lo and behold, a few minutes later I spot the culprit in Nikkishina looking guilty in the Coercer. Or maybe I’m projecting. Whatever.

Anyway, how hard can a Coercer be to kill? I let the victim know that his nemesis is only a hop away if he wishes to seek revenge and warp into the plex. I figured that I would probably die and he would be just in time to mop up. Unfortunately (sort of) the Coercer only managed to get me down to 20% hull before popping! And just then my corpie landed in the plex, ready for action! I felt a bit guilty about that so offered him the loot which he declined (thank you!)

Coercer: http://eve.battleclinic.com/killboard/killmail.php?id=22918256

A few jumps later I stumbled onto an adventurous Tristan who was more than willing to have a go. I have been dieing to those gimmicky neut Tristans lately (http://eve.battleclinic.com/killboard/killmail.php?id=22590170, http://eve.battleclinic.com/killboard/killmail.php?id=22585516) but decided to dive in anyway since I was fitted with rails. I thought I should be able to stay out of neut range if I flew intelligently.

As you can see I am an eternal optimist.

Surprisingly, this time it actually worked so although a neut was firmly applied as soon as I landed tackle the victim was unable to maintain it due to my superior speed. He died but it was a VERY close fight. His 400mm plates with three armour rigs took quite a while to chew through.

http://eve.battleclinic.com/killboard/killmail.php?id=22918475

I complimented him on his tank. “Not enough! ;)” was the nice reply.

The next night I had only ten minutes to kill but decided to log in anyway. I was still sitting in the Comet of Doom so hit Undock in Isho and d-scan. Algos. Ibis. The Ibis probably isn’t much of a threat (but you never can tell in lowsec!) so I head for the Algos in the plex and land with him about 10 km away. I burn in and apply a scram and web, keep at range successfully (since orbiting will hurt my tracking more than his drone DPS) and kill him without much difficulty.

http://eve.battleclinic.com/killboard/killmail.php?id=22927874

I note an Astero on dscan and quickly gobble the loot and withdraw to a safe. It turns out the Astero was a corp mate hunting me so I was quite proud I had spotted him during the brief decloak window when that became apparent. Did I mention I podded the Algos pilot? Well, I did.

http://eve.battleclinic.com/killboard/killmail.php?id=22927873

He looked like a noob so I convoed him and applied the lecture in the form of a link. He was grateful for a few tips so I sent him my fit and a few iskies to encourage him to keep exploding.

I love lowsec. I was engaged literally one minute after I logged in. Great stuff! But alas that was all I had time for - I'm off to watch the F1 with my better half.

Three Battle Nereus, sitting on a plex! Whatever am I to do about it? I know! Kill them! Except that obvious bait is, well, obvious. But that has NEVER stopped me before so why start now? Especially since one of the pilots has been giving us lip for the last few days in local and there is a competition to accumulate his kill mails.

So I put the call out and a couple of corpies were soon winging their way over from a couple of systems away. I warped to the plex, landed tackle and started chipping away at them.

Sure enough, I am halfway through his armour when the remote reps kick in and bring his shields all the way up. Thankfully my corpies have landed and spread their points around while focusing fire. He goes down but my nice little Incursus goes down.with him. Oh well, it was worth it!

Battle Nereus: https://zkillboard.com/detail/38328461/

They were each fitted identically (yes, all three died). I only wish that the faction reps were more expensive. Still, a surprisingly resilient fit so well done.

Unfortunately, our nemesis was surprisingly quiet about his loss. Maybe next time.