NEW SHININNESS MUST BE BRUNG AND USORED!

So I’ve been in a couple fights in the last few days. One we shitted up pretty badly, got roxxored and then pulled another facepalm on C&P. This happened in Orfrold, we went in outnumbered, dropped caps, and couldn’t break their reps. Then out carrier SDd. This provides a bit of an interesting note on the consequences of your decisions. We chose to engage without enough DPS to do anything useful. Result: WHELPFLEET. They chose to bring a fleet with so much reps that they couldn’t finish off a carrier that started it’s SD cycle in low armor. Result: A win, but no carrier killmail you can API verify. Had they brought 3 or 4 less logis they would have had plenty of DPS for the carrier, but it might not have mattered because they might not have gotten through to hit the carrier.

The second battle was an attempt to spring a trap on a trap. Admiral Ackbar would be hoarse.

We had a known boosted nano-pest in the area that we were setting up to ambush. We then noticed he operated with friends from time to time, some of whom were 2-3 jumps out. Including a guy in a Navy Geddon. I was already in my Arazu thanks to skulking cloaked in a wormhole while my alliance mates got me a warpin to get out (yes… I forgot to bookmark the entrance… again… My main problem with running a wormhole is that I am terribad at getting out EVER) so I figured it might be fun if we can draw out the opening of the fight long enough to do get close.

We jumped into them in Egmar, and the cloakies started to move in. The hostiles very obligingly stayed in roughly the same volume of space as we toyed with them, no one wanting to go GCC too early. Finally we had a loki, an arazu and a proteus on top of them. Decloak, point, LONG range scram (yay faction points) to turn off an MWD, and the hit was on. All DPS was applied to the Navy Geddon and we chipped away. Well my fleet chipped away, an Arazu does less damage than an air rifle does to a tank. I was rotating sensor damps on targets to break locks and disrupt the incoming DPS as best as possible. I’m not sure it worked but I do know that no one other than the gate guns was shooting at me. Navy Geddon goes pop, hostiles burn away and warp off, we warp off. I was in half armor. Arazus also don’t TAKE hits very well apparently. All in all a very fun little fight and a very happy-making one for me. Nice drop too. We did lose one guy who agressed a non-flashy target in a frigate. Bad guys didn’t jump all over him, nor did they take a few seconds to blap our Tier 3 BCs. Nice of them that is.

Which brings me to the point of this blog (500 words in.) Tier 3 BCs are nice, fun and shiny. They do great DPS and take damage about as well as wet tissue paper. They are pretty good at ganks, but they pop so fast that looking at them funny can ruin the whole day. I was very surprised we didn’t lose both of ours yesterday. I like to think I helped by breaking locks on the tornado which I think was snipe fit, but the talos. Yeah not sure at all how he lived.

Just because something is new and shiny doesn’t mean you have to bring it all the time. The tier 2 BCs have a much, much greater tank and still do admirable DPS. Notice that there is a Battleship, tier 2 BCs a tech 1 cruiser (?!) and a T3 cruiser all before the tornado shows up, and the talos is way down in the standings. Bring the right ship for the fight. Notice that I exclude my loki and arazu from worrying about damage because A) the Arazu is mine and I can do no wrong and B) we both had specific roles that we had to fit for and dictated our range that meant doing damage wasn’t a priority. When you are webbing or pointing from long-range, doing face-melting DPS just isn’t a priority.

Tier 3s are best used en-masse to rip apart enemy fleets at range with salvos of coordinated fire. Not dribs and drabs to whore in on killmails.

Now I am allowed to use all the new shininess I want because I’m awesome and I love my little Arazu. Non chance-based ECM = awesome, and I have some really fun ideas for arazu+rapier+T3 BC gangs. I’m sure I’m only the 1st or 2nd to come up with this. Plus or minus 300 or so people.