I'm only in the fleet about 20 minutes, Trans has been bitching about plexing and how boring it is the entire time. Not an unusual thing. Trans decides to split off the fleet. I get the fleet that has to continue plexing in Sahtogas, Trans gets to take a fleet down to null for fun. Ah, the privilege of being a director.
That is Trans' super-power, avoiding plexing. Last week when we were all plexing down Kourmonen and Kamela, most of the fleet are circling buttons, except Trans. He's off in his Malediction looking for stuff to tackle, and screaming over comms for assistance whenever he has something pointed. That's Trans, that's why he's the top killer for Autocannons Anonymous every month. He's a good guy, funny as hell, and he flies his Malediction like a pro. He can tackle two Hurricanes, and survive for a few minutes until help arrives. That's probably not particularly amazing to anyone who is a good pilot, but to someone who's a fairly shitty pilot, the normal always seems amazing.
So, tonight, Trans fucks off with half the fleet to Providence. We plex down a medium. Fifteen minutes. Then people, bored as well, decide they'll be logging for the night. I immediately warp over to the minor that's just opened and find a Sleipnir on gate. My first instinct is to run. I'm in a Taranis. I never have any success tackling ships many hull sizes above mine.
I have money to burn and getting killed is always a learning experience of some sort. So, what the hell. The night seems to be winding down anyhow. The Sleipnir is 5km from me. Turn on the MWD, orbit at 1km (with the MWD turned on, stretches out to about 3.5km), and target. I get the point on him. Sleipnir targets me and starts doing very little damage. Sweet. I'm always unsure of speed tanking against real-people targets.
I call back over comms quickly, before the dudes that are planning to leave, actually do so. "Come back, I have a Sleipnir tackled."
Two come by. We start laying some damage on it. But the Sleipnir is repping shields pretty well. Might be an ASB, might not. I can't really tell, but we're not breaking his tank.
I have someone pop over to Trans' fleet comms to tell him we have a Sleipnir tackled and could use some help. He begs off, they're six jumps out.
Two more arrive from my plexing fleet. We now have five. Mostly just frigates and destroyers. We start slowly breaking through the tank, and he's now taking some armour damage. Sleipnir starts switching targets. He begins picking off those of us who have yet to get under his guns. Five us get whittled down to three again. His shield is once more holding, but we did get him into 33% armour. I am now out of ammo. Since I was only planning on plexing, and probably dying if anyone came to challenge us, I only packed one full reload of ammo. So, now I'm just tackling and not shooting.
This all continues for another couple minutes. No reinforcements for the Sleipnir have arrived, he's not going anywhere, we're not killing him, but it looks pretty much like we're in a position to hold him indefinitely.
I pop over to Trans' comms and tell him to get his ass back here. Fleet is going to stand down anyhow, so he's going to have to return to plex. He agrees and orders his fleet back to Sahtogas at best speed.
Another couple minutes pass and an Executioner arrives on the scene. The Sleipnir does have friends. I switch my drones to the Executioner. The other two dudes with me, switch targets as well. A Blackbird now arrives. Trans is two jumps out from us. Shit.
The Executioner goes down. The Blackbird starts breaking our locks. Damn it. My lock breaks, and down goes my point. And there goes the Sleipnir into warp. Shit.
Trans arrives, finds out all our targets have escaped, and is pissed off. We've blueballed him, apparently. Whatever. "Bullshit, if you'd come when we first asked, two minutes would not have been wasted, and you'd have arrived before his friends arrived."
I didn't really care though. Even without a Sleipnir killmail, that encounter was a lot of fun for me. Showed me the power of the interceptor and the power of speedtanking against real enemies (speedtanking plexes doesn't count for anything, in my books.)
I can't fly a Malediction like a boss, but I'm going to get some pointers from Trans about interceptor piloting. I want to do more of that. I can fly my Taranis well enough, and now I want to get a shitload better at it.
Interceptor PvP, this shit is fun. I'm sure that Sleipnir pilot was annoyed as hell, too, having a little ol' Taranis lock him down for so long. It was just a race at that point to see who had the friends that were closest.
If you wanna tackle stuff and keep tackling them for a while, rather go for the fleet inties (Ares, Malediction, Stiletto... even Raptor) than the combat inties.
ReplyDeleteThe fleet inty can stay safely at range, out of neut/scram range (which would all mean a quick firy death to you). If the Sleipnir would have been even remotly prepared (neuts, drones), you'd have been dead pretty quickly there in the Taranis.
For extra durability, fit a tank on the fleet inty - we hold point on BCs reliably for minutes often with the MSE tank. Recently I found my love for MSE+mASB on the Stiletto especially. Great resilience.
Ah. So distance to keep, should be about 10km? Warp Scramble II has 9km range (can that be extended?)
DeleteOH scram range is 10.8km, and the enemy can also try to "slingshot" you (maneuvering to affect your orbit). Not to mention skirmish links.
DeleteIf you were at 10km range, you'd also be in web range for the enemy, and the dreaded neuts, of course. So as a fleet inty, I'd want to be way further away than those 10km.
An effective orbit range of 23-27km (depending on your skill and what ship the enemy has) keeps you out of lots of troubles. The speed you'll make will also reduce drone damage by quite some bit.
Being ready to OH your own point (and having a mod like a locking range rig or sig amp) helps further to keep stuff pointed that is actually moving and wants to run from you.
Overheating extends a scram's range to 10.8 km. And one possibility that I've seen around for interceptors is a triple point - fitting both a scram and a disruptor, the former to overcome a warp-core stab and shut down MWD's, the latter for longer-range tackling before you get into scram range.
DeleteYou need to avoid scram, web and neut. If they have fleet boosters or a faction scram the range is going to get up to 20km. 20km is most safe and you should still not be taking that much damage.
DeleteFleet interceptors get a boost to point range, so you can hold point and stay outside that magic web/scram/med neut range indefinitely. Fit with weapons to kill drones and you can hold point pretty much forever against lots of stuff. Personally, I am a huge fan of the stiletto for fleet tackle. Lots of mids so you can put multiple points or point+web, and still have a shield extender or sebo.
DeleteYou use a long point (almost)exclusively on fleet inties.
DeleteAll fleet inties get a tackle range bonus. You'll want to use your disruptor most of the time though to avoid being caught by someone slingshotting/overheating their scram.
DeleteYes. Fleet Inties (like he was saying) get a bonus to scram/disrupt range. So that 9k with Inties V effectively becomes about 12K without heat. Longpoints are even better. ;-)
DeleteMaledictions are great...Ares are too squishy I think. Not really a fan of them anymore. Comic Book Gai says "Worst. Resists. EVAR."
Yeah my slasher got owned last night when I was working on my approach. MSE slasher fit for newbees who can't fly interceptors:
ReplyDelete[Slasher, MSE Newbie]
Micro Auxiliary Power Core I
Capacitor Power Relay I
Medium Shield Extender I
1MN MicroWarpdrive I
Warp Disruptor I
Stasis Webifier I
125mm Gatling AutoCannon I, EMP S
125mm Gatling AutoCannon I, EMP S
125mm Gatling AutoCannon I, EMP S
[empty high slot]
[empty rig slot]
[empty rig slot]
[empty rig slot]
You can fit resist rigs if you have shield rigging I
Why combine a web with a point? If you ever get into range to use the web, you'll be dead (due to being in scram/web and probably neut range..) - I wouldn't combine those unless e.g. flying a Drake where you want the enemy to keep the huge MWD sig.
DeleteYou have a disruptor, so you have an excellent long point range, but if you are tackling something small and fast you need the rest of your fleet to be able to get to it. In a plex, you can't warp to fleet members. So you put on a web. Disruptor + scram is maybe better sometimes though, so you can tackle two things if opportunity presents, and still slow down fast mwders with the scram. Your fleet mates with mwds should be able to catch the target if he has only an ab running.
DeleteThe prob with using the web to slow down a fast ship is that the fast ship can often just try to kill you if you get that close. Everybody will agree that you can't reliably manage to stay inside your web range, but outside enemy scram range - and your MWD+sig tank is the only thing that can "harden" your tank.
DeleteWithout that, you're only a slow T1 frig with a tiny tank. IMO, you shouldn't try to tackle fast frigs there (unless your friends are like 10s away), at least not if they are MWD fit. If they are AB only - it will be easy cake to orbit them at 20km (outside scram+web range) and hold them with your generous 28.8-30km (+OH buffer) point range.
If you really want to slow down fast ships, I'd rather go with e.g. a beefier AF fit for that purpose - trying to put everything into one ship would rather mean failing at everything (IMO, ofc, but I fly that stuff all the time :) ).
Ares and Stiletto are arguably the best Interceptors for actually tackling and holding things pointed for the fleet to arrive. Malediction has some benefits, and I know Trans loves them. You'll want a Gisti B-Type MWD, Disruptor and Scram. Some weapons to kill drones and speed/DC in lows. If the fleet is far away, hold point with the disruptor. If the fleet is on grid and needs the target slowed down, close and apply scram and then pray. It really just comes down to experience knowing what you can tackle, what you can't, what you can close on to scram and what you need to keep distance from.
ReplyDeleteFlying tackle is some of the most exciting and fun times I have ever had in a fleet, but I do not fly inties that much anymore due to how fragile they are, personally I prefer to fly a Jaguar for the added tank, but inties are still great fun and cheaper. Tackle is something I think all pvpers should take up trying. There is no better feeling than being the guy that points a shiny ship giving your fleet time to come in for the kill.
ReplyDeleteA good fleet inty setup will also make catching SB's in mission sites almost easy.
ReplyDeleteA 45km point and 8000m/s only gives the SB pilot 2 or 3 seconds to decide on what they want to do. Add in a booster link ship and it does become easy.
You killed my baby! lol. The story from the other side of that skirmish was this.
ReplyDeleteIt was pretty obvious that you guys were making an effort to capture Sahtogas and try and gain total warzone control. At one point the system was over 20% contested with reports of a large Minnie fleet in system blobbing everything in sight. Hoping to prevent the Minmatar militia getting that nice shiny medal for taking all Amarr systems we decided to do everything we could to try and halt, slow or reverse your progress.
I had lost a slicer to your gang a few minutes earlier when trying to defensive plex the medium so I reshipped and returned to Sahtogas. As soon as I jumped in system the minor spawned and I entered it. Condor Amarr from the Black Watch Guard warped onto the gate in the Sleipnir and stayed there while I ran down the button. Then you guys warped to the gate a minute or two later.
Condor stayed there for several minutes tanking everything you could throw at him while I ran down the timer on the minor. On at least two occasions I suggested we should warp out but he refused to. Once the plex was captured I went to try to help him (and provided you with another killmail) before Condor managed to get out of there himself.
It was pretty clear to me that Condor would not have moved from that gate even if the rest of your fleet had arrived. There was no way he was going to allow that plex to be captured unless he had no ship left to fight in. It was pretty awesome.
The Amarr militia still has some fight left in it!
Haha. Good to hear from the other side of the fight.
DeletePOETIC!
ReplyDeleteI love you. You really should try the interceptor side, it kicks arse and is a blast. Setup your screen like mine :D
You have never showed me what your screen layout looks like ... which would make that difficult.
Delete