[LSC] Low-sec roaming with Magic Merlins

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Budda Sereda
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[LSC] Low-sec roaming with Magic Merlins

Post by Budda Sereda »

We just done with our Magic Merlins low sec roaming, it was interesting fleet, we killed 1 Dominix ourselves, were lucky to get into 3rd party battle, kill two Dominix, and steel some loot :) more details are below!

We got together with 26 pilots, among them 2 EWars, 3 Logies, 1 scout and the rest Merlins (20):
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Aisha Kasenumi
Ajax Andrard
Argonis Loken
Ariea Thellare
Auresh Odunen
Budda Sereda
Caliban Ohmiras
Carl Misjekis
Darkfoe Eto
Glen Burney
Grafterion
Jax Renalard
Mokure Breau
NotA Witch
Rider Isleman
Samara Xadi
Sebastian Teg
Sweet Pain
Tlymphocyte
Trystel Nickel
Vors Voorhorian
Will Musana
Wokum
Yuri Levnik
Z0X Ambrye
eoiles


We started at Stacmon, poked into Dastryns, Uph, Iges, found nothing...

In Stacmon we saw a Hurricane, but he most likely had eyes on us and docked up.

We slowly moved towards Nannamalia, and ... don't remember details lost 2 scouts:

(02:37:23) Nennamaila
Merlin -7.36m
Merlin -7.11m

Further we had a group of few Thrashers, we tried to engage them, with a Vanguard fleet they run away. I think we should have dropped main fleet on them, tackle and forth them to jump into Vanguard... But we would lose vanguard in 1 minute...

Anyway, sometime later, we were able to get them pinned down and exchance Burst + Condor for 2 Thrashers
(02:43:05) Nennamaila
Condor -14.66m
Burst -2.08m
Thrasher +10.23m
Thrasher +9.43m

We tried to find content around Tama, but it was pretty much empty, only random kill of merlin:
(02:58:53) Nisuwa
Merlin +1.31m

I like to keep sending scouts into the system around the main fleet. I assume this causes some confusion for the fleet, but I feel I can handle information from 3 scouts (and it is a rare case when there is content in all 3 systems). Shortly after, Glen reported 2 flashy Exequrors and BC (don't remember which one, I assume Myrmidon) sitting at the station. Interestingly, they were waiting for something. I decided to take a chance, Glen went for tackle, we warped fleet, jammed 1 Execuror, started shooting 2nd... he went down pretty quickly

(03:04:59) Tama
Exequror +21.64m
Capsule +0.01m

2nd docked... in half armor, but at this moment we got a Dominix landed, interestingly, he landed at 20-30km from the station... I guess he was just unlucky... Maybe he was hunting for that Myrmidon?

Domi was taking like a boss. Maybe he purposely attacked us...? From the kill mail, I learned that Domy was shot by gate guns... Anyway, 20 Merlins project lots of DPS, so he went down.
Dominix +267.37m
Interestingly, we did not lose any pilot, even Domi had Grappler and blasters. Thanks Logies and EWar! (EWar guys, I hope you orbited at your optimal?

But, we lost Jax due to station guns..?
Executioner -8.99m
I'm curious how did that happen?

Further I made a mistake by asking people to doc at stations. Yeah, I'm still a new FC :)
As I was told later: this is the only station in Tama and people are often camping it with smartbombing BSs... and even if you have instaundock you can be killed.
I guess you better don't dock at this station. But if you did, have you instaundock and make sure you pull some range from the station before you start warp so you leave the BSs range. We lost 2 EWar guys as they are slow to align out?

(03:17:24) Tama
Griffin -9.24m
Griffin -1.56m
Capsule -0.01m

Later we were looking for content and saw a small gang, at some point I got a 'bait' in form of Osprey... but later they got together on us... and we needed to scatter and leave quite a few guys tackled :(

I believe I should know that this solo cruiser is a bait and expect his friends to come.

(03:27:07) Kedama
Bantam -1.72m
Merlin -7.23m
Burst -2.08m
Bantam -7.33m
Merlin -5.97m
Capsule -0.01m

We went to Ichoriya to reship when Glen found a couple of flashy ships figting on a gate: 2 Dominix, 2 Ospreys, Tengu, Sleipnir, Hecate, Tristan. I called to join the party and see what we can do. We jumped on top of the biggest targets.

Before we arrived, many ships had no shields, but all had armor full. Dominixes were tanking (RR from killmails), the rest were at range.
I called to primary 1 Dominix, 2nd, try to steel the loot and scatter. It did work really well:

(03:35:24) Pynekastoh
Dominix +273.7m
Dominix +271.72m
Merlin -11.76m

Not that I did need that loot, but it was fun. I guess we got around 60M :)

And also, Hecate was nearby, so we took it down too :)
Hecate +75.92m
Capsule -0.01m

Now, I think we should not run away immediately but should have tried to kill something else on the grid... :/ they did not have logies and we had a chance. But that was just too many of them...

Some time later, we saw few Caracals here and there, engaged one non flushy... we killed it, but lost many of us because Caracal get reinforcements. I probably should have called 'scatter' earlier and would save few of us.
(03:57:37) Pynekastoh, Hikkoken, Nennamaila
Burst -2.08m
Imperial Navy Slicer -32.36m
Capsule -0.01m
Bantam -1.71m
Merlin -5.76m
Atron -13.35m
Merlin -1.15m
Merlin -6.52m
Caracal +29.69m
Merlin -5.4m
Capsule -0.01m
Ares -26.06m
Merlin -6.06m
Capsule -0.01m

10 ships in 1 fight... Does not make sense. Could be 7 if I called to scatter earlier, but still too much IMHO.
What do you guys think?

After all this, I had only 5 pilots with me and we headed back home.
In one of plexes we found a Golden Magnate... I asked for tackle.

First, we lost scout:
https://zkillboard.com/kill/62485091/ -5.7M
I thought he just had low tank, and went for tackle myself:
https://zkillboard.com/kill/62485109/ -8.0M
Worse than just that: when I was on the grid, I called the rest of fleet to warp and slide.

But our Golden guy was in a really kiting fit with long-range lasers, so we also lost 1 of logies:
Bantam -7.33m

What I could do better here is to at least warp together with a logy and burn towards magnate: eventually, he would run out of the cap, but most likely, he would just warp away.

Stats
ISK Destroyed: 961,023,789.91
ISK Lost: 194,925,371.58
ISK Delta: 766,098,418.33
Efficiency: 83.137%

Anyway, was good fleet, lost of fun and kills. We took risk few times, and it did pay off.

Few times, the risk was too high and we ended up ISK-negative in some fights.

I like Merlins: they like flies keep the target on the grid and I don't worry that Domies kill my tackles and MJD-off.

What else could be better I guess is that few of us could replace scram with points.
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Sweet Pain
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Re: [LSC] Low-sec roaming with Magic Merlins

Post by Sweet Pain »

Fun fleet. Was great to take down a battleship. Great job as FC, Budda!

That was the most intense 2 hours of EVE I've ever played.

My first fleet as a full scout. My main takeaway: I really need to get my dscan filters set. Too much garbage to weed out.

My Ares lasted until the very end when I stayed on grid way too long with 2 Hecates.

https://zkillboard.com/kill/62484888/
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Auresh Odunen
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Re: [LSC] Low-sec roaming with Magic Merlins

Post by Auresh Odunen »

It was lots of fun. Thanks Budda!
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Darkfoe Eto
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Re: [LSC] Low-sec roaming with Magic Merlins

Post by Darkfoe Eto »

Tons of fun, good fleet FC!

As ECM EWAR I was aligning out to various celestials during the Tama station fight to keep between 40-60km range (optimal 50km.) Since our other Griffin had communicated he had jam on the Dominix after the exeqs were finished I focused on the drones, so a little falloff was acceptable to me as long as I didn't let it get too extreme.

During the undock though I found out how severely fragile I am. I had initiated warp to FC because I could not see the mobile depot called for on my overview, but i must have undocked a bit sideways and had to align and bump into other ships, giving the battleships enough time to wipe me out with smartbombs. It took a couple seconds and I was in a pod, and then back home. My overview hadn't even fully loaded (I relied on my watchlist to initiate the warp.)

Lesson learned: Use the invulnerability timer to my advantage and get a better grip on the surroundings coming out of stations, before initiating warp to even insta undocks. Worst case I can dock up and try again in a few minutes.
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Yuri Levnik
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Re: [LSC] Low-sec roaming with Magic Merlins

Post by Yuri Levnik »

The EWAR guys did a really nice job on the Exequror and Domi. I was flying logi and didn't have to repair at all on the Exeq. I had to turn my repairs on full for the Domi and burn a navy cap charge, but as Budda mentioned we didn't lose anyone. I think we only had three logi frigates at that point, so it's not like we were pushing out a huge amount of repairs.

I wonder if I was repairing ships shot by the Domi's drones or if I was trying to keep Jax alive...
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Raido Kudonen
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Re: [LSC] Low-sec roaming with Magic Merlins

Post by Raido Kudonen »

There's really no point ever engaging a Gold Magnate unless you've set up some kind of very clever log-off trap and can be confident you can hold tackle for the rest of the ships to get in there. The Gold Magnate is the strongest novice-plex ship in the game, and the only people who have one are ridiculously skilled pilots who won't undock in their Gold Magnate without a full head of high-grades and max hardwirings.
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Darkfoe Eto
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Re: [LSC] Low-sec roaming with Magic Merlins

Post by Darkfoe Eto »

Yuri Levnik wrote:The EWAR guys did a really nice job on the Exequror and Domi. I was flying logi and didn't have to repair at all on the Exeq. I had to turn my repairs on full for the Domi and burn a navy cap charge, but as Budda mentioned we didn't lose anyone. I think we only had three logi frigates at that point, so it's not like we were pushing out a huge amount of repairs.

I wonder if I was repairing ships shot by the Domi's drones or if I was trying to keep Jax alive...
There were ten drones on grid, so it is possible I may have jammed some of the wrong ones (it was a bit hard to tell - still working on my situational awareness.) We also probably had the domi jammed 50% of the time with it's sensor strength, so may have gotten some shots off.

Good job as well logi! Gave me back my armour and shield buffer after I took a shot, which was nice of you.
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Analiese Aubernet
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Re: [LSC] Low-sec roaming with Magic Merlins

Post by Analiese Aubernet »

The Dominix is a battleship that does the vast majority of it ms damage through drones, so jamming it is going to be minimally effective.
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Re: [LSC] Low-sec roaming with Magic Merlins

Post by Darkfoe Eto »

Analiese Aubernet wrote:The Dominix is a battleship that does the vast majority of it ms damage through drones, so jamming it is going to be minimally effective.
Does it help to keep it from selecting the target they want the drones to attack? I figured it may help with that, though if the drones are on aggressive it probably wouldn't matter I suppose.
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Analiese Aubernet
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Re: [LSC] Low-sec roaming with Magic Merlins

Post by Analiese Aubernet »

It does limit their target selection, but the drones will not stop applying dps to whatever they can get ahold of.
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Re: [LSC] Low-sec roaming with Magic Merlins

Post by Tlymphocyte »

Good fleet. The dominix we popped in Tama was permajammed for basically the entire fight - I got really lucky and got the BS with amarr jams... twice!

We lost both griffins on the undock and yeah, it was our fault. We probably should have aligned faster and I would have - if I was actually good at this game :D. The griffins also had no tank, so we got popped much faster by the smart bombs.
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