[FLEET] Spider Prophecies - 2 fights

[Budda Sereda]

This was my seconds attempt flying Spider Prophecies (https://forum.eveuniversity.org/viewtop ... 6&t=109021). We got quite a bit of content, but that is probably the first my fleet when we killed pretty much nothing. I can't blame the doctrine, neither I think I did something really terrible, but it was more a good play from our opponents.

We got an ok turnaround as for Thursday and BC doctrine, ceptor, Bhaalgorn, 3 Prophecies, Dragoon:

Spoiler

Budda Sereda - Prophecy
Castor Udan
Gemma Solett - Malediction
Mols Halleck - Bhaalgorn
Tisiphone Tagetes - Dragoon
Tyler Arnoux - Confessor, Imperial Navy Slicer
Wokum - Prophecy, Punisher
Xafen Katapi - Prophecy

1st fight.

To start I've asked Gemma to check Dastryns and he spotted Daniel Essig in a flashy Megathrone NI warping to UPH. I called Mols to follow him and bait into a fight. We were still in Stacmon on a gate and I did not want to show him more unistas and waited for him to take a bait: did want to avoid Daniel jumping back from UPH into Dastryns, see us on grid and run away keep bouncing while his team mates join.
Unfortunately, there were 2 his friends nearby already: Scorpion and Rokh.
I saw Scorpion only when we jumped to UPH, looks like Rokh landed and jumped into UPH while I was in warp.
Each 3 Prophecies could rep 187 EHP/s, 3, even with lower skills can do almost 550 EHP/s. Plus I knew Mols had 2 Large Reppers that with heat should give him 780 EHP/s.
But when we jumped through the gate we all were really far from Bhaal: 25-30km with only 8km optimal from our reppers. We caught him in structure, but could not hold reps. Neither we could kill MNI quick enough. When Bhall went down a called scatter. We lost 2 more BC, Wokum in Prophecy and other smaller ships escaped successfully.
Good fight, though bloody.

(02:19:02) Uphallant
Bhaalgorn -331.65m
Prophecy -82.71m
Prophecy -67.28m

After that, we all reshipped into 3 other Propechies and moved further.
We had quite a bit of content on our way:
- 6 Bs
- a dozen of Maguses with 4 deacons
- 20 Caracals
- same Maguses gang with already 6 deacons
... maybe something else which I don't remember.
We successfully disengaged from all, with only one exception. Hiding from Caracals we were at a citadel in Oicx. I knew we are tethered, but gut feeling told me: better dock up. So I called for it, make sure people did... Noticed Wokum in space, called: "Wokum, you better dock-up", and docked up myself.
Wokum reported Stiletto landing on a citadel, he is tackled... WHAT? How? Now I assume he locked Stiletto immediately he landed and before he was tethered, this made Wokum losing tethering and be able to be locked and ... prevented from tethering. I also assume Wokum aggressed Stiletto so he could not dock up.
Unless it was the case, Wokum I recommend you report this to CCP and request reimbursement. In any case, -1 DD:

(03:01:58) Oicx
Prophecy -84.45m

We moved to Kinakka, tackled Corax, but before we landed he killed tackle, though, died later somewhere in the system:

Malediction -44.27m
Corax +20.27m

2nd fight.

We moved further, had Tyler Arnoux joining us (Welcome Tyler!). In between Hirri and Kedama we noticed a flashy VNI on a gate. We played with it for few minutes, realized he is smart and I almost called to move on, when Gemma reported VNI (I believe it was another one) in a plex at 100km. I called for point and once got it we warped to the VNI.

At the same time, we noticed a spike in a system, we were already in warp when I've noticed few tristans decloaking. It was hard to say if it was the same corp or not, but I assumed that 2 Prophecies, Confessor, Pontifex and Deacon can kill VNI, before we lose ships.
Apparently, we could not. They were killing drones quite aggressively, I could not send them in space quick enough. Also, again, Tyler was really far to catch reps .... and we lost it too:

(03:59:58) Hirri
Confessor -64.37m
Punisher -10.14m
Dragoon -5.22m
Prophecy -68.66m
Prophecy -76.97m
Capsule -49.78m

In the end, I was not good enough spamming warp out and lost my training pod (2 +4 implants).

Khm. I called it an interesting fleet, but admittedly, another ISK negative BC fleet.

What was good:
1. I believe I did a good job moving us around the danger of low-sec and keeping fleet safe to be ready for our battle.
2. Before the fleet, I was questioning, but as a result, I can confirm: Spider Prophecies MUST have MWD, it is vital to grab fleet after the jump. Glad I've made that call.

What could be better:
1. In the first fight, I probably should save 2 BCs and don't even try saving Mols. Yet, I did not encounter the low range of reppers and the fact, that Bhaal can be moving and be out of range.
2. I feel we should be able to spot 2 other BSs in space before the engagement... why did we notice them only when we were on grid?
3. Original fit I was going to use for Prophecies had Centii A-Type Small Remote Armor Reparirer modules, but when I scanned the market, whole New Eden barely had 15 of them. And price for them was starting at 10-15M ISK and up to 20M... I checked Dodixie and Jita... bought quite a few to haul to Stac... As I had barely enough for 3 ships, I changed the fit to a medium reppers.
4. Drone are not good for PvP. If we had a bigger fleet (more drones and DPS) and were able to clear the grid quicker that would probably not be an issue, but opponents were killing all: heavy and medium and even small drones so quick that we could not really apply any DPS.
5. Should we pick that last fight with a single VNI when we saw a spike in local? If it was just a beginning of the fleet I would may hesitate, but after 1.5h of running from content I decided to give it a try. Was it a bad decision? Please let me know!

P.S. Please submit the SRP requests (extended SRP is already paid out) https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIp ... w/viewform and fill-in the FCC feedback form: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIp ... rm?c=0&w=1

[Glasi Vookto]

Props for taking out a RR gang, these are quite hard to fly well but also the most fun of the brawly doctrines imo. Having a read through this AAR, I think there's a lot of room for improvements so here are a few pointers:

- 3 ships is a bit low for such an RR gang. With max skills a Prophecy would tank only 1500dps which is generally not enough in the typical fights you get with these gangs. I would say 4-5 Prophecies is a minimum for it to be feasible, possibly with a logi mixed in.
- Those fits are not the best. The rigs are not very well chosen, you will gain a lot more if you used resist rigs instead. If you feel you'll struggle with cap, you can add a second cap booster. I don't like the lack of hard tackle in the first batch either. I take it you were relying on the Bhaal to tackle for you but I think the Prophecies would benefit from having some tackle of their own. The drone nav doesn't have much use in a brawling doctrine. Hopefully your targets will be hard tackled when they get primaried so drone speed is irrelevant. You can replace it with a second cap booster, more tackle, or a TP. The tracking computers are of limited use as well, especially when shooting stationary targets. You can use a TP instead, will have similar effect but will benefit everybody.
- The Bhaal was fitted very poorly. It had active reps but no cap booster, so best case scenario it could rep for only a couple of minutes. The rigs were geared more towards self reps than remote reps, resist rigs would probably be better suited for this situation. The low slots could be upgraded for better tank too. I would also mix in a heavy neut, mabe even two. The main role of the Bhaal would be utility (webs+neuts), then dps.
- Relying purely on drones for dps is a risky move, as yous saw in the second engagement. When you have more numbers, you can drop some of the RRs for guns, this way you do more dps and can't be completely defanged. Alternately, if you have enough people, you can mix in one or two gun based DPS ships.
- As a rule, always try to have an exit strategy in mind when engaging. Ideally you want to engage on gates or stations where you can deaggress and tank until you jump to safety. Warping in the middle of space with no way to shed tackle is generally a bad idea. With your comp a single Inty would be able to hold you down until his backup comes to kill you.
- As you noticed, the rep range is very limited so you need to make sure you're in rep range of each other. Every time you land somewhere or jump a gate, immediately reapproach gate and ball up. A single logi ship mixed into the gang could help with that by keeping the primary up until the rest of the gang gets in rep range. If someone is hard tackled and cannot move, he needs to call it so the rest of the gang can converge with him. If you get separated in a brawl, you die.

[Budda Sereda]

Thanks Glasi!

I wanted to ask: what if I have 20-ish pilots in a fleet, would Spider Prophecies still work? I assume yes, though, as you mentioned, it would make sense to mix in few pure DD BCs.

Another question about using less reps and some guns instead (I assume projectiles): I'm afraid this will lead to even more confusions of managing modules and in more instances of a friendly fire... What do you think? Not sure if you noticed, but I did land on a friendly killmail trying to apply reps... https://zkillboard.com/kill/69315387/

[Glasi Vookto]

Thanks Glasi!

I wanted to ask: what if I have 20-ish pilots in a fleet, would Spider Prophecies still work? I assume yes, though, as you mentioned, it would make sense to mix in few pure DD BCs.

Can work, but I would rather go the traditional way of separate dps and logi for those numbers. RR gangs work because they are somewhat a surprise and a small number can tank a whole lot more than expected. The drawbacks are that they have highly reduce mobility and take a lot of micro-management, things you wouldn't want to deal with in a larger fleet.

Another question about using less reps and some guns instead (I assume projectiles): I'm afraid this will lead to even more confusions of managing modules and in more instances of a friendly fire... What do you think? Not sure if you noticed, but I did land on a friendly killmail trying to apply reps... https://zkillboard.com/kill/69315387/

It will definitely add some more micromanagement and open up for more screw-ups, but again, that's the fun of this doctrine and things will improve with practice. It's up to you and your pilots if you want to try and maximize the efficiency of the fleet at the risk of making mistakes and screwing up, or if you want to keep things simple to make it easier for everyone.

Regarding weapons type, any would be ok, provided pilots have good skills for them. I don't know how they would fit, but missiles would have the added benefit of having a longer application range outside brawl range, especially if you're flying with some long webs support.

[Raido Kudonen]

Regarding weapons type, any would be ok, provided pilots have good skills for them. I don't know how they would fit, but missiles would have the added benefit of having a longer application range outside brawl range, especially if you're flying with some long webs support.

On Prophecies in particular, RLMLs are pretty much the best possible option. 42.2km range, very cheap fitting, and the only thing one should really care about outside brawl range is hazing tackle. (This is because if they won't fight you at brawl range, you can just warp away or reposition off a ping - you only really care about obstacles to repositioning or leaving.) And RLMLs are very very good at hazing tackle.

Spoiler

[Prophecy, RR]

1600mm Rolled Tungsten Compact Plates
Damage Control II
Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane II
Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane II
Drone Damage Amplifier II
Drone Damage Amplifier II
Drone Damage Amplifier II

50MN Quad LiF Restrained Microwarpdrive
Medium Capacitor Booster II, Navy Cap Booster 400
Stasis Webifier II
Medium Cap Battery II

Rapid Light Missile Launcher II, Caldari Navy Mjolnir Light Missile
Rapid Light Missile Launcher II, Caldari Navy Mjolnir Light Missile
Rapid Light Missile Launcher II, Caldari Navy Mjolnir Light Missile
Medium Remote Armor Repairer II
Medium Remote Armor Repairer II

Medium Remote Repair Augmentor I
Medium Trimark Armor Pump I
Medium Trimark Armor Pump I


Ogre II x2
Hammerhead II x2
Hobgoblin II x1
Acolyte II x5
Infiltrator II x5
Vespa II x5
Hornet EC-300 x5