WOW! Those changes made it into an amazing armor brawler, and immediately thinking of the Stabber fleet armor brawler that works so well for me, I came up with this fit:
Spoiler
[Vexor Navy Issue, Nerfed Ship]
Medium Armor Repairer II
Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane II
Damage Control II
Magnetic Field Stabilizer II
Drone Damage Amplifier II
Medium Ancillary Armor Repairer, Nanite Repair Paste
10MN Afterburner II
Warp Scrambler II
Medium Electrochemical Capacitor Booster I
50MN Quad LiF Restrained Microwarpdrive
Heavy Ion Blaster II
Heavy Ion Blaster II
Small Energy Neutralizer II
Heavy Ion Blaster II
Medium Auxiliary Nano Pump I
Medium Auxiliary Nano Pump I
Medium Anti-Explosive Pump I
Acolyte II x5
Hornet EC-300 x5
Hornet II x1
Praetor II x2
Valkyrie II x2
Valkyrie II x5
Warrior II x5
Null M x1000
Void M x1000
Navy Cap Booster 800 x17
Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge M x1000
Nanite Repair Paste x200
Agency 'Hardshell' TB5 Dose II x2
Standard Exile Booster x2
Synth Drop Booster x2
Medium Armor Repairer II
Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane II
Damage Control II
Magnetic Field Stabilizer II
Drone Damage Amplifier II
Medium Ancillary Armor Repairer, Nanite Repair Paste
10MN Afterburner II
Warp Scrambler II
Medium Electrochemical Capacitor Booster I
50MN Quad LiF Restrained Microwarpdrive
Heavy Ion Blaster II
Heavy Ion Blaster II
Small Energy Neutralizer II
Heavy Ion Blaster II
Medium Auxiliary Nano Pump I
Medium Auxiliary Nano Pump I
Medium Anti-Explosive Pump I
Acolyte II x5
Hornet EC-300 x5
Hornet II x1
Praetor II x2
Valkyrie II x2
Valkyrie II x5
Warrior II x5
Null M x1000
Void M x1000
Navy Cap Booster 800 x17
Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge M x1000
Nanite Repair Paste x200
Agency 'Hardshell' TB5 Dose II x2
Standard Exile Booster x2
Synth Drop Booster x2
About ammo, the only time void is recommend if you are fighting something that doesn't give much concern about your AB. Namely rapid light missile ships, as ABing around isn't going to reduce damage, you might as well hold further away and apply maximum damage as most of those guys have very stiff tanks. If you catch a battleship it would likely work there, but that isn't super common as most battleships have this module called the grappler (super strong web) or utility heavy neuts that will give you a very bad day.
The plan with this fit is to use the MWD to close into range, then use the AB to mitigate incoming damage while exploiting your greater tracking to still be able to apply. So hard commit and get right on top of them to do that. This fit does suffer vs a pure AB/web/scram cruiser for that idea, but it is still solid. Due to that limitation, this does tend to perform better in null where pure AB ships are less common, but it isn't able to take a depot/hull repper due to cargo space being needed for cap boosters so hull damage is basically permanent and should be avoided if possible. As far as reps go, always lead with the t2 MAR as the MAAR is the strongest reps on your ship, you want to save that for when you need it most due to MAAR. Make sure auto-reload for the MAAR is off as you won't be lasting 60 seconds with it down. Don't be afraid to use it, just try to lead with the weaker rep when possible.
Some weakness I noticed is even a single medium neut can seriously pressure you, if you need to try to conserve cap use the MAAR over the t2 MAR (provided it still has charges), don't use the small neut unless you except it to help (can swap it to a nos), and hope they die before you do. After field testing, I believe it is time to double down on the drone damage amps as it has the most applied damage and most range of the weapon systems. I was afraid to commit all the damage modules to one or the other before testing it.
I had some great fights with this fit, lets start with:
Fight 1: (not actually the first fight as first fight): Vedmak w/ dessie/frigate support vs Vexor Navy & Gate guns
I was just leaving my staging system when a small gang of frigates/dessies engaged me with a vedmak. I wasn't flashy, so I had gate guns helping me for this one. Ideally I would have engaged the vedmak first (due to ramped damage being very spooky), however I had no choice but to clear the small tackle off first cause they had me hard tackled. Once that was done, with the gate guns making the rest bail, I was feeling super pressured, and overheated my mwd to try to get vedmak, and managed to down him: https://zkillboard.com/kill/78320690/ along with a slasher, algos, and tristan. They managed to avenge that loss later when I goofed into them a few systems later after they had reshipped.
Fight 2: Hull Pen vs Vexor Navy
I was burning off a plex in tama in hopes I can get some hull pen AFs to chase me, and do they ever!
https://zkillboard.com/kill/78423817/, https://zkillboard.com/kill/78423841/, and https://zkillboard.com/kill/78423873/
So as the AFs and frigates burn in, they also call in some bigger ships. One of which is a curse which I thought doomed me. I kill enyo first, then wolf, and struggle to kill the punisher as I am being capped out but not as hard as I should be. I immediately noticed the curse was actually a heavy neut curse, which my medium cap booster let me negate to a large degree with proper timing. A rack of medium neuts would have capped me out much better due to cycle times (medium neuts hit every 12 seconds, and staggering would have let one hit me every 3 to 4 seconds, but a large neut only hits every 24 seconds). A medium cap booster takes in total about 22 seconds to cycle (12 second cycle time and 10 second reload). I was still very low when i managed to kill the punisher and warp as nothing else had burned into point range.
Fight 3: Talos vs Vexor Navy
I managed to get some nice AF kills out of J5A earlier that day, so I decided to use it as my exit. I saw the Talos camping the gate, jumped through to make sure there were no friends (and make it more likely for him to engage as I don't think he would have shot me at 0), then jumped back through, mwded at him, and then ABed around him negating almost all the damage from it. https://zkillboard.com/kill/78442308
Fight 4: Drake, Ferox, Jag, and slicer vs Vexor Navy
This fight I did manage to down a Jaguar before going down, but I think I made a mistake in target selection. So I was bouncing around to make it so the drake/slicer couldn't immediately insert themselves in the fight, I managed to get scram on the Ferox, and I let him go as the jag came in so I could kill that. I did not manage to down the Jag before the drake came in and I died. I believe if I had kept on the Ferox ( https://zkillboard.com/kill/78560422/ ) who did most of the damage too me, I could have killed him and stayed under guns, killed the Jag next to remove that web, and made an attempt to kill drake (As he was firing fury Hams which I may have been able to tank with AB). Part of the decision was made with zkill knowledge (the Ferox was pure buffer fit with no tackle modules in mids) and I wasn't sure I could down the Ferox in a timely fashion.
Fight 5: Brutix vs Vexor Navy
Ignore the stratios on the kill, he had no impact on the fight. So I was going up vs a Brutix, which on paper does more damage than I can tank and has a huge buffer tank. I decided to field test if I could get under blasters with AB. The answer was mostly, I managed to rep most of the fight on a single repper with the occasional 2nd pulse from MAAR. I was lucky that he had void loaded for the entire fight, as AM might have let him start applying on me to greater effect. The brutix kill in question: https://zkillboard.com/kill/78616543/
Fight 6: Loki vs Vexor Navy
So I was roaming after the Brutix kill for another fight, drugs had run out but I was looking for a fight to end it, warp to a belt, see the gate covered in bubbles (but not manned), and starting poking around. A loki shows up to start clearing the bubbles off with HAMs and the decision to go for it is made. Main issue is, loki has a 30km+ web, which makes it impossible for me to get in scram range easily. I keep crashing gate and about the 4th time he doesn't web me. Creeping into about 22km with MWD off, and not seeing a web, I try overheating mwding into him. This time he doesn't web me until I am on top of him. Turning of the MWD, swapping to AB, keeping my speed up as much as possible to reduce HAM damage, and in for a rough fight as the incoming damage is high and he is neuting me with the medium neut. I have to rely mostly on my MAAR to do the work so I don't cap out and loose the scram and gun dps once I noticed I was capped out at one point. I manage to down him and get the loot to safety by warping to a hostile citadel and dropping it off. https://zkillboard.com/kill/78617296/ This was good as I die shortly afterwards to his friends (though I took a dram with me).
It may be a much worse ratter now, but it is an excellent small gang/solo ship and it is time to buy more as I have seemed to run out of hulls for now. Hope you guys enjoyed the tales!
