The role I am building for is semi-solo Ishtar killing in Guristas space, specifically YMJG-4 in Vale of the Silent … my current home-away-from-home.
I’m out there solo camping with my Sabre and want to introduce some more DPS via an alt and multiboxing. I am bubble camping so have no difficulty isolating my quarry at whatever range I want. The difficulty is in killing them.
The local rats steer the ratters towards delivering, and protecting against, kinetic > thermal >> other damage types. My research suggests that people use one of two distinct fits for this sort of PvP, either: Some sort of dual-repper armor tank with tailored resists; or a heavily tanked armor buffer fit, also with tailored resists.
My first attempt was the former type of fit, but the first Ishtar I caught dropped Caldari drones and just shredded me. My staggered dual armor reppers could not keep up and my heavy drones were delivering less than half the damage-per-hit that his were.
I opted for the active armor tank type of fit, figuring it was much more serviceable deep in hostile space where I have no easy access to stations or other friendly structures. Of course, the trade-off is that my buffer is limited so I absolutely need my reppers to be able to keep up. I’d had a previous fight, in that ship, with an RML Osprey Navy Issue. Even though I did not kill him that fight went down as I’d planned: I could stagger my reppers; My cap booster kept up; and the neut control allowed me to disengage and bravely run away when a tengu appeared.
Since my loss I have had a number of comments and fitting suggestions from the locals (FRT have been very civilised about my camping and killing them) so, while I train a few more stratios-support skills, I’m looking to better understand my fitting options and their pros-and-cons before I build another sacrificial-stratios.
I’m not posting a specific fit here, although I have several options lined up in PYFA, mostly because I’d like to explore the ideas and theory … and not get bogged down on critiquing one particular fit. My recent lossmail does show what I chose to run with, but I am not terribly happy with that – obviously
https://zkillboard.com/character/2116982653/
I suspect the answer to most of my questions is going to be “It depends”, but:
- Is active or passive armor tanking innately better for this purpose;
- Am I right to try boost kinetic >> thermal armor resistance;
- Are Minamatar drones, delivering primarily explosive damage, the best choice;
- Is there a ‘best fit’ approach for this sort of thing?