So close!

I nearly got my first above class kill on a Vexor today in Highsec. I was roaming around the belts in my shiny new Rifter, when I saw a yellow can and a hauler chugging towards it. Easy target. I burned right at it and flipped it with the hauler barely 3km out. He locked me, and at first I was half expecting a Battle Iteron to kick my ass. Instead he warped out.

Trying out the Rifter

Hoping he would come back in a PvP ship I loitered around the belt for a minute or two. I wasn't disappointed. He warped right back in, unfortunately flying a cruiser. I normally avoid attacking cruisers, but I noticed the guy was a 2012 player. That meant that at most he'd had a month's worth of training. No way would he have decent enough skills to be flying a drone boat like the Vexor effectively in one month. Not only that, but I guessed he would be inexperienced at PvP and make some mistakes. I was mostly right.

I burnt right at him. Due to where his can was in relation to the warp-in point, we were about 20km from each other. I switched my ammo to Fusion S and hit my Damage Control on. He had already launched his drones. All four of them. And they were Hammerhead I's. In my mind I had already won. Here's why:

1) I had been utterly right about his lack of skills, four drones meant he couldn't possibly have Tech II drones, which would have been a problem for me.
2) Hammerhead I's. Conformation he couldn't use Tech II drones and he was using mediums on a frigate. They would have a hard time tracking me while I shot them to pieces.

So I settled into orbit at 1000m from him to screw up his tracking with his blasters (again no way would he have decent tracking skills after a month) and started to lock up, web and destroy his drones. They dropped fast. I was expecting more drones to pop out, but none arrived. Either he hadn't realised that I would aim for his drones, or he had forgotten to load more. So instead I switched to him. And had a shock. My cap had utterly disappeared while I had been nailing the drones. Luckily I was using a Nos and autocannons so I hadn't suffered massively, but the fact I hadn't noticed this pointed out how poor my tactical awareness is. I switched all my important mods back on. He only neuted me twice more then stopped. I assumed his cap skills were causing him some pain trying to keep that neut running, so he had switched it off. I was slowly wearing down his armour (it was around 50% by this point), and I was certain I would win this. I had been utterly right about him not being able to track, and my shields had actually started to regenerate.

Vroom

Then another orange jumped into the belt. Crap.

While I had been waiting for the miner to come back in, I had set his whole corp to orange, so I could see if any of them wandered by and saw me flashy red after stealing from a can belonging to them. While the miner might have been inexperienced at PvP, he was not stupid, and had called for backup. Unfortunately, this orange was their CEO, flying a Daredevil. I overheated everything and prayed that the Vexor would explode before the Daredevil reached me. There was not a chance in hell I could fight it and survive. The Vexor was inching towards 25% when the Daredevil locked me. I prayed even harder, my hands clenched into fists.

But it was no use. Clearly there is no god :(

Angry at myself for not paying closer attention to local, I warped my pod back to station, before writing a sarcastic EVE-Mail to the Vexor pilot. After I sent it, I realised how pointless that had been. I had just provided him with tears. He was surprisingly mature though, and I attempted to reply in good faith, complimenting his choice in fits, as the neut was utterly unexpected on my part. Now that I've calmed down a little after being denied my EPIC KILL!1!1!!, I can totally understand why he did it. I would have done the exact same in his position. In my excitement to get a cruiser kill, I forgot to pay attention to what was going on around me and I payed the price. Next time, I need to calm the hell down and focus on popping the other guy before celebrating. In my mind I had already won, and that lost me my Rifter.


Tl;dr New guys are inexperienced, not stupid, and fighting one does not guarantee an easy kill :(