Friday 16 March 2012

Skilling to Level V? That extra few percent is important

* Unfortunately I have no screenshots for this fight because it was over within about 20 seconds. My bad :\ *

Title says it all really.

Wisdom and I were out on a mini-roam in Assault Frigates, infact we were on our way back home after a lack of opportune targets. (We popped over to check out the EVE Gate on the way actually, it's pretty cool). I was flying my shiny new Vengeance after the first one got nailed by a kiting Slicer, and Wisdom was in his Retribution.

We were two jumps apart, having split up to cover more ground, when I scanned down a Catalyst in Nebian at the sun. I warped to 100km, and there was the Catalyst, exactly 100km away. I called in Wisdom and started flying towards him. By the time I was in range, Wisdom was in system and running to me (Vengeances are slow). Unfortunately he had a 40AU warp before he could help me. I overheated my missiles and my rep, with both me and the Catalyst already in deep armour.

It was pretty much a race to the finish, but sadly I finally gave up the ghost and died almost exactly as Wisdom turned up on grid, with the destroyer at barely 30% hull. Obviously the Catalyst didn't have a chance against a fresh Retribution, and Wisdom quickly locked, scrammed and pew pewed the him before he could GTFO.

The good news is, all my expensive stuff got scooped by Wisdom. Hurray for ISK saving!

Personal Analysis (Like all the pros do after each fight)

With the benefit of hindsight, I can see I made a couple of mistakes, but also made some good decisions.

Mistake 1 - I didn't overheat my rep until I was already at 60% armour. A few more seconds could have kept me alive long enough for my DPS to kill him. Speaking of which...


Mistake 2 - I didn't overheat my launchers until about the same time, which potentially could have provided me with the DPS I needed to kill him while clinging to hull


Mistake 3 - I forgot to take any kinetic ammo with me, which by the looks of his fit would have been his lowest resist. Next time, take all types :(


-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Good decision 1 - I wasn't too proud to call in backup when I was unsure I could take the Catalyst on my own, which meant we still got a killmail :) I'll always honor 1 v 1s and ransoms, but at no point was it said between me and Quin (Catalyst pilot) that it was a solo duel. E-Honour intact! \o/


Good decision 2 - I realised that the Catalyst was likely to be using blasters (obvious amirite?), so I set my orbit at 5km to try and mitigate his damage. I couldn't really tell over the hull alarms blaring, but I think I reduced it to the point where I wasn't getting face-melted in three seconds flat


Good decision 3 - I made an accurate guess that the Catalyst would be armour-tanked (yeah obvious again) but I also guessed he would attempt to fill his explosive hole, and loaded thermal ammo to compensate. Obviously Kinetic would be better, but I had none in my cargo, so I went with the next best choice. 


But these mistakes could have been covered by more skills....

Rocket Spec V, Assault Frigate V, Repair Systems V etc

The list of skills that could have saved my bacon by a few inches of hull is quite depressing, but I guess you can't win them all :P
I like to think I'm starting to get the hang of PvP, but clearly, more experience or SP would  have got me through this fight intact. There's always something new to learn in EVE.

But of course you can't spend hours obsessing over what you could have done better in a fight, you've just got to take a look at any glaring mistakes you made, and then try not to repeat them again. You can't learn unless you screw up occasionally.


Maybe I'm not a PvP badass just yet, but I think I'm on the right path :P




By the way Wisdom, thanks for getting there just in time to keep the killmail :) 

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