Level 4 PVE Vargur Guide

I've wanted to do a post about missions for a while now, maybe even several. My inner carebear refuses to be silenced, so I've decided to let loose. This post is going to be about the best missioning ship I've flown so far in EVE, the Vargur.

I've flown the Vargur for about two months since I've trained Minmatar Battleship V, and frankly it's amazing. It does a shitload of damage with only T2 modules, is easy to fly, super tanky, damn quick and it's pretty sexy to boot. Add some faction module love and it only gets better. Before we go any further, here's the fit I've been using so far.


Vargur - 24/7 Wrecking

Republic Fleet Gyrostabilizer
Republic Fleet Gyrostabilizer
Republic Fleet Gyrostabilizer
Tracking Enhancer II
Tracking Enhancer II

Gist A-Type 100MN Microwarpdrive
Pith C-Type X-Large Shield Booster
Adaptive Invulnerability Field II
Adaptive Invulnerability Field II
Shield Boost Amplifier II
Large Micro Jump Drive

Bastion Module I
800mm Repeating Cannon II
800mm Repeating Cannon II
800mm Repeating Cannon II
800mm Repeating Cannon II
Small Tractor Beam II
Small Tractor Beam II
Salvager II

Large Capacitor Control Circuit I
Large Projectile Burst Aerator II

Drones
Hammerhead II x 5
Hobgoblin II x 5

So there we go. Now obviously the first thing you're going to notice is that I've thrown faction and Deadspace gear on here, which should push the price up right? Well not massively. At time of making this fit (Dec 2014) it was fairly cheap for a faction fit marauder, coming in at around 1.55 billion, the majority of which is the hull and gyrostabilizers. The Deadspace MWD is definitely not a priority, it just lets you be lazy about cap management. The Deadspace shield booster is cheap as hell (around 40mil last I checked) but if you're looking to keep costs down you can replace all of this with T2/Meta and it'll work just fine. Infact, I wouldn't have bothered buying fancy Deadspace stuff if I didn't have the MWD and gyros lying around already, the T2 version is about 95% as effective to be honest, and a hell of alot more ISK efficient. Hell if you live in quiet NullSec or LowSec, a fully T2 fit Vargur will probably pay for itself in less than a week if you run high end anomalies/L4 LowSec missions. However you'd want to make some changes to the fit. Swapping the tractor beams and salvager for heavy/medium neuts is a good idea, and carry a set of light or medium ECM drones just incase. The MJD helps alot in avoiding people too, but it's a good idea to have backup plans. I'm not saying a LowSec Marauder is always a good idea, but if you have a quiet missioning system or your corp is well set up in a dead-end pocket, you can get away with it pretty safely.

However the one thing about this fit I really recommend is the use of faction ammo. You might think I'm being crazy here but hear me out. The Vargur only has 4 turret slots with a 100% bonus damage role, so you're doing the damage of eight guns with only four which halves your ammo consumption straight off the bat. Plus the increase in damage is definitely worth it, since you gain over 100DPS at all V skills (875 Gun DPS -> 1007 Gun DPS). Don't worry either, you'll earn the ISK to pay for your ammo consumption per mission at some stupid rate of like 20:1. So for every mission you run, you could afford to pay for twenty more mission's worth of ammo with the proceeds (I'll admit this is some guessing here, but the point stands, it's completely sustainable). Often when I run missions, I only need to reload once, and even then it's pretty rare. So don't skimp on cheap ammo when faction gives such a boost in completion times, which is what this ship is all about.

Tips for flying like a pro

Now when it comes to flying this thing it's easy as hell. Autocannons with the tracking bonus of the Vargur can hit frigate sized rats flying towards you to a minimum of 12km ish, which is damn good for battleship sized weapons. Cruisers are fairly easy to track, even the elite ones, and battlecruisers get smacked off the field in two or three bursts. Battleships obviously have zero tracking issues unless they're 500m away in tight orbit (i.e Angel battleships). Your falloff starts showing a noticeable dropoff in damage at around 35 - 40+ kilometres with all Vs but that's why you're dual propped. Just burn within 30km or so of the targets, hit bastion for a minute and gun everything down. You travel at nearly 1km/s if not a bit more under MWD so you're damn quick at approaching targets.

Your shield is extremely cap efficient while in bastion (and still pretty efficient out of it) so don't be afraid to let yourself hit 33% or so cap when closing range before engaging bastion. You're stupidly tanky with the Vargur's bonus to shield boosting + bastion bonus to shield boosting and shield resistances. There's no need to swap resistances for different missions either, though obviously  as a shield tanker, Angel rats are hilariously easy to fight/tank, especially with their helpful tendency to fly straight at you for zero transversal. On a related note, here's a sped up video of me blitzing Angel Extravaganza in my Vargur.

Youtube link

I usually don't bother salvaging/looting anything that isn't a battleship sized wreck since most other stuff is trash, and besides this ship is designed for blitzing. If you want to full clear I'd recommend a Rattlesnake and Noctis combo with a Mobile Tractor Unit to create a wreck ball in each room. I might throw my Rattlesnake fit on here in the next few weeks, I'm still tweaking it currently.

Anyway give this fit a try if you're looking for a high skillpoint, if slightly pricy, mission blitzer. I promise you it's worth the train!