I returned to Doril today in my pod after a failed roam into Catch and Immensea. Lost my Sentinel in a gate camp that was, I must admit, quite cleverly set up. A Cynabal had chased me thru a few systems then sat at one gate in a 2 gate system while his friends set up the gate camp on the other gate. I was trapped like a little mouse. I never saw it coming until I jumped thru the gate and saw the camp and the bubble came up. Earlier today I lost a Hurricane in a very poor fight vs 2 battleships (Tempest and Hyperion) just outside my low-sec home station in Ishkad. All in all it had been a pretty crappy day for me as far as EVE pvp is concerned.
So, as I arrived in Doril on my way home I was considering if I would pick up my Harbinger that I had docked there and continue or if I would call it a day. I figured I would give it one more try but I promised myself to take my ship into low-sec Derelik instead of Curse. Low-sec just seamed so much more safe and predicable for me somehow at that moment. No F***ing frigs to deal with or bubbles, Inti's, Falcons or whatever people can throw at you in null.
So I dock up in Doril where I have the Harbinger. It is the last one from the 4 or 5 that I owned until recently. I have lost the rest of them for my solo PvP ambitions.
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| Harby Love |
Before I go on I need to say something about the Harbinger.(and the actual reason for this blog ^^)
.... I love this ship <3 ...
This is why
It is probably the ship I have most flown into battle, either it be in PvE or in PvP . I have logged more hours into that ship than any other besides maybe a Bestower or Sigil. This ship fits me like a glove. I know what its good at and I know its weaknesses. I know its truck like agility and its tough armor tank, the sounds of its ripping pulse lasers that do very respectable DPS and the lovely 20km range of scorch. I have been flying the Harbinger for years and up until I started solo PvPing I had never, ever lost 1. When I undock in a Harbinger I feel more confident then in any other ship . It feels like undocking with an old friend.
This afternoon started to realize that this matters to me. That this is actually an important factor when playing/fighting.The fiasco with the Cane this morning was largely due to me not being sure of what the Cane can do and can't do. I don't feel comfortable flying canes because I have hardly ever flown one.
I am more likely to misjudge situations in ships that I am less experienced in or that don't feel confident about. Unfortunate it is that the Harbinger , although being a wonderful ship for some types of fights, it is limited in what it can do. This basically means for me as a PvPer or at least someone who has the ambition of being competent at PvP that I'll need to invest more time in flying and learning other types of ship and weapon systems so that I get comfortable with them as well. At least this is what I am considering. It makes perfect sense , but the next question is which ship/system would that be? I'll need to think about that.
The combat part of this blog
So, alright, back to the situation at hand, I was in my Harbinger docked up in Doril I manage to change the fit around with the modules that I had in the hanger and I end up with a Harbi fit ,ala Kil2 (the one with the med. armor rep, 1600plate and med focused puls lasers). Pretty decent and certainly fit for battle.
I undock and warp to the regional gate to enter low sec Derelik. The roam has started.
Arriving at the gate (on a safe gate bm) I notice a Tempest on the gate at 0m. There aint that many people in system so I believe he is alone but that really doesn't matter to me as I am not gonna engage him. My plan was to roam low sec and I am sticking to it. I warp to gate and jump into Sendaya.
I see the Pest follow.. oke, this could get interesting.
Side note: I have never fought a Pest in my Harby so I am not sure how it would perform against one. 1 thing was for sure I was not going to aggro him on a gate.
I hold cloak and he de-cloaks immediately. So it is clear to me that he means business. He is 35km from me so well out of point range. That is good, that will give me some time to maneuver. I select a celestial that puts me on a course away from him and I burn from the gate. He locks and follows but doesn't aggro.
I warp to the celestial. At this moment I am not sure what to do yet. Can I take a Pest alone? My experience from this morning in the cane suggests otherwise. To be sure I align to a gate ready to warp if I decide to. I would prefer to fight him on a gate with the sentry guns on my side. But will he follow if I warp a second time if he has followed me at all?
He pops up on scan so I know he is in pursuit. I wait for him to land on grid. And... he lands right on top of me about 7km away!! Which is a surprise considering I never warp to 0km. In a reflex I decide to stay and fight. From then on I am mentally in fight (brawl )mode and I start managing my ship systems:
- lock him up and get everything on him, point, web, guns.
- get under his guns! Get close using MWD, orbit as close as possible MWD off for smaller signature.
- launch drones and manage tank/cap and overheat. I decided to let my drones kill his drones.
Both our tanks start to diminish and I activate my overheated rep when I am at 75% armor. He is neuting me which puts pressure on me to manage my capbooster efficiently which I manage well enough. I cap out twice but not long enough to give me serious concerns. All my mods and weapons keep running.
In the meantime I notice that his shields are down and to my surprise his armor tank is dropping faster than mine! If it keeps going at this rate his BS will go down before my ship will. My serious concerns for my tank and cap start to be replaced by feeling of hope that I might come out of this engagement as the victor.
But.. it was not to be, he decided to bail and launches ecm drones. I notice that in time and lock em up and set my own drones on them. I manage to kill 1 before I get jammed and he takes that 20 sec window of opportunity to warp off. Ecm drones are very effective. Probably too effective to be any fun unless you are the person who is using them. But thats another topic.
After that is was GF in local and that is it.. That could have been a big satisfying reward for me after a pretty crappy PvP experience today. But Eve is like that. It can be unforgiving as hell and that is why I love it. It makes the victories all the sweeter. And I hope I have many of those in the future.
Still, on the bright side of this experience , I am glad to see I made someone flee who was in a bigger ship than me ,and in a fair fight. And of course..... it was in my good 'ol Harby.
<3
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