So. Ever have one of those bad strings? Yeah?
Wow, am I ever in one. I guess everyone has these days... or I hope they do, anyway. I never hear of people like Wensley, Miura Bull, Alex Medvedov, or Lady S. having em... but I guess they do? I dunno. Been an expensive few days.
Roaming around in my wolf a few days ago, I encounter a member of Black Rebel Rifter Club in Hadozeko, one of my favorite corps to fight, in one of my favorite systems. He asks if I would like a 1v1... I say sure, and off we go. Him in a Jag, me in a Wolf... and down I go. Arty Jag, 2 webs. God damn, do I hate anything with 2 webs. I did ok... I had fusion in (Jag, what i always choose) and he was in structure, but down i go. Bah.
He nicely offers a rematch, and I manage to win the second one... barrage. Valuable lesson... should have just swapped ammo types. I guess I know now, and a bit of information learned is good news.
He asks to fight again, in a brawling fit Jag this time, and I say ok... and down I go again. B type Jag, and tanky as hell... resist rigs, plus, I suspect, a blue. Had broken his tank about the time I went down, I capped out. Second fight ive lost in the last few days where a C-type nos' extra range would have let me take some range and deal some pain beyond his high-damage area. Ok... another bit of information learned, and now a nagging question. Can my wolf kill a B-type Jaguar? I suppose Ill find out, sooner or later.
Next day, roaming around with some friends in the warzone. We kill some cruisers, a dessie, and got a nice kill on a deadspace fit Omen Navy Issue! We scoop the loot, and then engage a drake...
I have always known MWDs on Wolves in losec get me killed. Lemme tell ya... a HAM drake proved, once again, that MWDs, at least for me, are a very bad idea. Yeah, 3rd wolf lost (and a comet, blech... that dosent count, never flown it before!) in 2 days.
It has to change sometime, yeah?
A friend gave me a Daredevil... oooh, finally, a ship I can fight in Minor FW Complexes with! I fit it out with... well, here is my rather rapid lossmail. I managed to kill a Merlin who i knew had a friend in a coercer, and when the coercer landed, and began to fire Beam Lasers at me, i thought "Cake! Beams. No problem." I burned toward him, scrammed, webbed, orbiting at 1k... and it keeps hitting me. Keep in mind, I was orbiting at almost 1k/sec (my speed was 1429 without heat. Yeah, LG snakes, 1-5) and I am thinking, "Well, sooner or later, he has to start missing". Yeah. Never happened. So I traded a 120m DD for a 10m Merlin. Urgh. Dumb.
I fit out a firetail, head back out, bump into the Merlin pilot who is now in a Hookbill... and promptly lose my new Firetail, to (of course) a fucking 2-web Hookbill. He never went below 1/2 shields. So, what did this loss teach me?
To never try to convince myself the Firetail is an actually useful ship ever again. The thing is a piece. Even if you dual web it, you must plate it to have ANY semblance of tank, and youre still slower than dualweb Hookies, plus, youre even more vulnerable now to Slicers. The things DPS output is a joke (Of course, the hookbill has 3 bonused weapons, all others have 2... plus 5 mids. Balance, CCP? WTF?) and slicers kite it all day long, every dessie kills it, and anything it can engage simply runs from it. Sure, a TD firetail may be ok vs slicers, who will just run, but is less than useless vs hookbills. DD may be the answer, but is 4x the price of actually useful faction frigs like the slicer and hookbill.
So, yeah. I am feeling a little blue just now. To top it all off, CCP just announced their proposed Assault Frigate changes which will do much more harm than good to my favorite class of ships, as well as send me back to the start of the learning curve. As it sits, Hawks, Enyos, and Vengeances will be dominant. Due to the hybrid changes, the Rifter is now back-seat to the Merlin, and the Firetail sucks.
Sad time to be a Minmatar frigate pilot. Sigh.
Hopefully things look up soon.
Ava
