I have encountered more than a few Rattlesnakes of whom I couldn't break the tank. I used to fly 3 Navy Dominixes. After a couple of failed gank attempts I cut down on tank and put 3 drone damage amplifiers instead of one. Then I have encountered a Paladin that I couldn't break. Unless I wanted the similar situation happen again, I was in need of a change...again. That's how current meta - the Nestor trio was born. It has the very similar capabilities of the 3 Dominixes. They have one extra heavy neut fitted on each, extra repair bonuses, similar tank, but only two drone damage amplifiers. I thought I have found an optimal setup. A powerful spider tank, with good enough neuting capabilities and good enough dps. Me tanking Marauders and Rattlesnakes were the thing of the past. Or so I thought.
It was your usual day. I was watching the tower with two Rattlesnakes in it. System was kept tidy and I knew the locals would not resist running those anomalies.
And so they did. I tackled both Rattlesnakes at the site, warped in my Nestor fleet and sent angry Ogres after them. It was a tough battle.
It's really tough to properly manage spidertank setup while multiboxing 4 ships. Usually hostile ships explode fast and I don't go into extended fight. However these Rattlesnakes were not giving up. I was very close going below 30% shield, but never did. Fight kept prolonging and it was getting very tiresome. In about 15 minutes I saw this was going nowhere so I bailed. One of the pilots decided to chat me up.
As most of my victims, they were quite surprised to see my fleet try take a shot at them. It was a friendly conversation. We exchanged some thoughts and the pilot was kind enough to share the fit.
It was a max passive tanked Rattlesnake. I guess that's what you would expect in a c4 site. I hated it. It brought back bad memories and the fact that 3 Nestors are not enough to break a passive Rattlesnake was very shitty news to have. I do not want to jeopardize the tank as I have trouble staying alive with the current one, but at the same time I do not want to bring yet another ship into the mix. The fact that three faction battleships can't kill one is nonsense. I understand active tank bursts such as Ancillary Shield Boosters, but for a passive tank to be able to withstand 3 ships of the same size with 2 damage mods each? Bullshit. But that's the reality. My opinion may not always be the right one, but it's up to me to do something about it. Turns out, I've found a good fix to the situation. Xcom2 was on steam sale. Fuck the Rattlesnakes. I'm gonna go shoot some aliens.
That's a pretty amazing tank! Frustrating but impressive.
ReplyDeleteCan you tinker with your proteus fit to get more dps that way?
Tuscor
I tend to think passive regeneration is a bit of a cheap thing, personally. There's literally nothing you can do against it. Were wormhole effects a factor?
ReplyDelete600 dps passive tank? My wormhole group habitually flies X-type XLSB rattles with 1200 dps of cold local tank. If they are dualboxed or often flown together, rattles can be rigged for a cap chain and get a 1800 dps local tank - enough for some C5 anoms.
ReplyDeleteI imagine that neuting is your strongest weapon in situations like this. Obviously it helps against active shield boosting, but even against passive fits it can turn off hardeners. If you're prepared to field Nestors you clearly don't mind putting money on the line; have you considered replacing one of them with a Bhaalgorn? (or geddons).
Of course RF Large Cap Batteries are the rattle's defense against neuts, but people running passive rattles are probably not going to be thinking that far ahead.
pretty sure he had enough neuts to cap out the rattlers.
DeleteFor a single target gank, there can always be more optimal setup, but if I do not use triple spider tank I will be very vulnerable when ganking multiple targets. With only 2 Nestors, if one of them is being focused, 2 large reps won't do much. I actually added an extra ship into the mix that I will write about later.
DeleteOh come on man! Don't leave us hanging. Spill the beans!
DeleteTusc
Nestor does have a Ship Maint bay.... I'd assume ejecting from the Proteus and swapping into a bomber for that extra 600DPS? :)
DeleteAsk the CONDORD Commander for his fit. He was able to solo Sarah Valdez.
ReplyDeletehttps://zkillboard.com/kill/53296896/
Hye Zosius! Somehow i have found this blog several months ago. After that added to bookmark because i like to read the wormhole stories :). I really like it good job, keep doing it ;)! My corp and me live in C4 space for 2-3 years so i can understand your surprise about rattlesnakes. I cant see the exact fit from your blog, but i know when rattles do C4 sites, one of the most important thing is to manage tank/neut and range therefore often rattles refit during sites (in case of solo). If u check Rykki-s guide related to site damage and spawns ( a bit old but under c5 sites it works) you can see that rattles need to tank sometimes 1600+ damage and manage neut. In this way the cheapest and the most practical way to solo sites are the passive snakes, you know. The biggest advantage of passive snake is not the tank rather the cap: It cant be drained, so above methods (geddon/bhalgorn and nestors neuts are not working on it) (see example: https://o.smium.org/loadout/88843). With max skills implants and with a bit shiny faction items boosters i think it can tank 2000 dps in full tank mode so 1. if u want to break it maybe this limit can be your minimum requirement in dps if u want to succed (ofc more is better). 2. You wrote that u used ogre II. Maybe try to use 2 gecko+aug oggre instead next time because against gecko's omni damage they cant put on damage specific passive hardeners to counter. 3. Neuting is a powerfull weapon, but not works againt passive rattle try to drop a depo and try alternative methods. I know its difficult during multibox, i struggle too with a 4 rr dominix pve setup, it difficult to maintain without any multibox program (i just use eve-o-preview). 4. Maybe u can bring a cheap full dps ship for 5th char against battleships. (700 dps cloaky purifier)
ReplyDeletesorry for the bad english :)