I looked up Laerise on Battle Clinic, to see if she is as good as people are making her out to be. She has similar kill numbers to myself, but a whole lot more losses. I think that's mostly because she flies a lot of T1 frigs, and they die a lot easier than the ships I fly. The important thing is that she has a damn good record against rifter pilots. Many of her 1v1 kills are against poorly fit Rifters, but she has a good record against the standard rifter set up, the 200mm Plate, SAR/DCU set up. A set up which has been a proven punisher killer for the most part.
It makes me think that maybe she is actually a good pilot.
I looked at her fit to find that she doesn't fit a plate on her Punisher. That seems pretty silly, as the EHP gained is vastly superior to the small DPS boost she gets from using a Heat Sink instead. The numbers show that she should be easy prey for a rifter. So the fact that she has such a good solo record makes me think that maybe there is some credence to praise she gets in that rifter thread.
It peaked my interest.
Last night I put together a rifter of my own and added her to my address book. If she came on, I was going to go look for her and see if I could get her to fight me.
I also fit out a Wolf. I have been looking for a ship to solo in since I lost my Claw. We'll see how it works out. I might just go fit out another Claw, and maybe another Jaguar.
Anyway, Laerise hadn't logged on while I was doing this, so I just set out in my wolf to look for a fight. Kel was logged in, so we flew around looking for targets.
Other than a lone Rifter, there was no one to shoot, the lone rifter ran off to a safe spot the minute he saw me, and that was the extent of the action.
After boredom set in, Kel and I dumped our ships for Rifters, figuring we might be able to get more fights in less intimidating ships.
Turns out that no one would engage us anyway, so Kel just took off to run plexes with the militia gang in the Tzvi/Raa area.
In Tzvi there was a war target maller mulling about. I looked to see that it doesn't have a drone bay, so my rifter was pretty safe to engage it. I was able to get under its guns pretty easy, but I couldn't break his tank. After a few minutes of stalemate, the maller docked up, and I moved on.
I helped cap the plex in Raa, and was promoted to "Spear lieutenant." I guess that counts for something.
This is when the night began to get interesting. There was a report of two Neutral Sleipnirs in Amamake. Likely pirates. So the fleet moved that way. I wanted to switch ships, but I didn't have time. so I took my Rifter in with the fleet.
The Sliepnirs crumpled.
The engagement was kind of strange, because you had a mix of people who didn't like to shoot neutrals, and people who would shoot anyone. The first sleip went down real easy because he engaged a non-flashy militia member, and so he himself went red, and the fleet humped him into submission. The second one was tricky though.
Not everyone engaged because he wasn't flashy, so there was less of us on him, and a lot less DPS. It managed to pop a couple of our ships. I was targeted, but since I was still in a rifter, I didn't have much trouble avoiding his guns. The second he hit armor he was done.
Good gank, could have been executed better, but with mixed feelings on engaging neutrals, it's hard to get a decent level of cohesion in those situations.
The sleips were T2 fit, and fit to tackle, which meant their tank was going to be pretty mediocre. The Sleip is a ship that really really shines when you put money into it, but is only "OK" when T2 fit. Unless of course you have crystals, then it's bitchin' no matter what.
Kel and I broke off from the Gang to move some ships around. Which actually led to a 1v1 challenge from an Amarr. He was in a Hurricane, so I got my hurricane ready to rumble.
After some logistical issues to work out, we set off to a safe spot in lamaa. I was looking at his character bio, just to see what I should expect. Turns out he is only about 5 months old. That should be a cake walk for me. I have a whole year of experience over him.
It was a damn close fight.
It started out fine, I was crushing him underfoot. I was a rigged Hurricane, so I almost felt like I was cheating. But then... jammed. Aww hell. Fuggin ECM drones. This could be bad. I wasn't too worried yet, as I still had plenty of armor left, and when I left him he didn't have a lot left. Eventually the jam ceased and I opened up again, I noticed he had some of his armor back, this meant he was a Dual rep set-up. Which is actually pretty good, but probably the 'third best' set up for a hurricane.
Fearing another jam, I overloaded my guns, I wanted to make sure he popped, the DPS crushed his rep-tank, and he was into structure. With less than half of his structure to go, I stopped overloading, so I wouldn't burn out my guns. And then I was jammed again.
eff.
I wasn't in too much trouble yet, I still had a good chunk of armor, and my drones were still attacking him. I expected him to just run, because odds are, I'd be able to shoot again, and kill him before he got a 3rd jam off with the drones. It seemed to take a lifetime for the jam to cease, maybe he got back to back jams, hard to say, because it wasn't until around 7% armor that I was able to fire again.
By this time he had repped a quarter of his armor back. I took no chances. I overloaded the guns and watched him burn. Poof.
I was very impressed with his fight. He took an inferior hurricane set up and put me into Deep deep armor. Which considering the difference in skill, that's amazing. He also didn't run when things looked bad for him, so I give him mad props for that.
I looted his wreck and docked up to repair.
I wanted to move my hurricane back to Kamela. I like to store it there as a heavy DPS ship for station engagements. But since Kamela is very dangerous, I didn't want to go in blind. Kel logged off after my victory over the other Cane pilot, so I was without scout.
Rieger, a friend of the corp was nearby, and he scouted for me. I swapped my cane for a rifter and started to head home.
As I got to Amamake I saw Icarus Flame in local. Icarus is an Amarrian war target that I killed a few weeks ago. He tried to 1v1 me in my rifter, and he died, twice.
So I said, "1v1?" in local. He didn't say anything, and I just headed to Osoggur gate. Where he was.
I saw him in an Executioner earlier, when I was waiting for Rieger to scout for me. When I came out of warp I saw the icon for a frigate on my overview, so I just engaged.
He was fast. I was Afterburner fit, and so I wasn't able to get a web or scram on him. I started watching his orbit so I could jink in and catch him. I had to overheat my web and scram to catch him, but I did. And then it was a short, sweet engagement.
It wasn't until after I had docked and posted the kill-mail that I realized he wasn't in an executioner anymore, but a CRUSADER! Which is an Interceptor. I know the rifter is pretty well equiped to fight interceptors, but generally interceptors are much better than T1 frigates. But my clever piloting caught him.
I felt pretty awesome. But then I noticed that It wasn't a solo kill. Maarrg, a militia pilot was apparently there in a falcon. Turns out that right before the fight was over, he had de-cloaked and fired a missile or two at him.
So basically I solo-killed the Crusader, as the Falcon barely did anything, but it makes the kill look a lot less impressive.
I'm going to call it a solo, because 1 more volley and the falcon wouldn't have made it on the kill.
I don't blame Maarrg. He didn't know it was a 1v1, and if I was in his position, seeing an interceptor shooting at a friendly frigate, I would have jumped on to help as well. I appreciate the sentiment of helping, so it's all good.
Anyway. It was a decent night.
Graveyard:
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