Ninja cheat-sheet: Damage Types

I confess, I'm mostly playing League of Legends these days. The ability to jump into a quick match is a nice change from the occasional monotony of high sec ninjaery. But for those just starting their life of high sec not-strictly-crime-but-well-kinda-crime-a-little-I-guess, I'm proud to present: Guyde's ninja cheat-sheet.

Do you really need crib notes to be a ninja? In two cases, no: 1) you know by heart all NPC damage types and resistances, as well as the natural resistances of all missioning player ships, including Tech 2 and Tech 3 ships; or 2) you fly a Harbinger and you can't change your damage types anyway. In all other cases, it's helpful to have some quick reference notes by your side. Hunting someone in Angel Extravaganza? About to engage a Vargur in a Blood Raiders deadspace? What ammo should you use in your Hurricane or Sacrilege?

When I was starting down the ninja path, I knew I would need quick answers to those questions, so I cobbled together a list of the tanks I would be facing in Lonetrek...

Marauders       Tank Type      Weakness
Golem           shield         EM
Kronos          armor          Exp
Paladin         armor          Therm (or Kin)
Vargur          shield         Therm (or Kin)


T3 Cruisers     Tank Type      Weakness
Legion          armor          Therm (or EM)
Loki            either         Kin (or Exp)
Proteus         armor          Exp
Tengu           shield         EM


Mission      Name    Player Tank*   Player Ammo*
Angel        Gist    Kin/Exp        Exp
Blood        Corp    EM/Therm       Therm
Drone                omni           EM
EoM                  Kin/Therm      Kin
Gallente             Kin/Therm      Kin
Guristas     Pith    Kin/Therm      Kin
Mercenaries          omni (K/T)     Therm
Sansha       Cent    EM/Therm       EM
Serpentis    Core    Kin/Therm      Kin

*refers to the player running the mission (my target), not the NPCs

In general, someone in Angel Extravaganza will be tanked against Kinetic and Explosive damage, and they will probably be dealing Explosive damage. A Vargur has a natural Thermal weakness, but a Vargur in a Blood Raiders mission will probably have plugged that hole, so shoot Kinetic at him instead.

Choosing damage types is an essential part of PVP in EVE, right up there with aggression timers and transversal velocity. It becomes even more important for solo PVP, since you usually become the main source of damage. Want to double or triple your effective DPS? Choose the right damage type! I've discussed it in previous posts if you want real examples.

It's also worth pointing out that these lists can only help you guess what you'll be facing. Fit a Ship Scanner if you want to be sure. It's always possible you'll run across an omni-tanked missioner.

On Kidnapping Damsels and Losing Ships

I've said it before: I don't ninja to be a jerk. It's strictly for the money and the fights. Yes, I will steal your Damsel, but only because I can resell her on contracts. I think tears are silly and are a sign that you take your games way too seriously. If you choose to play a game where you get to make your own rules, it's childish to get upset when someone else plays by their own different rules. (Tears as an aspect of social engineering is a topic for another time.)

I would much prefer to shake your hand after a fight. I might be holding your Caldari Navy Ballistic Controls in the other hand, but that's the nature of a fight: someone wins and someone loses. However, losing a ship or losing a fight doesn't mean you've "lost" at EVE.

As a former missioner, I understand why mission runners may think differently. They have invested most of their time and money and training into their special Navy Raven or Tengu and it represents the game to them. Seeing your expensive mission ship blown out from under you sucks. It's like the first time you lost at Monopoly as a kid. That sucked too. But losing a game of Monopoly doesn't mean you've lost at life. So I say again, losing a ship doesn't mean that you've lost at EVE.

Yes, that is my first loss mail from 2005 (back before dropped loot was included on the killmail) and I quit EVE for a while after that. It wasn't even because of the loss of the ship; I was upset at myself for being suckered into a fight when I thought I was helping someone. Looking back, I realize that the loss of the ship was insignificant. I gained so much more than I lost. I might have lost a ship that held value for a two-month old character, but I gained knowledge that has been invaluable for me as a player.

This background has shaped who I am as a person even while I'm stealing your mission objective. As a player, I honor ransoms and I don't lie to others. If there was such a thing, I would be an honorable ninja. Does my conscience bother me? Not really. I don't want others to rage-quit, but I know that if someone quits over the loss of a ship, then EVE really isn't the right place for them to begin with. To their credit, most people seem to take the loss of their ship pretty well. I usually send a short message to the other party after a fight, politely saying "good fight, these are the mechanics of what just happened, convo me if you want to chat PVP." The result has been some good conversations with other players, even ones who've just lost their faction fit CNR to me.

I'm not a softie. You won't guilt me into letting you go. If you've figuratively landed on my hotel on Boardwalk, you'd better believe that I'm charging full price. But I see no reason to be immature about it. I believe that a person's behavior after a fight is more important than whether or not they won.

Pro Tip: Armageddons Get Primaried

When it comes to videos demonstrating EVE fleet tactics, some of the very best come from Lord Maldoror of Rooks And Kings alliance. If you are interested in learning how to use triage carriers intelligently, the "Clarion Call" videos are excellent.

I recently discovered another of their videos, "Ironclad", which was released last summer. It focuses more on how they use Guardians, though there's plenty of carrier action too. Turns out I got a mention in the video! I was quite surprised when I heard it. And, if I'm honest, I would have been happier if it wasn't with the words "Guyde is primary, Guyde is primary."

Duo of Death, PVP Remix

"Duo of Death" is a level 3 and level 4 PVE mission. Despite the fearsome sounding name, it is actually a relatively quick and easy mission. With this in mind, I present "Duo of Death, PVP Remix":

I've added Drakes to my list of targets when scanning for mission runners. It turns out that they will often drop more valuable loot than a mission running battleship, due to the high cost of heavy missile launchers. So I was quite happy when a Drake started shooting my Heron, two gates into his mission. It was a deadspace where you were required to steam 50 or 60 km to get to the second gate. I fled and returned a couple minutes later in my Sacrilege, but noticed that he now had a second corp mate in system, and there was a Megathron on scan when I arrived back at the first gate. Because I had stolen from his corp, both he and the Drake would be allowed to shoot at me. Hmmm...

I'd killed ships with the Sac, but I was still fairly new behind the wheel (or yoke, or whatever you use to drive a HAC). From past PVP experience, I also knew that a properly fit Megathron was a ship more than capable of knocking you to the ground, kneeling on your chest, and shooting you repeatedly in the face. This was compounded by the fact that the Sac was new enough that I still spent my Saturday afternoons washing and waxing it's beautiful sleek black finish, and I wasn't ready to part with it yet. I sat at the gate outside the deadspace for probably two minutes, wondering whether it was worth the risk. Would I warp in to find myself double-webbed with blasters in my face?

Ultimately I decided that I had bought the Sac to get fights, and this would be a good one, win or lose. Plus, if I chickened out, I'd always wonder 'what would have happened?'

I activated the gate.

Upon landing, the Mega was about 40 clicks away and slowly chugging towards the second gate. The Drake was still on scan but not on grid, so he was probably still in the second pocket. Big sigh of relief. It wasn't an ambush. I lit the afterburner and charged at the Mega. He boxed me and opened fire.

I like to keep my combat log open at all times (bottom left corner of my screen) so I immediately saw that he was hitting me with railguns. I adjusted my approach a little to gain some transversal while still closing. Confident in his size and with a potential 2:1 advantage, the Mega turned around and started approaching. Unfortunately for him, the Sac really enters its element at around the 10 km mark. I got under his railguns and put the neut on him in addition to the HAMs, with my Hobgob IIs picking away at his webbed drones. About a minute later the Drake arrived on the scene. Scourge missiles and another flight of drones started chewing at my armor, but that's why I had put a second armor repper on the Sac. My armor was holding.

The Mega wasn't doing so well, however, and soon crumbled under my missiles. I recalled my drones, changed ammo, and started burning towards the Drake. He obliged and continued heading my way, despite the destruction of his pal. He quickly met a similar fate.

Damage graph for Sacrilege vs Megathron + Drake

(Quick explanation of the graph... top section: purple line is me shooting the Mega, cappuccino-colored line is me shooting the Drake; bottom section: red line is the Mega's railguns, blue line is the combined balance of his DPS, yellow line is the Drake's missiles and drones.)

Just like the PVE version of "Duo of Death", this turned out to be a fairly easy fight. I say this with full respect to PsycopathicMind and diabloblue for bringing the fight instead of simply running. I don't like to betray myself in local, so I mailed them afterwards to say "good fight", to explain the mechanics, and to see if the quick response of the Mega was due to one player dual-boxing. Turns out they were indeed two real life friends who were kind of interested in PVP and were willing to shoot someone when given the chance. Extra points to PsycopathicMind for shrugging off the loss of a new battleship and being willing to chat with me afterwards about PVE fittings.

The Blob

Many of the fights in the militia quickly faded into a combined hazy memory of "jump-lock-shoot-warp-repeat", but some stand out.

One fine October day (2009-10-31), the combined fleets of the Caldari and Amarr militias killed 9 pirate carriers. Oddly, I don't remember much of that. The highlight of the day was meeting a Rook about an hour earlier. We managed to tackle him off a gate. He was neuted and webbed but, in the spirit of killmail whoring, not shot. At least not until our entire fleet had tagged him.

After popping his ship, a fleetmate threatened in local: "Next time we bring the blob."

The Maiden Voyage of Sacrilicious

"Stay calm. This is your fight. You got this."

I took a deep breath to calm myself and collect my thoughts. Moments earlier, Ackil Gedian's Golem had painted and shot at my looting Heron. Baiting a battleship in a frigate is a good way to get the adrenaline flowing. Now, warping back in my shiny new Sacrilege, I loaded the EM HAMs and checked D-scan... yup, there he was... only seconds until I landed....

Some history: I had lost plenty of cheap T1 ships and interceptors to low/nullsec fleet roams, but that was over a year ago, and this was the first time I was bringing something expensive to the fight. It was also my first time PVPing in a Heavy Assault Cruiser, and my first time flying with an active armor tank. When I bought "Sacrilicious" a couple weeks ago, I ran it through some PVE shakedown cruises to get the feel of things. This ship was the culmination of my earlier experiences fighting mission runners. I knew that on paper, at least, I had a ship with a small sig radius, considerable DPS, and a mean tank. But did I have the piloting skills to fly it? Would I be able to remember the lessons I'd learned in previous fights?

I pushed aside any doubts as I landed on grid. Ackil Gedian's Golem was quickly locked and pointed, followed by a torrent of HAMs and a medium neut. I settled into a close orbit at full speed and watched as I slowly chipped away at his shields. He was shooting Exp cruise missiles at me, which an Amarr HAC can shrug off easily, so I set my drones on his Hammerhead IIs. Due to my long Caldari history, the low shield klaxon typically gets my heart racing; this time I simply flipped on the armor repper with a close eye on capacitor level. In less than two minutes, the fight was over. There was no discussion of ransom. There was only Ackil Gedian in his pod beside the wreckage of his Golem, demonstrating proof of concept for the Sacrilege.

There are a couple things to note about this fight. First, this fight demonstrates the advantages of shooting the correct damage type. To recap, I shot him with EM, he shot me with explosive. Because he was tanked against Angel NPCs, his explosive resistance was three times stronger than his EM resistance. On the other hand, my explosive resistance was over three times stronger than thermal, my weakest. In simple terms: I correctly guessed his weakest resist, while he blindly shot against my highest resist. It may not have affected the ultimate outcome of the fight, but he could have tripled(!) his missile DPS just by changing to thermal missiles. (Also check out Wensley's blog for an excellent look at projectile damage types versus resists.)

The second thing to note has to do with the medium neut in the Sac's 6th high slot. Some post-fight EFT number crunching says that his active shield tank could run cap-stable with all level V skills. Applying the medium neut reduces his cap to less than 5 minutes. That means that for this fight, he probably still had half his cap when he died. His cap-stable tank simply couldn't keep up with the damage. So while the neut did nothing for this fight, it definitely has merit in longer fights.

Lessons From Early Fights (Part 2)

After a well-tanked Armageddon fought off my Drake, I decided I needed more tank and more firepower. I had a couple shield buffer-rigged Ravens in the hangar, so I fitted one for anti-MR work and moved it to Ruvas, my ninja testing system.

The day after the Armageddon fight, a pilot named Takens in a Raven Navy Issue decided to take shots at my Heron. It was in a Sanshas mission with no gates and he was sitting close to the warp in point. I swapped the Heron for my Raven and warped back to the mission. He was still on scan, but when I landed, he was chasing down a wreck about 40 km away. I overheated and started charging at him, cursing my ill fortune, when he immediately opened fire again. It took me 45 seconds to close to overheated point range, and he made no attempt to escape! Still, it took over a minute before I was within torpedo range. He had been pelting me with cruise missiles the whole time so he had a sizable head start on my buffer tank.

Things changed, however, once my torpedoes started reaching their target. Two minutes after landing on the field, I was in armor, but his shield tank was broken and he was dropping much faster than I was. I had closed to web and neut range, and remembered to launch a 5th drone (the Warrior II on the graph below). I burned out one of my Invulnerability Fields around this time, but the fight was effectively over. He attempted a late convo, but neglected to pull his drones. It took two volleys to turn his structure into Swiss cheese, leaving his pod beside his wreck.

Damage graph for Guyde's Raven vs Takens' Raven Navy Issue

Total fight time was about 2 minutes 40 seconds from the time I landed on the field until he popped. I started to approach him at 21:56:01 (not shown in the graph). Takens was a good sport about it all, and we ended up having a lengthy chat about PVP and aggression mechanics.

This fight demonstrated my feeling the night before: there will be situations where a PVP battlecruiser will simply not be able to defeat a PVE battleship. His damage while I was closing the gap would have forced my Drake off the field. In this case, it was thanks to the extra buffer and extra damage of the Raven that I was able to finish the fight. Continuing the lessons of the night before...

LESSON 5: A PVP battlecruiser may win many fights, but not all.

I finished the fight with two volleys left in the launchers. This was due to me being a little trigger-happy at the start of the fight and wasting 3 volleys before I was in range.

LESSON 6: Know the maximum range of your missiles. Don't waste ammo.

One final note: I used the wrong ammo type. I loaded up the EM damage Mjolnir torps, forgetting that he was in a Sanshas mission. Sanshas deal EM and thermal damage, so I could reasonably expect him to tank against those damage types. Post-fight EFT calculations showed his shield EM resistance was 55%, and his armor EM resistance was 50%. A much better choice would have been kinetic damage Juggernauts against 40% shield and 25% armor resistances. To make it simple: it took me 30% longer to kill him, because I chose the wrong ammo type.

LESSON 7: Know the mission NPC damage types, and adjust accordingly.

The Raven had been successful, but it moved like a slug. What could I fly that is strong enough to consistently kill a battleship, but quick enough for covering large distances? A new idea was forming....