Cynabal, accept no substitute
tl;dr Knowing the resist hole of your target gives the ninja a substantial advantage over an unprepared carebear opponent.
A very skilled PVP pilot once told me that after I “unlocked” T2 medium pulse lasers, I’d be spoiled and wouldn’t want to use anything else. One of the reasons is that the problem of shooting into the resist hole, or more accurately, knowing what that resist hole happens to be, gets removed from the equation. You simply point, shoot, and instantly swap to multifrequency once you’ve closed with the enemy. Blasters loaded with faction Antimatter ammo are in a similar vein, but their damage combination is slightly less attractive, though the shear amount of DPS can often make up for this.
Autocanons, missiles of all sorts, even drones make things a bit more complicated. The tradeoff however is that you’re much more capable of exploiting a resist hole and simply melting your opponent’s defenses.
But how do I know what ammo to load?
Ah, fear not. Old Solo is here to assist. You would of course like to know the enemy ship’s exact fitting and in what fashion he is tanking the NPCs. A ship scanner will accomplish this obviously, but after a bit of experience, you’ll see that most ships are consistently tanked as an armor or shield tanker, and they’re either passive or active. Take the common-as-dirt Raven for example. Most Raven pilots will have an active shield tank and it’s a reasonable bet that he has a tank to counter the NPCs in his mission. It wouldn’t do you any harm to become familiar with the common builds of the mission ships in your area and a quick trip to Battleclinic should sort that out for you.
If you need a bit of help though, here’s the Easy Button:
Blood & Sansha, Amarr-related NPCs
rats do em/therm
mission runner does therm or obviously em + therm if laser-fitted
MISSION SHIP RESIST HOLE
T1 Shd Tanker-Kin
T1 Armor Tanker-Expl
T2 Amarr-Kin
T2 Minmatar-Expl
T2 Caldari-Expl
T2 Gallente-ExplGurista & Serpentis, Caldari-related and Gallente-related NPCs
rats do kin/therm
mission runner does therm or kin
MISSION SHIP RESIST HOLE
T1 Shd Tanker-EM
T1 Armor Tanker-Expl
T2 Amarr-EM
T2 Minmatar-Expl
T2 Caldari-EM
T2 Gallente-ExplAngels & Minmatar-related NPCs
rats do All, mostly expl but some kin
mission runner does expl
MISSION SHIP RESIST HOLE
T1 Shd Tanker-EM or Therm
T1 Armor Tanker-Therm
T2 Amarr-Therm
T2 Minmatar-Therm
T2 Caldari-EM
T2 Gallente-ThermMercs & Rogue Drones
rats do all types dmg, Mercs are usually heavy kin/therm Drones are often heavy expl
mission runner does therm or possibly em vs Rogue Drones
MISSION SHIP RESIST HOLE
T1 Shd Tanker-EM (possibly Therm in a Rogue Drone mission)
T1 Armor Tanker-Expl (possibly Therm in a Rogue Drone mission)
T2 Amarr-Therm
T2 Minmatar-Expl
T2 Caldari-EM
T2 Gallente-Expl
Meccros, long time member of Suddenly Ninja, now with Misfit Toys
That’s a list compiled by myself and my good friend Meccros of Misfit Toys. It’s certainly not exhaustive, and in truth it may be a bit over-simplified, but it’s a good place to start I think. You can either bookmark this blog entry (yet another shameless attempt at self promotion) or, copy the list and save it as note in your notepad. You should note that Rogue Drones are really a mixed bag and it’s likely that the mission runner is omni-tanked to some degree. In a Rogue Drone mission, you might simply have a go at the enemy ship’s native resistance.
It’s worth noting that many experienced mission runners, and some who simply can’t be bothered to swap mods, will be omni-tanked. That means they’ve mounted an Adaptive armor mod or some flavor of Invulnerability Shield Hardener. This may result in you melting their defenses even quicker, or you’ll set there and watch distressingly as your damage is soaked with little effect. Change ammo and try a different resist.
You should also be aware of what sort of heat might be coming your way. Adjust accordingly if you’ve a resist hole which the mission runner might exploit either through PVP knowledge or blind luck. If you’re flying a shield-tanking gankship jumping into a Sansha or Blood deadspace, or if your target is a laser boat, prepare to see your shields insta-melt if you’ve not properly plugged your own resist hole. The same holds true for armor tankers when the mission runner is firing thermal or even worse, explosive. A good gankship should have that resist hole plugged either via a rig or a mod.
Lock and Load Baby!
But what if your target comes back in his PVP ship, what to expect then? Well, a very simple metric to hold to is that shield tankers are susceptible to EM damage and armor tankers are generally weak against Thermal. On any ship larger than a frigate or destroyer, it’s probably worth your effort to swap to explosive once you get into the armor of your target. The time it takes to swap will usually be offset considerably by that gaping explosive hole in your target’s armor. Amarr T2 ships are an entirely different story. They are ridiculously over-tanked against explosive damage. That’s because the T2 ships are natively tanked (ridiculously so in fact) against their “enemy faction”. This little bit of knowledge is beyond the scope of most casual pilots and since the conventional wisdom says “always use EM in PVP”, pilots flying T2 Minmatar ships hold a unique advantage over the uniformed.
On the other hand, one can simply load up with T2 Heavy Pulse L4Z0R5 and a rack full of Imperial Navy Heat Sinks and just melt face. There are merits to that approach as well. Now go shoot that Raven that just turned red to you.
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