Thursday 17 June 2010

Wrath of the Battlevigil

Some time ago I wrote about the Vigil and how great it is as a cheap fast salvage boat.
This post is also about the Vigil, but one with teeth. Say hello to the Battlevigil.


While browsing the SHC boards I stumbled upon a post by Prometheus Exenthal. Prometheus is known for his awesome frigate videos and if you don't know them yet, you should really go watch them here.
His Vigil fitting inspired me to modify it a bit for high-sec shenanigans. If you are in a Rifter, Tristan, or maybe a Merlin people expect you to be somehow experienced at pvp. But no one but a clueless noob would engage in a Vigil, right? This ship is an aggro magnet.

The setup is like this:
[Vigil, battlevigil]
Damage Control II
Micro Auxiliary Power Core I
Micro Auxiliary Power Core I

1MN Afterburner II
J5b Phased Prototype Warp Scrambler I
Medium Shield Extender II

Dual Light Pulse Laser II, Scorch S
Dual Light Pulse Laser II, Scorch S
OE-5200 Rocket Launcher, Caldari Navy Gremlin Rocket

Small Anti-EM Screen Reinforcer I
Small Core Defence Field Extender I
Small Core Defence Field Extender I

Hobgoblin II x1


78 dps at 10km, 1435m/s, 5252 effective hitpoints, and a 21dps passive shield recharge while being cap stable.

While the stats don't look very promising, the Vigil is almost impossible to hit by drones or bigger guns, and thanks to the range of it's weapons it is easy to overheat the afterburner and get out when things go south.

Here are some examples from a long list of fights:
This was the first fight. When I picked up some of this guy's ore he docked his mining ship and came back in a Drake. Oh dear. A long fight but nice training. Orbiting at 7km I was able to almost tank his damage while taking out his drones. His tank was tough although I was surprised I managed to get him below 50% shields at all. I burned out my afterburner so I had to run at some point. When I docked at the station I noticed there wasn't a repair shop. Fortunately they sold new afterburners here so I trashed the old one, bought a few new modules, and undocked again. Turned out the Drake also docked and bought new drones. When I came back to the belt we met again.
This time I managed to mitigate his damage better. While tackling him in a comfortable orbit I logged in my Orca alt on a new client, jumped the Orca several systems to the fight, and swapped ships to finish him off.



Here I was chilling in a belt while eating a pizza. This guy in his Heavy Interdictor warped in, bumped little me, and dropped a can while targeting me. We exchanged some pew pew while the Orca warped in, I hopped into the trusty Hurricane and he went down in flames quickly. Turned out it was the first HIC he ever bought, he just wanted to test it's tank. Oh well...


This was also an interesting encounter. This guy was mining with his Hulk while chatting to his Orca friend. I looted some of the cheap mods from the wrecks nearby and he sent his drones after me. When I tackled the Hulk the Orca started remotely repairing him.


Flashy Hulk and Orca? Time to get the gank-Cane yet again. Fights like this one are the reason I fit two warp disruptors.


Battlevigil vs. Hurricane


Battlevigil vs. Prophecy and Retriever


Battlevigil vs. Hyperion

Turns out the Vigil is a very nice ship to harass people with. Although you need to pick your fights it's very easy to gain aggro and it's equally easy to leave a fight when you have to. The only Vigils I lost were due to my stupidity when swapping ships at my Orca.

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