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How best to fit a newb destroyer

Asked by [ Editor ]

New players like moving up to bigger ships. The first bigger ship they can move up to is the destroyer (the skill book they get from a newbie epic arc), and it is often hard to persuade them to spend the time to get into a cruiser for pve.

Assuming they are going to stick with the destroyer for at least a few days - what is the best advice on fitting a given destroyer for L1 and L2 pve?

This isn't so much a question of "what is the best fit" and tossing out all skills V dps numbers but rather the more general of "what should be done and considered when having a new player fly a destroyer?"

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5 answers

5

xkaraxis [ Editor ]

There are two schools of thought for PvE destroyers:

Range: Take advantage of the destroyer's range bonus by fitting long range guns and speed and stay stay out of range of enemy fire.

Close" Take advantage of the destroyer's tracking bonus and fit close range weapons. You'll want to fit some kind of tank for this approach and probably still at least an afterburner to evade cruiser fire in L2 missions.

For a low skill, relatively inexperienced pilot a frigate probably has more chance of survival in a L2 mission. A frigate with close range weapons has enough DPS to deal with L2 enemies and even a slowpoke like the punisher has plenty of speed. Destroyers are larger, slower and less agile making it difficult to evade fire from cruisers. In addition, the cruisers will probably have enough range that you will be unable to kite them effectively.

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canhasgank
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Personally, going from a Rifter to a Thrasher made my life doing L2 missions a lot easier when I was a n00b. Every rat died in one volley, and the mission was generally done before I could take noticeable damage. Other races missions may differ, but for Minmatar upgrade to an artillery Thrasher sooner rather than later.

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5

annie anomie [ Editor ]

I've actually tried this recently.

What I tried was a Thrasher with ACs, Afterburner, big shield buffer for regen, whatever in the lows.

Tank was plenty adequate (especially with speed mitigating damage taken). You've got regen, you've got buffer for "oops" moments.

Speed was more than enough (missions are mostly balanced around ships with no speed mod).

DPS was pretty good.

edit Generally I agree that a vexor or caracal are far superior though.

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annie anomie
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Weird. This was on my front page o questions.

matt_12
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Impresive necro…. :) Thrasher AC vs Arty is the age old Alpha vs sustained fire. Your fit will have problems if webbers are ever employed, there is at least 1 L2 mission I can think of that has webbing towers and with the signature radii of the Buffer Thrasher and no speed you would have problems. Especially as the cruisers stay away and the fall-off is fairly poor. Personally I would encourage all new players to get Frigates 5 before attempting cruisers, it’s a big ask of a new character to be patient, but a Rifter Pilot at Frig V is a true nightmare. PVE and gives good PVP grounding too

rashmika
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You actually get a badge for it, if you do it right :P

matt_12
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lol. I have had this happen too. I believe the wiki must cycle old questions in times of low activity. If you have something new to contribute then I don’t see a reason why not to post?!

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2

agile nakajima

It may be difficult to persuade them to move to a cruiser, but it's worth the effort. Destroyers are only good for a very limited range of situations. Cruisers are far better. Destroyers have a comparatively limited tank and effectively only 6 light guns due to the rate of fire penalty. Cruisers have enough mids or lows to fit a proper tank and have a drone bay. The destroyer skill is also a dead end; the only thing it leads to is interdictors, far in the pilot's future even if he is one of the relatively few people who ends up training them. Spend the time on cruisers instead, and you're taking steps towards battleships and battlecruisers. A brand new player can be in a decent mission drake in a month, and doing level 4s. (Very slowly due to anaemic dps, but doing them nonetheless).

Destroyers are a waste of time for missioners, and nearly a waste of time for PVPers - thrashers are popular in faction war, and pirates like Helicity Boson can get a lot of use out of artillery thrashers in lowsec.

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1

gah'matar [ Moderator ]

I'm of the long-range kite tank school of thought. Either 75mm or 125mm railguns on a cormorant, antimatter and iridium ammo. Afterburner in the mids. Some sort of tank in the mids. Damage mod in the low.

For L2s, run one with an AML caracal with them. Especially a "big" one. They will see the light.

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