Wrayeth
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Posted - 2006.03.26 23:03:00 -
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Edited by: Wrayeth on 26/03/2006 23:03:38
Both the raven and the tempest are good choices. I'm not fond of the apoc, myself, for anything but sniping (and I'd prefer to snipe with the tempest, anyway, for the burst damage). An armageddon would probably be a better choice than the apoc for general PvP in any case, and is cheaper, too.
All of the ships have their advantages and disadvantages. I'll talk about the raven and the tempest since those are the two that I know best.
The raven can inflict excellent damage and tank at the same time, or fit for ECM and damage. The raven's slot layout and limited grid pretty much prevents it from armor tanking effectively, so expect to run a shield tank if you're tanked at all. A shield tank uses up most of your midslots, so you likely won't be able to spare two mids for a web and a scrambler; because of this, I use a scrambler, then just run berserker SW-900's (webifying drones). As for weaponry, cruise missiles are faster than torpedos and more effective against small targets, but torpedos just utterly destroy battleships. While not as effective vs. the smaller ships as cruise missiles, torpedos can kill them quite effectively when combined with nos and web drones. Another thing to note is that the raven, while it takes quite a while to lock a target, has a very high sensor strength, making it very hard to jam.
The raven's biggest weakness is its lack of ability to fight at range without someone tackling the target. The other drawback to the raven is that it's slow to accelerate and slow to turn. Those limitations aside, the raven can utterly own opponents when flown by a skilled pilot who also knows how to fit his ship.
For the raven, you'll want to train missile, shield tanking, and EW skills, primarily. The raven has CPU issues when fit with a PvP-capable shield tank or jammers and a full rack of tech II siege launchers, so you'll want to make sure your weapons upgrades skill is at level 5. Powergrid is also a limitation, but not as tight as CPU.
The tempest is an excellent ship for piracy. Its slot layout allows for very versatile setups, and it has more speed and agility than any other battleship short of the typhoon. It can be fitted out for long range (artillery) or short (autocannons - the better option for a pirate), and be very effective with either. Artillery are very low on DPS, but have excellent burst damage; they also have horrid tracking. Autocannons have almost no burst damage, but have excellent DPS; autocannons track quite well. The tempest has an excellent lock time for a battleship, but has very low sensor strength in return.
For the tempest, you'll want to train projectiles, armor tanking, drones, EW, and shield-tanking (the latter will be less frequently used, but still viable). Minmatar are probably the most skill-intensive race in EVE, so be aware that it'll be a long road to get to where you want to be, though you can still kick some ass even without all the skills where you want them. At full (or nearly full) skills, the tempest is one of the best ships in the game, IMHO, and capable of taking on just about anything.
-Wrayeth
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