The Hecate is What All the T3D's Should Have Been, Jackdaw Fights & Loki Kills, Hecate Fits and Bad Comet PvP

The Hecate is What All the T3D's Should Have Been.

The Hecate has been out for a couple weeks now and I have been having a lot of fun running around Black Rise blapping frigs with it and getting blobbed by gal mil. Through trial and error I have come up with a fit I am comfortable with (which is actually the fit of the week) and have I can now have corp roams where we have at least one of every T3D.

Compared to the other T3D's though, I personally find the Hecate underwhelming. There are several reasons for this and ironically one of the biggest is a result of CCP actually doing such a good job with this ship.

Unfortunately the Hecate doesn't have the HORIZONTAL supremacy I was hoping for

CCP intentionally kept the powergrid low on the Hecate, which plays into the fact you are forced to fit an MWD if you want to utilize the prop mode bonus. This means when fitting the Hecate, you are forced to decide between tank or dps. You cannot fit neutron blasters while having two reps and full tank rigs, and in FW space at least, you really need two reps, as I learnt the hard way, mainly because the fights you're going to find in a T3D are rarely going to be 1v1's. This makes the Hecate an extremely balanced ship in the sense that it cannot have it all. The problem, however, is that being balanced makes it worse than the other T3D's! The Hecate is how all the other T3D's should of been. The fact the Hecate is actually a reasonable ship puts it behind every other T3D, even the Jackdaw, which while isn't as powerful as all of its counterparts still surpasses the Hecate.

Another reason the Hecate falls behind is because of its lack of utility. The Jackdaw has lots of meds, the Confessor has room for neuts and the Svipul is just OP in general. The Hecate doesn't really have any of these things those. It has one utility slot and no fitting space to put anything in, it has to have a cap booster to support its tank and it's not a Svipul.

Now, I am not saying the Hecate is bad. Like I said, I have been having a lot of fun flying it and getting fights. It has strong dps, great tank (hull tanking has never felt more awesome) and with the MWD bonus, you dont have to worry as much about kite at 20km frigs holding you in place for 30 mins if you decide to go blasters. It's also great at taking on gangs, as any T3D should be, so to be honest, a T3D is a T3D, you will be able to kill a bunch of T1 frigs/dessies and be open to getting fucked by large gangs regardless of what T3D you fly.

Unless you're so cancerous you fly a 10MN Svipul.

What's going on with me this week:

This week I had some fun with my corp, went on a couple roams and had some really fun fights. One of which, involved a bling fitted worm and an immortal Jackdaw vs our AF gang.

https://zkillboard.com/br/46046/ (thrasher and reaper were not involved)

We took the gate into the plex, found the Jackdaw fighting the worm and got some nice whoring done. Worm was 110m with T1 guns, which was funny. After the Worm quickly died we turned onto the Jackdaw. Little did we know, this Jackdaw was tankier than a Golem, and happily took our damage. Our hawk was hitting for 40 damage a volley apparently due to the resists on the thing. My Ishkur wasn't doing much better. As one of the Ishkurs died, I had the idea to contract my Catalyst to the corp member who had died so he could come in and help. He did, and the Jackdaw got into the structure, but the Catalyst quickly got blapped and it was back to just me and the Hawk. I decided to hold my ground a little longer, preying he would run out of charges, but by the time I had decided it was time to burn out, it was too late and I died.

Basically, a Jackdaw rekt our AF gang, but was a really fun and tense fight. Also, due to that sexy Worm kill, we came out isk positive! Good fight.

I also managed to kill a Loki in a Hecate, which I have the video for:

All credit goes to Domino Vyse for setting up this awesome kill for me, would of not even known it was there if not for him.

Here is the killmail, so you can laugh at that small armour repairer: https://zkillboard.com/kill/48053945/

Fit of the week:

I have seen many different ways of fitting the Hecate, some focusing on the raw dps you can get out of blasters, others trying a kite rail approach. After trying several fits and getting input from other solo PvPers, I have come to a fit which I think is one of best for solo roaming in FW space.

What this fit keeps in mind that when you're flying a T3D, you need the tank to take on gangs, as that's what you're going to be fighting most of the time. With this fit, you can take on most targets around FW space with good tank, dps and speed. Your MWD allows you to catch up to kiters and reach high priority targets quickly and your dps allows you to blap things pretty nicely. The tank, when combined with exile, will keep you going for a very long time.

The fit is extremely tight, leaving no powergrid at all with all skills at V. With a 3% powergrid implant, you can fit A-type reps instead of B-types, which is highly recommended.

If you're looking for a good brawl in low sec, this is the fit you need.

Fight of the week:

A really nice fight here. I am roaming in my comet and see a couple frigs outside the plex, decide I can take them and go. I manage to take out two of them, before fucking up horribly against the Merlin and getting myself killed. Later did I learn he was AC fit.

I was hoping that the Tristan would come in first so I could get him off the field quickly, as I knew he would have neuts, which were the biggest threat on the field. However, he came in a little while after the Merlins, and I couldn't sit there taking damage waiting for him, so I killed one the Merlins before switching to the Tristan. While killing the Merlins though, I positioned myself around the Tristan as to get away from his neuts quicker.

At the end of the fight, I burnt into the Merlin in order to secure my scram on him. All this did though was put me in his optimal while my DCU was turned off, due to capping myself out with my rep.

What I think the most important decision of this fight was activating the gate when I landed. This meant that I forced the other frigs to come inside with me, allow me to pull some distance before they got in and made it so they started exactly where I wanted them. Had I took them on the outside of that gate, I would have died for sure, but because I made them follow me I was in control and was able to apply my dps fully from the very beginning,

I think the description of my video sums up the fight nicely:

"You see I did have it, but then I decided that I didn't actually want my DCU turned on, nor did I want to be out of range of the Merlin's guns.

Then I decided not only did I no longer want the Merlin kill, but I also didn't want my Comet anymore.

So as you can see, that was all intentional."