The Battle Atron video from Prometheus Exenthal (can you tell I’m a fan?) shows him fighting in one of the most unused combat frigates. The interceptor precursors are rarely seen in PvP and tend only to be used for speed tanking PvE content such as faction warfare beacons. Not so for the man behind Frigank. He employs them very effectively for taking out interceptors. Their blasters do high damage and they have just enough structure to take out ‘ceptors. In case you’re curious this is how Prometheus fits his battle Atrons:
[Atron, Battle Atron] Damage Control II Micro Auxiliary Power Core I Cold-Gas I Arcjet Thrusters J5b Phased Prototype Warp Scrambler I Light Neutron Blaster II, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge S Light Neutron Blaster II, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge S [empty rig slot] [empty rig slot] [empty rig slot]
Unsurprisingly I want some of that action. To this end I have fitted up a small fleet of Slashers to see if I can do the same. This is my Slasher fit:
[Slasher, Buttercup] Damage Control II Cold-Gas I Arcjet Thrusters J5b Phased Prototype Warp Scrambler I 125mm Gatling AutoCannon II, Republic Fleet EMP S 125mm Gatling AutoCannon II, Republic Fleet EMP S Rocket Launcher II, Gremlin Rocket [empty rig slot] [empty rig slot] [empty rig slot]
So how do they compare? Not desperately favourably, sadly. The Atron puts out more DPS (94 vs 74) and has more effective hit points (1,841 vs 1,561). Oh, and it can use a drone too. Still, the Slasher is absolutely dirt cheap coming in at just over two and a half million ISK.
Last night I took one of them out when we went on a frigate roam. I was scouting ahead and in Murethand I came across an Invicta Wolf sitting outside a station. He was an outlaw so I could engage but was taking on an assault frigate in my flimsy little Slasher really a good idea? What the heck. If I could pin him down for a few seconds while my gang jumped in then it wouldn’t matter if I lost my ship. I closed in and he moved to aggress me. Oh god, this was going to hurt. My only hope was to keep transversal as high as I could. Amazingly I survived the tackle long enough for my gang to land. In fact I more than survived it. I managed to slowly chip the Wolf’s shields away with my meagre damage but at the same time only took 1/3 shield damage myself. Annoyingly the Wolf docked up when the gang landed so we couldn’t take him down. A Maelstrom undocked so I tackled that instead. Unfortunately that didn’t go so well.
So why did I survive against the Wolf? Well, as I’ve already hinted it was due to transversal. My Slasher is very fast and nimble. I orbited tight around the Wolf to try and make myself hard to hit. Three things then worked in my favour. First of all neither of us had a web so there was a lot of transversal in the orbit. Secondly the Wolf doesn’t have a tracking bonus unlike the Slasher and Rifter. At this high speed he just couldn’t hit me. Thirdly and finally the Wolf pilot did nothing to try and minimise the transversal between us. Just stopping his orbit and flying away from me would have been the end of me in two volleys.
I’ve still got a few more of these left in Hevrice so lets see if I can’t pick off one of those pesky interceptors that camp the Villore gate in Old Man Star.
