EVE Corporation - Page 1333

Malice toward none
It seems I have to issue a correction regarding my New Eden Open Day 4 post. My error was understandable but deserves some explanation. When refering to the XXXMity Malices fielded in their match versus RONIN and Pixies, I described the Malices as being part of the primary DPS of the team. And if you see three assault frigates on an otherwise DPS-light team, each capable of delivering 165 DPS or more, it's only natural to assume that the Malices were there to deliver some pain.

But of course we all know about assumptions. The first API-verified killmail for the Malices used in the match has appeared:
http://eve-kill.net/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=15310443

It also appears that the other two Malices were fit essentially identically: DPS free, fit only with short range neuts and NOSes. I will grant you that this renders part of my opinion of XXXMity's comp wrong. But what it means is their comp was even more painfully inept than I thought. I can only ask again: what the hell were they thinking?

When you put together a tournament team, you've got to include DPS. It's sort of the point to the endeavor: blowing up the other guy's ships. With the fleet sizes we're looking at here, that means -- at minimum -- you need to put 2000 DPS in the air if you expect to get anywhere. Anything under a thousand DPS is going to be negated by enemy logi; to break tanks in the face of enemy resistance, you're going to need double that. The two most common main sources of DPS we're seeing are Sleipnir-Sleipnir-Claymore and either Kronos-Kronos or Vindi-Vindi. These setups can generate 2000 DPS by themselves so adding an assault frigate or three is just gravy. Some of the Harpy- or Enyo-heavy teams have approached 3500 DPS.

So when I see Damnation-Oracle-Oracle-Oneiros-Malice-Malice-Malice-Keres, the first thing I do is start adding up DPS. Armor Oracles put out around 500 effective DPS each. So I immediately jumped to the conclusion that the Malices must be providing DPS as well since you're certainly not going to get any out of a Damnation, Oneiros, or Keres!

I apologize for my assumption being in error. But you can hardly blame me for seeing 1000 DPS and looking for more!

So given that these Malices were apparently entirely neut fit, I have to wonder just what the hell their intended role was. Neut out the enemy logi for the Oracles, certainly. But then what? Even the most basic AF comp would have quickly and easily overrun this team, and that's exactly what happened. Only these AFs were backed up by Sleipnirs, probably the most common tourney DPS ship and a ship that hits frigates like a freakin' hammer. So if XXXMity didn't practice this comp against that, what did they practice against? Vindicators? What were the Malices supposed to do when they were 90% webbed down and covered in light drones? What was the team supposed to do if they lost one of their two Oracles? What, in short, was the plan?

So yeah. I'm sorry for my error, but I think you'll agree that it was at least understandable... Thank you to everyone who commented on my D4 post pointing out the error!