Quote Originally Posted by LordsServant View Post
I'm not sure why he was initially suggesting that, but I know a thing or two about wspace and fitting ships.

Sig Bloom is a bit of an issue with sleeper missiles, and more importantly - EHP.

VNIs get rather pathetic EHP when shield tanked - with only 4 midslots and no resist bonus, you're in for a bad time.

Armor tanked, they get more EHP than any ishtar could ever hope to while keeping your midslots open for increased speed or application mods.

If you want to shield tank your ships, I suggest gilas, altho they're also rather squishy in terms of EHP, even in full tank fits.
Playing with EFT, I have a VNI shield fit with ~55k eHP and 208m sig, and a VNI armor fit with ~48k eHP and 135m sig. Both use 4 slot tanks and 3x T1 trimark/extenders. I've done RR Domis with weaker shield buffers(37k shield EHP vs 40k shield EHP on VNI) and we had no problem keeping them alive in C5s. Is there something I'm missing?

Hrm. So far things have been going well with the alts @ ~900k SP flying shield tanked Vexors with Curators/Valks in C3s. I plan on pillaging C3s until I can get their skills up a bit higher, in particular drone and hull skills.

Fortification Frontier Strongholds(my benchmark site) have been taking about 9-10 minutes to clear in a no weather C3. The clear times have been dropping dramatically as my targeting range and effective range with the Curators has increased. I think I'll see a big boost when I switch to VNIs, primarily for the hull tracking bonus, and the DPS increase from 3 to 5 curators. Running in a C3 magnetar was a good 'test', where I was able to 3 shot the weaker cruisers, and positively melt the battleships. Awakened Defenders are my only sore spot, they usually mandate a swap to mediums due to their orbiting at 15km and high EHP. Hopefully I can blap them in the VNI.

Anywho, curious if I'm missing something on shield vs armor in the C5. I've been having a terrific time playing with these alts. I really need to bring cloaky heavy tackle with me though. So far, a bomber(locked and nearly killed before it warped off), a tornado(warped at 120km, I left and ran a relic site in the same hole), and a stratios(locked, three volleys and it scooted away) have all shown up. I know I'll eventually get wrecked by someone, but it has been fun compared to solo running a marauder and being terrified when something popped up on dscan. I've been playing things safe by choosing isolated holes populated by bears, but having the attitude that any PvP experience will be good experience.