Trading

Trading is sooooooooooooooooooooo boring

Taking my time from pvp pah

The Hawk

In this post, I am going to touch on the new fits for some of the AFs that I fly.  With all the slots and buffs these have received some of the fits have changed, whilst others have completely different fits now.  This post will be all about the Hawk, which I think received the largest buff in the recent patch as 5 mids on a frigate is brilliant.
First the obvious alterations to the old standards for the Hawk, the MSB fit and the MSE buffer fit.

MSB Active

With the addition of a mid slot, this fit seems to have benefited the most.  It now has the ability to fit a web, which on a rocket ship is vital, this will give it an increased ability to utilise the range it gets on its rockets.
The other option is of course, using that mid to buff an already strong active tank by fitting either an invul or shield boost amplifier. I am not a massive fan of this version as webs are incredibly important for a rocket ship, both for range dictation and damage application, and I am not sure the trade off is worth it.
Below are the two fits I mentioned.

[Hawk, Active ]
Damage Control II
Ballistic Control System II

Medium C5-L Emergency Shield Overload I
Faint Epsilon Warp Scrambler I
Small Capacitor Booster II, Navy Cap Booster 400
X5 Energi blah blah web
1MN Afterburner II

Rocket Launcher II, Thorn Rage Rocket
Rocket Launcher II, Thorn Rage Rocket
Rocket Launcher II, Thorn Rage Rocket
Rocket Launcher II, Thorn Rage Rocket
[empty high slot]

Small Anti-EM Screen Reinforcer I
Small Anti-EM Screen Reinforcer I

This is the fit using the extra mid for that web, it gets 250dps heated with Rage Trauma rockets and tanks 164 dps with heat (no implants/boosters/links)

[Hawk, Active ]
Damage Control II
Nanofiber Internal Structure II

Medium C5-L Emergency Shield Overload I
Invulnerability Field II
Small Capacitor Booster II, Navy Cap Booster 400
Faint Epsilon Warp Scrambler I
1MN Afterburner II

Rocket Launcher II, Thorn Rage Rocket
Rocket Launcher II, Thorn Rage Rocket
Rocket Launcher II, Thorn Rage Rocket
Rocket Launcher II, Thorn Rage Rocket
[empty high slot]

Small Anti-EM Screen Reinforcer I
Small Anti-EM Screen Reinforcer I

This fits has less dps than the previous MSB fit but its tanks 240 dps with heat now (no links/boosts/implants) as you can see though it has no web and this can mean losing out on kills as you can’t keep them tackled and/or can’t apply enough damage in time.


MSE Buffer

The other major beneficiary of the change fits wise is the MSE buffer fit, with the extra mid slot it can now fit a second web and become a slower Hookbill with a better tank and DPS.  Its a very tight fit but those who have flown Dual web hookbills shouldn’t have a problem with this, plus its nowhere near as tight as fitting the equivalent Hookbill fit.
Thanks to the second web, its now possible to use rage ammo against all frigates (in my experience) as you will do near to full dps.  It also means that there will be only a few frigates in the game that you can’t dictate range on inside 10km (Daredevil, Dramiel, Cruor...only if they fit webs) which means you can force the terms of the engagement.

[Hawk, Dual Web]
Ballistic Control System II
Damage Control II

1MN Afterburner II
Medium F-S9 Regolith Shield Induction
Faint Epsilon Warp Scrambler I
Fleeting Propulsion Inhibitor I
Fleeting Propulsion Inhibitor I

Rocket Launcher II, Thorn Rage Rocket
Rocket Launcher II, Thorn Rage Rocket
Rocket Launcher II, Thorn Rage Rocket
Rocket Launcher II, Thorn Rage Rocket
[empty high slot]

Small Anti-EM Screen Reinforcer I
Small Anti-EM Screen Reinforcer I

It is a slightly expensive fit, but if the cost is an issue just use meta 3 mid slots.  Either way you will hold a speed advantage over most frigates inside 10km.  This fit produces 250dps with Trauma rage and hits fine all the way to 10km, it has just shy of 10k ehp.  If you want to splash a little more, you could try squeezing on a Gistii B-Type AB for a little extra speed as they are fairly cheap as far as faction goes and the extra 200m/s roughly to your AB speed which can be very handy.


The general tactic with the above fits is try and keep your opponent at range but inside scram range for as long as possible, as you have great dps there and certainly better than most other frigates.  Against larger ships, get close and use small sig and high speed to stay under their guns, pop the drones and whittle them down.  If the larger ship is a missile boat follow the same tactics as against frigates, not because of your own dps but taking a wider orbit allows you to maintain a higher speed which diminishes your opponents dps.