Fittings for Glorification – 2v2 Cruisers

A few weeks ago CCP unveiled their new format for abyssal PvP. We’re moving away from the crazy 1v1 Ikitursa meta and into a new, constantly changing format. What’s more, we won’t have to slog through the PvE content first! There are now “proving filaments” which will place you into a queue as long as you stay near the beacon in space. Once a suitable match is found the filament will be used up and you will be thrown into a fancy new abyssal area. That’s sexy as hell and I love it. Thanks CCP Deadlift!

As I said, the format of the matches will constantly be changing. We’re starting off with 2v2 T1 Cruisers from the 16th -> 28th July 2020. Following this will be free-for-all 5-man T1 destroyer matches from the 31st July to the 2nd August 2020. The ship choices for these matches are as follows:

Cruisers: Omen, Caracal, Thorax, Stabber, Maller, Moa, Vexor, Rupture, Arbitrator, Blackbird, Celestis, Bellicose

Destroyers: Coercer, Dragoon, Cormorant, Corax, Catalyst, Algos, Thrasher, Talwar, Sunesis

Rewards for these PvP matches will (obviously) be the loot, but you will also receive a standard abyssal PvP cache which is roughly equivalent to a tier 5 abyssal site loot can. As a new addition, these new arenas will feature a leaderboard. Those placing in the top 100 on this leaderboard by the end of the quarter will receive extra loot in the way of fancy SKINs.

The point of this article, though, is to go over a number of fits which you can just pick up and play with in the abyss. I won’t provide one fit for every ship, but will instead place hulls and fittings into archetypes depending on what you want to do. There are always more options than these, but my fits should get you started.

Update on below: So the meta shifted in a weirder way than I thought! I figured that drone boats would juts be defanged, but nobody does that. I thought damping and kiting would be pretty powerful, but bringing another 4-600 DPS is usually a better shout. Even better still, the Bellicose has gone from “meh” to being one of the better options in the abyss due to the great mix of speed, damage, and tank that it offers with a HAM setup. The optimal fit is linked below just before my brawling section so give it a try 🙂

I have also found that these propless setups are surprisingly good. Check my killboard for some decent Arbitrator pair losses. Sutonia has also had some great success with dual beam Mallers sitting alone with a brick tank. All of my fits below will still work for you, but you can be a lot more creative if you want. Logi Maller with armour Rupture, perhaps?…

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Fast, Tanky, or High DPS Brawlers

Starting off with the first proving grounds event, we have 2v2 T1 cruisers. There’s a lot you can do here by being in a pair. You could, for example, kite away with a Blackbird while a relatively untanked Thorax chews up the first thing it tackles. It’s also possible to shut down the expected kiting Caracals with a missile disrupting Arbitrator or damping Celestis. It all depends on what you feel you can accomplish with your skill level. If all else fails then you can always pick up a pair of blaster rush ships and sit on someone’s face. сука rush Torvald!

There’s a reason why that header says or instead of and. It’s quite possible to make a T1 cruiser do 1,000 DPS if you’re willing to sacrifice most of your tank. It’s also possible to make a ship supremely tanky to sit through most of what a Caracal has to offer. Likewise, both of these need to be carefully balanced with speed. If you can’t catch the target then you’re done for. It’s like rock-paper-scissors if you’re a fan of overused clichés.

I’ve got six (6!) fits below for some of the main offerings out there. Many are biased towards shield tanks by nature of their slots or for speed/damage reasons. You can also afford to use only one EWAR mid on damage ships due to limited targets and the benefits of having a pair of ships. Why fit double web when you can fit one each?

You can mix and match these with each other or with a kiting/ewar boat quite easily. Just think about the strengths and weaknesses of the entire setup. If you go for double Moa for that juicy tank, for example, you WILL die to any single kiting ship. A way to get around this is to take an anti-kiting ship with a scram such as a Stabber. Use that as your initial tackle and Caracals shouldn’t get too far.

There was also a Bellicose fit which didn’t quite make the cut. I can’t see a painting boat being useful in this meta, but you can certainly do a surprise 600 DPS if you don’t get shot first. Oh, and spare a thought for the terrible screening Maller idea that lives in my Pyfa now.

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Abyssal Kiting Cruisers

Kiting has long been a staple of abyssal PvP. If you can stay away from the scary Ikitursa then you have free reign to pepper it with light missiles. The same is still very true in the 2v2 cruiser format and I fully expect the Caracal to make for an easy option that almost anyone can fly.

Check out the fits below for a few proving ground kiting options including two versions of the Caracal. One aims to kite “properly” with HAMs up to around 36km. Using Heavy Assault Missiles comes with the benefit of the recent Rage buff as well as no super long reload. This opens up slots for nanos and lets you actually kite without worrying that you’re only doing 250 DPS. The RLML version is quite typical, but I aimed for 43k EHP and as much damage as possible. You can still kite, but you can accept that you will eventually get caught and will tank relatively well. This also helps avoid the typical kiting Caracal issue of “The capacitor is empty.”

As before, any of these fits can be combined with one another or combined with an EWAR cruiser from the next section. You also shouldn’t be afraid to go for brawl + kite. The brawler can hold down targets while a HAM Caracal deals damage from range, for example. This also helps fix pesky things like missile application problems.

One thing you might notice is that there are only actually three fits right here. Yeah… As it turns out, most of the other ships in this bracket are completely outshone by the Caracal’s ability to project damage. If you wanted to kite really well with a T1 cruiser then you’d step up to an Omen Navy, Orthrus, Scythe Fleet, or Navy Omen. All of which are unusable in this arena right now. One final option is that you could use a Stabber to kite. My recommendation is to fly something similar to the brawl fit above and use Barrage. You could retool it for kiting with more Tracking Enhancers/ambit extensions and perhaps more speed.

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EWAR Cruiser Options

It’s no surprise that running an EWAR cruiser in your comp is very effective if you can fly well alongside it. Having a kitey Blackbird on grid lets your DPS ship go to town without any danger of being shot. A Celestis could also really help avoid damage by preventing your opponents from even locking you in the first place.

I think my favourite is the often underused Arbitrator. I just love how you can dumpster the range of an RLML Caracal from 47 to 18km with one missile range disruptor. Two will drop it to 8km. The only problem is that it’s somewhat of a gamble on which weapon system you choose to disrupt in your fit. Get it wrong and you’re kind of useless, unlike a damping ship.

All three of the below options should work very well though. Their key component is that they all need to turn tail and burn away as soon as the match starts. Pull as much range as possible and you’re golden. You might not be fast, but if anything you can at least buy time for your DPS ship friend to put some hurt on.

I hope these fits help you guys now and in the future when we move on from the 2v2 cruiser format. Most of these are generally solid, if tournament oriented, fits. Fly safe o/