11 replies to this topic

[Gizznitt]

We'll post the AAR of the fight here shortly, but I wanted to open a thread for feedback first as I just noticed there wasn't one.  

[Trekan Kion]

I thought the class was excellent. Enjoyed it very much. It was nice to see the Hydra fleet in action, as well as Agony's fleet management tool to ensure various mods are equally available. I was impressed with the fleet commanding and the ability to think quickly and decide. Not an easy task. Even more so when Gizz took over from Itko. The pace increased quite a bit. The finish was excellent and it seemed just pods were left at the end. Besides the quick thinking for the FC, the other thing that is became pretty obvious is the need for good intelligence. Good intelligence allowed a bit to pick the fight and not jump in without knowing anything. Good job of the skirmish guys/recon. All in all a thoroughly enjoyable experience in small/medium fleet ops.

[Othran]

Decent roam although Syndicate was quiet - didn't help with all the Eve-Uni blues

 

I really like the Hyena for these class roams now. It's perfect for staying with the main fleet to allow the AB-fitted frigates to catch the targets easily. Lost count of how many times species called scram 5-10 secs after I slapped webs onto something at 40-50km, worked really nicely.

 

The Cormorants in the J9S fight hurt a lot which surprised me. Found myself wishing for a shorter web cycle to get away from them

 

I ran into wegglibeck/nalia a couple of times, couldn't quite get the position right on the jump-in to evade the thrasher (even with webs) so went back to 3K & called it a night rather than fly a cruiser (they'd run from that) to Stacmon. Looks like I missed a fun fight in RF- later on.

[Rooprect]

Just wanted to say thank you to all of the Agony team that made this possible, really enjoyed it and learnt a lot.  As Trekan mentioned, the use of intel from the Recon guys and listening to the way it was delivered was excellent.

 

Plenty of knowledge shared on the first day and the roam on the second was great - the final fight of the evening was fantastic fun.  (if you get the chance read the Bio of the Vexor Navy Issue we took down, gave me a laugh considering the spanking he received).

 

For anyone thinking of signing up for this class - don't hesitate, just do it.  You will learn more here than you possibly could on your own (and it will cost you a hell of a lot more in ship losses on your own than the fee to run with Agony's team).  There were a lot of questions asked and I think all of them were really answered well.

 

Again, many thanks guys, will be back for more classes.

[Hasril Pux]

I very much enjoyed watching my 100+ mil Worm get called primary and blazed to pieces in the very first big fight and I'm not even being sarcastic. I loved every bit of the flaming hellstorm of plasma that descended on me for what seemed like a considerable amount of time. It was the Megathron and a Navy Vexor that did me in. I'm probably going to make it my mission for every basic roam to bring out a juicy piece of gank bait and see how long I can survive. I think I'll save it for last next time though. That way I have a chance to warm up and maybe not biff it after one kill.

Edited by Hasril Pux, 15 June 2014 - 10:10 PM.

[Queen of the Shadowlands]

This was my third PVP Basic roam and my 4th Agony fleet - and tbh. I enjoyed it less than the others - partly probably because I both expected too much and these other roams were just absolutely fantastic and hard to beat anyways.

 

My biggest problem was the huge size of this fleet - big blobs like that were one of the main reasons why I didn't enjoy my time in E-Uni very much and like Faction Warfare with its small gangs much more.  This was simply much bigger than I would have expected it to be.  However, it was a great experience to see how well organized this fleet was - how perfect scouts and intel was working and how quickly our FC adjusted to all this.  And it also showed how disciplined and focused all the students were.  Quickly turning such a huge fleet around and flying to some system off the yellow road then immediately engaging in a great battle without people getting stranded or having other beginner problems - that was really impressive!

 

Unfortunately, having a too large fleet still has one major disadvantage: it is very hard to find targets and get some fights.  And the huge E-Uni block with all their blues certainly didn't help in this regard.  I have always loved and admired Agony's way of life - choosing not to have any blues to get more fights - so this situation where half the fleet was blue to the locals and the other half considered them hostile was very annoying.  Maybe that could have been planned better by either avoiding the 0.0 home systems of E-Uni and their allies or splitting things up into two separate roams on two separate days.

Regarding fights - the last part of the fleet, where we went out again in that small gang lead by Gizz - that was what I enjoyed the most of the entire evening.  It reminded more of the awesome time I had on the wolfpack and how great it is to fly with you guys.  Smaller gangs are really my thing, what I enjoy the most.  And I also loved taking out that Retribution and seeing it in battle!  Should have done that earlier, but I also didn't fly the Executioner or Punisher anymore in a long time and my skills have improved so much since then.

 

Logistics - this was a pure nightmare!  It all started with my own personal nightmare, coming back home so late from work - not even knowing whether I could make it in time - then having so many other things to take care of before being ready to undock - and I finished everything just in time.

This time, I was actually glad that I died to early and the class went back to Stacmon - taking the pod-express gave me the time to get myself a sandwich and some coffee, then undock again truely ready and prepared for some awesome PVP action.

 

But this trip back to Harroule was very annoying for me - going back to where we started from, then going into another part of Syndicate after the bio break due to the annoying half-blue situation.  Was this really necessary or could it have been avoided somehow?

And I also would have really hated these two long pod-trails back to Stacmon if I hadn't lost my ship.  It was probably unavoidable in this classroom-format - but it also reminded me of why I like lo-sec/FW-space more than 0.0: we have stations with decent markets where you can easily reship and there are also often fully fitted ships available.  You guys probably have the same because you live down there and of course you couldn't have brought any possible student ship/fit down there.  It's just one of these advantages that you get from "owning" space ...

Not sure whether anything could have been done differently about this though, at least not when taking a class into hostile territory.  However, if everybody is in an empty clone and the rest of the fleet still fully capable of decent combat, then it might make sense to split up and create a reshipping/travel fleet with the pods while the rest can still continue to fight.

Edited by Queen of the Shadowlands, 16 June 2014 - 01:16 AM.

[Mike Monoid]

this was my second basic class+roam and i really enjoyed both the class and the roam part. given the fleet size i knew what to expect, so i didn't have any unrealistic expectations about that. but i agree that the fleet being like 40% (does someone have an exact figure here?) e-uni makes for strange engagements e-uni blues. the thing is: uni rules changed, so nowadays you don't need to drop e-uni for 2 days anymore in order to take part in an agony class. so the solution to this problem (if it actually is a problem for other students/agony members/alumnis aswell) is as following: if there's a significant(let's say >25-30%?) number e-uni signups just make them drop corp (a day) before the roam. after the roam every uni member can reinsert into the uni on a fast-track path (don't have to be in queue for days), reclaim the titles etc etc.

[Queen of the Shadowlands]

On my first roam, I was told that I can do the roam as long as I stay in 0.0 - but that shooting any blue or a non-flashy neutral in lo-sec would get me kicked from the Uni.  They still had these lame NRDS rules in lo-sec and stuff like that which has changed in the meantime.  So I did it in this body, which was my alt back then and is now my 2nd main character.

 

However, I don't think the Uni was blue to Moon Warriors and that other 0.0 alliance back then, so it was not such a big deal.  If it was just the Uni itself, then those participating on the roam could talk to their corp mates and ask them to temporarily give the entire fleet blue status - just stay docked up and no engage during these few minutes when the fleet passes through system.  But with all those other blues, that's much harder since it would take more people to talk to for this to happen.

Temporarily dropping corp would work, of course, but if you want to participate in several of these roams, that would look terrible on the employment history.  Just going around those few systems where the Uni and their blues are at home might be the better alternative.

[Othran]

Pretty sure there used to be an alt corp (ITA?) run specifically for that reason. I certainly remember some Eve-uni people using it.

 

Too many blues in Syndicate now anyway - the majority of the residents seem to be blue or working together as the peeps in Echo TZ have found out (usually at "interesting" moments). That's not necessarily a bad thing when you want a fight but its helpful to know in advance

[Yamir Ke'Shark]

The corp is called Introduction to Agony [-ITA-], it is probably still around.  Those in E-UNI will need to check the details on its usage with the E-UNI folk.

 

And yes, there's nothing quite like the moment when you come away from a fight against a pair of Moa's and find a gang with more logistics boats in it than you have fleet members. (Not to mention the ewar and the fact they outnumber you 6 to 1).

 

BTW: You can find a list of E-UNI standings here: http://standings.eveuniversity.org/  (the first 2 categories are for blues).

[Othran]

They like to complicate stuff don't they? Last time I saw a list of blues/reds that long was in a sov alliance I briefly belonged to

[Wilhelm Knicklicht]

i have to admit that the class fell a bit short of my expectations. the theory part was focussed mostly on different types of ewar while the fleet roam was pretty much just a huge blob of frigates, with strategy limited to "get within range and shoot that thing".

while that may be interesting for players who are completely new to pvp, tbh it isn't much more than you can learn in any "Noobs On Patrol" fleet run by E-Uni.

topics that i would like to learn more about include:
 

- popular pvp ships and fits, and how to counter them

- fitting principles

- manual piloting & combat maneuvres

- low sec & null sec mechanics

 

are these subjects covered in any of the advanced courses?