For FW.com’s latest tin-foil hat fitting, I’d like to stray off the beaten path and use some mods that may not make a frequent appearance in your hangar. What follows is a variation on the absolutely brilliant Little Ship That Could Slasher fit, which is designed for 1v1 PVP. If you haven’t heard of this little gem please check out that fit and be sure to watch the video of a frail, noob inty hull destroying Assault Frigates. Go ahead, click the link, touch yourself, and when you’ve cleaned up – read on!

The Fit

[Razor’s Edge Slasher]

Overdrive Injector System II

Gyrostabilizer II

1MN Afterburner II

Balmer Series Tracking Disruptor I, Tracking Speed Disruption Script

Balmer Series Tracking Disruptor I, Tracking Speed Disruption Script

Warp Scrambler II

Polarized 200mm AutoCannon, Hail S

Polarized 200mm AutoCannon, Hail S

Polarized 200mm AutoCannon, Hail S

5W Infectious Power System Malfunction

Small Projectile Collision Accelerator I

Small Projectile Metastasis Adjuster I

Small Projectile Metastasis Adjuster I

So let’s breakdown this fit mod-by-mod:

The Gunz – First, you’ll notice that I’m using Polarized AutoCannons. For those of you not familiar with this madman’s meta, Polarized mods are extremely powerful at what they do (in this case, pump out DPS into your opponents big dumb face) but they have a massive drawback: they drop ALL your resists to 0. Damage Controls, Invulnerability Fields, Rigs, and beyond will not make a single resist value budge from zero. In most cases this means that you are balls deep into out-DPSing your opponent. (Think triple web gank Comet.) You’re probably thinking that a Slasher is a strange ship to try to gank in, and you’d be right. But if you look again at the fit you’ll notice that I actually do have a tank!

The Delicious Gyro – Since we’re already pushing our DPS to the max, let’s further build on the element of surprise you will no doubt find on your opponents face by pumping up these Polarized Autocannons. The Gyrostabilizer with the rigs below will push a well-skilled pilot up to 200 DPS.

Double Down Disruption – The dual Balmer Series TDs with Tracking Speed Disruption Scripts are the only thing keeping you alive with zero resists and not a single tank mod in sight. Sick both of these evil bastards on a gunship and then…

Orbit at Insane Speeds – Utilizing an Afterburner with the help of an Overdrive Injector you can push this agile ship to crazy orbit speeds. When used in conjunction with two Tracking Disruptors, you should be able to mitigate damn close to all the damage coming in at you provided you’re not fighting a ship with a tracking bonus or a million webs. (If they have one web you should still be good).

The Rigs – The “Orbit at Insane Speeds” bit may sound like fun to achieve the paradoxical “Speed Tanked Brawling” strategy, but let’s not forget that we actually have to hit our opponent to win the fight. To counteract the dizzying speed our guns will have to track our mark at, we will throw two Metastasis Adjusters onto our ship. This should improve our tracking to at least be solidly better than the other guys. I should also note that even though we are using the 200mm variation of AutoCannon, the polarized version actually tracks just as good as its smaller 150mm brother. (0.362 rad/sec for both mods) This is important because if we’re going to go through the insanity of fitting Polarized weapons, we damn well better be able to apply damage. With our remaining rig slot let’s throw on a Collision Accelerator to up our DPS even more.

The Neut –The Neut may not always be necessary but it can be very handy for certain ships. Anything that runs active reps or needs a cap booster to stay afloat will feel more pressure with a neut bearing down on it. Of course, if you tackle a Slicer or something with Lasers… neut the piss out of them.

The Scram – Because #YoureTackledBitch. Range dictation shouldn’t be a problem in a ship that can hit an afterburnered 1,500 m/s cold, but if you’re fighting a kiter like a Slicer the scram will ensure that he goes nowhere.

The Stats

So what did all this get us? Well about god damn 1,300 EHP for starters. Not exactly a bait-tanked Mauler. Remember that this fit is called “On Razor’s Edge” so your margin for error here is very low. That said, prepare yourself mentally for being alphaed if you mess up against bigger, badder ships. Bear in mind though, that we can go 1,500 m/s cold in a hull that is essentially a “Starter’s Inty”. The Slasher is very agile so even though we fit an Overdrive Injector which can destroy a ship’s ability to maneuver – our Slasher can still maintain a tight enough orbit not to slingshot you or push you out of your damage envelop (and potentially into the enemy’s). A proper orbit and ideal range dictation is important when the only thing between you and a lossmail is two Tracking Disruptors with Tracking Speed scripts.

As to DPS, well-skilled pilots will put out over 220 DPS with a slick 400 alpha when using Hail (about 200 with Republic Fleet EMP). If you compare that to the aforementioned “Little Ship that Could” fit, you’re damn near doubling your damage capabilities. Your damage should apply fairly well in all situations since we’ve significantly buffed our tracking abilities. Heavily sigtanked ships will still be a pain, but then again you’re a pain in the ass to track as well so even if it takes 10 minutes, you’ll eventually burn him down.

Capacitor-wise it should be easy mode until you start relying heavily on your neut. With everything running hot and the neut off you’re cap stable without issue. Once you start sucking your opponent’s cap, you’ve got between 90 seconds and 2 minutes depending on skills. With a heated neut? You’ve got a bit over a minute of juice. This is still quite a while, but if your TDs or AB are what drop when you derp your capacitor to zilch… you’ll be sorry. Bear this in mind when you need neut pressure to seal the deal on a fight.

What to Fight

Any standard gunboat fare will go straight to your killboard. Atrons, Merlins, Rail Catalysts, Slicers, Incursus (shoot that drone if you need to!) shouldn’t be able to even hit you. I have fought Rail Catalysts with the classic iteration of this ship and didn’t receive a single point of damage for the duration of the fight (1, 2). I’m sure two TDs will just further push the chances of getting caught lower.

Of course, anything that doesn’t require the ability to track to hurt you is basically a guaranteed loss. Drones? RUN AWAY. Missiles? You’re dead. This Slasher doesn’t have the widest engagement profile, but, as I’ve said in a previous article, a huge part about whether you win a fight is knowing what you can and cannot beat.

How To Fly

So let’s say we found a prime target like a brawling Merlin or a Scram/Rail Catalyst knocking on the Acceleration Gate of our plex. We’ve been orbiting the beacon minding our own business when your enemy shows up on grid. If you’re worried about your adversary being kitey, definitely read up on how you can solve that problem in short order. It’s likely you’ll be scrammed right away and potentially webbed as well. Given your speed and agility, an enemy’s web will not be sufficient to slow down your transversal enough for you to be tracked. Now that you have scram on him and both TDs making his guns useless, the fight is pretty much over. Either you’re going to be alphaed (or damn near it) because your enemy was going to be able to create enough space to get a few cycles off on you or you’ll be locked in a sweet, unhittable orbit and he’s screwed. Remember this fit will wreck or get wrecked. There really isn’t an in-between!

To test out how agile your skills will allow you to be with this ship, head to any plex and pop on your AB while orbiting the beacon. When your orbit stabilizes, you’ll notice that a decently skilled pilot will be able to keep between 1700 and 1600 meters of the beacon all while maintaining a pretty steady 800+ m/s speed. That’s not even close to our optimal but still quite comfortably within our falloff. Plus the tracking buffs we’ve afforded ourselves, we should be apply pretty solid damage that’s at least comparable to our enemy’s.

For Funsies

If you’re enjoying this fit or its less insane “Little Ship That Could” variant, you may want to consider riffing on the idea a bit for variety:

Dynamic Duo – Get a buddy to hop in another Slasher with some webs. He can either go nuts and not fit a tank like you or bring an Ancillary Shield Booster so he has better chance at getting first tackle. Dual webs on a target with Polarized Auto-Cannons trained on them will melt even active rep ships fairly quickly.

Halo set FTW – What in EVE isn’t better with implants and all sorts of other blingy advantages? As a ridiculous experiment I popped in a full set of High-Grade Halos, Evasive Maneuvers links, and a Standard X-Instinct Booster and came out with a sig radius of 16.2m. By comparison, a Warrior II has a signature radius of 25m. This is, of course, stupid amounts of ISK to derp around with in a 500,000 ISK hull. But if anyone with a penchant for sig-tanking does try something like this please drop me a line and let me know how it worked!

Faction Warfare Fitting Lab – Slashing on Razor’s Edge was last modified: by