ECM and strong feelings…. Again!

Not many things arise such strong feelings on small gang PVP’ers like ECM. You can shoot, burn, probe, paint, damp, disrupt, web, bump and even taunt the opponents, but if someone managed a Jamm with ECM… All hell breaks loose on local. Capsuleers tend to be fond of their hi-slots and the ability to pema-run them on whatever they manage to lock. Mess with that and you’re messing with the fabric of time-space continuum.

 This particular day we rounded up a dessy fleet of about 8 guys, but dessys lack survivability. We always like to bring 1/3 or ¼ of fleet numbers with ECM if we are on ships that tend to instapop, so we had 2 volunteers bringing Kitsunes. This way we gank solo targets at leisure and risk taking on bigger foes, while trying to use our mobility to split them.

 

Just before leaving, our cloaky eyes report a AAA small gang. Vagabond, Hurricane and Megathron. The option to reship into BCs was laid on the table, but usually Battleships = Cyno so we decided to take them on with the dessys and see how the situation developed. If a cyno lighted up, we’d not be too worried about losses.

We all went to one ping on the 250km off the K-Q gate inside R-MOC system (all our fleet sticked together at this point) as they landed at 0km on the gate. They also had eyes on us, so was no need to play the “let’s hide our gang”game. So at this point they know EXACTLY what we have. They KNOW we have 2 Kitsunes and even who is flying them.

I will prevent ya from locking, but ignore me anyway

 Nevertheless the Vagabond starts rushing towards our gang at high speed. He’s separating himself from his gang, by his own hand. Our FC sees an opportunity here and call out fleet to warp gate at 100km, landing quite on top of the vaga. He was instantly scrammed webbed and, as you prolly are figuring out, jammed!

At this point things seem to be according the AAA plan… It’s a close range X-Large Ancil Boosted Vagabond (pre-Retribution patch), and soon after the Hurricane managed to get more than 150km off the Vaga and warps in.

Kitsunes manage to also jamm the Hurricane while we finish off the Vagabond, and then start on the Hurricane. As soon as the Hurricane is about to die, the Megathron finally warps in. At this point we don’t care anymore if it’s a cyno or not. We had already made our fleet’s value in isk kills, but we ofc proceed on the Mega. Guess what… Megathron got jammed too and even he took a bit longer, inevitably died.

Vagabond KM      Hurricane KM      Megathron KM

Local filled up with comments from both parts, but the main conclusions were:

“If you in A4D had no Kitsunes, you would all have died!”, and our reply was “If we had no Kitsunes we would not even had engaged”

Both statements are utter truth!

So… What drives a 3 man gang, with no ECCM fitted, split themselves (we basically killed them one by one) into a gang that outnumbers them, and most of all, good ECM support, only to reach the conclusions stated above? Those same conclusions could have been taken without any shots being fired really.

We can understand all about suicide roam. We do it all the time! Our guys go from solo Talos to whole frig/dessys/T1 cruiser gang on suicide roams, hopping to win the isk war in the end, and getting some action… But the blaming or raging at the ECM that you KNOW it’s there, hardly seems the most productive path.

In the end, the most annoying part was that the AAA gang were using ECM drones. We had a thrasher mate jammed for the entire fights by those pesky drones (he also quite pissed really, but our gang was concentrating fire on the ships and ignoring the drones). For some strange mystical reason some player think ECM drones are “OK” and ECM ships “not OK”. Someone gotta explain that to me.

Ecm is bad, but drones are OK...

 

ECM is overpowered on EVE. That is a fact! Even if you fit 2 ECCM on the Mids and a Backup ECCM on the lows, and overload all the mods, there is a chance you’ll get jammed (not permajammed though) on a BC by a Falcon, hence is why people don’t bother gimping down PVP ships with those mods… Prolly ain’t gonna work for most part anyway.

Also, for me, the true power of ECM ain’t the raw ability to prevent people to lock, but comes in the form of the “SURPRISE!!!!!\o/” effect, from either Drones or cloaky Falcons. I truly don’t recall the last time I saw a Rook, Kitsune, Scorpion or even a Griffin on a enemy gang. It’s pretty much always the Falcon and Drones that tend to subvert the initial perception an enemy scout might have on ya.