Calm Abyssal solo frigate – Who needs a fleet when you can Worm it!
We talked about the Abyss on a few occasions already and it’s still my favourite PvE activity in EVE. With Onslaught hitting the live server – it’s time to take a look at the new fleet Abyssal content.
Into the Abyss (again)
Nothing much changed when it comes to finding your way into Abyssal space. The same types of filaments are used whether you’re jumping in solo in your cruiser or in a fleet of up to 3 frigates. The only difference is you need 3 of them to create the fleet entrance to the Abyssal pocket.
To make the whole process as clear as possible – you will get a prompt after you use your filament to enter solo or as a fleet. Unlike running Abyssal sites solo – fleet pockets are entered through a wormhole-like portal that will not port you in immediately, but rather once you jump in manually. The 20-minute timer will start ticking after the first fleet member jumps through.
Fits
Now, this blog post won’t go into much detail about fleet fits mostly because, to get you started, you can pretty much grab any Tier 1 frigate, spank an active tank and some DPS on it and dive right in. I tried a few runs in a T1 frigate fleet using T1 weapons on a 5mil SP Alpha clone and it went smooth as butter.
What I am going to talk about is the awesome Worm fit that enables you to easily solo Calm Abyss sites in a matter of minutes!
“But – why would I want to do this?” – you may ask. Well, first of all – because it’s fun! The Abyssal pockets are easily the best-looking parts of EVE and if it wasn’t for the 20 minute timer, I’d probably never leave the place.
It’s also challenging if you don’t have highly trained skills and, unless you’re one of those players that rat in null-sec for major ticks, Abyssal pockets can net you a very nice sum of ISK especially if you get lucky with the new skill-books that sell for a noticeable amount of cash.
To do this on our own – we’re going to bring an awesome little frigate – the Worm. It’s a pirate faction ship with a 10% bonus to both kinetic and thermal missile damage per each Gallente Frigate skill level and an extra 4% bonus to all shield resistances per Caldari Frigate skill level. This literally makes it a frigate-sized Gila! Both fits listed below are almost exactly the same with a small variation in mid-slots.
[Worm, Calm Abyss solo Worm v1] Ballistic Control System II Drone Damage Amplifier II Small Shield Extender II Small Shield Booster II 1MN Y-S8 Compact Afterburner Supplemental EM Ward Amplifier Light Missile Launcher II Light Missile Launcher II Light Missile Launcher II Small Semiconductor Memory Cell II Small Semiconductor Memory Cell I Small Semiconductor Memory Cell I Hobgoblin II x5 Inferno Fury Light Missile x1000
This first fit currently sits around 180mil ISK, and the high price here is mostly because of the Supplemental EM Ward Amplifier that gives you some extra resistance since the ship’s base EM resistance is a bit low, so you need to be a bit more careful when running EM penalizing sites.
The alternative fit is noticeably cheaper, uses a bit weaker shield repairer and Afterburner which allows us to fit an extra Shield Booster.
[Worm, Calm Abyss solo v2] Drone Damage Amplifier II Ballistic Control System II Small Shield Extender II Small C5-L Emergency Shield Overload I 1MN Y-S8 Compact Afterburner Small F-S9 Regolith Compact Shield Extender Light Missile Launcher II Light Missile Launcher II Light Missile Launcher II Small Semiconductor Memory Cell II Small Semiconductor Memory Cell I Small Semiconductor Memory Cell I Hobgoblin II x5 Scourge Fury Light Missile x1000
The current cost of this fit is around 93mil ISK.
Now, if you think these are expensive – let me assure you, you’ll be bringing that ISK back in no time. I’ve ran multiple sites with the cheaper fit and the last 4 I did got me 230mil ISK profits (I did get lucky with a new skill-book but even without that it would still put me at 100mil + 130mil for the skill-book)
Edit: Another fit to consider for capsuleers with a higher amount of skillpoints posted by gatorgrips
[Worm, abyssal buffer] Navy Micro Auxiliary Power Core Drone Damage Amplifier II Coreli A-Type 5MN Microwarpdrive Republic Fleet Medium Shield Extender Republic Fleet Medium Shield Extender Basic EM Ward Amplifier Light Missile Launcher II Light Missile Launcher II Light Missile Launcher II Small Ancillary Current Router II Small Core Defense Field Purger II Small Core Defense Field Purger II Hobgoblin II x2 Inferno Fury Light Missile x500
Worming it up
If you’ve done Abyssal pockets before – I’m sure you’re aware of the ship types that can spawn and what to watch out for. If you’ve never done any here’s a quick overview:
Each Abyssal pocket randomly spawns a set of ships. These can be Drifter/Sleeper ships and/or drones as well as Triglavian fleets. They range from drones and Frigates up to Battleships. Since you’ll be flying a fast frigate – you will rarely have to worry about anything bigger than a destroyer class ship mostly because they will not be able to track you, and even if you encounter a sniping cruiser – you can easily run away from its range by overloading your Afterburner for a few cycles.
Both fits should run stable with all weapons firing, your Afterburner and the shield repper on which makes flying and target management the only thing you need to worry about when diving into the Abyssal pocket.
Upon entering, turn on your Afterburner and toss out your drones immediately. Calm filaments will rarely spawn many enemies so orientation should be easy enough. Tackle the enemy frigates first since those can easily catch up to you and deal some damage – then move onto larger targets prioritizing ones that have special abilities and the ones you need to keep either at range or boost away from ASAP (see enemy ship types below).
Ignore the drones if there’s a drone ship tossing them out. Just take out the ship and the drones will just shut down immediately upon the mothership destruction. Take special care of your drones if you run into any drone suppression pylons since they can do massive damage in a generally short time. If that’s the case – just pull them back into your hold and swap them for another pair so the damaged drones can regen their shields.
Once the pocket is cleared – scan around for extra loot caches. There will always be a standard Triglavian cache near the exit gate, and several extra loot boxes scattered around the pocket in the distance. Once you get the hang of it – you can orientate yourself immediately upon entering the pocket and plot the best route around the pocket to pick them all up. Note that sometimes they might not contain loot at all.
Enemy ship types
The list below should help you out on managing enemy ship priority:
- Webs & Scrams - Snarecaster, Tangling, Anchoring, Entanglement, Nullwarp, Spearfisher
- Tracking, disruption, sensor dampening, target painters - Fogcaster, Ghosting, Gazedimmer, Blinding, Spotlighter, Harrowing
- Logi – Fieldweaver, Plateweaver, Preserver, Renewing
- Neuts – Dissipator, Firewatcher, Nullcharge, Starving
Make sure to immediately take down neuting ships because the last thing you want is to run out of cap in a deadspace pocket. Focus logistics next since those will rep up other ships prolonging your stay in the Abyss and just deal with the rest of them after.
Once you get comfortable with flying the ship and target priorities – you should be able to clear all 3 pockets in 7-8 minutes if you don’t run around looting extra caches and don’t encounter a fat Dominix like in the video below. But even if you do – this fit can easily finish all 3 pockets in 10-15min.
Happy hunting and fly safe o7
16 comments
Skipp 30. January, 2019. at 18:20h
@Packratt - with that worm, I don't believe you can solo T2. Maaaaaaybe if it's a very lucky spawn but you'll just get killed otherwise. However, 2 of those worms should be fine on most of T2s. 3 of those would just faceroll it.
Packratt 30. January, 2019. at 02:32h
Have you tried soloing any tier 2 sites solo in the Worm?
someguy 23. January, 2019. at 23:44h
In first fit just switch memory cell I for EM-screen II and swap EM ward for Cap recharger II.. saves you 60m
Skipp 04. January, 2019. at 17:55h
@Cronoterd Faraday - you can modify the first "cheap" fit to use 2x Caldari navy shield extenders + Small shield booster II. A bit more buffer and faster rep. If you pick your filaments for kinetic/explosive penalties, you're more than good with the posted fit. Not sure if a fully passive fit would work for soloing stuff in case you get that nasty Vedmak + 3/4 Damavik spawn that chainrep one another. For fleet runs, especially if you have a logibro with you - it's a whole nother story
Cronoterd Faraday 04. January, 2019. at 17:50h
Does anyone have a passive worm fit that doesn't use the Basic EM Ward Amplifier as it no longer drops and is very rare even in Jita?
Erin James Carney 25. December, 2018. at 06:57h
Yeah too bad only cruisers are allowed!
DrGrandiso 01. December, 2018. at 19:22h
thanks. i was looking for those info.
in the first fit i would replace the supplemental EM Ward with the domination one half price and more resistence
Skipp 28. November, 2018. at 21:38h
@gatorgrips - great! Thnx for sharing. I added it to the article above. It is significantly more expensive than the first cheapo fit (currently around 330mil in dodixie/ 280 in jita)
gatorgrips 28. November, 2018. at 21:30h
Sorry for that god-awful text block here is a link to the pyfa: https://imgur.com/a/EwWodMo
gatorgrips 28. November, 2018. at 21:27h
I tried your fit out and made some improvements. It can facetank T1 and clears T2 easily with a tiny bit of piloting skill. Haven't tried T3s yet. Tried it on all kinds except Dark. This fit costs around 280m, pushes out 272 dps, has ~1.5x more passive reps than the active fit you posted above, is more than cap stable and has an MWD (this improves my site times by almost 3x. Seriously I won't even run an AB fit now it's too painfully slow). Probably requires all relevant fitting skills to 5, as it's pretty tight fit.
[Worm, abyssal buffer]
Navy Micro Auxiliary Power Core
Drone Damage Amplifier II
Coreli A-Type 5MN Microwarpdrive
Republic Fleet Medium Shield Extender
Republic Fleet Medium Shield Extender
Basic EM Ward Amplifier
Light Missile Launcher II, Inferno Fury Light Missile
Light Missile Launcher II, Inferno Fury Light Missile
Light Missile Launcher II, Inferno Fury Light Missile
Small Ancillary Current Router II
Small Core Defense Field Purger II
Small Core Defense Field Purger II
Hobgoblin II x2
Skipp 23. November, 2018. at 13:49h
@Sephron - that is true. That's why the second fit is there as a cheap alternative. It can easily take the damage of all spawns. The only tricky situation might be a Vedmak spawn with 3-4 Damaviks. Soloing them will be more tricky due to Vedmak's high speed and weapon type which you might have a hard time getting away from or under its range. Then again - losing a single Worm is far cheaper than losing a Gila in a solo Cruiser run :)
Sephron 23. November, 2018. at 12:59h
You know your first fit can be 50m cheaper if you go for a faction extender and faction booster? with added resists better boosting and more buffer. but nice idea you got there :D
Skipp 21. November, 2018. at 16:04h
@gatorgrips - usually, i'd never mix active/passive tanking - but this fit worked for me in soloing the abyssal sites because there are spawns that will deal quite a lot of damage in a relatively short time where having extra shields and an active repair cycle really help alot. Especially if you end up chaining 2-3 pockets with similar spawns without repairs. You'll either sit there regenerating shields and looking at the timer drop, or just die because your passive regen wasn't high enough. This being a fully stable fit makes it a real no brainer to farm AS. Feel free to post more fits that can clear the site solo and can be fitted on an Alpha clone as well. I'd love to try them out!
gatorgrips 20. November, 2018. at 20:34h
Putting a small shield extender AND a small shield booster on the same ship shows me that you have no clue what you are doing or even how to fit a ship. Maybe you should learn about how to fit a ship and why it doesn't make sense to mix tank types (buffer, active) before you start making inaccurate posts with bad information and bad advice.
Zeek Malone 16. November, 2018. at 08:44h
This takes less time and, on average, will earn you more than running T2/T3 in much bigger, and much more expensive cruisers. I've heard tons of bittervets crying over how the abyss is "taking people out of the sandbox into singleplayer instances" but I for once fully support what they're doing with the game. A broader audience means more players in the long run.
TicTac 14. November, 2018. at 23:52h
The video makes it look so effortless. I need some minor training to get this to a point I can fit it like this. Will try and modify some things for less SP and see how it goes. Just hope CCP doesn't nerfhammer this or something. I know vets consider this peanuts, but a few hundred million ISK for newbies or hisec carebears is really a good amount of cash and with filaments being cheap - it's a very decent and steady way of income
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