Brawling Frigate Strategies - Part 2 - Active Tank like a MotherFraker

A while ago (last year) I covered the Turn, Burn and disrupt brawling frigate strategy. A second really good strategy is to active tank the hell out of your ship. Basically it involves having enough active repping power to overcome the damage from the enemy. Unlike the turning and burning strategy, this can be effective against multiple enemy ships. You will see a lot of videos using this strategy because it is very exciting and really shows off the pilots skills. Knowing when to overheat, managing multiple weapon systems, managing cap, managing the tank, is very intensive. However when everything works it is very satisfying.

As a general rule of thumb, you will need an approximately 100 dps tank per enemy frigate you want to engage. A bit more if against a high dps ship like an incursis (a lot more if an enyo), and a bit less if against a low dps ship like a slasher. To get a tank high enough you will need to do several things...

1. Use ships with a resist bonus or even better an active tank bonus. The breacher and the incursus are the poster children for this thanks to thier 32.5% bonus to shield boosters and armour repairers respectively.
2. Use rigs to further increase tanking. Recent changes to armour rigs makes this a lot more viable. For armour this means the Small Nanobot Accelerator and Small Auxiliary Nano pump. For shield this means the Small Core Defense Operational Solidifier and the Small Anti-Em/Thermal Screen Reinforcers. I personally avoid the resistance rigs for armour since they significantly reduce velocity which is a really bad thing.
3. Tanking implants. I wont list them here, but even a couple of 3% implants can be the difference between life and death. For low-sec shield boosting ships, low-grade crystal implants are very nice, although very expensive.
4. Capacitor booster. Unfortunatly you are going to be using a lot of capacitor. Relying on regen or even a Nos is not enough, you will need to sacrifice a midslot to keep things running.
5. Dual Small Armour Repairers or Medium Shield Booster. Tech II is pretty much the minimum however the relatively inexpensive faction armour repairers are worth paying for.
6. Drugs: Standard Blue Pill Booster for Shield, Standard Exile Booster for Armour. Personally I am terrible about using drugs, I usually forget until the fight is over, or I load them and then don't have a fight for 30 minutes. But a 20% boost is very nice and not something to ignore.

Let us look at some fits.

First the Breacher...

[Breacher, rustbucket]
Damage Control II
Ballistic Control System II
Nanofiber Internal Structure II

Medium Shield Booster II
Small Capacitor Booster II, Navy Cap Booster 400
1MN Afterburner II
Faint Epsilon Warp Scrambler I

Rocket Launcher II, Mjolnir Rocket
Rocket Launcher II, Mjolnir Rocket
Rocket Launcher II, Mjolnir Rocket

Small Core Defense Operational Solidifier I
Small Core Defense Operational Solidifier I
Small Anti-EM Screen Reinforcer I

Hobgoblin II x2

This is wonderful ship. DPS looks low, but it is selectable, and it is hard to speed tank or otherwise mitigate damage from rockets. Main problem is that it does not have a web so a standard scram/web ship should be able to run away. However the ability to engage multiple targets and live is unbeatable. I used this fit for my Kill All The Things 4 Video last fall.

As much as I love the breacher, the Incursus is probably the most common T1 frigate for this strategy. Here is a fit that I have used:

[Incursus, mothertank]
Small Armor Repairer II
Small Ancillary Armor Repairer, Nanite Repair Paste
Damage Control II
Adaptive Nano Plating II

1MN Afterburner II
Faint Epsilon Warp Scrambler I
Small Capacitor Booster II, Navy Cap Booster 400

Light Neutron Blaster II, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge S
Light Neutron Blaster II, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge S
Light Neutron Blaster II, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge S

Small Nanobot Accelerator I
Small Auxiliary Nano Pump I
Small Auxiliary Nano Pump I

Hobgoblin II x1


Be careful with your use of the ancilary armour repairer in this fit. It should go for 9 cycles, but then it will become almost useless until a 60 second reload is done. Still, until then you can easily tank two ships and hopefully take one down lowering their DPS first. Even more than the breacher this ship has some weaknesses however. Again, the lack of a web means that range control is impossible with another AB fit frigate. This plus the range/tracking issues of blasters means that you may find yourself holding a wet noodle. Fights can go on for a very long time.

Finally I will show a fit for a relatively new character. My restarted main has only 1.5 million SP and I was barely able to fit into this...

[Incursus, LowSP]
Small Armor Repairer II
Small Armor Repairer II
Damage Control II
Prototype Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane I

Experimental 1MN Afterburner I
J5b Phased Prototype Warp Scrambler I
Small Capacitor Booster II, Navy Cap Booster 400

Modal Light Ion Particle Accelerator I, Antimatter Charge S
Modal Light Ion Particle Accelerator I, Antimatter Charge S
Modal Light Ion Particle Accelerator I, Antimatter Charge S

Small Polycarbon Engine Housing I
Small Polycarbon Engine Housing I
Small Polycarbon Engine Housing I

Hobgoblin I x1

A great ship for a low SP character for sure. Decent DPS, a strong tank, it actually has a chance of victory against many other ships. I still lost it against a two year old character's punisher, but the fight was fun nevertheless.