Know Your Wormhole Enemy: Myrmidon

In the Know Your Wormhole Enemy series (name shamelessly stolen from the Eve Altruist series of posts and then mutilated) I'm going to look at a variety of different ships, how they are often fit and flown in wormhole space, and what they mean to you. This may include, but will not necessarily be limited to; example fits, engagement scenarios, how you should react to their presence on directional scan, at a POS or on grid, what good counters to them are, and how you can potentially use them.

This post will cover the Myrmidon.

 

Overview

The Myrmidon is a Gallente Battlecruiser that has bonuses to Drone damage and hit points, and a bonus to the effectiveness of local armour repairers. The lack of a bonus to weapons of a given type means that Myrmidons can be seen with a wide variety of weapons fit to their high slots and they have a good spread of available mid and low slots. This flexibility in fitting means that the Myrmidons is one of the more dangerous Battlecruisers to engage, as you will rarely know exactly what you are getting into when you engage one.

Despite the Myrmidon's bonus to active armour tanking it can frequently been seen in either active or passive configurations of armour or shield tanks.

The Eve Altruist post covering the Myrmidon and the other Battlecruisers can be found here.

What is it used for in wormhole space?

Due to its flexibility the Myrmidon can be used for almost any role in wormhole space with varying degrees of effectiveness. Although sleepers NPCs have a nasty habit of targetting drones when there are lower numbers of ships in a site, the Myrmidon can still be used to run sites in Class 1 or 2 wormhole sites when correctly fit, and in a group is actually very effective in Class 3 wormhole space sites. With a large bonus to armour repairers, bait Myrmidons are relatively common in K-space, but creating a fit that can satisfy the requirements of both running W-space sites and baiting simultaneously is nigh-impossible. Myrmidons are seen relatively frequently running gas sites, where their armour repair bonus and drones allow them to mount gas harvesters and handle the sleeper NPCs that spawn at the sites while they are being run simultaneously.

PvP fit Myrmidons are highly effective using a passive shield tank or an armour tank - either active or passive. Shield Myrmidons are typically fit to push out a monstrous amount of damage and have relatively little tank, whereas armour fit Myrmidons can be almost anywhere along the scale of damage and resilience. A drugged, linked, active tanked Myrmidon can tank in excess of 1000dps which can allow it to handle a small sized gang solo... until its cap charges run out.

How is it typically fit?

Although Myrmidons can run sites in lower-class wormhole systems, they are far from a typical sight. As a result, similar to the Cyclone, there is no real standardized fit for running them. The fit below is a variant on one I have successfully used to run combat sites in a class 2 wormhole, though there may be some room for improvement.

[Myrmidon, PvE Myrm]
Drone Damage Amplifier II
Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane II
Medium Armor Repairer II
Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane II
Drone Damage Amplifier II
Damage Control II

Stasis Webifier II
Cap Recharger II
Cap Recharger II
Omnidirectional Tracking Link II
Experimental 10MN Afterburner I

220mm Vulcan AutoCannon II, EMP M
220mm Vulcan AutoCannon II, EMP M
220mm Vulcan AutoCannon II, EMP M
220mm Vulcan AutoCannon II, EMP M
Coreli A-Type Small Remote Armor Repairer

Medium Auxiliary Nano Pump I
Medium Auxiliary Nano Pump I
Medium Capacitor Control Circuit I

Vespa EC-600 x5
Berserker II x4
Valkyrie II x5

The small remote armour repairer may look slightly out of place - the Myrmidon is sacrificing a potential turret to fit it - but Sleepers consistently target drones and some form of remote repair is essentially unless you're planning to only run a single site at a time. The fit is cap stable with either the afterburner or the remote armour repairer running, but not with both. It kicks out 577dps with max skills using the Berserkers, or an identical 577dps when using a Berserker / Valkyrie mix. While Ogres and Hammerheads may give the best theoretical damage, I find faster drones more useful. If your skills are a little lighter you may need to swap out one of the Drone Damage Amplifiers for another tanking module, which will drop your dps to a hair over five hundred.

I have experimented swapping the autocannons for railguns, which gave better range but with appalling tracking plus additional capacitor pressure, and for artillery, which was more cost effective with ammunition but had similar issues with tracking. Both alternatives give slightly reduced overall damage figures (ignoring their tracking issues), but in the end the drone damage is what the Myrmidon is about. It should be noted that the flight of EC-600s give you significantly more GTFO ability than many other site-running battlecruiser fits.

In a break from tradition to demonstrate the flexibility of the Myrmidon I'm going to look at two example PvP fits, one active armour, and one full shield gank. The active armour fit is first:

[Myrmidon, Active Myrm]
Medium Ancillary Armor Repairer, Nanite Repair Paste
Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane II
Medium Armor Repairer II
Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane II
Medium Armor Repairer II
Damage Control II

Stasis Webifier II
Medium Electrochemical Capacitor Booster I, Navy Cap Booster 800
Medium Electrochemical Capacitor Booster I, Navy Cap Booster 800
Warp Disruptor II
Experimental 10MN Afterburner I

220mm Vulcan AutoCannon II, Republic Fleet EMP M
220mm Vulcan AutoCannon II, Republic Fleet EMP M
220mm Vulcan AutoCannon II, Republic Fleet EMP M
220mm Vulcan AutoCannon II, Republic Fleet EMP M
220mm Vulcan AutoCannon II, Republic Fleet EMP M

Medium Auxiliary Nano Pump I
Medium Auxiliary Nano Pump I
Medium Nanobot Accelerator I

Vespa EC-600 x5
Berserker II x4
Valkyrie II x5

With max skills this is kicking out 483dps; nothing to write home about, but the tank is more significant. Without overheating or links it is repairing 941dps while there is nanite paste left in the Ancillary Armour Repairer, which drops to 654dps when it runs out. But if you apply heat, you're looking at 1171dps. Standard Exile boosters push it up to 1403dps on heat, and if you have a Damnation or other command ship running tech II Rapid Repair and Passive Defense links you will be repairing 2009dps while your capacitor, nanite paste and heat management hold out.

It should be noted that juggling an overheated triple-rep dual-injected setup while targetting ships and maneuvering to apply damage and keep drones alive requires a huge amount of micromanagement. Without practice you will lose drones, run out of capacitor, burn out your modules, drop point on targets and end up stranded and butchered. With practice you'll feel like the king of the world. Have a shot - it's great fun.

And now, some more fun at the absolute opposite end of the spectrum.

[Myrmidon, Max Gank]
Drone Damage Amplifier II
Drone Damage Amplifier II
Drone Damage Amplifier II
Gyrostabilizer II
Gyrostabilizer II
Co-Processor II

Experimental 10MN Microwarpdrive I
Adaptive Invulnerability Field II
X-Large Ancillary Shield Booster, Cap Booster 400
X5 Prototype Engine Enervator
Initiated Harmonic Warp Scrambler I

Dual 180mm AutoCannon II, Hail M
Dual 180mm AutoCannon II, Hail M
Dual 180mm AutoCannon II, Hail M
Dual 180mm AutoCannon II, Hail M
Dual 180mm AutoCannon II, Hail M

Medium Anti-Thermal Screen Reinforcer I
Medium Core Defense Field Extender I
Medium Anti-Kinetic Screen Reinforcer I

Ogre II x3
Hammerhead II x2
Ogre II x1
Warrior II x5
Hornet EC-300 x5
Hobgoblin II x6

This is the type of fit that a Myrmidon will almost inevitably have if you don't primary it. It requires a 3% CPU implant to fit properly, but there are a few areas where some compromises could be made to give some back. It does just over 900dps, or about 950 with autocannons overheated, and can tank about 600dps using the ancillary booster - which isn't too shabby, although the total EHP is very much on the low side - 25k not including the effect of the ASB. If you use a passive fit and 425mm Autocannons you can reach 970dps before overheating and 1020dps with heat applied - although you are sacrificing some tracking and the resulting 34k EHP doesn't really make up for the loss of the Ancillary Shield Booster. If you use blasters instead of the autocannons you can actually get slightly more dps - seven, actually, if you're using Caldari Navy Antimatter - but you lose a little damage projection and you end up being vulnerable to capacitor pressure from energy neutralizers, which I don't feel is worth the tradeoff.

How much of a threat is it?

Running a site: A Myrmidon is one of the few battlecruisers that can run a reasonable armour tank in a site running configuration. It can also run a configuration that provides a reasonable bait tank while site-running - and tackle to boot - so a reasonable degree of caution should be exercised when approaching.

As backup in a POS:

Myrmidons that are intended to be second responders are more likely to be set up at the gank end of the gank/tank spectrum. What makes them a hard target to call as a priority is that there is a reasonable chance that they haven't been set up as second responders and are some horrible triple-rep fit that will take your fleet an age of mankind to burn down. That said, if you're fighting a shield fleet and a Myrmidons lands, it's probably a good call to primary if you're targetting the dps boats.

On the field in a fight:
As alluded to above, the Myrmidon can be a hard target to prioritize correctly. It could be a shield gank fit and be doing some of the highest dps on the field, or it could be an active armour set up whose pilot is praying for you to target it so he can show off his ridiculous tank to his gang mates. It may be a quantum Myrmidon that collapses into an armour or shield fit dependent on whether you call it as primary or not. Yes, I hate the target calling conundrum when one of these appears on field.

How do I counter it?

The Myrmidon is one of worst targets for electronic warfare that you are likely to run into in wormhole combat. Its damage is primarily applied through it's drones that are not affected by the host ship being jammed or dampened, and as little of its damage comes from turrets, it makes a poor choice for tracking disruption. An active tanked Myrmidon will have capacitor boosters mounted, and so energy neutralization will have little if any effect on it even if the fit is passive the weapons systems have a reasonable chance of being non-cap-dependent autocannons. My advice would be to attempt to burn it down with pure damage, and if it starts repairing itself, switch targets to something else unless you have overwhelming firepower.

Final note: If you encounter any inaccuracies on this page, please contact me ingame with an EVEMail to "Fellblade" or on twitter @OV_Fellblade and I'll try and get them sorted.