Am I Doing This Wrong Or Does The Ishtar Suck?! || EVE Online 

I used to love drone boating back when I played EVE (which was over a decade ago!). Ishtar was one of my favs; but I focused on sentries and just getting aggro on myself and tanking while things evaporated. Flying drones were so expensive to replace over time since they would fly into range of non-aggro'd enemies and pull them on themselves... but I always stayed in range of sentries to scoop and scoot. I just viewed it like a tower defence mini game. I think I did use a target painter to gain aggro.

I know I'm a year late to this video, but using an Autotargetter in a high slot will increase your threat level and make rats more likely to target you instead of the drones. It's an active module, so don't forget to activate it before launching drones

Even when I was flying a Rattlesnake it seemed that drones are for close range brawling now. If you want to hang back and snipe then Sentries are your only option whenever elite frigates etc are on the menu. For drones you need to be in there trying to hold aggro and using e-war to support. Also you have to be close by to reel them in when they do get aggro. No need for 100k+ control range as they will not survive the trip out and back. It kinda makes sense as other weapon systems have a close range and snipe range alternative.

Nice video 🙂, and my advice is that with dropping drones and going to about 100km, it should work in theory in regards to the drones killing things since drones attack anything aggroing you....or could be things shooting or neuting/scramming you, even if you haven't locked them but the disadvantages are the sleepers might choose to attack something closer instead of you since you are too far away and what i know about the ishtar [the ship itself] is that it is the one that's supposed to tank the DPS, and that's where you might start loosing drones, my experience with wormhole sites is that, frigs like attacking light drones and anything above but cruiser ignore or cant attack lights but can attack mediums and above and battleships tend to just shoot you but in theory should be able to attack heavies and centries, Sleepers have unique behavior in comparison to other rats lol

When I played back in 2014 & 2015, I ran a Vexor build that was ranged and was going to guild up to the Ishtar. After returning to the game earlier this year I found that it seemed my drones were being attacked way more then before. I'm not sure if they did a combat update or what while I was inactive but yeah the drones need to be micro managed well on that ship line. Also its squishy cause we are shield tanking a ship that was designed for armor tanking. Grated the best fit requires a shield tank but that's why the tank feels lack luster to other ship fits.

I remember when Ishtars were *EVERYWHERE*, pvp? ishtar, pve? ishtar, hauling? ishtar, I even got one for cheap because they were every freaking where

Ah, the spicy hair dryer!

Hey Cap., nice vid any thanks for ur learnings. That helps a lot. Just a side comment: can u make chapters in the video timeline? So I can jump better to the parts. Thanks and keep up the work!

The agro against drones when flying Ishtar is real. Is one of the reasons why I eventually leaned more towards gun/missile ships for my PVE needs... Slightly curious whether Armor Tanking at the cost of one DDA would be a safer approach, but that's besides the point. I have for the most part almost completely given up on using Drone Boats. While they may be great for more relaxed playing, with my limited available time I generally don't mind putting some extra effort into PVE. 1h/d is also hardly enough to spend an entire cargo hold of ammo, making gunships quite a bit more efficient. Not to mention that, on top of instant application, you can also get more raw DPS depending on fits. Missile boats are great as well, and, unlike long-range guns or larger drones, struggle less when hitting small targets. But I guess every weapon has it's pros and cons, and I'm just gravitating towards the ones more suited to my preferences... PS: I used to fit my Ishtar's free high slots with Small Arty. They can pack some pretty decent extra punch for how little fitting they use...

This video has been running about the back of my ncondo (ha!) since I watched it now now (ha! again). I'm from SA btw. The Ishtar's main bonuses are to sentries. Have you thought about making a fit with one or two small remote armour repairs in the highs? Drop the sentries round your MTB when you land and orbit them. Lock them up and rep them as needed. You could start with Warden when the NPCs are initially at range and then change to the Gallente ones when they get closer.

late comment so i assume you won't see it, but im a wormholer myself. ther krabs have a priority list of what to target, it vaires from size of krab, but the frigs will prioitise drones over player ships. fort strongholds have quite a few frigs ;) try using a dreks with some friends

Cant stop thinking of space shrimps when i see one

Thanks for the video. Nice to see an alternative Ishtar J space fit. I used Ishtar for C3 content for years. As to your concerns with this fit, I share most of them, but feel many can be addressed. For drone aggro, as far as I can tell, it is just semi-random. Some days a site, type of site, or many types of site, will just not lay off the drones. Sometimes that means you are just done for the day, try tomorrow. Sometimes leaving the site(s) alone, or making something change in the game state (like jumping out or refitting), can make it seem like something changed and drone aggro becomes workable. I suspect it is still just confirmation bias or randomness in the rats behaviour sheet. But eventually the behaviour WILL change and make the sites doable again. As for drones dying even when being pulled. I wonder if it is partially due to your AB and longer range making it easier for rats to decide to change targets and harder for the drones to reach you fast enough. Drones do die of course, but even on bad aggro days/sites I would have real difficulty loosing that many drones! As for the fit itself (I am NOT a fitting master, but do have relevant experience) , it feels like the tank is rather weak and the sig tanking is just not doing enough to compensate? What I use is an x large shield booster (probably deadspace to conserve fitting room) and an EM shield hardener instead of the AB. Keep the 3 DDA, but add 2 cap flux coils to compensate for the extra cap draw. Should give you 75%-ish resists and still cap stable. I don't think you really need two tracking enhancers, ADC II, or the drone link as you don't go as far from the rats. I honestly just orbit the MTU for traversal usually and it tanks like a boss. A 'cheap' (but still expensive) version with this type of fit will run some of the c3 combat sites. If you faction it up to 7 or 800 mil, it can run all the C3 sites except for one or two of the data/relic sites. I got into this fit because I was much less skilled at the time and mostly had only gallente and drone skills and needed something I could use right away. Hope that was useful and I can post a full fit if you would like. Fly well!

interesting video. Also looking forward to the comments as they roll in as I have an ishtar but so often I have to warp out to safety or suffer the loss of the ship. also lost 2 of them so far and I am of the opinion my fit is perfectly fine i am just not using the ship correctly. it seems to have a particular play style that i have yet to understand or work out.

Great Video Benzie!, Unfortunately I really dislike drone boats for WH content. just so much management of drones.

I believe Sleepers, unlike other rats, are programmed to aggro drones. You could try fitting your Ishtar with an "Auto Targeting System I" which I have been told draws rat aggro.

Ishtar can do many things. Low lvl WH alone, High lvl WH in fleet. Solo HIsec missions, Solo all Null anomalies. Even Solo or Duo escalations (depends on faction). The key is to minmax a fit and be careful about npcs that may turn against your drones (just use some civilian gun to hit someone from group of npcs to get aggro first on ship) For most of the fits no prop or ab 10 is enough, but some of them will require ab100 to kite and survive

The Cerberus is a cool ship, my only peeve with it is the kinetic bonus, would prefer a basic damage modifier

I found that the ishtar is better passive tanked. Throw a large extender or 2 on there with that hardener instead. You might want to sacrifice one or both of those tracking links for faster shield regen. Mine was hella cap stable with the mwd on too. Never did wormholes but mine had 40-50k ehp with 100k+ range. The ishtar is a beast.

In the main it's CCP hating on drones, there are just certain rats in certain sites that will target drones, even in high sec combat anoms it's easy to have drones killed by the 'elite' frigates. Once you have launched drones and either set them on a target or if set to aggressive, a target strikes at you, the drones will attack that target even if you move out of control range. Aggressive action is key though, if you kill one target outside of control range, unless a rat is shooting at you, they will seek to return to orbit, so you couldn't rely on them killing a pack of short range targets automatously. I'd probably use something like this for C2s: [Ishtar, Maybe C2] Assault Damage Control II Multispectrum Energized Membrane II Medium Armor Repairer II 800mm Steel Plates II Explosive Energized Membrane II Drone Damage Amplifier II 50MN Y-T8 Compact Microwarpdrive Medium F-RX Compact Capacitor Booster Stasis Webifier II Omnidirectional Tracking Link II Drone Link Augmentor II Medium Energy Nosferatu II Medium EM Armor Reinforcer II Medium Explosive Armor Reinforcer II Ogre II x5 The web and the omni doing the same as your tracking enhancers to get damage applied with an omni armour tank but obviously you're then brawling rather than kiting.

I find the Ishtar is usually used for AFK ratting in null, they can orbit, cycle something like an auto targeter to hold aggro, and let drones murder everything

The Shield fit is a PVP fit changeup that armour repair person blasters and a energy neutralizer

Standard Bluepill did the trick for me as i tested grendals fit in the C3.

Okay the Ishtar can do C3s, the fit is actually even easy, flying it in a way to not lose drones and the ship every 5min is not tho! for the Highslots: Auto Targeting System of your choise Longrange Laser with Radar Lense, a compact version is recommended 2 Modules of your Choise for the Midslots: biggest AB you can fit (usually a T2 10MN or a Blinging 10MN if you wanna get fancy) Omni Tracking Computer (to make your drones hit harder, use tracking speed)/Target Painter (to make your drones hit a bit harder, but mostly for aggrocontroll) biggest Capbat you can fit Cap recharger T2 for the Lowslots: 2 Armour Reps 3 Drone Damage Controlls rest of the tank (usually you do not need a plate, you will get slow enough because of the Rigs anyway) Rigs: Plug the Explo Hole if it scares you, will make your life easier either way. If you wanna go balls to the walls you can leave the explo hole and just further increase the rep amount or put in more Armour HP anyhow here to the way it flies: warp in, hope nobody messed the site up already, and or that you are not gonna mess it up. Make your Autotargeting active right after warp, lock one target and start shooting with your lazor to say hi (and get face aggro, use the target painter as well if you fittig that one) do not forgor to keep moving while that wait till the Autotargeting responded to the rest of the rats, by the time that happend you should have something around 2-4 Ewar ticks (Autotargeting gives 1 tick every cycle to every rat within 50km, Painter gives the same amount, but only on the rat you are painting), on top of the aggression aggro from the lazor. throw your biggest and meanest Drones at them, kill everything without messing up triggers, recall drones the moment the last ship of the current wave dies. repeat. is this the most boring way? yes Does it work alle the time and you never will lose a drone again? no, sometimes Eve just says "F you and the horse you rode in on" and does what it wants anyway will the Ishtar make you billions in C3? no, most likely not, since its not a surefire way to do C3 sites, the ship still can be "one shoot" by like half of the sites and webs are a thing. do you have to stay within 50km to every target to not lose the aggro to your drones like 2 sec after you deployed them? yes, yes you have to, also some rats by now have a thing for licking your drones. Will you cry and lose drones until you figured out how to hold aggro on your self and will you bleed into hull on a regular base? yes, yes you will. Is the Ishtar bad because of it? its is not bad, until it is. would i say the Captain flew the Ishtar wrong in this Video? hell no, fly your stuff like you want, just do basic research on the mechanics behind it

Have you tried sentry drones and a jump drive?

when i was a wee wormholer back in the day i just use the 100mn speed tank ishtar with extenders an adaptive and just orbited at like 70k but idk if it still works

Having some sort of targeting can minimize the agro. Target painter or some turret. Also lock up your drones so you can rep them as you bring them in.

Can geckos work ? For agro I pray to bob at the sun and I tend to use tech II I know technically your right but the bob spaghetti code is real and in my real world testing tech II gets less agro try it out don’t forget to pray to bob at sun 🌞 also drones bloom signature when using MWD so if yellow box easier to hit so sometimes I use drone speed augmentor for better speed , orbit for sig tank

How does aggro and drones really work? I really want the drone play experience, but the constant babysitting is making me crazy! Any pro tips?

Ishtar is great ship im skilled into HAMs so i fly a cerb but i respect people who main the ishtar.

You can park at 140k and shoot everything before it has a chance to shoot you with an Ishtar. brawling isnt the best idea lol.

if you find your drones being attacked there are a few things you can do. first try bring up the new eden store and spend about 5 sec scrolling then relaunch drones. if that didnt work warp off to a safe and after to you stopped eject and wait 10 secs and reboard your ship and see if that works. also try fitting a 100mn AB on your ishtar.

They may be switching to the thing that is doing the most damage ergo they pop the Ishtars drones

It may hamper your shield tank but a target painter might help with getting aggro on you.

Did I use the wrong size repper? :p

Captain Benzie, you should do a subscriber build showcase video. Vote 👇 w/ 👍

Sir you are flying too much Minmatar/Caldari that you forgot to practise gallente ships as well, there must be some problem with your drone micromanagement. Ishtar is the best cruiser for ratting. I love gallente ships

I agree in the fact that for the average player that a ship that takes a lot of skill to fly is not a good idea that being said there are certain ships that are awful by themselves but in the right hands are insane see the navy issue exploration frigates back to the Ishtar tho it just does not seem like that's the case I would much rather stick to a t3 c or a myrmidon if I'm doing c2's lol

Good vid Captain. I feel compelled to inform, however, that you're mispronouncing the Isktar though. lol

i do c3 with dual box ishtar remote repairs is not that bad but faster then rattlesnake and praxis to be honest with t2 ogers no sentry need no boost or implant its just 600mil on field and can make it back and more if done correctly

Was wondering how you came to the conclusion that the Ishtar is meant to be shield fit? Looks more like a ship meant for armor tanking. I have used a VNI fit for ratting drone hordes solo but the shield tanking was more secondary since armor tanking would have slowed it down. While it was primarily speed tanking with a large AB. It handled the site fairly nice and over propped VNI were able to make 100k an hour in hordes back then. However it's before the nerf to VNI that reduced the number of heavy drones that could be launched. The only major problems that I'd come across other then hostile players. Would be if a carrier spawned in the site which isn't common but has happened. Which can alpha a VNI easily if it doesn't get off grid fast enough. Would need others in alliance to clear it from the site.

Ok do not do this....but there is a way to make drones so darn durable with implants and rigs its ridiculous more tank than a battleship........however the pricetag😵😵😵 for alot loss just throw missiles at the issue

Bro that fitting sucks. Why not use a 100MN with 2 large extenders? 10mn is way too slow and 50MN blooms sig. 100MN will be the most reliable negating missile damage and sig tanking.

'HAC = Heavy Assault Cruisers"....not "Attack'. There are better choices than an Ishtar for Sleeper sites. My Galllente alts uses an Ishtar for level 4 missions. But, never in J-Space. There are better Gallente ships, if you want to go that faction route. 😉 I am also not a fan of a shield fit Ishtar.

The problem is that you are trying to play same style with different ships. Heavy drones should never be primary weapon system, but complementary to sentry drones. Heavy drones waste time flying from target to target and you are loosing dps while sentry drones have instant damage. For me C3 wh are waste of time, there are better and secure ways to earn isk, so I don't have much xp running them. But Ishtar is awesome ship, drones are not my game style anymore but in the past they were my main style. And using drones saves you isk because you don't waste ammo. That's probably ccp forces aggro on drones, not using ammo or having reload time like normal weapon systems. And Gila is number one ship used for Abyssal sites, with Ishtar and Vagabond second. Look at Ishtar as a sniper ship, not brawler. Move away, drop sentries and orbit around them. This fit is what I use in caldari space for DED sites and escalations: [Ishtar] Omnidirectional Tracking Enhancer II Assault Damage Control II Drone Damage Amplifier II Drone Damage Amplifier II Drone Damage Amplifier II Omnidirectional Tracking Enhancer II 100MN Monopropellant Enduring Afterburner Kinetic Shield Hardener II Thermal Shield Hardener II Pithum C-Type Medium Shield Booster Salvager I [Empty High slot] [Empty High slot] Drone Link Augmentor II Medium Capacitor Control Circuit II Medium Capacitor Control Circuit II Warden II x5 Hornet II x8 Wasp II x6

I'll watch the video later, but the Ishtar sucks. It's nothing like it's former glory