Long Live ECM?

Well, FozzieSov has hit, and the first set of timers has begun.  It looks like more than 280 timers were created yesterday alone.  So far, predictions from around the community that FozzieSov will succeed in burning down all the things are looking encouraging. 

So are predictions that the well-organized are more than capable of dealing with the hassle.

Suffice it to say, I’m incredibly disappointed in the enemies of the Imperium.  Very few systems were successfully pushed into reinforcement.  Apart from a MOA internal message, I didn’t see much in the way of significant efforts to attack.  It should surprise no one that Goonswarm came into FozzieSov with very high indexes throughout most of its core systems (ie. Deklein).  Indexes were around 5.5 or higher, providing plenty of time to react to reinforcement attempts.  With sufficiently compressed space, it looks as if Fortress Deklein is certainly still a thing, perhaps more so after FozzieSov.

As I was watching Slack, my corporation was responding to multiple attempts to shut down station services and swat off folks trying to entosis EC-, the gateway system to Torrinos and Caldari high-sec.  We saw a lot more traffic coming through that system, including a hostile gate camp made of three Orthrii.  That bump in activity was encouraging.

Yesterday did see the various Eve forums and Slack fill with a solution to troll entosising that pretty much headshots all of my concerns, though.  After all, to frustrate an entosis effort, you don’t need to pod the aggressor, or even kill his ship.  All you need is to disrupt his target lock to prevent his entosis cycle from succeeding.

That’s right my friends.  The supercap king is dead.  Long live ECM.

… I can hear the groans from here.

An Entosis link takes 5 minutes to cycle through, during which the target can’t receive reps or warp off.  And with a full rack of jammers, one of them is bound to succeed at least once during all that time.   And one is all you need to reduce that whole Entosis cycle to waste.

Plus, jammers have a tremendous range, which can be enhanced with rigs and ship bonuses.  Add in the ability to cloak on a Falcon to position itself carefully, and you’ve got a sure-fire way to counter any entosis attempt.  And you have the added benefit of infuriating your attacker.  Nothing is more infuriating than being jammed.  And – let’s be honest here – it’s only fair to harvest tears from the tear-harvesters.

I may be a bit late to the party, but I’m starting to swing in favor of the view that the Aegis expansion is actually well-named.  I want to reserve judgment until we see how this first round of timers goes, but it’s just possible that this new sovereignty system does provide a massive shield over current sov owners, provided that they live in and maintain their space.

I’m willing to admit when I’m wrong.  I’m not there yet; we just don’t have enough information, but I can see ways defenders can frustrate the efforts of current sov holders quickly and easily.

But… inb4 renewed cries to nerf ECM!