Difference between revisions of "Hydra Griffin"

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General Info

• Bonuses: 15% bonus to ECM Target Jammer strength and 10% bonus to ECM Target Jammers' capacitor need per level

Griffins are excellent force multipliers, and are perhaps the single most useful T1 frigate there is. Flying a Griffin on PvP-BASIC (or almost any fleet) is a great idea, and will make you both popular and attractive! It is, however, flimsy and easily destroyed, so it requires a much higher level of situational awareness when flying than most other frigates.

Flying a Griffin

When flying a Griffin, you WILL be called primary. So the most important things to remember for Griffin pilots are the following:

• Always be the last to hop through the gate when the fleet is going through a gate together.
• Always be the last to break gate cloak when the fleet has hopped through a gate into a fight (and in general, just always break gate cloak last)
• THE MOMENT you land in a fight, immediately start aligning OUT of the fight. The MOMENT you are yellowboxed, and/or see drones heading towards you, warp out and then warp back in range to the fight. Do not wait till you are red-boxed.
• In class, we'll show you how to drop a "bounce" bookmark, get in the habit of dropping one of these bookmarks as we warp into every fight. (basically just drop a bookmark right around 2,000km from warp bubble collapse while warping to a fight; the bookmark will be created roughly 300-500km from where you actually land, making a great on-grid or nearly-on-grid "bounce" point. Try to practice this technique before the roam if you can. It's a ship-saver.

Remember that you are not filling a DPS role, damage is not the priority of the Griffin pilot. Your primary role is to reduce DPS of enemy ships, cause our targets to yell at their computers in frustration, and stay alive by keeping at range.

If the fleet has no EWAR officer, or has been directed to spread jams, lock multiple targets then activate one jammer on each target and let them run cycles on auto-repeat. Try to match colors of your jammers to the background color of the locked target. Once a gray countdown bar appears below the target window, that target is jammed so it would be wasteful to activate a second jammer on it. If some particular targets have been called as primary for ECM group, turn auto-repeat off on your jammers and cycle them manually on targets specified.

Most pilots choose to fit racial ECM instead of multispectral ECM. Racial ECM has better range and lower capacitor use, which allows you to keep further away and keep your cap stable if your cap skills aren't very high. However, racial ECM requires more micromanagement, and requires you to be engaging multiple ships of different races in order to be most effective - multispecs are more effective if you are engaging a single or very small group of targets, or the fleet has very few jammers.

For BASIC, we ask that you fit racial jammers only. If you are unfamiliar with ship types, the easy way to match racial ECM to target is to lock multiple ships and match the colors on ECM modules to the background of the target window (i.e. red ladar jammers jam Minmatar ships with red background, yellow radar jammers jam Amarr ships with yellow background, and so on).

Beware of bombs! The Griffin's signature radius is larger than most of the other frigates, plus its base EHP is much lower in general. This means the Griffin can die to a single bomb, although usually it will take two bombs. If you see a stealth bomber on grid, immediately warp off to a safe spot, hop through the gate (if you know the other side is clear), or otherwise get yourself safe.

Additional Notes

• At the staging system, have several of each of the various racial jamming modules available. The FC will balance out your jammers before the roam.
• Note that while the suggested fit below is "rainbow" (one of each), it is more likely that you will be asked to fit 3/1 Minmatar/Caldari or a variation of other racial jammers.
• Carry a small amount of nanite paste with you, to repair overheat damage.
• Meta 4 jammers provide the same jamming strength as T2 jammers, but use less CPU. Therefore, we do not recommend fitting T2 jammers.

Example EFT Copy & Paste

We have one suggested fit for all Hydra Griffin pilots. This is our "standard" Griffin fit.

This fit requires Electronic Warfare III. We highly recommend training Long Distance Jamming (requires Electronics IV) to at least level III. This suggested fit with just the base recommended skills only has an optimal of 43km (falloff 32km) and a targeting range of 65km. Training Long Distance Jamming to level III, and your optimal goes up to 56km (32km falloff). For those of you with all related skills trained to level 5, your targeting range goes up to 81km, and your jammers have an optimal of 64km (48km falloff).

Alternatively, you can drop one of the Small Particle Dispersion Projector I rigs for a Small Ionic Field Projector I, which will increase your targeting range out to the 101km-110km range (depending upon squad bonuses), although it will lower your jammer's optimal range. It can be handy to be able to target ships well before you are in range and hope to get lucky with a successful jam while in falloff. If you do this, you might want to consider dropping the Damage Control II unit for another 'Hypnos' Signal Distortion Amplifier, to increase your jam strength by another .5 (from about 9.4 to about 9.9 per racial jammer), although we highly recommend always fitting a DCUII.

Although we show T1 missiles in the highs on this fit, you may fit whatever you want in your high slots. You are NOT a DPS ship, so do not worry about damage dealing. Rockets are handy against drones, salvagers for the very optimistic, whatever you want in the high slots will work fine.

[Griffin, Standard Base Fit]
Damage Control II
'Hypnos' Signal Distortion Amplifier I

Enfeebling Phase Inversion ECM I
BZ-5 Neutralizing Spatial Destabilizer ECM
'Hypnos' Ion Field ECM I
'Umbra' White Noise ECM
Experimental 1MN Afterburner I

Upgraded 'Malkuth' Light Missile Launcher, Caldari Navy Scourge Light Missile
Upgraded 'Malkuth' Light Missile Launcher, Caldari Navy Scourge Light Missile

Small Particle Dispersion Augmentor I
Small Particle Dispersion Projector I
Small Particle Dispersion Projector I

Alumni Only: Alumni who are already experienced Griffin pilots may swap out the afterburner for a microwarp drive. Alternatively, you may drop the Dispersion Projector rigs for a second Dispersion Augmentor rig (but be aware of how much that will reduce your jammer's optimal). Students and anyone else who is inexperienced with flying the Griffin should NOT fit a microwarpdrive, as microwarpdrive = death until you are familiar with evading bombs and smart-bombing battleships.