[Kazgrim]

Originally Posted by this guy

Not true, there's a pretty neat Hound setup that's virtually unkillable, but it requires a metric fuckton of isk and either a leadership alt or to be in a gang with someone with the skills and running gangmods. Don't get me wrong, you can get killed anytime anywhere if you do something stupid, but that applies to any ship with any fit. What I mean is that this build shouldn't die, only exception I can think of involves a faction web fitted huginn/rapier locking and webbing you early enough to keep you in tackle range of either an arazu/lach or their own 30km scram if they were real close when they got web on you.

it's pretty much an all or nothing fit though, you can't cut corners on the fittings or skills needed and expect to get performance equilvalent percentage wise to the amount of stuff you put in. You pretty much have to hit a threshhold and after that point you're golden, prior to that its decent but not nearly worth it.

Originally Posted by another guy

Assuming that hound setup goes for targets it is likely to kill and isn't stupid he shouldn't be that much more survivable than any other bomber build really.

Most bomber builds aren't survivable at all. Nothing wrong with that, its not really something you fit for. People fit bombers for super fast locks (some fit for rsd's) and then missile dmg/rof/range/whatev. They rely on surprise to pop frigates/covetors/t1 haulers and then recloaking and/or warping off....so yeah most of those builds have little to no variation between them for survivability.

The problem with bombers before the buff and still even now is that of roles. long range missiles...from a frigate...Ok sure they can cloak but so can anyone else, they can't fit covops cloak so who cares. It's hard enough to make ravens work as snipers (BE style exceptions apply) and they get the velocity bonus, bombers don't. CCP tried to fix them with bomb launchers, which is basically creating a role which didn't exist before so that sb's could fill it...but they haven't fine tuned those yet and until you do you're back at square 1.

The build I was referring to actually does have a significant difference in survivability because it's a significantly different build than the norm. It's not trying to be a cloaky raven with half the dmg, range, and missile speed all in a frigate sized candy shell...Instead it treats the stealth bomber as an Interceptor that fires cruise missiles.

You'll need: Snakes, 2x polycarbs, *gistii mwd. Might as well go ahead and grab a Dread Gurista Cloak but its not really necessary. Fill remaining slots with 3x T2 or better Overdrives for the lows and 2x Phased Muon RSDs for the mids.

flies 7.5-8.5km/s depending on implants installed (outside of snakes), ODs fitted, leadership alt's ship/skills (<3 claymore). moves 1.5km/s while cloaked. does 2k+ exp dmg per volley.

Anything that can't match your speed, you can out pace their guns' tracking, drones, & missiles. Anything that can keep up (that you can't kill) you've got a longer targetting range than and can outlock, damp, then cloak. Anything waaaay faster than you (gistii crow/claw with the same gang bonuses) that can web you will simply overshoot web range as long as you're paying attention and can out fly them. As they slingshot past you, use that time to damp and cloak. The ship also happens to go 13-14km/s for a full mwd pulse after cloaking, so you'll be nowhere near where they saw you cloak if they try to rush the spot to decloak you.

*some pg issues with gistii and 3-cruise hounds, use coreli (1 step down from gistii, still does 8km/s) or get DG Cruise launchers if you aren't using the 3rd slot for bombs.

Like I said, its rediculously expensive and you'll need perfect/near perfect skills in certain areas. You could do the same thing with a purifier but it's slower and has more mass, but it doesn't run into PG issues.