EVE Online - Null isn't impossible (Coercer ratting)

Music used is "Crystallize," by Lindsey Stirling. FAQs; Q: What happened when your armor shot down to 60%? A: The Sansha's Slave Lord which was firing at me just so happened to shoot while my radial velocity in comparison to him was low. This resulted in a near-perfect hit which caused me to take a lot of damage. If you want to prevent this, then manually maneuver your ship as opposed to simply orbiting your target, though it shouldn't be necessary (I tanked it just fine). Q: What's your fit? (It didn't stay on screen for very long) A: 8x dual light pulse lasers 1x 1MN afterburner 2x Heat Sink 1x Small armor repairer 1x Capacitor power relay 3x Small capacitor control circuit In all honesty, you could probably make do with less capacitor stuff; either change the capacitor power relay into a third heat sink or tracking enhancer, or change 1-2 of the rigs into damage/tracking rigs. However, if your skills are low, having a good cap buffer is a plus. Q: Where are you, and would this work in other regions? A: I'm in space with Sansha rats, so EM/thermal damage is good, which happens to be what the Coercer is good at. It would probably also work in Blood Raiders space, where the rats are weak to the same damage type. I probably wouldn't recommend this for other NPCs, which are resistant to that damage type; however, the other destroyers are all viable for this as well. For Serpentis/Guristas space, use hybrids (the Catalyst or Cormorant) or a Thrasher using Phased Plasma ammunition. For Angel space, the best destroyer is really only the Thrasher using Fusion ammo, given that it's the only one to reliably deal explosive damage. Q: How much skill training would this require? A: Bare bones, you could fly destroyers in 4 days or so. If you're also including getting the relevant skills to 4 (Destroyers IV, gunnery skills to IV, cap skills to IV) it would probably be about 2.5 weeks? Q: What other PvE activities can this be used for? A: It will probably also work for low to mid level missions (L1s and L2s, *maybe* L3s?). I would not recommend it for cosmic anomalies or deadspace complexes - at least not solo - because of a large number of cruisers and frigates which will ruin your day. Q: What's the DPS of your fit? A: 250 with t1 multifrequency. If you drop the capacitor power relay for a third heat sink, that goes up to 290 (as much as a Drake shooting EM missiles), and if you use imperial navy multifrequency that hits around ~320. With decent skills, you should be able to break the tank of any Sansha rat, and can probably kill most of them even with low support skills. Q: How are you tanking battleships in a destroyer? A: By using the afterburner to keep your speed up, you can greatly reduce the damage that enemy battleships and cruisers will deal to you - this is due to the way weapons in EVE work. Essentially, if a turret is firing at you, you will take more damage if you are going slowly than if you are going fast. This alone won't save you, though; you also need to travel at an angle in relation to the opponent, as opposed to straight on. This essentially means that you're barely going to get hit, so what little damage you do take can be comfortably soaked up by the repper. As you saw, my actual tank really isn't very good - at the 3:20 mark, I accidentally took a direct hit, and my armor was brought down to 60% with a single shot. This is why you keep moving, and always watch the angles so that you try not to let yourself fly in a straight line compared to something else. Edit - Added tips, courtesy of ZaiRoX on Reddit: Find an empty null. Systems without npc stations are usually less populated. Use a "travel" fit between highsec and null. It should have some buffertank and a couple WCS. Just pick your refit station carefully!. Make a insta-undock bm if you can. While travelling. Check your map for ship destroyed/podkills along your route. Every gatecamp will kill you... Bring a secure container. You get more cargospace and get the benefit of keeping the loot locked at a safespot (requires anchoring lvl 1). This is important to minimize your losses. Also the fit is very dependent on speedtanking. You'll die instantly if you crash into an asteroid. Manual flying is a must.