I’ll admit it. If I can come up with an excess to get a Zealot. I've already pulled the trigger to buy it. It was time to ramp up my Abyssal farming and do it in a bit more style.

Sometimes in Eve Online, there are just those ships you feel like you have to have. I’ve always loved the look of a Zealot. While they are a bit of a pain to train for they require both Heavy Assault Cruisers and Amarr Cruisers. Along with Spaceship Command V and a whole bunch of other skills.

The cool part is the Heavy Assault Cruisers skill is not race-specific. So, if I wanted to one day fly another race Heavy Assault, I'd just need to train for their specific cruiser skill and anything else like the weapon type it uses.

Despite how much I love this ship I've more than likely flown it less than the amount of time it took to train all the skills just to fly it. It’s not exactly cheap and unless you need something like this there are just much better options.

This is however where Abyssal comes in. The biggest ship I can ever take in is a cruiser which is what a Zealot is. I’ve even seen some crazy builds out there where people put billions into modulus into the darn things. That is going to have to be a pass for me but it happens in this game.

What this thing is going to be is around ten times the cost of the ship I was using too far Abyssal 1’s. So it’s quite a massive step up. There are also some other things to take into consideration and I can only hope it’s worth it in the long run.

The biggest being while I've only been farming tier 1 in frigate. That frigate gets a three-times multiplier towards loot. My Zealot on the other hand is only going to get base loot. The good news at least is it should be able to clear tier 3. Tier 3 also costs a lot more to run than tier 1’s.

While Zealots don’t get a lot of DPS from drones it has drones. I usually don’t use drones a lot in Eve Online. You have to manage them, not forget them in space, and baby them hoping they don’t get blown up.

That last part is going to be a bit of a small issue in Abyssal. As up to this point, I've just been ignoring any weapon platforms. Most are short range and unless I'm right on top of them they are not hitting me.

The weapon platforms love to kill drones. Also, the enemies I'll be fighting in Abyssal tend to spawn around them. So, some drones are going to get killed while I get back into the swing of using drones and paying attention to where I'm sending them on the field to attack things.

Since this is quite a step up in cost of ship there are a few things, I need to get used to doing a bit differently than how I have been running Abyssal sites. I decided to take things extra safe.

While the plan is to get into tier 3 Fierce. I at least want to make sure I won’t have any issues in the lower tiers before trying that out. Since you both have a time limit and can’t warp out if things go badly. Taking this thing right into tier 3 and getting blown up is not something I want to do.

As a bit of a joke, I first took this thing into a couple of tier 0s. As expected, this thing smashed everything to a pulp. The funny thing is despite the low risk the ship I'm using and my higher clear speed over my frigate Retribution.

I more than likely make more ISK per hour in the Retribution than I would in the Zealot. Simply because the Retribution gets that three times loot multiplier and can get quicker to the gates.

That is some bad loot I was getting. The testing was however worth it. I wanted to make sure I had the crystal ammo types I needed. I even went back to a trade hub to pick up some multi as I was having some issues hitting smaller ships at close range even if they were webbed. Something I rather learn in an easy environment than a harder one.

Next up I hit up some tier 1s. They were as expected easy. Some of the stuff that would have given my Retribution an issue was not in the Zealot. It was also clear I could not clear the site three times faster than my Retribution to make up for the difference in loot multiplier.

I had a decent feeling that Agitated Electrical Filaments which are tier 2 would also not be an issue. I was also kind of hoping I could earn more in them than I was from running a Retribution in tier 1.

While the loot was better in there. It did not feel like it was a big enough difference. I however ran quite a few of them just to make sure the hardest things I could run into would not be much of an issue. Thankfully they were not.

So, I loaded up with a few Fierce Electrical Filaments for tier 3. I even had looted a couple myself. These things would end up being challenging enough that I would not dare think of doing tier 4.

While I had wished my average run was much quicker. I found the easier rooms I was getting to not be that bad. Even in certain situations where I thought maybe I'd have some kind of struggle. It was not that bad.

It was still enough to get the heart pumping every other run. I needed to be paying a lot more attention than I tend to do. I had to switch up how I played to do things a bit better.

The loot when I got something decent was a lot better. A single run could more than smoke anything I'd get a few times over in tier 1 from the best runs I had in those. So, this felt like the right place to be.

There were also a lot of runs that the loot just sucked on. Sure, it was a bit better than tier 1. If I was not getting some higher-tier filament drops or other things on a run it was quite a large risk to be taking for so little loot with how risky these things are.

Then came the moment that made me question if I should even be running tier 2s at all. Everything was going fine. I had just cleared the first two rooms without issue. It just felt like an average run even though the loot was rather average.

I then entered the last room. I was thinking I'm about done and I was going to call it a night after this one. Before a second thought popped into my head, I was quickly down 25% armor. I did not think too much of it at the time.

I do have double armor repairs so I thought I could fix that up rather quickly. I also thought hey I'll remove a couple of NPCs out of the pocket and that be it as far as my armor taking a beating.

Despite clearing some of the trouble in the room. My armor was now at 50%. I kind of knew at that point I was not in a good situation. At that point, I started to overheat all of my modules.

Overheating increases all my damage, repair, and resistance. It also starts to at random cause overheating damage to my modulus. If you are not careful you can burn stuff out and break it. I always carry a little bit of nanite paste with me to make emergency repairs.

I start pulling back a bit and even start doing some manual ship movement myself. Even with everything overheating I start to bleed into hull damage. That is when you know you are more than likely going to blow up.

Thankfully with my higher damage output from overloading everything and a bit higher repair as well. I last long enough to get another kill. I now was just barely repairing armor damage more than I was taking. I however knew if I took one bad hit that could be the end of things.

There was also another issue. Many of my modules were getting closer and closer to getting burnt out. I have some skills in overloading but it’s not something I ever went out of my way to max out.

At this point, I'm about to kill off another. I’ve clawed back to 50% armor. I decided instead of risking bad luck landing all the overheating damage onto my second repair module. That it was time to turn off overheating.

My armor starts to dip back down again faster than I like. I had ah, oh no, moment. I turned back on overloading again. I knew things were going to be a lot closer than I was hoping for them to be on this one.

A second later I get another kill. From there I was able to focus on the next target as well. By about half the damage I needed to destroy the next one I had to turn off overloading again. Thankfully things were now under control I was even able to fully repair all my armor while still in combat.

So, what happened? The higher in tier Abyssal sites you go the more challenging of things you will face. What I had not encountered in the lower tier are called Cynabal and they are quite nasty.

Not only did I get multiple Cynabal in a room. Some of them were even elite which makes them even more deadly. I must have been another volley of damage or two away from getting blown up. Just seconds if that.

Needless to say, after that run I logged off for the night. The loot in that last room was not even a million ISK. You would think after the game nearly kills you that there be some insane loot to be had. I guess not.

Final Thoughts

The next day I log in a little shaken up. I decide I'm just going to do another run as a warm-up and then go store my last few runs. Right as I'm about to start a tier 3 Abyssal run my internet drops.

My internet dropped right at the point where I was not exactly sure if I had managed to click the button to start a tier 3. Since I'm in a cruiser you instantly get pulled into the Abyssal without having to agree to anything.

Losing the internet is not an uncommon thing where I am. Sometimes it can be down multiple times in a week. This time it happened to be for about half a day of not knowing if my Zealot was still intact.

Just knowing I'll lose any ship I put into an Abyssal if I lose power or the internet is enough for me to be done with it. It’s a blast but it’s not an if but a when it will happen to me.

Thankfully when I did log back in. My Zealot was just sitting in the safe spot I had. I warped off to the station and packed up my stuff. Perhaps I'll run some lower-tier Abyssal again one day. I just won't be doing them in a ship that costs most to replace.

Abyssal does have some instant opportunities. I even know some people who make a decent amount of ISK per hour farming much higher stuff than I did. I also know they are flying insanely blinged-out ships to make it happen.

Information

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Screenshots were taken and content was written by @Enjar about Eve Online.

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