Know Your Enemy - Pirate Battleships

There comes a point in the life of an eve player when you decide that you simply have too much money, or maybe that you just have a real desire to compensate for something. At this time the traditional remedy is to splash out on one of the true kings of subcapital combat, the pirate battleships. After all, nothing says 'elite PVP' quite so much as a billion isk worth of battleship hull decked out in all the faction finery that money can buy, single-handedly tearing apart a small gang of lesser ships. Like the pirate cruisers and frigates that we looked at previously, the five pirate battleships vary quite considerably from one to the next. The pirate battleships share much the same mix of traits that we saw on their smaller counterparts with common themes of strong damage output, higher than normal speed, and plenty of webbing and neuting for good measure. Due to the price tag associated with these ships, most pirate battleships spend their lives shooting red crosses as a high end PVE machine. In the hands of an individual with both the funds and the temperament to take one into PVP however, they can have a far more exciting existance.

Know Your Enemy - Pirate Cruisers

Unlike the navy faction cruisers which lie somewhere between their t1 and t2 counterparts, the pirate faction cruisers are the true alpha males of the cruiser line. Pirate cruisers tend to be fairly front-loaded, with high damage outputs, good range dictation abilities and moderate tanks. Like the pirate frigates their abilities vary quite significantly, incorporating features of both of their chosen races (for the most part, they have the same bonuses and general characterstics as their frigate and battleship counterparts). While navy cruisers tended to be simply powered up versions of existing ships, some of the pirate cruisers offer unusual bonuses and exotic combinations of tank and weaponry that aren't really found elsewhere.

At the time of writing, most of these ships are quite rare in PVP (and in PVE for that matter), with the exception of the cynabal which tends to be very popular.