Defeating the Talisman

[Zanthis]

With 80 DN, avoid most traffic issues by making half of them into missile ships. 40 DN can throw a ton of missiles. PDC will not be able to stop fire concentrated on 8 ships at one edge of his group. Use the other 40 as beam ships, focusing on closer ranged weapons. He must close to beam range of your missile ships or he will die. Your beam ships are there to get in his way. Shield regen comp. and rotating your front line of beam ships will keep him from sitting out of range of your ships and picking them off. Not to mention your missile ships will be steadily killing him off.

Beam ships: try PPB (even though he has phased, they still deal better damage with slightly less range). Ripper beam is good in close. Yeah, its only range 3, but you can make him get that close. On top of that, using shield depleters can help if he is too strongly shielded. Say one per ship. Also, consider Ionic disperser to kill engines. Keep your fleet moving and as you kill engines off. Leave those crippled ships to be picked off with missile fire later, possibly even in a different battle (not like they're going anywhere in the system with no engines).

If you have to fight in strategic mode, it gets more annoying. But it is certainly doable.