So lately in KASE a lot, people have been calling for the 5km 'rule' when dealing with Donatra, saying she won't cloak if everyone stays outside of 5km. I disagree with that assessment, but I also figure debating tactics in the middle of a match would be bad timing and, with truncated text, come off as needlessly argumentative rather than trying to genuinely discuss it. So I bring it up here instead, to ask other players in a more suitable environment for such discussion. I think its silly, but if I'm mathematically wrong, lemme know why.

1 Isn't it yet another STF urban legend, like successful optionals supposedly boosting chances for tech drops and the like? She cloaks whenever she feels like cloaking, and thats just how it goes. Why bend over backwards for something that doesn't actually affect anything?

2 Pets. Between the proliferation of fighter pets and photonic fleet pets, even if you hang back, won't something else break the 5km boundary? Or do they not count? Or are pets supposed to be held back now (sucks if you're a carrier)?

3 We do more damage inside of 5km. This is true for everyone, but for me especially (being selfish here), the 2 ships I'm running lately are built around PSW3, so I need to get in close or lose my biggest hit. Even if this does ultimately trigger the cloak, isn't the extra damage worth it?

4 She's at her most vulnerable right after decloak. Evasive out of the cone of the thalaron pulse, pick your choice of shield facings, pound her with your biggest attacks. Its the best time to hit her, so why not enourage her to do it more often?

5 Recharge times. The cloaking time gives her a chance to heal a bit and recover her BOFF powers. However it also gives us that same breather. She gets 4 powers, we get 20+ times 5 players, plus much better healing. Plus one player with a subnuc can take most of her recovery away. Seems like the players come out on top of that math to me.

So I'm not trying to argue per se, but these are my thoughts on the subject. Am I overlooking something and need to jump on the bandwagon, or is this new rule a silly fad that needs to go away?

It is not a legend.
As long as any playership being top aggro stays beyond 5km, she doesn't cloak.
If aggro switches to a player with less than 5km, she usually cloaks pretty quick.

Pets don't count and even keep her on target, while she is cloaked.

There are different ways to handle her, and all are okay, because you don't have to beat a timer anymore.

Advantage of a never cloaking enemy: 100% uptime.
When you have 50% downtime (which can be the case when she cloaks often), any damage increase needs to be more than double your output during uptime.
(these are the possible extremes).

She is harder to handle, because you may get low on CDs to survive her torpedo barrages as the top aggro ship (flying further away than 10km renders you useless, but you can wait for CDs blabla).

So after all it depends on groupsetup.

The other bonus to her not cloaking is her shields won't regen. Which is exactly what happens when she does cloak.
And yes, the 5k rule does work as stated.

well, I only speak from experience, but if you are far away from her, she will barely cloak, there are instances, when she decides to cloak, but if all of you stay out of that range it is the absolute maximum of 2 cloaks/game.

I get what you are saying, by stating, that if you are close, you deal more damage, and if she cloaks she gets more vulnerable. I may even agree that this way she goes down faster. the ship I mean. the whole time spent in the game, is a lot longer.
believe me, you want her to not cloak, because it takes forever, if someone always gets in her face, and she cloaks 5-10 times, before you can kill her (especially if you have a low dps group)

Interesting, I'm a cannon user so inside of 5k is where I play. I have not done KASE much since Season 6 launch but as a rule we pop her within three cloaks even with me being silly enough to get on her toes even when I hold her agro.

I was told this in the last KASE run I did (about half way through the fight).
It seemed to work.

Nice to know others' experiences.

Also, on a side note, PSW's disable effect shuts down her thalaron blast while she's charging it to fire.
(something I noticed on my Sci captain a few months back, but haven't seen anyone else utilize, heh)

It has been my experience as of late that she does not even do the Thalaron Pulse. I always hold her attention as the tank and it doesn't matter if I am more than 5k away, seems pretty random all the time to me. Having a SNB for use when she comes out and pops EPtS works just fine. Also there is a rampant problem of teams not being on the same shield. The tank should be shooting at her forward shield (cause she is facing the tank) and the rest of the team should all be on a different shield. If she cloaks the rest of the team needs to reposition to get back onto the shield they were shooting before she cloaked, but I do not see that kind of skill used in PuG. Most times they all just shoot at her from wherever they are.

She usually does her nice pew pew every third time she decloaks.

I m totally agree with you, staying 5km away from Donatra is the suckest tactic I ever seen, it can eventually works for players that use cruisers and beams but it really sucks out with escorts using canons that can deal a huge of damage in closed distance.

It works fine. You make up the damage difference by not flying around twiddling your thumbs while she's cloaked.
I actually thought the way you did before, but I was wrong.

I routinely tank her on my Tac in my Fl. Tor'Kaht at 6-7km and have little trouble holding aggro, and its a cannon/torp boat.