I'm a bounty hunter by trade and I've tried both the Asp and Cobra out with full 'A' fittings and actually come back to the viper. I've been meaning to make a video but I did do a quick write up on how to kill elite anacondas in a well kitted viper, here we are:
- Scan with KWS at the start for extra goodness (obviously!)
- Target his power plant (you can sometimes finish him by destroying that while his hull is still up near 50%)
- 4 pips weapons, 1 pip in the others
- Lasers for the shields, lasers and multis for his hull (I pack 2x Class 1 gimballed beam lasers, 2x Class 2 gimballed multi-cannons)
- Keep him between 1-1.5km by setting your thrusters to about 25% reverse
- Circle around him using thrusters spamming your chaff as often as possible and shield cells when necessary. (I pack 1 chaff and an A3 shield cell)
- Most important thing is to avoid his plasmas
- If your weapon power gets low, multis only for a while to let heat drop
I very rarely even have my shields drop against the elite anacondas from the assassination missions, and anything smaller is a piece of cake. An Asp will kill anything up to the size of another Asp faster than a Cobra or Viper, but against pythons and 'condas I find the Viper king.