Skill Training for PVP

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Revision as of 17:48, 27 July 2009 by Aether (Talk | contribs) (Core Skills)

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Original text by Rells
Expanded and updated by Sanfrey Statolomy
Copyright Agony Unleashed


Introduction

Whether you are devoting yourself to PvP full time or training up a PVP alt, it is essential to know how to train up your character to get the most out of the time it spends training up skills. A new character with low skill point count is much more limited in what he or she can fit on a ship. It also cannot do as much damage or tank as well as a character that has been training for years. However, proper training that is focused on important PVP skills can let you compensate for this.

Learning skills are the cornerstone of any EVE pilot, pvp or otherwise. With high learning skills, training will proceed two times faster. To decide just how much time to spend on learning skills, the first thing you need to consider is how long you think you will be playing Eve. If you love the game like me and will have 3 accounts active until they close the servers, then you really want to train basic learning skills to level V and advanced ones to level IV. However, you will need to spend about 1.5 months doing this, even if you skip the charisma skills. If you cannot see yourself waiting this long, get all the base learning skills to 4 at least. Getting those skills to 4 is a matter of about 3 weeks. As a combat pilot you can skip the charisma skills initially. However at a later stage you may want to train up Empathy and Presence for the leadership, social, or trade skills.

Once learning is out of the way, we race right to Interceptors right? Wrong! This is one of the biggest mistakes that players new to the game make. They want to undock in that newer or bigger ship and they race right through the prerequisite ship skills to get there. However, once they get that new ship they find that they can't fit it well, can't do much damage, can't tank. They see that the ship is inferior to what they are used to flying and that they are useless in it. The euphemism often used for this is "growing into a ship," which translates to "I'm flying this too soon and hoping I get the skills before someone crushes me." Instead, your best bet is to think about what support skills the ship requires and concentrate on training up these. In EVE some skills are beneficial for flying practically any ship - these are called core skills.

Core Skills

Core skills are the base gunnery, navigation, missile, drone, electronics, engineering and mechanic skills that will allow you to fly your ship better, equip more guns, run more drones and hit better with missiles and turrets. Keep in mind that you don't have to study drones if you don't intend to use them; same goes for missiles, while turrets are a requirement in most tech 1 frigates. The skills that you should focus on are the following.

Drones:

  • Combat Drone Operation: +5% Bonus to drone damage of light and medium drones per level
  • Drone Durability: +5% bonus to drone shield, armor and hull hit points per level
  • Drone Interfacing: +20% bonus to drone damage, drone mining yield per level; level V required for carriers
  • Drone Navigation: +5% increase in drone MicroWarpdrive speed per level
  • Drone Sharpshooting: +5% increases in drone optimal range
  • Drones: operation of 1 drone per skill level; level V required for T2 drones
  • Scout Drone Operation: +5000 meters per skill level to drone control range; level V required for T2 drones

Electronics:

  • Electronic Warfare: -5% capacitor need for ECM and ECM Burst systems per level; level IV required for T2 jammers (useful for Caldari recon pilots) and use of ewar drones
  • Electronics: + 5% bonus to ship CPU output per skill level
  • Electronics Upgrades: -5% in CPU need of modules that require Electronic Upgrades (signal amplifiers, co-processors, backup arrays) per level
  • Propulsion Jamming: -5% to warp disruptors, warp scrambler, and stasis web capacitor need per skill level; level IV needed for T2 web; level V prerequisite to interdictors
  • Sensor Linking: -5% capacitor need for sensor link per skill level; level IV required for T2 dampeners (useful for Gallente ewar pilots)
  • Signature Analysis: + 5% improved targeting speed per level
  • Target Painting: -5% capacitor need for target painters per skill level; level IV required for T2 target painters (useful for Minmatar ewar pilots and battleship pilots)
  • Weapon Disruption: -5% capacitor need for weapon disruptors per level; level IV required for T2 tracking disruptors (useful for Amarr recon pilots)
  • Targeting

Engineering:

  • Energy Grid Upgrades
  • Energy Management
  • Energy Systems Operation
  • Engineering
  • Shield Management
  • Shield Upgrades
  • Tactical Shield Manipulation

Gunnery:

  • Controlled Bursts
  • Gunnery
  • Motion Prediction
  • Rapid Firing
  • Sharpshooter
  • Small Turret
  • Surgical Strike
  • Weapon Upgrades

Mechanic:

  • Mechanic
  • Hull Upgrades
  • Remote Armor Repair System
  • Repair Systems

Missiles:

  • Missile Bombardment
  • Missile Launcher Operation
  • Missile Projection
  • Rapid Launch
  • Rockets
  • Standard Missiles
  • Target Navigation Prediction
  • Warhead Upgrades

Navigation:

  • Acceleration Control
  • Afterburner
  • Evasive Maneuvering
  • Fuel Conservation
  • Navigation
  • Warp Drive Operation

Spaceship Command:

  • (Racial) Frigate
  • Spaceship Command

Now that you know what skills you should concentrate on you should go shopping for as many of them as you can afford and train at the current time. Once you buy a skill you can train it just for a few seconds that way you aren't carrying the skill book about but can still finish the training at your leisure. Don't buy skill books unless you can train them right at that moment, especially when there is a chance you could get popped (nothing like loosing an untrained skillbook)

Optimizing Training

When training the skills, you want to get the most out of the time you spend training; this means that the benefit you get from the skill should be significant for the time invested. For example, Controlled Bursts skill gives me a 5% reduction in capacitor needs for my guns. The first level takes maybe 20 minutes, the second perhaps an hour and a half. Training this skill to 2, I can get a 10% reduction in capacitor needs in 2 hours. However, to go from my current level of 4 to 5 would take me 10d 59m 14s just to gain only 5% more capacitor reduction. In that same time I could have trained 3 or 4 more skills from level 3 to 4 (including skills which make my capacitor recharge rate better).

It is advisable to train up these base skills in waves. Get all of them to 2 as fast as you can. Then you will have achieved 10% reduction is capacitor needs, 10% better tracking, 10% more missile damage and so on. Your pilot will now be vastly improved. Once you are done with the 2s, start moving the skills to 3s and then finally to 4s. For now, ignore those 5s until you have all your 4s done at the very least. As a general rule, train a skill to 2 if you are going to occasionally use it, to level 4 if you will often use it and to level 5 if it is required for another skill, or if you are going away for a while (like a holiday).

As you work through your training you will pick up skills here and there that required another skill to 2 or 3. When you pick those skills up, catch them up to the rest of your skills quickly and then resume your training process.

If you follow these simple guidelines, you will be able to vastly improve your character. Just remember not to use your best implants unless you can set a jump clone because in PvP it's only a matter of time before you will get podded.

EVEMon

An indispensable tool for monitoring your skill training and planning your future in Eve is EVEMon. This program will let you compile a skill plan spanning over a year as well as optimize attributes for you skill plan in case you wish to respec your character.