Warfare & Tactics

Totally new to PvPing and was wondering where to learn the ropes. Tried doing some faction warfare with my friend today but we couldn't find anything close to a fair fight.

Where is the best place to find 1v1s? Doesn't seem like I'll learn anything about PvP except how to run away from blobs in FW.

Also, in one of the fights we were blobbed we decided to go down fighting... Problem is we couldn't even hit the opposition, even at 8.5k km (the optimal for my gatling pulse lasers with scorch ammo). If I can't even hit them from that far away I must be doing something wrong. My motion prediction skill is at level 4 and shapshooter is at 3. Should I just be trying to keep range instead of orbiting?

Thanks for the help!

FW low sec.

Getting a fight is a skill, so is setting up a fight.

Its arguably a bigger part of your success as an eve player than what happens after you start fighting. FW low sec does not lack fights, last time i went out i got five fights in 25 minutes.

Keep at it, be a bit more daring. you will figure it out soon enough.

If you want fair fight you should know the hood and people who live there, know what they usually do and who gives fair fight etc...

So if you start from scratch you will get blobbed etc...

Knowledge is power so join some corp who can provide local intel about people living there and you will get more fair pvp.

Thanks for the advice guys. Took some of the advice and was able to get a few good battles in. I didn't win any but felt like I made some progress.

What little advice I can offer...

1. Don't be afraid to lose. Just go try things.

2. Utilize the test server. Don't expect to win here. Most of the people there are flying stupid fits with links and expensive slaves. Don't do what they do. Use standard fits, the kind you're likely to go out and lose. If you can start becoming a challenge there, you're on the right track.

3. Learn to D-scan, and I don't just mean the wide angle kind. D-scan can pinpoint target locations much faster than probes if you know how to do it. If you do a wide scan and see a Dominix wtih Wardens out and no other ships in scan range, you can almost bet he's running a PvE site. You should check your anom list and do a narrow d-scan in the direction of each one. When you hit him and his Wardens, you'll warp in to that spot and find him 90% of the time.

4. Stop being hunted. Be a hunter. This isn't just a way of thinking. It's a way of acting. Your ship, the way you fly it, it all has a "posture" if you will. You should look aggressive, antagonizing, never apprehensive. Apprehension means you're weak. There's a time to run, don't get me wrong. But, most of the time, you should be like that pirate jerk lording his "leetness" over a bunch of scrubs. You'll start to feel emboldened and will often catch more than you think you will.

5. Bring the right ship. If you spend a few days in a FW area and see nothing but Enyos and Thoraxes, well, you know what to do. Their tactics almost always involve getting up close and doing a ton of Kinetic and Thermal damage. You want a cruiser than can fight close and tank a lot of Thermal and Kinetic damage. You can also bet they won't have neuts, so an active tank might not be bad, either. You'll want a weapon system that can track at close range. Once you've got this ship fitted up, you hunt. You don't hunt for a kiting Navy Omen. That'd be stupid. You came to hunt Enyos and Thoraxes and other things that do the same thing as Enyos and Thoraxes. So, hunt Enyos and Thoraxes. We call this your "engagement profile". You should know it well.

6. Check the pilots in local. If you see some guy named "Ima Doosh" in local and his employment history indicates he's a few weeks old, he could be a pretty vulnerable target. If you warp to a FW complex and scan the direction of the gate and see "Ima Doosh's Purifier" on D-scan, well, you have something there. It's likely this guy is extremely new not just to the character but to Eve in general. Find him. Pop him. Didn't we pop you when you were that young? We all went through it. Ima Doosh must as well. If he puts up a good fight or has a good attitude about the experience, send him some isk or some advice to help get him back in the game.

7. Know... the... ships. Seriously. Know what each one does. You don't have to know every single common fitting for every ship. That will come with time. But, you should at least know that a Drake will be slow with missiles or that a Curse will neut you to death while hitting you with drones. Know the basic idea and purpose of each hull. This helps you build and understand your engagement profile and is key to sizing up a fight before it begins. As was already said, setting up a fight is a huge part of winning, but you'll fail every time if you don't know how to evaluate your situation.

8. How do I say this? Ahem. Hear goes. DON'T TRAIN USELESS CRAP!!!!!!! Sorry... had to get that out. I can't stress this enough. Look, it's this simple. A player with 5 years of skill points is just as effective as a 1 year old character if they are both flying a Hound. Why? Because only certain skills even apply to the Hound. The gunnery skills themselves are probably the biggest part of the training, and they aren't too long, maybe 3 or 4 months for all of them to 5? The tank is not long either, 45 days for compensations and another 30 or so for the other stuff. The navigation skills are all fairly short. Perfect capacitor skills is all of a month if not just under it. Tech 2 rigs? Not long at all. Webs and scram? Again, no time. Once all of this stuff is trained and the mods are on the hull, it doesn't matter that he has 50 million skill points to your 10 million. You both have the same number of skills in a Hound, and that's what you're flying. At that stage, tactics win, not skill points. Don't get sidetracked. Pick a ship and make yourself the highest skilled pilot you can possibly be in that ship. Don't waiver. You'll find your effectiveness increasing rapidly if you do. If you take time off your training to go queue up "Gallente Industrial V", I'll find you pod, pop it, mount your corpse on the front of a Daredevil, and bump every Iteron I see in protest of your bad choices. If you want to be good, train to be good, not haul, not trade, not mine, not PI, not boost, not probe, not salvage...

9. Learn how to utilize your utility slots in your fittings. Can you squeeze a nos on your ship? Then, why aren't you? Do you have a spare mid slot? How about ECM or a tracking disruptor? Need a cap booster?

10. Don't underestimate the value of drones. Even the webbing drones. I've caught some people off guard before using those webbing drones. If someone is kiting me and is just a hundred meters faster than I am, those webbing drones can have me right on top of them before they know what happened. It's kind of funny, too, since local always says the same thing afterwards. "wtf?" Remember the Alliance Tournament when everyone freaked out about that one logi ship getting swarmed with energy neutralizing drones? Drones provide a lot of utility and damage projection/type options. Use them.

FW for unrestrained fights (just be sure you pick your fights), Red v Blue for constrained fights (lots of rules), Brave Newbies for gudfights.

By the way, I'd also add that Agony Unleashed has a fantastic set of training courses to learn basics, fleet behavior, etc. Really good stuff... Agony Unleashed

The best way to Player Verse Player is to out diplomacy the enemy and hug it out. "Friendship" - I have never mastered this, for I have no friends.

Agony Unleashed do PvP classes.

If you are too poor to afford the fee then somer.blink has already paid it for you so you can do it for free.

While some may go "meh its a blob" (and class can be), its a very effective way of turning carebears into people who want the pod as well as the ship Its also a good way to discover nullsec for the first time.

Worked for me years ago, may work for you.

I think that where to dip your toes into PvP does not rely solely on a point on the map or a certain type of warfare/pvp. If you really want to 'learn' to PvP its about who you fly with, not where you do it. I have seen newcomers fail miserably at RvB, Pirating, FW, nullsec and WH space. But there is the flip side of that. Some of the best pilots/FCs I know can do one of them like a baw5 but he would be lost in a different type of space. So think more about who you will have showing you the ropes than which ropes they will be showing you.

You can read as many tips and tricks as you like from the internet and watch all them kil2 vids, but nothing comes close to getting stuck in and learning from your mistakes. There may be some limitations on different types of pvp you can fly depending on your skill points. To learn from the best in this game, you have to be pretty good already. A RnK vouch is a pretty big deal.

Poke me in game if you have an idea of what you want to do, I might be able to help you out looking for some guys to pew with.