Skill Discussions

Winmatar

Not that caldari is bad at pvp so much as training for amarr, gallente, or minmatar puts your character closer to cross training. Most ships use turrets and at best launchers as secondary damage (more often you will find neuts in those "launcher," slots). Some exceptions to this rule include the typhoon, which you should never train for out-right as it is the highest skill-cap subcapital ship in the game.

Minmatar offers the best start pvp ships. People like to argue they require more skill to fly well, but it's tripe. They are more forgiving on fitting skills than any other race and their speed means you can make up with smart piloting and decent nav skills for what would otherwise be a mediocre tank.

Gallente offers some of the best station game and "brawler," ships (hate that word). Good luck finding someone to "brawl," with you though. On the up-side, you also get the best tech1 solo ships: Myrmidon and Hyperion. Multi-rep, multi-cap boosters, exile drugs, and you can tank stupid amounts of damage so long as you have 800 charges in your hold. Not exactly my forte, but I know good pilots who swear by the myrm and have seen better long-odds videos with the myrm than any other bc. Gallente also have the best solo interceptor (ranis).

Amaarr has the best optimal, the best buffer tank (fleet ships), and the only sacrifice you make is being slow as hell. (Sarcasm) These are not generall solo/small gang ships due to their halariously long align times and inability to dictate range. You see them most often in fleets. Arbitrator is a fun ship to roam with, but it isn't quite fast enough to catch it's favorite prey (smaller ships, other cruisers) or evade it's arch nemesis the ever-present nanodrake. The imperial navy slicer is a speedy option that gets around most of these problems, but most pilots flee at the sight of one unless they are baiting.

Overall, the current L2PvP metagame still tilts on the minmtar axis. As more hybrid buffs come down the pipe gallenete might gain more ground. Amarr doesn't seem ripe to go anywhere but down as hybrids come up and minmatar remain in place. Caldari always have a few good ships, but as I mentioned in the first paragaph, it's a longer cross-train if you decide to try something else and most pvp newbs do.

ed: The above was not an exhaustive or even remotely complete comparison, so before you go poking holes in my obviously generalized descriptions just keep in mind that I don't claim they're anything but a gross comparison for the purpose of instructing the hapless.

Just use your mission char for pvp. Skills are more or less the same, but in addition you can train an alt that can help you mission/pvp.