Ships & Modules

From what I've heard, the Arbi is the best PvE T1 Amarr cruiser, though I'll admit that I'm not an expert on Amarr ships myself.

I think your core issue, however, is your skills (as you guessed it might be). You'll be better off sticking to small stuff for a bit while you spend more time skilling up. Most importantly though, the first rule of Eve is that you should never fly what you can't afford to lose. So you should spend some time saving up before spending all your ISK on a bigger ship that you might or might not be ready for.

Certs do show some skills that can help you out, but they're more like guidelines than anything. If you're not sure what to train next, certs (especially Core Competency) are good to go for, but they're not the end-all skills for that ship, there's even more skills that will help it and not all the skills in the certs will be as helpful.

tl;dr: they're good, but they're still just rough guidelines

Arbitrator is the best all around PvE ship for Amarr. It lets you have a decent tank while having also decent damage

But, if drone isn't your forte, Omen works. But I suggest Navy Omen which is a much better cruiser to handle with

In PvE, your biggest problem will be dealing with fast NPC frigates that happen to get in close and orbit you close where medium guns simply can't hit. That's where light drones will come in play. Maller has no drone bay. Omen has very little. Navy Omen can field 5 light drones which helps a lot. In addition, navy omen also have a lot more slots to work with

Last time I checked, navy omen was going for 55m ish in Jita.

I just did a ton of level 2 missions in the Omen over the weekend and didn't really have any issues. The Blockade was a pain with that web stasis tower but I got through it. I did not see any scram frigs though. Your skills may only allow you to use tech 1 mods which will hurt you a lot

My fit going off memory is:

med pulse lasers II (switched between navy multi, navy radio and scorch crystals)
Experimental 10MN MWD
web I
heat sink II x 2
small armor repairer I ( I need level 2 but skills are not there yet)
damage control unit II
cap boosters
Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane I (I think this is what I have)

The arbitrator is arguably the best Amarr cruiser but it relies on drones. Flying amarr you'll want to shoot lasers. I'ld recommend the Maller.
Fit it with medium pulse lasers (the same size you fit on frigates) . You'll have more than enough room to fit a nice tank consisting of a medium repper with some armor hardeners) You can use every low slot for tanking items if you really want. It's not a perfect way of running missions but while you learn the ropes, your tank will save your ship.

Carry combat drones only, for what you are doing EWAR drones are a waste. At best webbing drones have a minor role in PvP, but for an Arby the drones are your main damage source. Carry spares of the drones you are using and, once you get a feel for agro and how to control drones, start carrying different flights of drones. For L2's you will be fine with Hobgoblins and Hammerheads in most missions. If you do not have good drone skills don't be afraid to put things like Omni Directionals in your mids. You don't really need tracking disruptors for PvE so your mids really are for an after burner and cap mods on an Arby.



Not true at all. Pretty much all Battlecruisers and Battleships use drones, especially Light drones for anti frig work in PvE. This is epsecially true for Amarr battleships as Large Energy weapons don't have the best tracking for close in, fast orbit frigs unless you slap webs on them. Drones skills for any combat pilot are never a waste.

I agree with what has been said about the Arbitrator is the ship you want. You'll want to look at core skills that gives you a bonus no matter which ship you fly early on. Considering you're Amarr capacitor skills will be very important.

EVE is one of those games you can't rush. You can sit in a battleship in a week, but you'll need at least 2 months before you can fly it even decently. Remember that you're not limited to one race of ships, but early on it might be a good idea to stick with one ship race as getting good skills for everything would slow you down in getting to better missions with better rewards.

Damage types is something you should learn as well. Amarr lasers deal EM/Thermal damage, and is therefore good against ships/factions with low EM/Thermal resist. Blood Raiders is one of the races with weak resists to this damage type, so doing missions in Amarr space is a good idea as they give more missions against them than any other place.

Skills you might want to look into that are basics that are needed for everyone include (but are not limited to):


Rank 1/Level 4 skills: (The higher the rank, the longer it takes to train.) These take short time to get to level 4, which gives good bonuses for the time spent on them. Level 5 is recommended when you've got your basics together.

- Spaceship Command - 2% Agility for ALL ships.
- Navigation - 5% max speed increase
- Mechanics - 5% Increase to Hull hitpoints
- Energy Systems Operation - 5% increase it capacitor recharge (quicker recharge)
- Targeting - 1 more target per skill lvl
- Signature Analysis - 5% targeting speed
- Engineering - 5% to ship powergrid (PG) output
- Electronics - 5% to ship CPU output


Rank 2/Level 3/4: These take a bit longer than the rank 1 skills, and for the time spent training them level 3 early on is good usually.

- Hull Upgrades - 5% Increase to Armor hitpoints
- Evasive Maneuvering - 5% Ship agility
- Long Range Targeting - 5% increase to maximum targeting range

Rank 3/Level 3: These skills start to take a bit more time. Level 3 is recommended early on when you have the time.

- Energy Management - 5% Increase in total capacitor
- Shield Management - 5% Increase to max shield hitpoints




For the Arbitrator and other drone ships these skills are extra useful, but ANY ship with a dronebay will benefit from these (almost every ship in eve got a dronebay)


Rank 1/Level 5: These to skills to 5 will give you access to Tech 2 drones which deal a lot more damage.

- Scout Drone Operation - Increases drone control range by 5000m per lvl
- Drones - Able to control 1 additional drone per level (max 5)


Rank 2/Level 3: Increases dmg of drones, but not by too much. Good for droneboats

- Combat Drone Operation - 5% increase to light and medium drone damage


Rank 5/Level 2/3: These skills lets you deal a lot more damage with your drones, as well as field Tech 2 variants.

- Drone Interfacting - 20%! increase in drone damage
- [Race] Drone Specialization - to use T2 drones you need these skills, level 1 for Light, level 2 for Medium and so on. (Bonus only applies to T2 drones.)

I'd recommend Gallente and Minmatar specialization early on. The Gallente drones outdamage Amarr drones against EM weak targets, Minmatar drones are good against Angels and other Explosive weak enemies. Caldari drone spec is useful when you come against Kinetic weak enemies, but Minmatar/Gallente drones work fine in most cases.

For when you use a turret based ship as most Amarr ships are, you'll want certain Gunnery skills:


Rank 1/Level 4: Gives you a decent bonus for time invested.
- Gunnery - 2% Increase to turret damage

Rank 2/Level 3/4:
- Weapon Upgrades - 5% decrease in turret/launcher CPU use
- Sharpshooter - 5% Increase to optimal range (lasers have good optimal)
- Rapid Firing - 5% Increase in rate of fire
- Motion Prediction - 5% to turret tracking (can turn quicker to hit fast moving targets)
- Controlled Bursts - 5% reduction in turret capacitor need (useless for projectile turrets)


Rank 4/Level 3: Gives decent bonuses to turrets.
- Surgical Strike - 3% damage increase to all turret types


Rank 5/Level 3: Gives decent bonuses to turrets.
- Trajectory Analysis - 5% to turret falloff (most useful for ships using projectile turrets)

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While training ALL of these skills takes some time when you're new they give some insight to what is useful to have when you've gotten on your feet. Most people tend to rush this game when they first start, trying to get into the biggest and baddest ship they can before they have the skills to fly it as anything other than a coffin.

In addition to the skills I've mentioned comes weapon specific skills like small lasers, medium lasers etc. Missiles have a completely different set of skills than turrets, and work differently as well.


For mission specific reports this website is useful: eve-survival.org/wikka.php?wakka=MissionReports
It's written by players (anyone can contribute), and shows you somewhat what you can expect to face in missions you take on. Some of the information is slightly outdated, but 99.9% of it will help you stay alive.


This might have been a wall of text but I hope that it sorted some things out without confusing or boring you too much.

If you still have any questions feel free to send me a mail in-game or chat with me when I'm online if you want any further help.

I would highly recommend paying attention to what Kosetzu wrote. Having a list of skills laid out like that would have been mighty useful when I started, and prevented me from getting some of the random crap I ended up with(luckily I didn't end up with anything too useless, just spent alot of time missing vital skills)Even today I sometimes see a skill and think "damn, why don't I have that?" Having the right skills for the job is half of what Eve is about, and that list covers the basics that you will want ASAP.

This and Kosetzu's posts are excellent examples of both ends of the posting quality spectrum. The quoted post above is for the trash bin end of the spectrum. Kosetzu's is what you should read and follow.

The Arbitrator is not a half-assed Vexor. All you will be using in level 2 missions is light scout drones and maybe the medium scout drones if an npc cruiser appears. Both ships have 4 low slots for tank. Actually the extra mid of the Arbitrator can be used to help cap regen and keep your repper on. Alternately the 4 mids allow you to shield tank against kinetic and explo damage dealing rats. Granted the Vexor has more weapon hardpoints in the highs, but in some missions you won't be using high slots because you won't have time to target and shoot the rats before your drones kill them (if you put drones on aggressive and watch for respwns that might kill your drones).

Arbitrator is the only good Amarr tech I cruiser for pve at this time. When the upcoming balancing patches hit this situation may change, one can only hope. Train cruiser 3 or 4, drones 5, combat drone and drone interfacing to 3 or 4 each and your drones, tech I or tech II, will have a big bite on all the frigs in level 2 missions. The Omen has even been admitted by devs to be a waste, the Auguror is simply there to make Guardians and the Maller has a tank and that's it.

Arbitrator is OK if you have decent drone skills, which a new player probably won't. Amarr cruisers are not great for someone with low skills, I never did try the faction cruisers to be honest. I would suggest you go for a harbinger. Just make sure you have a web fitted as you going to have problems with the frigs when they get past your guns.

OH, and why on earth would you want to cross train to Gallente?? If anything.. cross train Caldari and get into a NM