RvB is Awesome

A while back, I bought a character that had perfect fitting, gunnery support, armor, and shield skills with the intention of training her to be an excellent Minmatar character for either NPC-null or pirate small gang fighting.  While I’m training her up, I realize I’ll need to build a PvP record of her own – and not try to trade on Talvorian’s record – so I started looking for ways to boost my PvP experience.

I started thinking about faction warfare, but my brief experience of it a few months ago taught me it was actually a PvE enterprise hidden in PvP trappings.  I wasn’t looking to chase button-orbiters around four or five low-sec regions.

And then I remembered RvB.

A forever war in which your enemies are all two jumps away and eager to engage in fun, meaningless PvP?  What’s not to love?  The only real downside is the dearth of T2 ships.  I was flying a Jaguar and was considered “shiney”, which is quite a difference from null-sec roams, in which I wouldn’t dream of flying a T1 frigate or cruiser, particularly solo.  But T1’s back in a big way, and RvB is turning out to be an excellent way of learning all about these rebalanced ships.

So far, I’ve joined one fleet, killed about 450 mil worth of ships in exchange for my 35 mil Jaguar, and am having a splendid time.  It’s everything I wished faction warfare would be… constant PvP for the sake of PvP.

But it also provides another benefit that I recommend for nearly any player… even though the ships you’re fighting and losing are cheap, they are kills and losses.  The more engagements you’re involved with, the calmer you’ll be during a fight, and in that sense, RvB is perfect practice for other forms of PvP.  I highly recommend that it be the first stop for nearly any player.  You can learn not only PvP basics, but also to control that flutter in your heart when you engage another player.  And it’s better to learn to do that with a 10 mil ship rather than a 400 mil ship down the line.

I’m actually a little embarrassed that I’m only now giving it a shot.  It’s delightful mayhem.  As a veteran null PvPer, I heartily approve.

Oh, dear… I just realized I’ll now show up as yet another “high-sec character” on CCP’s stats… what have I done?