I don't know if my PVP skill has exactly grown by leaps and bounds over the past five or six weeks, but I'm getting more comfortable with it. I've reached a few milestones that I'm pretty proud of, some of which I've wanted to do for a long time but never actually thought would happen.
First up is the resolution of my Minmatar dilemma. I finished training Minmatar Frigate V, T2 small and medium autocannons and T2 small railguns. The T2 medium ACs immediately went to use on my Myrmidon, using a fit that I shamelessly stole from a former corpmate of mine. Since then, I've also flown (and lost) my first Hurricane, and flown (and lost) my first Jaguar. I'm still new enough to flying Minmatar that being able to land DPS on a target from more than 5km away is a novel idea, but I have to admit, I'm definitely seeing why people enjoy Minmatar ships so much. One thing I'm not used to yet is the "run and gun" style of PVP that Minmatar perform so well at - I'm constantly having to remind myself to open range instead of closing it like I'm so accustomed to with Gallente ships. All in all, though, I'm having fun, and definitely looking forward to spending more time in Minmatar ships. I've even, with apologies to both myself and Ka Jolo, considered taking a solo Rifter out for a few solo runs.
That brings me to the second milestone: Soloing. I haven't actually done it yet, but compared to a few weeks ago the prospect seems far less daunting. As I get more experience in PVP I'm finding that my old fears about soloing are diminishing - screwing up and losing my ship (which I can do in fleets), getting podded (which I can do in fleets), leaving comedy killmails or dropping expensive loot (which I can do in fleets - the most annoying thing about losing my Jaguar was seeing the deadspace afterburner drop!), and... well, you get the idea. Put simply, everything that could happen to me soloing could just as easily happen in any other form of PVP, so I really don't have any reason to worry about it, at least beyond anything I'd normally worry about during any other kind of combat.
The third milestone is in the complete opposite direction of soloing, but it's probably the one I've been most excited about. Ever since I started PVPing semi-seriously, I've been taken by the idea of leading gangs - after the first fleet I was ever in, once the adrenaline wore off my first thought was, "I want to learn how to FC." Last night was my first time actually running a gang. It started off as a small corp op, just four of us running around Black Rise looking for some war targets to scrap with. That turned into running for our lives from a 20-man WT fleet, and eventually returning to Tama to bait in an asteroid belt. We picked up a few others along the way (doubling our numbers), and started baiting, only to be set upon by a much larger war target force in both numbers and shiptypes. All in all, it was a very rewarding experience, which I'll write more about in its own post.
I think the reasons for my mindset changing so much are mostly due to two factors. The first is that my attitude toward PVP in general has been shaped by the support of those around me. My fiancée is one of the most influential in that process - there have been many times where we've bounced ideas around about fittings, strategies, etc. I distinctly remember one such conversation where I mentioned an offer of PVP advice from someone whose killboard I admire greatly, and the response was something to the effect of "I'm glad you're excited, but I didn't think you really needed advice". After pondering it for a while, I realized that I know more of the "theory" behind PVP than I first thought - things like mechanics, the strengths and weaknesses of various ships, strategies to use with and against said ships, etc. - and that putting the pieces together was more a matter of getting out and doing it than spending all my time thinking rather than practicing. I've also had the support of a large number of corpmates and fellow Caldari FW pilots, who have helped me out a great deal by not making the distinctions I've been making for myself. While I tend to think of myself as a carebear who's developed a taste for dabbling in PVP, others have treated me like any other PVP pilot in the militia, to the point that I've started to wonder if they're right. (Hey, if I'm the only one who disagrees...)
The other big factor is that I've joined a new corp, one who has a large number of experienced and frequent combat pilots. (Shameless plug: For anyone interested in Caldari FW, I highly recommend my current corp, Wolfsbrigade.) In the three weeks since I've joined W-BR, I've flown more and more varied types of ships than I had in three years of EVE before that, both trained and used a large number of combat skills entirely unrelated to skillpoints, and perhaps most importantly, been in an accessible yet PVP-immersed environment. I've been in other PVP-focused corps before, but this is one of the first times that I've had the majority of the corp both encouraging me to get into fleets beyond periodic "x up" messages in corp chat and supporting my development as a combat pilot rather than being thrown to the wolves (pun not intended).
All of these factors together are starting to get me much more comfortable in the world of PVP. Recently, I've even noticed a shift in my thinking, away from raw survival instinct and toward a more strategic mindset - instead of seeing a WT and thinking "run", I start wondering if I could beat them in a duel. I'm pleased with the change (which is a significant change in itself), and I'm looking forward to seeing where it leads.
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