Have You Got What It Takes?

Have You Got What it Takes?

"What skills do I need for wormholes?" is a question that gets asked all the time on the forums.  It was asked again a couple days ago and I decided to think about it and write up my personal recommendations.
The skills you need do vary based on what class of wormhole you live in and what kind of PVE and PVP activities you partake in so I'll split them up between PVP and PVE and try to cover the class ranges.
These skill recommendations are for general wormhole living and are designed to allow you to participate in as many activities that wormholes have to offer as possible.


Ok, let's get the very basics out of the way first. 
You need probing skills.  They are the very first thing you need to train if you want to play in w-space and the absolute minimum probing skills you need before venturing into a wormhole are Astrometrics 4 and all the support skills to 3.  You should also get the support skills to 4 very early into your wormhole career.
Scanning ship wise, you need a covert ops.  No, a tech 1 scanner does not cut it.  There is one allowable exception and that is if you're in your very first wormhole, you have been there for less than 2 weeks and you are actively training covert ops pre requ skills.
You should have your covops skill to 4 and need cloaking 4 so that you can use a covops cloak.

Given that there is very little you can do in w-space that does not involve shooting something, you will also need to have some sort of combat ship capability.  As a basic start point for low class w-space you should be able to T2 fit a battlecruiser with T1 guns for PVE and be able to fly a T2 fit cruiser with T1 guns for PVP. These are really the bare minimum ships that will let you participate in WH combat.

There is also non-combat PVE in wormholes which consists of mining, gas harvesting and PI.
Of these I would highly recommend you stay away from mining as it isn’t profitable and you will die.  A lot.
The PI in wormholes is the best anywhere, regardless of WH class, so it is recommended that you train up some skills for it as it is free income.  (That said, I have zero PI skills and don't do it at all, but each to their own). 
Gas harvesting can be very profitable and training gas cloud harvesting to 5 is a very good investment if you live in a wormhole, along with venture skills.

You will also need to train salvaging to at least 3, preferably 4, so that you can get those tasty tasty nanoribbons and Noctis skills to go with.
Likewise with hacking and archaeology.


Now that the basics are out of the way, let’s break it down by WH class.

Class 1 and 2.
The above bare basics will do here.  A battlecruiser can easily run all the combat sites here and this is as 'entry level' as WH PVP gets.
Note that you will still run into a lot of groups with fancy ships but a cruiser will get you started.

Class 3.
The basics will do here too but you will not be able to run the combat sites by yourself in a battlecruiser so some people in your corp will need to have remote repair skills trained to run sites in small groups.
You may want to train battleship skills here as the sleepers start to get bigger but a BC still works.
If you do want to solo the sites you can do so but you will need to skill up and invest in a T3 cruiser, command ship or T2/Faction battleship.
PVP here is much the same as C1-2s.

Class 4.
Here you start getting into higher class WH interactions more and how you operate will depend a lot on your static.  Basically, the skills you need will depend a lot more on what your static is than on the fact that you live in a C4, specifically what ships you will need for PVE.
The sites are no longer soloable and how you run them will depend on your corp.  Generally it will involve remote rep Tengus or Domis, or logi supported battleships.
At C4 level, you should really have T2 weapon skills and BS skills.  You should also be able to fly T2 cruisers, specifically HACs and at least one of recons or logistics, if not both.

Class 5 and 6.
Here is where the heavy weights of w-space play and if you live here they will expect you to be able to interact with them at least a bit so you should have a decent skill set to play with.
While you do not need to bring it to every fight, you should have access to and skills for a well fit PVP tech 3 cruiser in C5/6 space.  You should also seriously consider training logistics (specifically the Guardian) if you have not already as Guardians are a vital part to the vast majority of PVP fleets here.
At this level you should also at least consider training capital skills as PVE is run almost exclusively with dreads and carriers.  If you find yourself attacked, you will also need those capitals to defend yourself.  If you don't want to train caps, Loki or Rapier skills are highly recommended as they are used for webbing in PVE.
If your corp does not use dreads for PVE, you will need a T2 fit, including guns, battleship.


Notes for specific skills and ships.

Logistics.
If you train this skill at all, and you should, you really should take it straight to level 5.  This rule applies everywhere but in wormholes, where you often need to squeeze the absolute most out of your limited resources to come out on top, it is especially important.

Tactical Weapon Reconfiguration.
Train this to 5.  Personally I wouldn’t get in a dreadnaught without T2 siege.

Command Ships.
These are very good WH PVP ships and are recommended if you can fly them.  It is also highly recommended at least a couple people in your corp can fly them and fit links as they make a huge difference for PVP and you will need them for PVE.

Salvaging.
You need this to 5 to access the advanced sleeper wrecks but you can get around this by rigging your salvaging ship, which you always do anyway.

Orca.
An orca is very useful to have in all WH classes apart from C1s.  It's obviously not a skill everyone will train but your corp will need access to a few orca pilots for collapsing and hauling.

Carriers.
Not all ships are created equal and for carriers this is especially true.  If you're training a carrier, make it an Archon.  It is vastly superior to all other carriers in every way.  The obvious exception is if you live in a pulsar, in which case train a Chimera.

Dreadnaughts.
Here you do have some choices, just stay away from the Phoenix as it is just bad.  All other dreads are fine to train, though the Moros stands out as top dog in the dread world.


This more or less covers everything you'll need to know about skills for wormholes.
Additionally, most WH corps will have some sort of fleet doctrines, joining pre requisites or recommended skills they will want you to train which will depend of the corp.

As a final note, the nature of WH space is that quality matters.  Numbers still play a large part but a highly specialized pilot in the right ship can often turn the tide in a fight.  I highly recommend that you find a useful ship that you enjoy flying and skill to fly it at near 100% efficiency and get practice doing so.
This goes double for key role pilots such as Guardian, Ewar or capital pilots.