Curse

purebad · Feb 23, 2006, 03:26 AM // 03:26

I have had the game for many months, and have only been PvE, but now I would like to try out some PvP....but I have no clue where to start. How would you suggest easing into it? I have an open character slot to begin a whole new PvP character. I just feel like I would have no clue what to do if I went into an arena. Trying reduce the embarassment as much as possible :-D

thx for any tips

Sinborn · Feb 23, 2006, 05:42 AM // 05:42

1. Bring a form of res, most skirmishes come in two phases; pre-res and res-mid/endskirmish. You cripple your team significantly if you cannot contribute to the second portion with a resurrect.

2. PvP in any scenario is a game where a visible disadvantage is exploited. Ensure that you are equipped with Droks in all places if you are coming from RP-characters. Also, if you are non-20 character, unless you're one of those terribly tricky balance builds, you'll experience a lot less love from both sides of the PvP field.

3. Don't be discouraged by angry teamies. PvP players spit bile when they lose and look to bite the hand that aids. Even if its true, rarely do you hear any constructive criticism. Quash all forms of feedback that are not beneficial to the team's morale or tactics.

4. If you are a monk, expect to be the primary target. You are the prize cut of meat on the team and should be expunged as quickly as possible according to logical killing order. Good PvP monks acknowledge that, in most cases, will be attacked by 3-4 other units in 4v4.

5. Like in PvE, spamming RES RES RES RES will only give you a Malinon's Malign to the face. The team knows you are dead, your life bar is an ugly, ruddy brownish-red, congratulations. (Twinkiemonk 3.)

6. There are a lot of random-PvP constants roaming around. Me/Ws usually are always packing Illusionary Weaponry. Mo/Ns are probably going to be OoB healers. R/Mes taste like interrupt. W/Es tend to pack gale while W/Ns are more inclined to carry plague touch. Although you cannot adjust your build upon discovery, its important to know who-might-do-what. Sending a phantom-pain/shatter dellusions towards a W/N might not be as effective as it would be tossing it on someone who doesn't have independant condition removal.

7. Practice is a given. The more you participate in PvP, the more you'll come to understand the machinations of messing with other humans.

8. Invinicibuilds do not work 'that' well in PvP, unfortunately.

9. Be relatively self-sufficient in 4v4. You will not always get the joy of carrying a monk in your party, so come with some form of self-healing. Even with a monk, its nice to alleviate stress on your healer's part by having a few bandaids.

10. If nobody takes the responsibility of calling a target, do it yourself.

11. Human players are like idiotic henchies in random arena, hands down. They might be better equipped and have practical minds, but the level of communication that occurs is minimal. If at all possible, give some insight to how your build might work before you're let out into the arena, especially if you are playing a non-standard build.

Although there's plenty more to talk about, I'm not sure if I have anything to substantiate them +_+. Regardless, just dive in and find your niche, its not terribly foreign to a PvE player. You still click a mouse, right? ^ ^.

Clusmas · Feb 23, 2006, 06:01 AM // 06:01

In terms of actually knowing where to go, you'll want to try the random (competition) arena first. You should probably stay here until you're comfortable working out a nice set of skills for your character(s). You don't want to spend too much time here though, because:

Team Arenas (4v4) is the best place to learn the basics of pvp. Get three other guildies (or 1 and 2 randoms or whatever) and draw up a team build you think will be successful. Use voice communication as this is a priceless skill.

After you've got some consecutive wins under your belt and some confidence you can tackle the harder 8v8 games which are GvG and Hero's Ascent.

HOWEVER don't expect it to be easy. There are many experienced players/teams in all the arenas who will eat you alive. This is normal. Stick at it, there's only one way to get better, and that's playing.

Makkert · Feb 23, 2006, 10:43 AM // 10:43

read. read a lot to understand what is going on.
When you lose, try to understand why. It won't be always clear, but from analysing your losses you can think of what you could have done instead.

Clamatius · Feb 23, 2006, 07:56 PM // 19:56

Create your PvP character of choice. Go to the Nameless Isle (PvP characters start there, it's next to the Temple of Balthazar). Talk to every Master that you can and actually read what they say. Talk to the Master of Paths to do the training missions. Try your luck against the Zaichen Challenge.

You aren't actually playing against real people at this point but it should teach you the basics of PvP. As a bonus, you'll get Faction for winning in the Zaichen areas (note that faction rewards in the Zaichen areas maxes at 1000/day).

Once you're feeling comfortable, hit the Competitive Arena.

Siliconwafer · Feb 24, 2006, 06:49 AM // 06:49

Don't be discouraged if you get shouted at. PvP is a steep learning curve, and will probably get you abused at least once. However, if you put in enough time and effort, it really does pay off when you get to use your skills regularly, with confidence, and with friends.

Thom · Feb 24, 2006, 08:49 PM // 20:49

Random areanas are for build familiarity more than anything else. Use PvE and Randoms to try to get an idea of how your skills work and together. If you see a successful random areana build, try running it but realize that it will be useless in most other PvP settings.

Once you are basically comfortable with running a variety of things go to team arenas and listen to what people are calling for. This may sound stupid, but go build cookie cutter things practice a bit and play TA. If you have 3 available guildies, get the to TA with you. As stated above, always try to get a group using voice communication.

From there, learn the GvG builds your guild uses or try your luck in Hero's accent. HA is merciless and my best suggestion is again to learn a cookie cutter build and run it well. The flavor of the month will get you R3 fastest without a guild.

I may get flamed for suggesting copy-catting and FoM usage, but I am of the belief that creativity is overrated in new players. I've been experimenting forever and half of my "good ideas" don't work and the other half need substancial refinement. We all have or quirks when it comes to certain adjustments we like, but normally the majority opinion comes with some intellegence.

Baggers · Feb 25, 2006, 02:55 AM // 02:55

Quote:

Originally Posted by Makkert

read. read a lot to understand what is going on.
When you lose, try to understand why. It won't be always clear, but from analysing your losses you can think of what you could have done instead.

True. But adjusting to your last opponents might not help against the next.

Playing 5-10 matches in RA, then stopping and thinking about a general build you could take to counter any style of group you face.

Arturo02 · Feb 25, 2006, 05:15 AM // 05:15

Believe you can win and do not ever lose this mindset. You won't win every time with it, but you will lose a ton less. Don't be arrogant though, cause no matter how good you are, there is always someone else who is better then you.

Stay positive, you will get better. Everyone sucks at pvp at the beginning. If you start getting frustrated, take a break or go do something non-pvp.

Try to recognize dumb mistakes you keep repeating. It's ok to make a mistake, it kills the team, hehe no pun intended, when you repeat them.

Try not to beat yourself. Don't be a Mike Vanderjagt hehe.

Throw everything out the window as far as skills and pve. Many things won't work in pvp like they do in a mission. Take your pve skilbar, strip it, then think human who doesn't die as easily or stand in place.

Watch matches in observer mode. Watch what the teams are running for skills and try and figure out on your own what they are doing and why.

you all forgot a very very important one too...

always give a 'gg', win or lose.

P.S. on a side note, zaishan elite challenge arena does not have a 1k faction cap.

wheel · Feb 25, 2006, 09:57 AM // 09:57

IIRC, the faction cap is 1k per day.

Arturo02 · Feb 26, 2006, 04:08 AM // 04:08

Quote:

Originally Posted by wheel

IIRC, the faction cap is 1k per day.

IIRC, Zaishan elite outpost does not have a 1k faction cap. The challenge area does, but the elite one does not.

Entropius · Feb 26, 2006, 08:43 AM // 08:43

So how is PvP strategy and game-flow different than in PvE?

1. The biggest difference is that, outside of GvG, you will be in combat constantly. There are no breaks between engagements to regain energy. A PvP character has to be able to fight for minutes on end without losing much effectiveness. Thus, energy-gain abilities are very useful. As an example, the most common elite skill among Monks is Offering of Blood; among Elementalists, it is Elemental Attunement and Ether Prodigy.

2. The opposition is smarter and more varied. Monsters in PvE, for instance, don't mix skills between classes; PvP players will come up with all sorts of nasty combinations for you to deal with. There's not as much raw firepower, but it comes in a form that's much more difficult to handle. It's the difference between a boxing match and a duel -- when the rapiers come out, there's less room for error.

3. Your opponents will throw everything in the game at you. There's no way you can be prepared to handle all of this, so don't try. Instead, figure out what you want to do, and if there's room, add skills to protect your ability to do it.

4. Your opponents will interfere with what you're doing more than PvE mobs. In PvP expect to get spells interrupted, enchantments stripped, hexes stopping you from attacking or casting, your energy drained, and yourself crippled, blinded, and annoyed by anything out there that's capable of annoying you. Sometimes you *will* get shut down, and there's nothing you can do about it; that's why it's a team engagement.

5. "Tanks" are useless. A character who invests an inordinate amount of resources into being difficult to kill will just be ignored and killed last. You want your character to be a threat. This doesn't mean defensive skills are worthless, especially on otherwise-soft targets; Distortion and Armor of Earth are very good, just to name two, because they allow characters who would otherwise have to run from warriors to stand their ground.

6. In Random Arenas sometimes you will have a healer, sometimes you won't. Thus the use of self-heals (Healing Signet, Ether Feast, never Mending) on an otherwise offensive character is more common in Arenas than anywhere else.

7. Everyone who is not a healer should have a Res Signet. The only exception is Me/Mo's, who often use fast cast Resurrect, Restore Life, or Rebirth instead.

Some common builds to look out for:

W/E's typically have Gale, which they use to stop people from running from them or as a general-purpose interrupt. It's nasty.

Mo/N's, as mentioned before, typically have Offering of Blood. These guys are generally the best healers you'll see in Arenas. Many use Divine Boon along with protection spells. These "boon prots" are very common and effective.

Mo/W's using Gladiator's Defense and Bonetti's defense are dumb. Just kill the rest of the team; they'll run out of energy.

E/*'s using Elemental Attunement are very vulnerable to getting their attunements removed. Do so, if you can.

Me/W's using Illusionary Weaponry aren't that dangeorus. Remove their Illusionary Weaponry, or just run away.

R/whatever's in Arenas like to spam interrupt shot skills. Yes, they're annoying.

W/Mo's with Mending don't do much damage; ignore them and kill someone else.

Blood necros are common in Arenas. If you can kill them quickly, do so, but often it's better to attack a different target because of their life-leech.

suiraCLAW · Feb 26, 2006, 09:21 AM // 09:21

If you start in PvP the worst thing that you can do is keep changing builds. Experience is somewhat the key in all PvP matches. Know how to react on all of those nasty things that can happen in pvp, know what's your job in a team and what people expect of you.

The problem is: if you keep changing builds to find a "Uber build", you'll be screwed because an uber build simply doesn't exist. People become a good PvP'er because they know what to do and when they need to do that.

succes PvP= 10% build and 90% experience

This was a fault I made, I don't want that other people make it.

Ruined · Feb 27, 2006, 05:50 AM // 05:50

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arturo02

Believe you can win and do not ever lose this mindset. You won't win every time with it, but you will lose a ton less. Don't be arrogant though, cause no matter how good you are, there is always someone else who is better then you.

Stay positive, you will get better. Everyone sucks at pvp at the beginning. If you start getting frustrated, take a break or go do something non-pvp.

Try to recognize dumb mistakes you keep repeating. It's ok to make a mistake, it kills the team, hehe no pun intended, when you repeat them.

Try not to beat yourself. Don't be a Mike Vanderjagt hehe.

Throw everything out the window as far as skills and pve. Many things won't work in pvp like they do in a mission. Take your pve skilbar, strip it, then think human who doesn't die as easily or stand in place.

Watch matches in observer mode. Watch what the teams are running for skills and try and figure out on your own what they are doing and why.

you all forgot a very very important one too...

always give a 'gg', win or lose.

P.S. on a side note, zaishan elite challenge arena does not have a 1k faction cap.

No offense but we arent 6 year olds...dont mean to flame ya but i dont think this will help someone trying to learn how to be good at pvp.

Quote:

Originally Posted by suira CLAW

If you start in PvP the worst thing that you can do is keep changing builds. Experience is somewhat the key in all PvP matches. Know how to react on all of those nasty things that can happen in pvp, know what's your job in a team and what people expect of you.

The problem is: if you keep changing builds to find a "Uber build", you'll be screwed because an uber build simply doesn't exist. People become a good PvP'er because they know what to do and when they need to do that.

succes PvP= 10% build and 90% experience

This was a fault I made, I don't want that other people make it.

Dont forget the 10% computer lag. And a good pvper knows the builds and skills to use, and how to use them.

Senator Tom · Feb 27, 2006, 06:03 AM // 06:03

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sinborn

1. Bring a form of res, most skirmishes come in two phases; pre-res and res-mid/endskirmish.

wtf im so confused

skirmish?

my advice to the op, watch observer mode. you can learn lots about gvg/hoh by watching observer mode. you can see common single person builds, and common team builds.

you will come to know and hate iway...dont get into pvp by doing iway, theres no turning back.

Quote:

Originally Posted by suiraCLAW

succes PvP= 10% build and 90% experience

ehhh 60% exp, 40% build.
you cant win with a mo/n aoe smites and a hammer no matter how experienced you are

navymrgoodbar · Mar 01, 2006, 08:32 AM // 08:32

Random Arena, Random Arena, RANDOM ARENA!

I've learned everything there is to know about PvP from Random (formally Competition) Arena and am now 1337. Not from reading other posts (I haven't been in here in months), but by testing builds and skills that work.

One thing I'll tell you that will make you that much better:
When heading into Random Arena, unless you have a reason to use an enchantment (i.e. monk or test build) DO NOT bring any enchantments into battle!
Chances are, there's going to be someone with a hex or enchantment break that will ruin your day!
Likewise, it's a good idea to bring something that ruins the enemy's enchantment(s) as well.

Not telling you what to do, just speaking off of personal experience.

Random Arena shows you who the real pros are and the real noobs are (with exception of test builds).

BTW, for future referrence, I'm in the process of making a beginner's PvP guide. If you want any PvP help whatsoever, feel free to ask away.

JR · Mar 01, 2006, 02:14 PM // 14:14

Quote:

Originally Posted by navymrgoodbar

Random Arena, Random Arena, RANDOM ARENA!

I've learned everything there is to know about PvP from Random (formally Competition) Arena and am now 1337. Not from reading other posts (I haven't been in here in months), but by testing builds and skills that work.

One thing I'll tell you that will make you that much better:
When heading into Random Arena, unless you have a reason to use an enchantment (i.e. monk or test build) DO NOT bring any enchantments into battle!
Chances are, there's going to be someone with a hex or enchantment break that will ruin your day!
Likewise, it's a good idea to bring something that ruins the enemy's enchantment(s) as well.

Not telling you what to do, just speaking off of personal experience.

Random Arena shows you who the real pros are and the real noobs are (with exception of test builds).

BTW, for future referrence, I'm in the process of making a beginner's PvP guide. If you want any PvP help whatsoever, feel free to ask away.

Please tell me you are not talking about the same random arena I frequent... The place to go if you want to laugh at some terrible builds and get a few easy matches. I certainly would never consider RA a good place to test builds, let alone it being any measure of skill at all. The level of competition is so catostrophically low that all it's really good for is amusement. Being "good at random arena" is like being good at slamming your head into a desk.

You want to see where PvP really shines? Where actual skill and build quality are portrayed? High level GvG. Very competitive, very skilled. Players who really understand the game.

moriz · Mar 02, 2006, 04:44 PM // 16:44

try starting with something tough and self-suficient, then work your way up to more specialized characters. generally, "spiker" builds are easier to learn (target, shoot/slash/bash/slam it until it's dead) than support builds. random arena is a pretty good place to start. you'll learn to be quick on your feet and be more adaptable. move away from it after you get more confident.

TurinPT · Mar 03, 2006, 04:35 AM // 04:35

hey, Im in the same situation as the original poster, read all the above.. great help, thx guys.
Problem is, RA can get boring... is there anyway to fight in HA without going iway? I cant seem to find a party allowing rank 0...

Sabu113 · Mar 03, 2006, 05:43 AM // 05:43

As a newb; This thread is really useful and thnx for everyone's advice.