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In the fight!
You are attacking!
That’s my boy...sniff sniff, they grow up so fast. There are a few things you should always know about the battle. First is that PvP should not be a “lets see what happens” kind of experience. You should know what your going to do before you engage. Your moves should be as second nature as they are in PVE grinding. Practice your moves! Know your sequence, anticipate what your opponent may do and easily transition to plan B and C. Don’t worry about the ADD. If someone unexpected attacks you …it sucks, it happens. CC em if you got em otherwise keep your focus on your main target. Don’t ever switch targets (except for CC).
Hide, Hide, Hide. H is the default key for hide. You will drain stamina if you move while hiding unless you are a rogue class. But you can remain stationary in hide for as long as you want. The best way NOT to be targeted is not to be a target! This is especially true in group PvP. Healers and casters stay out of sight for the first seconds of combat. The first seconds is where everyone looks to find the healers and "easy pickings' ..if you are either of these, staying stealthed even for a fraction of a second longer may mean you are passed over and thats is a VERY nice place for any caster (or ranger) to be. The best way to succeed is to choose your location and your opponent AND have first SHOT.
If you are fighting then you should be MOVING. This aint checkers! Dance around and move around. Stay still only when you have to. A stationary target is your foes best friend...DON'T BE HIS FRIEND! This is why stamina is so important.
Key Strategy: You can preload combos, hit the combo and then swing at dead air, then go in range for the last hit and then hit the person and the combo will land for full damage
You are attacked.
Oh no! What will I do…who, what, where, why…what about my children! Do I have enough insurance?!?! These are all questions that should NOT be going through your head (curse you Metlife!!)!! This is your time to shine…bear that evil grin…someone just made a mistake!
In AoC players have control over the chance to dodge, parry, active block, and missed attacks yet they are rarely used! This may come from our last 3 years of WoW’s Autoattack PvP..where many fights were players walking up to each other and enjoying stationary autoattacking...then the one with the best equipment wins. AoC is striving for tactics >> class >> equipment. I'm not sure we are there yet. But you should use everything this game gives you to win…nothing is an automatic loss.
When you are attacked hold down ‘x’ to active block. Significantly cuts down the incoming damage, but you can’t attack, cast or move. This costs stamina and that’s being covered by your stam pot. Use this ability while you locate your opponent.
If you are attacked by a melee (Assassin, barbarian, tank), Double tap ’s’ (back) to get a short 5 second buff that increases your evade chances. It costs a small amount of stamina. Casters should sprint out of melee combat and zigzag with quick changes in direction, this requires a percentage of your stamina to use but does affects your melee attacker (whose sprinting to catch up) a LOT more than it does you.
Set your shields! We are all aware of PVE mobs have shields up to diminish the damage coming from melee. Well, so do we! Its defaulted to 1 shield equally on the left, right , and top ..this is exactly what you DON’T want. Obviously you cannot anticipate every move and change your shielding before the next strike. However, you can put up three shields on one spot specifically to take away your melee opponent’s big move. Shields are easily and quickly set by hitting Ctrl-1 (3 shields left), Ctrl-2 (3 shields top) and Ctrl-3 (3 shields right). When you see someone melee-ing you, you want to quickly identify what class and set your shields to STOP their big move.
Dark Templar – Set shields UP (CTRL-2)
Conqueror – Set shields Right (CTRL-3)
Rangers – Set shields Up if bow (CTRL-2), Set shields Right if Crossbow (CTRL-3)
Herald of Xotli – Set shields Up or to Left (CTRL- 1 or 2)
Assassins – Set Shields Up (CTRL-2)
Barbarians – Set shields Up or to Right (CTRL-2 or 3)
Guardians -- Set shields to Right (CTRL-3)
Bear Shamen -- Set Shields Up or to Left (CTRL-1 or 2)
Key Strategy: For me, As I travel about I always have my shields set as 3 up top Ctrl-2 to prevent as must damage from from Assassin’s major stealth attack. Also on average , it just seems a better choice.
If you are attacked out of stealth by a caster (Mage nuking from afar), Double tap ‘a’ or ‘d’ (left or right) to get a short 5 sec immunity buff that increases your resistance. It also costs a small amount of stamina. If you’re a melee (muy machismo) fighter, I like to move in with a double tap ‘w’ (forward) to get a short buff that increases the change of stunning your target. Even if your already face to face with him. Costs a relatively small amount of stamina and stuns can be a difference maker.
PvP Server Insight
Travel in a pack. This one is probably the most obvious. There is strength in numbers, and four people in your group will make that ganker five levels above you think twice before trying to kill you. Make friends and get into a guild. Makes the above suggestion much easier to accomplish.
Hide early and often. While not every class gets Hide at an early level, it is the single easiest way to avoid unwanted confrontation.
Use nearby zone borders to escape. Often upon zoning into a new area you will encounter a battle already underway or someone waiting to try and kill you. If you feel overmatched don't be afraid to zone right back out and run for it. Some might think it cheap, but it's a better chance at survival.
Never stand still. All those stealthers around you don't move very fast when hidden. Don't give them a chance to line up that perfect strike!
Use the environment (trees, vegetation) to hide
If being repeatedly ganked when rezzing, change rez points, if still being ganked at all Rez points, change instances.
If you have stances, always travel in a defensive stance
The Fugitive/Notoriety system
Now entering the ring in the Blue corner and wearing maroon boxers, sponsored by Wonder bread…The Fugitive System. This is a system to stem the rampant griefing that emerged soon after the games release…presented in a set titles defining your fugitive status. A player is flagged in three different ways using this system: innocent, criminal, and murderer.
Everyone is by default classified as “innocent” (and cuddly), but your actions as a player killer will affect your fugitive rating. Performing a hostile action on an Innocent player will flag you as a Criminal for 5 minutes. Any further Criminal acts during the 5 minute time will refresh your Criminal Status. However, attacking (and perchance killing) criminal players will not flag you as criminal and will not cause you to gain murder points.
If you kill someone way under your level, you will notice that you will very quickly move to murderer. So will actions such as killing someone repeatedly, or other general unfairness. The more serious the crime, the quicker you rise in fugitive. In a nutshell, if you kill gray players over and over you get a lot of bad karma points. Criminals and Murderers will have an icon showing their status.
There are several ways to lose some of these Bad mojo points.
You lose 1 point every RL hour
You lose 3 points if your killed and lose PvP XP (see below)
Grinding mobs which yield XP will reduce your murder score at a rate of 1 point per 1% of a level worth of XP (I expect some players are already scoping out a good grind spot)
Being a naughty boy murderer will be quite painful.
Murderers cannot access traders or vendors.
Guard NPCs will attack murderers on sight.
Dying while flagged as a murderer results in an increased loss of PvP XP, increased PvP XP for the person killing you (We in the biz call that ...incentive), increased chance of dropping an item ( We in the biz call that ...incentive)
Any players interacting or grouping with a Criminal or Murderer (that includes grouping with them or trading with them) will be flagged as a Criminal (We in the biz call that ...disincentive).
Any team member performing a criminal act will flag the entire team in the vicinity as a criminal (We in the biz call that .../Boot )
PvP Levels
There are plans to now activate PvP levels. Soon you will be able to gain PvP levels by simply engaging in such activities, and there will be 10 such PvP levels in total. Fighting other players will lead to gaining PvP levels, just like fighting Mobs will lead to gaining of XP levels. All players are worth 100 PvP XP when killed by a similar level player limit and there is a limit on how many times one player can gain PvP XP from someone. However, when you die in PvP, you lose PvP XP (Boooooo). You also gain PVE XP when you PVP kill (about 10% of the XP given by a mob the same level)
Once you have reached the 10th PvP level you will be able to earn special PvP ranks beyond that. These are supposedly hard to acquire, and you will lose ranks if you get defeated so it’s a constant battle to keep you rank up. And you will want to both gain PvP levels and keep your PvP rank up, as this will give you very exclusive benefits…which I have it on good authority they will be giving out exclusive Webkinz! Ok, Ok its actually PvP specific gear out a special vendor which I hate to say…sounds very much like World of Warcraft (Boooooo). PvP gear will come in all shapes and sizes and some will be class and race specific. You buy PVP items with normal money (The all powerful Aquillonian peso!). However, your PvP level will have to meet the requirements (if any) on any items you wish to use. I expect that PvP gear will be some of the most expensive in the game so time to make a lot of money. I also expect players to rush to as high a PvP level as they can, abuy all the pvp gear and then never take it off.
Siege and Battlekeeps!
Expect something about the siege system here soon. However because there are still a lot of issues and its kinda developing as we play the game. No reason for me to write something and then have to change it/ revise it every week. Once things seem stable I'll put something more involved together. Here are the basics which I must give credit to Darkwavve of the Doomsayer server.
Claiming a Vacant BattleKeep Lot
Your guild must have a tier 3 keep. Then your GM simply walks up to the unclaimed plot with the necessary T1 mats and clicks build. You now have a battlekeep. No keep plan is necessary, just the mats. Same for every structure.
Upgrading Battlekeeps
To get your battlekeep itself, and the other buildings to tier 2 and 3, you must wait a certain amount of time after claiming or capturing the keep. Currently it appears the timer is one week. When the timer is up, you are allowed to pay the necessary materials to upgrade your buildings to tier 2, and I assume eventually t3. No plans are necessary when upgrading.
Setting your Battlekeeps Vulnerability
Every three days your battlekeep is vulnerable. At the end of each vulnerability window, assuming you still control the keep, the guild leader may change the slot in which his keep will be vulnerable on the predetermined day. You cannot pick what day of the week, only what time your window starts. You can start your vulnerability at 7, 9 or 11 est
Attacking another guild's Battlekeep
To declare an attack on another guild's keep you open up the pvp tab by zoning into the border kingdom, or typing /setoption massive_pvp_window 1. (type up to massive, then hit tab and it will autocomplete, then type 1 and hit enter). Assuming you own a T3 keep, you then have the option to click on a keep's vulnerability window and declare an attack. You can not declare an attack once the window has started. It costs a guild pvp points to declare an attack.
The Siege Battle
The winner of a siege battle is determined by a point system. The defender starts with points based on the number of buildings, including walls, in their plot. The attacker starts with zero. The attacker gets points for destroying buildings, and for killing defending players (For example: Destroying a wall segment seems to give around 70 points, Killing an enemy player gives 1 point) . When they destroy a building they "steal" points from the defender, kill points are not "conserved". The defender gets kill points as well. The attacker can build siege tents in predetermined plots from which he can spawn siege engines such as trebuchets and catapults.
Walls and buildings are difficult to destroy by hand so use siege engines.To build seige engines you purchase the plans from a seige vendor, which should be located in your PvE city keep. Then simply click on your seige tent and it constructs itself. Trebuchets and catapults can be built by the attacker. Ballista can be built by the defenders by talking to npcs on towers.Walls and buildings have cool partially destroyed and destroyed models that change as they take damage.
At the end of the vulnerability window the side with the most points wins.
Summary
--Always be ready for a fight
--Always use potions in a fight
--Identify the class of your attacker quickly. Know the other classes strengths and weaknesses. Know yours as well
--If you are being melee'd, always set your shields to limit their burst damage
--PvP is better with friends. Groups are the best way to PvP success
--Don't Gank gray con players.
--Be Fearless. Nothing is won by the timid. Being fearful in PvP leads to your death from behind
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