Hey all, I know one of the most challenging and frustrating aspects of any mmorpg can be PVP. While dungeons have set mechanics on rotations to learn, other players are not so predictable - or are they? I feel that through frequent practicing of pvp will show you how to best play against other classes but also show you how to best utilize your own class against individuals and groups in an open world environment. The easiest way to do this is to start in the closed pvp environment. ArcheAge offers to forms of closed pvp environments starting at lvl 40 - Arena matches and Gladiator fights (lvl 50). Arenas consist of a 5v5 pug (pickup group) in a medium sized map filled with obstacles to use to you and your teams advantage. The rounds are ~16 min long. To win you must either end the match with the most kills or destroy the enemy team's artifact (right outside their spawn). Killing the artifact will immediately end the match and award the winning team with an amount of honor points (more on honor later). There a few more important aspects to Arena that should be taken advantage of. Firstly, as you score more and more points you will see a custom bar enabled with an array of actions bars, some are buffs, some are one time use actions. Thesd are very useful and can make a huge difference in a fight. You will always spawn with the option to apply one of five or so custom buffs such as increased magdef, physdef, movement speed, etc. In addition to point driven buffs, there also a few different mobs around the map that can kill. The Life Slave provides the "refreshment" buff and or health increase for your one life. The Servant of Pain provides a recieved dmg reduction buff. There is a third (i think) in the top brdge area that I'm not entirely familiar with. These guys are useful for early game and always when teams are regrouping before starting a fight again. Just quickly dps them down and initiate the buff. Note: be careful when starting a team fight near one of them. AoEs will aggro them and can make them a nuisance if you have them shooting at you while you try to kill the enemy. The obvious benefits of arenas are that is a team activity, it allows for you to utilize a wide array of classes. You will quickly see what does and does not compliment each other. If your whole team is full of cloth wearing casters you may run into issues against a more balanced team. Unfortunately there is currently no system tocreate properly balanced teams prior to entering the arena. However, most ppl overlook the fact that there is a skill manager im your spawn. If you notice your team is weak in an area or gets wiped by a certain enemy build you can quickly respec. The matches are long enough that it wont punish you for doing so. There is also no premade queueing in pplace so you may end up with Haranyans that dont speak your language or just in general poor players. The second closed pvp activity are Gladiator Arena matches. These are very straight forward. It consists of a 1v1 best of 3 match in a very large gladiator arena. There are no obstacles unlike Arena matches. Some ppl complain that this is an issue due to classes being able to kite others easily but thats part of the challenge. You will quickly take note of which classes are strong counters to yours and which classes you excel against. I find 1v1s are the best way to practice your rotation which is essential to being strong in open world pvp. Every move matters. You also get a chance to see and eventually anticipate other classes' rotations and how to counter them. Understand there will be fights that you really cant win at times. If you are a plate wearing melee class against a good mage dps or archer you may get kited or melted. It helps you to know which classes counter you well so you can apply that to open world. Matches are usually quite quick so that is nice as well. So what are the benefits of doing these closed pvp activities? To many they may be frustrating or boring depending on your play style but over time I've grown to love them. I used to be unable go kill jackshit in 1v1s until I practiced and now can go on 10 match winning streaks depending on who I am up against. But besides becoming better prepared for open world pvp, there are also tangible rewards in the form of honor points, titles, and dailies. Winning awards honor points which can be spent on a variety of items at the Honor Point Collectors located throughout the map. I highly highly recommend saving up 3,000-4,000 honor points for the top tier lunafrost that applies to your weapon primary. These are imo currently BiS and can also be sold for a lot of gold on AH. There are also very good lunafrosts for chest, legs, hands and headpieces. Additionally there are lunagems which have unique stats solely used in pvp suc as focus, toughness, and resilience. These are pretty cheap and very nice to add to certain weapons and armor pieces (note they will not affect pve mobs). There are plenty of other cool things you can get with honor suchas XP pots that give either 10k or 200k xp instantly (very nice to progressing to ArcheMaster) purchaseable titles and a lot more. For dailies, there is a Gladiator Daily for 1 gilda + honor points for killing 3 ppl in the 1v1s (very easy). For Arenas, there is a Rite of the Gladiator quest line where you complete a series of quests that are completed just from your team getting kills. Every three or four of these quests gives a title starting with Arena spark and then Arena Flame, Arena Torch, and Arena Wildfire. These titles give extra honor points after matches and also boost your hp. To queue for these either go to Marianople or Seachild Whard in Cinderstone Moor. On a side note, Fried, Pickle, and I found that if we queue'd simultaneously we often ended up on the same team for Arenas. These is a huge added bonus it allows to practice good communication. If you want to run arenas just please say so. I love doing them throughout the day and would be more than happy to join with other guildmates. The effects of this pvp really has paid off in open world for me and I think could be of a lot of benefit to others, especially with Auroria 3 days away. Hope this guide was helpful. I typed from my phone so I will format it later for readability. GLHF.
I wish they would make more group PVP maps. Add something with 10v10 perhaps, may be CTF or Conquest. 5v5 becomes a lot of fun once you start killing things and go for a game or two without getting killed. The buffs you get for staying alive are really nice too. I finally got to the point where I am that guy, the one who picks up the slack KD wise for rest of the team. I lost count to how many game we have won because I would have KD of 5 or higher. I wish I had better gear tho Watching people go BOOM when I get my rotation in is very satisfying, as well as turning around and killing the guy who just popped out of stealth and knocked you down on the ground.
