PvP Alt

Zeon

The secret is to look at your system's shortcomings as features.

Arador

The biggest tip I can give you is do not worry if you keep losing. When I came back I lit up deathsight (left side) but eventually you start learning and you start getting kills. And never be afraid to spar someone way out of your league. You learn cool things like that.

Spar lots of people from your own class and keep logs of everything. Html logs if you can.

Vasool

Ditto @Arador.

My philosophy is start small, try one thing at a time. Try it a lot of times. Really get to understand why it does or doesn't work. Once you get past that, try to add something else to it. One of the biggest misconceptions people have is that they should have all trans'd skills at once. The problem with that is if you're given the whole lot at once, you never really get to take the time to appreciate each individual skill and learn how it can be used in a combat situation.

Synbios

Also, most experienced combatants are nice people when you spar or duel them. 'Course, you'll also need to be polite to them if you win/lose if you hope to learn from them. "That was a nice spar. Would love to go for a rematch next time. By the way, mind if you tell me what I messed up in my offense/defense?" was a useful line that I would use after sparring with our combatants here.

Tvistor

Yeah, Vasool makes a good point. Transing everything so slowly made me appreciate the hell out of every ability I got. You really pick up the nuances.

Not to say I'm particularly dangerous because there are no assault rifles in Achaea. I just know exactly why I'm not dangerous.

Iocun

I sometimes wish I had gone that way. I'm sure I'd understand my abilities much more intricately then than I do now. I was tritransed (actually, close to omnitransed) long before I started out in combat, which allowed me to do everything right from the start, but it came with its own set of disadvantages, such as being a bit overwhelmed and not knowing where to start, as well as being a lousy fighter with a huge might which made the frequent losses to 18 year old novices even more embarrassing :P

Tvistor

The person who taught me turned out to be fairly clueless though, despite what my initial (newbie) impressions were. I suffered a lot in the long run because of it. That was back in the SL where there are really no active combatants (not that the Naga are any different right now) save for Soujirou.

I really, really, really appreciate doublestab and hypnosis after all that time waiting for trans though. Garao is also an awesome person to bounce ideas off of. Much like a wise sage on a mountain, if sages on mountains had access to computers.

Iocun

Tvistor said:

Much like a wise sage on a mountain, if sages on mountains had access to computers.

They do!

Cahin

Which judging by Garao's pc specs, he might as well not have access to a computer.

Garao

Don't diss the eMachine

Tvistor

He's so good at text-combat because he isn't allowed to even try graphical combat.

Jonathin

My two-cents for the OP:

This is what I consider the most basic necessities for combat at this point.

Class skills trans. Trans survival, avoidance, weaponry, riding, fitness, philosophy.

Have: Shield of Absorbtion (probably the single best artie in the game (also, depending on class, you may not actually NEED it)), at least 1 artefact pipe for elm, decent warhammer or high damage/speed flail. Also have at least 3 of every vial, a set of resistance rings, firelash and icewall enchantments (unless you can make stonewalls).

Spend: a lot of time in the arena, dueling, asking questions, looking at your logs, looking at other people's logs. 

Do: Highlight everything important, affliction lines, cure lines, etc. At least alias your offence. Learn to manual before buying a system (I'd point to someone specific, but I don't know if she wants me mentioning her name).

Others may disagree on most of this, but again this is just my opinion on the bare minimum if you want to be top tier.

Mishgul

the age of tiered combatants is pretty much dead. I would say that most people have an equal chance of killing each other with a decent ssytem, and a lot of it will come down to rock paper scissors of class matchups, with artefacts being the most defining difference.

Rakon

Mishgul said:

the age of tiered combatants is pretty much dead. I would say that most people have an equal chance of killing each other with a decent ssytem, and a lot of it will come down to rock paper scissors of class matchups, with artefacts being the most defining difference.

Sad, but true.

Jonathin

Fair enough.

Garao

I wouldn't say an equal chance of killing each other. But damage/artefacts are definitely the overwhelmingly defining factor. So easy to just die to straight damage if you're not somewhat artied with a pretty high level

Iocun

Being easily killed by straight damage from extremely artied people is by no means a new thing though.

Garao

Not that the person doing the damage is extremely artied. I'm just saying it's very difficult now to even begin to tank unless you have extremely good tanking capabilities in the first place. 

Ellodin

lol

Garao

There is a button for that you fool

Mizik

Just get your main shrubbed and roll into Achaea as the most widely ridiculed class after stun axe nerf. Double kills will garner all the respect you need, then all that will be left to worry about is what color dragon to be.

I recommend gold.

Sylvance

Eh?

Mizik said:

Just get your main shrubbed and roll into Achaea as the most widely ridiculed class after stun axe nerf. Double kills will garner all the respect you need, then all that will be left to worry about is what color dragon to be.

I recommend gold.

Vaehl

It's the legend of Mizik.

Mannimar

If you go Occultist, join their House. Almost every rogue Occultist I've talked combat with is artied to the teeth and can't fight without them. The only exception I know of is Drave, and he's so broke right now he can't trans his Monk skills.

Vaehl

Well, Occultist is one of the worst 1v1 classes, especially if your opponent is too tanky to damage.

Edit: If you disagree, prove me wrong.

Iocun

Every class is one of the worst 1v1 classes.

Mishgul

You need arties to do well as Occultist against a decent system, it's an artie dependant class these days (in one v one, it will always be an amazing raid class). Anyone who thinks otherwise is kidding themselves

Zeon

Great raid, utility, and assassination. Poor 1v1. Its been years since occie was really viable in 1v1 without relying on arties and being outdoors. Which is fine, every class needs its strengths and weaknesses.

Maht

I hate to be a thread hijacker, but is anyone able to give some words on some of these classes (particularly Apostate/Shaman) in the current state of the game? The only other threads like this are months/years old on the old forums, and I hate to bother people in game to ask things like their opinion on class choice which feels like an OOC concept. Assuming Tri-Trans/Avoidance/Weaponry/Survival available, but nothing else. I'm not sure what I expect from asking this on page 2 of a thread in the general forum but it seems applicable.

Apostate seems really appealing due to seemingly having "a little bit of everything" from raid utility (beckon/soulspears/gravehands), general utility (blackwind is the coolest skill in the game, soulcage, siphon), seemingly good 1v1 (my limited experience), and good in small groups/assassination type stuff too. However there appear to be practically no Apostate combatants outside of Carmain's limited showing and maybe some others that I haven't seen. I suppose this is largely due to Mhaldor's current state rather than the state of the class. Infernal seems to have similar potential to the Apostate in it's overall blend of cool skills and utility, but I'm not sure I want to deal with buying good weapons. Did I mention how awesome blackwind is?

Shaman seems incredible in 1v1, however flimsy their defense. I've read all the archived Combat Logs threads and seen all the mono-trans Shamans (don't want to alt speculate!) take down the big guys. I don't know what to say other than Shamans look badass albeit not nearly as much utility as comparable classes. Tzantza is awesome, Runelore is boring, Vodun is interesting and seems to allow for some cool stuff. I also don't see any Shamans anymore. However unlike Apostate, I mean that I have literally seen 0 Shamans which is off-putting. Jester seems similar in that I feel that no matter how effective/ineffective the class is, it will still be fun to learn with and play.

I'm leaning towards Apostate, but I feel like I'm missing something.  This is a really loaded post, but any help is welcome.

Also:
What happened to Bards? I remember Zeon being a real threat, and Darby was at least on deathsight a lot (in his favor).

Mishgul

Bard is an odd class and as far as I can tell, it can be decent, but not 'great' and to get to that level is quite droll and dependant on a lot of other factors. In raids, harmonics are the worst things to have to deal with in close range/melee combat.

Shaman is fun.

Apostate is a funny class. It is relatively easy to get to mid-high tier but gets boring fast if you just using the same tactic (that works against literally every non dragon and is only really stopped by people leaving the room) over and over. However the way evileye works opens up so many other ways to kill people that require a fair bit of patience but gives you the best nerdgasms ever.

Apostate is a support class in big raids, never expect to get any kills but expect to lose  a lot of experience because you can make a big difference and people will be afeared of your shadowstrike/deadeyes/cathing abilities. In small raids Apostate is a monster because of potential of those things.

Infernal sucks balls, unless you have the patience of Tirac to set someone up for 90 minutes to vivisect them