- I finally got it through my head that armor works differently in PvP compared to PvE. If I hit somebody who has a higher armor stat than my damage stat, I might hit successfully, but each hit is going to do only 1 damage... and I will eventually lose that battle.
- A setup with high attack and high defense seems to work the best both for attacking and defending.
- Damage is only important as far as having enough to get past the defender's armor/hp. Past that, damage is not important.
- When defending, you want the attacker to miss. every. time. Therefore, your defense can't be too high.
- To get a high defense, you need the proper gear AND the proper buffs. Just half of the equation is not good enough.
- The best buffs I've found for defending are Deflect, Shield Wall, Nightmare Visage, and Barricade. You'll also need Dispel Curse, Sealed, Demoralize, Empower, Keen Edge (boosts NV), Force Shield, and Flinch. Since I was wearing a weapon with high attack and defense stats, EW1000 also helped a good deal.
- If you're set up well, chances are decent that the attacker will miss the first hit. In that situation, you want enough attack to be able to hit them back successfully. Again, Keen Edge is your friend.
- Any buff that says something about base attack, base defense, base armor, and/or base damage is worthless for me because my base stats (Attributes) are next to nothing. The possible exception to this is maybe using a Potion of Fury that has a Berserk high enough to actually work with my 1,993 base damage points. Now that I know this, I'm seriously considering paying for a skills reset because I have a lot of skill points assigned to ineffective buffs.
- When attacking, you still want a high defense because it's rare to finish the fight in the first hit.
- The best buffs I've found for attacking (besides Shield Wall, Sealed, Demoralize, Empower, Keen Edge, Flinch, and Enchant Weapon) are Anti-Deflect, Anti-Deflect, and Anti-Deflect. Also incredibly useful are, Dark Curse, Dark Curse, and Dark Curse.
- You're going to attack the same players more than once, so Spell Leech and Spell Breaker aren't bad ideas.
- Keep in mind that buffs that say x% chance of blah blah blah are not guaranteed.
- Make sure the buffs you're using will actually work in PvP. For example, Death Dealer only works against creatures.
- Do NOT use Nightmare Visage or Barricade when attacking. You need that attack (and probably damage too), so don't transfer it to defense.
- I found that it was often a good idea to pay more in the buff market for a buff from a seller who has Extend, 135% Sustain, and a level 10 Mage Tower in comparison to a less expensive buff that isn't going to last as long.
- I wasted a lot of stamina learning the ropes in the beginning. After a while, I listened to what others were saying on the forums and just stopped attacking. I built up stamina and then went on an attacking spree just a couple hours before the end of the season. I chose a time when most people were not only offline, but by that point their defensive buffs had run out too. This guaranteed me a spot in the Crystal League because there wasn't enough time for people to attack me back to drop me to Gold before the end of the season. However, this also means that I didn't spend too much time in the Crystal League making it harder for me to get a Dominance medal.
- If your attack is deflected, you don't lose the 50 stamina. 
- Since each bounty attack costs 50 stamina, make sure that the reward per hit is at least as much as the gold you would get from hitting creatures with 50 stamina... unless you're going for a bounty medal.
- You need all the stamina you can get for attacking during the Season. So don't bounty hunt if you're also participating in the Season.
- Advancing through the Wood League takes 10 successful attacks. The Bronze League takes 20 successful attacks. The Silver League takes 40. Gold takes 60. So if you want to make it into Crystal, you need an absolute minimum of 130 successful attacks. Your attack success ratio depends on gear, buffs, and how much gold you want to spend skipping stronger players. For the purpose of example, let's say you have a 75% win rate. That means if you attack 260 times, you'll lose 65 times. Each loss doesn't just spend the stamina, it also cancels out one win. Not only do you NOT get the win, you also have to win one extra time to get back to where you were. So 65 losses cancels out 65 wins. Out of 260 total attacks, 75% hit rate means you'll get the 130 wins. However, if you have your 130 wins to get into Crystal, just one loss pushes you back to Gold. So plan on creating a buffer of a number of wins so you can't be pushed back easily. Let's say 20 more wins or 40 total attacks. This brings us to a total of 300 attacks. Multiply by 50 stamina each, and that brings us to a lump sum of 15,000 stamina necessary over the course of the season. If you do your attacks all at once at the end of the season, this may be all you need. If you want to go for the Dominance medal and spend some time in the Crystal League from the beginning, you will need to attack more often to account for the additional losses of being attacked by players jockeying for position. In order to stay in Crystal for the whole time, plan on doubling the stamina needed. If you're staying in Crystal, you won't be wearing stam gear because it's undefensible. For example's sake, let's say 90 stam/hr giving us 2,160 per day. 2,160 * 8 = 17,280. So to stay in Crystal the entire time, you better have a full 15k stam bank at the beginning of the season. If you only want to make Crystal at the end, you should be ok with a stam bank of 10,000. This also doesn't take into account any times you buff yourself though.
- Plan on using the buff market a LOT. I dropped about 50fsp to keep myself continuously buffed for defense. Now that I am more informed as to which buffs I need and which ones I don't, I'll be paying substantially less. Also, if you stay in the Wood League until the very end, you'll save a ton.
Edited by TSDaedalus, 06 August 2015 - 17:12.
No swearing please.
try tourneys at your level
