Please post your PvP strategies, stories, and tips/thoughts here!

krishnaya

I'm going to list my PvP strategies and hope other people can add or critique with the aim of us all becoming the best PvPers we can.

Skip this paragraph and go straight to the strategy part if you want... My mystic is lvl 95 now. I'm shooting for lvl 100 asap so I can get my r8. I have decent to good gear. All my skills are level ten. I have sage Nature's Vengeance, Absorb Soul, Swirling Mist, Break in the Clouds, and Storm Mistress. I also have the two lvl 79 mystic skills. That's just a little background because I'm sure lvl/skills and gear makes a little, if not a big, difference in strategy. When posting your strategies, I encourage you to say your lvl and if all skills are maxed.



TIPS

Skull Slap: is a good stun if you need to stun a target.

Thicket: I'll quote Marista here, very well said... "Thicket is amazing. Almost always seals and freezes but casts twice as fast as Parasitic Nova, and still goes off even if the target moves out of range while casting. On melees, especially barbs, I love destroying them with Bramble Tornado -> Thicket, and antistun only negates half of it. Plus, since the procs have multiple chances to take effect, you have better odds of bypassing a sin's tidal protection bs." Thicket is one of my favorites, if not favorite mystic skill.

Falling Petals: Always try to have falling petals up before a fight. If someone sneaks up on you this may be hard but if you know it’s coming or are initiating the attack, put it on first. If you're already in a battle and don't have it on, it's probably not worth taking the time to put it on.

Verdant Shell: ALWAYS have this on! There are NO exceptions. PvP, PvE, just flying around out of safe zone, sitting in SZ dueling, or what ever... ALWAYS have Verdant Shell on!

Break in the clouds: Sometimes healing yourself in the middle of a fight will be the difference between living or dying and sometimes it's more trouble than it's worth because you need to just keep attacking in order to win.

Energy Leech: If your pet is about to die and you’re losing the battle, use this for an extra boost. Leeching Salvation gives an excelent boost.

Healing and Vital herbs: certainly in pvp squad this helps. Theoretically I guess it could help in a 1v1 if you put them down before the fight began, but I've never actually used them that way.

Listless Blossom: Supposedly this can pull a sin out of hiding. I’m going to practice with this and experiment and let you guys know. Anyone else know?

Edit: I am beginning think this plant is probably one of the most underutilized PvP skills a mystic has. I'm learning to use it more, thanks largely to the advice of Katica. His recomended strategy will also be added to my list now. I finally got to use Listless in a real PvP situation. I posted that story on mryc's thread. The link to that thread is on the bottom of this post.

Befuddling creeper: Seems useless more or less for pvp... Anyone disagree?

Fighting Sins: I keep a genie with remove paralysis and occult ice on it. Occult ice is a stun. Remove paralysis does what the name says. It can remove a stun. I also keep some pots on me that nullify damage. I don’t use pots against any class except sins. I hate how they sneak up on me and stun me. So, I fight dirty when I fight sins.

BASIC STRATEGIES

Keep in mind these are basic strategies that can work extremely well but it takes practice. You also need to know when to use which strategy. Knowing all your skills well and being able to mix them up is the best, but I found it very helpful myself to hear what other mystics have tried that works for them. I have mimiced their strategies and come up with my own variations and strategies as well.

1. Skull Slap -> Thicket -> Nature's Vengence Spam!

This strategy worked on almost everyone at lower levels. I still use this one but variations of it, which I'll list as different strategies. Double stun, and finish with a couple/few natures. If it's a barb or someone with high HP, throw a bramble tornado in there after the first natures vengeance. Skull Slap is the Devil Chiyu skill in case anyone is wondering.

2. (1a?) Skull Slap -> Nature's Vengeance -> Thicket -> Nature's Vengeance -> Gale Storm -> Nature's spam/Skull Slap...

This is similar to the first strategy but there’s a couple nature’s vengeance spell thrown in there. If you have some channeling gear you can keep someone stunned and throw some nature’s in there for extra damage like this. I have -33% or -39% channeling depending on which of my belts I’m wearing. Skull slap has a long cool down, so this strategy is something that you might be using against a barb or someone with lots of HP.

3. Aegis Shield: Keep yourself Shielded and cast this: Gale Storm -> Nature’s -> Bramble (unless you’re fighting a ranged player, then use another nature’s or two instead or absorb soul) -> Gale Storm (when it’s ready, use another nature’s vengeance if it’s not) -> Aegis Shield again, or energy leech if it’s not ready and u need protection -> Nature’s spam

I don’t use Salvation much for pvp. I like DC’s skull slap too much. I have used this strategy before tho and it works well. It seems to work better against magic users. I’ve had epicly long battles against magic users before, but melee battles are quicker. Kill or be killed lol. Anyone got advice on Salvation strategies?

4. Storm Mistress: Load her up with MP and send her out to attack. Follow her and help attack or kite. If it’s a melee class you’re fighting and it runs to you then use bramble tornado and keep a distance while Mistress attacks. If the person you’re fighting attacks mistress then just heal mistress. If you have seal (Sage mistress skill) use it I guess, but I just got my sage mistress and haven’t used it yet.

5. Shield/Craglord: Use Salvation to cast Aeigis Shield on yourself, then summon craglord and attack.

This strategy takes a little time to set up, but if you are making a preemptive strike on someone this can work wonders. Keep in mind craglord requires 2 sparks to summon.

6. Craglord/Gale storm. Summon Craglord then sic craglord on the person you want to kill. Then run up (you can use holy path if you want) and use gale storm to stun so the person doesn’t run away. This strategy can also be used with shield from salvation.

7. The stun, knockback, sleep method by Katica This tech requires Devil Chiyu (for skull slap). Start with skull slap to stun, hit with natures vengence, then knockback with Bramble Tornado, quickly throw a Listless Blossom at the target to sleep him/her, then do 1 of 2 things: if it's an arcane or light armor class shoot an absorb soul, or if it's a physical/HA class, then spam a few more natures vengence. This one sounds good I will have to try using it soon. Katica says it works well and I believe it. Katica must have a lot of channeling gear though. If you don't have channeling gear the absorb soul might not hit as hard because the natures vengence effect might have worn off already.

MYSTIC VS SPECEFIC CLASSES
(MORE COMING SOON)

For now I'm going to add strategies mentioned by others. Later I'll add my own two cents. VoItaire from Harshlands gave some very good strategies in myrc's thread. The link to that thread is at the bottom of this post. Thanks again to myrc and thanks very much to VoItaire.

Mystic Vs. Blademaster:

VoItaire - Harshlands wrote: »

These usually aren't too difficult especially if you see them coming and are fast enough to react against stuns, and if you can't, a well timed genie skill like, domain, expel, badge, or fortify can always fix this. Basically just do w/e you can to keep them away from you. I personally find storm to be the most useful against them since her seal still works even if they have anti stun unlike devil's skull slap, but if you kite out the anti stun devil can be pretty useful too, he just won't do as much dmg.

Mystic Vs. Wizard:

VoItaire - Harshlands wrote: »

Also not too difficult, but if they get the drop on you they can be pretty dangerous. Any pet works well for them but for the ones that do large amounts of dmg while being easily shut down(glass cannon types :b), devil works well, but later on I'd rather use storm since wizzies have crazy pdef at some point. Listless Blossom is really helpful against them, and use Nature's Barrier to buy you enough time to set things up. The one in my video had epic refines. @_@

Mystic Vs. Archer:

VoItaire - Harshlands wrote: »

Storm/Devil work best. R8+ archers hurt a lot, so for them I usually send in either storm or devil to seal/stun them while they are chasing me since they have more range, and I use that time to use thicket. After that they usually die fast but if not just summon listless, use nature's vengeance, lysing, rapid growth, absorb soul, and if still alive, gale force.

Mystic Vs. Cleric:

VoItaire - Harshlands wrote: »

Clerics seem to crit a lot with plume shot and it will hurt usually. >.> But other than that they're pretty much one trick ponies. Just don't let them catch you off-guard with their sleep. One mistake I see many people make when fighting clerics, when they sleep you, DO NOT waste domain on their first attack after sleep, because then you'll still be sleeping and won't be able to use the domain, just wait after first attack, then use domain if you want for a breather. Any smart cleric will kill your summon after sleeping you but that's ok you don't need it anyway. Listless works especially well when you don't have a pet summon out.

Mystic Vs. Barbarian:

VoItaire - Harshlands wrote: »

These are annoying at best. They're really easy to kite, but if they're charmed and have lots of hp it can be a long fight. Next time I fight one of these I'll have to see how a thicket/cragg combo works out.

Mystic Vs. Venomancer:

VoItaire - Harshlands wrote: »

These can be very dangerous with nix bleed. Domain is very helpful to block bleed and lucky scarab, but if they manage to get bleed in use triple spark to purify because they usually also use ironwood with it and armor break + bleed can kill you fast. But after the triple spark they usually go down fast, if they start to kite spark don't chase them, just build more chi or kill their nix.

Mystic Vs. Assassin:

VoItaire - Harshlands wrote: »

If you face a member of this class who actually knows what they're doing might be best to just walk away. Like seriously there's a 9x sin who uses hooks on my server that I fear more than a lot of the 10x ones because he actually knows what he's doing which makes me wonder why he plays such an easy class. But salvation is usually the best pet to go with this to survive the initial overly prepared stealth attack, to give you enough time to counter with a genie skill. Expel is probably your best bet here. Anyway, I do not recommend fighting a higher lvl member of this class with less than 2.3 sparks. Thicket is really helpful especially since it can kill them through deaden. Never stay in the same spot too long when you know one of these are targeting you. If you can summon a plant and stay near it, but even then don't stop moving because they can still prepare by resisting the plant's debuffs with domain and double spark.

Mystic Vs. Psychic:

VoItaire - Harshlands wrote: »

All you really have to do is know about how this class and their buffs work, if you get soulburned or vectered you might need genie assistance to survive. Listless also works great here. Whenever you lead with an attack, thicket is an awesome lead because it goes through soul of stunning and retaliation. If you dont' have the sparks to spare or have other plans for them, you can just have you pet break it simply use a punishing sting.

Mystic Vs Seeker:

VoItaire - Harshlands wrote: »

Here's another part where I was mentioning the dph problem. Especially a dph melee class. If you see them use Blade Affinity, I highly reccomend using Nature's Barrier because they can easily follow with Void Step(tele stun) and use lots of powerful skills. Listless works great against these as well especially to have it there to lyse in case they spark or something. Even though they have ranged skills, it's still a good idea to keep a distance because then they'll be forced to use more metal skills. This class is really vulnerable to control so that's nice for us I guess.

Mystic Vs. Mystic:

VoItaire - Harshlands wrote: »

Um, from my experience these fights can either be really long or really short. Usually the one with better gear wins. Idk mystics don't die easy, but I haven't really fought very many on my server to develop a consistent strategy that's effective.

STORIES

I'll just add one story for now... Just today a sin was pking my friend who was questing west of arch doing low lvl culti. I went there to help. I had DC out and all my buffs up. I put rez buff on my friend so she wouldn't have to run back from arch if she died. Sure enough the sin came back and stunned and killed my friend. I dropped from where I was hiding, in the sky in a tree, and stunned the sin with skull slap. Then I cast natures once and gale storm to stun again. The sins charm ticked. I knew my stuns were going to run out soon so I used a dew of god protection (Absorbs 3k damage) the sin stunned me but I survived because of the item I used. I stuned again with skull slap, natures, gale, and had enough chi to thicket this time. Finished him off with natures. It was close but this was a 10x sin from a well known faction on my server so I was proud of myself. Eventually more ppl came and I had to bring back up but that's another story.

COMING SOON: More strategies including genie skills incorporated into strategies. I'm too tired to list more strategies, and I'm hoping you will contribute. Any advice on how to organize this post/strategy guide I'm starting is also appreciated.

ALSO: PLEASE LIST YOUR STORIES OF PVP/PK HERE! IF YOU GUYS DON'T MIND I WILL ADD YOUR STORIES AND STRATEGIES TO THIS POST!

Thank you everyone for sharing your strategies. I'm learning from them and have added a couple to the original post here. I'll add more later. Please keep sharing.

Oh, I just noticed this AWESOME thread! http://pwi-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?t=1183011 It is a must see. Another resource to help me become the best PvPer I can. This thread has Videos!!! You can post your stories here on my thread and on myrc's thread. Post your videos on mryc's thread. Thank you very much mryc.

Kaitica - Heavens Tear

I'm tooooo lazy to point out many things sooo here goes.

Skull slap, NV, knockback, listless, AS(arcanes/lights)moreNV for heavies

If they immune, straight to leeching sally for a hard hitter and spam whatever.

Most people dun know how to fight me... sooo I pull whatever I can to make them think I cheat.

I go pk bm's b:chuckle

He ran up to me, I had mistress out, and I spamed NV + knockback to destroy him
And I one shot them when they arent paying attention. b:chuckle

Demon, most skills lvl 10... no spirit LOL, 89.... obviously.

krishnaya

Kaitica - Heavens Tear wrote: »

I'm tooooo lazy to point out many things sooo here goes.

Skull slap, NV, knockback, listless, AS(arcanes/lights)moreNV for heavies

If they immune, straight to leeching sally for a hard hitter and spam whatever.

Most people dun know how to fight me... sooo I pull whatever I can to make them think I cheat.

I go pk bm's b:chuckle

He ran up to me, I had mistress out, and I spamed NV + knockback to destroy him
And I one shot them when they arent paying attention. b:chuckle

Demon, most skills lvl 10... no spirit LOL, 89.... obviously.

Thank you, I hope another time when you're not feeling to lazy (:P) you'll come back and post more. I hadn't thought of knockback->listless. knockback u must mean bramble tornado? Gale Strom also knocks back. I will try both. Thanks! Later I will add the 2 strategies and 1 story to my main post.

What do you mean "If they are immune"? Immune to what?

Kaitica - Heavens Tear

krishnaya wrote: »

Thank you, I hope another time when you're not feeling to lazy (:P) you'll come back and post more. I hadn't thought of knockback->listless. knockback u must mean bramble tornado? Gale Strom also knocks back. I will try both. Thanks! Later I will add the 2 strategies and 1 story to my main post.

What do you mean "If they are immune"? Immune to what?

Uhh... no it doesnt.
For one thats not a skill, its gale force.

It seals and freezes, if it procs.

Immune to movement debuffs.

Marista - Lost City

In 90% of cases, I find Salvation to be the preferable summon in PvP. In a world where sins are everywhere, that extra 3k damage shield is huge in surviving long enough to do serious damage. Storm is best in the other 10% I find, for the extra damage and the Moonshade skill, allowing her a free seal which bypasses antistun.

On the whole, though, most melee are easymode. Sins are an exception, but even then it's only if they get the drop--and that will be fixed when I get my mystic to 100 and use my Faith genie. Knockback and seals are huge, because melee expect to be able to get close using antistuns. Very few really know what to do after getting hit with bramble tornado--don't think half the bms I fight on my mystic know what "Smack" is...

As far as Cragg and the Devil, I find the latter night useless for his consistently low damage and lack of range. Stun can be nice, but as I said, most melees will antistun before coming at you, psys have soul of retaliation, etc. Seals are much more the mystic's weapon than that one stun, especially in this age of hax gear.

Cragg is decent, but I find he's mostly a psychological weapon. Even arrogant jerks like LordBanana--er, I mean LordKazahana, forgive my Lost City references =P--will run from Cragg when they see him coming. If that's what you want, fine, but most of the time I prefer to use Thicket.

Indeed, Thicket is amazing. Almost always seals and freezes but casts twice as fast as Parasitic Nova, and still goes off even if the target moves out of range while casting. On melees, especially barbs, I love destroying them with Bramble Tornado -> Thicket, and antistun only negates half of it. Plus, since the procs have multiple chances to take effect, you have better odds of bypassing a sin's tidal protection bs.

As far as the worst class to fight, I find it to be clerics. If I can't oneshot a cleric with triple spark rapid growth AS, then I often cannot kill the cleric, even if they cannot kill me. Their healing is simply very difficult to bypass for a class with only one physical damage skill and mediocre damage all around--though, granted, most of them cannot kill me either, especially when I'm using Salvation. Wizards are easier as they lack spammable self-heal, sutra-healing aside.

Psys are probably the easiest arcane class to kill, since I find they rely so heavily on the def lvs and psychic will, both of which are bypassed by AS. Also, if they're running soul of retaliation, NV can waste the effect with no considerable harm to you, or if you use Thicket the reflect effect is wasted by reflecting it to the Thicket plant. AS also bypasses Soul of Stunning. Venos are perhaps in the middle--with Verdant Shell, you don't have much to worry about from wood damage, but bleed always has and always will hurt on an arcane, and aside from AS, there aren't too many easy ways to kill the nix due to its high mdef, if the veno is smart enough to heal it. We're not mages, in the end.

On the whole, I love pvp on my mystic. I was beating 9x/10x barbs on her at 84, and once I summon the will to suffer through frost to put my real gear on her, I expect to have quite a bit of fun...

ZackMystic - Harshlands

well i like everyones strategies here! but i'd say that salvation is prob best like Marista says.

VoItaire - Harshlands

Marista, have you ever considered lysing listless on a cleric stacking ironhearts? The lyse sleep lasts 12 seconds and ironheart lasts 15 so it could be useful to get rid of their stacks and then use a huge dmg combo. While they're sleeping and the ironhearts are being wasted I would probably use that time to summon devil and give him some mana just to stun them to keep them from healing up after sleep is broken along with gale force for further control and maybe even thicket, if using both thicket and gale force for chain seal would probably be best to use gale force > skull slap > thicket so there's no risk of wasting a seal due to bad timing.

Rakshasis - Lost City

They should really sticky this thread. b:victory

Marista - Lost City

No, I hadn't tried that. I suppose I'm honestly a little too addicted to my veno's ability to just purge off a stack of heals. But even when I get to 100 and have my better long, the Eruption Fist is only 10% chance of purge. It's one solution, but you're probably right in cases where that doesn't work...

Honestly, my biggest weakness in pvp is that I don't use my plants as often as I should, which is something I really need to work on. Neither veno nor bm really have anything comparable, so I just need to play more. I'll definitely give your strategy a try next time I'm up against a cleric I'm having trouble killing, though. Thanks.

ResMePls - Heavens Tear

I d0nt want t0 share any strategies .

krishnaya

Marista - Lost City wrote: »

In 90% of cases, I find Salvation to be the preferable summon in PvP. In a world where sins are everywhere, that extra 3k damage shield is huge in surviving long enough to do serious damage. Storm is best in the other 10% I find, for the extra damage and the Moonshade skill, allowing her a free seal which bypasses antistun.

...
...


On the whole, I love pvp on my mystic. I was beating 9x/10x barbs on her at 84, and once I summon the will to suffer through frost to put my real gear on her, I expect to have quite a bit of fun...

Thank you for all this. I'll add a lot of it later. Much appreciated.

krishnaya

ZackMystic - Harshlands wrote: »

well i like everyones strategies here! but i'd say that salvation is prob best like Marista says.

that's great! what are the strategies you use with salvation? pls share. that's what this thread is for.

krishnaya

ZackMystic - Harshlands wrote: »

well i like everyones strategies here! but i'd say that salvation is prob best like Marista says.

Salation buff is great the problem I have is that you can still be stunned. I don't know how many times a sin, especially a high lvl, 5.0 sin, has snuck up on me and stunned me. Sure I die slower with the shield on, but getting it back up isn't that easy. You have to target yourself, can't just push a button while enemy is targeted. I find it extremely helpful to be able to stun with devil.

mryc

Salvation's second buff is very useful too as long as you keep feeding her your mana. Being as you said 5aps Sins "krishnaya" you must be 99+, in which case we are at a big disadvantage by then anyway if we are attacked first. If the sin knows what he/she is doing, we woundn't live passed the stun. Unless you are charmed, then you can survive to strike back. I would cast Nature's Barrier, Break in the Clouds (needed to have enough Chi), summon a Strom Mistress and Leach her, then use Rapid Growth, Spark Burst+ (Sage/Demon spark if you have an Apoc item to give enough chi), Lucky Break, finished with Weeping Breeze Dance.

This should be a total of 975% + 3500 and Crits.
Or
With the Apoc item 1275% + 3500 and Crits.

This is only what I think I would do, im not at the level yet to put it into practice.

Marista - Lost City

I d0nt want t0 share any strategies .

If you have nothing useful to add, please just don't post--that was entirely unnecessary and spammy. And use a freaking o. Your trolling is completely obvious.

If the sin knows what he/she is doing, we woundn't live passed the stun. Unless you are charmed, then you can survive to strike back.

For this, I suggest investing in a decent regen genie with expel, badge of courage, or faith/belief. That's one of the reasons pvp is difficult on my mystic now--both my good genies are 100, including the 94/100 with Faith that I use to escape anything sins start the battle with on veno. I generally find domain less useful because it doesn't remove the stun and is short, so that they can often just stun you again right away once it wears off. Especially if they have demon versions of the stuns.

XMiyala - Dreamweaver

Anyone have strategies against archers? They really hurt me in TW....

Given it's probably a rank 9 archer.... but still I get one shotted.

Kaitica - Heavens Tear

XMiyala - Dreamweaver wrote: »

Anyone have strategies against archers? They really hurt me in TW....

Given it's probably a rank 9 archer.... but still I get one shotted.

Your level 94? according to the avi

Tbh its no chance, mystics have lowest range, rank9 archers only need 1 arrow.

But against other archers, shield, holy path, get in range
thicket, seal, etc.

krishnaya

I'm lvl 98 now. Can't wait for 100 so I can get r8.

Story:

Today I was helping a friend with culti near Orchid Temple and had Devil Chiyu out. A nirvana sin (I remember the Barrier Thorn +10, but not the other gear) saw me and underestimated me. Instead of stealthing or shadow teleporting she threw a dagger at me and started running toward me as if I would be an easy kill. My DC was already close to her rather than me which helped (it was fighting a mob). Dagger throw took 1/2 my health already and I was scared, but I hit her with Skull Slap -> Natures -> Thicket. At this point her charm ticked and I was worried lol. I hit holy path to close the distance and hit her with gale storm, natures, listless and then spammed natures (2 times i think) for the kill. It felt great killing a +10 (probably 5.0) sin even though I know she set herself up by underestimating me. If only she'd droped some NV gear that would be awesome.

XMiyala - Dreamweaver

Kaitica - Heavens Tear wrote: »

Your level 94? according to the avi

Tbh its no chance, mystics have lowest range, rank9 archers only need 1 arrow.

But against other archers, shield, holy path, get in range
thicket, seal, etc.

Yea, I'm lvl 94. I do think it was a rank 9 archer using the tab-shoot technique... either that or I got 1 shot by barrage. But thanks for tactic, I'll try that next time.