PVP Infoz.

So I get asked a lot, and I mean a butt ton, how do I PK on my barb so well?

Mostly by noobs, but meh my Epeen still feels stroked.

But in ALL honesty, this is a super pro tip:

PVP for barbs is broken down into two facets; your damage output per unit of time versus your opponents tankability, and your opponent's damage output per same unit of time versus your tankability.

What this means, is that if you neglect genie skills and character skills, just hypothetically for a moment, let's crack some numbers.

Let's say you have 15k HP in standing (Reasonable) and you can deal 1000, or 1k per second on ANY target.

Let's say your target is an archer, who has 10k HP and can deal 2000, or 2k damage per second.

Just auto attacking, it would take you 10 seconds to kill them, but conversely it would only take them 8 seconds to kill you auto attacking. (Neglecting crits) This means that you are innately less tanky than your opponent. What most barbs forget to realize, is that just because you play a tanking class, does not mean that you are tanky.

Due to a barb's limited access to on demand control skills, you either rely on a massive HP pool, or zerk crits to really look fancy.

But seriously, if your output does not rival theirs, kite around until you can use a defensive skill or offensive amp to equal the field.

Most barbs I see just waltz up in standing form and start swinging, first and foremost, evaluate your target's possible damage output, and secondly, NEVER, EVER EVER CHASE in standing form. I have seen countless barbs pop SS and chase a wiz in standing. Alacrity may not be MS, but for holding someone still, it has the same percent chance.

Another pro tip is kiting. You won't hear about it much, but barbs have the least advantage of any class in the air, you should never fly in PVP, let your target come to you after all you are the fastest native ground class. But furthermore, think about skill range. If a wizard is casting LVL 11 BIDS on you, it will probably hurt, so imagine this, you are ~29 meters away from a wizard and you see them casting BIDS on you, what do you do?

RUN! RUN AWAY! But seriously, if you run towards, you will A, take the hit, B, possibly die, C potentially waste a resource to avoid damage. If you run, mage range is 32 meters, then you can waste their 2 sparks and cancel the skill. Only a select few casters will channel ultis with their finger over the escape key. Most of the time you can cancel the skill and waste their sparks, and put the skill into cooldown.

Now this takes practice, knowing your distances. If you are 10 meters away, I would not recommend trying to get out of range, instead zerg in and see if you can land an alacrity, if it hits while they are channeling, their ulti will be cancelled! Yay!

So as funny as this sounds, due to a barbs higher than average ground speed, you can strategically kite targets to waste their chi, genie energy and initiate their cooldowns unnecessarily.

Also, I see a ton of vit barbs reroll after whining about their damage for a long time... If you are only going to have ~+5 gear and you are full vit, if your wep is also only +5 your damage output will be terrible. If you really want to PK as a vit barb and have fun, refine your wep nice and high, +10 is not too expensive nowadays.


Blade_Aether
Looking out for the small guy.