Ciel's PvP Tactics Thread

Aeliah - Dreamweaver wrote: »

The psychic got good gear and facerolled the keyboard and the bm died. /lol

In all seriousness though you could write books about how to PvP. This thread is a bit too broad/unorganized to get the replies you are looking for, I feel. That being said...

You do have a point, books may be written about PvP. But if no one takes the effort to write one, it'll never get done. =P
Joking aside, I feel no need to limit it to one class or one situation, as that is far too narrow. Besides, whoever is commenting back at me is the one limiting it; all replies to them about said situation or class are very targeted and in no way too broad. This way, there is much more to discuss and learn. b:pleased


Bms who haven't fought me before usually react too soon, or too late. They see a huge healing debuff, they are sealed then slept, they don't have any sense of the timings, and don't know what to do. Random bms probably do not have heart of steel or belief on their genie, and so they will probably try absolute domain, which usually won't help them, unless they are lucky/clever enough to time it right when I'm channeling sleep.

But lets assume it isn't the average bm. What are some appropriate counters? I've already mentioned a few: belief the sleep off, ad to block a sleep. Tree of protection and heart of steel are also good counters. And of course, if the bm recognized *me* on sight, he might have used will surge to block a predicted seal of gods. And usually, it would work well for him, because I usually start with seal of gods in a fight, because it usually works. Until I know that the opponent knows about this, I will continue to do this, because it gives me the highest chance of quick success against strong opponents who aren't familiar with how I fight.

Let's start here. Since most of your initial calculations are based upon gear level, I'll give three scenarios as a response.
We are assuming in all cases that this is an a decent bm, who does not know you specifically. In fact, we'll take it a step farther and say it's me, since I happen to be a bm, and don't know you, and have somewhat decent skills. Since few people carry around anti-cleric genies on all the time, we'll say my genie has some basic skills such as ToP and AD, and a few others.
Scenario 1) Lower level gear. I may even be a 1-shot tt/hh80 bm. In this case, I know (probably after 1 hit) that I cannot kill you, and have no chance of winning. My only options are to stall you or run for my life. Assuming I try to stall you, I would hope that I have teammates coming. Nevertheless, I would start running towards you, probably with a simple movement-immune skill, such as will of the bodhisattva. This is because most bms tend to know that clerics love sleeping them, freezing them, and/or using SoG on them. If you hit me, I'm dead; time to try again somewhere else. Since I probably know that most people in NW 1-shot me, I will sprint until in range of a smack (hoping to seal before an attack), then continue charging, possibly even using holy path, to get a stun in. If I see a fortify, I will often cancel my roar cast, and use a slow skill instead, until fortify wears off. If I did not use holy path, when I see fortify I may AD to give me another couple seconds of surviving until I can land a stun. Once I land a stun, I would begin my stunlock chain, unless I realized you had a purify weapon. If I realized the purify weapon, I would hit once with roar, wait ~5.4 seconds, and then use drake bash, then wait about the same time and smack if it was open, otherwise aeolian and hope for a proc. In other words, keep trying to loop with the fewest attacks possible, like you mentioned.
Scenario 2) Decent gear, but not r9rr. Maybe T3 nirvana. In this case, I would still start with a movement-debuff-immune skill. Once I got within range, I would expect an initial damaging skill, so I would likely blade hurl to nerf the damage. If you ran, I would probably reel in, or use reckless rush. Otherwise, I would continue charging until I got close enough to stun. Once again, open with roar unless I see fortify or movement immune, in which case cancel that and smack instead is likely, then return to stunning, while alternating skills with a purge pole so as to possibly purge without simply auto attacking, which would give you a hint of the weapon change. My goal at this point would either be to pressure you to back off or run, or keep you delayed until my teammates can put additional pressure on you.
Scenario 3) r9rr, maybe +12, or at least high refines. In this case, I know that I'm more or less at the top of the food chain, so to speak, and when I see a lone cleric would likely go for the kill, albeit cautiously. Once again, opening with will of the bodhisattva. Probably from there moving to reckless rush + drake bash if you don't have fortify from there, which usually catches people off guard unless they have good reflexes or expect it. Begin a stunlock, tick charm once then possibly hf and go for kill while keeping stunned (to prevent retaliation and/or purify), hoping for no purify proc. At this point, genie use on your side may be necessary, with an expel or AD. If expel, one roars, then if elemental sharded weap/wiz buff still tries for a stun, or prepares for the retaliation/escape once stun wears off. Escape--reel in and continue. Attack--either disarm, or just tank the hits until can continue smashing. If purify proc--seal, then charge and continue trying to take down via various means. I may even hope for a zerk crit charm bypass if you're just above half hp, or have ticked your charm and just hope for a kill.

The basics in all three scenarios of average bm is to keep the target locked down while preventing being locked yourself. Though the goals differ (the lowest just wants to delay you, the second up wants to stall you until help, and the top wants to kill), many of the methods are similar.

So some basic attack scenarios and counters run as such:
SoG in beginning: I get sealed but not paralyzed due to will of bodhisattva, and choose to run backwards so you either chase me or go back to your crystal. If you chase, I'll wait till seal is off, then pull a quick 180 and hope you're caught off guard. If you are on top of it, which I expect and plan for, as soon as I am within your range I will leap forward, and hope for my semi-Tidal-Protection to work against your expected sleep or paralyze, then begin attacking.
Sleep: assuming this procs, I will expect all the debuffs and such; as all clerics that I have ever seen do this while their target is asleep. I will probably wait for most of them to be on, then expect a heavy damaging skill, and will ToP as a result to try to survive the hit and be able to retaliate and stun to prevent further hits.
SoG after immune wears off: sealed and paralyzed, but less damage. I would likely wait and hope for it to wear off. I'll count the seconds, and be spamming leap forward or AD as soon as it ends, expecting a sleep. If sleep misses, begin retaliation. If sleep procs, refer to the above. If you sleep before SoG ends, I'll just keep waiting for use of my genie one way or another to prevent imminent death from attacks while sleeping.
AD(your use): depending on how much I fear your DD or CC, I may immune myself for this brief period of time until I can go back to stunning. Otherwise, I may try to tank a few hits and avoid most of the trouble until I can retaliate.
Expel(your use): roar, and depending on how much chi I have/usually regen, I may drakes breath bash to get elemental and continue stunning. Otherwise, elementally sharded weapon or wiz buff may help. If none of those, expect at least 3 seconds of phys immune to either tank or chase.
Plume shell: I'm never had trouble stunlocking until this is over, but all I really need to do is keep you from using your most harmful skills while waiting for an ability to actually DD on you.
Other random tips/tricks I use: if I expect heavy damage when charging, I may quickly turn backwards and leap backwards and hope for proc of leap back. If I expect CC when charging, I may leap forwards and hope for leap forward proc.
When I roar, I have my finger on the escape key to cancel if the roar is protected against, then go to a seal or other option of control. If an opponent tries to escape to the air or away, reel in is very effective for continuing to stun. If they try to jump, I may use a freeze skill.
Occult ice is a great stun when not expected, such as when charging and someone expects a roar, instead occulting from a couple meters away allows an unexpected stun to get in before fortify, and makes stunlocking slightly less predictable upon initiation.

If I know the bm, I'll usually start with immobilize instead, and I'll keep a much sharper eye out for will surge. I'm quite good at playing the waiting game; I just go defensive mode---that is, stack healing buffs (which heal me), elven boon (also heals me) and vanguard spirit (increases the phy def). The opponent usually breaks first, because they have to. They hit the will surge. It is difficult to impossible to react to a seal of gods, given how fast it channels, which is normally 1s (in particular, my r9rr gear with magic shell in still exceeds 60% channeling, which reduces seal of gods channeling down to under 0.4s). To react to it, you would need a stellar reaction time/finger movement speed (below 200ms) and an equally stellar ping (below 100ms probably). That means you have to predict my seal of gods to block it. If you wait too long, I'll do the seal of gods, and unless you are lucky enough to hit will surge in the very second which I'm channeling seal of gods (predicting, not reacting), then you won't hit will surge in time. I've seen plenty of people try and fail to react to seal of gods, and they end up using will surge about half a second too late.

Anyways, lets assume they did the proper thing and used the will surge and, if they are smart, anti-stun, to buy themselves 8 seconds in which I have to play defensive. What is the first thing you would try. A stun? You'd think most bms would start with a stun, right?

The interesting thing is, though, bms can and should play the same waiting game. Everybody knows that bms have many stuns. The bm, therefore, if he is aware of his opponents abilities, should predict that the opponent will use fortify (makes you immune to stuns for a few seconds). Fortify, like will surge, has a limited duration and a significant cooldown. Therefore, if you can wait out the predicted fortify, you can then stun away to your hearts content.

I am equally aware of this, which is why I will probably kite back from the bm, to waste his anti-stun time. Given my own ping, I am well aware that I cannot react fast enough to a bm stun, I can only predict it. Therefore by kiting back, I reduce how many seconds the bm has left on his will surge and anti-stun, so that when I hit my fortify, I can cover the gap of time between when I hit fortify and when his will surge ends (which will allow me to use seal of gods).

The smart bm, being equally aware of this, now has several options. He can guess that I won't fortify in time, and try for an immediate stun. However, in most cases if the bm has genuinely caught up, I will have placed fortify in. The bm's next best option, then, is to use a slow attack, and, before his will surge expires, his 79 seal attack. I can probably predict the seal, but am not usually willing to expend will surge to block this short-lasting seal (unless I'm making a kill attempt) right after I've already used fortify, and therefore I'll let myself get sealed. Now, the bm has probably wasted all 4 seconds of my fortify, and he should immediately try to stun.

What I do next depends on how far I am from the bm. Sometimes if I can't walk out of bm's range, I will double jump into air, since a vertical jump isn't affected by the slow debuff. If I'm sufficiently far from bm, I'll keep kiting away, and then I'll probably use seal of gods, in which case, advantage me. If, however, the bm still has too much time left on will surge, I'll probably put in plume shell at this point, because I realize that I cannot avoid being stunned. What about apoth? Unless I have full debuffs stacked onto bm, it probably isn't worth using an apoth yet at this point. The gain isn't large enough. All that using an apoth would do is allow me to get seal of gods off, which isn't enough to justify apoth cooldown usually, when the Nation Wars is an open battle and others could enter at any time. If I *did* have a full stack of debuffs, a great option would be a triple spark + anti-stun apoth. The bm, who, likely noting that I had just used fortify, will probably try to, immediately after I triple spark, disable my weapon, and then stun.

I can take care of both with the immediate triple spark > anti stun: the apoth blocks the stun, and I can purify off the disable weapon debuff in under a second, then attack. In certain situations, this can be a great way to surprise an enemy and get the kill off.

However, it probably isn't ideal in this situation. This is because the bm's genie is *probably* full. I can't predict if the bm used ad shortly before arriving at my location, but I have to assume that he has it. Therefore, using triple spark AND apoth at once is probably a waste, if he can counter both with a well-timed absolute domain or tree of protection.

Anyways, so assuming I don't spark, I probably just plume shell and hit mana pot, then let myself get caught in a stun. And what happens next depends on two things: the bm's skill at stun locking, and luck. At this point I reserve my genie, in case the bm tries sparking/hfing. If the hfs too near the beginning of my plume shell, I'll just wait for a purify proc, because I'll be fine with no magic dds around if just the bm is hitting me with hf in. That being said, if he hfs about 18 seconds into plume shell, I'll be forced to use ad or belief.

If the bm tries hitting me too much when I have plume shell in, all he'll do is give me a purify proc, and then I'll be free to use seal of gods on the bm. So what *should* he do?

There are two options. One, the bm tries to execute a stun lock with a pole, and hope for a purge. Two, the bms doesn't have a pole/realize trying to kill me is an exercise in futility, and calls for reinforcements. If he chooses option 1, I'll likely use belief immediately and then seal of gods the bm, to avoid a purge. However, with fashion weapons, it can be difficult to tell, inside of plume shell, what weapon the bm is hitting me with---I have to judge based on attack rate. If the bm is hitting too fast, its probably a purge pole, and I should belief. If, however, the bm doesn't have a purge pole and is calling for help instead, the bm should attempt a stun lock with as few hits as possible. If the bm does this, I'll hope for a slip up. If the bm isn't doing serious damage and isn't making an attempt to dig my crystal, I may just let him keep up his stun lock, and let my genie get to the next fortify.

I could go on and on with a narrative like this. Anyways, point of all this is, your thread is a little too broad, and you might consider making thread that is more focused. Eg: specific class vs. specific class; specific class in specific environment; what people use to fight specific class in specific environment; etc etc etc.

I actually very much enjoy your narrative, it is an interesting look into the mindset of a cleric. b:pleased And thank you for the response, even if you were unsure as to the viability of this thread. Do you have any suggestions for ways to improve?
I hope I've at least answered the majority of the gist of it. Typically, the bm will try to wait out or avoid your stuns while stunlocking you, either for control to kill or control to defend. Especially with your plume shell and vanguard spirit buff, killing you with strict DD is nearly impossible without you sleeping, SoG, or paralyzing me or purifying yourself, making stunlocking one of the few viable options for opening up a kill. In this, even without an anti-cleric genie, it is possible to counter many of the cleric options. Though it is nearly impossible to react to the casting and casting speed, some of the primarily used tactics and skills are able to be predicted. Waiting games versus charging depend primarily upon how you started.
Let me know if you still have questions or want to address something else/in more detail!