Are PvP drops actually helping PvP?

The Stalker stealth cap is MUCH higher than others, 1143 feet in PvP at level 50 vs. 852 for VEATs and 572 for all others. Being invisible is CENTRAL to how a Stalker plays (or so I hear - I don't have one).

You can do a lot to improve your perception. Tactics, Focused Accuracy, Rectified Reticle, yellows, and probably other techniques. Some sets offer perception as well, but not Katana/Regen. Perception on VEATs caps at 1261 feet, and on all other ATs caps at 1153. So even if you cap your perception, you STILL won't see a Stalker until it's 10 feet away, which is probably too late.

In contrast, if you hit the invisibility cap on your Scrapper, people with capped perception will still see you from 581 feet away. You're invisible, but they have infravision, ultravision, magical sight of some sort, sonar, etc., so they see you anyway.

Still, you're a Regeneration Scrapper. You have burst healing to deal with getting hit by a Stalker. Try to see the game from their perspective in this. Yeah, they get the first shot, and it's a really nice shot, but then you just heal and they have to run. They can't kill you, ever, as long as you're on your game. How frustrating is that? Probably more frustrating than having to click a heal occasionally. And if you get dropped by a team of Stalkers, well, you'd have been dropped by a team of archetypes X, Y and Z, so it doesn't really have anything to do with them being Stalkers.

Again, I don't PvP, so if I'm way off base on how this goes down in practice rather than in my head, my apologies.

as usual your spot on Werner and you say it in such a nice way cudos

Just because I don't participate in PvP doesn't mean I'm clueless what's going on there. Consider me like the guy who watches games on TV to know about football. I couldn't QB a game to save my life, but still know how the game is played, some of the players and what they're known for.

Is gear going to make a difference in two equally skilled players? Of course it is. Percentage-wise, do you know how many "skilled" players there actually were running around in the zones, which is how most people who experience PvP actually experience it? Not very damn many.

Being a skilled player was, and still is, a lot more important than being IO'd out. Meetings of "equally skilled" players weren't very common unless you count an awful lot of "equally bad" players facing off in zone PvP, usually some sort of "fiteklub". A skilled player could go in the zones and win against on multiple such folk even with gear that looked pretty inferior on paper. Skill, teamwork, and AT/powerset were more dominant than good gear. They still are, with the possible exception of KB protection.

If IOs didn't do jack in zones, people who got discouraged and left probably still would have.

Does gear matter at all? Of course it does. You really want good gear to compete in arena contests against skilled players. Basically, if someone doesn't want gear to matter, they shouldn't PvP in an MMO.

I am at work and have more time to reply to this so I thought I would. For startedrs one of your problems is dueling in zones. Always assume you will be interuppted by something or someone if you do that. /arenalist is far to easy to use to even believe this complaint still comes up at all.


On to the point of you losing to a brute on a regin scrapper much less a kat regin means you need to practice more. While i am anti fightclub I can tell you that you should be nigh unkillable with just sos on a kat regin. I am sure you will disagree with that but trust me I am right.


For your red vs blue invis thing it was pretty well covered already but I will throw some stuff on. The stalker at is based on invis and is probably on of the squishest toons in the game. Without them having hide they would have to rework the whole at from the ground up. While it can be frustrating to a novice pvper to deal with they are pretty much nothing once you learn some basics and get more accustomed to pvp. Simple things like movement and knowing when to hit long rooting powers can help make them very little concern.


As far as why you get seen so easily most pvpers, even bad ones, who pvp on regular basis will have +perception in their builds. Once stealth ios came into being tactics or focused accuarcy went from being nice to being required in any serious pvp build. Without it you are literally blind in a zone waiting for your enemy to act first, and in this age of supression that is like a death sentence.



I would like to touch on the thing someone said about needing to completely respec into a non pve friendly build to be sucessful in pvp. This was actually a concern I brought up in i13 beta when the aoe damage powers were dropped. It used to be that a fire em blaster that was pvp speced in i12 would be just as dominant in pve. The common response was that was what dual builds are for. While I was aware of that I personally enjoyed my hybrid builds. That said though you can probably do a dual spec for a pvp build for most toons for incredibly cheap. Two of the most sought out bonuses nowadays are +damage and +hp. You can find these bonuses on the cheap all over the market. Kb ios were once the large threshold because of the price barrier/availabilty but that is no longer the case. If you have even a basic grasp of the market you can put together a decent workable pvp spec for any toon for around 100 mil. In this day and age that is simply not that much. I would even venture to say you would need even less on any server besides freedom because alot of the fine tuned stuff you see like knockback specialist just are not as common on other servers. You do not and never have needed a billion dollar build to compete in pvp.


Man I hate making tl;dr post

So true. I think I had one toon total with phase or hiber that wasn't a stalker pre i13. Now every toon I have has one or the other.

Stalkers also get the joy of trying to assassinate people that are bouncing around like Mexican jumping beans.


You are just begging the question of how much a barrier should there be in getting into PVP. I used to beta MPBT 3025 it was very much a MMO even far too much a MMORPG, everybody had equal access to the gear that did absolutely nothing to impede the fun. Currently pvp really puts a premium on powerleveling up a character, and using the market to get a high end build quickly. Well that and having people who are willing to help you try and find the numbers for elusivity and DR ( Yet another barrier to entry).

I said this before I13 before the new pvp was on the horizon, but if the devs wanted to make PVP more popular, they should have just leveled out access to the gear, and written a decent guide and tutorial to actually take people through what they needed to do play. "This is a pvp zone do not enter unless you are willing to be attacked by other players", hardly constitutes a guide. I remember the first time I played on a team match on my server, My team mates advice "Keep Moving Try Not to die". Scary thing is that its 1000% better than what the devs provided.

There is a great example of how PVP 2.0 actually made things harder. Almost no one takes phase on pve characters, and hibernate is mostly taken by people trying to cap their S/L defense with frozen armor ( some who like the self heals in ice and the ICE theme)

Yes, but that's not compelling evidence of anything, because it says nothing about the player skill behind that SO build, or what your two ATs and powersets are.

geez, no wonder pvpers hate the cox pvp system....that's not a good system at all....

People that liked the old system liked it because of the mechanics, not because of the rewards system (mostly because there was none). While post-I13 PvP is still better than most other MMO PvP out there, I13 took one of the most unique aspects of CoX PvP (the speed) and gutted it completely in favor of bringing down the high end instead of bringing up the low end. Basically, they sacrificed (for the most part) damn good mechanics and no rewards system for very mediocre mechanics and a rewards system that's only there so people can say "look, PvP rewards!"

You're talking about fiteklub, or stand in melee range with another melee character until someone dies. That's like wading in the kiddie pool at the YMCA - it's fun for a while, and then you learn to swim and realize how much more open and freeing the big pool is. In fiteklub, there is almost no skill, only button-mashing, and build makes all the difference. In normal PvP and team PvP, skill is more important than build because it introduces variables like debuffs, movement, and inspiration usage.

@macskull, @Not Mac | XBL: macskull | Steam: macskull | Skype: macskull
"One day we all may see each other elsewhere. In Tyria, in Azeroth. We may pass each other and never know it. And that's sad. But if nothing else, we'll still have Rhode Island."

As I said I didn't play much in I12 pvp mostly because I saw it would take some serious effort to get reasonable at the game, but I did try to see what was going on what the successful players did.

Most of the good PVPers on protector, had multiple travel powers usually superspeed and superjump. They had all the accolades and were frequently using the click accolades. They also had very expensive builds. Its not hard to figure out why when you have something like regen recharge = more regen = better attack sequences. You are also speaking as if coming up with a couple hundred million inf is no big deal, well it isnt once you pick up the market, but my badger just hit 200 million of earned inf after 400 hours of play.

You also said that the accolades were nice but not a big deal then went on to say that +HP is one of the big things people build for.


What should I expect when I pvp ? If I want to go into warburg to get the exploration badges and pick up nukes should I have to organize a team or teams ? You say there is a sense of entitlement well darn tootin mister there is. I expect a fair game and a reasonable access to the same tools to win. Maybe if things were segregated by weight class like boxing or wrestling it would be different but you can hardly say a lightweight like Hector Camacho to go up against a Muhammad Ali.

If you want to talk about entitlement the guy with the maxed out build that is looking to rack up wins on newbies, and the pvpers that bragged about farming them where the ones with a sense of entitlement.

... and with that 200 million of "earned inf" came around 200 million inf of generic IO recipes, and probably around 100 million inf of rare salvage, and a highly variable but nonzero number of expensive specific recipes.

Using TopDoc's figures I got about 8:1 "actual increase in net wealth" compared to "cash inf generated" if you were grinding level 50 stuff (for that one moment when he was farming, anyway.) And that was counting generic IO's as "cash inf generated." Now a lot of that was in purples, which you don't get for content under level 47 .

But claiming that you have only made 200 million "earned inf" is off by a factor of 5 if not a factor of 10. Unless, I suppose, you were just throwing out valuable stuff because it was in your way. Which is your right, and a perfectly valid playstyle- you're aiming for EARNED inf, not TOTAL inf, cause that's the badge- but if you throw away money, and you're poor, I don't know how to properly respond to that.

People build certain ways for PvP because those are the most effective ways, just like people build certain ways for farming or AV/GM soloing. You don't need IOs or accolades for zone PvP, though they're extremely helpful especially in team and solo arena matches. You don't need accolades or IOs for PvE, though they're helpful. Your goal is to make your build as good as you possibly can, and accolades and IOs are a helpful tool in reaching that goal.

Everyone in this game has access to the same set of tools - the game servers, the character creator, NPCs to defeat for XP, respecs. The difference is how you use the tools - refusal to use them doesn't mean they don't exist or that you don't have access to them. If you want to get good at something, you need to put the time and effort into it, and if you don't want to do that, you don't want it badly enough. Every PvPer worth their salt knows that beating up on inexperienced players isn't a measure of skill. It never was, and no serious (good) players think it is. The ones with the sense of entitlement are the ones who have almost no PvP experience and think they can bring their PvE builds into a PvP zone and do well against players who have invested time, money, and knowledge in getting better at PvP.

@macskull, @Not Mac | XBL: macskull | Steam: macskull | Skype: macskull
"One day we all may see each other elsewhere. In Tyria, in Azeroth. We may pass each other and never know it. And that's sad. But if nothing else, we'll still have Rhode Island."

My personal opinion is YES. In my opinion, the Warburg exploration badges and the nukes should be hard to get. They should be hard to get because they're in a PvP zone, which is where the PvP players live, who should be expected to PvP you. And I think them PvPing you even if you say, "hey! I just want the nukes!" is VERY appropriate behavior for a PvP zone. It's a PvP zone. PvP.

That said, I didn't see a soul when I last went to get my nukes (granted, this was on Victory), not even at the best ambush point. But even if there HAD been an ambush there, I still might have succeeded. I believe I was using as much stealth as I had access to, and pumped myself up on yellows, purples and oranges. I also dropped out of the sky (temp flight pack) rather than just walking casually up to it.

As for the exploration badges, if you can accept your own death, those at least SOUND easy. Drop out of the sky onto the badge location. Even if your dead body falls over two seconds later, you still have the badge, right?

If you're talking about badges and nukes, and thinking they should be EASY to get in a PvP zone, then I personally do think you have entitlement issues. I don't feel that paying your $15 per month entitles you to just go in and grab some badges and temp powers without being "harassed" by PvPers, any more than it entitles you to jog a lap around the Storm Palace for exercise without being "harassed" by the rather dangerous PvE occupants. You want badges and nukes, you're going to have to figure out how to get them. One way is to put together your own police escort - a team. Another is to just take some basic precautions and be willing to accept deaths, such as my approach. But I'm not sure if that's what you were saying you were entitled to, since the very next sentence was...

That's reasonable, but I suppose it all depends on your definition of "fair game" and "reasonable access to the same tools".

As far as weight classes, it isn't really directly supported, but you could set up your own arena event with a description like "SO and frankenslotted build, very little PvP experience, looking for other players with similar builds and experience". Yeah, sometimes you'll get someone that ignores that, or specifically wants to take out an easy target. But I would hope that most players would respect your wishes for arena events (just not zone PvP). I can see it being nice if this were more directly supported, such as tracking your PvP experience, and allowing classes based on that. But I don't know how easy that would be to implement, and probably everyone would have very different ideas of what the actual classes should be. That and the PvP community is already so small that further segmenting it might cause more problems than it solves.

As far as reasonable access to the same tools, in what way do you not already have that? You might complain that it takes hundreds of hours of grinding to afford your PvP build, or that you have to play the market, or create a farming toon, or whatever. But those exact same restrictions apply to every other player. Other players may simply be more willing to engage in those activities to achieve their goals. That doesn't mean you don't have reasonable access to the same tools they use. You have the exact same access to the exact same tools.

As far as zone PvP, I consider it to be inherently fair, because I consider "anything goes" to be a fair rule. If you want a multi-billion influence PvP build, you can get one the same way that the people that do have them got theirs. If you don't like being killed by teams, form or get on a team, just like they did. If you don't like being killed by people with more experience than you, get more experience. There's nothing magical about the top PvPers. They're playing the same game you are. They've just put a TON more effort into being the best, and so they are. To me, that's fair.

Definitions of fair PvP, of course, will vary WILDLY. Nobody is really right or wrong. It's all a matter of what kind of PvP YOU want, and then the devs trying to set things up so that the greatest number of players can be happy with the available PvP options.

I don't know the figures you are talking about but I can be very certain I didn't have very much in spare inf till I started buying recipes and crafting them. I am also 110% certain you aren't making the point you think you are. If you want to tell me that its going to take me hundreds of hours to meet the buy in for pvp I will say heck no. If you want to say that I have a sense of entitlement well yeah I do.

If you want to talk about a sense of entitlement just why should having more inf entitle someone to an advantage in PVP ?

Let me turn that around if its a pvp zone, and pvp related awards are supposed to be hard, shouldn't it be a little harder than just having a numerical advantage on your team or side to get rep or farm newbies. From what the PVPers saying this doesn't take a great amount of skill or risk.

No I wasn't talking about being entitled to easy rewards and I really wish there were things in the game that were more challenging. I just don't care for people insulting my family back several generation, insinuating I perform acts with animals or anything else of the sort.



Well I don't have the answers on what would be fair. I have seen other games where people have a limited amount of resources to allocate and a big portion of the game is figuring out how you are going to use what you have, there are certainly other ways. I am sure what we currently have is in no way shape or form fair and it doesn't even nod to balance.

@macskull, @Not Mac | XBL: macskull | Steam: macskull | Skype: macskull
"One day we all may see each other elsewhere. In Tyria, in Azeroth. We may pass each other and never know it. And that's sad. But if nothing else, we'll still have Rhode Island."

Don't go there. Not unless you want to descend down an abyss of recursive self justification with no termination in sight. You have just been pegged as a whiner with a sense of entitlement that doesn't understand the market, economics and probably a communist who wants a welfare state instituted. This is the MARKET FORUM being good at the market is entitlement to having the goodies in the game, and it should entitle you to win where your skill otherwise would not.

The funny thing is normally I am very critical of the developers but here I really empathize with the rock and a hard place they were in. It is something that just jumps out at you when you turn the arguments around. The pvpers insist that its a matter of skill, well then build access shouldn't matter, it is a matter of skill. The marketeers feel that the market should be the gateway to goods in the game, the devs look and see its not really working out right, we get merits tickets and who knows praetorian credits ?

Yessssssss excellent that attitude is why DR was inevitable. I'll go out on a limb and say expect more of the same from the devs in their next attempt to fix pvp.

I beleive we recognized that during I13, thanks for your Clairvoyance, now, can you tell me when I will win the lottery?

<3 Epsilon