A whole HOST of PvP questions...

Salve, Quid agis?

Seriously, Hi there, how are ya?

So, I used to say I've played this game since beta... My original forum name (along with that first screen name) were registered WAYYYY back in mid-2004. I've gotten various ATs and EAT/VEATs to 50. I've unlocked every incarnate possible so far. I don't hunt for badges, but through the course of the game my "main" character has almost 600 of the suckers, just from doing stuff.

I reckon you could say I've done almost everything.

almost

The one thing I have always, ALWAYS avoided was PvP. Maybe it was because I never understood it, or maybe because I never ran with people who did it, or MAYBE it was because when I was playing CoH AND EQ2 I always played tanks (or Guardians) and I never had the DPS to win at dueling so I thought, "this is stewpid..."

Well, I am tired of being a wuss about this...

I have read through the PvP forum posts and threads and, apart from a stunningly and almost embarrassingly neglectful stance on PvP by the Devs from day 1, I haven't grokked a damn thing.

I never thought of myself as dense, but I am not getting the message.

It SEEMS that PvP has a core of die-hard fans who, counter-intuitively, HELP each other get badges, go through content in PvE together, spread the PvP IO wealth...

So, why the bad rap?

I hear of servers being "dead" but I am not sure which ones. I read of this toon being uber-733t or that one being the FOTM primary/secondary, but there seems to be an abundance of play-styles. I ask my PvE friends for advice and not one of them really had much to say, except something along the lines of:

"oh, no.... I never go in there. There are, you know... Pkillers in there!"

So my next question is, WTF???

I would like to be introduced to this format, and I think it would be fun.

Other than Virtue (I have no character slots available), where should I start? If I want to do some soloing in the PvP areas and not Arena combat, what is a good starting point AT for someone with a bit of cash, but not billions of inf (if I ever had it, outfitting all my 50s pretty much gets rid of most of it). I wouldn't mind making a PvP build for one of my established toons, but I'd be just as happy starting from level 1.

Anyhoo, sorry for the meandering diatribe. I wanted to say hi, and I look forward to learning about this last frontier of the game.

Oh, and I am kinda Mids-challenged, but I can use it.

As y'all were!

PvP used to be a whole lot more fun, a harder curve perhaps but far more rewarding. When castle reinvented zone pvp he killed it, no ifs or buts, the pvp populace dropped off and wasnt replaced with new blood.

The reason for this as I see it is mainly the fact that he made everything generic and in a game where people prize their individuality to the extent of spending hours and hours on builds or even just on a costume bringing things down to common denominators is not a way to go.

Also the most damaging attacks in PvP come from pool powers, flurry obscenely does more damage than any nuke or tier 9 power on a base 3 second cooldown.

The game needed tweaks to pvp, it really did and I was excited when I head Castle was visiting PvP but it needed tweaks, not reinvention. PvP may have moved to the arenas but it was the zones that was most interesting being much more unpredictable and fluid.

Cool! I will look around. I never knew about the PvP button on Mids... I'll have to check and see how my current "big toons" would look.

Well, I deleted a character on Virtue and re-rolled a Psi/EnMelee blaster yesterday afternoon. He's just lvl 11, so he's not able to enter any of the zones yet. But I gotta say the platform just ripped through the PvE content (at the lower level). The recharge reductions and the KB really kept him alive when things started getting hairy.

Um, what is "heal decay"?

What we see here is further proof that something needs to be changed.

No offense to the OP but, psi/em....
Its almost always psi/em or /regen scrappers

There is no originality left in coh pvp, they should have chucked v 2.0 out the door when castle left & tried to hit him in the *** with it instead of the door.

Having a zone or arena full of basically only 2 different toons is almost as bad as DR TS HD.

To be completely honest, one of the reasons I did not make a scrapper, regen or otherwise, is because I sort of wanted to do something different. Half of my 50s (only 8 I know, but I like them) are melee builds (tank, scrapper, widow, bane). Of the other 4, 2 are what you might call mid-range (the WS and the MM), and of the 2 long range toons, the crab is more of an AoE platform. Only the corruptor is anything like what I created for PvP. And HE is unoriginal too since he is a fire/dark corr (and EVERYONE has one of those...).

As I said above, the Psi/En.M blaster build I have is wickedly good in PvE. He can solo red bosses at lvl 12 and I don't need to use an insp for much of anything (yet). I also have not enhanced him at all (I tend to wait until a build reaches 22 so I can just go straight to slotting SOs), so I am just having fun with the concept.

I realize that I have come WAY late to this party. But, I thought, since the lights were still on, maybe I could come and die with y'all for a bit.

You see a lot of regens in zone because they're easy to play and by easy to play, I mean easy to not die on. Also, a lot of the population prefer melee characters for whatever reason.

And no, a team of Psi/EM's and regens would not roll in an 8v8, it's funny you would even consider having a Scrapper in an 8v8.

As far as having Phase and Hibe, it's alright for zone play but far from necessary. To get both on a blaster, you'd miss out on a resistance shield. I do fine with my Psi/EM/Cold in zone and rarely get AS'ed after getting out of Hibe (just break LoS). Also, the placate proc is really only useful in 1v1's, for everything else it's kind of pointless.

Flurry is essentially ignored and isn't something I'd plan on using (no additional slots). It's there because I couldn't think of anything better to grab out of my remaining choices. With HOs slotting into the movement powers and PFF (stage 2 of the build), I'd save three slots and be able to either enhance my other powers more or enhance a Flurry replacement. What would be a better replacement?

Power Boost is there for PFF. PB+PFF racks up some serious defense. PFF alone offers quite a lot, but not necessarily enough when facing Tactics+BU+Aim. I don't expect anything else out of it, but the combo is a nice option when Phase is unavailable.

I like Ice for the heal and Hiber, but this build doesn't need Hiber (Phase & PFF). Resists are capped across the board with TI & Cardiac, so I don't have to deal with or try to enhance Ice's lesser resists. I do understand the appeal of the heal in Ice, though. Some players might prefer the heal, others might prefer better resists and PFF as an option.

Hey guys-

Just thought I would drop in to throw my 2cents into this mix. The key element that people seem to be disagreeing with here is what *type* of pvp is the OP looking for.


Currently in CoXPvP there are 4 basic types of PvP available to the player base:

1) Zone- this is typically the most commonly tried and experienced PvP play. Players need to build for self sufficiency for zone play- typically this means some type of self heal, if that comes from aid self, hoarfrost, hibernate. As far as travel powers for zone fly is actually viable (lolwut?!) especially now that temp powers are bugged and no temp fly powers work in zone (note: I didn't not say fly was optimal as -fly will still wreck you). PvPers in Zone excel at PvPing for long extended periods of time without using insp (I mean seriously who zones just get insp!) so their builds need to have adequate acc/damage/end/heal(regen).

2)Duelist- Some PvPers would rather fight 1 on 1 sometimes in zone and sometimes in arena. These builds are also typically very self sufficient.

3) Team PvP- Typically this is a group of players who organize into very specific roles (damage, heals, disruption, and set up) builds for team pvp are built very specifically for this type of play. You will typically see almost no self heal powers on squishies as you will have dedicated healers on your team and you go into each match with a fresh stock of insp. It is *true* that there is less diversity in team based PvP as far as AT/power sets but this is by design. It is better to have 5 psi/ems rather then 3 psi/ems and 2 fire/ems because the fire attacks will show damage sooner then the psi damage this will give the spike target away to the opposing team's healers and most likely lead to a save rather then a kill.

4) Gladiators- lolgladiators.

(RIP- Base Raids)

IMO- no one type of PvP is better then the others or more skillful as some people believe. I have seen a team of zone players get wrecked in PvP leagues, however I have seen zone players 2v2 and soundly beat league players as well. Duelists excel at duels and may under perform when teamed.

The arguments people are having about what powers are best for a pvp character is meaningless without considering what type of PvP the player is building for.

For blasters- temp invuln +pff is great for team arena and mu mastery is amazing for zone or duels.

You won't see that many (if any) scrappers or brutes in team pvp but they excel in zone play- survivability and self sufficiency again come into play.


As far as the criticism of Boot Camp builds- I can only speak for the boot camp on Victory I am currently running but builds are specifically designed to be an introducer type of character to PvP. The learning curve is very steep and for players who have never experienced DR/HD/TS it can be a bit overwhelming and they may not wish to invest 10's of billions on a character that they may never play. So yes we designed builds that meet the needs of team pvp play- acc/recharge/hp/evasion powers while trying to build them as inexpensively as possible.



To the OP- as Kara said, if you want to learn the basic mechanics of the PvP game you are more then welcome to join us on Victory for our PvP Boot Camp. Contact me in game @masque or via the boards for more information. Also if you want specific build/strategy advice about zone or dueling PvP you may also contact myself or any of the vet PvPers who have responded to you.

ya psyran ur a noob... key word '''phase'' and ''pff'' makes it obviouse

I'm gonna make a guess here and say hai Vex.

PvP is a completely different envrionment from PvE. You will die, a lot. That is just the way pvp goes until you learn, respec 100000 times until you find a build that seems to pay off with some kills, IO the crap out of your character, and harden up. It's taken me a while to finally have the right character combo that I can roll into RV with, and have a 30/2 kill/death ratio for a solo sitting.


I believe most people cannot handle pvp because they have this vision of their characters as "gods who don't die". Well okay, welcome to the world of playing against other players. You WILL get wrecked, you WILL get ganked at first. If anything you should embrace it. Learn how you died so fast, and how powers work in pvp vs pve. What combinations are other people using that is effective? Ask questions in game, send tells. This thread is a good start too.

Anyways, welcome to PvP and ignore the trolls! (Master of the universe and El Chido are the same person as an example of a troll)