As a Sorc, or any other ranged class, it's easy; I target and blast away. I'm not great at PvP, but so far have managed to get my main to Valor 61 with relative ease.

 

The problem is, when play with a melee class, especially my Deception Assassin, where I have to be close to my target.

 

In Arena, this is easy enough, since there are only 4v4, and I always have "Friendly Player Nameplates" (and mine) turned off anyway. But in Warzones, where groups of players are bunched up in a crowd, I simply am unable to follow where my target is anymore, amidst the jumble of players.

 

Again, as ranged it's easy. But as a melee class... I end up walking around like an idiot, unable to attack, because it is so difficult for me to see where the target circle is under an enemy player.

 

Just far too much graphics "mess" going on around, and I cannot figure out a good way to keep an eye on where my target is in all that crowd of players, when I can't even follow the target circle anymore because it's too hard to spot with everything that is happening all around me graphically.

 

There must be a better way to do this.

 

Any suggestions or ideas from more experienced melee PvP players?

 

Thanks.

Edited February 19, 2020 by kritikiller

Assuming your not a clicker. Zoom out and play the off objective, it will get better over time.

I agree about the zooming out, that was my first thought. I also just went into a match with my sin and tried paying attention to how I track my target and I realized something completely bizarre to me. Mostly I keep my eye on the actual toon, but when in question I track their health bar.

 

I only pay attention to the red circle when I'm first trying to select the target. This is really only difficult for me at the middle node in OPG, where the floor is also red so it sucks. At that point, I'm either attacking something marked, or I'm trying to go after the same guy as the rest of the group is, so if I lose track of my target, I look for the one that has the health bar going down.

 

Although, if playing more "objectively", since as another thread has shown hardly anyone does that, then I'm just attacking whoever on the other team is trying to plant, because no one else is.

Assuming your not a clicker. Zoom out and play the off objective, it will get better over time.

 

No, I am mostly a keybind player. But, sorry, what do you mean by "play the off objective"?

Edited February 20, 2020 by kritikiller

The best advice is Zooming out and having your camera view higher up will allow you to see more.

I’ve my zoom out range to 70% and unless Ive lots of low roofs or walls, I keep it there. Otherwise I can scroll in to 61% for most other areas.

I’ve been slowly getting my wife into pvp and she had the same problems you’re having and her problem was playing at 30% zoom and not having the viewing angle higher. Her viewing angle was nearly the default flat angle you get logining in or respawning into an area, so she had to try and look through a crowd to find her target.

Personally, mine is at 35-50% angle. I do change it to 75% in some close quarter situations to better see around or over LoS or walls. I’m also a partial clicker and have most of my keybinds on my mouse, so adjusting my angle on the fly is super easy.

I play the whole game this way with the zoom and not just pvp. So the easiest way to practice this outside of pvp is do some flash points solo where you get trash mobs rushing you. Learn to cc some, interrupt others and tab through the targets. The reason I suggest this is trash mobs of more than 3 are usually harder to kill than bosses and more than 5 will start to kill you if you don’t use similar strategies you would use in pvp.

Ie, cc, melee los (yes, it’s a thing when out numbered), stuns, interrupts and hard swaps. I use nearly every pvp trick I know and can clear some flash points solo on master mode

As a Sorc, or any other ranged class, it's easy; I target and blast away. I'm not great at PvP, but so far have managed to get my main to Valor 61 with relative ease.

 

The problem is, when play with a melee class, especially my Deception Assassin, where I have to be close to my target.

 

In Arena, this is easy enough, since there are only 4v4, and I always have "Friendly Player Nameplates" (and mine) turned off anyway. But in Warzones, where groups of players are bunched up in a crowd, I simply am unable to follow where my target is anymore, amidst the jumble of players.

 

Again, as ranged it's easy. But as a melee class... I end up walking around like an idiot, unable to attack, because it is so difficult for me to see where the target circle is under an enemy player.

 

Just far too much graphics "mess" going on around, and I cannot figure out a good way to keep an eye on where my target is in all that crowd of players, when I can't even follow the target circle anymore because it's too hard to spot with everything that is happening all around me graphically.

 

There must be a better way to do this.

 

Any suggestions or ideas from more experienced melee PvP players?

 

Thanks.

 

Look for the red arrow above the enemy head, not under their legs. Tab target closest enemy like mad and learn to stop when you see required name with arrow above their head.

 

Also - in such chaos just DO DPS on any target, do aoe, often its impossible to sort out who is who for a few secs. Sooner or later players will spread out and you will able to jump on your prefered target.

 

And well - it takes some time to practice. Im purely melee player and sometimes I envy "stationary turrets" for a clear view of the battlefield

Edited February 20, 2020 by Nathan_Hanefort

Why not reduce the graphics. Look in settings, and tinker with it, see if you can remove some effects that in reality are unnecessary that could be creating color clutter on your screen.

 

I agree it's very busy and when I played I found this helped me. I also found ways to change my UI to make it easier to help with my PVP performance by removing certain UI features I really didn't need.

 

This is a personal thing, it takes time and is tedious but you can make the UI friendlier for how you play with some attention to detail etc.

 

Also, check out Youtube videos, watch other players UI and see if they set theirs up in a way it makes it easier for them to stay on target with melee.

 

Krea has a very informative video on how to set up your UI just for PVP, I'd suggest finding that and watching it. Even if you are a long time vet, I am sure the video will teach you something you don't know.

Thank you very much, a lot of good suggestions in here! I will try them all.

 

Ok, time for me to get cracking on my way to "Elite Warlord" now!

I assume you know about using focus target and target of target and such.

 

If it's regs, consider placing a targeting marker over your specific target. You can keybind these.

 

Usually there are only 2 or 3 in use most reg matches, a Target reticule and maybe a flame or a lightning bolt. - leaving a few spare, such as the Gun or the lightsaber hilt or the cog. - Probably best to use one of the latter.

 

That way, your target has a honking big symbol over it's head. OFC some players on your own team might start flipping the symbols and trolling you, but that's par for the course in regs.

 

you can also keybind nearest enemy or fiend or target of target, so instead of chasing someone, you can just go to the nearest and start attacking them. There is a 'target of nearest ally' as well, if that doesn't make it over complicated (!)

 

As for arenas, it's sometimes easier to establish a set kill-order and allocate symbols. Solo teams don't always set a strategy, kill order, symbol hierarchy, but most teams who play together frequently do.

 

GL.

Honestly, I typically target the lowest health enemy near me. Why? Because it means at least 1 other person is targeting that player. The problem with pug regs is both lack of DPS and not focusing down a single target.... even if you mark the target. Edited February 20, 2020 by Rion_Starkiller

Honestly, I typically target the lowest health enemy near me. Why? Because it means at least 1 other person is targeting that player. The problem with pug regs is both lack of DPS and not focusing down a single target.... even if you mark the target.

 

I do this too, if i am not stalking their healer around the map. I miss chasing sorcs around on my Arsenal Merc, rofl. Sounds like I wouldn't have as much fun doing it though, now, since they inadvertently nerfed the spec.

 

When I come back to monkey around, I think I will just play a healing merc. I always enjoyed healing merc as much as my healing sorc/sages, they just were 5x the work for the same results lol.

 

Sounds like now, it's opposite. Healing merc is now top of the healing food chain. I have to see this in person I suppose to believe they actually are better than Operative healers.

 

Now Sorc heals, no surprise there; they been nerfing and dumbing down the healing sorc spec for years now. It's like they don't even know how to improve their own classes in the game.

Outside zooming out so you can witness more things going on, also lower your mouse turn speed. By default, it's pretty absurd for most people. You'll have to go into your settings in your appdata, so you may want to look it up. There are plenty of threads covering it.