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How do I get better?


georgemattson

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I wouldnt pick sent as a "L2PvP"- class and especially not a combat sent. Pick an easier class/spec while you are working on situational awareness and the multiplayer setting in general.

 

A good deal of PvP'ing while leveling is highly recommended. PvE and PvP are, contrary to popular belief, not the same thing.

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Guard it if you have to, but if you go sit there of your own volition, I will come take it from you, and it will be very easy. (Operative) If I can't manage to stun you and cap it while you watch, I can just kill you and cap it after you're dead. Bring a buddy, and guard it with 2 people.

 

I hear this quite often and I'm curious how you guys manage it if the non-stealth guard is standing away from the node but within 30m. I certainly don't claim to be the best node guard ever, but I can't remember a scenario where one attacker took a node from me.

 

You hit me with sleep dart/mindtrap (sins), you still need a couple seconds to get to the node/LoS me. Usually that's plenty of time to eat the mezz, strafe, twin saber throw. Flashbang/whirlwind next, I'm full resolve and will just break it. At this point if you in combat stealth and I have no CC breaker then, yes it would be wise to ask the person that came over to stay, especially if he still has his CC breaker.

 

If you open on me first, I call on the first hit. Now this is one I can see someone who's good + geared well being able to trash me and cap fast enough before reinforcements have a chance to arrive. In this one I'll still use awe first to buy my team time, camo next and force lift if needed while mixing in roots from crippling throw and a slow from leg slash.

 

I'm really not disputing what you say, I'm just wondering what I should watch out for that's indefensible against one operative *. If there is two of you, no question you guys should take it every time.

 

EDIT: * I removed sins from the last statement. A well placed phase walk is a killer.

Edited by Ridickilis
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I wouldnt pick sent as a "L2PvP"- class and especially not a combat sent. Pick an easier class/spec while you are working on situational awareness and the multiplayer setting in general.

 

A good deal of PvP'ing while leveling is highly recommended. PvE and PvP are, contrary to popular belief, not the same thing.

 

As long as you have the intestinal fortitude to take the beat down go ahead and play your combat sent. Yes the skill cap is high and you will suck while you learn, but you will be fantastic on any melee class once you have it down.

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I hear this quite often and I'm curious how you guys manage it if the non-stealth guard is standing away from the node but within 30m. I certainly don't claim to be the best node guard ever, but I can't remember a scenario where one attacker took a node from me.

 

You hit me with sleep dart/mindtrap (sins), you still need a couple seconds to get to the node/LoS me. Usually that's plenty of time to eat the mess, strafe, twin saber throw. Flashbang/whirlwind next, I'm full resolve and will just break it. At this point if you in combat stealth and I have no CC breaker then, yes it would be wise to ask the person the came over to stay, especially if he still has his CC breaker.

 

If you open on me first, I call on the first hit. Now this is one I can see someone who's good + geared well being able to trash me and cap fast enough before reinforcements have a chance to arrive. In this one I'll use awe first to buy my team time, camo next and force lift if needed.

 

I'm really not disputing what you say, I'm just wondering what I should watch out for that's indefensible against one operative/sin. If there is two of you, no question you guys should take it every time.

 

A GOOD node defender will be able to do what you describe. Our OP, won't, for a while anyway. I'm sure he'll get there with practice.

 

I'm geared enough that I can 1v1 a sent almost every time. So I usually start by seeing what their situational awareness is by sleepdarting them. If they break that, I flashbang and cap. If they don't, then I start capping. If they're smart, they ride it out. If they're not, they break, I flashbang, and cap.

 

If they don't break, and interrupt my cap, then I dps them down some, and re-stealth. See what the reinforcements are, and if none are coming, I finish blowing them up and cap. If reinforcements are coming, then I head to the other node which now has fewer people at it to worry about.

 

Moral of the story - nothing in this game is guaranteed. But against ungeared/unpracticed players, I will steal your Sent-guarded node. Against geared/practiced players, I will harrass (and maybe steal) your Sent guarded node.

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I think getting ppl in the focus target off the bat is a crutch, u first got to understand what is going on then learn focus target to take ur game to the next level .

 

yeah that's what i thought; there are lots of awesome tips in this thread, but if you try to do all at once it's probably not gonna work out too well. For me it works best when i concentrate on 1 or 2 things at a time for example popping defensive cooldowns at appropriate times, or stealthing out before dying, and once i have this down without thinking i move to the next thing.

 

With like 25 different abilities on every class it's way overwhelming for me to go in and try to use them all properly right off the bat

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yeah that's what i thought; there are lots of awesome tips in this thread, but if you try to do all at once it's probably not gonna work out too well. For me it works best when i concentrate on 1 or 2 things at a time for example popping defensive cooldowns at appropriate times, or stealthing out before dying, and once i have this down without thinking i move to the next thing.

 

With like 25 different abilities on every class it's way overwhelming for me to go in and try to use them all properly right off the bat

 

Yeah, that's definitely true. I've been pulling out and summarizing all of the tips here in a Word document, figure I'll try and integrate a few steps at a time.

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WAY too many posts to thank online here, so I'll limit this to follow up questions, but I thought I'd provide a bit of a progress report and a big thank you to everyone who contributed.

 

I know it's only been a week, but I feel as though my gameplay has improved noticeably. If my play level would have been rated an "F" when I first started 55, I'd probably give myself a D or even a D+ now, with the occasional C-level match. I actually had my first "unbeatable" streak last night (granted I had a pocket healer, so I can't take a lot of credit for that, but it was still pretty gratifying), am moving upwards on the scoreboard, and am showing up in the top half of the boards about 1/3 of the time that I play. I was actually ranked #4 (3rd best on pub side) in that warzone where I was unbeatable as well, and have gotten #1 on objectives a couple times.

 

Gear has helped tremendously, btw. I'm posting from work atm (slow day), but IIRC, my damage range has increased by about 600 points, my health has increased something like 6-7,000, and armor has improved by about 2000. I'm no longer laughably less geared than everyone else, and actually have higher stats than some. One funny point; I noticed during the gearing upgrade that I hadn't yet maxed out my PvE mods, so a quick trip to my cybertech and artifice alts provided a decent boost as well.

 

Here's where I think I need to go to improve further:

- Gotta get into looking at my parses a lot more. This is hard for me as I'm always very tempted to play when I'm at home on the computer, as opposed to spending time not playing (i.e., studying how to get better), but I'm going to make the time to do this.

- Learning other class abilities is going to be a challenge. I tend to learn a lot better by doing as opposed to reading, so I really want to roll alts, but still thinking about how to approach this.

- I'm still learning what the various animations mean. I can recognize some of the sentinel stuff, so when I see an opposing mara winding up, I know that's a ravage coming my way unless I move, but I don't think I'm quite at the point of being able to benefit from the streams yet. They're on my list, though.

 

One question I did have for everyone, though... where exactly do you get better than Obroan gear? I know I need to look at other player's gear a bit closer and then google that, but as I'm researching this, all I'm finding so far is information that's at least a year old. There's plenty of info about 78 PvE gear, but I can't find references to 78 PvP gear. Does it exist, or are the guys I'm seeing with 40k health in WZs just using PvE gear?

 

Also, one other random question; as I originally understood it, I thought expertise was *the* stat that you need to keep maxed while in PVP, as it impacted damage done/taken and healing received. However, I'm seeing some folks in WZs with lower levels, including a couple folks here in there with valor levels in the 70s+ with expertise at 1600 or so. Is that a different strategy, and is there a logic behind that?

 

Thanks again.

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Obroan is the newest gear tier, there is nothing higher.

 

People have their own philosophies or may have found ways to make bolster work better for them through crafted items or specific PvE mods, but min/maxing conqueror will be your easiest and most effective way to have good gear. Obroan is going to take you some time to get and you probably won't notice a gigantic improvement.

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- Gotta get into looking at my parses a lot more. This is hard for me as I'm always very tempted to play when I'm at home on the computer, as opposed to spending time not playing (i.e., studying how to get better), but I'm going to make the time to do this.

Focus, not on numbers in a spreadsheet, but on the outcomes of your battles with other players. It's not like a PvE boss encounter, where everything is constant. NOTHING REMAINS THE SAME in a warzone. Therefore, parses have limited benefit in PvP.

 

- I'm still learning what the various animations mean. I can recognize some of the sentinel stuff, so when I see an opposing mara winding up, I know that's a ravage coming my way unless I move, but I don't think I'm quite at the point of being able to benefit from the streams yet. They're on my list, though.

Interface Editor - target castbar - scale it WAY up. So you can READ what the ability is. Then you know, unless it's an instant ability.

 

One question I did have for everyone, though... where exactly do you get better than Obroan gear?

You don't. Just augment your min/maxed conqueror, and grab obroan when you have the comms to do so from completing weeklies. The performance boost isn't worth chasing Obroan, unless you're running highly competitive ranked matches...

 

Also, one other random question; as I originally understood it, I thought expertise was *the* stat that you need to keep maxed while in PVP, as it impacted damage done/taken and healing received. However, I'm seeing some folks in WZs with lower levels, including a couple folks here in there with valor levels in the 70s+ with expertise at 1600 or so. Is that a different strategy, and is there a logic behind that?

No. They're just undergeared. Valor just means you spent a lot of TIME in a warzone. It has nothing to do with ability or experience. You can suck for 10,000 matches in a row, and you'll have valor 100 the same as the guy who did AWESOME for maybe half that many matches. (numbers pulled from my **** for reference)

 

Thanks again.

 

Yup. :) Keep on truckin.

 

What's your toon's name? I'll /wave you if I see you.

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Third, play with guildies as much as you can.

 

  • group up (premade FTW)
  • get in voice chat
  • after a WZ/arena discuss with your group what worked, what didn't, what should have been differently, ...
  • (optional) record some WZs and review the video later (e.g. fraps.com)

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Focus, not on numbers in a spreadsheet, but on the outcomes of your battles with other players. It's not like a PvE boss encounter, where everything is constant. NOTHING REMAINS THE SAME in a warzone. Therefore, parses have limited benefit in PvP.

 

My thought wasn't so much the numbers, per se, but more of an in-depth "what did I use at this time and why did I use it" kind of thing. Popping strike, for example, when I intended to use cauterize, or throwing out blade storm before precision slash, etc. In a one on one I'm confident I'd likely do well enough (if not spectacular), but in the midst of some of the more chaotic warzones I've definitely noticed on several occasions that I hit the wrong ability, didn't make use of my precision strike window, popped a DCD at the wrong time, etc. I figure if I can parse my data, I can analyze the flow of the fight and see how I reacted in given situations and (hopefully) how I should react better in similar situations. What I'd really like to do is do that at the same time as looking at a Fraps replay.

 

Interface Editor - target castbar - scale it WAY up. So you can READ what the ability is. Then you know, unless it's an instant ability.

 

Yep; did that. Think I'll need to combine that with Fraps, though. My visual comprehension is better now, but still lacking. Still looking too much at some areas of the screen and missing what's on other areas.

 

You don't. Just augment your min/maxed conqueror, and grab obroan when you have the comms to do so from completing weeklies. The performance boost isn't worth chasing Obroan, unless you're running highly competitive ranked matches...

 

Ah... interesting. Guess that takes the gear grind pressure off, at least. That does remind me of something else, btw. Does it make sense to go back to grabbing datacrons at this point? Given the small-ish increase from Obroan, getting enough datacrons would provide a similar increase.

 

No. They're just undergeared. Valor just means you spent a lot of TIME in a warzone. It has nothing to do with ability or experience. You can suck for 10,000 matches in a row, and you'll have valor 100 the same as the guy who did AWESOME for maybe half that many matches. (numbers pulled from my **** for reference)

 

Wondered about that. Didn't want to say it.

 

Yup. :) Keep on truckin.

 

What's your toon's name? I'll /wave you if I see you.

 

My main at the moment is Rexorshan, but I alt-hop a lot as I do a fair chunk of crafting. I also have Keyira and Arlenvoss (both sentinels; 36 and 55), Aldenack and Muleone (gunslingers), Cheldiar (concealment operative), Karnad (marauder), and O'Rama (inquisitor).

 

  • group up (premade FTW)
  • get in voice chat
  • after a WZ/arena discuss with your group what worked, what didn't, what should have been differently, ...
  • (optional) record some WZs and review the video later (e.g. fraps.com)

 

Yep; my guild and I (really, just six of us at the moment) group up whenever we can, although there's typically only 2-3 of us in chat). Discussions tend to be during the WZ and relatively obvious (Oh my God, those three guys are abandoning mid to try and three-cap? *** are they doing?). Definitely looking at Fraps fairly soon.

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Yep; my guild and I (really, just six of us at the moment) group up whenever we can, although there's typically only 2-3 of us in chat). Discussions tend to be during the WZ and relatively obvious (Oh my God, those three guys are abandoning mid to try and three-cap? *** are they doing?). Definitely looking at Fraps fairly soon.

 

do post mortem discussions. Ignore lopsided matches. Close matches that you lose are easiest to learn from because people find it easier to go looking for "the mistake that lost the game" but any close match is a good learning tool.

 

talk about strategies and tactics between queue pops. Talk about what worked and didn't work and why (bad idea? bad execution? appying tactic to the wrong situation?). Feel free to try some silly tactics. These are fun and can be good learning tools.

 

dueling experiements / training exercises with a buddy are a good way to learn to recognize bufs and castbars.

 

Combat logs (try torparse.com) are another good tool.

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  • 4 weeks later...

edited to remove the names

 

Oh my dear god... sorry for the necro-post, everyone, but I am so pumped by this, I had to share.

 

I'm sure this is par for the course for some of you, but very definitely a first for me. Was doing dailies on Section X while a 16-man group of Imps was ganking Pubs between bouts at Dreadtooth (I think). I managed to get splattered once, but kept doing my dailies, and on my way out of the Frozen Lake section, I ran into them again. Gave them a very wide berth, but three of them came after me anyway. At the choke point, I accidentally aggroed the two lvl 50 mobs (the skin flayers), and that's when three Imp 55's caught up with me [names removed}.

 

I have absolutely no flipping clue how I managed to do it, but I took all three of them out with a bit more than 50% health to spare (including the mobs).

 

I know it's kinda silly, but I'm really excited about this. Got on my 37 operative to see if I can track them down and check their gear. I'm sure they're likely at <200 expertise (I'm Conq + a couple Obroan pieces, so 2018), so it's nowhere near as impressive as it might be, but still...

 

:D:D:D:D:D:D

Edited by georgemattson
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Oh my dear god... sorry for the necro-post, everyone, but I am so pumped by this, I had to share.

 

[Might want to edit out the names? I think it's against forum policy to "out" specific people? Not sure.]

 

That's awesome. I love turning the tables on people who think they are about to "gank" you. :) Unfortunately, I am hardly ever able to pull it off. I did it in a HB once, on my shadow tank no less. I guess this guy wasn't really trying to gank me - but he's caught me "off to the side" and I was just trying to get back to where the action (aka - the ball) was. I was trying all my tools to escape combat, and he kept pulling me back in! Finally, at about 1/2 health, I figured "fine, I'll just fight, die, and respawn, it will be quicker". Instead I destroyed him. Which resulted in about a 2 second stun on me as I sat there flabbergasted trying to figure out how I did that. :D

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edited to remove the names

 

Oh my dear god... sorry for the necro-post, everyone, but I am so pumped by this, I had to share.

 

I'm sure this is par for the course for some of you, but very definitely a first for me. Was doing dailies on Section X while a 16-man group of Imps was ganking Pubs between bouts at Dreadtooth (I think). I managed to get splattered once, but kept doing my dailies, and on my way out of the Frozen Lake section, I ran into them again. Gave them a very wide berth, but three of them came after me anyway. At the choke point, I accidentally aggroed the two lvl 50 mobs (the skin flayers), and that's when three Imp 55's caught up with me [names removed}.

 

I have absolutely no flipping clue how I managed to do it, but I took all three of them out with a bit more than 50% health to spare (including the mobs).

 

I know it's kinda silly, but I'm really excited about this. Got on my 37 operative to see if I can track them down and check their gear. I'm sure they're likely at <200 expertise (I'm Conq + a couple Obroan pieces, so 2018), so it's nowhere near as impressive as it might be, but still...

 

:D:D:D:D:D:D

 

They will see you even when stealthed if you go with that level 37. Also don't think you can inspect enemy players

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They will see you even when stealthed if you go with that level 37. Also don't think you can inspect enemy players

 

You can when you're playing a character on the same faction. You can even add them as friends. I didn't get on my operative for his stealth capabilities, but rather because he was the highest level Imp toon I have. Figured if I could find them, I could inspect their gear.

 

Unfortunately, two of them left to CZ-198 by the time I got back online with the Imp, and the third had logged off. I still kept them in my friends list for two of my Imp toons, though. Figure if/when they show up back at fleet when I'm alt-hopping, I'll take a look. I'm really hoping they're at 2018 Exp, but I'm not naive enough to think that's a legitimate possibility.

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You can when you're playing a character on the same faction. You can even add them as friends. I didn't get on my operative for his stealth capabilities, but rather because he was the highest level Imp toon I have. Figured if I could find them, I could inspect their gear.

 

Unfortunately, two of them left to CZ-198 by the time I got back online with the Imp, and the third had logged off. I still kept them in my friends list for two of my Imp toons, though. Figure if/when they show up back at fleet when I'm alt-hopping, I'll take a look. I'm really hoping they're at 2018 Exp, but I'm not naive enough to think that's a legitimate possibility.

 

Derp. Didn't notice you meaning to go on your other faction toon. :p

 

one of my first pub toons in my sig know if Im on and you get ganked though. Currently Im not running full PvP suits due to bolster and all that, but I am working on a set for open world and I can be annoying as piss anyway on my scrapper.

Edited by Technohic
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Derp. Didn't notice you meaning to go on your other faction toon. :p

 

one of my first pub toons in my sig know if Im on and you get ganked though. Currently Im not running full PvP suits due to bolster and all that, but I am working on a set for open world and I can be annoying as piss anyway on my scrapper.

 

Meh, I didn't mind. Figured it was to be expected, when you're running dailies around a 16-man op group of the opposing faction. Thanks, though :)

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