Rift PvP Beginner’s Tips

Rift PvP Beginner’s Tips by Sir Sowl

Introduction :

I would like to start a thread where people, like me, grinded their way up the ranks (even post 1.2 when there was a bunch of p6’s and premades) and that didn’t find the ride that much of a problem.

In other words, I’d like to make an extensive list of tips and tricks that could make our low geared/new PvP player enjoy their way more than they currently do at the same time as making them better players.

My contribution:

1. If you are a dps class, the guild perk [Blood Thirsty] should always be on. Yes it costs 50g/hour, but 30% of your health everytime you make a kill enables you to win 1v2 and 1v3 battles. Even survive Sin’s/Warlocks’s dots after taking them down.

2. Keep in line of sight of your healers and show them some love! There’s nothing that pisses a healer more than someone saying “Wtb heals”. He might go dps just to piss you off next time he sees you.

3. Protect your healers! Yes, theirs is a priority target, but without yours, you won’t last as long.

4. LOS those high damaging abilities. At some point, you’ll recognize each of every classes’ big dps cooldowns such as [Improved Hit and Run] or [Bend Like The Reed]

5. Be aware of your environment, where to LOS the ranged classes This works for both the ranged DPS classes and Healers. A Healer on the side of the pillar in codex will not get hit by the squishy DPS on the rocks unless they go down while remaining in the line of sight of his team mates.

6. Spend time making your build. Getting one from a team mate is certainly inspiring, but asking for where every points are spent is a stretch. You will do a lot better by knowing what the advantages of your builds are than not. I hardly know any build that is good against everything. Each builds should have a “role” and “objective”. You should know that pure dps classes without heal debuffs won’t do anything against healers, their HPS clearly outdps you. Get to know the strenght and weaknesses of your build so you can improve it constantly. There’s a lot more than the cookie cutters that are viable.

7. Spend time keybinding/knowing your skills. Knowledge is power.

8. Do not be bossy in warfronts As much as you can be a t2 leader or raid leader, if you don’t hop in a warfront with your guys, people won’t listen to you. If you have a negative attitude (Raging), please refrain from pointing fingers at everyone else : That makes you look silly and cocky. That attitude pisses your team mates which would either spend time typing to argue with you when there are a lot more better things you can do in a warfront than talking.

9. Play for the team. That means, there shouldn’t be 5 stealthed rogue waiting in vault or people trying to solo cap a point defended by three people. Try to predict the outcome of battles considering the current situation. i.e. Your gear, your opponent’s gear, his buffs (what is your opponent playing?), etc.

10. Recognize your opponent’s gear There aren’t a lot of PvP gear sets. Telling the difference between a r2 and r6 cleric can be a game changer. Especially if you specialize in burst damage.

11. If a build enables you to run shards or objectives without being gear reliant, use it. i.e. if you are a rogue, a good flag runner turns the tide in whitefall.

12. Buy the PvP Gear. Yes, you might buy your p6 gear faster if you just spare it until then. But if you are prone to raging/complain about balance, refraining yourself from doing better is only going to hurt you.

13. Keep in mind that the ride from r1 to r3 is about 3-4 evenings of PvP.

14. Learn how to circle strafe. If your A and D keys are still for keyboard turning, spend some time putting them as strafe left and right instead, get used to it and practice circle strafing mobs or whatever.

15. Keybind ALL of your abilities, even potions! PvP is fast paced, wasting a gcd searching for your
ability while circle strafing/staying aware of where you are in the battle field simply doesn’t cut it. For instance, I use : 1-5, Q-E-R, Z-X-C, Shift + (1-5, Q-E-R, Z-X-C), Alt + 1-5 (for buffs), Alt + Q-E-R for Stuff you don’t use often. Make it logical.

There are surely more tips we can give, and I leave it up to you guys.

Please, refrain from flaming/trolling in this thread. I want to keep it as clean as possible for our lower geared/new PvPers to learn from this.