Rift PvP Tips and Tricks

Rift PvP Tips and Tricks by Keota

Here are a couple tips for the new players to grab onto to more effectively help your team push forward for the win. I posted in the PvP section a while ago I thought with the release of Storm Legion it would help newcomers. Enjoy!

Vengeance and Valor are stats that remain solely on PvP gear mostly as an attempt to deter players from wearing high end PvE gear in a PvP setting. These two stats will grow in size as you carry on with your ranks and receive better gear items. The more you can get of these stats the better off you are.
Vengeance increases the effective spell power and attack power against enemy players by however much you have. In other words it is a Damage and heal increase.
Valor reduces incoming damage from enemy players by a certain % depending on how much of it you have.

Questions about bolstering? I copied this from the 2.0 patch notes in case you missed it!
WARFRONT BOLSTERING 2.0
* 1-59 Warfront Brackets: Other then access to higher ability ranks and talent gains, all players should now be boosted to the max level effectiveness available in the bracket.
* Level 60 Warfronts and Conquest: Bolstering at max level now has less to do with rank, and is instead focused on the PVP Gear you have equipped

* Instead of boosting individual stats if they are below the desired ranks goals, or capping individual stats when you are above those goals we now examine each piece of gear to determine if it needs to be replaced or ignored.
– Each slot is compared against the lowest set of PVP gear available.
– If your gear is less powerful its stats will be replaced with the Mercenary set.
– If the gear you have equipped lacks Valor and is more powerful its stats will be replaced with gear from the Mercenary set.
– Procs and Runes have no effect if they are replaced.
– Synergy Crystal Bonuses use your equipped items to determine which bonuses are applied.
– Synergy Crystals, Greater Essences, Trinkets and Seals are excluded from Bolstering.

Peeling:
– The constant use of slows, cc’s, and stuns on an opponent to free a friendly player to maintain its primary task (healing you and your team or bursting an enemy target). Every DPS can peel maybe not in the spec they want or use and some more than others (see warrior’s vs rogues) but any two players can do this effectively. This is also a good time to set a healer as your “focus target” this is not your actual target but merely a larger and more detailed raid frame on your screen of that person. To do these just simply select a target and type /focus. You can also move the position of that picture by going into your settings and adjusting your UI.
@Warriors we currently don’t have any pure DPS specs that have snares (1.11 pre Xpac) but that doesn’t let you off the hook! Stuns, Guard, and other damage mitigating ability’s that you can use on other players are nearly as viable.

Cover/Concealment:
– A term I am most familiar with is called “pillar humping” and it’s something healers and ranged DPS can do alike especially in a place like Library. Using Pillars and other terrain to either kite around or Los incoming damage is a key factor to success of your team. Concealing your healer is also doable by stacking ranged DPS right on top of them. A lot of players spam ability’s in hope that the next nearest target is a healer. A good example of how effective this can be is how frustrating it can be to tab through splits to find a Dominator, there is a good chance that player is going to Tab target few times.

Marking your healers:
– Preferably with high numbers and enemy healers with low numbers will help players to keep an eye on the position of the healer without losing them in a fumble of tunnel vision. To many times has a Warfront kicked off and a healer gets smashed right of the bat and a DPS didn’t even realize it as he/she dies right next to them. Marking healers in priority from strongest to weakest is also helpful and sometimes it’s more beneficial to target the lower HP healer over the higher HP healer depending on the situation. Do what feels right if your target is not losing health after 8 or 9 rotations find a new number to smack on.

Learn to kite a target:
– It’s not just about keeping out of range of that player but where you can get him to follow you and over extend. Leading a player in to a LOS area is pretty effective at getting a pocket healed melee to eat dirt. Melee tunnel pretty hard in this game! so if you harass or “bait” that person enough they will undoubtedly try for the kill. This can be done by any ranged DPS class or even more effectively a healer.
BUNNY HOP! I love mages who bunny hop! Wondering how to scoot and shoot? (Evade while doing damage) Example: hold mouse buttons down >Jump >slide mouse left facing your target >instant cast with left hand key bind >slide mouse back to right. At this time you should be back on the ground running away from your target. Some mages can do this effectively almost every gcd.

Watch Melee!
– Take an extra second to check what the enemy melee is beating on. If it’s a healer start peeling until they are in a safe position to continue healing the raid. Short but sweet this one is VERY important! For the most part melee tend to tunnel and over extend if you see a player LOSing a healer swap to that target and take them out. A good rule of thumb is always being on the lookout for enemy players pushed too far from healers.

Know your class and know your enemy!
– There are tons of guides on every class HERE So take some time and look over your class capabilities as well as the other classes you will find with or against you in the battlefield. A big part of PvP is knowing what your enemy is going to do before he does it. This will provide you with the “know how” when it comes to countering ability’s when it matters most.

Manage your cool downs!
– If your class and soul tree relies on CD’s to burst, heal, or mitigate make sure that you are spreading them out unless completely necessary because you don’t want to be the First guy totally out of CD’s during a highly competitive match. This is also where warriors Guard’s come in handy throw that sucker on a healer every time it’s off CD get in the habit of using it often. Same with cleric healers and Cov.

Tips:
– If you haven’t started using key binds yet and are still using your mouse to click ability’s I have a really good set up for new players to set the action bar up. So please feel free to PM me and I’ll gladly do what I can. Once your abilities are bound to say for example keys 1, 2,3,4,5 etc. For melee practice running circles around a dummy while you hold both mouse buttons down and at the same time using your left hand to press your builders and finishers. Maybe you can start to practice the circle strafe as well! See this link for a good example. start @ 3:20 Different game yes but same concept. You don’t need a razor naga to be good so ignore the mouse key binds. For ranged same concept as melee but at ranged minus the circle strafe.
I would enable nameplates in your UI settings to make sure you have a better idea of who you are focusing vs who your team is focusing. It’s a REALLY great idea to swap to a target if you see them low health. Although your extreme and unbreakable focus on a healer is very well appreciated your healers would also appreciate it when you can lessen the load of damage output from the other team when it’s possible. Once he’s dead swap back over and smack away!

Macro Advise:
– Here are some really easy commands to start out with when considering macroing certain ability’s. Very simple ones but ones I and others use on a daily basis I would REALLY suggest using some of these!
/cast
/targetlasttarget
/stopcasting
/use
#show
@mouseover
/target
/assist
/focus
/clearfocus
VERY basic but very helpful I’ll give an example for a few that look somewhat confusing. The rest are self-explanatory. You can also find a good list of commands HERE

/targetlasttarget example: /target Zoar /cast spell breaker /targetlasttarget. In one macro you can target yourself cleanse yourself and then target the person you were last attacking!

/assist example: /assist Pocketemu. This command lets me target the same target as Pocketemu to make sure we are focus firing the same target. As a new player I found myself “assisting” more experienced players.

/use example: /use [consumable] /use [consumable on a different CD] etc.

/cast @mouseover example: /cast @mouseover Deluge .The @mouseover targeting works when the cursor is hovering over party member portraits, pet portraits, and names in the raid panel.

ABOVE ALL
– Check if you are the leader of the match! If you are the leader and don’t want the responsibility to mark targets Then ask in WF chat if there is anyone that wants it. A simple /WF command opens the Warfront chat box. I as well as others can attest to the sheer power of accurate target marking and how it can effect the outcome of the game greatly!

REMEMBER!!! Healers are “force multipliers” if you live twice as long as the other guy your basically the same as two of him. I am positive that if every Warfront group followed at least a few of these tips you will start to see more and more healers play again and your reputation as player will be it of one that healer will make you a priority target for heals. As they say “you scratch my back I scratch your back”.

If you are new to PVP in MMOs these will be some things that other more seasoned players will expect of you. Don’t get frustrated and By all means play at your own pace and with your own style but try to remember that every other person is relying on you to contribute in some way. As you pick your build and talents keep this thread in mind I encourage you to pick up those extra utility talents to assist in the success of your team.

Please feel Free to leave feedback and other Pro tips not covered in this thread in the comments below!
Most importantly have fun, kick ***, and take names.