PSA #1: If you’re new to PvP, need a refresher on concepts, or just need some build advice, head over to https://darkelves.com and read the guides. You’re also welcome to join Discord at https://discord.gg/darkelves and |H1:guild:276865|hJust Chill|h with us!
PSA #2: PvP favours group builds. Read the guide at https://darkelves.com/framework/ to understand how these work, and how you can perform better, die less, NOT kill your allies due to using the wrong builds/skills, and make more AP!
PSA #3: If you’re having trouble fighting ball groups, read through the info at https://darkelves.com/groups. It’ll help by either disillusioning you to wanting to fight them, or give you some insights on how to better get them out of our keeps.
PSA #4: Want to know how some people are making hundreds of thousands of AP per hour? Here’s some info: https://darkelves.com/ap/
PSA #5: Cross heals are a critical component of staying alive. While in combat you should always be casting. If you’re not doing damage, keeping up Radiating Regen and Echoing Vigor will help everyone around you stay alive. Spam Radiating Regen with a Maelstrom resto, and cast Echoing Vigor as long as you’re above 80% stamina and there are people around you.
PSA #6: HoTs (Heal over Time) apply every tick like DoTs (Damage over Time), and if you have more healing than damage, you (and your opponents) won’t even see your health bar move. The “immortal” style ball groups have 12 people spamming HoTs, so you have to eat through 40-50k HPS to kill them when they have all their HoTs up!
PSA 7:Every player should have Echoing Vigor on their bar! Keep it up (one cast per 6 players near you) whenever you’re in combat and there are people around.
PSA #8: When opponents are sieging our keep, we need solid siege hitting the breaches. Oils pouring inwards, cold fire ballistas hitting the breach, ONE meatbag and ONE scattershot hitting each breach or flags. Siege does more damage than most players!
PSA #9: When you want to take a keep, the key is speed. It’s rare that the attacking faction has more than the defending faction is capable of fielding for the first two minutes. You can place up to 20 siege attacking, and they should almost all be hitting the wall or door that we want to get in. Less than 20, and you reduce your changes of a win!
PSA #10: If you’re looking for a group, let the leaders know what you’re playing. Example, “Warden DD in Order’s / VD / Balorgh LFG” will get you more responses than when they have no idea what role/class/spec you’re in!
PSA #11: If you want to play as part of a group, you should build for the success of the group rather than the way you would play if solo. https://darkelves.com/groups has some info on fighting groups, and https://darkelves.com/framework has build style suggestions.
PSA #12: If the hammer is slaughterfished, it will reset after 5 minutes to its original spawn point!
PSA #13: AP is doubled during Mayhem events, and there’s usually more AP to be made taking resources and retaking keeps than defending (based on time). The consistent exception to that is keeps with scrolls in them! Don’t worry about the campaign, think about how to make more AP! This event feeds us in gold/pots/etc for the rest of the year so we don’t have to farm!
PSA #14: Scrolls will reset to their starting location after 60 minutes of being held by players, or 5 minutes of being dropped and not picked up. If the scroll’s origin keep is no longer owned by the faction whose home keep it is, then the scroll will reset to a random home keep of that faction! This can be a good tactic to influence the map!
PSA #15: Most of the things you read in zone are based on the bias or insanity of the people typing. Don’t trust everything you read. Some will say things that are completely wrong just to be trolls and get attention. The best way to deal with that is to /ignore anyone who brings no positive value to your gaming experience.
PSA #16: If you’re bugged out and can’t run, moving slowly, or have many debuffs on you that seem to have days – if not years of time remaining, port to the gate and enter Cheesemonger’s portal near the quest signs. When you come out, your character will be back to normal! If you can’t see the portal, you can still take it!
PSA #17: While pushing in, everyone should be spamming HoTs and heals, use immovable potions, and ults any time there are many opponents that can be hit. There’s nothing wrong with using ults if that gets us in and past the challenging breach! We also need to open longer breaches (walls, not FD) when it’s a slow siege (not 20/20) or there are many defenders!
PSA #18: Defence ticks occur one minute after nobody has died in the range of the keep. If you want to force a tick, everyone should get inside and stop fighting (and killing/dying) for 60 seconds!
PSA #19: A ball group is a group of up to 12 players who group up tight and move in a ball. A Min/Max group is a group where every player is in the build that maximizes the output or value for the minimum amount of effort. 12 Players in a Min/Max group can easily take on many times their own numbers.
PSA #20: Rams only need 6 players. More than that, and it’s a waste of potential extra siege that could help speed up a take. Everyone who is not on the ram, and who is not healing should be running at least one and preferably three ballistas when trying to get into a keep/outpost. If you’re not sieging or healing, you’re bomb bait!
PSA #21: If you’re calling a location (Keep Name) in zone, explain why others need to pay attention. How many opponents are there? What are they doing? How many of us are needed to counter what you see? A call of one keep name can have 50 of us show up, pulling people off of where they need to be in order to fight three trolls.
PSA #22: Don’t cast Purge/Cleanse or use any abilities that remove negative effects while close to other players. Those skills proc the |H1:item:180615:364:50:68343:370:50:12:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:2049:24:0:1:0:7532:0|h|h set, and kill your allies!
PSA #23: To keep a keep flagged, or to reflag it, a wall (or door) needs to be under 50% health, and take damage. If we lose a keep, your priority should be to hit the open wall with siege preventing our opponents from repairing, and keep it flagged so that they can’t rez at the keep without a camp or manual rez!
PSA #24: Every player should be maintaining their own Major Evasion buff! Area damage is what kills you most often. There are great magicka builds for healing and damage that use 5 medium so that you can run your own Shuffle/Elude. If you absolutely need 5 light armour, you can run the Spectre’s Eye set on your back bar.
PSA #25: Many people making calls in zone have no idea what they’re talking about. Many others believe that they’re right, but are in fact absolute morons. Whenever anyone makes a call, including myself, think for yourself if it’s a good call, look at the map, read what others respond and if they suggest alternatives. Don’t be a mindless zergling!
PSA #26: Flags at towns don’t flip faster if you have more (up to 6) people like resource and keep flags do. Only one person is needed on them (like in IC) for them to flip at max speed.
PSA #27: Fire siege does half damage to walls, catapults do almost no damage to walls. One person can run three siege easily if they’re placed in a triangle!
PSA #28: This is a game. If it makes you angry, upset, or want to be toxic to others, you should probably take a break and go do something else.
PSA #29: To keep zone more civil, if you’re uncertain of the best move, location to hit, or most appropriate strategy to achieve your goals, please discuss it. If you make a call, provide reasoning or justification so the zone generals, commanders & strategists will at least understand why you make a call and can offer helpful suggestions.
PSA #30: Sige shields should be set up to overlap at their edges so you get better coverage of where a breach will be. One siege shield isn’t always enough to cover everyone being hit. At least two should be placed every time, so that they’re positioned like two glorious titties staring up at the sky. There’s a reason we call them siege titties!
PSA 31: Don’t go AFK while dead, and don’t hold on to a rez and not take it! Players can’t rez other players if you’re holding on to theirs. Either accept or decline as quick as you can please!
PSA 32: When the faction is moving on a target, start siege all at the same time and try to get max (20) up within a very short time. A good siege can open up a door or wall in a fraction of the time you normally see siege start. Get in FAST!