Faction
Faction is a reward you get in PvP akin to experience in PvE. You can cash in Faction to unlock skills or items for your PvP items. The most efficient way to get faction later on is to play guild vs. guild or Heroes' Ascent but right now for you as a beginner it's probably playing in the Training Arena. Note that you can obtain a max of 1k Faction per day playing against NPCs
Training Arena
The Training Arena is useful for getting the hang of PvP basics. You should not be losing in here unless you are playing very badly or you have totally screwed up your build
Zaishen Challenge/Elites’
This gives you some Team Arena-like practice against actual builds as opposed to henchmen. It can be useful to work out whether a character build is working since you can bring a supporting Monk player or henchman. You unlock the Zaishen Elites area after beating 5 different Zaishen Challenge teams. The Elites area is exactly the same except that it's always random opponents and each round adds one more opponent (4v4, then 4v5, 4v6, etc.).
Random Arena
Due to the random team selection, success in this area is mostly up to whether you get dealt good players on your team and a good mix of characters or not. To put it politely, you see a wide range of player skill in this arena
Since you can't rely on having a monk on your team, the best characters to play in RA are generally either
Monk: that way you have a monk on your team, since you are one’
Warrior: good armour. Take Healing Signet
Ranger: reasonable armour plus you can stay at a good distance from the opposing warriors. Bring Troll Unguent
People will sometimes trash-talk and be obnoxious, like every other online game. Turn off the All chat channel and switch your state to away on the friends screen if this bothers you
People will sometimes trash-talk and be obnoxious, like every other online game. Turn off the All chat channel and switch your state to away on the friends screen if this bothers you
Team Arena
The aim of this guide is to bring you up to the point where you feel comfortable in this area
The best way to find a group for Team Arena is to be in a guild that has a bunch of active PvP players. You may well be in a small guild of your friends who aren't so interested in PvP and you don't want to leave. I'll warn you that the fastest way to get better at the game is to play with people who are better with you, so if you're serious about getting better you may want to to explain the situation to your friends and find a guild that will work better for you. Don't bother applying for membership of one of the top guilds you've seen on Observer Mode - you're just wasting your time and theirs
If you really want to stay in your guild and they aren't playing PvP, you can find pick-up groups but generally the quality will be fairly random. If you go this route and happen to play with people that you like, make sure you keep them on your friends list and build up a list of contacts
Be flexible with the build you play - you are filling a role in a team and if your character doesn't fit in your team will not do as well
Conclusion: starting out
Go create your PvP character. You'll start in the Nameless Isle, next to the Temple of Balthezar in the Battle Isles. Go talk to all the Masters in the Nameless Isle and read what they say - there's a lot of detail there I'm not covering in this guide
Once you're done, go talk to the Master of Paths and play a few rounds in the Training Arena. The world is now your oyster. Find a playstyle that suits you and keep unlocking those skills
Once you're done, go talk to the Master of Paths and play a few rounds in the Training Arena. The world is now your oyster. Find a playstyle that suits you and keep unlocking those skills
I won't go into too much detail of the ins and outs of each build except for the important points. Note that these may be somewhat outdated due to skill rebalances but they should be somewhat useful as a starting point
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