I posted this on central and will share it with you guys.
Some beginner tips for pvp
Hi I'm Justin Ashcloud. If you're having a rough time in ranked pvp take a look at a few things I've picked up along the way.
1) Never cast tower shields or weakness at the start of a match, your opponent will just wand it away and build pups as you waste your defenses. Wait untill your opponent blades up, traps or boosts before you put up that Tower.
2) Most people you encounter will have a spritely or may cast unicorn pet, save your infections for after an attack or their pet will probably just cast it away, remember conservation and timing are key elements to owning people in pvp. Also if you haven't trained infection go to mortis and learn it ASAP. Heal reduction is like ammo in the pip war.
3) save up your pips! I see allot of people waiting four turns then casting triton... Don't do this. Gauge your opponents in the beginning of the round and build your pip count for a combination attack. Make sure when you hit you will have enough pips to heal off some damage if your opponent strikes in the same round.
4) Tower before absorb. If you cat your tower before absorb spell people can't wand your tower away with an off school wand without dealing damage first, this especially frustrates balance wizards trying to max judge.
Straighten up little soldiers and dedication breeds expierience. Good luck :D if anyone has some advice to add PLZ share. Maybe if we try and help people there will be less complaints
Here a few adders for a beginner, off the top of the head, but it should help some...
1. First rule, always take the opponents Minion off the field as soon as possible. Especially if it's a Life Mionion.
2. Use infection before or right after a good hit, depending on the circumstances.
3. Keep the opponents Bubble off the field, this is a free Blade each time they attack you.
4. If you know it's going to be a long fight, try to conserve your treasure cards.
5. If possible, use Triage on your minion to save it, so they have to waste a second hit and more pips.
6. Use Weakness, but use more on Myth, Fire and Balance. If you expect a big hit, use a regular and a treasure weakness to reduce the hit.
7. Try to send out your minion when the opponent is low on pips and health. Force them to make a choice to try to kill the minion or heal. If you are not second, then shield the minion. Sometimes, putting out a minion can draw the fire toward it, and give you a chance to heal.
8. Sometimes, right after the opponent reshuffles, it will take a little time for them to get all the right cards, it's a good time to attack.
9. Have some shields, heals and attacks in your side deck.
10. Know what health level you need to get your opponent, so that your combo will kill them. So, you need to know the damage your combo will do at different levels of resist.
However, here are a few tips from my advanced strategy that will help anyone get better at pvp.
1. Use a wand attack when you can, so you can see how much your opponent resists your attacks. 2. Once you know the resistance, try and calculate an attack or a combination that will deal enough damage to take out your opponent. 3. Always try and keep control of an enviornmental spell. 4. Sometimes minions are good and sometimes they are bad, just because you can summon a minion, does not mean you should. And sometimes, just because your opponent has summoned a minion, does not mean divert your attention to taking out the minion. These are entirely situational. If you can take out your opponent befor the minion has a chance to do much, concentrate on your opponent and not the minion. 5. Don't spam your shields, sometimes, it is better to leave some in your hand and ready to cast, because simple spells like Fire elf, storm elf, fire elf, poison, and frostbite can take away shields fast and leave you wide open for huge attacks. Anticipate those attacks and shield right before you think they will attack. 6. Always try and Enchant your attacks. Learn how to make treasure cards and how to make enchanted attacks. 7. Most important rules in PvP, Never underestimate your opponent or trash talk first.
A few rules i've uncovered: 1. Rank 8 does not a Victory Make: Don't underestimate your lower pip spells. Two Tritons can win easier then 1 Leviathan. 2. Sometimes the best Offense is a good Defense: Loss of Pips can be just as devastating as loss of health. Time your debuff or Shield right, the enemy's strategy goes out the window, leaving you free to attack. 3. Be Nice to Your Opponent: I agree with Darthjt in his post, do not trash talk or gloat, and above all: Do NOT break Wizard101's Code of Conduct out of frustration. 4. Know Thy School: The best kind of Astral Spell for high level PvP depends on your school. If you are a Myth, you would do well with Damage enchants, as does Storm, whereas Ice should train in the ways of Fortify. 5. Know They Enemy: If you use situational strategies, and can switch tactics at will, then you stand a good chance of winning. For example, if you are dueling a Life, use Infection and Doom and Gloom (Treasure Card or regular) to your advantage. But for Storm, Use Defense and wait for their pips to be wasted before attacking.
That's my addition, hope this helps some new PvP Wizards!
Count your pips and count your opponents pips. Get into the habit of counting what will happen after you or your opponent casts a particular spell. This way you can try to think ahead of your opponent.
If you see a fire using power link and or link when they have 8 pips or so, they are probably trying to hold on to blast you with an efreet or heckhound.
Same goes for other classes. Watch how they use their pips.
Also try to consider what big spells your opponent may take advantage of: Fire: efreet (so keep a wand strike close to dump the -90 charm) ice: snow angel storm: triton, bolts, etc.
If you can carry low pip mob hit spells, do so. Prepare for anything in 1v1, including minion spamming.
Just wanted to add one more itesm, that may help a few. Since this is just for beginners, I tried to keep it basic.
Patterns,..... watch the patterns that your opponent does. For example, does he/she alway wait and hit when pips fill up? Does he/she always heal after a hit? Does he/she always try to keep the health full? Do they attack even when they have a weakness on their head? Do they attack your low level minion with a spell that takes more pips? Do they put up an infection before they attack or right after? I'm sure you got the idea by now,... these patterns, if you can pick them up in the heat of battle, can tell you alot. They can also give you an idea of how to keep your pips up, and get their pips to drop down. If you can get them to waste pips, you gain an advantage, and it can help you win the battle.
After reading the postings above, I thought of one more items that the beginner should think about.
Please reread Bionaknights items 4 and 5 again, this is directly linked to those two posting, and relates to the later part of CorbinW's posting.
To me, the two most important things when beginning is Deck Setup and How you play the cards when you get them. The posts above go into this, if you reread them.
You need to know your enemy's spells and what they do, all of them. You need to set up your deck to defend against these spells. Ok, how do you kow what to do.....? Let me give a few examples, just to start the thought process.
Most Balance will use the Feint and Judgement attack. *Counter, add empower or Cleanse ward to your deck.
Ice will Blade, Tri Blade, TC blade, etc and attack. *Counter, add a few Earthquakes to your side deck, or the steal blade spell.
Fire will use Efreet when they think you will attack, and that minus 90 can waste a lot of pips and blades on your side. *Counter, use an off school spell or wand to take it off. This leaves your blades up, and you can now attack and do damage.
Life, if level 70 will use the big green guy, and leave two Life Dispels. *Counter, use Balance amulet and Availing hands, or if using the Life Amulet, have lots of sprites in your deck. Using only a one pip spell to get rid of thoes is the best option.
Myth, they often like to spam Talos, and that minion can do damage. *Counter, use an AOE spell, like Snow Ange, or Sandstorm. Or if you need to keep your blades, use a Gard or Colossal Off school spell. Note Darthjt's suggestion above on minions.
All schools like to use Weakness, don't use a big spell when you got a weakness on you. *Counter, use lower pip spells or wands to remove.
So I'm sure you got the idea by now, build your deck to counter other schools as much has you can. I often have to use part of the side TC deck for this. If you don't like Treasure cards / TC attacks, then be prepared, you may lose many of your fights.
If you are not storm or fire, your deck may want to be mostly defensive and heals. So think about what cards you are putting into your deck, and how you will counter the opponents spells. Offensive stratergy and Deck constuction are directly linked to Defense, imo.
there is one important piece of advice you are missing do not repeat do not play pvp at low lvls or you will not last pvp i am lvl 40 and i haven't started yet so that is one thing to consider about it plus the rules posted here are talking about tactics that work on certain classes say for example your fighting an ice type and you would probably want to use death drain spells to weaken them and at the same time heal yourself so that your opponent doesn't have an edge health wise fighting a storm type is where you want to use anti accuracy spells so that there spells fail almost every time
Don't be afraid to lose while you're learning, just keep trying. Every loss is another lesson learned. Keep track of what works and what doesn't. If you keep losing to the same school or the same type of attack, figure out a way to counter it.
My tips: 1. Try to bring down your opponent's damage with low percent shield comboes, and don't stack 2 70% shields. 2. Never use a blade until 1-2 rounds before attacking 3. If you're at a low amount of pips and it's going to take you too long to attack, enchant a rank 4 spell and strike, this will force your opponent to reassure their health. 4. Don't Reshuffle until you have actually ran out of drawing cards. 5. Don't damage enchant spells that will run into shields. 6. Don't give away your stats early. This one is actually choice, if you like to talk, go ahead. 7. Give out a threatening strategy, just try to make your opponent shield as much as they can, they Shatter it all away. 8. Armor Pierce wizards with 700+ damage spells only, or damage enchantments would be better (Depending on the situation) 9. Confuse your opponent and trick them. 10. Don't take too long to attack, the spell is obviously going to get shielded. 11. Always keep a TC Pierce/Shatter in deck, but if you want to be like me and have an MC Pierce pet, go ahead. 12. Don't underestimate your opponents unless you can assure yourself that they have terrible stats. 13. If possible, use Vengeance before you heal to have a critical in it. 14. Don't ever use general school shields (Such as Tower Shield) in the first few rounds, wait for it. 15. Go your way, master your deck, get your pet to perfection, get the best gear combo possible. 16. This is probably the only one that actually matters: Have a fun time and be a good sport.
Try to send out your minion when the opponent is low on pips and health. Force them to make a choice to try to kill the minion or heal. If you are not second, then shield the minion. Sometimes, putting out a minion can draw the fire toward it, and give you a chance to heal.
This is one of my core pip building techniques at low level pvp. Force the decision by casting a minion while opponent is low on health, do they kill minion and open themselves up for another hit or do they heal and decrease pips while minion hits and my pip count goes up. This all ties into pip planning and conservation techniques. new comers should all know how effective 0 pip utility cards are as a fight builds and how damage decreasing spells like weakness are just as important in a fight as hit spells. Nice joe
I just started my Death in Rnaked PvP, and noticed right off, beginners making poor choices in the spells or attacks they use.
Example, A fire has me a little low on Health (down at 2201), and hits my death with efreet, bad move. I use the minus 90, to heal on, perfect, I couldn't have asked for a better move against me. The fire ended up losing.
Again, I start to drop low on health, and people dump weakness on me. Perfect for a heal, they are helping me, not hurting me.
A balance stacks feints on me, and then trys to blade, giving me plenty of time to remove the feints with empower. Guess what, he lost too.
Another big mistake was done by a Myth, he had me in trouble. If he had hit me with Medusa and then Minotuar, he would have won the fight. But he reversed the spells, hitting me with Minotaur (which didn't stun me for two rounds), and then Medusa (but after I had healed). He had both in hand, I talked to him after the fight..... He lost, but could have won if he had made the correct choice in spells.
PvP is a lot like Solitare in it's own way, you have to choose the right cards, when given the option. So think out things, don't just use any card, it could cost you the match.
Just want to post one more thing, for the beginner upper Level player (maybe around 30 plus), or so. Not really sure at what level I really started to pick up on this.
PvP is not PvE, and many players get very relaxed in what cards they discard. I think they get use to holding certain cards in their hand.
The one thing I see with Beginners, is they don't discard to get the cards they want. Imo, you should only keep the cards you need to set thing up, with a sheild and a heal, etc. If you think you will really need a spell, well keep it, but discard what you don't need. You have to learn to discard to get what you need, when you need it, or you lose. Discarding what you won't need for the battle takes time to learn. It's part of the skillset, and you need to practice at it, especially if you are Balance, Storm, Fire, Death, or Myth. There is much more to this, but I want to keep it basic for someone starting PvP.
TravisAK or anyone that wants too, I think two subjects that could be added here are listed below. I don't think I would be the best person to write on these. I do think that Travis, Darth or others would be much better at getting to the real details that are needed.
I think, The one thing that beginners often miss is choosing the correct cards. Maybe why this is the case, is that they often don’t think of what the card can do. So let me give a few examples of card beginners may not think about, empower, weakness, cloak, etc. These card has real use in the game, but are often missed.
The second items that is really missed, is the plan of what is going to be done later in the match. This is sort of like being prepared for what is about to happen. Because I think this is a beginners real problem area, they have trouble seeing what lies ahead and what they need to be prepared for.
TravisAK or anyone that wants too, I think two subjects that could be added here are listed below. I don't think I would be the best person to write on these. I do think that Travis, Darth or others would be much better at getting to the real details that are needed.
I think, The one thing that beginners often miss is choosing the correct cards. Maybe why this is the case, is that they often don’t think of what the card can do. So let me give a few examples of card beginners may not think about, empower, weakness, cloak, etc. These card has real use in the game, but are often missed.
The second items that is really missed, is the plan of what is going to be done later in the match. This is sort of like being prepared for what is about to happen. Because I think this is a beginners real problem area, they have trouble seeing what lies ahead and what they need to be prepared for.
Joe.
These are kinda tips for not just beginners, but for everyone.
You have to know the spells of each and every school, not just your school, but every school. You have to know how much damage they do, how many pips they cost, what effects they have, how can they benefit or be used against you. Knowing all the spells in the game and what can be used is a major key in anticipation.
Not passing a turn, always do something. Try not to pass, either shield, blade, wand, trap, or attack, but try not to just let rounds go by, unless you absolutely have to.
TravisAK or anyone that wants too, I think two subjects that could be added here are listed below. I don't think I would be the best person to write on these. I do think that Travis, Darth or others would be much better at getting to the real details that are needed.
I think, The one thing that beginners often miss is choosing the correct cards. Maybe why this is the case, is that they often don’t think of what the card can do. So let me give a few examples of card beginners may not think about, empower, weakness, cloak, etc. These card has real use in the game, but are often missed.
The second items that is really missed, is the plan of what is going to be done later in the match. This is sort of like being prepared for what is about to happen. Because I think this is a beginners real problem area, they have trouble seeing what lies ahead and what they need to be prepared for.
Joe.
When I started low level pvp I learned something about deck efficiency, balancing a 18 card main deck and seven card side was quite a challenge at first but after a few matches a realized the key was to identify exactly what you need to win. Every card in my deck developed a clear and distinct purpose for the match.
People also need be able to observe the conditions at different levels of pvp, for example the amount of myth wizards playing between initiate and magus. Fighting so many myth I had to take a break and ask myself "what can I do to compete against double attacks that always get boosted and an army of trained minions" I went and trained Myth shield 80% and put an AOE in side to control minions. A few thoughts and deck tweaks later I was an overlord at lvl 10 fighting adept myth commanders who had full gear and winning from second.
Understanding your school strengths and weaknesses allows you to focus your deck, boosting your strengths and using the right cards to compensate for your weaknesses.
My card advice:
-Don't waste pips on off school attack spells if your gear does not boost the damage and you don't have the corresponding school amulet. Too many times I see people waste five yellow pips on a Minotaur when they aren't even myth. Moves like this will cost you the match. Focus on gear boosted in school attacks and use power pips to your advantage.
-don't flood your deck. The more spells you have in your deck the less chance you'll have to get what you need on the drop. Shorten up your card deck and train reshuffle.
-Keep some in school attacks (preferably stronger enchanted versions) in your side deck so you can draw a hit exactly when you see an opening. Most people don't understand how the side deck can give you what you need when you need it.. Take advantage of this.
Wand hit cards are just as important as attack cards, understand a good opponent will use 0 pip utility cards to reduce your damage to basically nothing. Save your wand hits and use them to break two spells everyone uses, tower and weakness.
One thing I see often is people using storm Tc cards because they are most powerful per pip in the game. The only problem to this strategy is everyone has storm shields and a pile of them, understand that cards mean nothing unless you have a plan to make them functional for you. Questions should be asked before a match like "what happens if they use a storm shield? How will I break it?" questions like this can avoid wasting pips, instead of using a four power pip kraken to take out a shield a player might get a storm wand to break and set up attack. Basically what I'm saying is your deck, attack plan, defense, everything should be thought out if you want to win consistently.
All the tools are in the game to make someone a great player. the cards we all use are the same, it's HOW we use them that separates us.
This is no longer just a list of Tip, but has become one of the best, if not the best beginners Manual I have ever seen. The last two postings by Darth and Travis, carry a ton of information that a beginner will not fully understand until later, after they play pvp for a while.
I really hope this continues to grow when the next world is released, because it is too good to let drop back into the depths of this Forum.
Two things I will like to address, and the first item is to Balance Wizards.
"-Don't waste pips on off school attack spells if your gear does not boost the damage and you don't have the corresponding school amulet. Too many times I see people waste five yellow pips on a Minotaur when they aren't even myth. Moves like this will cost you the match. Focus on gear boosted in school attacks and use power pips to your advantage."
What Travis says above is even more true for Balance Wizards. For some reason I see so many get confused and think they can use all off school's attacks. You can't, only if they have the Balance symbol on them, or you have the Amulet. Even with the Amulet, you lose your Gear Boost. I don't know why they think this, but I see it over and over in pvp.
Second,
" All the tools are in the game to make someone a great player. the cards we all use are the same, it's HOW we use them that separates us. "
This alone blew me away, it says so much.... what a perfect statement......
if who you are battleing is a friend right before the battle check out there stats including critical resistance and more by clicking there name in your friend menu
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