PvP question

Well seeing as I couldn't find a RA board in the PvP discussion place, I have to post it here. Anyways, I'm new to PvP and having a difficult time. I like PvP but I feel like I'm not bringing enough skill to my team and therefore losing most of the time. Here's my problems:

1. If I play as a caster, I usually die quickly by assassins. I don't know how to combat this. I've tried anti-melee skills such as empathy and insidious parasite, but it seems like after 10 seconds I'm dead and the assassin is at 80% health.

2. Most groups go straight for the monk, yet no matter which type of character I play, I cannot seem to take the monk down. I spam high damage skills against it but all the monks spam two skills, Word of Healing and that other one which heals them for 120 after 2 seconds. It's literally impossible in my mind to deal out 250+ damage per second. Even if we start taking one down, there's usually an assassin or something killing me w/in seconds.

3. My most successful characters seem to be anti-melee builds, but I don't find that very important seeing as I can't take down assassins and warriors usually just stop attacking and self heal.

4. I'm usually always the last one to die on my team if I play Dervish or Warrior, yet I usually don't kill more than two players per match and my teammates die in the meantime.

Any help would be appreciated.

It's not it build it's the teams build u r melée shutdown to help keep pressure off monk....pm if u need help ... Warrior running

RA is full of failures so even if you're a decent player running a decent build the outcomes of your matches will be determined by whether your teammates have brains or not. If you're serious about PvP, don't waste time in RA.

PS: [[Patient Spirit]

Yeah, that's the skill. I don't know how that one isn't elite...

Anyways, is there any way to unlock that w/out EoTN?

RA = easy balth imo, yes sometimes you will run into brainless wenches that you wish they would just die but, that's why it is RA, Random Arena.

But back to the OP, if you run antimelee with [Visions of regret] and [empathy] and the like....the assa that's attacking you will die if he keeps on with his chain(usually people back off), but usually you would too unless you use self heals like [ether feast]

Generally I find running a assa or monk the best prof.....but that's just me, find your favorite profession and master it, because it will be no fun if you are just playing meta, it gets boring fast.

Don't forget to kite away from the Sin and there is an RA subforum here in the Gladiator forum.

RA/TA meta = gay

solution: dont play RA/TA and hope izzy fixes this shit (which is unlikely, because he's a retard)

Like it was said earlier, RA = luck of the draw.

Some tips on how to not be the bad luck for your team:

0. Create a monk, play for a few days, see what kills you. Copy that.

1. Most groups are wrong in going for the monk first. Anti-physical necros and mesmers actually prevent a ton of damage by shutting down your team's offense, plus they're a LOT easier to kill - most monks defend themselves first. Killing them = win.

2. It's very hard to outdamage monk's healing with a caster. Either play a physical or concentrate on shutdown with moderate damage. RA monks tend to specifically defend themselves from physicals, but that gimps their ability to defend their teammates. See 1.

3. How to kill a monk on a caster: for example, see [Diversion], [Shame], [Mark of Insecurity], [Blackout], [Migraine], [Power Block]. Also check Daze condition (most easily available to rangers, though, and is not a caster thing), interrupts, energy denial, and skill disabling with [Arcane Thievery] and similar. Plus too many other ideas to list here. Basically prevent the monk from spellcasting, while your teammates kill the rest of his party.

Leipo delivers!

I iz tah delivery man.
lol @ tip 0. Its really bad. Bad monks die to like almost everything.
And its not hard to outdamage monks with casters. I do it all the time.
+your how to kill a monk faster are the basic scrub idea. Edenial is bd. Power block is bd. Diversion + Shame = bd in RA.
MoI = OP
you failed to mention VoR as well.

Youre right on tip1 though. SoA = win @ RA.

Run a good build and hope for the best about your team.

http://www.pvxwiki.com/wiki/Category...king_RA_builds

Lulwut? If he's serious about getting into PvP then he should definately start at RA, it's the best place to work on playing your OWN build, it doesn't matter whether he wins or loses, as long as he is learning how to play his own bar effectively.

Only after he knows how to play his own bar and what skills work and which ones don't should he advance to playing proper team based PvP like HA or GvG.

Are you serious? Really? If you are, then wow....just wow.

If you knew absolutely anything you should know training monks with dual stances is pretty bad. The best way to pressure around a monk playing dual stances is to pressure his team mates, build up adrenaline and then try and spike the monk. If he is quick at using his stances then you get him to burn them before you spike and then spike him or use good positioning to spike a soft target that he is not ready to prot.

As for the comments about edenial, diversion and pblock within RA, that's probably the most retarded thing i've ever heard. Are you actually telling me that in a 4v4 format, where there is normally only one healer, Power Blocking him is bad? Is that actually what you're saying? That's what is sounds like. Just think about it for a minute, you shut down the ONLY healer in the match for up to 13 seconds, every 20 seconds (if you can consistently interupt). Do you have ANY idea how much pressure that creates and how easy it is to score kills that way? The same thing applies to Energy Denial, Shame and Diversion. If you shut down the only healer in the match, shit is going to die, no matter what they do.

@ The OP.
It sounds to me like you're still playing in PvE mindset. When you said to me that you are usually the last person to die when playing a Warrior, I assume you're running lots of defensive crap. Look on PvXWiki which was posted earlier and get a few PvP Warrior builds off there. Normally when I play Warrior in RA i'll play without ANY self heals or possibly with Lions Comfort. The reason for this being that it is NOT the warriors job to heal, it's the Monks. I know it's RA and there is the chance you will not get a Monk and even then the chances of a good one are even less, however, when I do then get a good Monk. I can output the most damage possible on the Warrior, whereas if I was running defense when I get a good Monk I will be missing a lot of damage. I'll not get into what you should hit etc and how to actually play a Warrior, that's for another thread.

You then said that when you're playing a Caster that you cannot out damage the Monk. That is to be expected and it's why people don't normally run a lot of damage on midline casters, if you look at a GvG Build you'll not see many pure damage skills on the midline, it's all utility to allow the Warriors to kill stuff. The same principles apply even more so in RA. You should run utility skills, like Caster shut down (Diversion, Shame, Interrupts etc), Anti-melee shut down (Insidious Parasite, Feintheartedness, Enfeeble, Empathy) or even hexes like Backfire and Visions Of Regret. They are all much more effective than pure damage skills.

Don't worry so much about the amount you die, after all it is Random Arenas and sometimes no matter how well you play, you're just not in the right team and the opposition has the perfect team. I wouldn't decide to run a lot of defense just because you're dying a lot, leave that to the monk, if you don't get one then you can just re-enter when your team dies. You just gimp yourself by running a lot of defense on characters that are not designed to do so and then when you get a good monk you cannot play to the builds full potential.

Just take a look on PvXWiki and you'll find some nice builds for RA.

That's what I said retard.
And edenial and power block are still terrible skills in Arenas.

I lol'd

There are basically three strategies to play in RA.

1) Play a monk/healer.

2) Play an anti-caster/anti-melee character.

3) Play a very powerful Spike/Damage dealer (WS dervishes, N/A spikers, etc).

Each have their advantages. The problem with type 1) is if you might end up getting a team with all healers and not a lot of damage.

Type 2) is problematic if you spec to be anti-melee, you might end up running into a team that is all caster or vice versa and be useless.

Type 1 and type 2 also has a problem because in order to be successful, you have to hope that some of your teammates are type 3 players and actually know what they are doing and apply pressure/spike damage, otherwise your team won't get any kills against good teams.

The problem with type 3) is you have to hope you'll have a few type 1 and type 2 players to stay alive. Conversely however, if you get a team of all type 4 players, you might still win a few matches if you can just kill the other team fast enough before they can kill you.


Because of the luck of the draw nature of RA, even if you have the greatest build of all time, you will still lose a lot, since everything has a counter. If your other teammates are dying 15 seconds into the fight, you won't be able to win 4 v 1, no matter how leet you are. If you are a tank/runner griefer you might be able to survive... but you won't win.

I have been playing nothing but PvP for about 2 weeks now and I made a build that seems to be effective. I can kill any type of player with this build and I'm able to stay alive w/out the help of a monk or any support. However, people mock my build and call me a noob for what it is.

It is a Me/N fast cast blood build.

I constantly have +9 hp regen and I spam skills w/ a 3 second recharge that do 50+ damage. Plus the advantage of having that res sig cast super fast seems to save our team a lot.

Still, the majority of the time I die it's from either of the following 2 types of players:

1. Assassins that seem to keep me knocked down
2. Ele's that hit me w/ metor and then teleport to me and spam aoe skills. It does like 400 dmg right away it feels like.

However, I did have a 35 game winning streak w/ a team of mine. No monk but we did have a rit spirit spammer that seemed to be annoying to opposing teams.

They probably have a monk on their team removing the hexes. If you dont have a monk yes you will proably die. Thats RA. If you dont want to die play a monk.

Your probably spamming all your skills on a protted or stance monk which is a waste of time, there is not point continuously hitting at the same monk endlessly. If a monk has a lil yellow triangle on his name bar then switch to another target. Spread your pressure around and then return to the monk when he is pressured.

Thats because even in RA some people arent idiots. Or they have a monk removing their hexes. You cant do anything about it, except kill the monk. Also, just because you have an anti-melee build it does not mean your mission is to kill things. The point of an anti-melee build is to shut down their offense not kill it. This stops them attacking attacking long enough to give your team a breather and to give your offense more time to kill them. Not every build is about killing. Sure occasionally some will just attack away through your hexes and die but its not very often.

Being the last to die does not make you good. The reason is because you arent doing anything to make yourself a target. Why should the opposing team want to kill you first? Unless you are really getting in their faces and tearing stuff up. Try changing your build for more offense.

Your welcome.


*edit meh 10 day old thread ftl.