3v3 / pvp understanding guide

Quote from GRat

Very good info flan ,mods please sticky this thread.

I have one addition mostly concening arise.please for the love of Teralith buff ,change your default jump key to be different from the chain key(if u use chains anyway).
It will help you control your retaliate and even keep it for when actually needed.Kds come in succession most of the times,and if you get arisen and jump you just wasted both your hp and healer's mana.

Again make thread sticky,very well written OP.

Wanted to say that any player who has done MC has already rebinded the key and most people who does arena have done mc(well, at least on arcadia).

Good work Flanberry.

Quote from Sylpheiithereturn

First : good work you do it there

Second : you forgot "Macro" cause you actually use it, like your arena mate ;p

It's illegal nah ?

I still don't get it how some player/baddies saying that using Autoattack then holding block is a Macro? I press both buttons, it requires NO MACRO, it's just pressing your Left and your right Mousebutton. If you count this as a macro, then Berserker Animation Block canceling is also a Macro

You never fail to impress i guess. I cannot really believe how you got the courage to write such huge walls of text (oh well, i guess its kinda easy when you get in motion?!), as well as how did i get the courage to read the whole thing.

Brilliant work, 10/10, A++ etc.

It's actually a really comprehensive guide, covers pretty much everything that new players need to know to start over and what old players need to additionally learn to become even better. Whenever i felt like was about to quote to add something that i felt like you missed, i read it a few lines below; thus, very inclusive, once more.

Despite it being really long, i suggest that everyone reads this guide, or at least, everyone that cares even a little bit about arenas whatsoever. Explains some stuff that look like riddles to many people and analyzes some really simple and obvious stuff i would say, that are not that obvious i suppose to players that cannot excel (maybe for that reason??) in arenas and generally pvp at the same time.

And again, that RNG though. A couple days ago in premade 3v3s, i met a sorc with NF wep (while i still have the SF one) and i kept getting VM stunned so oftenly. I would say that approximately in every single hailstorm, he would get that Blacksmith's Hammerstrike triggered. Pretty annoying, isn't it?

Bottom line: I hope this guide is technically an extra motivation for some people that are sort of hesitant around the whole 3v3 situation. I think it was also mentioned in the guide, but keep in mind that no one entered the 3v3 field and instantly won really decent teams. You don't have to be disappointed if you lose in arenas. Oh well, maybe you have to be frustrated and disappointed if you keep doing the same mistakes over and over and over and over again, because that means that 1) you are not learning 2) you are not learning because you dont really see what you did wrong, hence you are not seeing clearly and not improving. Keep trying, keep wondering what went wrong, keep finding ways to correct your mistakes and outplay your opponents.
You can never correct a mistake, if you dont know what the mistake is. Realising what went wrong and what could have gone better is everything. That's a way you can understand how high your game sence levels are. Misleading your own self that something else went wrong and alter the reality in your mind, will not change anything. Or it might will: it will make things worse.

Props to Flan once again for that guide.

Kind Regards

Flanberry just silences everyone and then sleeps everything and gets sleep resets 100% even tho he has not glyphed it, then big fireblast as big as the whole arena and everything dies to auto attacks!

Good guide btw, well written!

Heh, it was Stickied so I didn' even see this until now. Oh well.

Good guide, I agree with almost everything entirely. The biggest gripes I have is.... well, Mystics.

You didn't mention just how ridiculously easy (the only) Mystic heal is to interrupt. Unlike the Priest version which is no longer stagger-able once the heal has arced like halfway, Mystic heal is stagger/stunable even after the Mystic sees the goshdarn heal numbers. The window is HUGE. Because of this, a good Warrior can prevent a Mystic from doing one. Single. Heal. Forever.

Jaunt? The correct response for the Warrior is to run after the Mystic. If he starts the healing animation, THEN Backstab. You'll have plenty of time, I guarantee you you'll interrupt the heal before it goes through. The Mystic is going behind a pillar after Jaunt? No problem, as he gets near the pillar just charge between that pillar and his DPS. He can't heal until he has LoS on his DPS, and that means you as well.

The one and ONLY way a Mystic can get a heal off against a good Warrior is wasting Fear on him - have fun trying to pressure the enemy team when you wasted your Fear for getting two. Entire. Heals. And since they're Mystic heals that probably means the DPS aren't even topped off...

Flanberry would probably say that the 2v1 DPS shouldn't be needing any heals, and yeah. That's true. However, in the long run, the enemy second DPS is getting healed by his Priest and thus slowly but surely they'll start having HP issues - and they won't be getting any heals ever. Only HP ballz. Can't even KD Warriors since their endless Stagger spam WILL interrupt all of those. Goshdarn Warriors.

Another thing I dislike in this guide is Mystic Totem. I see the primary use of this as the Mystic version of Kaia - it's a quick-to-cast 5k Shield effect on allies, and 5k can easily mean the difference between life and death. Particularly for Mystics whose heal is SLOW AS ECK. Also, this Shield will also be applied a second time ~30s into the Totem's lifetime, and really, I find that the primary benefit of the Totem. Except that one time when a Totem gave me that later Shield and my jumped Backstab screwed me over terribly..

Thirdly, last and least I seriously dislike how you said that Mystics recover fast. What? It's true that Mystics are slippery and thus might be harder to kill for some combos, but if damaged properly their recovery times are terrible. 8 seconds per 15% of health, roughly the same for the ball HoT. Fairy doesn't heal jack, the primary use of that is dispels. Implying it'll ever get a single heal off since it gets KD'd by normal attacks these days....
From 20% Priest will be at full health if you leave him alone in LESS 10 seconds. A Mystic will take 20-24 seconds if not more than that (although granted, slipperyness means that Mystic is likely to take less damage during this time than what a Priest takes). For self-heals Priests have:
- Self heal, 5 seconds.
- Restorative Burst, 15 seconds, ignores healing debuffs.
- Healing Immersion, 20 seconds, requires an ally within 7m, cast-able while moving, HUGE heal (a Crit will give full health).
- Kaia's, 14k HP buffer (heals for 15% if Glyphed).
- Divine FREAKING Respite, 5 minute I-win button, short casting time but cast-able while moving. Nothing says HAHAHA like casting this and then purposedly walking into a Slayer-Warrior Backstab combo and walking out of it at FULL HEALTH despite having been Stunned for the past 10 seconds and getting back-Crit like crazy.

Quote from suzii

no tl;dr version? ;-;

"Don't suck" tends to be the gist of it.

Sadly, the long version of "don't suck" is reading the guide....

Quote from Flanberry

but mystic jaunt is not affected by slow and after using it once they can jump for a reset and afterwards the DD won't have charge because gap closers arent as many as they seem (but that knowledge comes after actually playing as DD)

Depends alot how they aproach you in my opinion. I used to consider mystics as super easy targets on warrior because they simply would not get away from me. Teleport > Charge > KD Teleport > Backstab and this is where the mystics life ends.

Same goes for Lancers Teleport > charge wallop > Teleport > Leash and mystic dead once again.

I havent tried slayer in arena yet but i assume its would be the same result.

Quote from Flanberry

Please , warriors are known for soloing priests not mystics for a reason lol. You have so many skills to stop him with (every single CC actually, stunball point blank and hes slept or mired and you jaunt and hes in the other corner of the room being a deadweight to his team for 10 seconds.) You can slip a mire after jaunt or fear or stunball and those are realistic options, vs worse warriors u can even throw a sleep or a knockdown as they're charging towards you. Both mire and stunball have relatively short CDs and are usually up at the time.

I'm not talking about soloing. I'm talking about *stopping a Mystic from healing 100%.* You CANNOT stop a Priest from healing, there's far too fast heals. For a while you can stop a Priest from using the basic heal, but you even that you cannot keep up forever. The Priest WILL get enough distance to get a single heal off - a Mystic CANNOT because the interrupt time window is so huge that the Warrior can easily 720 Combative just to mock him (that's spinning camera twice 360 degrees just for the insult).

And what happened to Cleanses...? That's all nice if there's no Cleanses for the Warrior, but the Warrior doesn't need to follow you all around the arena just to get Mired on the other side of the Arena behind a pillar. Against a Mystic, it can be even more efficient to not try to kill the Mystic, just stop him from healing.

So, for example, it can work like this: Start the fight as normal. As soon as you get any HP lost on either of the two DPS, the Warrior swaps to Mystic. His job isn't to kill him - just stop him from healing. After that, the second DPS just slowly whittles down the low HP enemy DPS. He has all the time in the world, as long as the Warrior plays properly the Mystic will NOT heal without using a CC which is required for pressure. If the Mystic does that, just get back to "normal" playstyle and repeat as soon as somebody takes damage - it'll be easier this time since the Mystic will be short on CC. Sooner or later you'll get the situation where the Mystic simply cracks - not enough Mana or not enough CC. And once somebody dies from a Mystic team, that round is over.

There are other ways, but the baseline is, if the Mystic team starts to fall behind in pressure then the match is usually over. The only way for a Mystic team to relieve pressure is by using CC, which is also a requirement for creating pressure. In other words, you get behind, you stay behind until you crack. This is particularly true if there's an enemy Warrior since their ability to *stop* Mystics is overwhelming. Mire is the only "expendable" CC from a Mystic's arsenal since it only creates Pressure when a DPS is stupid enough to follow you behind a pillar when his healer is miles away.

Priests on the other hand, excel at neutralizing pressure without expending offensive power. Worst case scenario, you'll "waste" a Kaia's, making your offensive-to-come more vulnerable to Staggers.

Quote from Flanberry

-- The totem doesn't give stagger/kd immunity which is usleess and 5k shield is too low --

Um, Kaia's doesn't have any sort of magical property which makes you KD and Stagger immune... it's simply that when you take 0 damage these effects don't happen. Mystic Totem Shield has the exact same property - as long as the attack doesn't break the shield, you don't get Staggered. Same with Warding crystals. Of course, the problem here is difference in damage absorption. Even a non-Crit Wallop is likely to break through a Mystic Totem Shield, causing a KD.

Quote from Flanberry

Mystics do recover faster than priests besides divine respite (Which ,like restoration burst, is affected by healing debuff) but it can be used only once a fight. As a mystic your HP can go up and down like crazy and im not sure what 15% are you talking about but b@lls heal you for a lot more.. the 15% is barely half and after eating the ball you get about 15% more, plus you'll probably have b@lls around the place which you can eat as well so you'll be regenerating the entire time. Theoretically if you drop a ball and eat it thats 30%, eat another ball after this one is over is 15% more and then drop another ball and eat it after CD is over and 30% more so here you have a theorerical 75% heal in 10 seconds ,

First off, I assume you mean "unlike"? Yeah, it is reduced by healing debuff unlike Burst. Still, the healing it give is absolutely absurd. The scaling it gets from +healing is absolutely insane. If it wouldn't have been like since the beginning I'd say it's certainly bugged.

As for your example here.... what? WHAT? Are we even playing the same game? Picking up multiple ballz doesn't stack. It's a HoT, picking up a new ball simply refreshes that HoT. It takes like 8 seconds (more than one ball, one ball = 5 ticks) to get 15%. You get 15% from casting a HP Ball. That's 30% of HP in 8 seconds. Where's the remaining 45% coming from again....?

I'm not saying that Mystics are easy to kill, because they aren't. What I am saying that it takes much, much, MUCH longer to recover from damage IF they take it. There's no way in seven hells that you'll recover 75% in ten seconds as a Mystic. Unlike a Priest who just goes Healing Immersion, full, pressure is over, time apply ours. That does require a Crit but hey, theoretically it's possible unlike for Mystics.

"Where's the remaining 45% coming from again....?"

From another ball already on the floor which he spammed when he had time and he only now picked up ... which happens a lot

Quote from Slashley

Um, Kaia's doesn't have any sort of magical property which makes you KD and Stagger immune... it's simply that when you take 0 damage these effects don't happen. Mystic Totem Shield has the exact same property - as long as the attack doesn't break the shield, you don't get Staggered. Same with Warding crystals. Of course, the problem here is difference in damage absorption. Even a non-Crit Wallop is likely to break through a Mystic Totem Shield, causing a KD.

No lol

I don't know about mystic totem shield, but sorc mana barrier does not give immunity. Also, the last hit to break the shield does NOT KD or stagger, only if the shield is 100% done you lose the immunity.

Quote from Ulysse

"Where's the remaining 45% coming from again....?"

From another ball already on the floor which he spammed when he had time and he only now picked up ... which happens a lot

I did account for that.

Quote from Flanberry

Warding totem or crystals don't give you stagger and kd immunity.,.,.,

The amount of times I've jumped and not getting KD'd on a Mystic says otherwise. Pretty sure it's the Totem though.

Quote from Flanberry

Mire isn't the only expendable cc, they all are..

And then, pray tell, if you need to blow your CC so that you can relieve pressure on your team and thus have no more CC to apply pressure, how are you going to stop your team from going on the pressured side again? Except that this time, you have less mana than you started with. And thus, the vicious cycle loops until you OOM and then it's game.

In Priest terms, it's like if ES and Kaia and Healing Immersion shared CD. You can use ES, but it'll leave your team vulnerable. Or you can Kaia which gives offensive benefit but mostly a defensive one. But once do use one of them you're "locked" into that route and if you fail to benefit during then you're outright screwed. You might get pressured, which might demand a Kaia to save somebody's life. After that you recover because hey, Priest OP. And then... and then ES is on CD and you can't apply pressure properly because of the Kaia you used before.

Quote from Flanberry

A warrior can't shut down a mystic, ask any warrior that has fought my mystic? In fact the best scenario for me is when enemy focuses me and my team isn't completely retarded.

For some reason, many Warriors have entirely the wrong impression. They're trying TO KILL YOU. Which they shouldn't be doing. Against a Priest? Well, you can interrupt them so just keep trying. Sooner or later pressure or RNG will go into your favor. But against a Mystic? Hah, no. Don't. Although a Mystic will have a harder to pick his HP back up, his mobility means that he should be fine against you. However, he CAN and SHOULD interrupt you.

Quote from Flanberry

That way i can easily deal with the pressure and even assist my teammates with CC here and there so they won't have anyone interrupting them , meaning they should kill faster.

Yeah, you see, this exactly here? How exactly is this going to happen if the Warrior is distrupting you?
For example, the standard combos
Stunball -> Sleep. Sleep gets interrupted by Warrior. This is very easy to do, especially if you haven't wasted Backstab in a (most likely) vain attempt to kill you.
Fear -> Sleep. Again, same story here. Sleep should easily get interrupted, even though Fear casting animation isn't a 100% giveaway for the Warrior what you're going to do, seeing the effect on his teammate is.

So the end result is, if the Warrior is actually doing his job and INTERRUPTING you, you didn't CC anyone for more than 3 or 6 seconds and you spent one third of your mana pool doing it.

Quote from Flanberry

so about your fictional scenario, warrior swaps on mystic and he gets CCed 40 meters away from his priest so its full duration CC and then you get 2 crit heals and your guy is full hp

Sure, but that's only if the Warrior is 40 meters away. Which he shouldn't be, because as I said, an interruptor doesn't need to chase you to the ends of the Arena - just 15-20 meters from your DPS is enough.

In addition, if it's less than than 40 meters away and you Fear/Stun/Sleep him, then he has already won. He forced you to CC which is also your means of pressure output. Now, he only needs to repeat the process.

Quote from Flanberry

--
The only way to reliably kill a mystic is to 100-0% it or kd chain it so it can't move

Again, I'm not talking about killing the Mystic himself. That's... problematic. Doable? Sure. But problematic.

The difference between interrupting a Mystic and killing a Mystic is like the difference between day and night. One is easy to do, one is not. Most players have this strange thought that you need to kill the Mystic. This isn't true at all. Once you take away a Mystic's heals and his CC, he's nothing but dead weight. Sure, it'll take away one player from your side to do that, but you're effectively swapping the game from
2 DPS 1 Heal vs. 2 DPS 1 Heal
to
2 DPS 0 Heal vs. 1 DPS 1 Heal.
Which side is going to win again?

I think the biggest problem here is that you're... you. For you, if you're in 2 DPS side, you'll just (hope to) slaughter the enemy Healer in a single combo while your friend keeps the DPS busy. If you're on the side with the Healer, you'll just go "eh business as usual" and promptly slaughter them. But that's not exactly the way it goes for others...

On the contrary, Priest heals are so fast that you'll heal easily even if a Warrior is on you. Circle of Healing at least is so fast that you can use it even between Warrior staggers. Again, even if you Jaunt a Warrior can easily interrupt you because of the IMMENSE delay on your heals.

And remember, using Stunball solely for a heal or two screws you over.

I think 2v2 a DPS team has a pretty high chance to win against healer+dps team, but it depends on buffs I guess. At least much more than 3v3. Double DPS is pretty viable in 2v2. Obviously won't happen in e.g soloq.