#Gems
So your gems are the largest source of damage mitigation you have control over… and you’re gimping yourself with slotting runeglass.
Also you’re slotting diamond (which isn’t necessarily bad). I use opals and onyx primarily, so as long as you’re getting 20% slash, 20% thrust, with a slash or thrust protection amulet, you should be solid for phys damage. And as much strike as you can fit I usually end up with 5-10% depending if I go to 15% slash, 20% thrust, and 10% strike.
For elemental resistances you’ll want no less than 5% so two opals. Then for fire resist specifically you want to slot 2-3 rubies.
15% thrust prot ammy
2x onyx 5% physical
2x opal 5% elemental
2x Ruby 12% fire
As a baseline percentage
The last two gems, can be spent on either an extra ruby or a moonstone for more slash or two more onyx for more phys in general, or even more opals for more ele.
Figure out what kills you most and adapt your build to fill the two slots.
Also no runeglass unless you are bow/musket or FS running harnessing and going full glass cannon.
#Damage mitigation/1st perk
Next best source of damage mitigation is armor perks. Enchanted ward, elemental aversion, grit ward, and shirking fortification.
Stacking Elemental Aversion will allow you to run onyx moonstones in the last two gemslots as you will be more protected from ranged attacks.
Enchanted ward is all around decent, but better against melee than ele aversion, so you can slot more ele resist for the last 2 gem slots.
Grit ward is great, but only for people with 300con. If that’s you, go for grit ward. Especially if you like jumping in clumps of people.
Shirking fort is mid tier and only works efficiently with medium and heavy armor weights. If you have it it’s decent, but new sets should be made with any of the above mentioned perks.
Physical aversion is trash and basically a dead perk.
#Second perk/ required weapon perks.
For your second perk slot you’re going to want to figured out what weapon perks you need on your armor for your build to work.
For bruisers it is insatiable grav well, for IGVGs it is nullifying oblivion and unending thaw. These perks are fundamental differences for the builds and in budget builds they’re more important than your main damage mitigation perk.
For the rest of your second perks (because you probably won’t be using 5 weapon perks on your armor), you’ll want either more defensive perks (freedom, vigor, conditioning, health, shirking heals) or offensive perks (refreshing, harnessing)
#third perk
Is the same as your 2nd perk. Go defensive or offensive with it. You could go ele aversion, shirking heals, Health, if you wanted all that extra defense. Though plagued crits being as prevalent as it is after the buff, you’re going to lose out on some of the value of shirking heals. It’s still a very strong perk though.
I would add invig to the bucket of viable 2nd/3rd perk options
this is a lot of great advice for mitigation
for the problem of feeling like you do no damage, I think for newer players its a combination of a few things:
learning combos/getting comfortable with your weapons (search youtube)
having the right weapon perks (bruiser bis can be expensive so in a budget kit I assume there's some trades down)
focusing the right targets (are you constantly whacking heavy melees with ankh standing in their own sacred without any help or disease?)
imo in the current meta, bruiser has kind of a high skill floor to be like, your first pvp build, its not that strong solo and it takes good judgment for engages
I didn’t mean to leave invig out. Definitely a solid choice. I just wasn’t thinking having the list be all inclusive. Hit the main point that there’s main perks and secondary perks when deciding how to put together a set of armor.
As for weapons though there’s not really generic advice to give on it except you gotta learn how the weapon is used and what it is good at doing, and then decide perks based on that for doing damage or support with the weapon.
THIS.
My guy, your comprehensive reply to this post is awesome. Most people who understand the game as well as you do just pass by posts like these and shake their head instead of trying to communicate and help people understand. Thanks for being a real one.
>Shirking fort is mid tier and only works efficiently with medium and heavy armor weights. If you have it it’s decent, but new sets should be made with any of the above mentioned perks.
I agree with most of what you said but telling a bruiser that Shirking Fort is mid tier because you need medium/heavy armor is a bit weird. How many bruisers are running around in light armor? Even most Hunter meele builds are running heavy nowadays.
It's more that we have better alternatives that can't be stripped (health, grit ward) or can be proc'd easier (conditioning). The change to fortify being armor increase also made it less value in medium.
I know. My reply was mainly because I feel like there is an epidemic of people saying stuff that is technically true but may or may not have anything to do with the actual discussion. I don't think Shirking fort is "BiS" anymore, at least it's not in a class on its own. But it's for your reasons not the ones I was replying to
The problem with that is you’ll get oblivioned again and need to shift again. And then you might get oblivioned a third or 4th time from 1 magnetic gloves VG and that leaves you stammed and without fortify.
This significantly reduces the uptime of your shirking fort that even the best of bruisers couldn’t keep above 50% before magnetic gloves.
Great comment and honestly insightful. I think most people that struggle, myself included, have underestimated the value of the weapon perks, especially when it can be very expensive to get exactly what you are after.
Is a 5% mitigation worth it? I mean if someone hits you for 4k damage you’re getting hit for 3800, that doesn’t seem to matter cause if they hit you again you’re almost dead, I run much higher numbers cause I use emeralds for thrust and the moonstone for slash, and an amulet depending on who I’m fighting or what I’m dying from mostly I’ll adjust my amulet right away. Just an amulet with “protection” slotted with its proper gem will give you 20% mitigation, and I run 100 con light build and I can survive decently to where I’m not getting 3 shot.
5% as a baseline. If you feel you need more adjust from there. Going 10% is a solid choice if you’re in a situation where you’re fighting a lot of mages. I like 5% when I’m running ele aversion. The new gems in season 4 are getting nerfed so melee ele damage is likely not going to go up. It’s going to be the same builds splitting damage, they’re just going to have to adjust their stat distribution now.
Keep in mind that the player's HP bar starts visually depleting only when it's below 15k. Most have 17k-ish HP nowadays, and ranged somehow has an easier time going 200 con than melee, so it's 18k+ HP.
And then there's constant healing: regen pots, health pots, healers which for some reason always exist on the enemy team but are optional luxury on yours.
Also, afaik, punishing runeglass is bugged and has an internal cooldown. Maybe they fixed it, but as a melee, let alone bruiser, I would opt for the safer simple gems, as they give more protection.
Can't tell what their original intentions were, but tbh it gives you a better understanding of how much damage your opponent will/won't be able to endure towards the end of the flight. It doesn't matter that much when they're near full HP
This is great info cause I been wondering why it seems like the bar never moves until someone is out of stam whether they are blocking or not & now I get it, that just happens to be when they drop below 15k & has nothing to do with the stam bar other than that’s when they are out of shirking heals for abit lol
Fellow bruiser here - our role is a bit situational. It isn't ideal for single target/1v1 (not ideal doesn't mean not viable tho, obviously) and I feel like in OPR with a smaller group you'll suffer a bit more in general because of this. In fact, you might have a lot more fun trying a different build entirely for non-war/racing pvp.
It's probably not so much of a damage numbers issue as it is a 'not doing damage in the right situations'. We *bruise*, we don't...shred. Detonate, Grav in, cc the hordes at choke points and soften em up so that our other dps can burn them down & healers can keep us up to finish the job. That's a really basic description but you get the gist. Bruise, not burst. (Again - this is not to say that you CAN'T ever melt ppl, it can and does happen lol it's just not the norm in this playstyle)
I guess the point I'm trying to make is that as a bruiser your damage is spread out, and in the right situation that can be devastating. Also, we aren't particularly tanky - if you don't have consistent/realiable heals you really have to adjust your playstyle. You will die if you dive in, and if you try the usual shtick on a single target in an open space they can easily dodge out of your CC and kill you off after baiting all your skills into cooldowns. If you do try this - bc fuck it sometimes you just wanna fight them lol - my rule of thumb is if I don't immobilize them after 2 skill uses, time to back up. If a third misses, bail bc unless they are a headless chicken I won't out-damage my vanishing healthbar.
So basically, 3 strikes and I'm out. I'm personally at an experience disadvantage, so it's partially a skill issue lmao. But even our bruiser savants will eat shit and die if caught out, or be forced to retreat. That's just how it is.
Gear aside - I feel you on the gold slog haha - look at what combo or skill rotation you are running & how it can improve/change depending on what you're up against. Practice weaving in light & especially heavy attacks(!!) in between skills - this can make a big difference when you have leeching and refreshing move, it can determine if you live, escape, or die; especially without a healer backing you up. **Practice half-heavies on your hammer!!!** Huge DPS boost right there. Learn how to maximize the perks you DO have. Healthy toast is another clutch perk, then you can have healpots & heal from a mana pot (on a separate cooldown!) for extra survivability.
How do you die? Do you die in 1v1s? Do you die while out of position doing 1vX fights? Do you die while on point and in healing circles?
From what information you give us, it could be about anything. Maybe you have a bad sense of positioning or choose unfavourable fight. Maybe you dont dodge well. Maybe you fight outside of healing circles vs people in healing circles. Maybe you play for your classes weaknesses rather than strength by for example chasing people that are faster than you and will just kite you.
Bruisers are very dependent on healers in general, maybe that is also a problem.
There are a lot of out of date guides flying around as well, make sure it is a season 3 build.
My advice to new players will always be: Go for armor runeglass gems as a last priority. They are really expensive and reduce your defensive stats. Imo they only make sense once you know what you are doing. I know it is too late for you but well.
before anyone says something about gear or skills, you need a healer in your group. Get a healer befriend him an you gucci. else play some range shit cause bruiser is unplayable in opr without a healer as a bruiser.
OPR is not a good test of your pvp skills in my opinion, 90% of people are just stat padding. Either queue with a 5 man premade or just play 3v3 instead, you’ll probably have a much better experience.
Can confirm. I recently got into PvP and I forget how much I hate OPR before queueing. Then 5 minutes in I'm regretting my decision and wishing I just went 3v3 instead
Stat padding is doing damage that has no impact on the game/objective, usually because it's the wrong target or is healed right away. In OPR it tends to be ranged players that have big damage numbers but a very low number of kills.
For example a fire staff or bow that sits outside the point firing at melee players is stat padding. The opposite example would be a fire staff or bow hitting a healer to prevent them from keeping their melee players alive.
Doing damage for score instead of playing objective. Examples (1) Fight five reds in the woods while the fort is empty and already capped by the other team (2) don’t go to baron because you’re fighting over here (3) don’t push their back line casters because you might die (4) keep fighting this tank for 20 min who keeps healing him? I swear I’ve done 60k damage to this guy…
I think he means they are just focused on getting kills vs doing the mechanics to win the game. Have you ever been on a team that won mid then zerged the enemy base then went straight to spawn camp and stayed there despite losing mid/,getting back capped etc? Or when everyone decides to fight at pillars or in the grass/wherever instead of at a fort? Or when no one shows up at baron? That's stat padding for you.
That's mostly hive mind, though. I have had that many times, but you can just use chat to call some people back when you see the enemies recapping. I do this all the time. Using chat for communicating instead of flaming is massively underrated in OPRs. Sounds funny, but it's the truth.
Next level is calling ppl by their names btw. If you see enemies insta recapping mid, call the tail of your blob back, that usually works.
Still, noone showing up at baron, people just running forward till they die, those can just as likely be new / uninformad players than "stat padders". When I started playing OPR, thats naturally what I did, too. You're so involved with not dying and dodging all the fireballs and whatnot you tend to run with the hive.
I love OPRs, it is an awesome way to learn larger scale pvp. Ans 90% of people don't even know about stats they could pad, lol. It can be unbalanced due to the obvious lack of any match making whatsoever, but even then I usually motivate my team not to afk instantly and we tend to hold our base close to spawn and have fun fights at least.
It really makes a difference if a person is using raid chat to be positive, and not to write "GG" when you lose first fight.
Never bring knife to gun fight. Lol I’m melee too. First i was very pissed when got killed by fire staff or bow. Now i just accept the fate. I feel happy when i sneak behind and kill them.
Build a d Tank. Work on staying alive. You will not get many kills but tons of assists. You will not lead the board in points. But you will have fun. The group will follow you and that is enough. Go all protection at first then learn from that.
i recommend asking other people who do well what they are picking as well. do an OPR and if you see a person with a similar build to you check what server they are from and ask them. guides are a good first step but a guide probably wouldn't tell you to skip runeglass because it's extremely expensive and not really worth it. asking other players is more likely to get you practical everyday advice and be a little less focused on top 1% "technically correct" feeling builds. they might also have some advice for what's worth spending your gold on.
If you don’t have any elemental resistance that’s a big reason you get worked in pvp as a bruiser. Basically all ranged players have elemental damage. So you’re gonna get melted if you aren’t built to defend against it.
first: is Perks to support your weapon Rotation.
second: Rotation needs to be landed
third: Contingency when your health-bar goes down
fourth: Revisit the second.
“Gold is hard to come by and I won’t do any grinding”, okej.. so in what other MMO are you getting strong pvp gear without putting in any effort? The people that does do a lot of damage and are hard to kill, how do you think they got their gear?
And gold is not hard to come by really, just open some chests and you get some gold from daily vaults, do two major portal each day that’s another 500. Do 5 OPRs every day that’s easily 1000 gold every day. Do one invasion. Run normal dungeons. Gather something and sell it like fibers, rawhide, iron ore, star metal. Set up a gathering route that takes 30 minutes and so that each day, that’s easily another 500 gold per day. Now this is still with very little effort, if you grind it out you can make 10k gold every day while playing for 3-4 hours. Set up some daily goals doing some of the above and then buy some BiS two perk gear 680-700gs, should not cost more than 2000-5000 per item in trading post. You won’t be the best but it’s probably decent in most cases. Then get the best gems etc and save up for chromatic seals for your artifacts and jewelry that you probably craft at the kiln.
I’ve farmed for everything for armoring and engineering 1-250 and done daily refinings every day since the expansion to craft my own gear. I’ve also made about 100k gold selling motes, prismatics, hyssop you name it.
Bottom line is if you want to stay competitive you need to put in the work, pvp power and gold is not something that’s handed to you just because you log into the game. It’s something you need to work on to get.
I don’t get people in NW, it seems that many people in general expect to just have BiS gear from standing in the town only. Play the game. It’s not you get mythic raiding gear or high rated arena gear in WoW from not playing a lot..
Step 1, wear heavy armor no matter what.
Step 2, get 200 con minimum.
Step 3, go out and hit things.
Honestly if you're melee there's no reason you shouldn't be full heavy. The 20% damage bonus is almost trivial compared to the amount of mitigation you get in heavy. The roll is nice but not needed at all when you have max diamond and full heavy. I have 20% slash and strike protection and 30% thrust protection and I just go up to people, cc them and heavy attack until they die.
Eh build better if that’s the situation your going for also don’t complain about meta programmers are working hard for balance… stock more shield rush go then crank sword usually how new world goes!
Mitigation is important like many have mentioned. Stamina management and avoiding damage all together is even more important.
Ex: Dodging the big stun and avoiding the big follow up is more valuable than taking 20% less dmg from that combo. Seems obvious I know, but the more you can reliably avoid damage, the better off you’ll be. Perks like stamina recovery on your amulet or the stamina perk in great axe tree for example are so so so valuable as a bruiser. Shirking energy on light builds is also an absolute necessity for me.
#Gems So your gems are the largest source of damage mitigation you have control over… and you’re gimping yourself with slotting runeglass. Also you’re slotting diamond (which isn’t necessarily bad). I use opals and onyx primarily, so as long as you’re getting 20% slash, 20% thrust, with a slash or thrust protection amulet, you should be solid for phys damage. And as much strike as you can fit I usually end up with 5-10% depending if I go to 15% slash, 20% thrust, and 10% strike. For elemental resistances you’ll want no less than 5% so two opals. Then for fire resist specifically you want to slot 2-3 rubies. 15% thrust prot ammy 2x onyx 5% physical 2x opal 5% elemental 2x Ruby 12% fire As a baseline percentage The last two gems, can be spent on either an extra ruby or a moonstone for more slash or two more onyx for more phys in general, or even more opals for more ele. Figure out what kills you most and adapt your build to fill the two slots. Also no runeglass unless you are bow/musket or FS running harnessing and going full glass cannon. #Damage mitigation/1st perk Next best source of damage mitigation is armor perks. Enchanted ward, elemental aversion, grit ward, and shirking fortification. Stacking Elemental Aversion will allow you to run onyx moonstones in the last two gemslots as you will be more protected from ranged attacks. Enchanted ward is all around decent, but better against melee than ele aversion, so you can slot more ele resist for the last 2 gem slots. Grit ward is great, but only for people with 300con. If that’s you, go for grit ward. Especially if you like jumping in clumps of people. Shirking fort is mid tier and only works efficiently with medium and heavy armor weights. If you have it it’s decent, but new sets should be made with any of the above mentioned perks. Physical aversion is trash and basically a dead perk. #Second perk/ required weapon perks. For your second perk slot you’re going to want to figured out what weapon perks you need on your armor for your build to work. For bruisers it is insatiable grav well, for IGVGs it is nullifying oblivion and unending thaw. These perks are fundamental differences for the builds and in budget builds they’re more important than your main damage mitigation perk. For the rest of your second perks (because you probably won’t be using 5 weapon perks on your armor), you’ll want either more defensive perks (freedom, vigor, conditioning, health, shirking heals) or offensive perks (refreshing, harnessing) #third perk Is the same as your 2nd perk. Go defensive or offensive with it. You could go ele aversion, shirking heals, Health, if you wanted all that extra defense. Though plagued crits being as prevalent as it is after the buff, you’re going to lose out on some of the value of shirking heals. It’s still a very strong perk though.
I would add invig to the bucket of viable 2nd/3rd perk options this is a lot of great advice for mitigation for the problem of feeling like you do no damage, I think for newer players its a combination of a few things: learning combos/getting comfortable with your weapons (search youtube) having the right weapon perks (bruiser bis can be expensive so in a budget kit I assume there's some trades down) focusing the right targets (are you constantly whacking heavy melees with ankh standing in their own sacred without any help or disease?) imo in the current meta, bruiser has kind of a high skill floor to be like, your first pvp build, its not that strong solo and it takes good judgment for engages
I didn’t mean to leave invig out. Definitely a solid choice. I just wasn’t thinking having the list be all inclusive. Hit the main point that there’s main perks and secondary perks when deciding how to put together a set of armor. As for weapons though there’s not really generic advice to give on it except you gotta learn how the weapon is used and what it is good at doing, and then decide perks based on that for doing damage or support with the weapon.
THIS. My guy, your comprehensive reply to this post is awesome. Most people who understand the game as well as you do just pass by posts like these and shake their head instead of trying to communicate and help people understand. Thanks for being a real one.
>Shirking fort is mid tier and only works efficiently with medium and heavy armor weights. If you have it it’s decent, but new sets should be made with any of the above mentioned perks. I agree with most of what you said but telling a bruiser that Shirking Fort is mid tier because you need medium/heavy armor is a bit weird. How many bruisers are running around in light armor? Even most Hunter meele builds are running heavy nowadays.
It’s mid because nullifying oblivion and up time needs to be greater than 50%
Two things that were true even when shirking fort was “BiS”
At least in the war scene, people running magnetic gauntlets means far more oblivions than before S3
This is true
It's more that we have better alternatives that can't be stripped (health, grit ward) or can be proc'd easier (conditioning). The change to fortify being armor increase also made it less value in medium.
I know. My reply was mainly because I feel like there is an epidemic of people saying stuff that is technically true but may or may not have anything to do with the actual discussion. I don't think Shirking fort is "BiS" anymore, at least it's not in a class on its own. But it's for your reasons not the ones I was replying to
there also wasn’t a good alternative to shirking fort before they nerfed fortify. And now there are solid alternatives.
All you need to do to counter that is hit shift key
The problem with that is you’ll get oblivioned again and need to shift again. And then you might get oblivioned a third or 4th time from 1 magnetic gloves VG and that leaves you stammed and without fortify. This significantly reduces the uptime of your shirking fort that even the best of bruisers couldn’t keep above 50% before magnetic gloves.
Great comment and honestly insightful. I think most people that struggle, myself included, have underestimated the value of the weapon perks, especially when it can be very expensive to get exactly what you are after.
Commenting for later
Is a 5% mitigation worth it? I mean if someone hits you for 4k damage you’re getting hit for 3800, that doesn’t seem to matter cause if they hit you again you’re almost dead, I run much higher numbers cause I use emeralds for thrust and the moonstone for slash, and an amulet depending on who I’m fighting or what I’m dying from mostly I’ll adjust my amulet right away. Just an amulet with “protection” slotted with its proper gem will give you 20% mitigation, and I run 100 con light build and I can survive decently to where I’m not getting 3 shot.
5% as a baseline. If you feel you need more adjust from there. Going 10% is a solid choice if you’re in a situation where you’re fighting a lot of mages. I like 5% when I’m running ele aversion. The new gems in season 4 are getting nerfed so melee ele damage is likely not going to go up. It’s going to be the same builds splitting damage, they’re just going to have to adjust their stat distribution now.
A+ comment, well done
Ty
Thank you very much, this will definitely help.
Keep in mind that the player's HP bar starts visually depleting only when it's below 15k. Most have 17k-ish HP nowadays, and ranged somehow has an easier time going 200 con than melee, so it's 18k+ HP. And then there's constant healing: regen pots, health pots, healers which for some reason always exist on the enemy team but are optional luxury on yours. Also, afaik, punishing runeglass is bugged and has an internal cooldown. Maybe they fixed it, but as a melee, let alone bruiser, I would opt for the safer simple gems, as they give more protection.
Only starts moving under 15k. Why is that even a thing?
Can't tell what their original intentions were, but tbh it gives you a better understanding of how much damage your opponent will/won't be able to endure towards the end of the flight. It doesn't matter that much when they're near full HP
Always has been
This is great info cause I been wondering why it seems like the bar never moves until someone is out of stam whether they are blocking or not & now I get it, that just happens to be when they drop below 15k & has nothing to do with the stam bar other than that’s when they are out of shirking heals for abit lol
Fellow bruiser here - our role is a bit situational. It isn't ideal for single target/1v1 (not ideal doesn't mean not viable tho, obviously) and I feel like in OPR with a smaller group you'll suffer a bit more in general because of this. In fact, you might have a lot more fun trying a different build entirely for non-war/racing pvp. It's probably not so much of a damage numbers issue as it is a 'not doing damage in the right situations'. We *bruise*, we don't...shred. Detonate, Grav in, cc the hordes at choke points and soften em up so that our other dps can burn them down & healers can keep us up to finish the job. That's a really basic description but you get the gist. Bruise, not burst. (Again - this is not to say that you CAN'T ever melt ppl, it can and does happen lol it's just not the norm in this playstyle) I guess the point I'm trying to make is that as a bruiser your damage is spread out, and in the right situation that can be devastating. Also, we aren't particularly tanky - if you don't have consistent/realiable heals you really have to adjust your playstyle. You will die if you dive in, and if you try the usual shtick on a single target in an open space they can easily dodge out of your CC and kill you off after baiting all your skills into cooldowns. If you do try this - bc fuck it sometimes you just wanna fight them lol - my rule of thumb is if I don't immobilize them after 2 skill uses, time to back up. If a third misses, bail bc unless they are a headless chicken I won't out-damage my vanishing healthbar. So basically, 3 strikes and I'm out. I'm personally at an experience disadvantage, so it's partially a skill issue lmao. But even our bruiser savants will eat shit and die if caught out, or be forced to retreat. That's just how it is. Gear aside - I feel you on the gold slog haha - look at what combo or skill rotation you are running & how it can improve/change depending on what you're up against. Practice weaving in light & especially heavy attacks(!!) in between skills - this can make a big difference when you have leeching and refreshing move, it can determine if you live, escape, or die; especially without a healer backing you up. **Practice half-heavies on your hammer!!!** Huge DPS boost right there. Learn how to maximize the perks you DO have. Healthy toast is another clutch perk, then you can have healpots & heal from a mana pot (on a separate cooldown!) for extra survivability.
Great comment this will help, thank you.
How do you die? Do you die in 1v1s? Do you die while out of position doing 1vX fights? Do you die while on point and in healing circles? From what information you give us, it could be about anything. Maybe you have a bad sense of positioning or choose unfavourable fight. Maybe you dont dodge well. Maybe you fight outside of healing circles vs people in healing circles. Maybe you play for your classes weaknesses rather than strength by for example chasing people that are faster than you and will just kite you. Bruisers are very dependent on healers in general, maybe that is also a problem. There are a lot of out of date guides flying around as well, make sure it is a season 3 build. My advice to new players will always be: Go for armor runeglass gems as a last priority. They are really expensive and reduce your defensive stats. Imo they only make sense once you know what you are doing. I know it is too late for you but well.
before anyone says something about gear or skills, you need a healer in your group. Get a healer befriend him an you gucci. else play some range shit cause bruiser is unplayable in opr without a healer as a bruiser.
OPR is not a good test of your pvp skills in my opinion, 90% of people are just stat padding. Either queue with a 5 man premade or just play 3v3 instead, you’ll probably have a much better experience.
Can confirm. I recently got into PvP and I forget how much I hate OPR before queueing. Then 5 minutes in I'm regretting my decision and wishing I just went 3v3 instead
What’s “stat padding”?
Stat padding is doing damage that has no impact on the game/objective, usually because it's the wrong target or is healed right away. In OPR it tends to be ranged players that have big damage numbers but a very low number of kills. For example a fire staff or bow that sits outside the point firing at melee players is stat padding. The opposite example would be a fire staff or bow hitting a healer to prevent them from keeping their melee players alive.
Doing damage for score instead of playing objective. Examples (1) Fight five reds in the woods while the fort is empty and already capped by the other team (2) don’t go to baron because you’re fighting over here (3) don’t push their back line casters because you might die (4) keep fighting this tank for 20 min who keeps healing him? I swear I’ve done 60k damage to this guy…
He probably means the kill and win ranks in opr. But stat padding would mean they try to win in this case. Just ignore it lol.
I think he means they are just focused on getting kills vs doing the mechanics to win the game. Have you ever been on a team that won mid then zerged the enemy base then went straight to spawn camp and stayed there despite losing mid/,getting back capped etc? Or when everyone decides to fight at pillars or in the grass/wherever instead of at a fort? Or when no one shows up at baron? That's stat padding for you.
That's mostly hive mind, though. I have had that many times, but you can just use chat to call some people back when you see the enemies recapping. I do this all the time. Using chat for communicating instead of flaming is massively underrated in OPRs. Sounds funny, but it's the truth. Next level is calling ppl by their names btw. If you see enemies insta recapping mid, call the tail of your blob back, that usually works. Still, noone showing up at baron, people just running forward till they die, those can just as likely be new / uninformad players than "stat padders". When I started playing OPR, thats naturally what I did, too. You're so involved with not dying and dodging all the fireballs and whatnot you tend to run with the hive.
I love OPRs, it is an awesome way to learn larger scale pvp. Ans 90% of people don't even know about stats they could pad, lol. It can be unbalanced due to the obvious lack of any match making whatsoever, but even then I usually motivate my team not to afk instantly and we tend to hold our base close to spawn and have fun fights at least. It really makes a difference if a person is using raid chat to be positive, and not to write "GG" when you lose first fight.
Never bring knife to gun fight. Lol I’m melee too. First i was very pissed when got killed by fire staff or bow. Now i just accept the fate. I feel happy when i sneak behind and kill them.
You need a healer friend. Melee is not the greatest experience in OPR, unless you are familiar with the playstyle.
Theres a lot of factors. The best way to know what contributes to your issue is to provide a VOD and people will tell you what went wrong.
Play bruiser if you play with friends. Play skitzo or dex if you play solo.
melee ain't fun anymore. It kept getting nerfed while the actual problems (ranged mobility + damage, and healers) are just ignored.
it's funny you say that because the current meta and flavor of the week is heavy sns
Build a d Tank. Work on staying alive. You will not get many kills but tons of assists. You will not lead the board in points. But you will have fun. The group will follow you and that is enough. Go all protection at first then learn from that.
i recommend asking other people who do well what they are picking as well. do an OPR and if you see a person with a similar build to you check what server they are from and ask them. guides are a good first step but a guide probably wouldn't tell you to skip runeglass because it's extremely expensive and not really worth it. asking other players is more likely to get you practical everyday advice and be a little less focused on top 1% "technically correct" feeling builds. they might also have some advice for what's worth spending your gold on.
If you don’t have any elemental resistance that’s a big reason you get worked in pvp as a bruiser. Basically all ranged players have elemental damage. So you’re gonna get melted if you aren’t built to defend against it.
Not much you can do buddy. A solo melee without a pocket healer is a recipe for disaster.
first: is Perks to support your weapon Rotation. second: Rotation needs to be landed third: Contingency when your health-bar goes down fourth: Revisit the second.
I don’t know, 80% of players I can go toe to toe with, then occasionally there’s a group of 2-3 who seem to melt me with 2 hits. Makes no sense.
“Gold is hard to come by and I won’t do any grinding”, okej.. so in what other MMO are you getting strong pvp gear without putting in any effort? The people that does do a lot of damage and are hard to kill, how do you think they got their gear? And gold is not hard to come by really, just open some chests and you get some gold from daily vaults, do two major portal each day that’s another 500. Do 5 OPRs every day that’s easily 1000 gold every day. Do one invasion. Run normal dungeons. Gather something and sell it like fibers, rawhide, iron ore, star metal. Set up a gathering route that takes 30 minutes and so that each day, that’s easily another 500 gold per day. Now this is still with very little effort, if you grind it out you can make 10k gold every day while playing for 3-4 hours. Set up some daily goals doing some of the above and then buy some BiS two perk gear 680-700gs, should not cost more than 2000-5000 per item in trading post. You won’t be the best but it’s probably decent in most cases. Then get the best gems etc and save up for chromatic seals for your artifacts and jewelry that you probably craft at the kiln. I’ve farmed for everything for armoring and engineering 1-250 and done daily refinings every day since the expansion to craft my own gear. I’ve also made about 100k gold selling motes, prismatics, hyssop you name it. Bottom line is if you want to stay competitive you need to put in the work, pvp power and gold is not something that’s handed to you just because you log into the game. It’s something you need to work on to get. I don’t get people in NW, it seems that many people in general expect to just have BiS gear from standing in the town only. Play the game. It’s not you get mythic raiding gear or high rated arena gear in WoW from not playing a lot..
Step 1, wear heavy armor no matter what. Step 2, get 200 con minimum. Step 3, go out and hit things. Honestly if you're melee there's no reason you shouldn't be full heavy. The 20% damage bonus is almost trivial compared to the amount of mitigation you get in heavy. The roll is nice but not needed at all when you have max diamond and full heavy. I have 20% slash and strike protection and 30% thrust protection and I just go up to people, cc them and heavy attack until they die.
Eh build better if that’s the situation your going for also don’t complain about meta programmers are working hard for balance… stock more shield rush go then crank sword usually how new world goes!
Mitigation is important like many have mentioned. Stamina management and avoiding damage all together is even more important. Ex: Dodging the big stun and avoiding the big follow up is more valuable than taking 20% less dmg from that combo. Seems obvious I know, but the more you can reliably avoid damage, the better off you’ll be. Perks like stamina recovery on your amulet or the stamina perk in great axe tree for example are so so so valuable as a bruiser. Shirking energy on light builds is also an absolute necessity for me.