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Hi and welcome to the post that tells you everything you need to do to win in pvp every time. Just kidding since this is a page-long guide that applies to every character with any possible mix of feats and skills by necessity it avoids specifics and instead focuses you in a generally successful direction. You'll have to find the fine details for your particular build in another place oriented to that, but you will have a concrete goal in mind to help you sift through the possibilities. We need to understand the concept of differentials. DIFFERENTIALS A differential is simply the range of difference between the same characteristic of two combatants. Let's say there is a hypothetical ability called Moxie that is measured on a scale of 0-100. When Ruby and Johann start to fight they are equally matched both having 50 Moxie; the difference between their Moxie values is zero. Johann quickly casts a buff that gives him +10 Moxie; At 60-50 now the differential is 10 in favor of Johann. Ruby is having none of that and uses a crushing blow that reduces Johann's Moxie by 20 down to 40; compared to Ruby's 50 the differential is still 10 but this time in favor of Ruby. Looking to finish things off Ruby uses a special ability that simultaneously debuffs Johann's Moxie another -10 and increases her own by +5 (a total of 15 differential); leaving Johann at 30 and Ruby at 55 a total of 25 differential in favor of Ruby. Now Ruby easily wins the fight and Johann rage quits the game. A large differential in an important characteristic gives one character a large advantage over the other. THE CHECKLIST Movement differential - 50% of any fight is literally where you are standing. The best place is to stand where you can do damage without taking any, or at least take as little as possible while doing the most you can. If you're standing where you can't do damage but you're taking hits, you need movement to change that situation immediately. Having a large movement differential with your opponents lets you stand in a very favorable spot and them in horrible spots more often. Remember you can increase the differential by making them slower or yourself faster. You can accomplish this with stacks of Slow, or effects like Immobilize, Stun, and Knockdown keep your opponent rooted in one place for a time. The buff Hasted comes on many feats or consumables to increase your speed, charges and evasions make you cover a lot of ground quickly, and knockbacks make opponents change position quickly. Stacks of Freedom (on you) help reduce the effect of enemy movement controls on you. Action differential - This just means the relative ability to activate more feats in the order each character wants to. When you can do more of the things you want to do and the opponent less things, you've gained an obvious advantage. You also need to be able to prevent them from doing that to you. One of the biggest ways to prevent the enemy activating abilities on you is to be out of their range, see "the importance of movement" and why it came first on the checklist. Effects like Stun, Knockdown, and Interrupt will also negate whatever action the opponent was doing much of the time, though anything with a .9 second cooldown or faster still happens once the server recognizes it as a valid action. Those fast abilities are a great way to avoid your own actions being interrupted if your ability to act is being targeted. Stacks of Exhaustion interfere with stamina and the ability to activate feats. Stealthing can break an enemies target on you at a distance relative to your skill and their Perception so they will need to spend time retargeting you instead of attacking. Stacks of Mind Blank (on you) help reduce and prevent action blocking effects on you. HP differential - The bottom line of it all. You need their HP bar to go away before yours does. The differential comes both from adding to your damage done and subtracting from theirs. Hindering enemy movement and ability to act reduces the time they can spend causing damage. Effects from feats or buffs like + Base Damage, Penetrating, and attack bonus appropriate to your type help increase overall damage done. Damage over time (DoT) effects can supplement damage done if they don't come with the opportunity cost of a higher amount of direct damage. Effects that reduce enemy defense or resistance (such as Razed and physical attacks) increase the damage they take from all sources including others in your party. Feats or buffs that increase your own defense and resistance help you take less damage. Feats and buffs that increase the sheer size of your hp pool let you absorb more damage and stay alive (DoTs are a percentage of maximum hp so they will do relatively more damage). Every single weapon attack, spell or maneuver, armor, feature, utility, reactive, and defensive feat should be serving at least one of those purposes, preferably two or all three. When comparing abilities think about what they offer in all three of these categories on their own or paired with a complimentary feat. And you should have all three differentials represented in at least 20% of your build; which means you may focus heavily on controlling movement or doing huge damage but still have something for the other differentials or that's a weakness that will get you in trouble fighting against other players targeting those weaknesses. Pvp is incredibly complicated and nuanced and done well can be really, really fun. These are the core strategies in an incredibly tightly packed nutshell that will help you be more effective and successful at it (that is, of course, unless you pick a fight with me ).
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