Experiences in PvP

I’ve seen a bunch of discussion in the PvP forum that revolves around stating what people believe to be “broken” within the current meta.

I thought it could be refreshing to share my experiences when fighting other players, regardless of said broken mechanics.

I am going to be using names of players that readers may recognize. I will highlight was I feel are their strengths and give them credit for what I believe to be the most challenging builds in their “category”. I’m just selecting the categories myself at random, and I’m probably going to forget a lot of people worth mentioning.

The merit I think they deserve is completely subjective and my ideas were formed through my own personal battles. I’m sure other players will have PvP experience that differs from mine.


I have others I’ll add to the list later but got tired of typing them out for now, please don’t feel excluded :/

Please excuse typos, writing this on a phone.


Hardest EA user(s) to fight: Libritannia
The build is really well oiled and heavily min-maxed, and the user has had considerable experience and knows what to expect in most match-ups. Blocking off the EA projectiles with a Frost Wall usually means that the fight gets close and personal and the Winter enchant and CWDT set-ups end up taking their toll.

In contrast, the majority of other EA users are too easy to dispose of using Frost Wall, since it blocks virtually all their damage and allows me to blast them down safely while standing behind the wall.

Overall best-rounded melee build(s): Ahfack, MullaXul
Fighting means needing to stay out of melee range and landing 2-3 consecutive hit to get a kill. They know how to navigate their way to melee range very well so I always have to keep on the move. Much respect for sticking it out with melee. I do laugh off the EA offhand swap though; it has never really given me too much trouble so please just stick to melee, you’re doing it really well!

Hardest opponent(s) to kill: Godkas, Shinfuuma
Not sure what kind of life steroids Godkas is on but that life pool seems to never end. It gets annoying and gives me more reason to chase him around and attempt to get that confirmed kill.

Although we could go on a rant about Shin, what I will say is that the only way to fight him was changing most of my gem set up. BCR became Culling Strike, Inc AOE became Ele Focus etc. The only reliable way to win was to land a one-shot kill.

Vs Shin’s last build iteration I had to use Cold Penetration instead of Culling Strike. I shouldn’t need to elaborate here, but if your opponent is wearing an Aegis Aurora, casting purity of ice and using a +1 all-res chest to mitigate your Flameblast damage you tend to speculate and stick odd gems into your chest piece.

I wanted to give merits to the likes of Markusz for their tank builds under this category, but the addition of Frost Bomb has now trivialized most of these encounters. I honestly feel the gem is a little too strong for fighting high ehp regen builds.

Hardest off-screen battle: insert Brood Twine mirror copy owner’s name here ________
I really did want to give merit to a single individual but there’s too many that provide equal amounts of frustration. The skill gem used does sometimes vary but the build is typically the same; their aim is for me to die before they’re anywhere near my casting range. Going up against this build means that I need to predict the opponent’s next firing angle and character placement so that I can zig zag around the map till I’m close enough to land a hit or two.

Melee build that hurts the most: Mygalomorphae
I’m pretty sure he doesn’t have a single life node allocated on tree, because those hits are something I try to avoid at all costs. If I somehow manage to survive the first hit I usually bleed to death anyway.

Most challenging caster vs caster off-screen battle: Rlowe
Not sure how Ice Storm can be cast so far off the screen, but Rlowe seems to do it best. Our battles are mostly based on who can get to lower ground first. Offscreen casting of fire/ice storm seems to get the longest range when you’re below your opponent on the map, so having that little more room gives you just about enough space to stay of danger and hit your opponent.
Kills are followed by Dance on Death support gem being triggered when you tread over your opponent’s corpse.

Hardest opponent(s) to hit: Aodui
Too much dodge! I typically have to cast 6-10 times to guarantee a hit. Doing so while being chased with a melee build that uses bleed means you have to minimize bleed flask usage and know how to block their pathing with the occasional frost wall

Most astute trapper: Bondisk
I find having to do a lot more work to get close and a lot more dodging to stay alive. He seems have a really good handle on how to navigate past me and my blasts.

Other minor notes of interest:

Most entertaining Sarn Arena rivalry: AmazonPrime vs Vhlad

Builds I miss in PvP meta: Flicker Strike insta kill, Cyclone, Aegis melee builds and ignite proliferators.


Feel free to share your own if you'd like!

Hardest off-screen battle: write Dual Wield Phys/hybrid mirrored wand users here _____

*fixing for you

hardest to kill, Markusz atm, mirrorin can be challenging too. even when shin was in his prime i was time to time one shotting him as LA, as KB it should be even easier. (i can one shot 16k ES without block with my latest KB) GodKas is also in one shot category, i think he hurts really hard as melee build, HardyHardFly hits hardest though he can one shot 7k life.

Most challenging caster vs caster off-screen battle: HarleyCue. Nothing against Rlowe.

the only viable, min maxe spellcaster offscreener is Harley atm. he is a bit like me, maximizes the shit out of whatever the build he is making. so his dps numbers are always the highest you can get in the game.

Nice! Thanks Jorge <3 Your build set the precedent for all glass-cannon self casters in this game. Your lightning warp/firestorm synergy with your elementalist was so well played I was never mad everytime you killed me, I would just laugh because it was SO FUCKING GOOD.

I did take you advice and I sold my +1 arrow quill rain a long time ago before vaal prices crashed (thank god). Lacerate offhand is what I use now. Waiting for new gems/3.0 to solidify before I mirror a copy of my axe again for the offhand swap.

Thanks for taking the time

I know it's been a loooooooong time since I've PvPed but holy shit EA swaps? Haven't used that in nearly a year.

Best in black: Rlowe, it's hard to pull off alt-art thousand ribbon cause everything clips like a bitch.

Most charismatic: Harley, I mean, he managed to convince us to ctf with him more then once.

Best legacy character: Ahfack, you don't even afk in arena anymore, but we love you none the less and you're still our dev rep.

Best stomatopoda: Shin, I don't know if you still terrorize the arena as I haven't been around lately but I'm pretty sure your claws cause cavitation bubbles to develop on striking.

Best not an asshole: Jorge, I still don't know what name I'm supposed to call you by though.

Best too long didn't read: Actalo, people respond to your threads though, so the content must be up to par.

Best is actually an asshole: Actually kinda tricky, objectively it has to be between me and shin, but I'm deliberately malicious when attacking people trying to get daily in arena, whereas I can't speak for shin on this matter. Please note that to be eligible for this award you need to be actively malicious towards others despite having the mental faculties and awareness that your behavior is not socially acceptable, people that are clearly autistic will not be counted towards this award.

Sanlih Drama best crying award: Homing bomb, I've never seen someone get so upset over nothing, Actalo you should get into professional film with your 1v1 captures.

Best Rlowe cosplay: Me, though I no longer own an alt-art thousand ribbon so this ones up for grabs.

Best spider: Me, obviously.

MIA award: Sorkita, seriously, where the hell did you go?

Spirit award: Actalo, hang in there man, upcoming update looks promising.

Team spirit award: Lib, you're literally the only person I've ever seen think out not only how to tackle an enemy team but how to utilize your other team mates attributes effectively.

Best Gemini viruses actually act as a natural conduit of horizontal gene transfer for advanced eukaryotic organims award: Mirara, you've got the widest range and quickest ability to take someone else's idea and drive others insane with it.

Thanks for the mention. I didn't invest much into regen, just because of frost bomb, the focus was always on Aegis, but in our encounter Flameblast trivialized that for you. For others, like Rupenus mentioned, Aegis is a much tougher kill, and I'm still improving, I'm getting near 20k ES while maintaining 160k Armour, I'll update my thread soon. Even without frost bomb, I think Aegis is better in most cases, for example when I tried Xirgil, which was 25k recharge per second, and not reducable by frost bomb, things like KB or Barrage still killed me while it was procced, which Aegis can stand better.

Most people and categories were already mentioned, as for what I can add:

Best geared variety builds: Demi, He uses many different builds, not just the usual mirror-tier-phys-weapon everything spent on one character way, but a lot of characters with alternative solutions and niche ideas, but still maintaining min-maxed gear on most of them, which most of us can't afford to dedicate to such builds just to see how far they can get.
It's nice to see big wealth put into actual use and not just stacking currency and shiny alt arts, but functioning builds with different aspects and mechanics. He has builds from all ends, bow/wand ranged attack through casters to melee, full tanks to full glasscannons. Even if he doesn't play much PvP, he is focusing on it with his builds. I rarely meet him in arena because of different time zones, as I also rarely meet most of the US PvP-ers.

"

Márkusz wrote:

Thanks for the mention. I didn't invest much into regen, just because of frost bomb, the focus was always on Aegis, but in our encounter Flameblast trivialized that for you. For others, like Rupenus mentioned, Aegis is a much tougher kill, and I'm still improving, I'm getting near 20k ES while maintaining 160k Armour, I'll update my thread soon. Even without frost bomb, I think Aegis is better in most cases, for example when I tried Xirgil, which was 25k recharge per second, and not reducable by frost bomb, things like KB or Barrage still killed me while it was procced, which Aegis can stand better.

Most people and categories were already mentioned, as for what I can add:

Best geared variety builds: Demi, He uses many different builds, not just the usual mirror-tier-phys-weapon everything spent on one character way, but a lot of characters with alternative solutions and niche ideas, but still maintaining min-maxed gear on most of them, which most of us can't afford to dedicate to such builds just to see how far they can get.
It's nice to see big wealth put into actual use and not just stacking currency and shiny alt arts, but functioning builds with different aspects and mechanics. He has builds from all ends, bow/wand ranged attack through casters to melee, full tanks to full glasscannons. Even if he doesn't play much PvP, he is focusing on it with his builds. I rarely meet him in arena because of different time zones, as I also rarely meet most of the US PvP-ers.

can't agree more. he is true solution generator for all HC / SC problems. meta setter - trend crusher - an endless well of knowledge for those who like to think out of box. if you are confused, dont know what to do, just dive yourself in the ocean of demi builds, you'll find what you need for sure.

what about his crafts? all of them are piece of majesty and excellence.
he is a true genius of poe. we should be all thankful that we have chance of enlightenment by his next level, above-of-all min maxed skills and new "niche" ideas.

last time i've seen him, he was testing the multithreading and server input output capabilities by trying to crash the sarn arena.

hell, thats a commitment to pvp, big time.

i'd like to share this song for those who has same opinions with me:
https://youtu.be/WeTnQI_jZVM?t=26

Haha....this turned into a joke thread pretty quick huh?

Guess if you devoted 99% of your day to PoE and it was your source of income via Twitch/sheep you should have some sort of influence. Yet..........I still don't see it, especially not in PvP.

Gotta mention dullahan, prob nicest Guy in pvp

@Rup:
(Please don't forget that all this is solely subjective and relative to my own experience.)

I do agree with your take on wanders. I personally file them in the same category as LA or Ice Arrow because the fight feels exactly the same to me. Again, personal and subjective experience from battles.

Re. Harley: If you're referring to the fireballs, they're a lot easier for me to dodge since they have a trajectory. A skill like Ice Storm lands directly on top of you and is harder to predict. Also, the fireballs that hit me the most are the ones that don't render on screen. As most of us know, some projectiles shot with X distance + X proj speed seem to not render too well.

Re. tanks: High life characters are the hardest for me to kill since they can pop flasks when needed. 65% BCR from dual weild and gem makes Aegis very manageable. High ES just means landing 3-4 consecutive explosions at a fast rate, manageable due to recharge delay. Sometimes less hit are required. Directed at @Markusz too

@Ahfack:
Thanks mang :D

@Mulla:
Lol whoops. :/

@Mygalo
Good input. Chuckled more than I'd like to admit.