PvP Zen

Funny how you have to go to a different server and use a different character to open your eyes a little more. I found myself attaining the beginnings of a pvp zen-like state.

See, I have no vested interest (much) in Black Jeremiah. Not as much as in Invictus and Malentis - they are my hero and villain mains. On my primary server. In a SG with a 'name' and a 'reputation' to maintain. I feel obliged to be as good as I can - that means never taking unnecessary risks, minimize deaths (won't feel nice getting laughed at facedown dragging your SGn ame in the dust) and so on. So I make a special point of always stocking up on inspirations, worrying less about bounty, and more about survival and being a good cooperative pkiller. As a flyer, I can manage that kind of safety because I can be up in the clouds where few people notice me.

I understand that now because while pkilling on Black Jeremiah, who is a superjumper, I have to make a special point of always swiveling my view upwards to see flyers directly over me, I can't jump as high as some of these (possibly because I have only one red enh in superjump, not 2 or 3 SOs) so I'm normally grounded or hopping from side to side. I've been sniped by a few of these hovering heroes - the good news is that superjump can bring me high enough (especially if I use scenery to help) to get into char range. Hahaha. And char does a great job bringing down flying PCs cos it shuts off their fly.

I found myself taking many more risks on him. And when I ran dry on inspirations, not hard, I only brought 2 bfs and 1 respite, I had gotten on a team and decided to see if I could hit the as-far unobtainable mythical 6000 bounty number for an SO. So I decided, oh nevermind, let's stick in here and roll with the punches.

And you can only get into that mindset if you treat your pvp character as a tool, and not mind dying. Especially since I pvp as a dominator, the squishiest of squishies. A fire dom has less control, so I found myself unable to watch the scene from afar like Malentis and cause horrendous ice slick trouble.

The good news is that without immobs to spam, I found myself understanding hold supression a little more, and watching when I used char. I held back from spamming it, I waited for them to come out of the hold or just a little before, before I unleashed it again. Seeing as I chain-caught a bunch of them like this, either supression doesn't last long or they were using bfs. :P

And really, you have to not mind dying as a dom. Face it, you are squishy. Squishies are the first targets of opportunity when you pkill. I hit controllers, blasters, and squidform kheldians with my holds given a choice of priority. (And defenders if that rare AT ever exists in PvP - with the exception of stormers). It only is natural that the other team is gonna whack the dominator first.

Especially since a dominator from range and unmolested can create IMMENSE havoc for opponents. When I first zoned into Siren's because of a cry for general villain help, the heroes were knocking at base door, etc. - there was no other dominator in sight. Just a whole bunch of villains getting pwned by two stormers, some tanks, random scrappers, and some circling hawks (blasters, etc.)

Quick pause to count hero numbers, count villain numbers, we're a bit outnumbered, hesitate a bit. Wait until the stormers become over confident and separate from the main herd...then POUNCE. Zip, one char, one hurricane goes down. No one reacts, they prolly didn't even know or expect it was coming. Wait for char to recharge. Zip, the other char on the other stormer right in the thick of things, and whoosh, her hurricane drops. That stormer was unfortunately the target of a lot of villains trying to get to her, so when her hurricane dropped, her hp plummeted.

Then the villains figured it out and I saw one or two stalkers convene on the first helpless stormer. Gut. On to the tanks, now getting outnumbered themselves, char, incinerate, and whoosh, his toggles start dropping, and when you're beat on by 5 villains, heh...

Yep, we wiped them in the first foray. Everything I held stayed held. They'd prolly all run out of bfs or never bothered stocking up on them. I love that power of the dominator to turn the tide. No, I doubt I got a single kill in, but I sure got a LOT of holds in that set them up for horrible AS and scourges.

I was ignored for the first few fights. Bad idea. As they all got alternately held, smoked, flashfired, and nerfed into uselessness while villain sharks rampaged merrily around.

There was one very smart scrapper who was definitely making me a first priority in a hurry. Spine/regen. Oh I hate spines/regen. :P I was immob'ed and made quite a big mess of, if I didn't anticipate her coming, and jump off before she got into impale range. No problemo, I know it was only natural because this thing can cut both ways.

Eventually the heroes got smart, and every time I wandered near, I would get a few dozen 100+ hp hits in the face and find myself back in the hospital. Tank and scrapper duo was forever after me and bringing me down in a split second. I suppose it might strike some people as unfair or imbalanced, that one single AT can dominate another so easily, without help. I suppose they do have a point. A spine/regen can pick any target off that she chooses, the only way you slow 'em down is to swamp them with numbers and detoggle them slowly and hold 'em.

But anyway, CoX pvp is how it is. It's not balanced for 1 on 1, and pvp zen is pvp zen.

I was getting into the swing of things. Sometimes I ran for base to rest up, sometimes I just chose to die, sometimes I had no choice but to die. :P Then came my revelation as I was hiding up on a rock near villain base as the heroes swarmed us in one of those ever-present ten-man comebacks.

Staring at them is not fun. If everyone chose not dying over engaging in a fight, no one would be fighting. :P

But neither is running into a ten-man guaranteed to die brawl fun.

So how were we tempted out? Some of the heroes started breaking off from the main fray to look like tasteful targets. Whether on purpose or inexperience, I dunno. You can guess what happens when 3 villains on 1 hero happens. But then those 3 villains are out in combat again, and then the fun starts as 3-5 heroes start running in as well.

Sometimes you die. Sometimes they die. We're essentially trading bounty. And since you yourself do NOT lose any bounty when you die, you can say we're basically profiting each other by staying around and dying, as long as both of you are on a team or AT that's scoring kills against the other team - ie, has a chance of killing the other.

Quite an interesting revelation.

Oh, and that's Siren's Call for you. What hotspots? The action's always at villain base or hero base. You don't want to fight near those because there's a risk of debt if you get gunned down by the NPCs. And control takes so freaking long to change anyhow, that there's very little point.

In the end, I did get my SO. Though the last 500 bounty took getting into another team to do it, cos the first one fragmented before then.

And yes, I got "kills" on that spine/regen scrapper. At least, -I- consider detoggling and holding her helpless for other people as killscores for my dominator. She died quite regularly and frequently when that happened, though regenners are really quite tough critters, so no, I don't take it personal when she comes after my butt first with a vengeance and tips my nose into the ground. If she didn't, it'll be her I'll be watching kiss the floor.

I'm ok with this, but I guess some people just want to be in godmode all the time.