Chanco21 - PvP Team Set Up

This post has been written by guest writer, Chanco21

Player versus player has become immensely popular for the past few months, mainly because of it being a weekly event. During the first few weeks of its launch, people played casually with their own raid teams, and only a handful have real PvP teams to play with. As expected, those with real PvP teams outperformed those who do not have one. Then slowly, more and more people realize that having a real PvP team is a worthwhile investment as it converts to higher win percentage than using a raid team. More wins, more PvP tokens. There are many ways of how to set up a team for PvP. The most popular set ups are: 1) Sacrifice-Barrier; 2) Old Passives; 3) Lacerate Raid Team; and 4) Strong mob plus specials. All are viable options and they can really deliver wins. Each set up has its own pros and cons, so play the one which suits your play style. Elaborating on all four set ups will be too much in one sitting, so for this article , we will focus on one of them. I have seen each type being ran in the PvP event and have come across against all of them. Of all the set ups I have mentioned, one of them is the most familiar and the reason which made me stick to Battle Camp for almost four years. I will now shed light on what it is, how it wins, what actives and passives blend in together for a "perfect" team, and how it is played. OLD PASSIVE TEAMS 
From my previous article, I have expounded the stat bonuses of the best old passives and old actives, and for the sake of those who have not read it, the best old passives are Crusader, Paladin, Warrior, Defender and Guardian, while the best old actives are Swap, Shield and Invincible. Now, you cannot just dump in all of these in one team without careful thought and expect to win all the time. There has to be a good balance of offense and defense, in both actives and passives. If you set up a team with an all-out offensive passive like Warrior, you will win but your biggest problem will be surviving big hits as you can die quickly. If you set up a team with all defensive passives like Paladin, Defender and Guardian, you will not die quickly, that is for sure. The same will be true for your opponent. Not having firepower means your hits will be weak, and chances are, you might die against a strong raid team and facing a Barrier of your element will be almost an automatic loss. So a good balance of offense and defense will be the key to win more. 1. Defense is important Defensive passives (Paladin and Defender) are a must in an old passive team. But limit them to 2, 3 at the most. Defensive passives are essential as they will usually tank all offensive actives like Lacerate and Sacrifice. You want these mobs to have high HP so when you are ready to unleash a big swap combo, your offensive mobs will still be alive. 2. Offense is also important Offensive passives (Warrior and Crusader) are as important as their defensive counterparts. This will be your main source of damage. You want them to be alive so you can deliver a strong blow to your opponent. Crusaders are not bad to have multiples of. They are the most balanced of all passives, offense-wise and defense-wise. Warrior, on the other hand, is considered as the glass cannon of our 5 passives. It hits hard, that is true. Warrior dies out fast as well. One Warrior will do, or a maximum of two. Three or more Warriors in a team makes you more susceptible to early one-hit KOs. 3. What is Guardian's role? Of the five passives, Guardian is the most overlooked and underappreciated one. They see the passive to be bland as it does not offer extra HP nor extra attack. What it lacks in the "tangibles" it backs up nicely in the other aspects of PvP survival. Since it does not have HP boost, it will not get hit by Snipes, Lacerates and Sacrifice right away. Other old passives only offer 50% defense, while Guardian has 65%. It's high defensive bonus makes it survive the harshest attacks. 4. Combination of actives in a team The usual active skills set up of old passive teams are as follows: - invincible, invincible, shield, swap, swap - invincible, invincible, invincible, shield, swap Some hybrids have these set ups: - invincible, invincible, shield, swap, counter - invincible, invincible, shield, swap, eswap - invincible, shield, swap, counter, barrier - invincible, shield, swap, swap, eswap The set up is actually customizable to your own preference and play style, but it will be very difficult to have consistency if one of the three is missing. Having no Shield in your team makes you vulnerable to early one hit KOs. Having no Invincible means you are always susceptible to attacks and makes you an open target. Having no swap makes winning nearly impossible. 5. What is the strategy to win using an old passive team? Depending on what team you are fighting, playing will vary slightly but basically the plan is to set up your gems and collect a lot of heart gems until you reach the turn where Invincible and Swap can be activated manually. You cast Invincible then Swap, in that order so you are assured you will not die while arranging the gems quickly to unleash a big combo. If this is not enough to kill the opponent, you quick gem to reach a second wave of Swap.
I will list all possible opponents you can face and the strategy you must employ to win. *Raid Team (Snipe): quick gem to activate Shield, then as soon as you can use Invincible, activate it then Swap and gem to win. *Lacerate Team: you need Counter for a higher chance to win against them. Same strategy as facing Snipe Team, but you need to be really quick to activate Counter ASAP. *Sacrifice Barrier Team: This will be a difficult match up. You need Counter also and you need Invincible as an extra layer of protection. If executed precisely, Counter has a high chance of killing the Sacrifice mob and from that point onward, try to keep your whole team alive by healing with 5 heart gems and a few combo, then set up for a few swap attacks to kill opponent. *Old Passive Team Mirror Match: this is very tricky. This is where it is ideal to have the Invincibles and Swaps at manual. Instinct and intuition will be your guide to activate your Invincible and block your opponent's big attack, then answer his attack with a swap combo of your own. There are still more to learn about PvP. Some of them are very easy to understand in theory, but a lot of the theories need actual application in a real PvP match. Speed is a factor in winning matches. But speed alone will not let you win all of these games. A lot of practice and familiarity with different opponents will be your key to win more than you lose. Hope this article helped you readers appreciate old passive pvp mobs. 'til battlemaster gets us paired. See you in HK1. - Chanco21

PvP with Old Passives and Actives

This post has been written by guest writer, Chanco21.

If you are somewhat new to Battle Camp and are no longer familiar with old passives and actives, this will serve as an overview to widen your knowledge regarding old school PvP.

Here, we will not be talking about Lacerate, Barrier and Sacrifice. I am going to present another mode of winning a PvP match: using good, old, classic gemming and timing of skills.

There are many old passives, and they were ranked before as 1-star (the worst ones), 2-star (the bad ones), and 3-star (the "good" ones). I will be skipping 1- and 2- star passives as they are just used as feeders for evolutions.

So I will start with the bottom-line 3-star passives:
Juggernaut (60% atk, 75% hp, 100% rcv)
Savage (75% atk, 50% hp)
Holy (75% atk, 100% rcv)

Do not let the attack (atk), health (hp), and recovery (rcv) bonuses fool you. Despite these upsides, they do not translate to improving your win rate in a PvP match. These are counted as feeders to some PvP old timers since they do not have the stat bonus that improves their survivability in a game. Health and Recovery bonuses mean nothing if you can still get one shot by an opposing player running Rogues and/or Lethals.

So if you are serious in building an Old Passive PvP team, stay away from these passives.


The REAL, OLD PvP Passives

The six passives listed below are the ones used by the majority of old passive players, the stat bonuses, and a brief description of each if them:

Barbarian (60% atk, 50% def)
- some do not consider Barbarian as tier 1, as Warrior gives more offensive potential, and the lack of either Recovery or Health bonus hurts its survival rate in battle

Crusader (50% atk, 50% hp, 50% def)
- many consider this as the best PvP passive as it has the complete package of offense, defense and high survival rate in battle

Defender (115% hp, 50% def)
- a formidable tank that will most likely take 2-3 hits off Sacrifice before it dies due to its ridiculous amount of Health plus Defense (def)

Guardian (100% rcv, 65% def)
- the extra 15% of defense over other tier 1 passives is its greatest asset plus its high Recovery that greatly increases its survival rate when you simultaneously combo for damage and healing

Paladin (50% hp, 100% rcv, 50% def)
- the most well-rounded tank in the game as it can keep itself alive for a long time with its Health, Recovery and Defense bonus

Warrior (50% atk, 40% crit, 50% def)
- not the best option as a PvP mob but is used to give high offensive boost to the entire team

What makes these passives unique is the Defense bonus they give the mob. Defense reduces the damage dealt to your mobs by the percentage indicated (before applying elemental advantage/disadvantage). This is the main factor why these mobs can withstand a team of Rogues and at most instances, they cannot be killed with one shot.


Now, ranking these passives would be quite difficult and is subjective to who you will talk to. Although for the majority, Crusader and Paladin easily standout as these two are most well-rounded passives. Regardless of how they are ranked, the combination of Defense, Recovery, and Health translates to drastically increased survival rates of these mobs, making them top choices for building PvP team.


The Most Powerful Actives with Old Passives

Invincible - they make your mobs receive zero damage for a turn, which includes snipes, lacerates, sacrifice and large combos

Shield - the 30% defense bonus for two turns is similar to the shielding effect of the new active, Barrier, except that it works against all elements

Swap - this, together with high-skilled gemming, is the main source of damage of old passive teams



Comparing Old Versus New

New Active/Passive teams mostly rely on their actives to defeat the opponent, while Old Active/Passive teams mostly rely on their abilities to survive long games and deal consistent, but relatively low-damage attacks, to defeat the opponent.

Both teams (old and new) have their merits and have proven to be effective in PvP. So whatever your preference is, as long as you enjoy PvP, then we all grow as one, happy community.

Known PVP Visual Bugs Explained

PVP (Player versus Player) is a 24 hour event that now takes place midweek in between regular events. At the end of battling another player in real time, a result screen is shown announcing your Victory or Defeat, and shows a health percentage for both you and your enemy.

There are a couple of visual bugs in this result screen that cause frustration to players, as at first glance it looks like the game stole a victory away from you, or gave you a victory you didn't deserve.  Hopefully the explanations below will help reduce this confusion.

Visual bug 1: "I have the higher percentage health but PVP says I lost"

In this visual bug, the victory/defeat screen shows up and gives a contradictory announcement compared to the displayed remaining health percentages. In the screenshot below, it appears that the player lost the battle but still had 23% health compared to their opponent's 17%.  The percentages shown are the visual bug, and the end result of the match is correct.

Image stolen from facebook - thank you!

I'll replace it with one of my own next time I experience the bug firsthand

During the battle, to the right hand side of your team is the word "queue" with a number below. This number keeps track of how many moves are sitting in a queue waiting for their turn to be animated.  You can just see this in the background of the above screenshot - there is one move still in the queue here.

As soon as a player adds a move to the queue that will win the match, the animations are halted and the result screen is shown.  

Unfortunately the health percentages shown are from the last move animated, and don't represent the health when the winning move was entered into the queue.

The result of the match is always correct, however it does require a little trust in Battle Camp without being able to see the final animations play out.

Visual Bug 2: "PVP says I lost but we both have 0%"

In this scenario, the PVP result screen declares a win/loss when both players are shown to equally be at 0% health.

Yenilgi (Turkish) translates to Defeat (English)

Screenshot stolen from facebook as this is such a rare occurrence!

The final percentages shown are always rounded down to the nearest whole integer.  While the first player has definitely lost with 0% health, the other player is likely to have health between 0.1-0.4%. With rounding, this displays as 0% but is still enough to secure the win.