I'm terrible at PvP melee combat

[MagisterMundi]

Guys, I'm terrible at PvP melee combat. Absolutely awful. I'm Gen 2, about to be Gen 3, and I'm still just so bad at melee that it's comical. I'm a decent shot, and in DTV melee I can hold my own, but against other players it's just pitiful. Like, I can take my level 30 2H build against an archer with some crappy sword and no PS and consistently lose. I'm not sure why I'm so awful - I'm pretty decent at similar games, like War of the Vikings and War of the Roses. I'm even okay at vanilla, though not great. But for some reason, I just don't seem to get PvP melee in cRPG.

I'm probably going back to ranged weaponry of some sort next gen, but I really do want to get better at melee so I can participate in that half of the game. Anyone have any suggestions for someone who's absolutely horrible?

[Umbra]

You should play a generation as a shielder before jumping into 2h. That should teach you when you can attack and when you cant, it should enable you to last longer in fights ( you wont learn much if you get roflstomped as 2h), and you should get some sense of block timing without worrying about direction.

[Macropus]

Add me on steam - "Macropus", and contact me whenever you see me online, we could go to duel server and practice for a while to see what's wrong.

[Tagora]

You should play a generation as a shielder before jumping into 2h. That should teach you when you can attack and when you cant, it should enable you to last longer in fights ( you wont learn much if you get roflstomped as 2h), and you should get some sense of block timing without worrying about direction.

That's what I did.

[Dooz]

I'm probably going back to ranged weaponry of some sort next gen, but I really do want to get better at melee so I can participate in that half of the game. Anyone have any suggestions for someone who's absolutely horrible?

If you want to get better at melee, you have to keep playing melee, not switch to ranged. If you spend more time as ranged, you will get better at being ranged. If you play more as melee, you will get better at melee. Eventually.

[Rico]

Yay noobies!

Have some tips:

• Don't expect a too steep learning curve from yourself! We were all in your shoes once, for most people here, the first time we played cRPG is 3-4 years ago. We picked up our skills step for step learning by doing for this long time, and unless you have very good teachers or play for many hours a day, there is no way you will be able to beat everyone during your first 10 gens.
• Don't underestimate the importance of good equipment! +3 gloves are the best example; their stats increase by 50%-500% depending on which ones you loom. With +3 gloves and body armor, unless you loom very light stuff, you get +10 body armor without any additional upkeep you got to pay. With some IF and decent STR and depending on the enemy weapon, I would say this is 2 additional hits you can survive.
• Don't play hybrids unless you learned how to use them. Shielder/archer is an especially terrible combination. Both classes have one extra skill they need to take care of (shield skill and PD), so you effectively lose at least 3 levels compared to all-in-builds.
• Don't forget to skill athletics. Many new players make this mistake and can't really learn decent footwork because their characters are terribly slow. As general tendencies: The shorter your weapon is, the more athletics you should skill. Secondly, when you attack an enemy, you should move towards him, and when you block an enemy swing, you should move away from him. This is how you exploit speed boni.
• Get a budget set which costs around 700 gold or less max upkeep. This way, you will have a steady income allowing you to buy loompoints. Pick weapons and armors which are cheap but still usable. Mail shirt with fur is a good medium armor fulfilling this role. Maul and Battle Axe are good twohanders for this. Short Sword and Spiked Mace are your onehanded budget friends. Voulge is the way to go for polearm players. Archers can use Short Bow or Nomad Bow and default arrows on DTV. Crossbow players can abstain from Steel Bolts and replace them with default Bolts. Leather Covered Round Shield is a good budget shield, especially on +3. Light Strange Gloves, Mail Mittens and Mail Gloves are the best budget gloves. Rouncy is the budget horse. Throwing Daggers are the budget throwing weapon.
• Don't loom items the hard way, but keep your loompoints until you have 2 and a bit of gold, and buy a +3 item with them. The wait can be painful, but you will have more in the end.
• Get some training on EU3 or NA3, depending on where you live. The skill level on duel is the highest among all servers, and since no backstabbing and the like are present, duel servers are perfect to get better.
• Practice chambering in Native SP campaign entering the arena and fighting against bots on the easiest difficulty settings.
• Read guides for your class in the Guides Section in Beginner's Help and Guides here in the forum.
• Be aware that combat is pretty much turn based. After you attacked, you should block the next hit of the enemy, unless you have a really good weapon, crazy footwork, a noob or an outnumbered enemy. Feints can prolong your turns, chambers can add surprise turns into the combat, nudges and kicks can break the turn pattern to distract the enemy. The latter also provide a free hit.
• Whatever you do, fun is the variable you should focus on maximizing. The rest (experience, gold, skill, nice people you meet) increases steadily over time, but fun is a situational decision you have to make every second you play.

[Algarn]

If you want to go ranged, then train yourself with a short sword on EU3 some times, and don't forget that melee players think an archer is always bad at melee. If you get good enough, you may take the advantage on them if you can deal some damage.

[Grumbs]

First off this is a team game, so play as such. Read this or find other team fight/ battle guides on here: http://forum.melee.org/beginner's-help-and-guides/let's-talk-about-the-basics-of-teamwork/

Besides that everyone needs to learn a bit about 1v1ing regardless of their team fighting ability.

Go on duel server (EU3) and duel people until you start winning some. Fight people that are slightly better than you if you can but not so good that you can't do anything. Melee is all about defense when you're starting out. Blocking seems really hard when you're new, but its the first and easiest thing to learn. Without it you have no chance at all. Just remember to hold the block until you hear the clash. Get so you can block 99% of attacks and then you can start doing what everyone else is doing - trying to use tricks to beat people's blocks. You have to be tricky because people either have a shield and autoblock, or they have 99.9% block with manual blocking

First off you have to learn about attack windows. When someone makes an attack the other person has to block. When he blocks the first guy gets a little stun that prevents him from attacking again for a moment. During that time the second guy has his attack window. Thats when you get your turn to attack.

Tricks boil down to things like footwork - using movement to increase your attack windows and reduce theirs. If you were both standing still one guy might hit the other faster, but if you move away from the other guys swing and move so yours hits earlier you might get a hit in. You can use foot work to dodge attacks and get a hit in because theres more than just the block stun attack window. When someone thinks their attack might land they won't block, if you judge the distance better you can dodge then get a hit in

Turning into attacks + footwork. During your attack phase you can hit faster than the other player might expect. When you swing your weapon don't wait for it to hit by itself, swing the mouse to the direction you're attacking so it hits early and move your character in the same direction. Its very situational though..the movement side of it depends on more than that. Note that there are sweetspots too, so just after you release the swing you will probably glance, it takes a moment to get into the "sweetspot". Same at the end of the swing, you do less damage

Holds. People get a sense of rhythm in the fight - you attack, they block, they attack you block. If you hold your attack for a moment they can mess up their rhythm and you attack later than they expect.

Weapon stun. This is what gives you an attack window. You can increase the stun affect by using heavier weapons than the other guy and holding for a moment before you release. This is called a chamber (note, not the same as chamber blocking which I won't go into). You can't chamber forever though, the damage goes up a bit after the first second or so then goes down again.

Feints. Two types of feints - either release the first attack and switch mid swing to another direction or hold your attack one way then without releasing left mouse button hit right mouse while moving the mouse another direction. The second one seems to have the least risk involved and still tricks people sometimes. Mix feints up with holds for maximum effect. You don't have to switch attack direction..you  just want to trick them into messing up their block or rhythm.

Go ham. Basically you try to bully the other player by spamming. You take risks and try to take advantage of the other players hesitation and lack of experience, which is why it works best against newer players. There is skill in spamming though, just a good player will counter it most of the time unless the spammer is very good at it with a build to match the playstyle.

Kicks/nudges. I never learned to kick in this game. Its quite risky and will get you killed a lot until you learn when you can kick relatively safely. Some people are really good at mixing in kicks and they get lots of kills with it. Nudge is a bit different - there is less risk and its more of a teamfight skill. Use it as a polearmer to push someone away to get distance or use the others to let your team get a free hit in.

Theres more advanced stuff like spinning and switching attack animation while turned away. I'm not going to bother learning that but some are quite good at it

Ideally in battle though the best way to beat people's blocks is to play with your team and gank people. Manual blockers can't side block and up/down block at the same time, and a shield will break eventually. Battle is all about having a good high level build (30+) teamwork and ganking (mostly just zerging as a group..camping a good spot or just pushing through the other team and outnumbering them). Being a good solo player comes at the end of the round really, thats the only time you should be 1v1ing if you can help it until you are good enough.

Alternatively skip all that stuff and just take a ranged weapon and left click on things from a safe distance. I guarantee you will get bored and miss out on why people play cRPG though, and you won't stick with the game when there are far better FPS game alternatives out there

[Phew]

#1- Don't play Battle, play siege or duel. Battle might allow 15 seconds of actual fair combat every 10 minutes. The rest of the time is spent dead, zerging, or being zerged

#2- Find out what the most exploitable mechanic of your class is, and 'sploit the hell out of it. On my shielder I exploit dragging 1h stabs around combined with shield neutral nudges. With 2h you get lolstab and various ways to do annoying sideswings in facehug range (i.e. bend down to put your torso inside your opponents' body). Pole stabs have all sorts of potential exploits, like wiggling to make your holds seem like thrusts, combined with the jerky right swing and overhead animations that make fast 4d poles much harder to block than other weapons. And every class can exploit s-keying, potentially combined with kicks.

#3- Just learn to block, although you can go from awful to adequate without being a good blocker, just stay with your team and pick favorable fights. On my 2h alt, I try to avoid blocking; I just s-key and lolstab with a greatsword, which will get you surprisingly far in cRPG if you know how to pick your engagements.

[Daunt_Flockula]

Don't worry. You'll get better eventually as you play. I myself sucked big time in melee when I first started crpg (I used to play mostly cavalry and rarely bow and xbow on native). I can't say I am great or one of the elites now, but crpg taught me to get out there and manage it somehow.

There are lots of tips to take into account, but two stand out the most in my humble opinion:

1- Work on manual blocking. It is practically the most essential skill you need.
2- Add a little variety to your attacks (add feints, held attacks, irregular swing patterns from different directions etc.).

[AwesomeHail]

 editing items, ive been a cheapskate/light gear user for 3 to 4 years, you'll learn by yourself

Have some tips:
1 Don't expect a too steep learning curve from yourself! We were all in your shoes once, for most people here, the first time we played cRPG is 3-4 years ago. We picked up our skills step for step learning by doing for this long time, and unless you have very good teachers or play for many hours a day you can play per weekend or just 1 hour in the evening, doesnt really matter, as long as you just play, there is no way you will be able to beat everyone during your first 10 gens I learned to properly block at gen 5, 10 gens is a bit too much, gen 13 now on main.

2 Don't underestimate the importance of good equipment! get a +3 weapon first, like Phew said, grab an item that you can exploit, and you like+3 gloves are the best example; their stats increase by 50%-500% depending on which ones you loom. With +3 gloves and body armor, unless you loom very light stuff, you get +10 body armor without any additional upkeep you got to pay. With some IF and decent STR and depending on the enemy weapon, I would say this is 2 additional hits you can survive.

3 Don't play hybrids unless you learned how to use them. Shielder/archer is an especially terrible combination. Both classes have one extra skill they need to take care of (shield skill and PD), so you effectively lose at least 3 levels compared to all-in-builds.

4 Don't forget to skill athletics. Many new players make this mistake and can't really learn decent footwork because their characters are terribly slow. As general tendencies: The shorter your weapon is, the more athletics you should skill. Secondly, when you attack an enemy, you should move towards him, and when you block an enemy swing, you should move away from him. This is how you exploit speed boni.

5 Get a budget set which costs around 700 gold or less max upkeep. This way, you will have a steady income allowing you to buy loompoints. Pick weapons and armors which are cheap but still usable. Mail shirt with fur is a good medium armor fulfilling this role. Maul and Battle Axe are good twohanders for this. Short Sword and Spiked Mace are your onehanded budget friends. Voulge is the way to go for polearm players. Archers can use Short Bow or Nomad Bow and default arrows on DTV. Crossbow players can abstain from Steel Bolts and replace them with default Bolts. Leather Covered Round Shield is a good budget shield, especially on +3. Light Strange Gloves, Mail Mittens and Mail Gloves are the best budget gloves. Rouncy is the budget horse. Throwing Daggers are the budget throwing weapon darts, war darts and franciscas are the way to go with cheap throwing. If you go 18/18 shielder, you can invest a point or 4 in power throw, for extra fun in battle/ able to hit/stun enemies from afar. 100 wpf in throwing is more than enough as hybrid 1hshielder/thrower..

Don't loom items the hard way, but keep your loompoints until you have 2 and a bit of gold, and buy a +3 item with them. The wait can be painful, but you will have more in the end.

Get some training on EU3 or NA3, depending on where you live. The skill level on duel is the highest among all servers, and since no backstabbing and the like are present, duel servers are perfect to get better.

Practice chambering in Native SP campaign entering the arena and fighting against bots on the easiest difficulty settings.

Read guides for your class in the Guides Section in Beginner's Help and Guides here in the forum.

Be aware that combat is pretty much turn based. After you attacked, you should block the next hit of the enemy, unless you have a really good weapon, crazy footwork, a noob or an outnumbered enemy. Feints can prolong your turns, chambers can add surprise turns into the combat, nudges and kicks can break the turn pattern to distract the enemy. The latter also provide a free hit.

Whatever you do, fun is the variable you should focus on maximizing. The rest (experience, gold, skill, nice people you meet) increases steadily over time, but fun is a situational decision you have to make every second you playPlay for fun, just take a break/test other builds when youre tired of grinding that one character. use a Skip The Fun character to test lvl 30 builds. (test the 1h shield/throwing character ).


good luck on getting better in blocking, put up stones in marketplace for 25k, and send me a link to the offer, ill accept them, so you can buy some gear for yourself/keep up with upkeep

18/18 shielder/thrower build

(click to show/hide)

strength:18
Agility:18
Weapon points:6
One Handed:120
Two Handed:17 wpf comes as bonus, do not add 17 wpf yourself
Polearm:17
Throwing:100
Crossbow:1+
Archery:1+
Skill points:0
Weapon Master:6
Athletics:6
Riding:0
Iron Flesh:3
Shield:4
Horse Archery:0
Power Strike:6
Power Draw:0
Power Throw:4

[StonedSteel]

Lol your prob not bad...just low gen

trust me, even if you have been playing warband for years....crpg is NOT warband, its going to take you a while to get used to how things in crpg work.

the best advice i can give u is to remember this: crpg is NOT skill based, its mechanic based. Go 21-18 with a bar mace and you'll get the swings and timing down. and when you lose badly...dont view it as you losing badly, for the most part people are going to be much higher lvl with much better gear....basically you dont stand a chance haha, not till all your gear is loomed and your at a decent lvl too....which will take alot of time.

CRPG is not about being good or bad, its all about time...

[Macropus]

the best advice i can give u is to remember this: crpg is NOT skill based, its mechanic based. Go 21-18 with a bar mace and you'll get the swings and timing down.

Lol, may be it's not skill-based for you, but for most people around it seems to be skill-based. 

...basically you dont stand a chance haha, not till all your gear is loomed and your at a decent lvl too....which will take alot of time.

This, ladies and gentlemen, is bullshit.
Not saying heirlooms don't provide a significant advantage - they in fact do, but it still doesn't make it much harder to beat people if you are good enough.

[Torben]

you can do fine without skill in this mod.  but greatness is only achieved by the brilliant

[MagisterMundi]

Add me on steam - "Macropus", and contact me whenever you see me online, we could go to duel server and practice for a while to see what's wrong.

Appreciate the help. I sent you a friend request... I think. There were multiple accounts with the name Marcopus, and even more than one that had a kangaroo as a profile picture. I sent a request to the one with the kangaroo that's identical to the one in your profile.