Advice Wanted On: Circular Movement!

[Oblivion333]

Stop moving with the WASD keys. Keyboard turners are awful at pvp. Also, unbind the S key completely. Just don't even touch it....ever. Strafe some with A and E, and move with both mouse buttons.

I am guilty of using WASD keys and I am a turning keyboard player LOL,and yes I am a jumper too. I tried in the past to take this advice that I quoted but it just didn't work for me, but eventually you get used to it. When I play a melee cleric I follow this advice and in time you will get used to your controls.

[MitsuMarty]

Practice practice practice, they do that (well supposed too) for positional advantage as well as cutting cast. Like if someone is casting fireball at me, I'll attack and jump thru them right at the end of the cast and mouse turn so I'm facing their back and their cast has been cut giving them the error message "you must be facing your opponent to cast this spell". Alot of the people that do it, I believe, don't have an understanding of "why" they do it, just that all the good pvp'ers jump and strafe. The real advantage of it is knowing when and where to actually jump around/thru, strafe, etc.

[Seether]

Practice practice practice, they do that (well supposed too) for positional advantage as well as cutting cast. Like if someone is casting fireball at me, I'll attack and jump thru them right at the end of the cast and mouse turn so I'm facing their back and their cast has been cut giving them the error message "you must be facing your opponent to cast this spell". Alot of the people that do it, I believe, don't have an understanding of "why" they do it, just that all the good pvp'ers jump and strafe. The real advantage of it is knowing when and where to actually jump around/thru, strafe, etc.

Casts haven't been canceled like that since 1.0 lol

[Chaszar]

I don't have the Naga, but do have the G510 keyboard, so sweeping my left hand to the G-keys is no problem for me, but I also had that dilemma of turning and strafing and moving all at once without moving my left hand too much and losing my placement of left fingers.

I have the old Logitech mouse, has left & right buttons, and scrollwheel (which isn't a push button), and I have the 2 buttons for forwardpage and backpage......surprised me that they could be keybinded, and I did left-strafe=forwardpage, and right-strafe= backpage buttons.

I am in seventh heaven now, I don't need to lose my left hand positioning and the mouse does all the motion.

Maybe something like that would help you doing circles.................I really like my new mouse use, because I will be moving one way and when they give chase, I can reverse course and watch them hunt for me.

[Kyera]

Stop moving with the WASD keys. Keyboard turners are awful at pvp. Also, unbind the S key completely. Just don't even touch it....ever. Strafe some with A and E, and move with both mouse buttons.

Never understood the hate for WASD (aside from people advocating ESDF -- I just can't get accustomed to the placement). Definitely agree with unbinding S if you actually use it to backpedal (and not merely as a cast interrupting tool or fine positioning tool).

[Hartzekar]

Hey Himo! First off, RP-ers can be good PvP-ers too. I like to think of myself as an above average PvP-er. Most of PvP-ing comes from repetition. You should learn how to circle strafe: Strafe while moving forward to run in circles around people. This is crucial for melee. The most effective way to do this is hold down both mouse buttons, and bind your strafes to an easily accessible key. Hold down the strafe AND mouse buttons, while slowly turning with the mouse. It's good to practice this on mobs in low level zones, just to get a feel for it. I have my main spam macros on my mouse (I have a Microsoft 4 button gaming mouse), and my abilities bound to 1-9 and F1-F9. My strafes are bound to C and V. I use my left thumb to strafe and the rest of my fingers to use my other abilities, right hand to use my main abilities and move. You'll have to find a setup that works for you.

For ranged souls, you'll want to learn how to kite: running away while facing your target. Alot of people bunnyhop to do this, but I think that's madness (and I'm using my thumb to strafe). Simply strafe in any direction, and keep the enemy about 90 degrees to either side. Pound them at range while they chase you. Obviously, this only works against melee.

Some other tips I'd offer you, learn how to time your bursts. Example. On my mage I normally play Stormcaller. My main AoE spell, Forked Lightning, hits at the end of the cast. My attack I followup with hits at the beginning of the cast. So even though they are two separate attacks, they end up hitting at the same time. Try to time your attacks to do the most damage possible in the shortest timeframe. Learn dangerous casts from different classes. Cinder Burst and Lightning Burst from mage, Nysr's Rebuke, and Spiritual Conflaguration from cleric are some examples. Always interrupt those if you can. Another tip for interrupts, use them at the END of a long cast. If a cleric starts casting Healing Invocation, you shouldn't interrupt it as soon as they start casting, wait until it's about 80% finished. That way they wasted more time for nothing.

I'd reccommend you do NOT play Assassin at first. That soul has a niche role that isn't very common. I'd reccomend a Nightblade or Bladedancer heavy spec for melee, and a 44 or 51 MM spec for ranged. The most important thing is to find something that suits your playstyle. Like I said before, it's all about experience. You'll learn what to watch out for. For extra experience and knowlege of other classes limitations, I'd reccommend playing it for a little bit. I have a 50 of everything except cleric, which is level 45. You'll get there eventually. I hope I helped.

[MitsuMarty]

Casts haven't been canceled like that since 1.0 lol

Holy crap seriously? haha wtf am I doing? j/k it's habit that I've had since wow days. (pvping since vanilla). But honestly, even if it doesn't cancel anymore, I don't want to get laxed on it. Not that I really could, its muscle memory at this point. Thanks for letting me know that Seether.

However, the positioning aspect of it still remains. Strafing back and forth, just keeping an eye on your opponent. Try to look at his weapons, if his daggers/sword/staff is facing one way, get on the opposite of him. Try to stay on his back. When he turns, shadow his movements with strafe and rotate with him.

[Gnut]

Some people say removing the "s" key is a must and for melee I find it to be true. For casters and ranged it isnt as important since you can be at range and still face an opponent and fire off abilities as you backpedal. I however, have removed the "s" key and never looked back. I also recommend removing the "turn" keys and only using the right click to turn.

The way I do it is: "q" strafe left, "w" move forward, "e" strafe right, and mouse to turn. That really helps as melee since I can easily press "2,3,4,5" when strafing left, and "1,2,3,4" when strafing right. Circle strafing with my Rogue is cake like this. If i have to use "5' when strafing right then I just run through and opponent and switch strafing to the other direction and vice versa for pressing "1". I also removed reply to "t" so I had "a,s,d,r,f" keys for abilities that were important.

The way to move backwards with this setup is strafe, right click and turn your char 90 degrees and he will run backwards. To fire off an ability while running backwards since you will be running technically to the side is jump in the air, turn towards your opponent, fire of ability, turn back the way you were facing before you land, and continue on your way. Practice makes percfect. This is how I would fire off abilities on my mage when I got opportunity from Warlock(dont know if this is how it still works I dont play my mage anymore).

Its all about testing it and seeing what feels comfortable and right for you, so in reality no one ways is better for everyone. The only universal thing I have found is that clicking and keyboard turning are not as efficient as keybinding and mouse turning. Gaming devices like Razr naga and gaming keyboard are your friends. They make things so much easier.

Hope this made since, as im drinking.

[Ming]

It really doesn't matter what you do in PvP at the moment burst is so high you're dead the moment you walk out there. 1v1 battles are few and far between where strafing/kiting is going to matter. It's just a giant cluster.