So I plan to make pvp tutorial videos soontm but for now I'll just make this :P I'm sure I will miss a lot of stuff in my first edit so suggest additions below :D
A POWER RANGER's Guide to PvP
Cooldown
Cool down is the most basic and most hated part of 1.9 pvp to be any good at all at 1.9 you need to be mindful of the attack cooldown. Under settings you can set your attack indicator to none, hotbar, or crosshair. I reccomend setting this to crosshair as this is the easiest to see in a fight. All things in minecraft are effected by cooldown including tools, weapons, items, and even your fist.
A couple tips/strategies:
-You deal almost full damage if you wait for 80% of the cooldown so "half swings" will be very useful for getting multiple hits off that still deal damage.
-Criticals require the cooldown to be at full.
-If you have damage indicators or something similar you can simply ignore cooldown if your opponent is at 1 health.
-knockback is slightly effected by cooldown but this is only apparent with knockback items/weapons.
-Axes deal a lot of base damage so you can even get away with 40% of the cooldown and deal damage.
Strafing
Strafing is one of the most important things to do in 1.9 pvp as you can cause you opponent to miss a much needed hit and have to wait for the cooldown. Strafing is simply moving as you fight.
Types of strafing:
-Straight Lining - easiest strafing technique but in most cases the worst. Simply sprint at your opponent preferably holding the sprint key.
-A/D Strafing - moving from side to side. Easy form of strafing that works very we against most opponents.
-Circle Strafing - One of the hardest forms of strafing incredibly effective against most opponents if you have a great aim. Circle you opponent holding a combination of 'w' and 'a' or 'd'
-Bunny hop - a strafing style designed to get crits similar I have yet to master this but you jump from side to side getting crits on your opponent rapidly.
-Sprint Jump Strafing - usually absolutely terrible but can mess up some players as it is an unusual strafe style. Simply sprint jump around your opponent trying to get crit on them. This most useful for dodging arrows.
-Defensive strafing - more of hit and runs with an emphasis on hitting the 's' key to back out of your opponents reach.
-Hybrid Strafing - A combination of any of the strafing methods mentioned can be very good against all opponents.
Note: if you are fighting the same opponent over and over they might pick up on your strafing style and be able to predict your movements it is best to constantly change up your style.
Aim
The most important thing in pretty much every game involving combat. Not much to say here its being able to hit your target. You preferably want to aim for the part of the opposing player that is closest to head height as his will give you the most reach.
Pro tip: pressing f3+b will show hit boxes and may help you learn where to hit your opponent
Criticals
Criticals are a very important part of 1.9 as of the armor changes they deal nearly 2x damage to most opponents. To get a critical but you must hit an opponent while falling usually this means jumping and hitting you opponent as you fall.
A couple tips for crits:
- don't rely on them completely this will usually get you killed
- if someone is running away and you release the 'w' key as your sprint jumping after them this will give you a better chance at getting crits (I'll explain more in my videos)
- do not crit straight into someone as they will knock you back before you get a chance to get a crit instead try moving to the side a little.
- always crit opponents who are eating, blocking or trying to use bows.
Hunger Management
Hunger management is very important in 1.9 as saturation determines your rapid regeneration. Some foods give more satation than others and eating food that will replenish your hunger will give you additional saturation. I would reccomend eating cooked beef, porkchops, or golden carrots if you have them. Check out minecraft wiki for more info on saturation if you wish.
Tip: If you about to get into a fight and have half a hunger bar down or so it is always a good idea to eat your best food before the fight.
Offhand
Having items in your offhand at all times is very important in 1.9. Offhand anything that can be right clicked to do something that is useful to you this can be a shield, bow, food, blocks, buckets, potions, snowballs, and much more.
Shields
Shields were introduced in 1.9 and for the most part get you killed but there are some cases where they are useful. I am not a great shield user and I have only met one person who can use a shield well so there may be more to them then I think.
Situations to maybe use shields:
- shields can be used to get crits as you get knocked up in the air slightly when you get hit by a mellee attack but this requires great timing.
- shields are ways good against arrows but with fire arrows you are better off to dodge them as they to through shields.
- Shield Glitching - this is a very unknown tactic but In going to tell you it :P This is a bug so do not practice this expecting to use it in later updates of the game. Sometimes you can get into a situation where you are "blocking" but you are still able to move freely and swing. This can be caused by any attack by quickly unblocking once an opponent hits you but this is random. The best way to get this is to have someone sprint and hit you with an axe to "disable" your block. I put disable there as its what that attack is supposed to do but currently it makes you block forever until you eat.
- Shields can be useful against explosions and knockback mobs a bit when they attempt to attack you so they may be effective against wolves.
Combos
Combos are merely hitting your opponent in a way where they can not hit you. Strafing is the best way to get combos and you must keep a steady stream of hits to maintain a combo.
Fake Outs
While not necessary they can be useful for more skilled opponents. Fake outs are simply making your opponent think your going to fight/move in one way but surprise them with another way. You can do this simply by standing still as if you are going to play defensive while waiting for you opponent to come to you and then quickly jump out of the way and land a couple of crits in for example the bunny hop strafing style. Fake outs are best for archers as they will usually calculate their aim to where they think you are going and miss. Fake outs also work great for axe users as they will miss a really important hit.
Sword Specific Strategies
- Half Swings are most effective with swords as hey can be used to combo easier.
- Crits are less important but should still be used to initiate a fight or exploit a mistake made by your opponent. (Such as eating, missing a crucial hit, blocking)
- Aggresive styles are preceded usually when fighting people at or below your skill level but for more skilled players a defensive play style may help.
- you can afford more missed hits with a sword so don't worry about missing a player who is running away.
Axe Specific Strategies
-Crits are very important with axes as they account for your lost damage per second that a sword would have.
- Defensive play styles are preferred with an axe with plenty of fake outs to get some good crits in on your opponent.
- always crit blocking players as this will reduce he chance of causing a shield glitch especially with the reading 'w' method I told you about.
- shields can be useful for you if you can time the crits right.
- as with swords exploit a players weakness with crits.
- if you have 2-3 failed crits a sprinting hit may be the best for you.
- after getting 2 crits on opponents with iron armor or less half swings will easily finish them off.
Bow Specific Strategies
- Calculate for movement with your shots.
- Learn about your opponents movement with a few shots. Do they take out a lot? How do they try to dodge your arrows? And account for their preffered movement style.
- shooting around corners is possible and so is shooting and enemy behind a two block high wall. If you are caught behind a two block high wall against an archer sneak to make yourself slightly shorter.
- in bow duels try to fake out as much as possible to dodge arrows but also fire off as many arrows as you can accurrately.
- long ranges always wait for a fully drawn bow you do but you do not have to completely draw a bow to get max damage (pay attention to particles)
- shooting a quick arrow off before a mellee fight into you opponent may throw them off and allow you to get a combo.
- at close range against another archer wait for half or so draw to hit your opponent as many time as possible to throw off your opponents aim.
- don't bow spam :P
- running away against mellee fighters is a good idea.
- don't waste your arrows by firing at that guy's shield!!!!
- avoid shooting while moving on half slabs or jumping as this will throw off you aim.
That's I'd for now took me forever to type this. If you have anything you would like to add of have any questions please ask below :D
Thanks for reading :D
A POWER RANGER's Guide to PvP
Cooldown
Cool down is the most basic and most hated part of 1.9 pvp to be any good at all at 1.9 you need to be mindful of the attack cooldown. Under settings you can set your attack indicator to none, hotbar, or crosshair. I reccomend setting this to crosshair as this is the easiest to see in a fight. All things in minecraft are effected by cooldown including tools, weapons, items, and even your fist.
A couple tips/strategies:
-You deal almost full damage if you wait for 80% of the cooldown so "half swings" will be very useful for getting multiple hits off that still deal damage.
-Criticals require the cooldown to be at full.
-If you have damage indicators or something similar you can simply ignore cooldown if your opponent is at 1 health.
-knockback is slightly effected by cooldown but this is only apparent with knockback items/weapons.
-Axes deal a lot of base damage so you can even get away with 40% of the cooldown and deal damage.
Strafing
Strafing is one of the most important things to do in 1.9 pvp as you can cause you opponent to miss a much needed hit and have to wait for the cooldown. Strafing is simply moving as you fight.
Types of strafing:
-Straight Lining - easiest strafing technique but in most cases the worst. Simply sprint at your opponent preferably holding the sprint key.
-A/D Strafing - moving from side to side. Easy form of strafing that works very we against most opponents.
-Circle Strafing - One of the hardest forms of strafing incredibly effective against most opponents if you have a great aim. Circle you opponent holding a combination of 'w' and 'a' or 'd'
-Bunny hop - a strafing style designed to get crits similar I have yet to master this but you jump from side to side getting crits on your opponent rapidly.
-Sprint Jump Strafing - usually absolutely terrible but can mess up some players as it is an unusual strafe style. Simply sprint jump around your opponent trying to get crit on them. This most useful for dodging arrows.
-Defensive strafing - more of hit and runs with an emphasis on hitting the 's' key to back out of your opponents reach.
-Hybrid Strafing - A combination of any of the strafing methods mentioned can be very good against all opponents.
Note: if you are fighting the same opponent over and over they might pick up on your strafing style and be able to predict your movements it is best to constantly change up your style.
Aim
The most important thing in pretty much every game involving combat. Not much to say here its being able to hit your target. You preferably want to aim for the part of the opposing player that is closest to head height as his will give you the most reach.
Pro tip: pressing f3+b will show hit boxes and may help you learn where to hit your opponent
Criticals
Criticals are a very important part of 1.9 as of the armor changes they deal nearly 2x damage to most opponents. To get a critical but you must hit an opponent while falling usually this means jumping and hitting you opponent as you fall.
A couple tips for crits:
- don't rely on them completely this will usually get you killed
- if someone is running away and you release the 'w' key as your sprint jumping after them this will give you a better chance at getting crits (I'll explain more in my videos)
- do not crit straight into someone as they will knock you back before you get a chance to get a crit instead try moving to the side a little.
- always crit opponents who are eating, blocking or trying to use bows.
Hunger Management
Hunger management is very important in 1.9 as saturation determines your rapid regeneration. Some foods give more satation than others and eating food that will replenish your hunger will give you additional saturation. I would reccomend eating cooked beef, porkchops, or golden carrots if you have them. Check out minecraft wiki for more info on saturation if you wish.
Tip: If you about to get into a fight and have half a hunger bar down or so it is always a good idea to eat your best food before the fight.
Offhand
Having items in your offhand at all times is very important in 1.9. Offhand anything that can be right clicked to do something that is useful to you this can be a shield, bow, food, blocks, buckets, potions, snowballs, and much more.
Shields
Shields were introduced in 1.9 and for the most part get you killed but there are some cases where they are useful. I am not a great shield user and I have only met one person who can use a shield well so there may be more to them then I think.
Situations to maybe use shields:
- shields can be used to get crits as you get knocked up in the air slightly when you get hit by a mellee attack but this requires great timing.
- shields are ways good against arrows but with fire arrows you are better off to dodge them as they to through shields.
- Shield Glitching - this is a very unknown tactic but In going to tell you it :P This is a bug so do not practice this expecting to use it in later updates of the game. Sometimes you can get into a situation where you are "blocking" but you are still able to move freely and swing. This can be caused by any attack by quickly unblocking once an opponent hits you but this is random. The best way to get this is to have someone sprint and hit you with an axe to "disable" your block. I put disable there as its what that attack is supposed to do but currently it makes you block forever until you eat.
- Shields can be useful against explosions and knockback mobs a bit when they attempt to attack you so they may be effective against wolves.
Combos
Combos are merely hitting your opponent in a way where they can not hit you. Strafing is the best way to get combos and you must keep a steady stream of hits to maintain a combo.
Fake Outs
While not necessary they can be useful for more skilled opponents. Fake outs are simply making your opponent think your going to fight/move in one way but surprise them with another way. You can do this simply by standing still as if you are going to play defensive while waiting for you opponent to come to you and then quickly jump out of the way and land a couple of crits in for example the bunny hop strafing style. Fake outs are best for archers as they will usually calculate their aim to where they think you are going and miss. Fake outs also work great for axe users as they will miss a really important hit.
Sword Specific Strategies
- Half Swings are most effective with swords as hey can be used to combo easier.
- Crits are less important but should still be used to initiate a fight or exploit a mistake made by your opponent. (Such as eating, missing a crucial hit, blocking)
- Aggresive styles are preceded usually when fighting people at or below your skill level but for more skilled players a defensive play style may help.
- you can afford more missed hits with a sword so don't worry about missing a player who is running away.
Axe Specific Strategies
-Crits are very important with axes as they account for your lost damage per second that a sword would have.
- Defensive play styles are preferred with an axe with plenty of fake outs to get some good crits in on your opponent.
- always crit blocking players as this will reduce he chance of causing a shield glitch especially with the reading 'w' method I told you about.
- shields can be useful for you if you can time the crits right.
- as with swords exploit a players weakness with crits.
- if you have 2-3 failed crits a sprinting hit may be the best for you.
- after getting 2 crits on opponents with iron armor or less half swings will easily finish them off.
Bow Specific Strategies
- Calculate for movement with your shots.
- Learn about your opponents movement with a few shots. Do they take out a lot? How do they try to dodge your arrows? And account for their preffered movement style.
- shooting around corners is possible and so is shooting and enemy behind a two block high wall. If you are caught behind a two block high wall against an archer sneak to make yourself slightly shorter.
- in bow duels try to fake out as much as possible to dodge arrows but also fire off as many arrows as you can accurrately.
- long ranges always wait for a fully drawn bow you do but you do not have to completely draw a bow to get max damage (pay attention to particles)
- shooting a quick arrow off before a mellee fight into you opponent may throw them off and allow you to get a combo.
- at close range against another archer wait for half or so draw to hit your opponent as many time as possible to throw off your opponents aim.
- don't bow spam :P
- running away against mellee fighters is a good idea.
- don't waste your arrows by firing at that guy's shield!!!!
- avoid shooting while moving on half slabs or jumping as this will throw off you aim.
That's I'd for now took me forever to type this. If you have anything you would like to add of have any questions please ask below :D
Thanks for reading :D
