this maybe will seem kindof a weird post, really i want peoples opinions on the stuff i'm saying here i guess, since i don't have that much experience in the situations i'm talking about and i'm looking to learn, but these are my random thoughts and musings about fighting people solo in this game:
even if you know all the moves and are good in spars, in a real situation you can still be completely useless - shaking hands, adrenaline messing with your mind, fear of dying… you need to get rid of these problems.
and also, most people spar with no armour at runspeed, inside walls, where there is not infinite space, you have infinite time since they don't have backup coming, and their escape routes are drastically reduced - no rivers, boats, etc. Moreover, in a normal spar the goal of both sides is the same - in a real fight, one person might be wanting to kill another quickly before backup arrives, and the other may be wanting to either run or delay until backup arrives.
if you are the best in your village at sparring, you can still suck. spars with infinite IP gaining phases are really dumb, imo, or at least they have little use to me, since i will not have backup coming to rescue me most of the time, unless something changes.
so all the [normal] sparring in the world can't prepare you for some things. having backup softens that blow a lot, but if you don't have that backup, you
need to have a detailed plan of what your goal is and how you can back out of it if you need to.
Normally to kill someone in a sensible non "duel to the death" type of fight, it seems like you really have to make them think they can kill you and then surprise them really quickly, or just kill them in the first short flurry of moves, otherwise they can just run "forever" (i.e. to backup).
in my first actual fights, i failed on some parts of my plan A, including battle tactics (i punched instead of valstrike
), so i didn't manage to achieve my objectives, but i did manage to escape, because i prepared a plan B well… this isn't particularly anything to do with the combat system per se but i think its pretty important advice for anyone who is starting to be interested in pvp.
Also, for fighters with lower stats (like me), here are some breakpoints for valstrike, if i'm wrong please correct me since i'm trying to develop my tactics for fighting stronger players (i.e. stronger than my character):
-they will break your def in one hit @ full attack & full def if their
mc=2.29 x your ua (assuming dodge)
-with equal stats valstrike takes off
66% def
-which means you probably want their
def~0.2-0.3 of your attack to do good damage (assuming b12 and dodge and that you want 2/3-1/2 of your damage to get through)
-if you valstrike them moving, you only need
mc = 0.57 x their ua to break their defense from 100% attack and def
-again, if their def is around 30-50% of your attack and you valstrike them moving in this situation, they will hopefully go down, but it will be hard to valstrike someone moving when they should be on the back foot anyway… unless they suck.
I'm not sure how penetration will feed in here, i guess reducing the critical def they can have somewhat, but since its only 5% with an axe its not that significant?
The main point is that its not often worth blowing your attack bar early, as the weaker combatant, or thats how it seems to me.
apologies for the wall of text, but i would really like to be corrected on any of these points, if i'm wrong.