Meet Obi-Wan Kenobi, an average Jedi with an above average brain. Obi-Wan defeated a Sith Lord prior to becoming a Master… When Obi-Wan fought against Anakin Skywalker, an overpowered crybaby who was given every tool possible to be great in life, Obi-Wan flawlessly destroyed him and forced him to live with a respirator for life. Do you know why?

Obi-Wan used his brains and skill instead of dwelling on his limitations!

For every game in the MMORPG world, there is a line of choices for characters that may or may not be easy to win with at Player vs Player combat. Let me repeat that – I said “easy to win with”, I did not say “dominate”. It’s the same issue that comes about with fighting games, you have certain characters who are easy to win with and other characters that are made for pro-gamers… sometimes as a result of poor development.

Using Street Fighter As An Example (Pro vs EZ-Mode):

I know we are talking MMORPG PVP here but let me bring Street Fighter in as an example and the character Ken Masters… unlike Ryu his Japanese clone, Ken is arguably a new player’s character. He has a dragon punch that comes out on accident half the time when people are trying a fireball, he has sweet kicks that dominate a lot of things and he is a very, very balanced character overall (barely any weaknesses). Put Ken in the hands of a pro and he’s dangerous, but his potential pales due to the fact that many players use him – hence no element of surprise.

On the other hand you have a character like Crimson Viper, she’s a hot MILF so newbs pick her thinking that she will be playable and fun… not quite. Viper is a pro-level character, if you don’t know her timing, what does what and how to counter your opponent’s moves you will get your ass kicked using her about 95% of the time. Viper in the hands of a pro is even better than Ken because people aren’t used to her.

See, most everyone chooses easy, so they are used to fighting Ken. Therefore the element of surprise ups the pro’s skill to scary levels.

Have you ever entered a match against what you know is a crappy character that nobody uses only to have that character whip your ass hardcore? I have and it was nobody’s fault but my own for underestimating the opponent. The player using the shit character took time, did his/her homework and mastered the character to kick ass… me, not being used to fighting that character on that level… lost. Believe it or not PVPing in an MMORPG Is the same way.

Whine, Get Better, or ReRoll – The Choice Is Yours

Having played some really crappy classes in MMORPG, I know the pain of losing to people who needed to only press a simple button combo to win. My attitude was always to learn, adapt, improve and at worst reroll to something less broken. Unfortunately many gamers would rather complain into thin air, the forums or to themselves. There is nothing fun about Ez-mode to me, which is why I write this guide to improving. Fun to me is playing what you want, not flavor of the month, not what works for that guy, but what you want… and making it succeed for you.

In Star Wars Galaxies, the flavor of the month fencer/pistoleer stacked kids would often talk about how much swordsman sucked yet the best PvPer on our server was a swordsman. Think about that for a second, the player using the character wasn’t some hacker/exploiting genius, no, he was a man who took time to learn his class, get supplemental items to make up for what was lacking and learnt the weakness of the other classes.

Let me rephrase these steps for you aspiring PVP gods who would rather win than whine.

The steps to improving your PVP game are:

• Learn the game mechanics inside and out: What damage cuts through what defenses? Who has that defense? Who can you beat easily and who is damn near impossible to touch? Is it fixable with a potion or buff? Is said buff on a short or long timer? Are the matchups with that class too skewed to losing? Etc. etc.
• Learn your class inside and out: Does the skills used in PvE work as well in PvP? What skills are broken and what can be done to make up for it? Does the DEVs plan a fix for it anytime soon? How are other pro-level gamers using your character coping? How can you talk to them to improve your knowledge of the class? Is the official game forums full of education or bad players crying?
• Learn the weakness of the zerg inside out: What’s the flavor of the month class? What works against them? What deep, dark secrets guarantee a win against them that most scrubs playing them don’t know? What’s the fastest way to dominate even as a gimp?
• Supplement your weakness and strengths: Most games have pots, potions and some sort of injection to make you better for a few seconds. Good PVPers carry a couple cases of the stuff to certify that if anything, they have an edge over you every single time. Playing cheap is suicide for a gimpy character class so learn your chemistry and stay on dem drugs!
• Put time into dueling all classes: Become friends with pro-level players of various classes and learn to fight them one on one. While many PVP games encourage grouped, zerg wars you still need to know how to kill every single one of them. The only way to get good is through practice.

Remember – Crush your enemies, see them driven before you and hear the lamentation of their frustration as they send you hate in the form of whispers, tells and emails. Losers are loud, learn to embrace their typed out tears.

There is no honor in bitching about how much of a victim you are for choosing your class, but there is a ton of honor in using your brain to win what you can win. With that said, I look forward to seeing more pro-level people on these games choosing to stay with the unpopular classes. Thanks for reading.