PvP Builds

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The PvM Professions hub answers “I want to be a tamer/smith.” This page answers a different question: “what do people build to fight other players?” These are the combat archetypes — the templates tuned for killing other characters rather than monsters.

PvP on this shard

The rules of player combat live in Notoriety & PvP: criminal and murderer flagging, guard zones, and Felucca-style open PvP. That page tells you when and where you can attack someone and what happens to your notoriety when you do.

This page is about the characters people build to win those fights. Whether open PvP is available, and exactly how flagging works, is governed by the shard rules — read that page first, then come back here to pick a build.

What makes a PvP build different

A PvM farmer optimizes raw, sustained damage against predictable monsters. A PvP build optimizes speed and survivability against a thinking opponent who is trying to kill you in a two-second combo. The priorities shift:

Instant burst — winning is usually about dumping a lethal combo faster than the enemy can react, not grinding HP down.
Spell interruption — taking damage disrupts a caster mid-spell, so both landing hits to interrupt them and casting through being hit matters.
Escape and mobility — Recall, Teleport, and stamina to run; a fight you can leave is a fight you can’t lose.
Curing and healing through pressure — surviving poison ticks and incoming damage with bandages, Cure, and Greater Heal.
Not dying to the combo — enough HP, resists, and reactive healing to live through the opener.

Because of this, Resisting Spells (to shrug off enemy magic), Wrestling (so a meleed mage can still cast and isn’t auto-interrupted), and fast bandage healing matter far more in PvP than in PvM.

The classic build archetypes

These are templates within the 700-point cap (see 7x GM Templates); the cap is what forces the hard choices below.

Tank Mage

Skills: Magery, Eval Int, Resisting Spells, Wrestling, Anatomy, Healing, Meditation.

The all-rounder and the benchmark PvP template. It casts offensive magic, bandage-heals through damage (Anatomy + Healing), and wrestles so melee can’t lock its casting. The jack of all trades: hard to kill, never out of options, no glaring weakness — which is exactly why it’s the template everything else is measured against. See Mage.

Nox (Poison) Mage

Skills: Magery, Poisoning, Eval Int, Resisting Spells, Wrestling, Meditation, + a little Healing.

A tank mage that trades some sustain for Poisoning. It opens with a poison + explosion/energy-bolt combo: the poison ticks pressure the enemy’s healing while the burst lands, and a poisoned opponent must spend actions curing instead of fighting back. Strong offense; thinner on its own healing than a pure tank mage.

Stun Mage

Skills: Magery, Wrestling, Resisting Spells (era-dependent extras).

Uses stun and lock-down tricks — classic Wrestling stun, or disarm + paralyze combos — to freeze the target while a kill combo lands. Devastating when it works because the victim can’t react.

Pure / 5x Mage (scribe mage)

Skills: Magery, Eval Int, Resisting Spells, Meditation, Wrestling + Inscription.

A glass cannon. Inscription (scribe) boosts spell damage and supplies the scrolls the build burns through, trading the dexxer’s bandage healing for maximum magical burst. It hits harder than a tank mage but has less margin for error — win the opener or struggle to outlast a tankier foe. See Scribe.

Dexxer (melee PvP)

Skills: a weapon skill (Swordsmanship / Fencing / Mace), Tactics, Anatomy, Healing, Resisting Spells, Parrying — often plus a splash of Magery for Recall.

The melee fighter: chase and burst. It closes distance, lands disarm / concussion-blow / paralyzing-blow special moves to lock the target, and bursts it down with weapon damage and bandages. Parrying and Resisting Spells keep it alive against mages; the little Magery is mostly for Recall mobility. See Warrior and Combat Advanced for the special moves this build lives on.

Stealth Archer / Ninja

Skills: Archery (or Ninjitsu), Hiding, Stealth, Tactics, Anatomy, Healing or Chivalry.

Opens from concealment with a heavy alpha strike, then repositions and re-hides to reset. The gameplay is ambush-and-vanish: deal a huge opening hit, break line of sight, and disappear before the target can retaliate. See Ninja, Archer, and Hiding & Stealth.

Bard / Disco-mage

Skills: Discordance + Provocation (and Musicianship), layered on a mage core.

A mage that adds Discordance to debuff the target’s stats and skills before the kill, and Provocation for control. The song-based debuff softens the enemy so the magic finishes faster. See Bard.

Sampire-style melee / Necro-dexxer

Skills: a weapon skill with vampiric leech + Bushido and/or Necromancy for survivability.

In group fights, weapon life-leech (Vampiric Embrace / Hit Life Leech) plus Bushido or Necromancy keeps a melee fighter standing where a plain dexxer would fall. Less a duelist than a durable bruiser for the scrum. See Sampire.

Thief (PvP)

Skills: Stealing, Hiding, Stealth (often a little combat or Magery to escape).

A specialist: uses Stealing to snatch items — or disarm a weapon — out of the chaos of a fight, then Hiding & Stealth to vanish with the loot. Thrives in crowded PvP where no one notices the hand in their pack. See Thief.

Skills that define PvP

Resisting Spells — reduces the effect of enemy magic; near-mandatory.
Wrestling — lets a meleed caster keep casting (and powers stun builds).
Healing + Anatomy — bandage healing, your reactive lifeline.
Magery — burst, Cure, Greater Heal, and Recall mobility.
Poisoning — pressures the enemy’s healing.
Tactics — the weapon-damage multiplier for any dexxer.
Parrying — block hits and survive focus fire.
Meditation — regenerate mana between exchanges.

Templates note

Every build above is squeezed into the 700-point cap — see 7x GM Templates for why that budget forces the trade-offs (drop Anatomy for Inscription, drop Healing for Poisoning, and so on). For the PvM counterparts of these builds, compare the Professions hub.