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Mid-Level Spiritmaster PVP Tips Basic Know-How Skills Stigmas On Gear and Stats Class-Specific Strategies Keybinds

There are five major steps to becoming a good PvPer as a Spiritmaster. If you learn nothing else from my tl;dr, remember these five core things. They are, as I believe, the most important parts of PvP. You can do anything else however you like, but these are things you MUST do.

1. Know how to make lots of money long-term; no life enough that you can craft & gather a lot; or exchange sexual favours with crafters.
Spiritmasters are not a class for the poor. You will easily use far more flight potions and flight scrolls than any other class. You have three options to compensate for this: buy all your consumables, make them yourself, or get someone else to make/gather mats for you. Buying all that crap is the best way to quickly burrow yourself into debt, unless you have a secret to making lots of money LONG TERM. No, it doesn't matter that you just sold "x blue weapon" this week. You need a steady source of income you can maintain right up to endgame. Alternatively, you can craft everything yourself, which will require a lot of patience. Flight-related consumables require aether items to craft, so not only will you have to level your alchemy, you'll also need to get up your aether gathering skill. Ideally, you'll be good friends with either an alchemist or an aether gatherer, and you can split the work with them. Say you have alchemy and they have aether gathering? You'll craft their HP/MP/CC pots for them if they get you aether. Vice versa, you get the aether and they craft the pots. Find an agreement. You WILL NOT succeed if you cannot provide mountains of flight-related consumables for yourself.

2. Understand how to use Stone Skin effectively.
A bit of indispensable knowledge: You can use Stone Skin twice in a row. A lot of people think Stone Skin is only to be used in emergencies. THEY ARE BAD. You should always, always, always have Stone Skin up. Take a look at the effect time versus the cooldown time. Five minutes of effect, two minutes of cooldown. Meaning, there's a three-minute overlap where you can have Stone Skin on you, and cooled down and ready to recast. If you can use Stone Skin the second it's broken, you'll be that much better for it. Never attack someone until you have two Stone Skins up. Attacking with only one is like running in with half HP. Just don't do it.

3. Learn to kite.
Kiting is the key to winning against melees. To PvP effectively, you need to kite effectively. To kite effectively, you must be fast. Get +speed boots as soon as they are available to you, at any price. There are gold level 30 +20% speed boots, at the hefty cost of 58k AP. There are also blue level 33 boots with +18% speed that go for 1.5 - 2m on CN Aion. Make SURE to get these. Also stock up on +speed scrolls, and +flight speed scrolls. Get the Saviour of Eiron Forest title (Three Kures Brothers quest reward). Now, on to actual kiting. My usual tactic is to open every fight with Chain of Earth, your nasty little slow DoT, with a knockback chain skill to boot. It really does make a massive difference. Once you have that off, run in circles around the target while spamming your instant cast skills. Break the circle pattern and run in a straight line away from them to get some distance before trying your longer cast-time skills. They will interrupt you/spike you to death/piss on your dead body if you simply pause in the circle running to cast things. Always make sure Chain of Earth is on them. Luckily, the skill comes off cooldown right in sync with when its effect ends -- so the only time your enemies should not have it on is when they resist it.

4. Do not be afraid to fly.
Spiritmaster PvP is incredibly aerial-based. Contrary to popular belief, you CAN win in aerial fights, pet or no pet. Forcing yourself to believe this (and making it come true) is the difference between a good PvPer and a great PvPer. We probably spend a lot more time in the air than any other class, simply BECAUSE our pets don't fly. Everyone knows this, and everyone will use it against you. Often your target's first reaction upon seeing you is to open their wings and fly off just far enough to unsummon your pet, then they'll turn around and start taking you down. Do not be unprepared for this. Always make sure you're equipped with plenty of flight time pots and flight speed scrolls. +flight time gear helps too. If possible, make sure your flight bar is full before attacking. Actually, ALWAYS do that. If you whine and give up the chase once an Asmodian takes to the air, you will never get any kills. You need to fight tooth and nail to get far, and that means clawing out a slow victory through DoTs or fall damage.

5. Learn to use your Fear skills effectively.
Yup, we all love the terror it strikes into your enemies' hearts. But Fear can harm you as much as it helps. Remember how it makes the target run away from you, REALLY REALLY FUCKING FAST? Err, yeah. That can be a problem. Unless you are trying to escape, do not Fear before putting Chain of Earth on them. CoE slows them down just enough that you can actually get a skill off on them before it range-cancels. Ideally, you'll use Fear so that the target runs themselves into a corner, allowing you to cast away to your heart's content. Fear makes the enemy run away from you. If you are behind them, they will run forwards. If you move to their left, they will run to the right. Use this to manipulate them into running into strategic spots -- terrain obstacles, NPCs, edges (they won't fall off but they do stop moving), or if you love overwhelming feelings of WTFPWNED satisfaction, packs of aggro mobs.

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