Player killing/Strategies

Introduction
In PvP, a player's equipment and the strategic use of abilities will define a win or lose. With practice, impromptu reaction speed will increase and cognitive ability will improve. PvP combat may appeal to people for various reasons, whether to hunt down other players for loot, to attend a (rated) Clan War or simply for fun. With luck, player killing can be extremely profitable. However, there is also the risk of losing money, especially for beginners.

Knowledge of PvP combat can also prove useful in PvM, such as when countering stun mechanics or bleeds.

Combat Styles
Each combat style has it's own character with certain advantages and drawbacks. You should pick your style based on your highest stats and the style that the opponent you'll be fighting is using.

As a rule of thumb, the Combat triangle makes sure that each class has a strong and a weak match-up. But besides that basic advantage, each class also has unique abilities and gear that distinguish them from each other.

Melee class

 * Melee has access to strong bleed abilities such as Slaughter, Dismember and Blood Tendrils. These abilities can be stacked to put a lot of pressure on opponents. This can force them to use Freedom to remove the damage-over-time. Once Freedom is on cooldown, they are vulnerable to stuns like Destroy or Stomp.
 * Has a lot of reach with Surge, Barge and Bladed Dive, none sharing a cooldown.
 * Has access to Berserk. This ultimate ability can be used in combination with strong thresholds like Assault and Hurricane to take down opponents from almost full health. The drawback is that it leaves the melee player vulnerable due to the increased damage taken.
 * Requires no ammunition as opposed to Ranged or runes for Magic.
 * Rather vulnerable to attacks from long range due to the lack of weapon reach.

Mage class

 * Magic has access to a strong threshold combination with Wild Magic and Asphyxiate.
 * Dragon Breath is a very strong basic ability. It disables protection prayers/curses, which can be essential in PvP if the opponent uses a protect/deflect prayer. It does more damage than Havoc/Smash (melee abilities prayer disable), while it does not take time to charge like Snipe (ranged ability prayer disable).
 * Magic has access to debuffs, including the Guthix staff special attack which also deals considerable damage in a combo and leaves them vulnerable to further threshold abilities. Additionally, casting Tele-block and Entangle can significantly decrease the likelihood of a target escaping.

Ranged class

 * Ranged is popular for its cheap gear. Royal dragonhide armour, Death Lotus darts and Ava's alerter are all very practical pieces of gear that have a very low replace cost.
 * Shadow Tendrils has the potential to do huge damage in a single hit.
 * A drawback to ranging is the fact that the prayer disabling ability Snipe has a 1.8s delay before activation.

Action bars
Having the appropriate abilities on your action bars is critical in PvP. Not having the needed ability ready to use can result in death.

More than one action bar will need to be used for PvP efficiency. To enable secondary and tertiary action bars, open Game Settings and scroll down the side menu to Action Bar Settings.



The action bar mode should typically be set to Full Manual to allow full control of abilities. However, for those who are still learning to use Full Manual, Revolution mode can remain active provided you make an attempt to learn the manual keybinds. You must also ensure that Revolution does not trigger your threshold or ultimate abilities as these should be used manually and with careful timing.

Ideally, the following action bar keys should all be assigned keybinds. This allows you to respond faster and learn via muscle memory.

Melee bar
Two-handed

Dual wield

Note: Tuska's Wrath may be switched out if you are comfortable using Berserk.

Mage bar
Two-handed

Dual wield

Ranged bar
Two-handed

Dual wield

Secondary
Normal prayer book

Ancient Curses prayer book

Ancient Curses prayer book with Praesul codex prayers

Some space on this bar can be saved by moving style-specific prayers onto their respective primary bars. For example, Turmoil would replace Tuska's Wrath on the Melee bars, Anguish would do the same on the Ranged bars, and so forth. Tuska's Wrath can then be added to the secondary bar, effectively freeing up two spaces.

Tertiary
The last two spaces can be filled with a shield and weapon switch, Overloads/potions or any other optional item.

Prayers

 * is a prayer/curse that allows you to keep one additional item upon death in the Wilderness. E.g. if you are unskulled, 4 items total will be protected. If you are skulled, 1 item will be protected. This prayer should be kept on at all times whilst in the Wilderness.


 * is a curse that allows you to heal slightly based on damage dealt. Additionally, the opponent's prayer points will be drained proportionally.


 * and reduce all incoming damage of their respective styles by 50%. For example, Deflect Magic reduces all incoming magic damage by 50%. These prayers should be avoided whenever possible, only to be used if your opponent chooses to use them.

Healing
Rocktail/brew combination



Unlike PvM, eating food does not reduce adrenaline in PvP. This makes food (such as rocktail) the primary method of healing. To complement this basic food, potions such as the Saradomin brew and Super Guthix brew can be sipped in the same tick to allow for an increased healing speed. These potions are able to be sipped twice as often as food can be consumed.

To effectively heal using this method, the rocktail and Saradomin brew must be given comfortable keybinds that allow you to press the rocktail keybind then the brew keybind in quick succession (or simultaneously). This produces a heal of 3300 per bite.

Other healing

Other methods of healing in PvP include:
 * Enhanced Excalibur
 * Phoenix necklace
 * Unicorn stallion scroll, Healing Aura
 * Rejuvenate with a shield equipped

Preventing Stuns
In the middle of a fight, always remain calm and maintain a good anti-stun rotation. The ideal order is:

→ →  → repeat

This rotation should typically be started when your opponent is about to reach 40% adrenaline. You must also strictly maintain this rotation throughout the fight, whilst keeping your health up and trying to defeat your opponent simultaneously.

Note: Freedom should only be used when it is really needed. If your opponent does not stun you (nor apply a tripled Slaughter, etc.), you should simply Anticipate again and start this rotation over. Take care not to waste Freedom while your Debilitate is active.

In the event of an emergency, such as when your Debilitate misses and your Freedom is still on cooldown, equipping a shield to use Reflect can be the difference between life and death.

While shield abilities are crucial to tanking in multi-way combat zones, using them continuously is regarded as taboo in single-way combat. The reason for this is that a very experienced player with good armour and a shield can negate almost all damage that an opponent can inflict on them, dragging the fight out and expending time and resources. This is called 'shield-camping' and should be avoided in PvP.

Adrenaline
Adrenaline is gained by using basic abilities, and expended by the stronger threshold and ultimate abilities. Each basic ability you use will give you +8% adrenaline. Each threshold will consume 15% adrenaline. An ultimate ability will use all 100% adrenaline. On top of this, Super Guthix rest potions and Adrenaline potions can increase your total adrenaline by 15% and 25% respectively.

Because of the technicality of these numbers, there are certain adrenaline thresholds that must be noted. For example, when your opponent reaches 40% adrenaline, they are able to sip an Adrenaline potion which brings it to 65%. From 65%, they are then able to use two threshold abilities in quick succession. This could catch you off guard and potentially end the fight fast.

These are the main adrenaline thresholds:

Movement and Stalling
Movement is fundamental in PvP, whether for defensive or offensive purposes. It can give you a huge advantage against a non-moving opponent.

Reasons to move include:
 * To cancel your opponent's channelled ability (such as Asphyxiate, Assault, Destroy)
 * To cause your opponent to move as well, thus increasing damage output from Combust, Frag shot and Slaughter.
 * To "stall" an ability.

Channelled abilities
A channelled ability is one that deals damage over time without allowing you to use another ability simultaneously. Threshold channelled abilities tend to be quite powerful, especially for melee dual wield and mage. The following abilities are channelled abilities: To counter any of these abilities, you simply need to move out of range or behind an obstacle. This causes your opponent to automatically stop channelling, thus negating the attack.
 * Fury
 * Assault
 * Destroy
 * Flurry
 * Asphyxiate
 * Concentrated Blast
 * Smoke Tendrils
 * Onslaught
 * Rapid Fire
 * Unload
 * Snipe
 * Frenzy

(Bold text denote the abilities that you are strongly recommended to cancel via movement.)

Bleeds
Bleeds often seem like insignificant abilities in PvP but many players overlook the effect of movement on bleed damage. Combust, Fragmentation shot and Slaughter all increase in damage significantly if the target moves. To move your target and increase bleed damage, you can do any of the following:
 * Move out of attack range. Simply be on the outskirt of your opponent's attack range during the fight. This way, taking a single step out of range is enough to move them.
 * Move behind an obstacle. Buildings, trees, etc.
 * Move beneath the opponent. This causes them to move out to continue attacking you.

Stalling
Stalling is the act of delaying an ability so that it is triggered at the same time as the following ability. This creates a burst of damage that increases the likelihood of defeating your opponent, as compared to two separate hits. This is performed by activating the first ability while out of range, causing the ability to go on cooldown without having hit the target yet. At this point, the ability can be triggered at any time simply by left-click attacking your opponent. If the ability is stalled sufficiently, the global cooldown timer will have elapsed, allowing you to use another ability in the same instant as the stalled one.

Not all abilities can be stalled, however. Channelled abilities will not activate nor go on cooldown if you attempt to use one while out of range of your target.

Combo attacks
PvP is the only combat encounter in Runescape where your opponent has access to unlimited healing. This calls for a different way of dealing damage. Rather than a slow and steady damage output, you want to generate an explosive burst of damage to defeat your opponent fast, without waiting for them to run out of food first.

These bursts can be achieved by using certain combinations of abilities in sequence. Each combat class has a few possible combo attacks:

These are not the only combination abilities that exist. More complex ones exist, such as the inclusion of the Reprisal ability.
 * Asphyxiate → Wild Magic (or vice versa): 716.2% average damage over 10 game ticks or 547% average damage over 7 game ticks (if cutting off the Asphyxiate, since the stun only applies for 3.6s).
 * Shadow Tendrils → Tight Bindings → Snap shot: 659.7% average damage over 9 game ticks (with a stun).
 * Berserk → Hurricane: 530% average damage over 3 game ticks.
 * Detonate (charged) → Wild Magic: 490% average damage in 1 game tick.
 * Assault → Destroy: 901.6% average damage over 12 game ticks or 676.2% average damage over 8 game ticks (cutting off each after 4 ticks).

Advanced
These items and abilities can be used to give you an advantage in PvP combat:

Optimal
This gear is costly and should only be used when:
 * High risk fighting
 * Duelling (Public duel or Duel Arena)
 * White Portal fighting
 * Playing Castle Wars or Soul Wars

Melee =

Range =

Mage =

Budget
These setups are very effective per cost and can generally be used for:
 * Fighting in the Wilderness
 * Fighting in Red Portal

Melee =

Range =

Mage =

Escape
When PKing in the Wilderness, you should usually have an escape plan that you can carry out in the event of an emergency. Certain teleport restrictions and the Teleport Block spell can make escaping nearly impossible sometimes.

If venturing up to level 30 Wilderness, the following teleports will allow for teleportation:

If only venturing up to level 20 Wilderness, the ideal method of emergency teleportation is a Teleport to house tablet. By going into Game Settings → Player Owned House Settings, the teleport arrival location can be set to "House". This means that you will teleport into your player-owned house upon breaking the tele-tab. This ensures that if you die after teleporting (such as to a delayed hitsplat or weapon poison), you will simply respawn outside your POH with all items intact.

To prevent escape,

general
-- setting up bar(s) effectively, appropriate keybinds for food/brews

-- basics - where should health be at, watching adrenaline, defensives rotation, nat, tb/enting, shield switches, stalling/movement

- learner section?

- action/reaction

dangerous pvp
-- escape, identifying more experienced pkers (for learners)

-- weird

-- optimal (but riskier) gear, optimal welfare gear (incl hellfire)

-- inventory, bob - pnecks, shrooms, roots, ee, fury shark (???), gstaff/zstaff & basic stuff

-- niche inventory things - runes (tb/ent vs ancient/seren spells), mud pie/morrig axe/bolasses, cursed en/demonic skull, mace, energy pots lol - perks

safe pvp
-- optimal gear, optimal shield-camping gear (ugh)(dont incl minigame armour or sc stuff)

-- inventory (??? if applicable) -cws/sws -duelling/clan wars

-- familiar (incl forge regent bc its pretty funnn)

-- perks

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