Tutorials/Player versus Player

Player versus player, also known as PvP, refers to combat in Minecraft which involves players fighting other players in multiplayer. Whether fighting in teams or in one-on-one duels, this is a difficult skill to hone for many players.

This guide covers PvP in vanilla Minecraft, though it will acknowledge well-known server plugins.

Overview
PvP in Minecraft results in the death or injury of one or more players. When a player dies in normal difficulty, the contents of their inventory are scattered on the ground. This creates a powerful incentive for players to participate in PvP, as successfully killing another player rewards the killer with the dropped items, and sometimes reputation and power too.

PvP can occur on any server where the admin has not set rules on it, or has allowed it. As some servers endorse building and adventuring cooperatively, while others are PvP-oriented, servers will usually have rules which dictate whether or not PvP is allowed.

One such rule may be only allowing PvP in "war zones", which are designated areas of land wherein players are allowed to engage in combat. It is impossible for players to damage other players outside of these war zones. This type of rule may be in place to give players a safe area to restock on items or simply take a break from PvP.

Equipment for PvP
A combatant's equipment is a deciding factor in PvP, increasing one's survivability and damage output. Having good gear does not guarantee you success though, because skill is arguably a more important factor. Good gear can, however, greatly boost your chances in a fight. Players should be familiar with all aspects of equipment in order to effectively utilize them and assess the gear of their enemies'.

Settings
It's important to determine the best settings for you. Settings don't improve your fighting skill rather they make your fights more comfortable.

Having more FPS is incredibly important if you have a low-end system. Tone down most of your graphics, such as setting it to "Fast", turning down your render distance, and turning your FPS cap to unlimited are some examples that can somewhat improve your FPS. FOV values really depend on your preference, higher FOV makes you see wider thus making you see more of your environment while a lower FOV does the opposite and can act as a "mini-zoom". Optionally if you would want to improve your aim, turn off Dynamic FOV. What it does is it would make your FOV "fixed" and it won't change when going from walking to sprinting, though it would sometimes confuse you. To counteract this, HUD mods such as MiniHUD has an option to tell us our speed and sprinting status. If you're walking, the speed meter will input the values: 4.317 m/s and won't show the word "Sprinting", while if you're sprinting, it would show your speed as 5.612 m/s and will show the word "Sprinting".

Next are your controls. First, modifying your keybinds is totally up to you. It's recommended to change your hotbar keybinds starting from either 6 or 7 up to 9, as it will be harder to reach them with your fingers. Although using the scroll wheel in your mouse can be helpful, keybinds are faster and more accurate than using the scroll wheel. Your mouse sensitivity is also dependent on each player and choosing one that you're comfortable with is essential with getting better aim. With a high sensitivity, your crosshair would start becoming shaky and you won't accurately track your opponent as your mouse is too fast, while if your sensitivitiy is too low, your rotation is too slow, thus you won't be able to track your opponent that moves too much and too fast. Other settings to change are turning Auto-jump to off and turning your Sprint to "Toggle".

Texture packs or resource packs (whatever you call them) are optional but sometimes they make your PVP experience more comfortable. Beware of claims that PVP texture packs that some youtubers say will make you better are false, they don't make you better, they just make your experience better. Some vanilla textures in the game obstruct your vision too much, such as swords, shields and fire, so if you would want an unobtrusive gameplay, consider getting a low-shield pack, a shorter sword pack and low-fire pack.

Utility mods are very useful in combat, as well as performance-enhancing mods. InventoryHUD tells you your armour durability, potion timers and what your inventory has, along with other useful information including how many arrows do you have. Sodium and OptiFine are the two best FPS enhancing mods, although OptiFine isn't compatible with Fabric mods unless you download OptiFabric, which allows you to use OptiFine and other fabric mods simultaneously (do note to that OptiFine and Sodium aren't compatible even with OptiFabric). Appleskin is a mod which tells you your saturation which is important in healing (more about that later) and is available with both Forge and Fabric versions. Custom Crosshair Mod customizes your crosshair, and it would change the colour of your crosshair once a mob is within your reach, allowing you to time your hits better. There are more mods out there to improve your experience in PVP but these are some of the more popular ones.

Locations of PvP
In PvP, the fighters will have to fight in some setting, whether it be a custom-designed arena, normal terrain, or in a challenge map.

Normal Terrain
This is when two players fight in the naturally generated terrain of Minecraft. In this type of fight, players decide on a designated area or may be unexpectedly attacked (underground, caves, cliffs, or strongholds). One can also add custom features into the natural terrain, normally player-built structures.

Custom-Built Terrain
This is PvP that takes place in a unique area or challenge map. Players that are friends may decide to create or use a challenge map that facilitates PvP. The players may choose to divide themselves into multiple groups, enjoy a free-for-all, or any other distribution of players that fight amongst one another.

Players may prefer to build an arena for the sake of organization or aesthetics.

Types of Arena

 * Spawn: Many servers have a PvP area at spawn or even around it! Be warned though, because you usually can't place or break blocks.
 * Ancient: Build a Colosseum inspired by the ancient Romans with fights against animals and perhaps some blood (redstone) on the floor — use stone or different kinds of stone brick for walls, grass or sand as the floor, and wood for decoration and breaking the stone up.
 * Survival Games: A huge arena that's in a dome and often has multiple biomes incorporated into it. The walls must be obsidian, bedrock or barrier. Supporters and spectators can send in messengers with food, armor etc. The battle goes on until there is a last player standing!
 * Maze: Build the walls and seats so the spectators can watch the combatants run around a giant maze. Add in some hostile mobs for extra fear factor!
 * Multi-leveled: Have several floors on the arena with random holes; make sure the sides are made of glass so spectators can see all the gravitational action.
 * Spleef Twist: Who says you have to do the dirty work? Let lava below the map do it for you (tell combatants before the match to avoid having to pay compensation)! Run around stabbing your opponent whilst removing the floor from beneath their feet.
 * Sky: Build the arena in the sky and use piston traps to make random holes appear. Gravity is now your best friend and worst enemy.
 * Raining Lava: Once the start lever is pulled, opening the combatant entrances, a redstone repeater delay is all that's stopping lava from pouring from the ceiling. Using pistons and a two-minute delay, make lava pour from the ceiling and kill all remaining combatants! (or make it so they have to dodge lava 'raindrops'. (Remember: Don't use flammable materials!)
 * Sea battle: Put a pool of water in a glass bowl and give each player a boat, first to sink loses, or continue until someone dies.
 * Minefield: Have player battle on a minefield, trying to defeat one another but also avoiding setting the mines off!
 * Mob Attack: Fill the arena with hidden monster spawners. Watch as the players get attacked by both monsters and other players!
 * Highgrounds (Knockback Field; King of the Hill; Ladder Battles): To win, players must be on higher ground than other players. Add levitation pods, shulkers, ladders, and slime blocks for extra fun! Consider adding a points system where the higher up in the arena you are, the more points you get.
 * Bridge: Players attempt to cross a narrow bridge, killing enemies and/or scoring points at the other side. Players can hit their opponents using eggs, snowballs, bows, snow golems, etc. until they fall through the void or the lava, To defend yourself from falling use shields, pearls and some blocks.
 * Bedrock Formations: This area is just made out of bedrock formations, it makes PvP a lot more interesting and makes movements more challenging. It is usually used for Crystal PvP.

Types of PvP
This is an overview of various types of PvP. Further sections may take this into greater detail.

Friendly PvP
Friendly PvP is when two or more players agree to PvP for friendly practice and training ONLY. Friendly PvP is great to play on LAN. It is the least hostile option for PvP as it:


 * Avoids grudges.
 * Stops property loss from thieving player drops.
 * Encourages cooperation.
 * Allows players to use any type of weapon without worry

Organized PvP
In organized PvP, players agree on the circumstances of their fight, and then battle. The victor may be agreed to receive anything, from diamonds and emeralds to proven superiority to nothing at all.

This type of PvP can be highly competitive and players may need an impartial judge to enforce the rules.

Unorganized PvP
This is when someone surprise attacks you without warning. Keep your weapons ready for this! This is mainly common in SMP PVP.

If you have better equipment than your attacker, you will likely be able to kill them. At this point, there is no better time to give it your all. Utilize anything and everything at your disposal to destroy your opponent — any method that Minecraft provides, you should exploit. (Combat-logging, hacking, and other out-of-game methods are unacceptable except on select servers.) Always carry extras. You never want to be stuck in battle without a weapon. Therefore, extensive measures must be taken to ensure that equipment can be readily replaced in a fight, such as enchantments, extras, and consistent resupplying.

Press any advantages you can, and consider fleeing if you don't think you can win. There's very little point in being honourable, and more point to staying alive.

If someone intervenes in your fight, and attacks the enemy, then you and the new fighter can kill the enemy. When that is finished, then you will fight the new opponent and possibly lose. Also, you may have a chance to "clean up" the player that won the fight between the 2 when they are low on health, or to escape while they fight. This is also known as "third-partying", or "janitor-ing".

Kit PvP
In this type, 2 players spawn in a set map with an arranged set of equipment, thus the name of PVP. Practicing kits are very important in learning the basics of PVP. And the kits can also be customizable depending on the server.

In 1.16, the most important kits to practice are axe and shield PVP, netherite pot kit PVP and crystal PVP.

Minigames
Minigames are typically played on dedicated minigame servers. Some popular ones include Bedwars (where each player/team has a bed that allows them to respawn if it is undestroyed), and Capture the Flag (where each team tries to steal a banner/wool from the other team). Many other variations of these games, and some more niche minigames, also exist. Each minigame will typically have its own set of rules, as well as a shop or class system (although this is not true for all minigames). To gain experience in this kind of PvP, it is recommended to try different kinds of minigames, and find one/some that you enjoy. Minigames are technically a form of Organized PvP, but are normally on a dedicated server.

Practice servers
Servers are a good way to sharpen your PVP skills. Listed below are some of the popular PVP servers.


 * PVP Legacy is a PVP server hosted in North America. One of its biggest advantages it offers over other servers is that it give players the ability to create and share their own kits. Featuring duels, FFA and teamfights, Legacy is one of the most popular 1.19 PVP servers. It's biggest drawback however, is that it only has one proxy, the being in NA, so if you live in Europe, Asia or North America, players need to find another server.
 * Stray is another popular server and is exclusively an FFA server. Though it only offer 3 kits (being Sword, Netherite Pot and Diamond Pot), players here are better fighters, so if you'd want to main Sword, Stray is a good server to start on. Stray also has 3 proxies, being NA, EU and AS.
 * Fusion Network is an Asian PVP server using 1.9 combat. It has FFA, Duels and even a Lifesteal server. The server is good for players living in Asia, although there is rampant toxicity in the playerbase. They also support Cracked accounts.
 * Cinox or Chickencraft is another server that hosts 3 proxies (EU, AS and NA though NA is currently down). Hosts FFA and Duels queue. Like Fusion, they support Cracked.

Tactics
NOTE: Tactics are not the same as strategies. Tactics are individual moves and processes used in a fight to better your chances of winning. Strategy is how you string them together, and how you apply them in a larger context. For example, strafing is a tactic. How you use strafing to win a 1v3 is a strategy.

Practice
Practice doesn't make perfect, but it can make better. Practising Minecraft PvP will increase anyone's skill over time. However, knowing how to practise well can speed this improvement up. Practice is used to burn certain moves, like strafing, into your long-term muscle memory. There are many servers out there which focus on practice. For pre-1.9, Hypixel duels are a commonly used practice method. For 1.9 and above, PvP Legacy offers good duels modes where you can set a custom kit to play with on different maps. It is recommended to practise with a wide variety of equipment and techniques. Find what you're bad at, and practise it.
 * How to counter: There isn't a consistent method to countering a player with a lot of practice. One of the main ways is using the terrain to your advantage (see below), while they do not, or by having much better gear. However, experience is arguably the strongest weapon a player can have, and it's inadvisable to go up against a player with much more practice than you unless you are confident in your own ability.

Aim and Reach
Aim plays a big part in PvP. Reach is measured from your head to the enemy hitbox. If you aim at the head you will get the most amount of reach because the reach is measured from your head to the enemy hitbox. The distance between your head and the enemy's head is 3 blocks, and the distance between your head and your opponent's legs is more than that. Minecraft's reach is 3 blocks meaning you will not get the first hit if you aim for the legs while your opponent aims at your head.

Another part of aiming is accuracy - practise keeping your crosshair over your opponent, and avoid swinging wildly at thin-air in the hopes of landing a hit. Particularly in versions 1.9 and up, this is a sure-fire way to lose a duel.
 * How to counter: If a player has good aim, then try to use unpredictable strafing patterns (see below) to throw them off. Placing blocks can achieve the same effect, but an experienced player will easily be able to dodge these and land a free hit on you.

Clicking Methods
In pre-1.9, CPS (clicks per second) is the difference between life and death. Clicking fast is incredibly important, with most skilled PvPers being able to reach a CPS of 8-30 through different clicking methods such as jitter clicking, drag clicking and butterfly clicking (these last two are sometimes banned on servers). Playing in pre-1.9 versions can cause repetitive strain injuries and finger problems for PvPers over time, so it is advised to always regulate how fast you click and make sure you do not exceed 20 seconds of jitter clicking at any time. In 1.9+, jitter clicking is a very bad idea, as the attack cooldown feature means that PvP is more about aim and strategic hits. PvP in these versions is less about how many clicks you can do per second, but how you make each click count.
 * How to counter: If a person has a high CPS in pre-1.9 versions, the best way to counter it is by dodging and strafing, as well as using the terrain to your advantage. This will limit the accuracy of their clicks, their by limiting the damage. It's often a good idea to take them out with a ranged weapon rather than engaging with a sword if your CPS is significantly lower than theirs. In 1.9 and above, good hits rely on accuracy and combos, so dodging and strafing are still important counters.

Strafing
PvP isn't always standing still in one spot while hitting someone with a sword, and never should be. Circle strafing around your enemies can benefit the player, especially if the opponent(s) wield strong weapons. Circle strafing can be achieved by using the A and D keys to move in a loop around your enemy - change directions to disorientate them further. Side-to-side strafing is also used to avoid bow shots.

How to counter: Most competent players have at least a basic knowledge of strafing. Effective use of a shield will help to counter them - try to turn and block their strikes from the direction they are strafing towards. Practice your aim and learn to strafe yourself - the best way to beat a strafer is to be one yourself.

W-Tapping
W-tapping is a technique where the player taps W right after hitting their opponent with a sword (axes are typically too slow to get a W-tap chain, but can be used for single W-taps). W-tapping resets a player's sprint and increases the knockback dealt to the opponent. This makes it harder for the opponent to hit back as they will be constantly knocked back, and backwards momentum plus server delay (ping) makes a deadly combo. The term "combo" is used a lot, and it simply means a chain of hits on another player. Despite popular belief, W-tapping does not increase your attack reach, but gives the illusion of it due to the effects of knockback and server ping mentioned above.

S-tapping is a related concept. After executing a knockback hit, immediately tap S to create some distance between you and your enemy, they won't be able to attack you but you are still able to reach them. S-tapping is arguably the easiest way to hold a combo.

How to counter: Netherite armour, water, and other items can help to reduce the knockback you take in a W-tap combo. Try to reverse the combo by getting a chain of hits on your opponent - this is normally achieved by strafing to their side and hitting their exposed back or side. When they turn to face you, begin W-tapping them. W-tapping is typically the best way to counter W-tapping. Also, shields can block sword W-tap chains, so they're a worthwhile investment if facing an enemy with some experience.

Block Hitting (pre-version 1.9 only)
Block hitting is when a player presses their attack button and place block button at the same time. When a player block hits it allows them to take 50% less damage than if they weren't block hitting. Since blocking resets sprinting, this will increase knockback for an opponent, similar to W-Tapping. Block hitting does not work post-1.9.

How to counter: Block hitting is difficult to counter, but dealing true damage can bypass a skilled player's block-hitting capability. True damage is damage which does not take armour into consideration. Lava and poison are two of the best methods of dealing true damage.

Knockback
Knockback is one of the most important mechanics in PvP, and feeds into other tactics such as W-tapping and clicking methods. Manipulating knockback is incredibly important, and can be the difference between life and death. In many cases, you want to increase your opponent's knockback and decrease your own (although in some situations, this isn't the case - see the infamous duel between kingoros and popbob on 2b2t). Netherite armour, cobwebs, and water are all legitimate ways to reduce your own knockback, but if your opponent can land multiple hits and you fail to knock them away from you, this can often play against you. Increasing your opponent's knockback is typically done through combos and W-tapping.

How to counter: See above paragraph for ways to decrease your own knockback.

Distractions and Decoys
When playing using vanilla terrain, making a fake base can be a good way to lure opponents into a trap, or simply waste their time as you close in to attack them. This method works best on faction servers, but if you are good enough at designing these you can make it compatible with a non-Faction PvP server. Once they fall in the trap and die, you are able to take their items. This is a great source of money, items, and PvP supplies. Players can also be used as decoys - if one member on your team is low on health, another can try to lure the opponent away while the low member regenerates some health.

How to counter: A large part of countering decoys is experience. The longer you play on a certain server, the more familiar you will be with what a real base looks like, and this will allow you to spot decoys more easily. However, always go into bases with caution - some decoys are very convincingly made. To counter decoy players, try to focus on the player trying to heal, and don't leave them for the prospect of a free kill.

Traps
Redstone is a vital skill to learn. The ability to make unseen and creative traps allows for the killing of enemies whose endgame gear might be otherwise unstoppable. There are many different kinds of traps, and they all have advantages and disadvantages.

How to counter: If you know a trap is near you, then disable it, or use it against its creator. Shears can be used to break tripwire hooks without setting off a trap. If you do not know if an area is trapped, simply be very careful. Carry a water bucket and some obsidian with you at all times.

Constructions
Walls, trenches, and other defences can be used in PvP as well as for base defence. Walls can stop players having a clear line of site to you, can stop arrows, and can provide cover for eating and loading crossbows. Trenches can also provide cover, and can be the basis for traps. Pillars and skybases can help you get a height advantage, which can be useful when sniping or trying to find an enemy. However, never focus on constructions in a fight more than the PvP. It's very easy to be caught off guard while building, and allow your opponent to land free hits on you.

How to counter: Ender pearls can bypass most walls and trenches, as well as TNT and other blocks. However, be prepared for the enemy that is waiting on the other side of the defences, and switch to a weapon as soon as you're past their blocks.

Tag-Teaming
Tag-teaming is when you and 1 or more teammates take turns reducing a player's health. To do this effectively, you need to charge forward, and then when you take damage, run away again while another player charges in. This can be a good way to defeat a player with stronger gear and more experience.

How to counter: Having your sword and bow enchanted with knockback and punch respectively can send enemies flying and make tag-teaming difficult.

Sniping and Archery
Good aim with ranged weapons such as bows, crossbows, and tridents is a very important skill to learn. Sniping is specifically when you shoot from a long distance, and better aim is required when doing this. Against heavily armoured players, sniping and general ranged attacks can be used to chip at their health and armour durability before they get close and can engage in melee combat.

How to counter: Strafing is important for dodging arrows and other projectiles. Shields can also block arrows, except when they are shot from a piercing crossbow. Strong armour can also reduce the damage they do, and netherite armour reduces the knockback.

Inventory Management
Managing your inventory well in a PvP situation is incredibly important - there will be times when you need to get an item into your hotbar quickly, and cycle one back out. You'll need to change totems, drink potions, get a new stack of ender pearls, and much more. When you kill someone, your inventory will get clogged up. It's worth noting that if you are fighting multiple enemies, stopping to loot one of your opponent's gear once you kill them is a big mistake. For good inventory management, you need a combination of three things: organised layout, quick and precise item movements, and situational awareness. You need to have items stored in a way that makes them easy to navigate, you need to be good at moving them around quickly (often with keyboard shortcuts), and you need to know your position so that you can figure out how much time you have to sort through items.

How to counter: There is no way to counter good inventory management, and that's what makes it so powerful. The only way to reduce it's value is by pressuring your opponent, but if they have mastered the "situational awareness" element mentioned in the paragraph above.

Using Your Surroundings
Using your environment to your advantage can enable you to defeat overpowered players. Using your surroundings can mean anything from strafing around opponents on a staircase to scaling a mountain to gain high ground. For more info, see the "strategies" section on "PvP in different terrains".

How to counter: The main way to counter someone who takes advantage of their surroundings is to do the same. Be adaptable in which weapons, movements, and timings you use. A skilled PvP-er will be able to adapt their plan based on what their opponent is doing in the blink of an eye.

Good Communication
If in a team, good communication is vital, and ties in to other tactics on this list like decoys and tag-teaming. Preferably, use a voice-call rather than ingame chat. This means the opponent(s) will not be able to see your messages and the clarity is better too. Discord or TeamSpeak are recommended, but other apps/software with voice call features can work too. When talking to teammates in a fight, don't talk unless you need to, and keep what you're saying clear and concise. Rather than yelling "AArrRgggHH I'm ON FIRE HElp mE somEonnE Arrgjh", say "I'm on fire, getting low, can someone cover me while I eat." Don't talk over others unless it's urgent. Also, you can use different types of goat horns to spell out different messages, such as "Attack" or "Retreat".
 * How to counter: Again, there is no way to counter this tactic. The only counter to this tactic comes from within the communication itself - if someone isn't communicating well then this tactic loses a lot of power.

Vigilance
Vigiliance (or awareness) is simply knowing what is going on around you. You need to know where opponents are, how many of them there are, and what gear they have. While you can still win a fight without this knowledge, it greatly reduces your chances of being surprise-attacked. It also means you can better adapt to the situation, since you know the layout of what's around you.
 * How to counter: The main counter to vigilance is to be stealthy and hidden. Crouching will hide your name tag, and invisibility potions will do the same.

Distrust
On a server where PvP is allowed, you can't trust anyone. Everyone has their own agenda, and you might be just another rung in the ladder which allows them to accomplish it. Never class someone as your "friend" - friends betray friends all the time. Distrust and paranoia are very different though. Distrust is healthy and keeps you on your guard, but paranoia wards off any potential allies. Teaming can be a good idea, but be aware of your teammate(s) at all times and feel free to betray them yourselves if you feel the alliance has run its course.

How to counter: There are few effective ways to counter distrust, except for convincing the distrustful person that you are in fact trustworthy. This can be done by basing with them and not stealing their items, by taking hits for them, and generally convincing them that you are on their side. Once you have them trusting you, you can decide whether or not to stab them in the back for resources or to honour your truce.

Crit-chaining
Crit-chaining, also known as crit-spamming is a fighting method where the user repeatedly crits out his opponent. A crit hit is made when the user hits while falling down. A critical hit adds up a 4.5 additional damage per hit which can literally melt your enemy's HP when performing a crit-chain.

Critting out your opponent repeatedly requires a good aim and the ability to properly keep a track of your opponent. You can also perform a ground hit or a knockback hit so that the enemy will be flung up in the air before critting your enemies to take them offguard. After this, you can then perform a massive crit chain.

How to counter: P-critting, short for punish critting is a type of critical hit where the player uses the knockback applied by his opponent to make a crit hit. For example, if the enemy flings you into the air, while you're falling down, hit him, this will make a crit hit. After a crit-trade, you can knockback your opponent by doing a sprint hit and start a combo.

Insta-shielding
In Netherite PVP, seeing a player use a shield as their offhand item is quite a rare site. However, when used well, it can annihilate players who aren't prepared for it.

Insta-shielding is a tactic where you block before your opponent's hits land and then perform a crit-chain while still blocking when they attack. This tactic is almost obsolete against explosives but in Netherite Pot kits, insta-shielding can help you secure a health advantage because their hits are simply blocked by the shield.

How to counter: Explosions such as TNT minecarts, End crystals and beds counter shields, since the shield won't absorb their explosion. Axes also work, since they have a 25% chance to disable a raised shield on hit, which is increased for every level of Efficiency, capped at 75% chance.

Sword and axe combo
Although most fighters don't really use swords in the early stage, swords are still one of the best weapons due to their higher DPS than the axe. Axes can disable shields but have a slow swing time so in this tactic, we first use axes to deal damage. When you hear the shield of your enemy being disabled (you'll know it when an item breaks sound randomly plays even though items are still fresh or when you attack him with an axe and you saw it being brought down), switch to the sword and attack him repeatedly for the next 4-5 seconds. Then rinse and repeat.

Crystal Combat
End Crystals deal one of the highest damage explosions in the game and can one-shot a player even in full Protection IV Netherite Armor. This makes it one of the most effective ways to fight in PVP. It's why many late game players opt to have one piece of Blast Protection IV on their netherite armor instead of full Prot IV.

The basic idea of crystal combat is to detonate end crystals next to your opponent when their feet are at the same height or higher than the crystal, and have the explosion damage take them out. Since explosions deal damage based on proximity and the lower half of a player's hitbox is especially vulnerable to explosions, you would want to play around that and try to knock your enemy into the air before placing your obsidian and end crystals as close to them as possible, as they do significantly more damage to your foe if they are in the air or have the high ground. In fact, if timed right, this damage is enough to break through multiple enemy totems of undying and take them out in seconds. Knockback I is used on swords as a sword with Knockback I doesn't require a sprint hit to do a block of vertical knockback to full netherite armor, while Knockback II is usually avoided due to it not providing any additional vertical knockback and the extra horizontal knockback allows enemies an easier time to recover. Therefore, it's recommended to apply Knockback I on your sword when you have end crystals. Aside from crystals, you can also use Respawn Anchors or Beds in conjunction with them. Respawn anchors, when not in the Nether, explode and produce fire as a byproduct at the cost of slightly less damage than a crystal, with the damage being rather inconsistent depending on several factors, most notably distance and angle. Respawn anchors are also slightly harder to detonate as you have to swap your hand three times (Respawn anchor > Glowstone > Any item that isn't glowstone) unlike end crystals which can be repeatedly spammed once the obsidian is placed, and without needing an obsidian block shielding the bottom from harm, would create huge craters whenever detonated assuming the blocks below it aren't explosion-proof. Beds are a cheaper substitute to both crystals and anchors, but only work in the Nether and End and are unstackable. For this reason, they are rarely used in endgame combat, as it's trading off a whole totem slot for only a one-time-use bomb. However, due to its power and cheap cost, it's a great weapon to use to take out players who haven't obtained totems of undying yet. It is also helpful to note that nearly all explosion damage can be negated if there is a solid block between the player and the explosion source, so whether or not your legs are shielded by said blocks in a firefight could mean the difference between life and death.

Slow-falling arrows and crossbows enchanted with Quick Charge III and Multishot (the latter can be replaced with any level of Piercing if the server you're in has a shield metagame) can also help you, as slow-falling makes it hard for the enemy to avoid crystal explosions if you fling them into the air, as they'll take longer to descend to a safe elevation. Weakness/Slowness arrows are great to use alongside or as an alternative to slow falling arrows. This is true even if you aren't playing crystal combat, as these two debuffs are good for pretty much all combat situations. (Warning: DO NOT replace slowfalling with weakness or slowness if you have high ping, as slow falling is much more useful for you to get damage in when your crystals are too laggy to explode on time otherwise.) A player affected by Weakness cannot punch a crystal to explode it unless they either have Strength II or use a weapon to hit the crystal. Slowness IV is good against strafe-heavy enemies and will allow you to throw a follow-up ender pearl into them and land your hit a lot more consistently. Speaking of ender pearls, they are invaluable in crystal combat, as you can use them to engage, escape, get to advantageous positions, most commonly low ground, or confuse your enemy. However, be careful while using them, as pearling into an enemy at the wrong time (such as when they're spamming crystals) could lead to a very quick death for you. (Note that if your pearl hits a crystal, the crystal would explode but its damage would be calculated from where you were when the pearl landed, and not where you are, which often means no damage if you pearled into it from far away. However, you would be stuck at a much higher elevation due to the crystal's large hitbox, and thus, in a bad position.) Turtle Master potions are optional. They give you Slowness but enough damage reduction to tank the 3 explosives mentioned in this category (this also doesn't make your armour last longer).

Strafes and combos (1.9+)
Contrary to popular belief that 1.9 made strafing and combos obsolete, strafes and combos do still exist albeit at a minimal extent. The reason they aren't use as much anymore is because of shields and netherite PVP, in the latter, crit chaining is a much more efficient method because it deals 50% more damage. However, if you enchant your sword with a Knockback I enchant, the netherite knockback resistance property is cancelled out, meaning you can actually combo people even if they are wearing netherite armour as if the knockback resistance wasn't added.

Hit-and-run
During early and mid game, you can hit and run to slowly drain the enemy's health using an axe while they chase you around. An axe does much higher damage per hit than a sword, at a cost of a long cooldown, which is mitigated by the "run" part of the hit and run. You should try to use underhanded tactics such as going in when you know they aren't paying attention, so that way, they're more likely to miss you completely after getting your hit in.

Hit-and-running works wonders against inexperienced fighters, as even a stone axe does 13.5 damage on a critical hit, which is almost 7 hearts to an unarmored player. However, it's not recommended to use against seasoned warriors, as they can predict and counter you, and your dinky little axe with no knockback enchantments simply wouldn't kick the enemy far enough to avoid the wrath of their sword slashes when they're in full netherite armor.

How to counter: Stay alert at all times, and keep an eye out for your health. You can fake being low and trick your enemy into going in for the kill and start the actual fight once they go in, and punish them with crits when they're forced to improperly retreat.

Jump-resetting
Arguably the most broken way to nullify knockback is jump resetting, where we jump at the exact second the enemy goes in for a hit. This results in knockback being completely negated. This works in both 1.8 and 1.9 combat systems and the only real way to counter them is timing your hits accurately.

Ping
Now ping isn't really considered a tactic in PVP but is incredibly important in PVP. Lower ping is smoother, less laggy and thus, less delayed while higher ping is the exact opposite. However, that isn't the only thing that ping affects in PVP. For some reason, higher ping players are harder to combo and take less knockback, which can be done by playing high-quality videos or by a VPN. VPN is banned in some servers though.

Bow boosting
Bow boosting is a hard concept to master and is mostly used before 1.11, when rockets couldn't boost elytras back then. In PVP, they're useful as a mobility weapon. With this technique, you can easily go to your enemy without the use of ender pearls, escape sticky situations, start combos and when being chased, heal up, immediately bow boost and hit your enemy to start a combo. This results in the enemy being ambushed as you immediately made a sharp turn, making them easy targets to combo.

Strategies (WIP section)

 * Strategies are when tactics are combined to make a plan. Below are some common and useful strategies for PvP.

How/When to Heal in a Fight
You can heal faster by having high saturation, or by consuming a healing item like a golden apple or a potion of healing. Foods with high saturation such as golden carrots are preferred as more saturation translates to a longer period of faster healing. Since healing by eating normally takes some time and slows you down, you want to do it behind cover. This means that an opponent can't shoot or fight you while you try to get your health back up. In contrast, when your opponent tries to heal, you want to take advantage of it to either heal yourself, or to press and attack while they are eating. The same is true of other actions that take time, such as drawing a crossbow.

Winning Outnumbered Fights
When you met with multiple people that has the intent on killing you, the best option is of course run or negotiate for peace. If that's not an option though, then try to separate them before going in. The best way to winning outnumbered fights is by targeting them one at a time, usually the ones with the least gear or alertness. If you get a kill on one of them and they drop their stuff, access your options. Pick up anything useful from them, and if the other enemy is near, burn their stuff so the other enemies cannot get it. This way, you'll be left with a gear advantage and will fare better against the remaining enemies. If you have AoE weapons such as splash potions or instant explosives, try to gather the enemies. Have them bunch up, and expend your splash damage on the lot of them, and escape before their numbers advantage gets the better of you. If you and your enemies have the same gear, you can try to splash an invisibility potion on them in the heat of close combat to hide the nametags and confuse them so they don't know who's on whose team. It is highly unlikely that they will carry a bucket of milk specifically to counter invisibility. There are enemy teams that will carry a specific item to identify each other (such as colored wool) but having to switch to that takes time and gives you some breathing room to heal up or plan your next move.

Proper usage of utilities
Utilities are your backup weapons in a fight. They will greatly help in combat but be aware though that you shouldn't bring all of them, as it will clog up your inventory.

Proper usage of ender pearls is very important. When escaping, you should throw your pearls not too close to the enemy, as they can easily chase you and kill, but not too far as pearl teleports aren't instant and they will have enough time to inflict massive damage or finish you off. An important game mechanic in Minecraft combat is known as the i-frame, or invincibility frame, wherein if a player took damage, they'll appear as red for 0.5 seconds. During this time, they cannot take knockback from anything other than explosions, so by using the damage done by an ender pearl teleport, you can get right into your opponent's face without taking knockback from their attacks. This is called pearl flashing and is best done when you need a tempo advantage over your enemy, which is why sometimes you see pro players use their ender pearls on their opponent for no apparent reason. Keep in mind that any form of damage will grant i-frames, which includes fall damage, poison, hazardous blocks like cactus, fire, and magma, and hostile mobs. If those things are around and you're in a position where taking knockback is much less preferred than taking some damage, it would be wise to run into those hazards on purpose to decrease your odds of being knocked around.

Cobwebs are another great utility to use. Cobwebs can either be used defensively or offensively. In defensive play, they're used to slow down a chasing opponent, useful to heal momentarily or manage your inventory. In offensive play, place a cobweb on someone and repeatedly strafe and crit someone out, or if you have harming arrows, pepper it on them by using a bow or a crossbow enchanted with Quick Charge III. Be aware though that cobwebs are also easy to escape, either by using ender pearls or with a water bucket. There is also no way to renewably farm cobwebs so use them efficiently. One of the most effective ways to use cobwebs is to use them dynamically, by transitioning from defensive to offensive. Say your enemy is chasing you, and you trap them in a cobweb. You can follow up by webbing them more, blocking them in and lighting TNT around them, so your enemy has to deal with a potentially deadly threat while you can heal or prepare to catch them during their escape before they can react. An often overlooked aspect of the cobweb is their ability to prevent knockback, which can sometimes be a life saver if, say, you're about to get knocked off the map or if you know the enemy would put ender crystals in your face once they deal that knockback.

Tipped arrows are one of the most powerful items in the game, and can give you a massive advantage if you bring them in the right situations. They're expensive and tedious to craft, but the payoff in bringing them is invaluable. Some tipped arrows such as the arrow of regeneration are downright useless in PvP scenarios, though, and the only useful ones in PvP combat are Harming II, Weakness, Slowness and Slow Falling. Slowness is great if you are to give chase, since it makes you faster than your opponent and makes them easier to hit, weakness is great for extended trades as they will do less damage to you. Slow falling means they would have longer time between crits (due to longer time between jumps) and are easier to combo with more air time. Speaking of combos, one of the nastiest combos in the game involves a certain utility, which is the end crystal. Since end crystals require a block of obsidian to place on, you can kick your opponent into the air and place an obsidian block, before placing and blowing an end crystal. You will receive recoil damage from the explosion, but since your enemy is in the air and you're partially shielded by the obsidian, they will take far more damage than you. Strategies like these can be used with other utilities, too, and as long as you have the ability to evict your opponent's control over their own movement, and the slow falling arrow helps tremendously with that. However, if you are to use slow falling, you should (obviously) make sure that your main strategies don't rely on your opponent falling to their death/off the map.

Be aware that tipped arrows aren't affected by Infinity and are consumed as if Infinity wasn't enchanted on the bow, so your only choice is to bring a ton of tipped arrows if you want to spam them constantly, and use a stack of regular arrows if you still want to make use of your infinity bow, as that way, you wouldn't run out of arrows to shoot even if you run out of the tipped ones. A high power enchant combined with full charge could also override the harming arrows' effect (instant damage II) with its higher physical damage, which actually causes you to deal less damage with full charge than low charge since the tipped arrow effect ignores armor but the physical damage doesn't. Therefore, it is more advisable to use a crossbow with tipped arrows, as the piercing enchant goes through enemy shields and will apply tipped arrow debuffs, and if your enemy doesn't use a shield, multishot makes you fire a 3 arrow volley which is a lot harder to dodge than a single shot, and harming arrows will work no matter what, since it doesn't do enough physical damage to override its effects.

Negative potions such as Poison and Harming can help you in PVP. The Instant Damage effect ignores the protection of your armour, so it would deal a lot of damage when used properly. Poison meanwhile is almost the same as Fire Aspect/Flame, but unlike the former, you can't nullify Poison unless drinking a milk or a honey bottle (milk also removes all status effects even if it's positive).

Water and lava buckets are useful especially in the early game. Water is useful for resisting fall damage, putting out fires and cobwebs, climbing higher blocks, pushing away mobs (including players), etc. Lava meanwhile is incredibly powerful in the early game but their power fades away in later stages, when everyone has Netherite Armour enchanted with Protection IV, totems and Fire Resistance potions. Lava is at most useful in UHC duels, since UHC doesn't naturally regenerate your HP unless you eat something that gives you a healing effect, like Golden Apples.

Blocks are useful to tower up fortifications, slow down the enemy, bridge, etc. They're also useful for ambushing enemies and setting up a rudimentary fortification to block arrows.

Diamond Sword
Do not only execute combos, fight using a variety of hitting methods, such as crit-chaining, p-critting and also do jump-resetting to negate knockback as much as possible.

Netherite Pot
P-critting is especially useful in this kit, and even though combos aren't as used here due to the knockback resistance of netherite armour, knockback and sweep hits still does decent damage. Be wary of armour durability, since you're only given 2 stacks of XP bottles, so balance out how much XP each armour piece receives. Also ration your potions and golden apples, since without them, you won't be able to heal as much. Also, it's better if golden apples are in your offhand slot, so you can heal on the spot rather than hotkeying to the golden apples in your hotbar.

Axe and Shield
Play strategically. Use your environment to your advantage, and if you have money, buy a mouse that can double-click at the cost of one mouse click, this means that you can disable a shield and crit at the same time, though this is controversial. Also, since this kit usually don't have food supplied to players, draining one's saturation is the key. Players must also hotkey at strategic moments, especially when the enemy's shield is disabled.

Diamond Potion
Unlike nethpot, diamond potion only have 16 golden carrots in place of 64 golden apples. Also, players aren't given any XP bottles, which meant players must end fights before their armour breaks. P-critting, crit-chaining, combos and strafing are especially important, strafing and comboing to soften up the enemy and critting out opponents when they're low. Also, saturation plays an important role in rationing your healing pots, players can intentionally wait until the time is ripe to eat 2 golden carrots, which can give them full saturation and thus, faster healing.

UHC
UHC is unique for a reason, that is because of a game mechanic being absent, the ability to heal naturally. This meant that you can't heal on food alone, and you'd need either the regeneration effect or instant health pots to heal. Aside from that, UHC has a diverse inventory of melee, ranged weapons and utilities that players can use to their advantage.

Players must be fast at hotkeying, and scrollwheels won't simply cut it, since hotkeys are more accurate and faster. Second, players must know how to use each utility to their advantage, and must know when to fight defensively or offensively (AKA gamesense). Blocks for example, can be used not only to build/bridge up but also to put out a lava or a water source block when placed down. Finally, players would need to fight using a diverse range of fighting methods.

SMP
Now each SMP might have a set of standard rules when it comes to fighting, such as netherite and crystals being illegal. Even though this is the case, the tips here can still be used on SMPs regardless of their rules.

One thing unique about SMP combat is that it's a mix of both UHC and Netherite Pot. You have netherite gear, potions and normal regeneration from the neth pot, but you also have utilities and shield from UHC. The main fighting styles in SMP fights are almost similar to neth pot, but you would have to learn how to deal with the shield and how to ration your XP bottles, totems and golden apples.

Crystal PVP
Crystal PVP is one of the hardest yet very effective PVP style. Players tend to use both end crystals and respawn anchors. Anchors are used to create a hole in which players can drop on, giving them the low ground and thus will protect them from the damage of crystals momentarily. Hotkeying is especially important and being too slow can really make things harder for you. Also, just like UHC, there is a wide variety of utilities given to the player, including crossbows, potions and obsidian.

Structures

 * Standard Base

A base made of cobblestone with several chests and beds for allies.


 * Heavy Base

A base made of 3 layers of cobblestone and about 50 beds and over 100-150 chests. Recommended to have a tree farm.


 * Hidden base

Very small, but easily camouflageable. Do not make this base more than 15 blocks wide, or it will lose its ability to hide. Cave or jungle biomes are your best bet for making this base. To hide its identity more, add leaves and other natural resources around it. You could even add portal entrances to the base, so baddies cannot infiltrate inside the base from outside.


 * Factory

Not really a base, but produces resources and holds some player. Has about 50 beds and tons of chests. As the name suggests, this is where you get most supplies, but make sure your other bases have mini factories too. Have tree farms, ranches, mob grinders, experience farms, crops, cobblestone generators, and stockpiles. Have people who run it, and people who defend it. Make sure to add minecart rails and tunnels to transport supplies and people from the factory to the bases. A self destruct machine is helpful to avoid it falling into enemy hands. Make sure it has farms to produce food, potions/nether wart, iron and other minerals, and wood and stone!


 * Destroyer

A huge sky base with 200 beds, 200 chests and made of stone bricks with people monitoring the outside with dispenser turrets and other advanced weaponry. The only way for it to be destroyed fast would be lots of TNT. If you wish to mass-produce these, you really should build a cobblestone farm.


 * Battlecruiser
 * Battlecruiser

A medium-sized sky base with enough space for 100 troops and lots of storage and requires lots of cobblestone.


 * Turret

A redstone turret with a redstone clock and a rapid fire redstone gun that shoots about 3 arrows/second. Recommended for the guns to be high and blocked off.


 * Cobble Farm

Recommended to mass-produce everything above. Creates cobblestone with lava and water.


 * Local Brewery

Made of about 3 layers of cobble, with creeper and witch farms (or just a lot of chests with these materials in them) and dispenser guns. Make sure to have about 10 brewing stands and people operating them, with about 20-30 beds and chests. Put splash potions of harming, poison, and weakness in the guns, hook up a redstone clock and watch the fireworks.


 * Item Stash

An items stash is a small (no more than 4x4x2), completely camouflaged room with a few double chests loaded with equipment. Because they rely on not being detected, their locations should be only known to trusted members. The ideal location to build one is underground but in a location where no-body would dig. For example, near but not in a surface cave since the player trying to mine would just go down the cave.


 * Redstone House

This house is the trap of them all! Make the house look very inviting, iron blocks behind the glass, chests everywhere, and maybe a sign that was "supposed" to be to a friend for a secret entrance. They walk in the door, see the chests, and open them, only the chests are trapped chests! When they are activated, you can have them shoot arrows, lava, or even TNT! Make sure to add a piston that blocks the door when the chest is opened too!

Troops

 * Standard

The stock iron. The most basic troop is equipped with full Iron Armor, an Iron Sword or Axe, a Shield, a Bow and stack of Arrows (or Infinity Bow and an Arrow) and a cheap source of healing such as steaks, Oxeye daisy, or Suspicious Stew. These are fairly cheap but are able to deal and withstand moderate amounts of damage.


 * Officers and Commanders

Higher-ranked players or commanders or those of exceptional PVP skill are those who benefit most from superior equipment. They should be armed with Enchanted Iron or Diamond Armor, Enchanted Iron or Diamond weapons, Unbreaking Shield, Enchanted Bow possibly with Tipped Arrows as well as a few higher-quality sources of healing such as Potions or Golden Apple as well as lesser sources of healing such as steaks. Given this level of equipment is usually given to more skilled players, they should be able to deal and survive significant amounts of damage.


 * Gunners and other Ranged specialists

Owing to preferring ranged combat over melee combat, these units can afford to be less equipped defensively. Chain armor is acceptable, though Shields should still be kept as they are nonetheless useful for protection from enemy ranged attacks. Beyond that, arm them with their preferred ranged weapon (Bows, Potions, Redstone materials etc.) and place them away from melee combat. If armor is to be enchanted, consider Projectile Protection, as ranged units shouldn't ever be engaging enemies in melee range. Generally dishes out and survives high damage at range, unable to survive much damage at melee.


 * Monitors and other defensive units

The key difference between a Monitor and a Stock Iron is the former is defending a fortification with numerous advantages for the defender. Can be a Stock Iron put in charge of defense, can be someone better equipped. Regardless, they should be trained in operating any defensive redstone as well be capable of ranged attacks (and armed with extra ranged weapons if able) as to attack the enemy before they breach the defenses. Superior damage and survivability compared to enemy units due to advantageous terrain.


 * Pilot

For those experienced with using elytra (1.9 only). Equips full Projectile Protection Iron armor (Minimum) with Feather Falling IV (minus chestplate), elytra, a Punch II bow/fireworks (1.11.1 or above only) for boosting oneself in midair, and a fully enchanted bow for dealing damage from above. Try equipping potions if aim is good. A Knockback II sword is also good if your enemy has the same ideas. Pack a lot of steak and arrows (or Infinity). Favor hit-and-run tactics, lack of a chestplate and use of Projectile Protection results in poor melee durability.


 * Juggernaut

Frequently overlaps with Officers and Commanders, a Juggernaut is an experienced PVP'er of noteworthy skill equipped with Enchanted Diamond or Netherite gear. Aside from higher grades of armor and weapons, they should also be equipped with ample healing including Potions and Golden Apples to ensure they survive. These are the strongest units and the difference of power level can allow one of these to fight several Stock Irons at once and win.

Faction Wars
This can be done with a Factions plugin or through other means. This is when a group attempts to irreparably exterminate members on another group and later destroy or loot all property of the said group. These can range from a surprise attack to a formal challenge of two armies, and can have up to hundreds of warriors on either side (though this is extremely rare and may cause lag). In some servers, you may be asked to pick a team without knowing who is on it.

Sabotage
If you can't hurt them from the outside, hurt them from the inside! If possible, join your enemy faction while you are still able to. If you get into their base as a faction member, wait until the faction moderators are all offline. This is the best time to strike. Take their best valuables, then break the furnaces, chests, and burn the items with a flint & steel. If they have a water mine, block the water. If they have a staircase mine, put a lava or two at the top. Go to the "/f home" and dig a hole. Put lava in it, from the ceiling and make a wall so as soon as they "/f home" they will constantly respawn in lava. If you have spare lava, fill the place with it! Make sure that there aren't any hidden chests, and destroy the farms if no one in the faction catches on. If possible, if they don't know you griefed/raided them, wait until they repair their bases with more food/loot and restart the process! Remember to give loot to your actual team after each raid.

Infiltration
In most, if not all faction servers, there is a plugin that allows factions to claim chunks of land. If you are raiding a base, there is a 99% chance that they have claimed their base. So how do you get in? Here's how.


 * 1) Scout out weaknesses: Occasionally, your enemy may have carelessly built part of their wall in unclaimed territory, allowing you to simply mine away the wall. They could have also left a hole or entrance connection their base to the outside, negating the need for you to make your own entrances. Finally, a wooden base is incredibly flammable and there is a flint and steel you can craft...


 * 1) Use a TNT cannon: Any block except obsidian or bedrock will break down with a couple of well-aimed TNT blasts. Set up your cannon and fire away until the walls comes tumbling down.

Do note that certain servers have plugins that enable obsidian to be destroyed by a sufficient amount of TNT. If that's the case, then set up your TNT cannon and blow up a hole in it. There are bases that have obsidian covered in water, you CAN TNT-cannon in, but before that, either you have to turn that water to cobblestone or you have to fire sand in using the TNT cannon. Then after you've covered the water, fire your TNT in, now you have a hole to enter their base. If these servers do not have these modifications, on servers with the essentials plugin (Basically every factions server), if you sethome in a "dangerous" thing, such as lava and water, it will teleport you to the safest place. Abusing this glitch to get into bases where they have water underneath them or on top of them to prevent from being exploded, you can sethome at the side of the base in the water, walk away and use your command to go to that home, usually, you will be teleported inside of the base, but a way to counter this is to layer your base twice, what this means is you put a second layer around your base that can fit a player on all sides, then create a box inside of there, then even if someone glitches in, they are stuck in the outside layer and cannot get to your chests.

You can also build hidden cannons for a surprise raid. TNT cannons can combine with bombing flying machines and elytra pilots perfectly.

Note: Some servers prevent you from ender pearling right next to a block.
 * Ender Pearling:' If you throw an ender pearl up at a roof, your head will get stuck in it, and if you throw another ender pearl up while in that state, the ender pearl will go through the roof. A way to combat this is to make your ordinary floor, dig 1 block below each block of your floor, and fill it with lava.

Raiding
If you intend to explore the full tactical armory of PvP, then a helpful one and likely the first is the raid.

Simply put, a raid is the theft of materials from the property of another player and killing enemy team members. Raids have a pro and a con.


 * It drains the resources that can be used against you and increase your own resources.
 * It increases your priority on their hit list.

There are three different types of faction raids:


 * 1) TNT raid. Most of the time, nobody in a faction is online. In this case, simply bash the walls with TNT and then steal everything from the chests. This is very difficult on underground and obsidian bases though, which is why usually you will do a…
 * 2) Claim raid. This means that you will simply kill players in the opposing faction when they are online and claim their land. This is the only way to raid factions with huge obsidian walls.
 * 3) Stealth raid. Though it is possible, but really hard, your faction can send a few of your faction members to attempt to raid the base without being seen. This is especially useful, if the enemy's base isn't tightly secured, but stealth is most likely playing Russian roulette.

Generally, raids are worth the risk. There are two objects that are absolutely necessary if you want the raid to be effective and efficient.


 * Lots of food.
 * An Efficiency IV diamond/netherite pickaxe. (You can combine two Efficiency IV enchanted books in an anvil or put one of the Efficiency IV enchanted books on the Efficiency IV pick to get an Efficiency V Pick)

The first is always needed since this may take some time. However, you may wonder why the list contains an enchanted diamond pick. It's because you can break almost anything fast. Without a powerful pick like this, the odds are that the owner will have mowed you down before you could even get inside their base! Therefore, you must be fast.

Choosing a base is easy, and really, an unmanned base is a dead base. When a minimal amount of people are manning the base, then you can strike. Steal all goods. Remember that your point is sabotage, and so you should dispose of all you didn't steal. If you really want to damage them, clog all entry points. Don't stay around too long, though. Take a minute longer and they might be online and hunting you down, in the end you're just wasting your time.


 * Some tips:


 * 1) If it's reinforced with obsidian, it's likely they'd leave a door or something for ease of access. Enter there if necessary.
 * 2) If you just want the enemy's equipment, then do it when nobody's around the base.
 * 3) Creepers will be easier to control than TNT since you can lure them to the enemy's walls. Just be sure to wear some armor.
 * 4) To find some bases, you can just randomly teleport to some people in the server, if there is a teleport trap where you cannot get out, usually you can sethome in that place as you are dying, come back with new gear and go try to kill them as they open it up to get the items, if it is a hole trap where they just hit you try to ender pearls out, people mostly idiotically make these smack dab in their base, so now you can get all of their items, setting home in a base is a very effective way to raid, as you can raid while they are offline, if it is an enemy's territory, it is not known commonly that you can do /esethome and you can sethome in an enemy base.
 * 5) If you know the base coordinates, go into the Nether. Walk/teleport to your enemy's coordinates divided by eight. Build a portal, and when you go back to the Overworld, you will be in the enemy's base.

Tactical Planning
Keep in mind that faction wars are not always about combat. It's about preparations and knowledge in order to turn the tide exponentially in your favor, such as how you can slay a player in diamond armor with only iron armor and win a battle before going out to war. You can't rush into an attack, you need to plan it.

First of all, PvP is clearly about fighting and killing your enemy before they kill you. Here's the lowdown on your armor.

If someone has Protection III diamond armor, it takes without them healing…


 * from bow or sword damage
 * hearts from fire or falling
 * hearts from potions, drowning or suffocation
 * Tossing them in the Void somehow is a certain death.

Now say a new enemy has come and they have Protection IV armor, with a Sharpness V sword, and an obsidian base. Attacking them would be suicidal in a fair fight (unless you have better equipment). First, send someone to scout their base while you prepare a full assault. TNT their base and ruin the defenses. This allows you to eliminate their source of power. Then, send someone to cause a diversion to distract them. They'll be chased all the way until they come back and finds the smoldering ruin that was their home. Lead them to a terrain useful to you, such as a cliff where the wall is shaved clean for at least 64 blocks with a diamond block next to the edge. By the time they realize you were invisible behind them with a Punch II bow, it's too late. A plan like this might be hard to follow, but brains beat brawn. You may also fake running away and at the last second, strafe around and hit them with a knockback II sword, it's usually certain death if you can find the right cliff.

Always make sure every fight is strongly in your favor. Go to reasonable lengths to ensure you can attack, but they cannot retaliate, or sacrifice to gain power, such as you losing through snowballing them, but in the process breaking their diamond armor.


 * Behind Enemy Lines

As stated earlier, faction wars are not always about fighting. Although the point of a Faction War is to demolish, a clear assessment about the other side is very helpful in doing so. Let's go into another scenario. Another faction is the strongest faction but is secretive, stealthy, mean, and very rich. Your faction has never liked them, and in fact, hated them. But in terms of pure force, your faction is outclassed. They need you. Now, they equip you with invisibility potions, a diamond sword, a bucket of milk, a splash potion of poison and 3 of harming, a bow with 128 arrows, and 32 pieces of pork. Throw in some Fireworks for distractions, and you're ready to go. The whole faction depends on you!

Now, as a spy, don't ever alert them to your position, because even if they don't know who you are, you are someone sneaking around their base, and they will pursue. To do that, you must follow some steps.


 * 1) Leave an object to hold Shift to sneak and make it so that nobody sees your nametag. You don't have to sneak if you are invisible, but you will leave particles if you run. Don't run ever.
 * 2) Make no noise, under any circumstances. To recap: no noise ever!
 * 3) If they catch you, they will certainly declare war. Kill yourself with permission from the faction leaders unless in hardcore to escape discovery if they are closing in. Be warned that you must use fire or risk your item drops being seen. Alternatively, if the server allows it, teleport out using /tp . You may also use the command /respawn if you are in enemy territory.
 * 4) Even if you know you aren't in reach of one, setting off a trap gives you away! Even if you are safe from it, setting it off may also alert whoever is in the control room. Take alternate routes. The only reason to try to defuse a trap is if there is no other way. Or if there is no other way because of people blocking you, you can set off the trap on purpose to direct attention to hide and kill anyone who comes to check the trap out.
 * 5) Carry around a Knockback II Sword as a last resort (see below). Kicked players are usually displayed by the server, but there's a chance that the base you're infiltrating won't have any idea of what's going on.
 * 6) Always have an escape route. (ex. Ender Pearls, /spawn or /tp, etc.…) If enemies have set their particles to "all" in the options, they CAN see potion particles emanating from your invisible character and you need a way to avoid being discovered.

Make note of everything. Don't write on a book and quill, write it on pen and paper to avoid being exposed, but write it on an in-game book later. This intelligence is most important, and can get you one step closer to victory. Do not forget that secrecy is required. Report back to your base once you think you have more than enough information on the enemy and that is when you can declare war. Another trick is to (if in a faction server) station your teammates nearby. (Say, a mountain bunker in the distance) That way, if you are caught and running for your life, you can send a distress signal or flares (The most obvious thing would be fireworks).

One other trick is to pay attention to what you hear. Say you are in the base, and you hear someone munching on food. Avoid them as quickly as you can. If you hear a nether portal, then your team may be able to build a corresponding portal in the Nether and invade through the enemy's portal.

Base Building
Building a base to protect yourself from the diamond swords and the arrows? Good work! Here are some tips to help you make your base even more efficient: (Note that the marvelous Multiplayer PvP Bases guide is also useful.)


 * Size: Bigger may not be better, as a visible structure gains visibility the larger it is, and leaves more space unguarded. On the flip side, big bases are very good for large amounts of people that are working on something together, and can hold more munitions. A small base is also dangerous, because it will be very easily demolished.
 * Type: One effective type of base is a base that is deep underground. Here enemies will take days to hunt you down, while you survive on a farm and branch mine for diamonds.


 * Another base, meant for continuous habitation, is far above the world. Therefore enemies will be required to build up to it. Unless a prohibitively expensive defensive structure is used to get up, they can be easily pummeled with arrows, a single one of which could send them falling to their death or at least making them restart. For sky fortress builders, the most important rule is to not have any spots that are out of the fortresses' archers' line-of-sight. Try building the bottom floor in a "multiple ring" shape to do this.


 * Also, make a disabled nether portal that will upon activation become an escape (disable it to ensure that it cannot accidentally link up to another portal). Bases in mid-air are effective during a raid, when manned, as entry is all but impossible. Again, this base type is best for continuous habitation, but it is only slightly more protected than a house on the ground if nobody is manning it. Also make sure to put cobwebs all over the bottom to stop ender pearl glitching.


 * 1) Defenses: Every good base needs traps and defenses! First of all, we have the wall. A good wall should contain at least one obsidian or water layer to shield explosive force, and require at least one minute to mine through with an unenchanted diamond pickaxe. To further prolong base penetration, chessboard wood and cobble to force players to slowly break wood or switch from axe to pick. Traps are great defenses to surprise enemies that make it through the wall, but are generally not infallible.


 * Note that self building walls can be useful during an attack to repair severe damage (aka the TNT equivalent of a bunker missile). However, remember that a trespasser will not simply pound at the wall forever (unless they are monotonously dedicated to it). Eventually, they will most likely climb it with blocks, or disable it by destroying the mechanism.


 * 1) Allies: This is one of the great secrets to PvP mastery! Trustworthy allies can be useful in many tasks, from grunt work to being the safe keeper of your gold. Be careful whom you choose for an ally, as treachery or lack of skill can easily hamper or destroy your attempts to thrive in PvP. Haste in that aspect is generally a waste.


 * 1) Tough Base with a Factions Plugin: If the server you're playing on has the Factions plugin, you can create an impenetrable base with water and cheap walls. To do this, dig a hole along the border of claimed land (INSIDE your faction land, otherwise it can be blocked up or destroyed) all the way to bedrock. Next, cover your base with water, including the sides and roof, and let it flow down to bedrock. Make sure TNT cannot land anywhere in the base. There should be no blocks connecting your base to the wilderness. The water acts as a shield, making your base invulnerable to TNT, and impassable by enemies. The only way to counter this is make a sand/gravel cannon (a TNT cannon that shoots the falling gravel/sand instead). This can also be countered by a team of people using Wither. You can also bring elder guardians (if possible on the server) and bury them near the outside walls in obsidian, then build a wall of waterlogged stairs around the base. You can then cover that in another layer of water, forcing the enemy to use a Wither. You can use this to your advantage and get your whole team a smite V sword to shred the Wither(s) along with sharpness V to deal with the players after the Wither dies.


 * 1) Skybase: Gather enough dirt to build to the build limit (about 3 stacks). Then pillar jump with all of it, or until you reach the build limit. Then dig 17 blocks down. Place 1 obsidian by pillar jumping with it, mark that corner, then build a 12×12 obsidian platform. (Set home to platform if /home is enabled!) Then find the corner you marked, dig down, (you should see dirt, and not fall), dig 2 more dirt down, replace the obsidian, and coat the bottom with lava. (Fire Resistance is highly recommended) Ender pearl down, dig the bottom block of dirt, and dig a 12×12×2 trench where the lava lands. Then teleport up, either with an ender pearl (may take multiple tries) or /home. You can now add the necessary items to your new base as needed. And finally, add redstone blocks around the edge, and build rings around the platform at a lower level for archers and potion lobbers to walk on.


 * Security

Building a base? Smart. However, check that your seemingly secure base is not vulnerable. Time to troubleshoot!


 * Problem: Enemies can easily blow up walls and tunnel through them.


 * Solution: Reinforce the walls with rings of obsidian embedded in it to break TNT impact and deter speedy tunneling, and coat with water. To prevent glitching in, create two layers, the first layer is one that someone can teleport into with the teleport glitch (explained earlier) with a place on every side that a player can get into, then create a box in the middle, the second layer so that the person who glitched in cannot get to your chests, put two coats of obsidian on this layer so that the person cannot block glitch into your chests.


 * Problem: An air based attack gets you quite often.


 * Solution: Build tall ladder shafts around the perimeter so that you can climb them and shoot off the enemy.


 * Problem: Enemies eventually get through your walls.


 * Solution: Put lava falls to help deter them and have archers constantly patrolling the walls.


 * Problem: Don't have any lava.


 * Solution: The Nether is there for open use.


 * Problem: Enemies tunnel under your base.


 * Solution: Dig a long 1 block wide trench all around your base beyond the walls all the way to bedrock. Occasionally look down it, and if you spot any gaps in the "canyon" in the form of tunnels, ladder down and attack.


 * Problem: You have bricked yourself in.


 * Solution: Find a way to put an inactive nether portal to another dimension in your base so you can portal away, or build your base around an end portal, or build tunnels.


 * Self-Destruct and Escape!

If the base is being raided, and your hand is forced, activate the self-destruct on your base. It is very important to keep one on hand at all times and also have an escape. The self-destruct must be designed to overwhelmingly destroy all life and loot inside the base and the base itself but also be well-hidden. This is hard and so you should experiment. In times of need, start the lethal countdown and escape. Ender chests are good for these kinds of bases, as they don't drop their content and it can be accessed anywhere as long as you have another one.

Escape pods are essential for above-ground bases as they can drop you deep underground into a water spot, where you can dig (possibly minecart) yourself up to the ground and escape with your friends (if you have more than just one pod) to far away from the base. You can lock the escape pods with pistons to prevent enemies follow you when attempting to escape.


 * Keep In Touch

Not all of your faction skirmishes in the PvP world will be set up beforehand. Organize raids with your faction. Find some server to host a voice chat box with your teammates. This will allow you to coordinate your attacks on hostile bases and their creations. The more connected you are with your fellow faction members, the more likely you are to emerge victorious. Keep in touch with them and increase your odds of success.


 * Keep Your Own Bases

Let's say that you have just moved in with your awesome new faction. They have diamonds, dozens of anvils, and general awesomeness. Now, a faction war has started, and you have no base, no food, nothing except what the faction gave you. This is dangerous. In the event the faction fails, you are defenseless. Trust nobody and keep a secret base all to yourself. Put a home there and be safe from pursuers and spawn campers. Be ready! If you need to and fear that the faction is about to fall, steal some items and leave the faction when necessary.


 * Don't be Afraid to be a Rōnin

Rōnin were Japanese Samurai who went rogue after their master was killed. If your group's/faction's leader has been killed, or you just feel like it, don't be afraid to go rogue. In order to do so successfully, you need to follow certain rules. First, you need to either decide whether you want to be a wandering rogue, or a bandit-style rogue. Wandering rogue life is relatively simple. You wander around, and occasionally raid abandoned or unguarded bases, and avoiding other players at all costs. If you decide on this, you can refer to the nomadic experience tutorial to help you get started. If you want to be a bandit-style rogue, however, then you need a top secret base of operations, and lots of equipment. Only engage people if you are 100% sure you can win, and escape as quickly as possible. Trust no one, let no one see you. Although the life of a rogue may not be as action-packed as being in a faction, it is certainly profitable, and once you have enough stuff, you might be able to join a new faction, either to settle down or backstab them, get their stuff, and move on to the next gullible faction.

Mass Battle
PvP in large factions can include multiple scenarios, from individual murders or attempts to murder, to entire factions battling it out with lines of defense, barricades, and tunnels.


 * Open-Field Battle

To make it brief, an open field battle is the combat of multiple factions in an open area. This can cause chaos and may lead to a slaughter in the right conditions. Be sure to be well-stocked for this.

First of all, the open field battle playstyle is to have minimal life lost on your side no matter what, even above the victory itself.

Think about it like this. With lots of people on one side, as well as regeneration from a full hunger bar slowly healing each player (and health potions), the whole army in general is almost continuously regaining health. (If your army's hunger bar isn't full, you shouldn't be in a battle!) Since all the opponent's damage is not placed in a concentrated area, every person alive is in a sense helping heal others. When someone dies, their regeneration and health is lost. So is their ability to fight, and the formation they were in is weakened, so momentum in terms of a steady advance is lost. Therefore, minimal life loss is the goal throughout the battle.

There are three major melee builds, which will be discussed more in depth later. They are:


 * The juggernaut. These are heavily enchanted soldiers. Highly costly to make!
 * The infantry. These are normally armored soldiers without enchantments. They are cheap on everything but Iron.
 * The exotic. These are users of exotic weapons (such as many potions or TNT, also including professional archers) with varying armor levels. They are not very difficult but suicidal hard in certain cases. Not very costly, but it takes time to make.

It is tempting in an organized battle to do one of two things:


 * 1) Charge the enemy.
 * 2) Run from the main areas of combat to camp the areas nobody goes to.

Charging the enemy is a waste of time and durability due to damage distribution. It is also near-suicidal due to the large number of weapons present. Running wastes time as well and is both cowardly and counterproductive, as then damage distribution will be far less useful.

Instead, have all your soldiers in a group and have a continuously switching front line.

The first situation is if the enemy has large numbers of archers. Send a wave of soldiers charging in, with moderate armor, a few Instant Damage II potions, and some skill. Even better, get some enderpearls and rush in to engage the archers, who will often be weaker in melee combat.

If they don't have archers, they will run or charge. If they run, have archers retreat to the back lines and then have the whole army sprint, bunching Juggernauts close to the front line while staying together, for maximum impact.

If they charge, stop their forward momentum with arrows, shooting when they are 10–15 meters away. Then the infantry should then fight for a bit, while juggernauts and potion lobbers move in at sprinting speed to surge into enemy lines and later replace the infantry and slaughter anyone that was engaging the infantry. Make sure that the juggernauts and potion lobbers do this carefully, as the enemy infantry may have lethal potions.

However, in general, the enemy can do little versus Juggernauts and potion lobbers coming in from a flank as well as a defensive row of Exotics to stop enemy Juggernauts from advancing effectively.

However, if you are on the attack, there are some threats to your advance you must take into account.


 * A massed force of archers or snipers (These can really break a big section of the front line off. Terminate them as soon as possible.)
 * A hardened, continually blocking front line (These are really hard to fight by, but you can bait them just by having a player sprint near them and run away.)

Then charge with infantry, followed immediately by exotics. The juggernauts among you should flank around and smash the enemy infantry after a few seconds of fighting. The Exotics should only engage juggernauts in combat, and only with superior numbers. In this situation, have archers aim for infantry advancing toward the fight, NOT the enemy front line, where you could shoot one of your own men. One can make some professional charging units with horses.

Never have everyone charge at once. They will lose momentum and a solid position, while also becoming less cohesive which causes less damage distribution. Retreat, while also dangerous, is far safer.

If possible, lure a charged creeper at them to blow them up and inflict very high damage. Best to do on hard. Use the wither to distract them and retreat quickly or the wither will kill you too.

A suggested tactic for a mass-team retreat on servers running Java 1.9+ versions: if you happen to be attacking as a juggernaut, take precautions in case of a forced retreat from battle, by bringing 1 stack obsidian, an efficiency IV+ diamond pickaxe, and end crystals, at least a dozen or so (if you don't have resources for juggernauts, just bring iron armor, 2 end crystals, and 4 obsidian blocks for a suicide-bomb version). First, get everybody around to retreat, now get your juggernauts and yourself to slow down the retreat by placing obsidian around them, one block above their feet. This often fools enemies into thinking the person's trapped, for one, and if they get close, place down the end crystal on the elevated obsidian, and fire in the hole! The explosion would easily kill off the peons chasing your team in iron, and likely even enemy juggernauts in protection IV if the difficulty is set on hard.

For maximum damage and a near-foolproof way to kill, wait for any enemy juggernauts near the vicinity to jump (either to critically hit you or because they couldn't hit you without standing on one of the obsidian blocks and attacking below) then place and detonate 2-3 crystals in quick succession. This is because a player's feet is much more susceptible to explosion damage, and even if someone uses an enchanted golden apple with full blast Protection 4, three point-blank end crystals would still be a guaranteed death. You'll take some recoil damage from this, but as long as your feet are below the crystals, the amount you take is minuscule to the amount you & your juggernauts dish out, buying your allies time to retreat and wasting the enemies far more resources, sometimes even forcing them to retreat as well.

In some cases, If they shoot at you or are rushing you without jumping, dig down, and place obsidian around you. Then get ready to crystal the top. If they dig down and try to mine through the obsidian or you're about to run out of end crystals, mine further down and block off the top. Since obsidian takes so long to mine, this strategy would likely last you long enough that the combat tag would expire and you'll be able to /home, which on most servers, takes idling for 5-10 seconds. Note while this is extremely effective in open battlefields, this isn't as effective in enemy bases, even if the floor is made of obsidian, as oftentimes, it'll be a flat floor which means you'll take just as much damage as your enemies.


 * PvP better

Many people think Minecraft PvP is "just clicking with a sword", yet it is so much more than that. Learning how to PvP may seem simple, but takes days, weeks, even months to completely master PvP.

Getting killed? With this guide and some practice, you will be killing diamond people with iron! First off. Swords are everything. Kill your enemy, and they won't hurt you anymore. Unless you are a tank and have some kind of lucky-level-30-enchanted sword, always remember that swords will save your life any day.


 * Leather armor The weakest armor, full leather armor will shield you for up to 28% of damage taken. If anyone has full leather armor, the thing that they will likely be able to get(and because risk of death is high), is an iron sword because leather is just about as easy to farm as iron is to find. If you ambush them with an iron/stone sword, you should be able to get about 2 or 3 critical hits in most cases. Each critical hit should be able to do.


 * Please note that they will likely start running. The best thing to do is to cut corners, meaning if they're waiting to see a wall to turn, turn right when they turn, that way you will get to them because you're both at the same place and they have traveled the most. Jump whilst sprinting to get to your enemy if you have the hunger to spare.


 * Gold armor Many people don't use this armor, and it shields for 44% of damage, if fully worn. A diamond sword critical hit will do hearts on it.
 * Chain armor This is the least used armor because it is so hard to get. Protecting for 48% of all damage, it is about as effective as gold armor.
 * Iron armor The third best armor and one of the most effective sets of armor (due to iron being easy to find) iron armor seems fairly weak to be the third-best armor. It protects for 60% of damage taken.

A stone sword will do 1 full heart of damage against it with no buffs. A critical hit with a diamond sword will do of damage, and if that is Sharpness I then it will do  of damage.


 * Diamond armor The second strongest armor. It withstands a lot of punishment. Even a Sharpness V (5) sword will only do hearts of damage. It protects against 80% of damage taken. If fully enchanted with Protection IV (4) then a Sharpness V sword will only do  hearts of damage.
 * Netherite armor this armor is crafted from a netherite ingot made from netherite scraps from ancient debris and gold. it has about 2600 durability, has 1 knockback resistance, 80% damage reduction and 3 armor toughness, it could take a real beating!

Now that we have described all armor, we will now give you a guide on how to PvP. our If you see a strong enemy heading for you, if you have one, drink a Potion of Strength II. As of Minecraft Java Edition 1.6.1, they increase your damage by a whopping 260%! Even if they have full Protection IV and you have Sharpness III, you still stand a chance because you do damage every hit! Note that can only be obtained by critically hitting. If the server has a plugin that shows the health of the enemy, even better!

Practice all the time with a sword against other players, if they allow you, or do it on LAN. Bows are not as useful at close range, depending on the skill of the player, medium-long is usually best. Jumping while shooting while fighting other archers will decrease the chance of getting hit, but only do this if your skill in aiming is good.

Always keep splash potions of Speed II in your hotbar. If you get a hit on your opponent, best with a knockback sword, you can throw the potion (make sure your enemy(s) get as little or none of the potions at all), and start running for your life. This can also be used against someone that loves to run. Remember! You should never jump while sprinting if you have Speed 2! (Jumping too much will cause you to not be able to take advantage of the Speed potion".

If you are in water, always go under your opponent! Be sure not to drown, though. This also applies when you're trying to hit someone and they're up on a mountain! That way, unless they are cheating, you will easily be able to knock them up on the mountain, plus your hits will make them unable to sprint, due to the fact that they are hit against a block. In water fights, you should always keep lily pads and jump off one while looking down and holding right click, so the lily pad will be placed right when you are about to hit the water, and so you will basically be able to walk on water. This works if you want to run, or if your opponent is running, because in water, your speed is so low and the knockback is so high that you will only be able to get 2-4 hits on them before they are 10 blocks away. Note that ping affects this.

If you are somewhere where strafing is impossible and you are not in water or hitting someone up a mountain, then jump, hit, and block at the same time. Spam the right and left click buttons at the same time. This will make you take a lot less damage while still dealing good damage to your opponent. If you are on a mountain and someone is repeatedly hitting you, you should jump over them, and then they will be at a higher elevation, so the fight will be turned in your favor.

If you are in water and someone is under you, wait until you get knocked back, when you do you have time to go down in the water, and then you will be at a lower elevation and the fight is turned in your favor. Be sure not to drown though!

On flat ground, you should always sprint after one second of getting hit, if possible. This will eliminate the possibility of the sprint glitch. Note that since Java Edition 1.7-pre, you can press to sprint. When sprinting, you will do major knockback, and this will allow you to get free hits on your enemy.


 * How to snipe

Sniping and using a bow can be difficult for some but for others it's their natural talent. Some people have many styles of shooting such as jumping and shooting, aiming upwards and strafing to the right/left or by simply hammering people with spam shots.


 * Some basics

In order for you to support your team as an archer/sniper you need:


 * as many arrows as you think you need unless you have Infinity on your bow
 * armor, unless suicide mission or if using invisibility
 * food (doesn't have to have high saturation foods since you should be far away from getting hit)

Also, it is recommended that you strafe from left to right when shooting and you should also know when the right time it is to shoot another person. A good scenario is that your in battle with another person, and they're a good few blocks away cocking their bow up and you just started charging your own, what do you do? Well, first of all, you release it halfway there then strafe so that when they shoot, you have the advantage of shooting back at them dealing more damage to the enemy. To hit moving enemies, lead the arrow ahead of them some blocks depending on their distance.


 * Sniping

Sniping is attempting to hit targets at long range with a bow. Done well, sniping can deplete an enemy's health or knock them off a cliff before they even notice you, or at least before they're upon you.

When using a bow at short range, there is no need to aim significantly up.

At 1 degree upward, a bow will hit anyone within 25 meters with over a 90% probability of hit.

At further ranges, the level of precision needed to have a good hit rate increases. It is still possible to achieve hit rates close to 90% out to 60 meters, with a pitch of around 10 degrees. However, it is necessary to accurately estimate the range of the target. For example, an 8-degree pitch shot will hit a target between about 47 and 52 meters out with 90% accuracy, or about 46 to 54 with 50% accuracy. This means that judging distance accurately should be a reflexive habit for anyone who wants to learn sniping archery. Being able to, in a split second, figure out the range of a target, the height, and the approximate angle needed to hit (hint: F3 menu helps) will allow you to make shots at truly vast distances, with a 37-degree angle putting shots to around 120 meters.

If you want a mathematical formula as a guideline that will work fairly well under 80 meters.

Aim 1 degree up for every 4 blocks away your target is over 18 on level ground, compensating for movement appropriately. So for example, to hit a target 50 meters away, aim up by 8 degrees. 62 meters away, aim up by 11 degrees. 74 meters away, 14 degrees.

So.

Another good thing to do is keep in mind the target's horizontal angle. This allows you to make shots confident that the target is horizontally at the right position. Further, learning to judge distance is valuable. As a rule of thumb, a block at 60 meters away is 1 degree tall. A player at 60 meters away is about 1.8 degrees tall.

So for ex, let's say you see a player you want dead and they're at your altitude: the procedure a good sniper will go through is as follows.


 * 1) Check the distance to the player by measuring their height in degrees. 1.4 degrees tall means 77 meters away.
 * 2) If they're stationary, check the horizontal heading and note it.
 * 3) Pull up by the appropriate amount. So in our example, it's 59/4=14.75 degrees. 14.7 for simplicity.
 * 4) Make final lead adjustments based on player movement.
 * 5) Fire. Don't just fire once unless you know you'll hit AND kill. Best to fire off shot after shot unless absolute stealth is a priority. This serves two purposes. For one thing, a bow can't hit with 100% reliability at 77 meters (My tests vs. armor stands indicate 60% accuracy, vs. 80% at 60 meters), no matter how good your aim, and unless you have a very powerful bow vs. an injured or lightly armored foe or one above a hazard like a cliff or lava, it is very likely your first hit will not be instantly lethal. If the enemy is walking toward or away from you, compensate by 1 degree per second. If the enemy is sprinting, up it to 1.3 degrees per second. If they are sprint-jumping, by 1.6 degrees per second, and also an additional amount due to them being higher up on average.

If a player is higher than you, a simple way of compensating is to look them in the face and set that as your zero. This works for relatively flat shots that aren't at an enormous range. For example, let's say we look at a player 9 degrees above us who's 1.8 degrees tall? They appear to be 60 meters away based on their height. 60-18=42. 42/4=10.5. 19.5 degrees pitch is a good approximation of where to aim. I wouldn't try this method for targets more than about 30 degrees off of level, and not for very long range shots, but for under 70 meters and 30 degrees, it works quite reasonably.

Obviously, you don't need to do a bunch of math every time you fire a bow, but these rules of thumb can help you aim at a long range.


 * Shooting styles

Many people who shoot have developed their own style of shooting such as:


 * Strafing

People who strafe just simply move in one direction while shooting the target and occasionally take cover when getting pinned down. So when shooting you have to aim slightly above your target's head before shooting for a larger hit rate. In extended combat, opponents may be able to read your strafing patterns if you move predictably, so be sure to vary your strafing.


 * Spam shooting

Spam shooting is being very close to a charging target and lightly cocking the bow and shooting the target. This is a risky style you can do but the risk fades if you shoot the target off a high place like a cliff. Note that when encountering another spam shooter, you have to strafe to avoid getting hit by it. Another easy way to kill a spam shooter is to sprint, then jump, this takes advantage of the fact that you can't be hit while your character turns red, and are immune to damage in that short time. This will be more than enough time to spam-click the person to death (however, this is ineffective and it was proven on actual PVP servers).


 * Classic sniping

While most of your allies are fighting the enemy melee (better if there aren't many troops on each side), the classic styled sniper (which have very powerful bows) can fire a precise shot which will do good damage while the enemy cannot retaliate much due to your allies attacking them with a sword. Be sure not to hit the ally though. One may drink invisibility potions so even if the enemy noticed the shot and want to hit the sniper first, they cannot shoot the sniper.

Note that arrows can also activate wooden buttons or pressure plates, thus making good archers able to operate redstone contraptions from afar.

Server War
This is a rather rare type of PvP. It is not friendly at all. It is just like a real war. Two parties fight for power or resources on a server.

Server Wars happen when one party, typically griefers, organize into an army and invade or attack a certain area or group of people on a server.

This attacking party is typically very organized and very well armed. They launch an attack big enough to cause a disturbance on the server. Another party, typically admins, retaliates against this attack. If the retaliating party is composed of admins, it will typically resort to Intel and the power to ban players. However, admins will counterattack with weapons in the process of banning the attacking players. Unless they allow griefing of course.

In an all out server war, you have two choices: you can either fight for one of the two parties, or you can flee to safety and let the admins sort it out.

Most players decide to fight for their server, however, players who have a lot of resources like diamond might feel the need to protect their precious resources and flee to safety. If you decide to join the party that is defending the server, you don't really need to worry about firepower since you will probably be armed by fellow soldiers.

If you join the attacking party, you should equip enchanted weapons with high damage. It is also good to equip weapons of mass destruction such as TNT, end crystals, lava buckets, etc. You should do everything in your power to keep your nametag hidden if you don't want to be banned. Being banned means you are out of the server, and out of the war. You can no longer fight alongside your comrades.

When you are fighting with the attacking party, you typically want to destroy as much as possible and invade as much of the server as you can. A good tip? Drink an invisibility potion, arm yourself with end crystals and blast protection armor, and let the terrorist bombings commence on anyone you see, especially the ones that are insecure.

Remember, the retaliating party doesn't always win even though they seem like the "underdogs". Server wars are won with great soldiers, and most importantly, great leaders. You don't have to be a "grizzled" war veteran to be a great general, a great general is someone who is smart and fights alongside their soldiers. Remember, great generals take point, they don't watch from a safe distance and bark orders while watching their fellow players get slaughtered.

Also, if the server has mods equipped, especially mods like "flans mod", "flintlock weapons mod", or "Mo' explosives mod", use that to your advantage!

Because of the nature and the danger of these wars, the mechanics of these "groups" of people that are attempting to overthrow the server will be explained.

Generally, the group may know each-other personally. If three friends chose to do this, and each friend tells two of their friends, then we already have nine people ready to attack. Doing this makes it easier to create order and hierarchy. This is also done to deter any traitors or turncoats in the group. Some of these groups go into faction servers, claim land, and make a legitimate faction. They will probably use the faction as a temporary "bank" for what they steal and make. They will build a secondary base, and will use this when they attack. They are highly armed, and are equipped with heavy enchants, potions, lava buckets, redstone, TNT, and whatever the Modifications on the server make available. They disband the faction, and move to the other base and create a new faction, (if they make one at all) and begin their attack, or they may each stay factionless (to avoid detection) and cause great destruction to large bases using the exploits above, communicating attacks via a third-party social platform.

There is a hierarchy involving the status and rank of the players usually, there are generals of the troops that go to battle. They are on the battlefield. And they command the players to attack. But these generals get their orders from one player. This player is the equivalent to the "god father". They are never seen, although sometimes in the game anonymously.

Several of these groups have primarily PvP champs, but most of them have hackers, x-rayers, cheat mods, and whatever they chose. Most times the hacker is the godfather or at least very close to the top. They also have spies and intel groups. This is not the most usual case, but there are exceptions.

Some of them have strategies that they commonly use. Some are griefing, personal raids, and singling out a player. For example, if they know that a player has valuables (diamonds, enchanted books, etc.) and they don't know where it is hidden, they may grief and threaten the player.

PvP Behind The Scenes
Player-against-player combat is far more advanced than it may look. With it said, it's best to know what people can encounter in a so-called "behind the scenes" stage.

Politics

 * Be Popular and Revered

If you want griefers or spawn killers on your side, be really nice to them. Most of them are notoriously good at PvP from practice, and giving them a reason to be on your side through making sure they never have to worry about starving or being hunted by others is a good way to avoid alienating them. Ironically, this may be the most effective way to make allies with random people, giving them full access to all of your resources and your considerable efforts to be hospitable will generally remove any want to take your items. (As always, this may backfire).


 * Know The Surroundings

If a server has an online dynamic map or if the Rei's Minimap mod is allowed (most likely), USE THEM. Rei's Minimap helps you understand what structures are ahead of you, and Online maps show everything and also show locations of players. Forgo any advantage you can get your hands on.


 * Participate in Server Events

Whether it'd be a Drop Party or an organized PvP match, participate in server events and you'll be known by most members in the server. This means people will have second thoughts of attempting to kill you.


 * Be Nice To Your Troops

This one is obvious. Make sure to be friendly and caring with your members. Give items randomly to the squadron. Make an Army, Navy, and Air Force if you must, but let them mingle. Give crate keys to your teammates if the server has a crate system. And make sure to not act stuck up. Listen to their opinions. If you want a Mega-Uber Skull Laser Chainsaw Castle of Death™, and your friend wants a smaller base, compromise.


 * Defending Your Base

Let's say you're on a faction server and you have many enemies. Your base has not been found until now. Two players each holding a Sharpness V, Fire Aspect II, Knockback II sword and wearing Protection IV armor are directly outside your base setting up a TNT cannon.

You should always have defenses that are innately active, such as obsidian and water to negate explosions and if available, a spawner that can funnel out mobs on command (go exploring for spawners) to distract and dangerously deter, or snow golems to break armor.

If you have these, don't jump down and PvP. Wait for the spawning mobs to break their armor, or call for your faction members and allies to assist in defeating the enemy.

In these cases, booby traps are good, so set up booby traps everywhere where the enemy can't find them. In fact, make some that are meant to make the enemy know about the traps but it itself is a trap. These work as warnings and signals. Use tripwires and wool under them to use as signals for example.


 * Hate the Spawn

If you're building a massive fortress near the spawn, a griefer or simply a plain idiot might run behind you and kill you, disassemble your fortress and run off with your materials. Well, the easiest method to prevent this is to build your house away from spawn and try to survive a good distance away from spawn. It is usually a good idea to use the /sethome command around this area where you wish to live, as if it is a long way away from spawn and you die, it's a long walk, or mad chase if there are spawnkillers with diamond armor and enchanted diamond swords. Using the /home command if you used /sethome cuts the time getting to your safe zone drastically, usually having the spawnkillers and griefers be dazzled in confusion.


 * What about my valuables?

The best way to keep your most precious valuables is to put them in an ender chest. Then put a chest in your house with basic invaluable items in it (with a few valuables mixed in to help fool them), and bury a chest with 8 obsidian, an eye of ender, a crafting table, and other less semi-valued objects in it a short way away from your house.

Even if your entire house is a crater and the ender chest you placed is destroyed, the chest you buried will still be safe, and you can craft an Ender chest with what is in it to access all your valuable items and loot in there, as well as the loot in your actual chest.

Basic PvP supply setup
The following is a step-by-step tutorial on how to survive while being new to a PvP server. Follow in this order:


 * Go solo for now. If the server you play on has Factions, make one to protect your stuff. Be sure to walk at least 5500 blocks. Using a boat is a good idea as you do not need food and can travel at night.
 * Go in the opposite direction people are moving toward. This prevents you from being noticed.
 * Make sure it is far away from anything. There's nothing more horrifying than your mortal enemies being your next-door neighbors.
 * Make a small, undetectable base. Underground is the least noticeable around layer 10 is ideal, putting you near good materials and hiding your nameplate on the surface.
 * Cheating is something that undermines every setup. Step carefully!


 * Start gathering immediately. Do them in this order;
 * -Get wood.
 * -Make a bed to set your new spawn point (unless your server is customized).
 * -Make chests and protect them.
 * -Build a farm.
 * -Find coal and iron.
 * -Look for diamond. Layer 12 eye position is the best, but look for caves especially.
 * -Mine obsidian and reinforce the walls of your base.
 * -Make a portal to the Nether in order to find blazes and nether wart.
 * -Once you have a blaze rod or two, start hunting for Endermen.
 * -Make an ender chest.
 * -Start brewing potions.
 * -Find leather and sugar canes.
 * -Make an enchantment table if you have the tools to and keep it well concealed.
 * -Make an anvil to combine enchantments.
 * -Enchant your diamond armor and sword.
 * -Tip: Enchant Some leather armor with Protection IV if possible and a stone or wooden sword with extreme enchantments (stone axe with Sharpness V works wonders on 1.9+). This will trick players into thinking "That player is terrible and doesn't even have good armor". Then sneak and follow them (use an invisibility potion if you have one), and they may end up revealing a base or hidden valuables. If you know you can beat them then go for it. Big tip: use potions always!

Tip: You must have a fallback in your base in the case of hard times. This means:


 * A renewable source of food,
 * A renewable source of wood, and
 * A set of stone tools to restart the gathering of supplies.


 * To make raids against you rare, it is recommended to live in the Nether (but not the End since it's highly coveted) where people normally don't go. It's dangerous, but not as dangerous as living in the overworld. Keep in mind, if you have a mining base, that too must be defended since raiders can get there via the portal.


 * Make a faction and start recruiting.

-Note to do this when only a few people are online to make sure that nobody else is there to make you enemy (if you're lucky). (Factions is a Bukkit plugin and is not part of a vanilla server.)

That's it! Not too long ahead, you should become good enough to last through most attacks... eventually.

Getting Loot Quickly
A lot of times in single player survival Minecraft, you are going to need something. In factions, you are going to need it a lot more because you are competing with other people for it. Some ways to get it faster:


 * selling- in many faction servers you can sell, auction, and buy stuff. Check and see what you can sell. Most Faction servers allow you to sell cobblestone and dirt, quick ways of getting money.


 * Teleport killing- In the chat bar you see a new player and you want to take their stuff. They don't have any faction, so you tell them "Teleport to me and you can join my faction" as soon as they arrive mercilessly slaughter them. (Note that this can create a bad image for you on the server and could potentially get you banned, so only do this on servers that this is allowed or you don't value).


 * glitching- use certain glitches to your advantage such as item duplication, again avoid the possible banning

Lag creates opportunities
Despite lag making people randomly visually act, cause injury because of damage just showing up, and crash the server, it may still be useful instead of a nuisance if you know how to control it to your advantage. Whenever you hit someone under the effects of a lag spike, there is a chance that they won't be hurt and can escape. You can use this time to run when a lag spike comes, therefore you may escape if necessary. Keep in mind, lag also delays redstone machinery, meaning if there's a staircase that only activates when you're on a pressure plate, you can get up easier.

Exploit Knockback
Most servers have anti-flying plugins installed to prevent hacking users. If your server has one, use it! Spamming hits from a Knockback II sword will send your enemy flying fast enough to trick the server into counting them as flying, so that they will be immediately kicked (possibly banned) from the server. If there is a combat logging plugin as well, all the better! Your opponent will drop whatever loot was in their inventory for your enjoyment. Though you can be banned from many servers from exploiting any server side anti-cheat programs.

Mistakes
Ambushing someone is good. It's even better when they turn around to attack you with the wrong item! (e.g. food or blocks) This makes an easy kill. Take this advantage. And try to make sure this does not happen to you. If it does, it can cost you everything you have on hand!

Weapon training

 * Be a grenadier!

Always carry potions of damage and poison on you. You'll never know whether you're fighting a player with a stone sword in gold armor with minimal enchantments or if you're face to face with a full armed juggernaut carrying what people consider as "God Equipment." This is the most efficient way of disposing of anybody.


 * Train yourself with weaponry.

You may be a fast clicker with a powerful sword and you may have a large chest's worth of damage potions, but without training these aren't of any use. Train yourself to arch with a regular and enchanted bow so that you are so good at it that people accuse you of having an aimbot (don't shoot people constantly or you might get banned mistakenly). Get it in your mind to strafe around the enemy and jump to get critical hits and get an edge over your opponent. Train to throw potions so well that you don't wound yourself and get direct hits for maximum effectiveness.


 * Rapid fire!

You see a player mining some diamonds, and the only weapon they have is a bow. You decide to kill them. It seems like a great idea, especially when you have armor, until you get close to them and they start rapidly shooting arrows. Some players have an uncanny ability to shoot arrows very fast at low charge. They may only deal 1/2 heart of damage, but they will knock you back, and enough of them will kill you. If someone starts using this tactic on you, do not rush them! It will most likely lead to your death. Fall back behind some cover, and if you have a bow, start shooting back at them. Stay far away, because while they are amazing at close range, they usually aren't very good at hitting those far shots (there are exceptions). Finally, Almost no amount of spam shots can stop a sprint-jump attack, Ender pearl charge or splash potion, so if ranged combat is not your strong suit either, hit them with a critical attack or potion, this will usually cause them to run, then be slaughtered by your melee strikes. Remember though; you could do this as a tactic too!


 * Creative Tactics and Weapons

Who says you need normal weapons to beat a strong enemy? Nobody, that's who! The truth is, using weapons that your enemy doesn't even think about will make you more probable to beat your enemy. If you know how to use them, that is. For instance, if you are fighting a juggernaut, there are few weapons usable against them;


 * 1) Potions (most effective)
 * 2) Snowballs and eggs (to knock them back)

Potions harm and distort the enemy, making them the most effective against especially such people with Protection IV armor. There is no magical protection in vanilla, so armor points are useless. Snowballs and eggs will knock the enemy back. You can project them into lava or a pit, and as part of a bug in the game, it damages armor as well because it technically harms the player pummeled by it. Always try to find a way around normality!

Good Philosophy for Fights

 * "Only the dead have seen the end of war."

There is that one case of being Left for Green. This means that your squad disbanded, you are out, all alone with maybe a few enemies a kilometer or two behind you looking for you, and you're starving. Be independent. What if nobody is there stupid to help you? What if your leader takes all the valuables and leaves their troops out to die? You must gather resources, get help of any kind, whether it be a lone man just with a stone toolkit or a juggernaut in Protection IV armor, and you must be careful and start your own faction. Tip: Since anyone can be bought…eventually, keep your own secret, hidden, well guarded bases. Never tell anyone about it. It is for you and only you.


 * Watch videos and tutorials on how to build traps (or other PVP tactics), and be smart with what you learned. Many people know how to make traps. That is good on one hand, but on another, they might not know how to use their knowledge to their advantage. Combine traps and improvise offline.


 * Don't overkill yourself. Think first before charging ahead to do something. Think first of the necessities, which are supplies, and deal with the secondary needs after.


 * Don't be scared to act like a coward. If you stand no chance, save what you can save and run! If you're nearly killed, and have no hope of victory? Run! And don't let yourself be lured into 1-on-1 PvP unless you can win!:Use your mind over your in-game muscles! Preferably, use both! Most important is to use your environment wisely. For example: if you're in a jungle biome, run into the trees and attack your enemies! If you're in a big NPC-village with iron golems: make your foe hit the Iron Golem, then run off and snipe the foe! If you're on a small island in an ocean biome: get a boat, sail a little away, and use your bow to take down that diamond-armor juggernaut! While in the Nether, surprise the enemy with a bed and kill them with the explosion! While in The End, spleef your enemy into the void for a sure victory! It will all be yours if you succeed! Your sword might be a strong weapon, but your bow is even stronger if you use your mind. Also, don't be scared to use potions: they can give you a great advantage over your non-potion using enemies.


 * Evaluate your position. In other words, take into account all your advantages, all their advantages, and weigh the options. Sometimes, you need to guess and check. The most important ones are your advantages or disadvantages in:


 * 1) Armor and armor enchants
 * 2) Swords and sword Enchants
 * 3) Bows and bow Enchants
 * 4) Ender pearl or portal availability
 * 5) Potions, skill, and hunger

The most iffy is skill. Some people are so good with their timing that they can calmly mine and take their diamond ore, then swing around and shoot just as soon as you are within a block of them!

In fact, who says you need better equipment to win? Let's say that your base is in the sky with a public chest containing some equipment. Then, all of a sudden, you come down with one teammate and realize that the base is being raided! In the chest, you find some string and cobblestone. The enemies are in iron armor, but enchantments are unknown due to this being before the 1.3 update. Now, if the raider's armor was not enchanted, then you're in luck. A stone sword against iron armor with no buffs deals a full heart of damage. A fully charged bow does about as much damage as a diamond sword. Even if you have no armor, you still somewhat stand a chance against those two since it's you and your teammate fighting them. You do not need to be the same size as long as you can beat them. If you and your teammate are strategic, let's say they stick together, and your enemy doesn't, then you are almost guaranteed to kill them, that is if both of you have at least stone swords and they are alone with an iron sword and full iron armor. If you got lucky enough to mine a diamond sword, bring that out too: if you can, enchant with even just Sharpness I, which will do about hearts every hit. If you somehow have gotten a Strength II potion, maybe by buying it on a server, then DRINK IT! It will multiply your damage by 3.6, so that, if you make that a critical hit (by falling when attacking) (will do hearts) WITH Strength II, then you just might have killed your opponent in one or two hits.


 * Get to your senses.

You may be thinking that people who have lost so much that their anger is uncontrollable are going to go psycho to win and when people come with supreme equipment you should be scared out of your wits, since that "causes" adrenaline. No! Anger and fear are both factors to defeat. When either happens, whether it be an attempt to kill a player who has diamond armor with your fists or combat logging just because you are so scared that you have to go to the bathroom of fear of peeing in your pants, you will most likely forget all the tips you have learned until you get back to your senses. Avoid that. Now, you must stay calm. Run for cover, and don't stop to watch the deaths of your teammates. If you have one, drink a Potion of Swiftness (the second tier is highly recommended), and keep running. Do not turn back, do not look back, do think of what's back there, and do not stop. Just keep running until you reach safety, whether it be allied or peaceful territory, or a secret place. Don't stop. Stay sharp.


 * Peace, dude.

Remember what's been said about not trusting anyone? Your turn to chip in to take a stab at backstabbing. Create peaceful factions for your team. Their only purpose is to earn supplies while being impossible to touch.


 * Diamonds aren't the key to victory.

If two players in diamond with enchantments come and raid your base, and you're 4 people in iron, and only you have a full set of diamond equipment, do not bring it out! It is obvious you don't stand much chance as you are overpowered. You do, however, need to keep potions. They should consist of the following:


 * Poison+Damage+Speed+Health+Invisibility

Also, keep flint and steel, along with fire aspect swords and bows, along with you. And if you find generation errors that create gateways to the Void, use them. Don't forget to keep your dispensers loaded and ready to fire with arrows, damage splash potions, and fire charges. The reason why this equipment and these traps can beat people in diamond is because they go right through their armor. Nothing, not even diamond armor, can resist their effects (except for arrows. Fire, potion effects and Void damage are the only lethal things unaffected no matter what kind of armor.). Also, a potion of invisibility will mean no one will know where you are attacking from!

Also, remember the gift of decoys. Say you have nothing at all and you were just a player that started in a faction war faction. Use your expendable condition. Say there is a hall of traps designed by a redstone scientist. Throw yourself at the traps, run like a madman, break those hidden redstone clocks, and just kill your player on those lethal traps so your faction can zip in and break a hole in their obsidian shield. To victory!


 * In and out

On some servers, the PVP can take place in real life, as well. If you have many friends who play Minecraft, you can call them to join your (allied) faction, which will make strength in numbers. If one of your friends is good at persuading or knows a lot about strategy, that's even better! Also, if you know your in-game enemy well in real life, you can somehow reduce the time they can play or have a talk with them, so they may have a change of heart.


 * Attack his weak point

No matter how your opponent fights, they are bound to have some kind of weakness. Wastefully attacking where they are well defended won't work, and you will usually have to change your plan accordingly. Is he trying to use redstone? Douse it with water. Debuffing you with splash potions? Chug some milk. Shielding your arrows and tridents? Whip out the Piercing enchantment. Not even the heavily-geared Netherite player is invincible - you can bypass his armor with splash potions and tipped arrows. This also brings to the next point:


 * Be one step ahead of your foe

Just as you adapt to your opponent's tactics, your opponent will adapt to your tactics. If you see your opponent change his actions, think about why he is doing that. Don't rashly play into his hands. If your opponent just placed blocks to stop you from shooting him, stop shooting him and attack up close. Just as your opponent counters your actions, you need to counter his actions. Your plan of bypassing his Protection IV Netherite Armor with tipped arrows may be a sound plan, but if he starts holding down his shield, you'll have to change. If you, say, start shooting with your Piercing Crossbow then you're golden. As long as you are devising and implementing counters to your opponent's counterplay, then until your opponent figures out what to do in response, you have the advantage and you should press it. The longer one plays reactively rather than proactively, the more of a disadvantage they are at.

Trick the enemy
It is said above regarding running in traps (refer to "Diamonds aren't the key to victory") being a tactic that will fool the enemy, this makes it a rather effective attack. Always use psychology as a weapon! When running into a row of tripwires, the enemy might find it as a suicide attempt and not as a double trap, although not very likely since most people will tend to just chase you. However, if you have a circuit that makes it so that the first time somebody runs through it, there is a chance your enemy may think that it's a dud or just a scare for the raiders. Once they step over it, though, the trap activates. This makes it useful since it can make the enemy think you are intending to run away when you're instead luring them into a death trap. If you have any type of invisibility potion or maybe you are just very good at not being noticed, you can easily lure the enemy away from your actual position, then jump-attack them when they are least expecting it. This can be the key to a neck-and-neck battle, where your enemy's equipment is as good as yours.