Ink Soul's Guide to PVP Player Archetypes

This is a rough guide, and I may not cover all the different types of players, if so please say in the comments below.

The Juggernaut:


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These players are very "foward" and clip nearly everything if they can; they're aggresive, fast, and forceful.
They'll clip Blockbreakers, but rarely seen using shields, most of the time they'll try their best to complete their six hit combos.
They typically pump out the fastest DPS because of the ethos they apply to PVP. They rarely block, and when examined closely are often fairly predictable, but because of their speed it can be quite daunting to try and block or block break; but when timed correctly can slow them down considerably, and give you control over the pace of the battle.

How to beat them:

My best advice is, play them at their own game but be smart, when they realise that you're doing as much damage as they're dishing out, they'll become a LOT more passive and in turn considerably easier to take down, CC abilities here are very important; if you want to be able to beat them you're going to have to slow them down, and by using a CC ability, either a power, or weapon attack, it will slow them down, and you'll notice that they begin to block a lot more, and use shorter combos.
Use this to your advantage, time your block breaks correctly, don't do this too often or they'll catch unto your pattern and interrupt you, but the key here is to watch when they begin to slow down their weapon combos so that the there is nearly a second spacing between each hit, and this implies they're waiting for you to block so they can throw a block break (The Catalyst) don't succumb to the bait, instead throw up a shield just in case they attempt to block knowing that you'll lunge them, so that you have a safety net.
After most of their lengthier combos the most likely option they'll chose is a block so always keep your Right Mouse Button ready to knock them down with a block break.


The Pacifist:

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You guessed it, these people block.
A lot.

Is he using a power? Block.
Is he using a shield? Block.
Is he blocking? Block.

They literally block everything, and are the most predictable players out there, they may be new or just intimidated by you, either way block break; when they get up from your block break, they'll block again, so do it again. There's not a whole much to say about them except that you aren't going to get much of a challenge from them. Have fun with them.


The Cold Calculator:

These are quite possibly the hardest players you'll face in PVP, duels to be specific. They're incredibly unpredictable, and adapt their playstyle quite quickly according to how you play, they don't have much of a pattern, and so hard to track

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These players are some of the best DCUO players out there, and so the only way to beat them is to become them.

How to beat them:

See how you play through their eyes, now by this I mean, if you're fairly predictable use this to your advantage to become unpredictable, if you know they know what you're going to do then you're going to have a MASSIVE advantage when facing them, this takes practice, but if you at first come across as predictable they won't think any different and so over the course of the duel change up a bit, where you would've blocked before lunge and catch their block break, this often causes a gridlock, of both you and the opponent blocking repeatedly, this may not sound wise but throw a blockbreak as soon as possible, do it too late and they'll know it's coming, after this "catalyst" do as much as you can, if you're a healer heal, DPS throw out damage but be conservative, and don't let your power bar go to waste, since they normally think that you'll block break after they get up and most times they won't block when they come back up so dish out that damage. Nearing the end of the fight it becomes a game of who can give out that last hit, put out a shield and throw out a block break, since most players believe that when a shield goes up it means the player is preparing to deal out quite a bit of damage, and the shield is their to protect them; exploit this mentality and block break them, you'll be surprised when you beat that player who never seems to be defeated by anyone.


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The Controlling Girlfriend:
These players definitely have a noticeable pattern, but because of their choice of play style they won't let you do anything to them.

Their loadout is comprised of a lot of CC abilities and so they can afford to be predictable since they can ghost you stopping you from throwing that interrupt you were going to, power sets like Sorcery, Mental, Gadgets and Light, are able to do this quite effectively namely Sorcery and Mental because of their morphing abilities (which are being removed due to the transformation lag on the PS3) but this can cause half of the battle consisting of you trying to get out if this, and can be quite frustrating to players who don't know how to counter it.


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How to beat them:
Before the match use your PVP trinkets to give you that 30% control resistance, or make sure when they're setting up the morph that you remain blocked you that you negate these effects. Since they can't CC you they become considerably easier to take down, since their main way of defeating you has been stripped away from them. They'll throw quite a lot of Block breaks at particularly obvious times so they'll be quite easy to take down.


The Wannabe Tank

These type of people are in DPS role but have most of their loadout comprised of shields, they want to take as least damage as possible and before the match you'll see them double up activating both Hard Light Shield and their own power's shield, they can be quite easy to penetrate, but sometimes it seems that the shield's never going down, a particularly notable example would be Mental's telekinetic shield which has made me cry out at how long it can last, yet I normally take it down in 3-4 seconds, to a player who may not quite have a matching DPS it may cause you to lose hope, but don't fret, by hiding behind all those shields they think they're safe.
They are not.


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Since they use shields their own mentality becomes that, similar to other archetypes, "I can get away with spamming Blockbreakers since I can take the damage" which is wrong.

How to beat them: Don't be afraid to get wild here, they will rarely do anything about it, and once they've run of of power from using their Neural Neutralizer, Distract, Hard Light Shield, and distract, they'll burn fast.
The key here is to keep applying pressure, and be consistent, the more pressure you put on them the more shields they'll activate, the quicker they run out of power giving you the chance to send em' packing. You'll rarely have to think much about this though and so often you'll be able to figure out their pattern, and by blocking when they pop a shield you've in effect made the purpose of popping their shield, whether that be to take no damage for a short while, or provide immunity, useless; which is always a good thing.

The Stealther

These are the people that stealth themselves before duels and normally stay stealthed until either you find them, which in most cases will cause them to stealth again, or you leave the match.
Like the Runaway Kid these people should not be mistook with trolls, since trolls typically tease you while in stealth mode with either emotes or using an attack that doesn't break them out of stealth to their own amusement.
These people will literally stay stealthed the ENTIRE match, and will make sure they stay in the most "discrete" place possible which in some cases is plain sight.


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How to beat them:

The obvious answer here is AOE however you can, make sure your attacks cover as much space as possible; and sometimes stand still, if you spend time not moving they become more confident and decide to move closer to you, stay still for a little while then throw an AOE, they'll be taken out of stealth and then it's time for you to make sure they don't stealth any time soon, so apply a DoT or make sure you're putting constant pressure on them, since there will always be a slight delay between their activation of stealth and them actually being stealthed you can attack them during this delay to ensure they don't go into it.

Sometimes they'll hide in hidden places and so sometimes the best thing to do as soon as you realise you're going against a Stealther is to leave the duel, and if you don't want them bothering you again- add them to your ignore list.
This has been a guide focused primarily around duels from a DPS stand point and so this may be different for healers, trollers and tanks. From my experience I have found these to be the main archetypes but if you have any others please say so below,
the key is practise practise practise!
Thanks

The Runaway Kid:

It's in the name, these players have seen you duel countless times and have now decided it's time for them to get a slice of the cake, they normally walk up to you slowly and subtly and then BOOM a duel invite.
There's a count down from 5 but they don't seem to be coming up to you, instead there right in the edge of the duel area, the battle starts and you lunge to them which they counter with block after you get up you seem them running to the opposite edge of the duelling area, becoming a game if Cat and Mouse, now, this can be easily mistook with trolls.
They are not trolls.
These people show no intelligence whatsoever.
They're typically low geared but still able to put up some sort of fight yet chose to adopt the practice of the "Runaway Kid" they'll be rolling around the map, until you give up.

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How to beat them:
This can be quite enjoyable and if you have a stealth power now would be the best time to use it, but be warned dont become a stealth F**. I'll come onto those later, now use stealth and in most cases you'll see them slow down because of confusion, walk up to them and pounce on them!
They'll never see it coming and before they know it they'll be submitting to you.

The All-Outer
These players will come into a fight with all trinkets, pets, and orbital strikes prepared, they'll start the fight by clipping their trinket with their pet and then into their henchmen, and finally orbital strike, they'll then begin to spam all the powers they can while drinking up more colas to give them more power to spam attacks.
These people have a DESPERATE desire to win and think that: "Instead of me doing damage let my pets do it for me. Oh that's not fair? QQ MOAR.
They are hypocrites and often have low self esteem, but come on they need that win to boost their ego so they'll go to ALL lengths to secure it.
When they beat you they'll automatically say they're therefore better than you in PVP.
Player vs Player
Not player vs player+henchmen+mr boo+orbital strike+Pet SC+Soder Colas.


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How to beat them:
Don't sympathise, play them at their own game bring out all your trinkets, and pets and use Supercharges and Colas, and if you win and they call you a bad player, look into their faces and laugh at their hypocrisy.
Sometimes they'll get quite confident and so they won't attack, use this to your advantage, pop a shield, target them and open hell.



The PVE PVPer.
These are the players that will come into arenas or duels with PVE gear, thinking that since they'll do more damage than you, so you won't have the chance to kill them.
Most of the time, they fail.
A lot of them do have PVP gear, but because they have a "if I can out I more damage than you then I'm better than you" they'll gear up in PVE Armour and go into an arena, which they will probably pump out the most damage.
And die 20 times.
These players are great since they're so vulnerable, they may be able to take you to 20% health in 3 moves but you block them ONCE and they're down to 60%, and because of this they'll rarely pause to take a breath and are probably sweating in the hopes that you don't get a chance to hit them.
I typically inspect everyone before a match starts to see their gear, and when I see people like this I normally tell them they're in PVE in case they forgot to change.
Most times I am ignored.
Sure it's tempting, I mean who doesn't want over 2000 might?
"I'm a mean green killing machine!"
Who ends up being killed by everyone on the opposite team.
Don't fall for it, you don't have any toughness to back up that DPS, and you're basically my sparring target.


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How to beat them:
Block quite a bit here, and don't let them pull of their big moves, since they're focused on their DPS output they won't focus on the player they're attacking themselves, so make sure you use this to your advantage and you'll notice that they become a LOT More "squishy" as a whole.

I like this guide. Nothing new for me but very fun to read. I'm a calculator, hahahaha!

Where do you put those that keep up shields all the time? I would call them survivors .

Wanna be Tanks I'd say ;D

Updated it. With the "Wanna Be Tanks" section.

The Wannabe Tank LOL

Why is the unpredictable one called "The Cold Calculator"? Being a "calculator" implies they'd be analyzing things and adapting with specific plans, not being wild and unpredictable. They'd have a very logical and methodical approach to everything and would never panic, no matter what happens.

A wild and unpredictable type would be like Mr. Blonde from Reservoir Dogs, just doing what he wants on a whim and generally being a risk taking psychopath with no rhyme or reason. In DC terms this would be someone like Bane, Joker or even Zsasz, lots of risky aggression and randomness in their methods to the point where even Batman defeats them, he is sometimes left wondering why they even did what they did at all. I would change the cold calculator description to basically be someone like Batman, calm and collected with a plan for every situation, someone who analyzes enemy weaknesses and exploits them without hesitation.

Then, add a new archetype called "The Psycho" which is going to be someone who will fight in such an unorthodox method that it confuses enemies, someone who, on the surface, is doing something that is going to get them killed, but simply doesn't care. The Psycho is that player in 2v2 who doesn't wait to regroup and just wants to attack the enemy again before their health can regenerate, the Psycho is that player who attacks all 4 guys on a point by himself just to get it neutralized for a while, the Psycho is that guy who power dumps everything he has into someone with low HP just to inconvenience them, knowing full well he will die too. The Psycho is the same type of person who does a kamikaze attack in a game of Risk just to destroy someone he hates, he is truly dangerous because he doesn't actually care if he wins or loses, he only cares that he becomes a thorn in someone's side. Because of this, you can't truly win against him, you only ever end up suffering the exact same loss he does. Even if you think you win, even if you beat him 1 on 1, he is going to be that type of player you HATE to fight, he will make your wins feel empty because of how much of a pain he is to deal with.

They can still be calculators and come off as unpredictable, and since you're using Movie examples I'll use the Joker from The Dark Knight, he was incredibly calculating and he DID know what to do, yet his actions came off as unpredictable, you can still be calculating and come off as unpredictable because that's how it appears to people who don't know what you're really thinking.

Being unpredictable doesn't always mean wild. The calculators know how to play. Think about it, if you know every trick on the book you're gonna know when to block, when they're going to block and so forth, and because of this you'll appear unpredictable because being predictable implies you follow a pattern, which these people do not, or very loosely do, but you can't track it, they're unpredictable, but have calculated everything to the dot.

Awesome guide...and very enjoyable

What about The Button Masher?

Oh, and Bane is not random at all he knows what he wants he has a plan, and rarely exhibits random behaviour.

I'm on to the Button masher and the scardey cat, it'll be up in less than an hour

nice...The Button Masher: easy to beat as they only tap the square button and rages when someone continually blocks them...ha ha

Just added the "Runaway Kid" archetype.

Added the Stealth F** Archetype.

Updated with BY FAR the most hated: The Pokemon Master.

Also changing "The Balanced One" to the more appropriate: "The Controlling Girlfriend"

This thread is awesome. Nice job. The pokemon and dps with four shields is awesome.

Any thought of hybrid styles, like the SC spammer - match quitter. When they are done blowing through thier trinkets and SC and see you are still there, they quit.

Love the guide, what about the player that gives 100% and then when they lose say they weren't even trying? Come across alot of those.

Eh, I'm more or less a combination of the Juggernaut and Cold Calculator. I'm 90% offense and 10% defense though I don't play reckless. I just prefer to kill before I am killed . Block Breakers. Block Breakers for everyone.

+1 to the guide.