How to Win in PvP Fights – Fallout 76

How to win and enjoy PVP fights against strong-ass players.

Keep getting your ass kicked in PVP?? Here are 5 VITAL tips that’ll help you hold your own against even the strongest players

Just like most things, PvP in F76 sure as heck takes some getting used to.

Keep getting fucked up? Well, it’s probably only happening because you don’t fully understand the way PvP works yet. Follow the actionable tips I outline below and you’ll be ready to give any other player a good run for their money.

I love PvP in 76. I play most of my time as a raider and arrange organised PvP matches whenever I rustle up enough players willing to opt-in.

Looking for a way to find other players for PvP on xbox one? See my bio and get in touch to learn more about the hunter/hunted matches I set up. No mic’s are needed and all levels are welcome!

Here are my 5 tips if you wanna give yourself a fighting chance against any other human survivor in the wasteland:

Tip #1 in PvP

Tip #1: Gear up to fight players running one-hit builds.

One of the most common strong builds out there is focused around the explosive shotgun. The other common one-hit build is melee focused. These builds are beasts that achieve some of the highest damage outputs in the game. The explosive round weapons are supposed to be rare, but because of duping, most strong players you come across will have one.

So the first thing we need to do is up our damage resistance as much as possible. I’ll let you know what I do, but if anyone thinks anything can be added, please let us know!

The armour you need to be on the lookout for is called “Assassins armour”. Each piece of Assassins armour gives the player an 8% reduction in damage taken by other players. It’s rare and can take time to collect, but well worth it if you like PvP and plan on chasing fights.

The perks I use are “Dodgy” and “Blocker”. Dodgy uses your action points to reduce incoming damage by up to 30% – which is great if you have a build that affords you a lot of AP and provides great AP regeneration.

Blocker reduces melee damage to you by 45%. The “Serendipity” perk is another great one to add – at max it gives you a chance to avoid damage completely when below 30% health. Combine these perks with Assassin armour as well as pumping Med X before a scrap, and you’ll give yourself solid defence against the game’s two most common powerhouse builds.

Then it just comes down to how you position yourself, the cover you use in relation to your opponent, and how effectively you manage the distance between yourself and melee users.

There are certain perks that give you added protection from specific types of damage (explosive dmg for example), but I prefer a build that gives me high dmg resistance against a broad range of attacks rather than being too focused on one particular type.

Because these god-weapon players are so used to one-shotting almost everything, they’ll often be overconfident in their ability to win within seconds, which actually acts as a weakness. They will likely position themselves in open space and rely heavily on a first-hit-wins playstyle. Knowing this, you can make sure you tuck yourself around solid corners and use very heavy explosive attacks to devastate them as they try so desperately to run directly toward you constantly.

As soon as they realise they can’t one-hit you, and you’re beating them over and over by throwing their one-dimensional bullshit in their face, they should change up their tactics.

New to pvp and not sure how the respawn system works? Let’s go over it with the next tip:

Tip #2 in PvP

Tip #2: Know exactly when and how to stop the fighting once you’ve had enough

Anyone that’s played gta online and other MMO style games will understand how frustrating it is when a really strong player won’t leave a much weaker player alone. Thankfully F76 has actually been designed really well to give weaker players far more control over PvP situations, you just need to know exactly how to the system correctly:

When you die by the hands of another player, you’ll be given three options (unless you have a bounty on you, more on that a bit further down). The options are: “get revenge”, “ignore”, and “respawn”. Get revenge will make you respawn as an enemy of the player that just killed you, so only chose this option if you really want to continue fighting.

“Ignore” will place you back in the game as a friendly. The player who just killed you won’t be able to inflict full damage unless you shoot them back, so defo select “Ignore” and then actually ignore the other guy in-game if you want the fighting to end. I believe this option is also meant to block the enemy player from further contact but from what i’ve seen, results are currently inconsistent. If you know differently please correct me..

“Respawn” is meant to place you in the game as a friendly without blocking the other guy completely. That said, I’ve had inconsistent results with this too. On a number of occasions, the respawn option has placed me into the game as an enemy. Again, if you know better, please feel free to clear this up.

As you probably already know, fights don’t happen until you and another player both hit each other. The first hit does no or very little damage, it just initiates the PvP combat mode. You wouldn’t believe the amount of times someone has tried to hit me with a fat man mini nuke, just for me to pull a Luke Skywalker (the last Jedi where he is unscathed by an army of blasters), just to emerge from the huge explosion unhurt with a pistol slowly tearing the guy to pieces while he struggles to reload or change weapons.

Once you understand the dynamics, PvP in F76 is like a very fast game of chess (or a very slow game, should you decide to play it that way).

If you fire the first shot, you are in less control because you’re waiting for the other player to complete the exchange of hits and initiate the fight. If you are hit first, then you can take your time, plan your next move, and start the fight on your own terms.

If you’re minding your own business and someone very scary looking hits you, don’t rush to fire back! Treat it as a huge opportunity to set that poor player up for planned and bloody brutal response.

If they are a high-level player wearing power armour, you’re going to need to pull out all the arsenal and speed you can muster, so don’t be hasty.

Make sure you aim to hit them with your most powerful attack as soon as you’ve decided to start the PvP mode. Start the fight on higher ground, pump up on your best drugs (only one Chem can be active at a time), ensure you’re in much better cover than they are at the moment you start the fight, and always, ALWAYS have a backup plan for when you fuck up the first shot and shit hits the fan.

Stimpacks are crucial for PvP and you will likely pile through them like a fat kid with a pack of pop tarts, so only ever engage in PvP with at least 5 or more stimpacks stocked up.

If you’ve not done so already, find the municipal centre in Watoga city (southeast of the map) and climb to the top floor of that building to find the mayors office and complete the quest to become mayor. This will allow you to pick up 8 stimpacks from the safe in that top floor room every time you load up a new world.

This will save you an unbelievable amount of time and caps on stimpack supplies.

Speaking of caps and precious treasures:

Tip #3 in PvP

Tip #3: Avoid fights with players while you’re carrying precious junk

PvP in this game can be incredibly costly if you lose a lot and take no measures to protect your valuables. It can also be hilariously beneficial if you learn how to earn consistent wins against higher level players. There are definitely very effective ways you can drastically reduce the costs of losing, and once you understand the game-dynamics, all levels above 20 or so have a decent chance of taking on pretty much any level player.

Here’s how:

Yes, it costs a chunk of caps when you lose (this can be reduced heavily, we’ll get to that shortly), but the biggest thing you can lose when it comes to PvP is the mass of great junk you’ve been collecting for the past few hours.

Junk is the only thing you drop when you lose a PvP fight and it’s easy for the winning player to run over to your bag, enter transfer mode, and take it all in one click. This is the hardest blow you can suffer in PvP, so you should always try to protect yourself from it.

Just about to enter a bust up? Always check what kind of junk you’re carrying before you start the fight. If you can’t stand the thought of losing any of it, you have to make sure you stash it away before opening up on someone.

If you use the perk that gives you extra defence while carrying junk, then at least head home, store the good stuff and make sure you’re only carrying what you can afford to lose before you start blasting peeps.

Wanna play as a raider? Then you’re entire objective is about attacking folks that’ve been collecting great hordes of grade-A junk and taking it all away with you once you’ve nailed them!

It’s a wasteland full of desperate hooligans. Always assume that the stuff you drop will be taken by others without hesitation. Believe me, 90% of the time, I’m one of the crazy fuckers that’s desperately trying to take everything I can get my grubby hands on, so I know all about it!

The other obvious cost is caps. The higher your level compared to your opponent, the more caps you hand over if you lose. This is both a huge risk as well as a lip-licking opportunity for any enterprising individuals.

The best way to reduce the cap cost of fighting is to carry a bounty on your head (as small as possible of course). With a bounty, you have large disadvantages in that you can’t see others on the map and you can’t ever be in control of the engagement because any other player can attack you openly without you having to fire back.

The reason to have a bounty is to be sure that you only lose the amount of your bounty if killed by a player.

Here’s an example in numbers:

If someone much lower leveled than you kills you in a duel, you’ll lose maybe.50 – 100 caps for that loss. If you have a bounty on your head for 10 caps, you will only ever lose 10 caps no matter who the heck kills you.

The bounty system in this game is like a cap condom.

Don’t want PvP to cost you major bucks? Then get a minor bounty just before you engage.

So how do you make big cap gains from PvP?

Those of you with a bit of a business brain will have already done the math. If you have a bounty worth 10 caps, and you fight someone who’ll award you with 50- 100 caps for a win, your risk vs reward is very attractive. You have to actually make sure you win in order to achieve those gains, but using the bounty condom ensures you have a great chance for earning more than you lose over the course of a few bouts.

How do you get a tiny 10 cap bounty? The best way to ensure you only get a tiny bounty is to commit petty crimes.

Breaking another players lock gives you a 10 cap bounty. Hitting another player’s property over and over should also give you a 10 cap bounty. Be careful though! Destroying a turret gives you a 20 cap bounty and blowing up multiple walls is a sure way to build a sizable bounty within seconds.

High-level players shooting you first is actually a huge (and somewhat rare) opportunity to land a decent bundle of caps in a flash.

If someone keeps hitting you, take them to the nearest camp or workshop that belongs to someone else if possible, load up your most powerful boom booms, as soon as they’re not looking and you feel like you’re ready to let fly, slip on your 10 cap bounty condom in case things go wrong, pop a psycho and blast the sucker with your most powerful attack.

Remember, your first hit doesn’t do full damage, so use a weapon with a clip, or hit them with any cheap bullet knowing you have to switch to your power weapon in double quick time as soon as they become a red enemy.

Want to kill a menace in less than a second? If they’ve already hit you or have a bounty and are standing still-ish, whip out an accurate pistol, select your strongest grenade (Nuke nades and MIRV frags have the highest dmg that I’ve seen), throw it at their feet, and shoot a bullet at their chest just before the explosion. Get it right and you’ll end the fight before they even know they’re in one.

The element of surprise is always a killer advantage, something that plays a huge role in my next Tip:

Tip #4 in PvP

Tip #4: Understand workshops very well before you use them to build cool things

If you want to force other players into PVP against you, you’ll need to head to workshops owned by others. It’s easy to find these as the map tells you if a workshop is owned or not and who by.

Claiming a workshop while it’s owned by another player will instantly make them an enemy that you can fire on with full damage right away. Looking to take others by storm and willing to pay good caps to do it? Then this is your best bet.

So as long as you’re an owner of a workshop, you’re effectively always one instant click away from being forced to defend yourself and the things you’ve built within that workshop from invasion.

If you like taking workshops, and.you don’t like being shot in the back while your pants are down, you have to keep a sharp eye on every stranger that wanders into your territory. If they spend any time hovering around the red workshop station, you need to prepare yourself for some wartime.

There’s no easy way to defend yourself if you own a public workshop, hang around it, and a very handy player wants to bug you. If they actually want to take the area from you, they’ll have to stay as close as they can to the red workshop station for a chunk of time while the exchange of ownership slowly ticks down. This is when they will be most vulnerable to attacks from powerful large explosives or devastating melee charges.

If they don’t really care about completing the claim and seem to be doing it just to force you into combat, there’s not much you can do but try to defend yourself as well as possible. As well as the perk/gear suggestions above, remember that to claim, they need to interact with the station (meaning they are looking away from you) so be ready to pound them as soon as they become an enemy.

Tip #5 in PvP

Tip #5: Damage output and speed are king so you’ll need a build / technique that delivers huge damage in killer blows.

As mentioned already, there are weapons in the game that deliver crazy damage per strike, with large clips, a stupid level of range, and retardedly high accuracy. These down-syndrome OP weapons play exactly into the dynamics of fallout FLAWLESSLY, which is what makes their existence so frustrating.

If you have one, and all you care about is winning fights at all costs, you’ll find yourself with little choice but to use them over and over again like a handicapped zombie, until of course, you actually feel like oh, you know, enjoying the game’s incredibly open variety of weapons a little more.

Only the bravest and most adventurous players will choose to step away from the game’s most OP guns to mix things up. The same rule applies to power armour. Almost everyone you bump heads with will jump into a set of their strongest Power Armour as soon as competitive action knocks on the door. This means the vast majority of the players you fight will have damage resistance scores that make normal bullets and average guns about as effective as tiny pillows.

For this reason, you’ll need to make sure you’re packing some serious firepower if you wanna beat any player over level 30 or 40 ish. If you’re lower leveled and still trying to use your hunting rifle in pvp, you’re just asking to be destroyed every time.

I personally prefer playing outside Power Armour for the vast majority of my PVP encounters. When fighting lower levels, it gives the other guy a very strong feeling of confidence that they can take me down. I also think the gameplay outside PA feels a lot less cumbersome and visually disruptive. Some perks like Serendipity (which is one of my favourites) don’t work while wearing PA.

One of the biggest advantages of PA is it frees you from the time-consuming stimpack animation. There’s a perk called Born Survivor that lets you use a stimpack automatically whenever your health falls below 40% (once every 20 seconds). This also initiates without the injection animation.

So which weapons are best? Here’s a few ideas that any player over 25 should be able to access:

Aside from the retard OP weapons in F76, all other power weapons come with significant downsides that balance the scales. Black powder rifles are essentially one-hit weapons in the right hands, but the crazy load time and lack of long-range scope ensures their effectiveness in fast-paced / close range combat as well as very long range remain dampened.

Grenade launchers are absolute beasts if you manage to find them. Again, load times are a problem and you are just as likely to hurt yourself at close range as you are the other guy.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve shot a 40mm grenade round at a charging berserker type, just to have the thing bounce off his face and explode in mine. Utterly hilarious for both parties!

If you’re just starting out, and you only plan on taking on other players around the same level as you (which is strongly advised), shotguns and melee builds are your best bet. You can have perks that make these short-range builds really powerful even at lower levels, and your success in PvP will then mainly come down to your positioning and movement around the environment.

For example, if you’re using a shotgun, open ground is your worst nightmare. To give yourself the best chance, you’ve got to create situations where you lure your target around corners, up stairs, into tight indoor spaces or directly above/below you.

The same rule applies if you like explosives like grenades. Trying to hit a fast-moving target that has loads of space to evade with the perfect nade throw is not ideal. You need to get targets surrounded by walls in a cramped dark room where they’ll be trapped to suffer the full brunt of your explosion…. Right in the face.

The perk “Demolition Expert” is vital for any player that likes using grenades. It will also come in handy should you ever find one of the OP explosive round weapons.

Stealth boys are a dream for players that love having a time-bound edge over the field. As soon as you think someone targeting you might be using one, you should be running away from them as fast as you can while desperately throwing down grenades to create a stream of explosions behind you.

It might sound cowardly, but if they’re trying to knife you down, you’ll either decimate them or prevent them from getting close enough. If they’re sniping you while invisible, then you’ll at least have a slight chance of disrupting their view while you put some distance or buildings between yourself and the shooter.

The worst thing you can do when someone sticks one of these cloaking devices on is wonder blindly toward them. You’re just making it too easy for them to pounce on you with super-duper damage.

Original Link – Continuation of discussion