This post is to help break out and understand the three different phases of player progression when it comes to PvP understanding and skill base. This is something you can use a way to quickly reference and hopefully work on it on your own. (I.e. You can use something like this to quickly describe yourself as a Phase 1 Mystic, or a Phase 3 Warrior, for example.)

Any of you can go from Phase 1, to Phase 3 over night. For some people, it takes weeks. For others, it could be months. The gatekeeper here is understanding the information at a fundamental level, applying that information in situations where it is appropriate, and leveraging your situational experience to make fast paced combat decisions in quick succession.

Below is a list of terms you will see in this post, and their meanings:

[1] Crowd Control (CC): CC effects are attacks or abilities that cause players to lose control of their characters. In BDO, CC is broken down into several categories and sub-types. It is important to note that CC's which share the same sub-type cannot be chained together. The difference between CC effects within the same category are the animation you experience, and the duration of the actual CC applied. CC's within the same sub-category also share the same resistance stats, so a Stun/Stiffness/Freezing resisting applies to all three. An explanation of the different categories (and the nicknames people may call them) are broken out as follows:

o Stun/Stiffness/Freezing - A Stun is an animation that causes the player to stagger, usually grabbing their head as if they have a headache.

A stiffness is an animation that usually causes you to have a blue tint on your character, and locks you in a still flinching animation. It is also important to note that a stiffness will prevent you from being able to use V-escape until the animation is complete, or is overwritten by another form of CC.

A freeze is literally being frozen in a block of ice. While frozen, you will have increased defense and will be difficult to kill, but you will be bound to the ground when the animation is complete, leaving you very vulnerable. Other debuffs (such as slows) will continue to apply on you as normal while you are frozen.

o Grapple - This is commonly called a grab. Grapples are an animation where a player picks up another player, and throws them to the ground. Grapples are considered the most deadly of CC effects because they are the only one to penetrate/ignore super armor, making it a very reliable form of CC. With most classes, a grapple will usually be accompanied by an AoE Bound effect which is explained below. Not every class has a grapple, but classes that do have different grapple ranges, and at Phase 3 you will come to understand which classes have longer range grapples, and which ones are much closer.

o Knockdown/Bound - A knockdown is when your character is pushed off his feet to the ground. This animation is particularly deadly because you do not fully regain control of your character until he completes a roll animation to rise to their feet. It is also very important to note that being knocked down will prevent you from using V-escape until the animation is complete.

A bound is when your character immediately gets crushed into the ground. The warrior ground slam is a good example of what a bound looks like.

o Knockback/Floating - A knockback is an animation where your character stumbles backwards quickly, then recovers.

A float is where your character is launched upwards before landing on his back.

[2] Forward Guard (FG): These are attacks or abilities that provide a block when you are struck from the direction you are facing. The area your character is guarding is generally shaped like a V (or a cone) in the direction the player is facing, where the most narrow part of the V is your character. This does not protect you from attacks or CC effects that strike you from the sides or rear, nor does it protect you from grabs. It does, however, prevent you from being knocked down, stiffed, stunned, bound, or damaged from the front. Forward guard also has a limited amount of durability. This is represented by a shield icon in-game that has a number between 100 to 0. This number is a percentage of your guard's health. At 0, your guard is broken and you will need to stop guarding in order to recover durability. Your guard's durability is determined by your Damage Reduction (DR) stat. The more DR you have, the more durable your guard will be. Evasion also factors into your guard's durability, as your guard can evade attacks just as well as you can.

[3] Super Armor (SA): Super Armor is an ability that puts your character in a state of reduced damage and CC immunity. While in SA, you cannot be stunned, stiffed, frozen, or knocked down. However, you can still be grabbed. It is also important to note that abilities that grant SA do not grant SA through-out the entire ability. Often, at the start of the ability or toward the end of the ability, you may be unprotected. Most of these abilities have an unprotected "recovery animation" where your character is recovering his balance after the attack. Knowing exactly when your protection ends is critical when you are at Phase 2 of this guide, because that is the point where you will want to animation cancel your ability.

[4] Invincibility Frame (i-Frame): An i-frame is an ability that makes you completely invulnerable to damage and CC. Very rarely can an attack break your i-frame, and usually if it does happen, it is due to desync. Sometimes, elite or boss-type NPC's can knock you out of them as well. Knowing what can break your i-frame is crucial to avoiding damage in PvE.

Phase 1: Basic understanding of your abilities

Everyone starts here on a new game, or class.

This is where you really take the time to sit down, read each ability in your skill book. You learn which situations are most appropriate for which abilities. You use the abilities in a practice setting to understand the range and capabilities of each attack, buff, and debuff it applies. You learn which of your attacks have Forward Guard[2]. You learn which attacks have Super Armor[3]. You learn which abilities are iFrames[4]. You learn which abilities have Crowd Control[1] effects, and how to use them accordingly in battle. You learn which of your abilities deal the most damage, and which are completely combat ineffective against other players.

You do not graduate from here until you've achieved the milestones described.

Phase 2: Chaining your abilities together

Once you have a grasp on the basics above, you begin to learn how to most effectively chain your abilities together. Most players are in phase 2. Phase 2 gives you enough offensive combat prowess to overcome other Phase 1 and 2 players, but you will always be outmatched by a phase 3 player, and the reason for that will be apparent as you read on.

Most of the time you die in this game, unless you are far outmatched in gear, it is while you are being CC'd. Therefore, the most important key component to slaying your foes, and avoiding being slain yourself, is knowing how to deliver your CC without getting CC'd yourself, and how to deliver your most damaging skill combination possible once you've landed your CC.

Phase 2 consists of applying everything you learned in phase one in real-time combat. It involves knowing the recovery animation of each attack, and how to cancel those animations so they flow into other attacks without having to sit through the recovery. This will increase your overall damage output, and reduce the times you are standing unprotected. It also involves knowing when you are going to be struck, and chaining together frontal guard, super armor, and i-frames to avoid being crowd controlled.

Minimizing the gaps in your attack patterns to nearly zero is the key tenant to being a successful phase 2 fighter.

You will stay a phase 2 fighter until you begin the much more difficult and ambiguous task of learning phase 3.

Phase 3: Knowing your opponent's abilities

The sum of phase 3 is combining everything you know in phase 1 and 2 so that your ability to fight while maintaining total protection has become the natural basis of your combat repertoire, then taking that knowledge and applying the same learning to every other class in the game so that you know when and how your opponents will fight, what their CC abilities are, what they look like, how to predict them based on common combinations and animation cancels, and knowing when they are vulnerable to damage or CC. Knowing their recovery animations, knowing their gaps in super armor, knowing what abilities heal them or buff them, and knowing what abilities will slow you down or deal damage that must be avoided. This will help you make decisions on when it is appropriate to eat an attack in order to deal a CC, or when it is appropriate to use super armor to trade damage with the enemy.

-----

1v1's are your bread and butter for gaining experience and learning how your opponents work. Don't be afraid to ask questions.

1v2's are a great way to skill build, and is a good practice against other phase 2 players to see if you're ready to challenge phase 3 players.

That pretty much concludes this guide. When you've fully read and actually understand all this, you should have a good idea of which phase you're in, and what you need to learn in order to move into the next phase. It will also help you get some guidance on what you should be practicing, what questions you should be asking your friends about their abilities when you fight them (so you know what to look for when you encounter enemies in the wild), and who you should be trying to challenge to 1v1's so you can learn.

At any point, you could go from being a Phase 3 fighter against one class, back down to Phase 2 due to changes made to the game or comprehension lost due to a lack of memory retention. You could be a Phase 3 fighter against one specific class(es) and a Phase 2 fighter against others. It is up to you to determine what Phase you are in, and this guide can serve as a way to quickly reference your expertise against other classes with people who have also read this guide.

The information posted herein is tailored for BDO, but if you're being objective about it, you could apply the same standards across basically every MMO you play.

Please respond with any questions or feedback you may have! I will edit this post later to add gifs so you can visually see the CC effects.

A nice basic guide. You're missing some details like how forward guard health scales with +HP effects or how not all super armors give you an increased DR effect, but still nice nonetheless. Hopefully this helps some of the forum shitposting regulars like Trollpin and his buddies learn how to play the game more effectively instead of keyboard warrioring their way to insane class buffs.

Very nice guide.Thanks for the work.

You forgot the most important state of learning PvP in this game. The Arena of Arsha event yesterday showed it with high clearity. Spend enough money to have enough gear to compete. Or just gear check your oppenents. The amount of flak that event got yesterday. From most of these matches just being a simple gear check. That even these supposed skilled players could not over come. The Archer and the Guardian matches displayed it the best.

Imagine a Competition without equalized gear? Yup BDO took it there. That ¬event¬ was little more than a advertisement promotion. To show Whales that are actually Skill-lets. Look at what they can do if they spend massive amount of money in the game. It was very boring and sickening to watch. Had it not been for the drops, I'd turn it off ASAP.  

What you said in the OP is true. I'll give you that. However it means nothing unless you've actually either hardcore grinded for over 5,000 actual hours. Or spend over $100,000 to get the gear to compete. Or just be a trustfund kid in which the Devs hand you a account with high RNG seeds. Or a combination of the three. Without what I've mention, all that the OP explained means nothing when faced against top end geared players and guilds.

Great guide! I agree alot that you can be a Phase 3 fighter vs classes you're more familiar with, and phase 2 with ones you need to study up on. Also just ignore the salt at the top, keep on training bois. 

Name 1 match that was a total "gear check", all the gearlets were already weeded out.  Also what kind of moron thinks that a player with thousands of hours shouldn't have an advantage over someone who created their character 5 minutes ago in a progression MMO?

Take your hating ass back to ESO, no one wants your worthless input anyways.

As for your "Imagine a Competition without equalized gear?" comment, why don't you join the Trial Tournament that comes after this, and show us exactly how "skilled" you are.  I doubt you'd make it beyond the first round.

The amount of salt riddled throughout this post would be enough to fill the Atlantic Ocean twice over.

Jealousy is more like it.

Me and Fearless go back.  Like almost half a decade, back.  On Kakao forum.  He hasn't changed.

QQ about the grind?  ✔

QQ about P2W?  ✔

QQ about gear?  ✔

Actually do something about it?  Nope.  Still sticks around BDO forums to spread discouragement and thoughts of hopelessness.

He likes to say "You need 3k+ hours to be 'PvP viable' in BDO".  Without even knowing what he means by that, 3k active hours, even at a measily 100mil per hour = 300 billion silver.  This doesn't even count passive income.  100 mil per active hour is a massive downplay.  And even downplaying it this much, 3k hours??  *Shrugs*

Full PEN armor and weapons (7 X 16 billion) + 1 TET Disto + 1 TET Tungrad Ring + 1 TET Ogre Ring = about 130 billion silver, give or take.  Free V Capotia Belt, Earring and Belt are free, so are not calculated.

So, if Full PEN armor + weapons, full TET yellow accessories (1 Disto, 1 Cap. earring, 1 Tungrad Ring, 1 Cap. ring, 1 Cap. belt, 1 Ogre/Laytenn) isn't "PvP viable" then IDK what is.  In order to get this build, is less than half of what he projects, and speaks volumes.

Speaking from my own experiences, I am hardly a whale, I go toe to toe with many of the players I've seen in the AoA (I unfortunatly was defeated by the googledoc signup myself), and I feel I'm competitive with nearly every player I encounter. I invested a lot of time in my own skills, and I often find that the fights I learn the most from are the ones where I am outgeared or outskilled.

That said, I don't grind that much. Maybe a couple of hours a week? If that? I spend most of my time life skilling while AFK and looking for fights during my active play time. I do have a full time work schedule, so I really enjoy capitalizing on my AFK time.