PvP basics and the Tournament

Other players can attack you in the mines, the overworld, the PvP Pit, KOTH and outposts. What you lose depends on where you die. The PvP Tournament lets you fight 6 times a day with nothing at risk, so start there.

Where you can be attacked

There is no PvP in safe zones, Expeditions, the Vaults of Plouton or Siege raids. Spawn is a safe zone, and /spawn takes you there when you are not combat tagged. You keep your XP on every death. Death & Item Loss has the full table.

"Everything except your pickaxes" has a catch. You keep the pickaxe, but the Ancient Energy stored on it is taken out, taxed at your rank's extract rate and dropped. Satchels stay with you and their contents spill.

Start in the Tournament

The PvP Tournament is a 1v1 single-elimination bracket in kits the server hands out.

• It runs at 1, 5 and 9, AM and PM Pacific.
• A [JOIN] card in chat opens a 2 minute signup. Click it or run /tournament join from a safe zone, out of combat.
• Your whole inventory is stored when you join and comes back when you leave.
• It needs 2 players and takes up to 16.
• A fight lasts 3 minutes, then sudden death: Wither on both fighters and no healing.
• Everyone who fights a match gets a prize: a money note, or a money note and Ancient Energy for semi-finalists. The runner-up gets the Contender's Cache and the winner gets the Champion's Cache.
• The Champion's Cache needs at least 4 players in the bracket. With fewer, the winner gets the Contender's Cache.
• The caches hold loot that drops nowhere else. See PvP Tournament.

Four modes take turns: Vanilla, Draft, Random Kit and Blind Pick.

Kits come in a gear tier that rotates: gold, iron, diamond and netherite. The signup card names the mode and the tier, and /tournament info shows the next tournament ahead of time. Losing costs you nothing, so enter every one you are online for. It is the cheapest way to learn how fights go at each gear tier.

Armour and weapons

Wear four pieces of your best tier before anything else. Armour is your main defence against players, and almost nothing ignores it.

Every piece counts the same. A helmet is worth as much as a chestplate of its tier, so fill all four slots before you upgrade one. Armour is the first line of each piece's tooltip, and /buffs shows your total and the reduction it gives.

Chainmail needs level 10, gold 30, iron 60, diamond 100 and netherite 102 with Ascension II. Leather gives no Armour at all. /shop sells gold, iron and diamond armour. Chainmail is not in the shop: it comes from the Aegis and Ares G-Kits, and only when you claim them under level 30. Upgrades are on Gear & Armour.

Fight players with a sword or an axe. Wands and bows never damage players. You can only start a fight with a sword or axe. Once a player has hit you, you can hit them back with anything for 15 seconds.

Combat is 1.8 style: no attack cooldown and no sweep attacks. Gang mates can't hurt each other outside a duel or a tournament match.

For armour enchants, start with the two that add Armour against everything. Stoneskin adds up across pieces, so put it on all four: level V on four pieces is 230 Armour, more than a full gold set's 220. Titan Blood only counts your highest copy, so one piece is enough: level IV is 80 Armour. Both come from Wormhole rolls and enchant orbs. An attacker's Perfect Strike proc ignores enchant Armour, so your gear tier still comes first. This is a starting point worked out from the Armour numbers, with no Map 5 fight data behind it yet.

For the rest, read the Stacks column on Armour Combat Enchants to see which ones add up across your four pieces, and pick weapon enchants from Sword & Axe Enchants. If you get jumped by groups, Anti Gank (armour) cuts the damage you take when you are outnumbered and Nemesis (sword or axe) raises the damage you deal. Both only work against players. Ailments & Combat Keywords explains Shock, Poison, Bleed and Low Life, and Combat Basics covers damage and crits.

Staying alive in the mines

• Know the guards. Attack a player where a guard can see you and you are marked a Villain for 15 minutes: guards hunt you, and if they kill you your drops are destroyed. The Guarded line on your scoreboard shows whether a guard covers the spot you stand on. Mine in guarded spots, because an attacker standing there becomes the Villain. Standing right beside a guard at its post also heals you. See Guards.
• Empty your pickaxe before you walk through a contested mine. Spend its stored energy on enchants, or run /extract in a safe zone, where it is free.
• Don't carry what you can't lose. Go back to spawn, put items in your Personal Vault with /pv and right-click your Money Notes to bank them. Both only work in a safe zone.
• Don't log out to escape. Log out anywhere outside a safe zone and a stand-in of you stays for 20 seconds. If it is killed, you lose your items as if you had died.
• A hit tags you for 10 seconds. While tagged you can't use /spawn, /warp, /mines, /home, /tpa, /pv, /trade or /fly. Run to a safe zone on foot.
• Leave your PvP pet in /pets unless you mean to fight. A summoned PvP pet drops with the rest of your inventory. A pet resting in the collection is safe.
• For the first 15 seconds only your killer can pick up what you dropped. After that anyone can.

The full list of what the combat tag blocks is on PvP Basics.

The Pit and the Commissary

The PvP Pit (/pit) opens at level 60. It is open PvP with no guards, and the death rules in the table above apply, so take in only what you can lose. The reason to go is the Commissary and its PvP loot.

You are protected for up to 5 seconds when you arrive. Moving or landing a hit ends it.

About once an hour, when at least 2 players are in the Pit, the Commissary lands there: a locked chest with a squad of guards.

• Only sword and axe hits count. The chest has 60 health and each hit takes 1.
• The player who lands the last hit takes all of the loot. Chat announces what the chest held.
• The guards turn on anyone who hits the chest.
• If nobody breaks it in 15 minutes it leaves.

Go with your gang. One group can hold the guards while another works the chest, and the last hit only matters if someone you trust lands it. /events shows the countdown.

KOTH, outposts and duels

KOTH runs once a day at 6 PM Pacific. Hold the hill for 5 minutes to win the KOTH Lootbag. You keep your gear when you die there, so show up even if you expect to lose. Each KOTH has a gear tier: only gear of that tier or lower gets in, and over-tier gear stops you at the warp. /koth shows the tier and the next start time, and /warp koth takes you to the arena. Die and you are out until the next KOTH, and so is the gear you died in.

Outposts are five arenas that gangs capture for buffs, each with a gear limit. The Chain Garrison allows only chain gear and wood weapons, so nobody can bring more than you can. It is the cheapest place to practise real fights. You must be in a gang to enter. /outpost opens the menu and /outpost 1 warps you to the Chain Garrison. The warp checks your whole inventory, not only what you wear, so leave better gear in /pv. Wooden swords and axes are in /shop. Chainmail only comes from the Aegis and Ares G-Kits claimed under level 30, so keep a set once you outlevel it. Deaths there are full loot. Gangs and outposts covers holding one.

Duels are 1v1 fights you both agree to with /duel <player>. You both have to be in a safe zone, within 10 blocks of each other. Nobody dies in a duel: the killing hit ends the fight. You can bet items, and Risk Inventory is off unless the challenger turns it on. Check the settings before you accept. Winnings wait in /duel collect.

Rules

Teaming, trucing and conduct rules are at ancients.gg/rules. Rules & Support has a summary and how to report a player.