How to Be Good at Hardcore Faction PvP Servers

This guide will tell you how to build the strongest faction and be successful on a Hardcore PvP Faction Raiding server.

Section 1: The startgame
This is when you first log in to a server. Here are the steps to most efficiently getting started. Most servers have starter kits, and some even have weekly and monthly kits you can access. To access them, type “/kit” into the chat box. It will give you a list of kits. Since you're just starting, you should be able to access all the kits since you don't have a timeout yet. Get them all. You may end up with stuff ranging from a set of wooden tools, to fully enchanted diamond armour and sword. Some servers give you Obsidian, TNT and Creeper eggs to help get factions started.

Now that you have all that the server provides item-wise, check your money balance. Type “/bal” or “/money” into the chatbox. You should see a number come up, but it doesn't mean anything until you go to the shop. For example, on one server a diamond might cost $5, but on another one it might cost $7000. Let's go to the shop now. You can usually access it using “/warp shop” or similar. Buy anything you think you'll need. (More on that later).

Many servers nowadays have a plugin called Votifer that allows you to acquire rewards when you vote for a particular server on a website. Commands to do this can vary, but try some things like “/warp vote” or simply “vote”. You may receive anything from diamonds, XP levels, tools or access to a special kit.

You are now ready to start. Look around for a sign that shows you how to get into the “wild”.

Starting your Faction

On a crazy hardcore PvP server like the one you're probably playing, no-one can be trusted unless you trust them irl. That's right. No-one. Therefore, the most profitable way to start your faction play is to create your own. To do this, type “/f create ” replacing with your desired name. Choose something simple and memorable, because it will become a feared name if you do this guide right.

You can add a Faction desc as it shows in chat.

If you followed the previous secion, the “Startgame”, you should already be either in a random spot, or a special “Safezone” area where you are protected from PvP and mobs. Once you step out of Safezone, you will be in the “Warzone” which is a region where PvP is enabled, but building or breaking blocks is not. You must sprint through all of this, and more, to reach safety in the far corners of the map (or not so far, but more on that later). Check around you for players. Are there any in the safezone, seemingly afk or otherwise? Be wary of them as these, as wells as any players directly outside of the safezone area can be what are called ‘Campers’. They camp outside safezone areas, ready to strike on any newbs, who are ready to join the game loaded with kit goodies.

Once you are sure you're not seen, sprint for your life in one direction, preferably either North, East, South or West. Keep sprinting and look behind you around every minute. Once you're in a nice quiet area (or otherwise), you can stop. You've reached relative safety. However, always be on the lookout for other players.

(Not) Building your Faction

This server has no rules. All players will betray you. Don't invite anyone and don't join anyone. Teaming up with other factions via alliances is fine, but still take precautions. You can't trust anyone.

Now that that's done with, you can start building your faction. The first thing to do, not do anything. Don't claim land. Don't build a house or store your items in a chest. Instead, place any unneeded items in the ender chests at spawn. All your diamond blocks, obsidian, creeper eggs, etc, belong there.

Use the “/sethome” to set your home in this unmarked place. It will act as your base as you get to the fun part of this server. Raiding.

Raiding

The hardest part is finding somewhere to raid. Many bases have already been raided, or are too well fortified to raid. Since this is a hardcore faction server, there is most likely no chest protection and that's good. Stock up on creeper eggs, TNT, mining and combat gear, and get going.

To find the base, use “/f map”. It shows you nearby faction land. If you are too far from spawn you may not see any. If you are too close, you'll see too much. If you're in the sweet spot, you'll likely see patches of icons that show which land is whose.

Travel towards a large patch of claimed land. Note the faction name and check “/f who ” (replacing with the faction in question), and make sure there is no-one online on that faction. If there is one person, that's awesome, wait for him to go offline. If there's no-one, that's fine.

Once you're in the land, you may find nothing. If so, look up, is there a floating building high up? Try using XRay if you have it, to check for chests underground. (If you find a TNTed base on the ground, do this anyway. The TNTed base may be what is called a ‘Red Herring’).

Build up or mine down to the base, just outside of claimed land. If it's underground, use caves to your advantage, to get as close as possible to the base without having to break any blocks. If it's in the sky, build up until you're higher than the base (be careful on laggy servers!), and enderpearl onto the roof.

There are three options now.

1. You can lead a creeper towards, or use a creeper egg to break into the base.

2. You can attempt to build a TNT cannon that throws TNT at the base from outside claimed land.

3. You can attempt to claim the land and break in that way.

Note that 1. is easiest but requires that there are willing creepers nearby (lol!) or that you have creeper eggs. 2. Is hard, but effective, unless it's a laggy server. 3. is risky, since the faction may have enough power to keep their land, or you may not have enough power to take it.

If you used either method 1 or 2, but hit an obsidian wall/ceiling/floor that is 1 block thick, there is a special way to get past that. If you have XRay, use it to check where the chests are and get as close as possible. Then break the obsidian block, and depending on how laggy the server is, there will be a short moment before the obsidian is replaced by the faction plugin and tell you that you can't break that. In that SHORT MOMENT you should be able to right click on the chest and access it despite being behind a blast proof obsidian wall. This is easier and less time-consuming if you have a high efficiency diamond pick.

Once you have taken all the loot, get out of there, and if you like, demolish the base before you leave for some extra cookies (not really, you just waste TNT).

Troubleshooting

If you cannot use TNT or creeper eggs, and the faction has enough power to resist being claimed, there is only one way to safely raid it, and that is to wait. Wait until faction members die, and decrease the faction's power level. Check this using “/f who ”. You can also attempt to kill members of the faction, however this is very risky as you may die yourself. Make sure you “/sethome” at the most convenient point to resume your raid, so that you can resume raiding once you can claim their land, or you have creeper eggs at your disposal. I know you /sethome at that other place, but there's nothing there, so it's not worth it

Building your Unraidable Base (Properly)

Now that you have read the guide on raiding, you should have a pretty good idea of ‘dos’ and ‘donts’ on faction base building. Here's a guide anyhow.

Choose a sweet spot (discussed previously) with few factions, relatively far from spawn. Make sure you have at least 3 stacks of Obsidian. This can be acquired from the server's shop, mining, or from a kit.

Make a room (doesn't matter if it's in the sky, underwater, underground, or plain on ground level), of obsidian. Make sure all the walls, ceilings and floors are 2 BLOCKS THICK. I cannot emphasise this more. Remember that trick we learned for getting past obsidian walls 1 block thick? Building 2 blocks thick renders that technique useless.

MOST IMPORTANT THING: Don't have any openings in the room. That's right. NONE. No doors, windows, fence gates, or anything of the sort. And no blocks other than obsidian. Creepers eggers can easily get past protected blocks and doors, but not obsidian.

If your server has obsidian to be breakable by explosions (rare, but some servers have a plugin that does this), cover your whole building with a layer of water. One source block on the roof should handle it nicely.

Make sure you claim ALL of your base, and as much land around it as possible. Use “/f sethome” to set your faction home inside the base. You can now use this to teleport inside your base without the need for doors or similar.

Add an enchantment table, bookshelves, chests, bed, etc. to your liking. Your base should be unraidable, if you followed my advice.

Equipping yourself for PvP

Safe PvPing is very important. Why? Because if you die, you not only lose your stuff, you lose power. So if anyone had your base marked for raiding, and was waiting for you to lose power, he would use that opportunity to claim your base, break inside and steal your stuffs. Follow this guide to be the king of PvP.

Your equipment is important. Choose a sword with Sharpness III+ and Fire Aspect I+. Knockback is optional, but useful sometimes. I often keep a separate knockback sword in my inventory, next to my sharp+fire one. Obviously, to gain that sword, you will have to earn XP. Some servers allow you to buy it, or give you it when you vote. Use them all to your advantage. Other servers have an XP farm or Mob arena of sorts. You may end up having to resort to plain old mining coal and killing zombies. That's fine, because that's what everyone else has to do as well.

A bow is very very useful. Good short-range bow technique from up a hill once saved me from a fully geared diamond guy as he was unable to reach me while I teleported away, despite my bow being unenchanted. This shows that even an unenchanted bow is useful, if used correctly. A power III+ flame bow can also be a deadly weapon. Which may be used lethally, even as your primary weapon if you are teamed with someone who has a good sword.

Armour is extremely important. Make sure it's diamond, and at least protection I+ on all of them before attempting to PvP.

Once you are outside spawn, or in an arena, or wherever the PvP battles happen on your server, be wary of all players. Camping outside spawn can be an effective way to gain loot from n00bs. Watch out for the donator guys though, they're usually fully equipped with Protection IV armour and Sharp V sword and may finish you in a few hits if you're not careful. Golden apples are useful against them if you ever happen to meet one and you can't run away.

If possible, choose players who are less powerful than you, and surprise attack them. 1-2 hits on them before they realise they're being attacked will almost guarantee you the win. If that tactic doesn't work, and you are forced into a long chase, use your bow/enderpearls to your advantage. Remember the shortest path is always the straight one (unless it's blocked by water, etc.), so keep this in mind when you're chasing the player. Good sprinting technique is also important.

Once you do get to the nitty gritty though, you basically have to pound that left click key, and make sure you're continuously pointing at the player in question. Sprinting around him while jumping can be a good technique, but most players are smart enough to move around as the PvP (as you should too!).

Becoming the Top Faction

This takes time. Keep your wits about yourself, and don't invite ANYONE into the faction, unless you trust them irl. Raid other factions, especially top factions (though this can be costly in terms of time and materials), and don't get into any PvP battles that you can't win.

Betrayal

Most Hardcore servers allow you to betray other players. It can be the safest and most profitable way to gain loot, safer than PvP, and less hit-and-miss than raiding. This is done in one of two ways.

1. Ask if anyone needs a faction using public chat. There will often be players wanting to join a powerful faction in order to get started on the server. Tell them to tp to you, and send a “/tpahere ” command to invite them. Never tp them to your base, instead, invite them to a random point, an unclaimed piece of land far from spawn. Ask them questions like “How good are you at PvP?” “Do you know the rules of this faction?” Tell him some rules you made up for extra authenticity. Then, suddenly kill him and grab his stuff. Some players are more wary, and won't tp to you unless you invite them to your faction first. Feel free to do this, but remember to kick him from the faction before you kill him. You can easily kill someone who is more powerful than you using this technique because they never expect to be killed.

Note that some people join factions in order to betray (See method 2 below), so make sure you kill them asap, before they write down your coords or anything like that.

2. This second way is slightly more risky. Write in chat that you would like to join a faction. Join the first one someone invites you to. As soon as you join it, teleport to their base, “/sethome” or write down the coords, then either leave the faction and kill anyone in the base or wait until faction members go offline, then steal from the chests, and blow up the base. It helps if there is someone you trust who can join your faction and look after it while you are gone. Keep in mind the tips I mentioned previously about what users to trust by inviting to your faction permanently (not betraying). Make sure the amount of land you claimed does not go below your resulting power after you leave, however.

Notes
You'll notice that I mention the XRay plugin several times in this guide. I personally do not use it, but I have used in in the past on my personal server. I do not use it, or have it installed, at present.

This guide is for a specific type of server. Griefing is not allowed on some servers so check the rules before you try any of the tips on this guide.

You'll note I told you at first not to build your base, but only sethome in different places. This is because building a base when you are not ready, and do not have the materials will only get yourself raided. Instead, keep yourself mobile, and keep your important items in an ender chest.