PVP

Abyss gear carries a PvE penalty that scales with how many pieces you wear — which makes the first piece free and every piece after it a trade. Numbers below are the Guardian Decanus tier, the entry set.

The set penalty

Guardian Decanus is the entry set, and its bonus ladder pays nothing in PvP — only damage against abyss monsters, and a cumulative −5% PvE at every threshold.

Pieces	Abyss damage	PvP	PvE
1	—	—	no penalty
2	+10%	—	−5%
5	+12.5%	—	−10%
8	+15%	—	−15%
12	+20%	—	−20%

So at Decanus every piece past the first is a straight −5% PvE for no set reward — all your PvP damage comes from the items’ own stats. The abyss-damage and PvE columns are the same on every tier, but the PvP column is not: Centurion and Tribunus add +5% at some thresholds, High Commander +10%. Stacking pieces starts paying for itself later, not here.

The PvP weapon is not part of the set — it never counts toward the penalty. Tiers count separately too, so Centurion pieces and Decanus pieces build two independent totals.

Guard vs accessories

Every Decanus piece is iLvl 67 with 4 manastone slots, so item level is a wash.

Piece	Cost	PvP damage boost	Attack	Skill lines
Offense
Guard	126,200	10%	85	Active
Necklace×1 slot	52,600	5%	68	Passive
Earrings×2 slots	42,100	5%	51	Passive
Ring×2 slots	31,600	5%	34	Active
Defense
Armor, every slot	42,100 – 84,100	5% tolerance, not boost	—	Passive

Per Abyss Point, the Guard is the worst buy on the list

Piece	AP per 1% PvP damage	AP per 1 Attack
Ring	6,320	929
Earrings	8,420	825
Necklace	10,520	773
Guard	12,620	1,484

The Guard gives double the PvP damage of an accessory but costs four times the price of a ring.

So what does the Guard actually buy

The penalty-free slot. Set a Guard’s price against what the same AP buys in accessories:

Buy	Pieces	PvP damage boost	Attack	PvE
Guard alone 126,200 AP	1	10%	85	no penalty
2 Rings 63,200 AP	2	10%	68	−5%
2 Rings + Earrings 105,300 AP	3	15%	119	−5%
2 Rings + 2 Earrings 147,400 AP	4	20%	170	−5%

Two rings match the Guard’s 10% for half the AP — but cost you 5% PvE to do it. The Guard’s entire case is avoiding that: it’s the one PvP piece worth sharing with your PvE build at no cost.

Pick by which game you're actually playing

Doing both: Guard first. It’s the only piece that costs you nothing in PvE, it upgrades an offhand slot where your PvE alternatives sit at iLvl 50–55, and it rolls Active skill lines.

Committed to PvP: skip it. Two rings and earrings give 15% for less AP than the Guard’s 10%, and you were going to eat the −5% eventually anyway.

Accessory order

All three give identical PvP damage boost, and ring and earring slots are doubled while the necklace is a single — so the first four buys are two rings and two earrings. Order them on price and what else they carry:

1. Ring — cheapest per point of PvP damage, and rolls Active skill lines. Skill levels 15+ come only from arcana lines and ring or necklace soulbinds, so these carry value beyond the PvP stat.
2. Earrings — half again the attack of a ring per slot (51 vs 34) for a third more AP. Passive lines. Take these first if you want stats now over skill levels.
3. Necklace — the most attack and defense of any single accessory and the best attack per AP, but it fills one slot and rolls Passive lines.

Armor comes last in every case: it buys damage tolerance, not damage.

Enhance order

Take all your PvE gear to +11 first, then start on PvP gear. PvP pieces reach +5 cheaply; put the Guard at +10 and leave the rest at +5 until your PvE set clears the content you need it to.

Past that point, spend on stigma shards rather than abyss armor.

Weapons

Class type	Take
Melee	An extend weapon — it doubles auto-attack range and is considered mandatory. Every Fire Temple weapon is extend; Ludra and sanctuary weapons also qualify
Ranged	Just use your PvE weapon. The PvE damage bonus outweighs the PvP lines and keeps you clearing PvE content

Stat lines for PvP

The build is aggressive, not defensive — you win by landing hits, not by living longer.

• Every defensive line → Accuracy. If the target has block or evasion and you can’t beat it, you never connect.
• Offensive lines: roughly 20% Attack Bonus, the rest Accuracy.
• Genus lines 3 and 9 → Smite, same as PvE.
• Not every class wants evasion or block — check which one your passives buff.

For a hybrid build, use the PvE soulbind layout; it holds up for most cases.

Feathers are the cheapest PvP damage you’ll get

PvP feathers raise the PvP monolith, which pays Daevanion points for the PvP board. The Azphel board carries four PvP Damage Boost tiles at 2.5% each — clearing every season-1 feather is +10% PvP damage for no gear at all. That is more than any two abyss pieces will give you at Decanus, and it costs no PvE penalty.

Abyss mechanics worth knowing

Rule	Detail
AP splits by group	A 10,000 AP kill pays 5,000 each in a duo and 1,000 each in a ten-stack. Large zergs are AP-inefficient
Same target, 3×	A given player pays AP three times, then nothing. Resets on the hour
Weekly AP cap	Once capped, mobs pay no AP and no ranking. Killing players still pays ranking, so rank chasing continues
Rank 56+	Unlocks a 20-minute Guardian Lord transformation, 2 h cooldown. Rank 1 gets no extra buff — only more size, which extends melee reach
Abyss commands	Four tiers in the Command Shop — 15k, Proficiency 37.5k, Elite 75k, Special Mission 150k. 5 of each per week, per server, and the scrolls are character-bound. The reward list runs left to right from most to least likely — reroll for stigma shards, and each reroll costs more than the last
Corridors	Solo instance, mobs pay AP. Farm it whenever it’s up
Sieges	On a timer. At zero the point goes neutral and a boss spawns — the faction that lands the last hit takes the teleport point and a corridor
Supply requests	No combat risk, exempt from the AP cap. Reportedly ~35,000 AP on day one — most of a gear piece
Arena	Not gear-equalized, so gear difference decides matches — but a potent steady AP source regardless