Many factors can be considered when one enter PvP in Wurm. All combat skills are used while PvPing, and these including your shield skill, weapon skill, fight skill, fighting stance skill, bow skill, archery skill, and player characteristics. Having higher in any of these can attribute to your success, however it is generally advised to be trained in at least one shield skill, weapon skill, and fighting stance of your choice. Overall fight skill is considered to be the most important skill in PvP, as it adds greatly to your overall combat rating. Having higher fight skill will allow the player to hit more, but so will having greater weapon and fighting sub skills. Having a higher shield skill is important to block both blows in up close pvp, and arrows for long ranged. Fighting stances are another choice the player must make. Currently, they can choose between Defensive, Aggressive, and Normal fighting modes, which all have their specific advantages and disadvantages. In long ranged combat, both bow and archery skill are considered important. Most frequently players use Long Bows, although Medium and Short Bows are considered to have their tactical advantages and lower ranges.
Beyond skills the other major character attribute that effects PvP are the player characteristics. Body Strength, Body Stamina, Body Control, Mind Speed, Soul Strength, and Soul Depth all have some effect on PvP. Having higher body strength will allow you to hit harder, while having higher body stamina will increase your stamina. The over all body skill increases a player's "toughness", and therefor is also considered important, although it levels on its own with your other skills. Body control is believed to increase the players chance dodge and perform critical strikes. While the effects of Mind Speed let's lets you cast more spells before becoming overheated, it is considered to make focusing easier, and perhaps increase chance to hit, aim, and perform special moves. Soul Strength and Soul Depth factor into spell resistance and ability to cast spells. For priest, having a high Soul Depth and Soul Strength means the ability to cast stronger spells, while for normal players it will improve their resistance to said spells, as well as to the effects of the Orb of Doom. Because of characteristics important roll in PvP, crafters who decide to fight have a notable advantage in combat, assuming they train their skills to certain standards.
== Player Death ==
If you die in PvP you do not lose skills as you usually would. Instead, you take a .25 hit to your fight skill, as well as a small loss in body strength. If a resurrection stone is not active, or the player is not a 70+ faith Magranon priest, all items are dropped on death, and can be picked up by the opposing faction and looted. PvP can be very high risk, because losing all of your items, including valuable scale and drake, is a possibility. Players may also lose an affinity on death, and it is transferred to an opponent who damaged the player. If you kill a player on PvP, or are apart of a kill, you can gain a few possible things. All kills on players with above 10~ fight skill will give fight skill gains. A seventy fight skill player will give roughly .25 at 70 fs. This scales as you or the enemy gains or loses in fight skill. If you get a hit on an enemy, you may also receive their affinity. There is no limit to the number of affinities a player can have other than a max of 5 in any one skill, and all players receive one upon start up. If they lose their last affinity they will recieve receive another after a set period of time. Finally, upon killing a player or dying, a player gains or loses rank. All players start with 1000 rank, and give progressively less as they died. Contrarily, if a player with very high rank dies to one with a very low rank, the amount lost from the player is increased greatly. While you may find yourself gaining only one rank from a group kill, when you die you may lose twenty or more, as your rank has been spread across all of the players that killed you. Likewise, killing an opponent in solo combat will increase the amount of rank you gain, as there are no other players to spread the rank to. The same can be applied to fight skill.
== Armor ==