Another requested topic was for dueling and people that grief duelers. This is quite the topic so I am going to break it into 4 different parts:
Part 1: An initial overview and my thoughts on dueling in general
Part 2: The unwritten rules for people wanting to try it
Part 3: Mythic’s stance on dueling
Part 4: People that grief duelers
Part 1: Overview
People duel for many reasons, and contrary to what a lot of people believe, it is not because they have outstanding questions about their sexual orientation and harbour feelings of wanting to ruin their server. For the vast majority of duelers, they are simply looking for the thrill of 1 vs 1 combat pitting their knowledge and skill against another persons knowledge and skill. Others may do it to test out tactic setups and gear choices to fine tune their characters.
Duelers in my experience tend to be among the min/maxer crowd and often gain a good base of knowledge of the enemy classes which does often translate into increased performances in a group vs group setting. The key though, is that they enjoy it and do it for the fun.
Another common misconception is that duelers are simply swapping tokens or renown in a rank up quick scheme. The reality is, while a small number of people setup farming of other characters only for gain, they really are not considered duelers and would probably find a way to exploit the system anyways. Token gain is almost non-existant from 1v1 and both tokens and renown could be earned as fast or faster participating in other areas of the game.
Personally, I do not duel. It is not because I feel it is wrong, but because I really do strongly prefer the group vs group battles.
I have some good friends/guildies that like to duel and I will help set them up if I am able to. Sometimes I think I should duel more, just to learn more about the inner workings of other classes, it would probably make me a better player. Maybe I will try it out when writing the next part of this article…
The next part is the unwritten rules of dueling and how to get involved if you are interested.