What is Corrupted Dungeon?
Corrupted Dungeons seen in the eyes of an average player.
1-on-1 PvEvP Experience
A dungeon consists of PvE and PvP. Builds are either designed to take advantage of 1v1 fight, or the PvE mechanics included.
IP Capped Instance
In this dungeon, your IP is reduced / capped depending on the dungeon difficulty you have selected.
Incentivized PvP
In stalker/slayer difficulty, your main source of profit is in your enemy's inventory, with a little incentive from the dungeon itself.
Disclaimer: This is not from a Corrupted Dungeons "pro", but from an average player who plays it for fun, and wanted to share his realizations and stuff. If you have corrections, suggestions, and any other things to say about this guide, send an in-game mail to "Deceius". Have a nice day.
Things to Remember
You have entered the corrupted dungeon, what's next?
By game design, the Corrupted Dungeon is a "Dungeon", not a PvP arena.
Unlike Hellgates, in Corrupted Dungeons, the enemies doesn't disappear when a PvP is about to happen. It is a dungeon, and it will act one. Complete with mobs, bosses, and all that stuff. Players can either clear a specific area in the dungeon to take the fight, without mobs interfering... or lure into an area to use the mobs to your advantage.
How does PvP happen in the CDG?
PvP happens when a dungeon is "invaded" by another player. How this "invasion" happens? The corrupted has this match-up running while you clear the dungeon ang gain "infamy", which is the basis of the match-up. If you want to invade, just interact on the shrine at the beginning of the dungeon.
Gear Introduction
An Overview on gears you will usually encounter.
In general, what gears are most suitable on a Corrupted Dungeon?
If you are looking for just taking advantage on the loots of the dungeon, always go for full-on mobility. If you are looking for a fight, on average, always have a build that has the 3 factors: Consistent Offense, Sustain, and Mobility.
Consistent Offense
Consistent "Offense" is not just damage. It can be either Sustained Damage, Heavy CC, or Burst Damage. Something that you are doing consistently. Practically how your build attacks.
In CDG, there are the most common weapons that you will encounter (by the time of writing this): Black Hands, Quarterstaff, and Regular Bow.
Black Hands is an example for Burst Damage, as its combo is to gain buff damage from Hellion Shoes, and Deal its E skill, the Devastating Blow. After that, use defensive skills, reset cooldown with Assassin Hood, and do combo again. If done successfully, that will surely defeat the opponent because it gives off a high amount of damage.
Quarterstaff, on another hand, excels in Crowd Control (CC) skills. Its combo consist of stuns and slow, and occassional burst damage. This will not only prevent you from attacking the enemy, but can kite until your opponent's HP is low enough to go for the kill.
Regular Bow, is the simplest of them all: Sustained Damage. The more it trades auto-attacks on the player, the more it gets stronger. Most of its skills are just for buffing and setting up the best opportunity for sustained barrage of auto attacks.
Sustain
This build factor is a set of skills and gears that prevents you from having your HP to zero. This is not limited to shields and defense buffs, but the ones that prevents your enemy to deal damage.
There two types of Sustain skills, which Defensive and Disable. There are a lot of examples, but commonly, there are three items that come into mind: Guardian Helmet, Cultist Cowl, and with the combination of the two, Hunter Hood.
Guardian Helmet is the most basic item that will defend you against enemies. With its mechanic, the lower your HP gets, the higher its shield value. It can be used as the last resort as a shield, or a counter to Damage-over-Time skills (which is to be discussed later).
Cultist Cowl is the most popular Disable sustain skill, as its skill Inner Corruption deals magical damage everytime the enemy auto-attacks or uses any type of skill. This is very useful as it cannot be purged from the user, because you cast it on your enemy.
Hunter Hood is what can be considered a combination of the two: It gives you a little Defensive buff, and somewhat Disables the enemy from dealing damage, as it returns 70% of the damage taken of its wearer.
Mobility
In the title itself, its the gears / skills that helps you to move around the dungeon. It can either be used to flee or chase, but that depends on the current situation. The common CDG mobility gears are Soldier Boots, Hellion Shoes, and Cleric Sandals.
The Soldier Boots is the most straight-forward mobility gear that you will ever have. For a moment of time, it gradually increases your mobility until you're too fast to either catch or to escape from. This is also useful in open-world.
Hellion Shoes on another hand, is mostly effective on engaging with the enemy, preferrably with a Heavy Burst Damage build. It allows the user to go invisible and channel for 2 seconds, and dash to an unobstracted path next to the player. It buffs the wearer's damage by 20%.
Cleric Sandals is the most fun with the previous mobility gears mentioned. It blinks you to your specified location (needs to be unobstructed from you). It may sound simple, but this is useful against AoE skills, and can i-frame heavy damage if timed perfectly.
Builds Overview
The play-styles and sets that work in the Corrupteds
Builds dictate your fundamentals
In any Corrupted Dungeon fights, there are these unspoken "classes" or "types" of player that you will encounter. These are the Kite builds, One-shot builds, and Brawling builds.
You might say that there are plenty of variety in weapons, but if you look close enough, it usually narrows down to these three.
(Disclaimer: The builds mentioned below are NOT the only way to play the said weapons. There are plenty of combinations you can do in Albion, and should any other gears suit your play style very well, then go for it. I recommend that you make your own build, that way, you'll be better than most of the people who play the game.)
Kite Build
These builds are the most annoying to fight and the most efficient way to fight in a dungeon with narrow spaces and full of traps that you could take advantage. They use light CC such as slows and mini-stuns, with also ways to disengage in a short period of time.
The prime example that we could use for this is the infamous Warbow.
For this build, it requires patience as you will slowly burn down your enemy's HP from a distance. If you love the thrill of the chase, this build is for you.
You would want to chip your enemy's HP from a distance, and should they ever get near you, you can use Frost Shot to get away and continue auto-attacking. Ocassional Deadly Shots could help, and should the distance is right, you can maximize the use of the Magic Arrow, as it boosts your damage the farther you are to the target.
The Assassin Jacket can be used as a damage buff, or an escape since you wouldn't face your enemy head on like a brawl.
The Guardian Helmet is the perfect choice for this build as it gives you a shield thick enough to sustain, and removes any Damage-over-Time effects so you could reset faster.
Given with the Bow's mobility and kiting skills, using Assassin Shoes will not only give you a short period invulnerability, but also some movement speed boost, long enough for you to get away or setup your next auto-attacks.
One-Shot Build
The build that deletes. The one-shot build's goal is to finish the fight in one combo, with little to no resistance as much as possible. It usually starts off with heavy CC, follows up with any kind of damage possible alongside with insane damage buff.
One-shot Pike qualifies to this, as it has little time for setup, and usually doesn't need any follow up after the combo.
The one-shot Pike usually starts off with using the Royal Sandals' Defenseless Rush to boost your damage, then use the Pike's Rooting Smash, then Silence with the Demon Helmet's Hush through an Auto Attack... which triggers the Demon Cape.
Should the enemy fight back, you can use the Lunging Strike or Impaler to keep them in place, and use Everlasting Spirit to boost your damage while being Invulnerable for 3 seconds.
As opposed to many people say, one-shot builds require proper timing to perfectly execute. It is not a mindless build, at least in my opinion. Should that first engage fails, there is a little to no chance of winning for the one-shot build.
Brawling Build
This build will only work if you commit to Auto-attacks and pressure your enemy to outdamage all of their sustain. This build usually consists of attack speed buff, damaging Q skill, counter to enemy buffs / attacks, mobility, and most of all, some sort of a "finisher".
An example we could use for this is the Broadsword.
The sword weapon tree is designed with mobility, consistent damage, and ocassional burst damage in mind.
With that said, this Broadsword build works like you have to complete your Heroic Stacks as it buffs your movement and attack speed, and your E skill as well. Time the E skill perfectly and the enemy won't be able to out-sustain your attacks. With its 10 second cooldown, this is the most effective sword for brawling 1v1.
To support this, you have the Soldier Boots, which makes outrunning you almost impossible, the Cultist Cowl to prevent your enemy on countering you, and should the enemy uses their sustain / shield spells, you will be able to purge them with the Mage Robe.
Your Taproot boosts your Max HP and the Bridgewatch Cape AoE slows and decreases your enemy's damage, which gives you enough time and sustainability on dealing damage.
How about consumables? Food?
These kind of things are for the player to decide, and most of it depends on the match-up. I suggest that you experiment with the food and potion for you to understand how significant the effect of the said item slots.
"Special" Weapons
Albion Online is a PvP MMORPG that thrives on small-scale (<20) and ZVZ (50+) fights. With that said, most of its offensive, defensive and utility skills are designed to that content. And that means there will always be a build that seems to be "unfair" in a 1v1 fight.
There is not much to say but to get good, move on, fight and repeat. There is no stopping you from using "that" cheesy build, destroy crystals to escape, or just play another area in-game. There is much to Albion than just Corrupted Dungeons.
Rules of Engagement
My screen turned red and there is an evil presence. What should I do?
Invader vs Invaded: Which is which?
In a PvP situation in the Corrupteds, there are 2 kinds of players: the one invading, or the one being invaded.
By design, the invader is the one who seeks PvP, the one who's more prepared on seeking a fight against the unprepared player. However, with how match-ups work, sometimes, the invaded player sets-up the dungeon to give the invader a very "warm" welcome, the kind of welcome which teleports the invader to his last city.
So there is no really significant difference between the two, aside from the game mechanic where the invader is the one who goes to your dungeon. It is still up to the player to decide on what position to take: is he going to be the invaded one... or the invader who seeks blood?
I saw the enemy! What should I do?
Once your enemy is on screen, make it a habit to Inspect (Y) them first before engaging. This helps you to have an insight on how they play, they escape, and most importantly, how YOU should play in order to win.
The rule of thumb is to never rush, so that you could not be in a disadvantage when it comes to the environment and skillset you're in. So by inspecting them, you could equip the proper potion, the proper food, and skill configuration with your gears. Another note is that CDG is still a dungeon, so its mechanic and environment is a part of your battle. Better adapt to it.
With that said, you've checked their gears, you've checked the area, and it all checks out. It's time to fight.
The Actual Fighting
There is no definite guide or way to fight, unless your build has this one combo to pull off. It really depends on the current situation. What I can give you is the general things to remember during the fight.
Improve Reaction, Minimize Anticipation. Most of the time, you would want to get the most out of your equipment in the Corrupteds, as there will be no one to back you up during the fight.
With that said, you should always be mindful of your enemy's actions-- whether it's closing the gap between them and you, ate a food, applied a buff, or even where they're going, because you will have to react to it accordingly.
Why react rather than prevent their action, you would ask? It's because you don't want to waste your skills on a 1v1 fight. 10 seconds of misused cooldown can get you killed, in a fight where you should be aware of everything because you're on your own.
Your HP is going to be decreased, that debuff will affect you one way or another... why pre-emptively pop your Hunter Hood if your enemy can wait it out until the buff is gone?
Unless you're sure how things would play out, do not act out of anticipation. Every second of cooldown counts.
Use Defensives Smart. Your defensive skills / items are there not to make you secured, they are there to prolong the time you take damage.
Do not wait until you're 3-5 hits away before popping that potion or using that Cleric Robe. Make sure that every hit you will take will be pacified by that defensive action.
Know when to retreat and reset a fight. Once you're dead, you can't go back there to take revenge or take chances to get your loot back. In any fights in Albion, keeping yourself alive is the goal.
General rule is that you escape if you don't have "that" skill available to even put up a fight. You always should want to have a fighting chance. With that said, you should prioritize on saving your Mobility skill to reset a fight, not on using it to engage.
Play your Build Accordingly. Your build consists of different gears to cater a certain play style. It could be a kiting, a one-shot, or a brawling build.
Always play the weapon the way it was designed, since you would want to take advantage anything your build is good at. For example, if you are playing Axes, you would want to brawl it out with the enemy to take advantage of the Bleed, the passive skill of that weapon, and the gear that synergizes with it, which is commonly Mercenary Jacket.
Your items are there to act as one to help you win. Be confident on playing with its strengths, rather than deviating unless you know what you are doing.
Final Thoughts
Corrupted Dungeons is kinda the "try-hard" part of the game, in which some people will abuse it in order to win. I mean, who likes losing, right? With that said, please do not ever forget that it is there for you to have fun, and have a short moment to escape what real life has to offer.
If you're losing, that's okay. Meaning you got matched-up pretty bad, or you have many room for improvement. Either way, please see it as a room for improvement. Dying is a part of the Albion Experience, make the most of it by learning things and to be better.
This guide will probably be expanded and updated as I go and learn more things. I have barely scratched the surface on the mechanics, but I am always seeking to improve. Maybe builds, expanded play style overview, countering, and all that stuff. I haven't played a diverse range of gears, so I can't really just rip-off other builds and post them here. Probably the only thing I can share is how I lost on that build... which is a really good idea to share, if you think about it. But I guess this is it for now.
May your infamy rise and loot tabs full, and as always, Happy Hunting.
PS. Broadsword Master Race