How to Get Good at 1.8 PVP in Minecraft: 7 Tips (Java Edition)

Hello! I will be walking you through a basic tutorial on 1.8 Minecraft PVP. Note that I will not be covering any 1.9+ PVP stuff.

1.8 supplies

-A sword

-Full armor set

-Bow

-Fishing rod

In Minecraft, there are many items that have different uses. For example, the blast furnace can cook food fast, the shovel can break dirt easily, redstone dust can be used to create redstone wires, brewing, and crafting. However, you should know most of the items for PVP. This is essential to PVP, because if you don't know what an item is, it would be confusing and if you use it wrong you might find yourself in a bad situation. If you do not know what an item does, you can search on the internet to try and find out. I will be listing some of the items that you will come across a lot in the PVP community.

-Sword: A weapon that will damage a player if you left click on it near them. (Pretty obvious)

-Fishing Rod: Will stop a players movement for a momentarily if you right click on it.

-Bow: Will do damage to a player if you right click on it and let go, can also stop a players movement for a short time.

-Snowballs and Eggs: Can stop an opponents movement momentarily from a far range, but cannot do damage.

-Flint and steel: Can light fire to your opponent if they step on the fire, you have to light the fire on a surface.

These will be common if you are playing PVP. Knowing your items are also important in 1.9+ PVP (later versions), but however 1.9+ has different items.

Once you learn what items are used for, you should learn how to strafe. Strafing is pressing your keys A and D, which moves your character left or right, to confuse your opponent. There are types of strafing, like circle strafing and 45 degree strafes, but they are not very important. All you should know is that strafing is pressing your keys A and D to confuse your opponent, as you are moving left and right inconsistently. There are many tutorials on strafing, I recommend you check them out.

Projectiles are long ranged objects that can be shot or thrown. They can be very useful in a PVP battle. I will be listing them below.

-Fishing Rod: This will be the most common projectile you will see in PVP. You throw the rod, and hit them with your sword while their movement is stopped.

-Eggs and Snowballs: These are going to be the least common in most PVP games, but in Skywars PVP it is very popular. They can knock your opponent in the void by throwing them, but they cannot do damage.

-Bow: This will be another common object in PVP. You can load up your arrow in your bow, and when you are ready let go of right click and shoot. This is the only projectile in 1.8 that can do damage.

Remember that once you hit your opponent with a projectile, switch to your weapon and attack them whole their movement is stopped. This can lead to combos easily.

Most people probably use their scroll wheel for Minecraft, however this is bad, it is much faster to use numbers. Some people will probably ask, "What do I do if I can't reach 6,7,8,9,0?". Go to Options>Controls, and change whatever number you cannot reach and change it to a letter, e.g. R,F,G,X,Z. It might take a few days or a few weeks to get used to it, but it is important.

This is probably one of the most important "steps" in this entire thing. Sprint resetting is where you reset your sprint after hitting your opponent. Why? When you first hit your opponent, your opponent will fly back a ton of blocks away. In other words, you dealt a lot of knockback (KB) to your opponent. However, when you hit your opponent a second time, the KB will less then when you first hit your opponent. This is sprint resetting helps you. Sprint resetting makes it so that after you hit your opponent, you stop moving, and when you hit your opponent, it will deal the same KB to your opponent like if you just hit your opponent the first time, to gain combos as your opponent is moving further away from you, making it easier to combo. There are 3 main ways how to sprint reset. W tapping, S tapping, and block hitting are the main ones. W tapping is where you hit your opponent, release pressing W from your keyboard for brief second (you don't want to be late or else you are getting comboed), and sprint again when you are going to hit your opponent. So attack, stop pressing W, attack, stop pressing W, you get the idea. W tapping should be used most of the time in PVP fights. There is a common mistake where people spam W and think it is W tapping. This will not help if you W tap at the wrong time. Another common sprint reset method is block hitting. Block hitting is where you hit your opponent and then block your sword. (right click) A lot of people spam block hitting because blocking can reduce damage. I recommend you do not block hit spam unless you are near your opponent. (like 1 block away) The final sprint resetting method is S tapping. S tapping is where after you hit your opponent you press S. Pressing S and W at the same time will cause your character to stop moving, in case you did not know. So hit your opponent, press S (do not let go of your W key), hit your opponent, press S. S tapping is good for maintaining combos or if you drank a speed potion, however do not use it to maintain combos.

CPS (Clicks Per Second) is important in PVP. The higher your CPS, they less KB (Knockback) you will take. There are 3 main methods to get higher CPS. Jitter clicking, butterfly clicking, and drag clicking. Jitter clicking is putting you thumb or middle finger together with you index finger, treat it like one finger, remove your palm from your hand, and only put your 2 fingers on the mouse. Tense your muscles and start clicking. Your wrist should vibrate and should at least get 8-14 CPS. Jitter clicking can make your aim bad, so lower your sensitivity if you cannot aim. Butterfly clicking involves clicking with 2 fingers, but you alternate each finger. (usually going to be your index and middle) You can butterfly with double clicking (a phenomenon where you physically click your mouse once but your computer registers two clicks) and it can get you up to 20 CPS. The last method is drag clicking. You drag your finger up the mouse, which will create a lot of CPS if done correctly. Drag clicking is used often for godbridging or telly bridging, the 2 fastest bridging methods in Minecraft. It works because there is friction between the mouse button and your finger. If done well, you can go up 30 to even 80 CPS! However, you cannot drag click on every mouse. Drag clicking can only work if your mouse can double click.

Note: Some servers will count butterfly clicking (with double clicking) and drag clicking as an autoclicker if you have too high CPS. Do not use these methods unless the server can detect an autoclicker at a high CPS. (Like 150 CPS)

After learning these techniques, you probably want to practice these to memorize it. A good server to practice 1.8 PVP is Pvp Land, where can fight bots at different levels of reach and CPS. (IP: pvp.land) You can also fight other players there too in different modes. (Note: the players are toxic) There are also things to avoid in PVP that I will list.

- Mistake: Shifting or blocking your sword reduces KB/Shifting or blocking your sword does not reduce KB. This mistake is very common with beginners. People think that shifting/blocking can reduce KB because you move slower. This is not true. Sometimes you can get comboed by doing shifting or blocking for 5 seconds.

-W tapping increases range/W tapping does not increase reach. It increases KB but not reach. (Idk why people think that)