Two major PvP competitions are Black vs White and Storm vs Storm. Black vs White occurs once a week and the black clans fight the white clans for the opportunity to fight True General Wei at the bottom of the Cave of Conquerors for great rewards. The problem with this is that there are many players who wait for the high level players to kill True General Wei then break the jars in the room and loot them while contributing relatively nothing to the fight. True General Wei drops some very nice items though. Storm vs Storm is a competition that occurs about every 2 weeks. Players sign up to compete for a castle. The castle is protected by NPCs and the defending alliance of guilds if there is one. There is an exploit issue where players sign up with their alliance and never show up to the fight in order to prevent invaders from signing up since there is a limit.

Guilds (Hero Bands/Leagues):

Guilds (Hero Bands) are relatively unimportant in 9Dragons gold. They are very limited. You can only recruit up to 40 players who are in the same clan as you. The leaders of Hero Bands from the same side (either all white or all black clans) can unite and form a Hero League which is similar to an alliance. Outside of Storm vs Storm, they serve relatively little purpose. It provides an easier means of communication and organization. Members of the same hero league cannot fight each other in open PvP.

Balancing Issues:

PvP has serious balancing issues. In the old versions, high level mage types had a huge advantage. Warriors have high damage and physical defense but most stat builds are weak against chi kung. It can be avoided by boosting some other stats and using relics but in exchange lose lots of their grinding ability. Healers are at a disadvantage in PvP. They are at a disadvantage in nearly every situation. If they use chi kung they can fight a bit, but defense and hp are very low. If they use physical, their skills are weak and at a disadvantage. If they use chi kung, nukers and most hybrids are still stronger than them because healer skills are quite weak in comparison. Nukers are considered to be the most powerful because they use chi kung and have a mana shield. They have a 2 second delay on many skills but it pales in comparison to what they are capable of. At higher levels, they can also achieve a high defense using some very expensive equipment. Hybrid classes have a paralyze skill that allows them to stop characters from moving. It is very strong because it causes paralyze and bleeding damage which is fatal when in combination eventually causing them to die before getting off a few attacks. This was recently adjusted by lowering the length of paralyze though. Even with all this, the chi kung users still have a huge advantage.