Guild Wars 2

Hey,

I got into sPvP a few days ago and thought I’d write some of my thoughts down. Perhaps it’ll inspire someone else to try it out.

So I’ve been playing Guild Wars 2 since March, almost exclusively PvE. I’ve recently gotten a bit into WvW and had gotten somewhat annoyed about how I often get so destroyed 1v1 there.

I wondered if sPvP would be a good place to train for that. However from the beginning that game mode held absolutely no interest for me. I thought:

• it’s stressful
• everyone will be better than me
• there will be mean comments and elitism

Still, I finally decided I would try at least one match. I read up some info on the wiki & forum, selected my gear and looked for a build, which I hoped would suit me (my main is a “classic” Condi-Necro).

So then I tried to go into “Hot-Join”, but couldn’t find the button for that :/ Well, a quick question in the forum here solved that and I was into my first game. Second game. Third… well, you get the idea. Several hours later I said “wow, this is the most fun I had in a very long time”.

Turn’s out the game is:

• relaxed / easy-going, no pressure
• there are no mean comments (well, some out-of-frustration-moments, but not many and nothing personal so far)
• amazingly fast
• I’m actually not too bad (this one really surprised me, I don’t have teen-reflexes anymore…)
• very satisfying
• so much fun

Now that I’m consistently one of the top-scoring players of a match, I’m considering trying out “Solo Queue”, but I’m not rushing it.

Here are two suggestions, which I think might lower the learning curve for new players:

• Use the same terms in and out of game. For example if it is called “Hot Join” in official posts, call it that on the UI too.
• Put more general hints in the match-opening window. For example “2 people on a Capture points are not capping it faster than 1” – no, this was not intuitive for me and I don’t remember it being explained in-game.

Now, there are things I don’t like, don’t get me wrong *cough*Skyhammer*cough*, but I can live with that.

So… sorry if I was rambling, I’m just having so much fun with it, I want to get the word out to anyone who might be a little unsure about trying it out.

Oh, and if some matches aren’t going your way, always remember: all is vain.

-Alberto-

Congratulation for effectively entering the pvp community

On a side note, it’s amazing how many people in game will get that reference lol (all is vain)

Some legit concerns raised here, it’s good to have a fresh perspective once in a while.

Also nice to see people are in fact enjoying the game.

Yes, Skyham.

Awesome! Yes, pvp is a great place to train for 1v1s in WvW. You’ll get as much real experience with small fights in a few hours of solo queues as you would in months of WvW.

Enjoy the honeymoon while it lasts. That’s a post I might have made my first week too.

There’s a lot of good in GW2 PvP. But a lot of bad also. Do your best to enjoy the good more than suffer the bad.

hey we need more new blood in sPvP!
especially from PvE / WvW players!

welcome !!!

Don’t play tPvP until you’re at least rank 15, please.

Keira Ferland.5619:

Don’t play tPvP until you’re at least rank 15, please.

That’s why we have a MMS.. If you’re as good as you claim you are then you won’t even come close to being with him in tpvp.

Pretty cool you had a good first experience. the best way to learn to game would be pvp probably, pve is just mindlessly killing mobs and you’re not paying attention to other people their skills and wvw is usually a zerg fest. Tell your friends about this, maybe they’re willing to give it a shot as well.

Bsgapollo.5364:

Keira Ferland.5619:

Don’t play tPvP until you’re at least rank 15, please.

That’s why we have a MMS.. If you’re as good as you claim you are then you won’t even come close to being with him in tpvp.

That only works when there are TONS of players actively PvP’ing, so that you’ll end up with low-ranked players being put alongside other low-ranked players.

Unfortunately the reality is that low-ranked players end up in higher-ranked matches just to fill up vacant slots.

It could be avoided if TPvP simply didn’t allow anyone below rank 10-15 to queue.

Only 4 months since I created my “beginner’s thread” on this forum and I know exactly how you feel

For these 4 months nothing has changed too much. I still enjoy PvP most of any other aspect of the game and I still feel like a noob. I realize how much I have improved only if I jump in hot join for some reason (if I have connection problems for example) or if I go to WvW and jump on so called “roamers” by accident. But the truth is I totally lost interest in WvW.

I hope you’ll stick with PvP in spite of the problems you might face here. Probably you’ll meet trolls who whisper you insults, bad players who’ll blame you for their lost, good players with bad attitude (go back to PvE noob), sometimes you’ll feel lost in the leaderboards, sometimes you’ll feel like you’re not improving at all, and probably few times you’ll decide to quit PvP for good. But after all you’ll have great times.

Welcome to PvP Alberto and have fun!

Glad you are enjoying sPvP! Stay in hotjoins as long as you like to get comfortable, but as soon as you have somewhat of an idea what you are doing, don’t be afraid to jump into Solo queue. In hotjoins, no one really takes things seriously. If you are interested in actually getting better at sPvP and playing with people who care about wins/losses, then jump right in. Don’t worry about your rating or your W/L ratio, just focus on improving your own gameplay as well as learning how to act as a team instead of a single player intending to rack up kills (which is how it usually is in hotjoins)

Alberto, u will encounter a lot more angry people in solo queue.

In hot-join nobody cares, but in solo queue there is this weird desire to be 100 or whatever in the leaderboards, so people get angry, really really angry. And whatever u do, don’t play an ele in solo queue, i had people (already reported) that desired my death through cancer just for playing and losing a solo queue match with my ele. It seems that if i played warrior we would have won (my record is 7 reports in 3 games, in one game 3 of my teammates whispered me to desire a happy holydays in their own way, through cancer or aids).

Also, in solo queue u will eventually realize that there is only so much u can do and a lot of times all is vain.

Still, even with all that and the obvious balance problems of the game, u can have some nice matches if u endure the bad ones (arena net, where is my surrender button!!, let me forfeit the match and move on!!).

Hey… thanks for the welcomes, advice and suggestions I’m still having a blast and hope to see you in-game. Take care.

As a Conditionmancer you should’ve good, soft start. However, as you slowly get into sPvP, try mixing up your builds, utilities, gear, weapons. Meta builds you will find on the net, claimed as to be “the best” are not the way to go. Customizing your build to your needs and playstyle is a first step. For example, not many meta builds for Necromancers include Epidemic in their build. However, if you like fighting with more than one person, you may find it very useful. Keep in mind that most of current meta builds are designed to work for 1v1. I’d strongly recommend you to go check all your utilities out and look for “Tips&Tricks” threads for your class. You will find very useful stuff, like how Great epidemic can be when fighting a Ranger, when comboing with other classes abilities to e.g. achueve 16 second AoE fears etc.
Try to play 5 on 5 hotjoin type. They have less zerging. If you feel confident enough, you may try 1v1 servers. However, it may be tough experience. But don’t be afraid to watch people playing as a spectator!

Hey, welcome to the PvP side of things!

Great perspective with your post. I know when I came to sPvP, I had some pretty similar expectations/experiences, but one of the most confusing things for me was just queuing up for a game with a friend or two in your party. I mean, in WoW, you just got in a party and queued for a game, which would automatically queue your party.

In GW2, unless you’re doing tPvP, you have to join a game, then have everyone follow you into what is hopefully a game that isn’t too full. You also have to hope that your friends get on your team or can switch over or don’t get “autobalanced” on the other team unless you and your friend enjoy that.

Ignoring for a second how problematic this system inherently is, it’s also pretty confusing to figure out since your friends don’t get any pop when you join and the mechanics of getting to the same team aren’t really intuitive either.

Yes, there is tPvP, but when you’re not looking to do a serious game or sit in a long queue to get in a game, it’s a pretty lame trade-off. It’s also not very clear that you can do tPvP with less than 5 people.

Rym – Thanks for that specific advice. I had been using a PvP-build I found on the net (which was not too different from what I had been using before) – and what you wrote encouraged me to try different traits, utilities & sigils.

I feel much more comfortable with this now! After all, what good is a “must-have”-trait, if you never use it due to your personal play-style.

Also it makes it much more “my” character. Very nice

AlbertoUlkesh.4517:

Hey,

I got into sPvP a few days ago and thought I’d write some of my thoughts down. Perhaps it’ll inspire someone else to try it out.

So I’ve been playing Guild Wars 2 since March, almost exclusively PvE. I’ve recently gotten a bit into WvW and had gotten somewhat annoyed about how I often get so destroyed 1v1 there.

I wondered if sPvP would be a good place to train for that. However from the beginning that game mode held absolutely no interest for me. I thought:

• it’s stressful
• everyone will be better than me
• there will be mean comments and elitism

Still, I finally decided I would try at least one match. I read up some info on the wiki & forum, selected my gear and looked for a build, which I hoped would suit me (my main is a “classic” Condi-Necro).

So then I tried to go into “Hot-Join”, but couldn’t find the button for that :/ Well, a quick question in the forum here solved that and I was into my first game. Second game. Third… well, you get the idea. Several hours later I said “wow, this is the most fun I had in a very long time”.

Turn’s out the game is:

• relaxed / easy-going, no pressure
• there are no mean comments (well, some out-of-frustration-moments, but not many and nothing personal so far)
• amazingly fast
• I’m actually not too bad (this one really surprised me, I don’t have teen-reflexes anymore…)
• very satisfying
• so much fun

Now that I’m consistently one of the top-scoring players of a match, I’m considering trying out “Solo Queue”, but I’m not rushing it.

Here are two suggestions, which I think might lower the learning curve for new players:

• Use the same terms in and out of game. For example if it is called “Hot Join” in official posts, call it that on the UI too.
• Put more general hints in the match-opening window. For example “2 people on a Capture points are not capping it faster than 1” – no, this was not intuitive for me and I don’t remember it being explained in-game.

Now, there are things I don’t like, don’t get me wrong *cough*Skyhammer*cough*, but I can live with that.

So… sorry if I was rambling, I’m just having so much fun with it, I want to get the word out to anyone who might be a little unsure about trying it out.

Oh, and if some matches aren’t going your way, always remember: all is vain.

-Alberto-

Awesome that you got to join the community!

Also, thank you so much for doing hotjoin matches first and gaining some experience! Experienced players really applaud you for that!

Just go solo queue 100% tryhard and keep at it.