Guild Wars 2

I’m a D/D elementalist if that matters. I’m trying to get into PVP but I noticed that I’m getting destroyed every time I try to play it. I’m completely unfamiliar with enemy abilities so I don’t know when to dodge and how to counter certain moves. I don’t really know how people are strategizing so I feel like I’m running around spamming skills and dying.

Is there a good way to ease myself into the whole PVP scene? Any useful readings available to look at?

The best way to get into the pvp scene is to pvp. Go play it and die over and over until you stop dying and start winning. In pvp, there’s no substitute for experience.

I would say to start joining some free tournaments once you get comfortable with your build and class abilities. It is less of a zerg when it is 5v5 so it easier to see what is going on. The 8v8 spvp is filled with glass cannons that can be hard to deal with until you learn to counter them, especially as an elementalist with a low hp pool.

Actually I had a really hard time with my elem also. I enjoy using a rifle/hammer build with my warrior and Thief is super fun in pvp (I have a venomous dag/dag build). I advise trying different characters and builds until you find your nitch.

Do NOT start with the free tournaments at first, you will learn nothing since you will just get focused out in all fights if you dont know what is going on, you will learn nothing. Instead just do hotjoins for a while, the new 5v5 hotjoins once they come out. You will learn the other classes abilities with time.

ele is quite hard and very squishi profession… get some good build with mediocre survivability at least

you say you are D/D, do you use signet/aura build?

Read all your skills, find out what they are best used for (interrupt, burst damage, running away, supporting, and so on), and then apply them to different situations that you’ll come across. Start by finding a burst attack combo and a “run away” combo, then work your way up from there. Then when you’ve become comfortable with your profession, you slowly move on to learning what your enemies does, and then learn how to counter it.

I disagree with people saying the Elementalist is the hardest to learn, though. No doubt that you can do a lot of combos, but the set up of the Elementalist is simple. Fire is power damage and burning, water is healing and vulnerability, air is critical damage, control and speed, earth is defense and bleeds.

Be patient. You will be killed, alot. Things will feel cheap, ALOT. Every time you ask yourself “How the heck did [insert class here] do that?” go look it up in a skill builder. Understanding how/what common class specs do is a big part of how you’ll be playing. You don’t want to let a GS wielding warrior hit you with a bola, you dont want a shbow thief keeping you at max range, etc etc.

Edit: You might also want to talk to some friends/other eles/guildies to get a spec or 2 that is solid. Most of the frustration I had in the first week was based around running AWFUL specs and not being sure what was going wrong.

Find a Duel server (join one with guildies or ask In the Heart if anyone knows of any open ones) so you can 1 v1 people, learn there class and spec, what to expect, etc…