Guild Wars 2

I’m not new to PvP, I have alot of hotjoin games and some soloq, but the thing that’s stopping me from immersing myself in ranked is map awareness. I want to know exactly where I should be on the map at all times without having to be told by other people. If you guys could link me any guides that explain this (especially with screenshots of the minimap and real world examples) I’d really appreciate it.

1/ Watch mini map as much as possible. There’s no guide for that. If you can’t do it, you won’t improve.

1bis/ Watch behind and around you when walking. No ennemy should be able to sneak behind you unnoticed. If they do, step up and focus more!

2/ Have basic knowledge of movement and strategy : Are you needed where you currently are ? Would you be more useful somewhere else ?
COUNT NUMBERS : How many of your mates are fighting where. Count ennemies as well. How favorable/unfavorable the fights all over the map are. React accordingly. Consider travelling time. Which brings me to 3.

3/ Don’t suicide on a node to keep it neutral 3 seconds longer. If a fight is lost and you’re not there, suck it up, wait and regroup.

4/ Be aware of ennemy’s respawn timers. If you wipe the ennmy and decide to go far, have something up to disengage and be ready to leave the node uncapped. Also, After a wipe, people tend to go for your close so cover it if no one on your team is doing it. You don’t need to afk on close point, just be in a position from where you can see ennemies getting out of their spawn and know where they go. Be aware of stealth tho as they sneak past you and get your close neutral if you’re not careful.

5/ Accept that you can’t see everything by yourself and accept your mates’ calls after having counted numbers through minimap. Also, you’ll get teamed up with good players more often than not and they tend to ping and draw on the mini map instead of typing. So again >> Watch minimap.

6/ For better awareness during fights, spam your rotations on the training dummies in the mists so that when you actually play you can focus on the fights instead of which buttons to press.

And play. A lot. Also, don’t trust any of your mates unless they prove you they deserve to be trusted. And don’t be a kitten as well, it’s the best way to avoid kittens afking.

That’s pretty much it. Have fun.

Also, I would recommend you to watch our games during the Good Fights Invitationnal tournament on either Blu’s or Guildnews’ channel. It’ll give you an idea of how to rotate. Mute the video, put on some music and watch minimap.

Thank you so much Karsaib, it’s great to get advice from a person as highly skilled/ranked as yourself. I’ve seen your team in many shoutcasted tournaments, I’ve had the idea of muting the sound and commentating the match myself, to have another person suggest this out of blue means it has to be a solid way to learn. I’ll bookmark this post and look back on it until all of these things are second nature for me.