Guild Wars 2

I just started PvP in GW2, and was wondering how many players have recently started the game and are really enjoying the PvP component?

In my first match, I went into the unranked arena but fought a coordinated team with mesmers/elementalists that killed me in 3 shots, while I barely did any damage to them. I’m not sure how much PvE gear plays into PvP in GW2 (I have I am 3/4 full ascended), so is there such a drastic class imbalance in PvP or was it gear? Also, how do the match making work? B/c the players against me today were definitely not new to PvP. At all. From all three matches (I know, n=3 hard to make conclusions, but they’re just first impressions), at least I could tell that.

Personally, I’m discouraged from continuing to PvP. Not sure if I was matched to players near my PvP rank or the fact that mesmers/elementalists/engineers all three-four shot me to death, or I just need more experience. Either way, I am wondering if there are real class imbalances and/or matchmaking faults in GW2.

Everything is equalized your pve gear has no meaning in pvp and most pve specs will not function as they do in pvp

Don’t PvP, it’s a power creeped, unbalanced crap hole. ArenaNet ‘balance’ patch was hilariously awful, it’s something you’d post on April Fools as a joke.

Also, gear does not matter.

Pve gear doesn’t factor in at all. You have to go into the pvp tab and set up both gear and skills as it doesn’t carry over from pve

OK, so gear doesn’t matter. I will try and set up PvP gear tonight, and hopefully have a better experience tomorrow. What about the matchmaking, is that working as intended?

I’m pretty new to PvP and have only done unranked as well.

Gear makes no difference. Go to the top of your screen in the Heart of the Mists and click the little helmet. It lets you choose an “amulet” which will determine your stats, a set of runes, and sigils for your weapons. That is the gearing system in structured PvP. You can also set your PvP-specific build there.

I haven’t had that experience with matchmaking, either. I barely know what I’m doing, but players I get matched with and against all seem to be potatoes. I actually had to Google to find out if this game put bots into matches when it can’t fill them (it doesn’t). I’m not really sure how matchmaking works but I’ve only been matched against an organized team once, and it was at like 4 am EST so…

That said, if you’re getting “3-shot” by Mesmers I think you have bigger problems.

yeah just found out that since there ain’t season pvp, all players are in unranked arenas lol. so makes sense I could get paired with some master pvp’ers.

LOL.
1st of all you cant just hop in gw2 pvp expecting to be a god. It takes practice just like any game you would play.

Also, ranked is not open at the moment so everyone is in the same queue. Once ranked league returns the most serious and experienced players will played ranked, and the casual players with play unranked.

It probably took me about 30-50 games until I was actually decent and understood the gameplay.

I assume you have played a lot of PvE before PvP and I can say that skills is really a factor here. Don’t expect to go mashing buttons and hope to win (except from some classes).

I would suggest that you play more than 3 matches and if you have a hard time grasping the game go try some hot join (the 3rd page in the PvP menu, just go ‘play now’). In there players only play with the winning team, if they are loosing they starts to spectate the match and they if possible they join the winning team. No skill at all just be lucky to get in the right team.

bbennett.7463:

LOL.
1st of all you cant just hop in gw2 pvp expecting to be a god. It takes practice just like any game you would play.

Also, ranked is not open at the moment so everyone is in the same queue. Once ranked league returns the most serious and experienced players will played ranked, and the casual players with play unranked.

It probably took me about 30-50 games until I was actually decent and understood the gameplay.

That’s great, but I never expected to be GOOD. I just expected that since I was a rabbit rank, I’d be placed against opponents near my rank and have a standing chance amongst the beginners.

It was kind of like taking a beginner’s self defense class and fighting Ronda Rousey beat the living hell out of ya, all under the assumption that Ronda was a beginner wimp, just like me. How much motivation do you think there is to continue that class after that fight? xD

As I said before, now I know that I was likely fighting against some seasoned pvp players, so I’m more inclined to give PvP a shot.

EdgarMTanaka.7291:

I assume you have played a lot of PvE before PvP and I can say that skills is really a factor here. Don’t expect to go mashing buttons and hope to win (except from some classes).

I would suggest that you play more than 3 matches and if you have a hard time grasping the game go try some hot join (the 3rd page in the PvP menu, just go ‘play now’). In there players only play with the winning team, if they are loosing they starts to spectate the match and they if possible they join the winning team. No skill at all just be lucky to get in the right team.

Good advice, but I don’t care much for handout wins. I wanted to learn PvP but I was a bit discouraged since I thought ANET fixed matches based on our PvP ranks, and I just got completely annihilated by players I thought were in my rabbit rank. I do not care too much for losing as long as I take something away from it; but these fights I were in gave me less than 5 seconds to live and I took no lessons from the fight.

I noticed matchmaking is weird in unranked though.
I was playing on an alt account trying to get it to rank 20 in pvp.
I was rank 12 in pvp and i had to fight legendary ranks.
Before i was rank 20 i played against or with that team 3 more times.
But whoever was against them had no chance.

Opidesu.6309:

EdgarMTanaka.7291:

I assume you have played a lot of PvE before PvP and I can say that skills is really a factor here. Don’t expect to go mashing buttons and hope to win (except from some classes).

I would suggest that you play more than 3 matches and if you have a hard time grasping the game go try some hot join (the 3rd page in the PvP menu, just go ‘play now’). In there players only play with the winning team, if they are loosing they starts to spectate the match and they if possible they join the winning team. No skill at all just be lucky to get in the right team.

Good advice, but I don’t care much for handout wins. I wanted to learn PvP but I was a bit discouraged since I thought ANET fixed matches based on our PvP ranks, and I just got completely annihilated by players I thought were in my rabbit rank. I do not care too much for losing as long as I take something away from it; but these fights I were in gave me less than 5 seconds to live and I took no lessons from the fight.

Well I actually meant that is a good place to start to learn the basics. Myself never joined the winning side with purpose and I always accepted the switch team message. But a lot of players are switching to the winning team so as for winning a match in HJ there is no skill but a good place to start.

About the matchmaking, it was just introduced, give it some time to be adjusted. I had a match where I got teamed with a player who had never played stronghold even though I am R80 sapphire but of course that player could have been high match player but never played stronghold.

Keep at it. GW2 isn’t exactly friendly to brand new PvP players. There’s a lot to learn, when to commit, when to disengage, downed state control, cleaving, animations, team fights and not to mention rotations and secondary objectives.

Knowing when to burst, when to cc and when the same is happening to you takes a while. My first suggestion is to find a friend, get an empty server and do a few 1v1’s to get the hang of trying to kill another thinking entity. If you have some guildies do a few matches of 2v2 or more if you have the people for it. It takes a solid 100 or more matches IMO to feel the flow of the game.

It’s not you. A.net has a terrible matchmaking algorithm. You probably were matched with players of much greater skill level.

But don’t be discouraged. The more you lose, the easier your opponents become. You may have to experience several bad match streaks early on.

Keep playing, and focus on improving your own understanding, awareness, and response time. Don’t focus too hard on the plays of your team/enemy team until you improve your own skills.

You made a good choice posting on on the forums. Good luck, Keep us posted.

P.S. Feel free to ask specific questions.

As a first time PvP player… you know nothing John Snow!!11 Speaking of, when does the next season start?

Better question when does the next season end so we can get (hopefully) a better patch?

Opidesu.6309:

OK, so gear doesn’t matter. I will try and set up PvP gear tonight, and hopefully have a better experience tomorrow. What about the matchmaking, is that working as intended?

Im pretty sure matchmaking is the problem here. For example, I just play Ranked, and so my Unranked rating drops (they have separate rankings) so I expect some days fighting with/against worst ppl before my rating is stabilized

PvP is really a trial by fire. The difference in skill level between a beginner and say… a bad player is pretty monumental despite them probably having similar MMRs.

Keep at it and maybe read some guides. Also, if you don’t have HoT, you’re handicapping yourself since you don’t have the Elite Specs.

I started PvP after HoT. And i enjoy it. Shure as soloer you must live with bad matchups and getting a weak team. Since i had been a WvW roamer, i did´t get smashed in place, so its practise. After learning the maps i had a 75% win rate which went down in higher tier ranked to about 50%. Class balance is another matter. Competative PvP seems to lack build diversity.

Opidesu.6309:

I just started PvP in GW2, and was wondering how many players have recently started the game and are really enjoying the PvP component?

There are real problems with class imbalance, but that’s definitely not what you’re experiencing at your level. Rather, you started playing unranked at the worst possible time. The league just ended, so every serious player who was competing in ranked has just come back to unranked, and so everyone’s unranked MMR is very volatile, which causes these unbalanced games. If you keep playing a couple more games, your rating will go down rapidly and you’ll most likely face other new players (or new-ish players, I know a lot of pve heroes started enjoying pvp with leagues).

What I would advise you to do now is to practice in hot join, and focus more on your mechanical gameplay: when do I use my skills, how do I disengage when I’m outnumbered or just losing my 1v1, what animations do I have to watch, etc. You can also ask a friend who plays pvp to duel you and give you some tips. Rotations you’ll learn in time, don’t worry.

Also, make sure you run a good build. It does not need to be a super pro build you know nothing about, but just something based around what you like to play that actually works in a pvp setting. You can ask for advice here, or in-game, or in the profession-specific subforum. Good luck, and see you in the Mists!

First off,

How has no one asked him what class he plays?

If you tell me what you are playing, I’ll make a good solid easy to get into build for you. The first challenge of pvp is build making. You have to make a build that flows well together and accomplishes some of the goals of pvp. At the same time, you’ll want the build to make sense to you, so you can actually play it.

Right now, class balance is mixed up, and there is a lot of speculation going around. Pvp can be fun, but as others have said, I would avoid unranked right now and focus on hotjoin maps. The games will suck when you first join (9/10 number of players), but once the map changes, if enough players have joined you can get some decent 5v5 for practice. Hot join is the place to learn pvp. There are a lot of bad players. Just make sure you properly read the server description. You probably want to focus on the ones without names and just numbers.

If by chance, you have to patience to get owned a lot (as many of us had to go through), you need to remember you won’t learn anything if the fights are over in 2 seconds. So when I suggest a build, I plan on making it very tanky. Now they just recently removed all the tanky amulets, but some are still tanky enough with class mechanics that you will survive that initial burst.

TLRD:
1) What is your class?
2) I will make you a build.
3) Balance is not fully known yet by anyone. (meta hasn’t settled)
4) Play Hot join (number servers that are almost full)
5) Play defensive builds and just focus on staying alive and avoiding damage. This is how you will learn to defend yourself without all the defensives.

Loboling.5293:

First off,

How has no one asked him what class he plays?

If you tell me what you are playing, I’ll make a good solid easy to get into build for you. The first challenge of pvp is build making. You have to make a build that flows well together and accomplishes some of the goals of pvp. At the same time, you’ll want the build to make sense to you, so you can actually play it.

Right now, class balance is mixed up, and there is a lot of speculation going around. Pvp can be fun, but as others have said, I would avoid unranked right now and focus on hotjoin maps. The games will suck when you first join (9/10 number of players), but once the map changes, if enough players have joined you can get some decent 5v5 for practice. Hot join is the place to learn pvp. There are a lot of bad players. Just make sure you properly read the server description. You probably want to focus on the ones without names and just numbers.

If by chance, you have to patience to get owned a lot (as many of us had to go through), you need to remember you won’t learn anything if the fights are over in 2 seconds. So when I suggest a build, I plan on making it very tanky. Now they just recently removed all the tanky amulets, but some are still tanky enough with class mechanics that you will survive that initial burst.

TLRD:
1) What is your class?
2) I will make you a build.
3) Balance is not fully known yet by anyone. (meta hasn’t settled)
4) Play Hot join (number servers that are almost full)
5) Play defensive builds and just focus on staying alive and avoiding damage. This is how you will learn to defend yourself without all the defensives.

1) I am playing Revenant. A zerker PvP build with Sword/axe didn’t work for me (got demonlisheddddd xD) so I tried a condition damage build with mace/axe, with demon and assassin stance. Worked out OK, I got a few kills in.
2) Thanks! I would love to get another build to try out. I like my current one, but am always open to improving!
3) I don’t think balance was the big issue during my devastation. Just really really bad matchups
4) OK! I can look into hot-join tonight
5) This I need practice on. I focus on dodges and doing circles around enemies, and sometimes using environment for line of sight but am pretty bad at it for now.

Alright, drop Zerker for Marauder and trust us. You gain a total of 220 stat points, and almost no abilities in this game scale exceptionally well so a loss 340 ferocity is minimal and you trade 150 power for 150 precision, then randomly acquire 560 vitality. Otherwise, play Mercenary Revenant (not Herald, people stop using Herald if you aren’t going to support PLEASE) as Mace/Axe and Staff.

A really good way to learn quickly is look for the no progression hotjoins and start dueling. You will get wrecked, its natural. But the pace is much slower, and people are much more willing to teach (and they will give you builds).

Last, its important to try all classes. Not because “find the one you enjoy the most” even though thats very important as someone not invested to play won’t be invested to win, but because you then know how they all react and what they fear. For instance, I play Thief/Mesmer/Ele/Revenant (Druid is broken op, putting them down til thats fixed. I hate being op) and I could never figure out why Necro’s always destroyed me. I then realized that they push constant damage and aren’t afraid of heavy engagements, BUT they absolutely hate getting constantly poked.

:) Mail anyone of us in game and we will help when we can.

By the way, this is the most non-toxic PvP community I have yet to interface with. Top notch; even if the PvP learning curve is steep, it remains enjoyable as long as the community support is this good. Two thumbs up.

Stay out of rank if you want this. The toxicity of people clawing each other apart for pips is unbelievable. That or just change your chat log to your combat log.

Btw, patience is the key. It’ll take you a lot of time to actually be good. I have 800~ games behind me and i know i could be much much better (i simply suck, but at least i can see my mistakes :>). As an OK PvP player who started off as a really bad one, here are some things that can make you become better/just feel better with PvPing (keep in mind- your starting point is probably better than mine was. I’m really bad in pvp mostly because that my fingers can’t keep up with my brain, and because i get frightened/stressed too easily :P):

1) Relax. Don’t push/play to win. Just try having fun while analyzing yours and other players’ gameplay. This way you’ll have fun but will gain experience at the same time.
2) Focus on one thing at a time. For example, try learning your class’ and your build’s combos and practice one of them 1st on the golems, then on the NPCs, then in a match. One combo at a time. Don’t push yourself. Believe me, i tried pushing myself. It’s not fun and will just make you to have more mistakes.
It also applies to match tactics- don’t try to get it all done in one go. Give it some time to settle in With time, everything you practiced will become second nature to you.
3) Never give up!! It will be frustrating and discouraging at first, but later things will become much easier, when you’ll be better.
Also, remember that battle has 2 aspects: the physical-practical (performance with your class/role) and the mental-tactical (rotations, mind-games). If you feel like you’ve done bad in the last match- try to understand why. Knowing your mistakes is 1/2 way from making them right
I hope you would find this useful
GL and HF!

The game is a bit tough to get into the swing of but once you are in you will be really well off especially cause you’re looking to just improve every time rather than RQing every time something doesn’t go your way. This alone gives you a great place to start from, means you have lot of options to start on depending on what you want to improve (assuming you don’t get too frustrated if you die a bunch in a few matches)

Couple big things I would put a bit of emphasis on as you learn your class:
1) Get familiar with rotations, it is the single biggest way to help you get to the point where you can carry a match and perform well in higher tiers once you reach that level in personal skill. Many players don’t know how to rotate properly so that knowledge will help you out maneuver them and stop them from gaining any footholds in your fights. There are a couple guides out there if you want to check them out, Backpack did a pretty nice one awhile back that covers the basics if you feel like checking it out.
2) Don’t limit your build usage to only meta builds. With the way the meta can shift, it’s best for you to have skill using all the sets available to you. Limiting yourself to meta builds in the long run will make you less adaptable in fights and will limit what you can personally achieve as a player.
3) Remember to check the minimap. Developing that habit will help you to know exactly where your allies are and where your enemies are or where they are likely to go. It doesn’t sound like much but it could mean the difference between you giving a good +1/ a good decap or running into a 1v3 and feeding points to the other team. Knowing where your allies are can also help you to avoid staggering respawns on your team.
4) Depending on how comfortable you are with a class/build, invite a friend to duel you or go fight players in dueling servers who are willing to help you train. The good challenge of a 1v1 helps you to develop strong mechanical skill and figure out what combos to drop on players at what time. It’s also a more controlled environment where you can become familiar with the animations of certain trouble skills without worry of a giant aoe bomb from 4 other enemy players. Learning skills like burst combos, defensive cd cycling, los, etc. will give you an advantage over most enemies you encounter as many don’t have such skill due to constantly swapping to the new FOTM build.
Edit: 5) Record your matches if you have software for that. It’ll allow you to review your gameplay after the heat of the match has worn off and you can evaluate your performance and decide what you need to do better or what you could’ve done in certain situations you messed up in. You can also see in terms of skill combos what worked and what didn’t, there’s lots of benefits if you remember to do it.

Hope I was able to be of some help to you, feel free to ask any more questions if you have them and if you want you can always hit me up in game for a couple duels and/or for some Q+A Good luck on your pvp journey!

kitten , Revenant is about the only profession I don’t know well enough to buildcraft… lol Follow some of the advice here, but I found the easiest way to learn pvp at first was to stack up on defense, jump into a hot join and play a game of “how long can I hold the point”. It is actually fundamental to pvp anyway, but once you get comfortable with the different tells from classes you are fighting, you can ease off on the defense and stack to try and exploit what you have learned. Don’t be affraid to try things out against the boss monsters in pvp, they teach you a bit about movement and how to circle enemies, npcs are more vulnerable to it, but it also works against players. Good luck.

qqmore.net

keep a good attitude and play for fun and to improve. good tips on that website and in this thread.

good luck

One thing that hasn’t been mentioned is to understand the basic strategies employed , things like where you should be on the map at certain times , what roll you should be filling and the special features some maps have.

Being able to win in a 1v1 is great and all but i have lost way more matches due to people being in the wrong place or just doing stupid kitten / poor decision making.

Serious Thought.5394:

Stay out of rank if you want this. The toxicity of people clawing each other apart for pips is unbelievable. That or just change your chat log to your combat log.

+100
Ruby-tier onwards was very toxic. Cancer everywhere.

Good luck out there. It may be frustrating to lose a lot when you first start out but you will improve with practice. Also. If you are not familiar with the specific map mechanics do ask in team chat.

Need to remember that some WvW players might still be rabid rank even if they have played years.