Guild Wars 2

I have recently started dipping my toes into the deep, deep waters of the PvP sea. I have all the classes at level 80 and play them all roughly the same amount in PvE but feel I should concentrate only one 1 class for PvP. Before I decide which class I enjoy the most I’m going to give them all an equal chance.

So my question is this: how many games should I play on each of my characters to get a decent idea of each classes mechanics?

Bear in mind I will likely need several trait and play style iterations for each class. I started on Ranger, picked randomly, and so far played 60 games.

if you’re interested in titles you could go for all the champion “inser class” titles, with a winrate of around 50% that would be 300 games on all classes which should give you a decent experience with all of them.

depends on individual skill and how well you already know your classes.
number of games played doesnt really mean much, thats kind of the elitist attitude that is so prevalent in mmo games.

I started feeling better about things about 150 games in, on each class, if that’s any encouragement.

It’s at least as important to understand the mechanics of conquest then to be a master of a class. The hardest thing for a lot of players new to spvp to learn is that it’s not about the pew pew but controlling points. For that besides playing a lot of matches and seeing what works there are many tournament videos on You Tube. Watch how the top teams split up on various maps to start and how they rotate and how/when they interact with secondary mechanics.

I mean, yeah, it’s not really comparable, some classes are definitely easier to play than others, and even within the same class some builds are tougher than others, whether because they have more cooldowns to manage (eg. kit engi has about 4 times more cooldowns than turret engi), or because they’re a lot flimsier (eg power necro vs condi necro). Also, a lot of it is down to finding a playstyle that suits you – maybe a class that’s hard for most people you will find easy just because its style sits well with you.

Like others have said, use something you find easy until you get the hang of each map, then try a few different builds until you find something you’re comfortable with. You should definitely try several games with each though, this is a very twitchy game and it takes awhile just to train yourself into learning each build’s rotations and cooldowns.

keep in mind whatever class you learn first will take the most time to learn, i’d say 100 games with your first class and progressively less for each new one.

(to get a good idea of the class strenghts and shortcomings, not to master it)

Some good advice thanks, think I’ll pay about a hundred it so matches with each, pick my favourite 2 or 3 and then refine it from there. I think there’s some mileage in understanding at least the basics of all the professions anyway just to know how to country effectively.

Like Adozu said: your first class will be the hardest since you not only need to learn class mechanics, but also pvp mechanics. Once you have a good understanding of how to fight other players, you can probably get a decent hang of class mechanics in less than 25 games.

Mastering a class will take you at least 300, depending on the classes difficulty/adaptability on different situations. But you don’t need a lot of time to know a class’ mechanics. GW2 isn’t that amazingly hard. Hardest classes are IMO: Mesmer and thief. And maybe engineer if you find it hard to press many buttons quickly.

really depends on how fast you learn. i knew great players that got the knack of it after 50 games and ones that were completely clueless even after 200.
from what i can tell seeing some people around me improve in pvp the moment you start to notice bad players / bad plays (in a sense that you think “you guys should be doing that instead of [insert fail here]”) you’re imo qualified to compete at least on lower rankings. that may sound a bit harsh but the moment i hear somebody being right with complaining about something specific i usually see people improve their gameplay a lot. when you see somebody doing it wrong and know what he/she is doing is wrong you usually know how it’s done right. from there it’s all about improving your rotations and map awareness.

It’s impossible to give a number on how many games one needs, some are faster to accomodate to game dynamics than others. There are peeps who master classes after like 50 games. But there are dragons around that still don’t grasp the dynamics of pvp and one needs over 1000 games to become a dragon.

You can only judge that you’ve mastered whatever class if you start solidly winning fights where your side and the enemy side is on equal numbers, when you can dispatch enemies rapidly when +1’ing, knowing what the role is for whatever class you’re playing (something like 50% of the pvp population fails at). So you’ll just have to feel for yourself when it feels like you’ve mastered a class.

It’s difficult to estimate. One thing is certain, it gets easier after the first two professions you master. For your first profession, I think you’ll start to feel good after 200-300 matches, but after that it diminishes for every new profession you play.

And because you don’t want to spend all your time in practice and should go in unranked as soon as you’re comfortable with your build, here is an excellent video a top player made on rotation. I made my entire guild watch it, and you can really improve a lot by following this basic advice.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jvPb2jY19oU&spfreload=10

Good luck and welcome to the Mists!

I think the number of games needed to start to learn rotations depends on the player. A general tip I give to people new to tPvP is this: Start with a close point build, park yourself at close to defend it and during the downtimes, when noone is pushing your node, look at how better players rotate and what they do or say in chat. The best would be ofc to be on TS with them and ask questions on what to do.

As a general focus you should be able to understand the mechanics of a game after you achieved rank 40-50 (assuming you didn’t spend all the time in Hot Join).

If you only want to master a certain build or class then Hot Join is by far the best choice you can make: you can focus on fights and there is basically no time queue for games to start.

it’s going to take a while before you know a class like the back of your hand. youtube guides will help you by teaching you the tricks so you dont have learn them, but it’s just going to come down to you.

going to duel servers, or if you are in a guild who has a private arena dueling your guildies will help enormously. fighting a large varriety of players who are strong 1v1 fighters will force you to use your build in multiple differnt ways, and let you see it’s limits.

most importantly, with every loss you must ask yourself “what could i have done to prevent this?”

Plenty of good advice here, thanks. I’ve played roughly a hundred matches now and think I have the map basics. I’m surprised it took this long actually. When people were saying hundreds of matches to teach some sort of competency I thought they were exaggerating but that seems about right now. So I’m glad I asked otherwise, without this ballpark figure, I may have just become disillusioned and given up.