Guild Wars 2

nice tips!

thanks for sharing!

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

nice tips!

thanks for sharing!

Thank you for reading!

Yeah I actually like your tips they make sense. You’d think most of the tips would be common knowledge but NPE was created for a reason lol. #7 and #8 I think are extremely important. TBH I still kitten up on this sometimes X.X

Zoso.8279:

Yeah I actually like your tips they make sense. You’d think most of the tips would be common knowledge but NPE was created for a reason lol. #7 and #8 I think are extremely important. TBH I still kitten up on this sometimes X.X

Yes, this is why I like downstate. There are so many ways you can go about it, whether it’s saving skills for teammates going down, or saving skills for stomping an enemy that just went down to rally a teammate. It really makes the game that much more exciting IMO.

Think one of the early game things I don’t see done enough is escorting home or watching for cross overs amongst solo queuers.

I had a game snowball in Forest today because I did this and pretty much neutralized two of their players with the guy who capped home.

SobeSoul.6910:

Think one of the early game things I don’t see done enough is escorting home or watching for cross overs amongst solo queuers.

I had a game snowball in Forest today because I did this and pretty much neutralized two of their players with the guy who capped home.

I like this, I will add it when I get off work.

Bitty.1409:

SobeSoul.6910:

Think one of the early game things I don’t see done enough is escorting home or watching for cross overs amongst solo queuers.

I had a game snowball in Forest today because I did this and pretty much neutralized two of their players with the guy who capped home.

I like this, I will add it when I get off work.

You may want to add to it that if you do find yourself in a stale mated situation pushing far something about disengaging. Think it is one of the more common errors when someone stalemates and your team could use you elsewhere.

I always appreciate the grizzled vet who deigns to mentor the scrubs on his/her team …or any attempt to formulate a plan for that matter. I do not appreciate the guy/gal who flames their own team for losing, but has been a silent lone wolf up to that point.

Any attempt to communicate (map pinging, calling inc, calling positions at start) is better than silence. It’s also freaking hard to do when match is underway in soloQ, and I respect the people who make the effort.

SobeSoul.6910:

You may want to add to it that if you do find yourself in a stale mated situation pushing far something about disengaging. Think it is one of the more common errors when someone stalemates and your team could use you elsewhere.

I don’t want to add that because in Solo Q a stalemated fight is better than you pushing far and leaving your teammates to all get wiped. You gotta keep in mind that your teammates won’t react appropriately to you doing that. Mabye if you are like a thief or something and want to go for a quick decap but even then.

Bitty.1409:

SobeSoul.6910:

You may want to add to it that if you do find yourself in a stale mated situation pushing far something about disengaging. Think it is one of the more common errors when someone stalemates and your team could use you elsewhere.

I don’t want to add that because in Solo Q a stalemated fight is better than you pushing far and leaving your teammates to all get wiped. You gotta keep in mind that your teammates won’t react appropriately to you doing that. Mabye if you are like a thief or something and want to go for a quick decap but even then.

Don’t think you understand.

If you are the ones pushing far and there’s 2 of you or maybe you are alone against some sorta bunker class sitting on far and having a prolonged fight while your team on other parts of the map either is getting wiped or has wiped once. Sometimes it is the correct play to break off far point to go help out elsewhere. Even if that means maybe leaving the other person in a 1v2.

i think quick withdraw from a team fight in order to perform a quick decap is only possible when the opponents do not have fast mobility.

for example, when my warrior was fighting in legacy of foefire at mid, i noticed their slow moving engineer left waterfall, so i swapped to greatsword and quickly went over to waterfall to decap it. the engineer chased along but waterfall was already neutralized before the engineer reached me.

i ran back to graveyard (mid) to help the fight.

it takes 4 seconds to neutralize a point but 10 seconds to capture a neutralized point.

SobeSoul.6910:

Don’t think you understand.

If you are the ones pushing far and there’s 2 of you or maybe you are alone against some sorta bunker class sitting on far and having a prolonged fight while your team on other parts of the map either is getting wiped or has wiped once. Sometimes it is the correct play to break off far point to go help out elsewhere. Even if that means maybe leaving the other person in a 1v2.

Okay, I do get what you are saying, and I think that falls under the category of Rotations. I linked Backpack’s video in which i’m sure covers that and that’s also something that’s a bit too situational to put into words.

“but what i’m trying to say is that if you mentally prepare for the worst in your teammates it will hopefully prevent you from raging as hard and appreciating when they actually do something well. Even if that thing they did well is second nature to you.”

most truthful thing Ive ever heard

I honestly praise my teammates if they are smart enough to just rez me when no one is cleaving. That’s honestly better than 95% of the people Ive played with.

Downed state is for newbs! Get good moobs!

Wahoo! Bye frands!

Thanks for this positive and helpful post!

ArrDee.2573:

Downed state is for newbs! Get good moobs!

Wahoo! Bye frands!

:D this is why I like VeeWee so much. The colorful commentating. <3 just wanna be clear not being sarcastic I lol a lot even though I disagree with a lot of views

ArrDee.2573:

Downed state is for newbs! Get good moobs!

Wahoo! Bye frands!

i get downed like once per match but i still probably have gotten rezzed 4 times since this season started

Booms.2594:

ArrDee.2573:

Downed state is for newbs! Get good moobs!

Wahoo! Bye frands!

i get downed like once per match

More like 16+ when Shnicky’s in the game!
Wahoo! Bye frands! (does this make it sound less personal?)

Bitty.1409:

Booms.2594:

ArrDee.2573:

Downed state is for newbs! Get good moobs!

Wahoo! Bye frands!

i get downed like once per match

More like 16+ when Shnicky’s in the game!
Wahoo! Bye frands! (does this make it sound less personal?)

that was once………………….. ;_;

ArrDee.2573:

Get good moobs!

Wahoo! Bye frands!

Hey bitty, just wanted to say thanks for taking the time to type that all up and put it in one place. Next thing I’m going to do is watch the video. This is super helpful for someone trying to “get good” (me). Good stuff for me to be thinking about when I’m playing. Appreciate the effort!

Play against the opposing team but also play your team.
Don’t try to be stubborn about where you go, how you rotate. Just react to what your team is doing, it can ease your saltiness.

Keep your combat log up primarily. It’s much more useful than chat which could derail at anytime.

SaintSnow.6593:

Keep your combat log up primarily. It’s much more useful than chat which could derail at anytime.

I’d watch the chat. Only ignore it if it is trash talk. Otherwise, you can miss key information.

Good text, but sadly most of those tips do not apply to dummies (brainless that can’t read nor see minimap for pings
There is a mysterious language to talk with dummies, I have not figured out yet…

I just had a game where a new PvPer refused to help downed allies.

I managed to survive a condi fight but being a mesmer, bled out. However I got to a safe spot and landed near the warrior and he refused to ress me (or was blind to me, either way). Cue 2 enemies heading for the home point where we are at and he still refused to ress even though it’s been a good 3 seconds on the floor.

I wasn’t mad, but so… Profounded by such ignorance.

His mentality was that ressing a downed = death in PVP even when there are no enemies.

too bad people who need to read it don’t visit forums :P

They should give you little hints like this while you wait for the queue

What else are you going to do sitting in the mists?!

You know what else would help? BETTER TUTORIALS on how this game is supposed to be played.

A bigger population so that there is solo que and actual team que. Oh, and an entry level to ranked. That would help so much too.

These are what ANET could do to alleviate solo que problems. NOW what the OP said will pretty much apply for the most part if these things would happen.

Josh Davis.6015:

Great tips, Schnicky.

The first 2 minutes of the game are probably the most important for setting your team up for victory. As silly as it sounds, taking 30 seconds to figure out where everyone is going to go right out of the gate is going to give your team the edge in those first engagements. The 0-0-5 splits, or the 0-0-0 5-man chieftain/svanir rush openings happen a bit too often, and are completely avoidable with a bit of education/discussion before the match begins.

Grouch -

Is there any way you can update the pvp tutorial with some of the tips mentioned above?
Currently it just goes over capping a point by standing in it, stomping and rezzing by pressing a button. It doesn’t mention any of the basic mechanics that the new population in pvp simply does not have at the moment.

Such as mentioned above can be a start to helping people on their way.
However right now they don’t know any better than to double cap points because nowhere they saw it doesn’t go any faster, or they know when the big buffs of temple spawn and they should leave side buffs alone unless they’re confident enough. (No one reads the texts before games either) Or stuff like looking at the map and not afk on one single point.

Please educuate your new players better on this stuff.

Solid relationship advice as well :^)

Good tips, thanks for posting them. One thing I might add though: Often, getting a quick decap on an unguarded point and returning to the teamfight is more valuable to your team than staying for a full cap. Full caps take a long time, time that you could be using to help secure a midfight or so on. Especially if you’re playing a high-mobility type like a thief, it can be very useful to peel from a teamfight (when safe), decap far, and go back to the fight. The enemy still loses the point income and one of their team members has to spend time capping it back. It’s somewhat situational , and I guess it falls under rotations, but it’s often a very useful strategy that I don’t see much in less organized games.

I noticed this as well: players like me which have played AB JQ FA in GW 1 alot for pvp rather than the normal pvp on battle isles seem to have a better grasp on pvp mechanics in GW 2 pvp.

Its essential to keep moving if you are a mobile type or hold a point if a more tanky type and treat each moment like life or death situation.

I tent to play spvp just like I played AB, FA and JQ, and I was kitten good at all three; keeping places and defending and retaking. I know many may have not played gw 1, but the modes in gw 1 are not that different than here, just larger scale.

Quickly decapping is a great idea that many seem to not get. I had to do that a lot in AB and JQ, it meant the difference between a win and a loss.

Giltheryn.8603:

Good tips, thanks for posting them. One thing I might add though: Often, getting a quick decap on an unguarded point and returning to the teamfight is more valuable to your team than staying for a full cap. Full caps take a long time, time that you could be using to help secure a midfight or so on. Especially if you’re playing a high-mobility type like a thief, it can be very useful to peel from a teamfight (when safe), decap far, and go back to the fight. The enemy still loses the point income and one of their team members has to spend time capping it back. It’s somewhat situational , and I guess it falls under rotations, but it’s often a very useful strategy that I don’t see much in less organized games.

Yeah I agree with this post. Thats what I hope the thieves in my team do because of all the reasons that you stated. Battlefield awareness is something all thief players imo should learn to master.

I believe the most important is to play the least risky. This hasn’t been mentionned , but playing the clock is important. 2 examples :
- You have 450, opponent has 395, you only have home and opponent does have the other 2. There’s no need to panic, you’re winning on points. Alternatively, there is big chances your opponents will try to push home, so you can get points even quicker, zerging alone players. It will be very rare to have opponents forcing a 5v5 on your home point in solo queue
- You have 492, opponent 470, same case one point against two. You just camp your point and that’s a win for sure. No need to risk capping far, dying there and giving them a chance to score back

Also, it’s very common on legacy of foefire to have a total chaos after losing mid fight. Typically , one player going everywhere instantly when rezzing up, resulting in each one dying 2v1. From my experience ( it actually worked fine everytime), the best is to just regroup and zerg home with all 5. In the best case, you will kill a few on home and be able to cap mid easily. In the worst case, you will have a 5v5 on mid…

This is great info… BUT where are you guys solo queuing? I can’t seem to find the button for it…

Pixels.6532:

This is great info… BUT where are you guys solo queuing? I can’t seem to find the button for it…

Ranked and Unranked. What Solo Q means now is you queue by yourself..

May I ask a noob question? How to win against a team with 4 turret engis?
Afaik, it takes two to kill one turret engi and decap, before they get more reinforcement. However, once they settle down on point, the fight is rather hopeless. So how should I rotate as the condi engi in the team?

Iris Ng.9845:

May I ask a noob question? How to win against a team with 4 turret engis?
Afaik, it takes two to kill one turret engi and decap, before they get more reinforcement. However, once they settle down on point, the fight is rather hopeless. So how should I rotate as the condi engi in the team?

zerg them and then spawn camp them. they’ll have to either waste their turrets in open field or die trying to get to point.

Here are a couple more points (that have mostly already been discussed) that I think would be good additions to the first post:

11: Keep a short, simple plan copied on your clipboard. E.g. “1-3-1. I will go home, who wants mid? Who wants far?” Paste and send it after all your teammates load, but before the game begins. This will spark a discussion as to who is going where. Even if someone insists on a different plan, fine. At least your team has a plan.

12: Before the game begins, remind people of objectives: steal the boss kill, rush lord at 350 points, take Tranquility, etc.

13: Learn to use the minimap during the game. Do not burn fighting time by long typed conversations during fighting (unless dead), instead you can:
13-a: Ping the minimap repeatedly to indicate a certain point needs assistance. Use this both to call help to yourself and also to call help for others when you see a group of enemies heading for a lone ally.
13-b: Draw on the minimap to indicate that specific allies should come. If a camper at your home is needed in the fight, it is far easier to ping several times and then draw a path from home into the battle than it is to type in instructions. Your ally will pretty much always understand that you need him in the fight.

14: Always try to encourage your team. In any given situation, if teammates are playing poorly they may be: (1) newer or less experienced than you, (2) as experienced as you but dealing with other things you cannot fully see [new build, specifically targeted, lagging, etc.], (3) as experienced as you but having an off day, (4) more experienced than you but suffering from 2, 3, or both, or (5) not paying attention. People tend to react as though everyone who makes a mistake falls into category 5. But 96% of people simply fall into categories 1-4. If you encourage them, remind them, and “gj” them when they do things right, it will help keep them focused on winning. And it will make the game more fun for everyone involved.

Very good tips but my experience is you won’t get people to rotate correctly ever unless they want to take the time to learn themselves and many don’t want to. You can ping the map, kindly tell people at the start what kind of split you want at start, and many will just refuse to listen. I really think a big problem is the individual point scoring system still. It encourages people to fight off point to get kill and skirmish points on running enemies and to always try to take a point you don’t control whether it makes sense or not. It encourages going for Chieftain and Svanir at inopportune times. It encourages trying to kill the Lord in FoeFire 2 minutes into the match. You end up with matches were you get squashed by 500-300 and you have people on the 300 point team with higher individual scores then people on the winning team because all they did all match was trade point control while they winners actually protected what they owned. They also look at there score and think they did awesome at the end of the match. The saddest thing is that stupid score doesn’t benefit you in any real way. It’s not even like you get some kind of modest reward.

brannigan,

Great points.

JonSnow.5610:

Josh Davis.6015:

Great tips, Schnicky.

The first 2 minutes of the game are probably the most important for setting your team up for victory. As silly as it sounds, taking 30 seconds to figure out where everyone is going to go right out of the gate is going to give your team the edge in those first engagements. The 0-0-5 splits, or the 0-0-0 5-man chieftain/svanir rush openings happen a bit too often, and are completely avoidable with a bit of education/discussion before the match begins.

Grouch -

Is there any way you can update the pvp tutorial with some of the tips mentioned above?
Currently it just goes over capping a point by standing in it, stomping and rezzing by pressing a button. It doesn’t mention any of the basic mechanics that the new population in pvp simply does not have at the moment.

Such as mentioned above can be a start to helping people on their way.
However right now they don’t know any better than to double cap points because nowhere they saw it doesn’t go any faster, or they know when the big buffs of temple spawn and they should leave side buffs alone unless they’re confident enough. (No one reads the texts before games either) Or stuff like looking at the map and not afk on one single point.

Please educuate your new players better on this stuff.

And tell them to roll engis and Eles in the tutorials since they anets favorite classes especially engis…………

Suggestions from comments below (My comments in bold)

1. “The first 2 minutes of the game are probably the most important for setting your team up for victory. As silly as it sounds, taking 30 seconds to figure out where everyone is going to go right out of the gate is going to give your team the edge in those first engagements. The 0-0-5 splits, or the 0-0-0 5-man chieftain/svanir rush openings happen a bit too often, and are completely avoidable with a bit of education/discussion before the match begins.” – Josh “Grouch” Davis

1a. Think one of the early game things I don’t see done enough is escorting home or watching for cross overs amongst solo queuers. – SobeSoul.6910

2. “Downed state is for newbs! Get good moobs!
Wahoo! Bye frands!” – VeeWee 2015
Down-state is for noobs frends

3. “Play against the opposing team but also play your team.
Don’t try to be stubborn about where you go, how you rotate. Just react to what your team is doing, it can ease your saltiness.” – butch.8136
Yes exactly, it kinda reminds me of surfing in a way. You won’t be able to control the wave you are surfing so let it guide you, you just have to react to its push or pull.

4. “Often, getting a quick decap on an unguarded point and returning to the teamfight is more valuable to your team than staying for a full cap.” – Giltheryn.8603
I would suggest this only to people with a lot of mobility because you have to do this fast, your team needs you. If you see that a point is unguarded, you can make the decision to go decap it. The reason I only say decap is because for times sake, it takes roughly 5 seconds to decap a point, but about an additional 10 seconds to fully cap it. That is way to long for you to be away from the fight.

5. “11: Keep a short, simple plan copied on your clipboard. E.g. “1-3-1. I will go home, who wants mid? Who wants far?” Paste and send it after all your teammates load, but before the game begins. This will spark a discussion as to who is going where. Even if someone insists on a different plan, fine. At least your team has a plan.” -Jack Angelfoot.2697

I like this idea, an in-game version of this would be great.

it takes around 4 seconds to neutralize an uncontested point, and around 10 seconds to capture an uncontested neutral point.

Brannigan,
First, thank you for the complement.
Second, I have a couple thoughts on your points.

brannigan.9831:

… my experience is you won’t get people to rotate correctly ever unless they want to take the time to learn themselves and many don’t want to. You can ping the map, kindly tell people at the start what kind of split you want at start, and many will just refuse to listen.

This is an unfortunate and, currently, unavoidable fact. There are plenty of people who refuse to talk or listen. I always, always use my paste-plan method when in solo que. I would say that about 75% of the time I get at least one person to take home and one person to take far and the rest head for middle (assuming conquest, of course). But 25% of the time I have only one responder or less. Around 7-8% of the time nobody responds at all. Of that 7-8% about half of those times are because I simply was dropped onto a guild group prospectively running TS or Vent. No prob, we win. I simply adapt to whatever their plan appears to be. The other half the time it is because the other peeps in the group really don’t care about a plan. It is chaos. Nobody (or everybody) takes home (or far, or mid). There is no rotation and everything falls apart. If all the people, not counting guild teams, refuse to respond to a plan at the beginning, I have found that there is an extremely high likelihood, 50-60%, that one or more will leave before the end of the game, too.

But that worst case scenario is only, realistically, a 4% probability. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t win 75% of my games – ha, I wish – but at least peeps try to go with a plan. Thus, even when I lose games inside that 75%, the score tends to be around a 100 point spread.

The only hypothetical solution I have for the 25% is below.

brannigan.9831:

I really think a big problem is the individual point scoring system still. It encourages people to fight off point to get kill and skirmish points on running enemies and to always try to take a point you don’t control whether it makes sense or not. It encourages going for Chieftain and Svanir at inopportune times. It encourages trying to kill the Lord in FoeFire 2 minutes into the match. You end up with matches were you get squashed by 500-300 and you have people on the 300 point team with higher individual scores then people on the winning team because all they did all match was trade point control while they winners actually protected what they owned. They also look at there score and think they did awesome at the end of the match. The saddest thing is that stupid score doesn’t benefit you in any real way. It’s not even like you get some kind of modest reward.

You are right. The scoreboard sucks. Example: I used my War to hold off 4 (I kid you not) enemies from taking a point for more than a minute two-three times in a single game. Did I get any points for that long losing battle? No. But my team took the other two CPs and we eventually won because for a good long period of time I was able to stonewall the other team from getting any points. Then, at the end of the game that we won, some noob harassed me for having such a low score! I am sure a lot of you have even better examples, that was merely the one that came to mind.

I believe that the scoreboard should be removed or possibly heavily modified.

Regardless, this problem is not unique to the GW2 esport. In pickup hockey, sometimes you get a team full of hotdogs who refuse to play defense, but rather cherry pick and refuse to pass the puck. Then in the locker room they brag about having the most points even though they were the entire reason we lost. Do they get anything special for having the most points? No. They just get to act like braggarts.

Suggested Solution
I believe the PvP community needs to begin educating its own. We have some great players in PvP and we should be able to compile some relevant guides to playing some of the main viable class builds. A recent review shows that the stickied developer-run “New to PvP? Start here” is a little sparse on content. Further, the forum links to several How-To Guides are dead(404).

Compliments to Shnicky for putting this guide together. We need more of these guides – a lot more – and we need a central hub (that would hopefully be stickied) to allow access to each of the guides. Hopefully then, we will be able to better educate PvPers. When we see someone who clearly does not know how to play, rather than say “You suck, noob. Get out of Ranked.” We can send them a link to a guide “Dude, you seem new to PvP. Check out this Guide for tips.” And the guide will tell them how to learn and where to practice.

I agree with branningan. Sometimes, it’s even worse when you put a tactic and it’s not followed by all players. You got 3 guys who want to play in 1 way, 2 others who don’t want, it ends up in a huge chaos( especially when you have a crap setup and opponent does have the bunker festival).
In addition, people( i do several times) start complaining and you lose the match 500-120..

Abazigal.3679:

I agree with branningan. Sometimes, it’s even worse when you put a tactic and it’s not followed by all players. Y

I am afraid I can’t agree. Chaos is always the result of not having a plan. Sometimes things work out accident, but usually not. If people ignore the plan, there is chaos, obviously. But suggesting that the plan caused the chaos is backwards. Rather, you had idiots on the team who would have caused chaos regardless.

Having a plan for a solo que team merely promotes order. Not having a plan promotes disorder. Just because the plan does not always work does not mean things are more orderly without a plan.

The only question is whether it is worth your time to try to bring a little order to the team. If not, then why are you trying to find new ways to help your team in solo que?