Guild Wars 2

Whenever I log onto to play PvP these days, it’s just a blowout. Match after match of getting just shredded by coordinated teams of players using the most meta of meta builds they can find. Even when I win, I don’t get that feeling of satisfaction. I generally don’t know why we won, and usually didn’t contribute to the win.

Basically, I love Guild Wars 2. I’m not a fanatical player. I play when I have time, and I tend to stick with PvE, but in most other games, I love PvP, and tend to be able to hold my own. However, I feel like this game’s PvP was hard to understand before Heart of the Thorns, and now it’s just completely beyond me. Nowadays, I log in, and spend most of my time dead. I don’t even get time to figure out my mistakes because most fights end with me blowing up in half second, and I don’t even have time to decipher which of the 10 ridiculous particle effects killed me. Readability is a big issue for me.

I’m willing to invest time into a game, but generally that game has to be fun on some level first. I keep giving this game’s multiplayer a shot, because my friend and I were big fans of Guild Wars 1’s PvP, but we both feel there is no place for the casual player anymore. The point of entry is too high. There’s a mountain of mechanics to go through. The game is blinding fast, and requires incredible reflexes and precise dexterity to hit combos.

If I could log on, and have an even match where I felt my opponents and teammates were at a similar level of experience, I could slowly get into this. Did anybody else really love GW1 PvP, but hasn’t found any enjoyment from 2’s?

I know this is whining, but honestly, I just miss having a Guild Wars like game to play PvP in, and it sorta feels like all of the people of average video game ability have been sorta waysided in favor of this small, dedicated fanbase. Great if you are one of those people, but I wish for the days when Guild Wars was more inclusive, and I feel there is room for both audiences to exist without sacrificing in quality for either group.

Also, advice is always fine. My friend nor I never last long enough to ever figure out anything beyond how to wait for the death timer to come back up.

This is kinda funny. All of us complaining about how easy PvP has become and how every noob can faceroll to the top on the right class…and now this.

In general: If I play a new class i usually spent a sufficient time in hotjoins in order to learn the basics. The game itself calls it ‘practice’ and it works fairly well for that purpose.
You can also try to join a less populated hotjoin and try to get some 1v1, it should be less confusing.
Visual noise however is an issue. The most flashy skills are not necessarely the ones that kill people. In contrary, they can even be used to hide the stronger skills from your opponent.
A few things you can try to improve:
-Run a class with relatively good uptime of stability, protection, good passive healing and other boring stuff.
-I hope you dont run zerker. But even marauder can be torn apart fast. Most marauder builds can also be played as paladin in order to be a little more tanky.
-You can try playing a rotation heavy class, like ele. In that case you mostly have to get your own skills in order and dont have to react to your opponents every action.
-Skip through the build editor or metabattle and mark down the hardest-hitting skills.
Learn how they function, how they look and how to avoid them.
This might not be ‘casual’ enough for you, but its literally the only way it will work.
-Dont jump into the middle of the fight. positioning and distance can be the strongest defenses available.
-If your team has an ele or druid, stay close to them. If you die its partly their fault.

But really. The games skill ceiling has seriously dropped with the introduction of defensive passive procs, boonspam and mass healing.
It shouldnt take you more than a 100 games to get the basics.

Find an empty server and duel your friends. Use meta builds, builds you’ve encountered, and things you’ve thought up. This gives you a chance to learn skill animations with less clutter.

Practice combos and rotations. Watch other players to learn combinations and rotations. Practice these with what you found to be effective in your duels. Use target dummies, use duels, use PvE, just keep practicing.

Play with an aim to learn. Don’t worry about winning or losing, worry about learning. Pay attention to what works, what doesn’t work, and try to figure out who killed you, how they killed you, and what you might have been able to do to avoid it. You may not always get all this information in, but even one thing that you can recognize is helpful in the future. You don’t have to figure it out all at once, just piece by piece.

When you are dueling and playing, go in with a plan of approach in mind and put it to the test. This allows you to structure your learning.

Experiment. Try different professions, different meta builds, different builds you think up, different in-game tactics, etc. Then, just like with dueling and practicing, spend time thinking about what worked, what did not work, and why that was the case. Wide exposure doesn’t mean you have to multi-class, it just means you are aware of what other professions do, how they play, what to expect from them, skill animations, etc.

Recognize when you are panicking and try to calm yourself. Having a plan of approach in mind, and aiming to execute that plan to the best of your ability, should help with this.

Give yourself permission to fail. Every failure is an opportunity to get better. Don’t queue right away after a game, spend a few moments thinking about it and what you learned from it. Discuss it with your friends you’ve queued with. If you get too frustrated give yourself a break, walk away, and come back later when you are more calm, more collected, and ready to start learning again.

I have very little experience with GW1, and I never played its PvP. I’ve read a bit about it and watched a few videos. Maybe you can talk more about that so we have a better understanding of what it is you feel you are missing.

Cpt Decaf.5321:

If I could log on, and have an even match where I felt my opponents and teammates were at a similar level of experience, I could slowly get into this. Did anybody else really love GW1 PvP, but hasn’t found any enjoyment from 2’s?

what kind of pvp did you play in gw1 ? i cant imagine that you played gvg or ha if you dont spend a few hours every day in the game, i mean it was so hard just to find a group because no one took you if you weren´t at least r3 for ha or r1 for gvg

from what i saw in your message i think it would be best for you to play wvw, the player skill lvl is alot lower there if you dont count the people that are specialized at roaming, you could run around in a zerg and kill things or even in small partys and have a feeling of success, until you meet a paty of roamers and get rekt

i agree with words

except i often stab people efficiently and win often

other than that yes i agree

Yea I came to this game expecting gw1 pvp type stuff too since it has the name guild wars but boy was I disappointed. It’s nothing like gw1 and doesn’t have tons of pvp areas to go to play either. But if you wanna play it I recommend something ranged like ranger, look up a tanky build and don’t go close to the enemy team stay as far back as possible and shoot at em at least long enough until you learn how to play better. That’s what I did when I was new and it worked very well

Ellie.5913:

Yea I came to this game expecting gw1 pvp type stuff too since it has the name guild wars but boy was I disappointed. It’s nothing like gw1 and doesn’t have tons of pvp areas to go to play either. But if you wanna play it I recommend something ranged like ranger, look up a tanky build and don’t go close to the enemy team stay as far back as possible and shoot at em at least long enough until you learn how to play better. That’s what I did when I was new and it worked very well

Exactly, play ranget class with some Toughness, vitality, 50-60% crit, -185% ferrocity, 2,2k power, some breakstun in utilites and healing bons from specialization is the best way to play for start or for the all time :P.

I’m on the exact same page. I’m generally very good at video games, from Dragon Nest to Dark Souls, everything always felt very easy to me, specially when it comes to timing dodges, but I just can’t seem to get good at Guild Wars 2, more specifically PvP.

I’m rank 80 with probably close to 1000 games and I feel like I’m just as bad as I was when I was starting out. I’ve tried going to 1vs1 duel servers, but everyone there is already way beyond my level and I just get smashed into the ground within seconds.

Worst of everything, I could never find anyone to practice or play with other than friends I met outside the game who have long stopped playing or PvE players who are even worse than me and don’t actually want to play more than a game or 2 a day.

Losing hope.

don’t waste your time with pvp in gw2 and play games that are actually pvp oriented.

The PvP in Gw2 does feel very chaotic. I think it’s mainly because the game isn’t balanced around 1v1 duels, instead the classes are balanced around team comps. In Gw1, they seperated the PvE and PvP skills, balancing them for both game modes, whereas in Gw2, they didn’t do that.

I can see a lot of new players just not even bothering with PvP, as you can get blown up in a couple of seconds, even in Hot Join where skilled players go when they’re trying out new things, or if they’re bored. I’m not saying that the skilled players are at fault here either, it’s fully within their right to play where they want, but the game just feels so unbalanced and not newcomer friendly, at least in PvP.

Cpt Decaf.5321:

Whenever I log onto to play PvP these days, it’s just a blowout. Match after match of getting just shredded by coordinated teams of players using the most meta of meta builds they can find. Even when I win, I don’t get that feeling of satisfaction. I generally don’t know why we won, and usually didn’t contribute to the win.

Basically, I love Guild Wars 2. I’m not a fanatical player. I play when I have time, and I tend to stick with PvE, but in most other games, I love PvP, and tend to be able to hold my own. However, I feel like this game’s PvP was hard to understand before Heart of the Thorns, and now it’s just completely beyond me. Nowadays, I log in, and spend most of my time dead. I don’t even get time to figure out my mistakes because most fights end with me blowing up in half second, and I don’t even have time to decipher which of the 10 ridiculous particle effects killed me. Readability is a big issue for me.

I’m willing to invest time into a game, but generally that game has to be fun on some level first. I keep giving this game’s multiplayer a shot, because my friend and I were big fans of Guild Wars 1’s PvP, but we both feel there is no place for the casual player anymore. The point of entry is too high. There’s a mountain of mechanics to go through. The game is blinding fast, and requires incredible reflexes and precise dexterity to hit combos.

If I could log on, and have an even match where I felt my opponents and teammates were at a similar level of experience, I could slowly get into this. Did anybody else really love GW1 PvP, but hasn’t found any enjoyment from 2’s?

I know this is whining, but honestly, I just miss having a Guild Wars like game to play PvP in, and it sorta feels like all of the people of average video game ability have been sorta waysided in favor of this small, dedicated fanbase. Great if you are one of those people, but I wish for the days when Guild Wars was more inclusive, and I feel there is room for both audiences to exist without sacrificing in quality for either group.

Also, advice is always fine. My friend nor I never last long enough to ever figure out anything beyond how to wait for the death timer to come back up.

What type of build are you running?

It’s a dumb comment but, you have 4 character slots, make use of it, level some characters up and learn mechanics in pve, do it so that you can recognize what the other people are playing in pvp.

For what it’s worth, you should also train in the heart of the mist. Start with the professions npc, they are slow, completely dumb but at least they give you time to get used to some animations, so you can recognize them in actual battle. Then solo svanir and the chief, battle them until you are at ease. They hit hard, have some CC, you can become more confident with your play style under pressure. Then do a solo lord, aggro all the npcs to get used to battle multiples foes and keep an eye on several foes at the same time.

As a thief player, another advise, look at your health bar and status bar. Learn to put your defensive mechanisms in a split of seconds when they start to decrease.

You can also have a look at the death logs that sums up the amount of damage and the skills that did it, so you can keep an eye on those skills next time.

Thanks for the advice everyone. I read every response and appreciate your feedback. Still not exactly feeling the same joy I did playing Alliance Battles in GW1. I don’t expect I’ll ever pick up this game’s PvP in the same manner. Seems like the barrier to entry is just a bit too high for me.

But I will probably start playing my few games I do engage in on my ranger instead of engineer. Will also probably stop playing Stronghold because it seems to be mostly pubstompers.

You won’t feel the same kind of joy in gw2 pvp as you did in Ab simply because it’s not anywhere near as fun as Ab or other gw1 pvp . Also the skills in gw1 were more fun and you had endless build possibilities there , not to mention you never had premade teams vs non premade teams, that wasn’t even allowed in gw1 because of how unfair it is, it’s not competitive to have an organized team against a non organized team of pugs. The only thing you can hope for is gw1 ab coming back to life, it does a little bit during double point week. But you have to show up early it ends pretty quickly.

If you click skills with your mouse (and thus are also looking at your skill bar) you’re doomed.

Propper keybinds are a must. That or invest in an MMO mouse (like a razer naga) and play until you have the muscle memory to hit the right buttons with your thumb etc.

If you are familiar, running a sound build is a must. Knowing your class and what each skill does is a must. Then knowing when/how to engage/disengage is a must.

Pretty much you need to be a pro if you want to succeed XD That or just play a mindless spammy class/spec that’ll hold you up while you get more comfortable with the general flow of incoming kitten flying your way.

When you break it down and look at it like this, you’re probably screwed.

Ross Biddle.2367:

If you click skills with your mouse (and thus are also looking at your skill bar) you’re doomed.

Propper keybinds are a must. That or invest in an MMO mouse (like a razer naga) and play until you have the muscle memory to hit the right buttons with your thumb etc.

If you are familiar, running a sound build is a must. Knowing your class and what each skill does is a must. Then knowing when/how to engage/disengage is a must.

Pretty much you need to be a pro if you want to succeed XD That or just play a mindless spammy class/spec that’ll hold you up while you get more comfortable with the general flow of incoming kitten flying your way.

When you break it down and look at it like this, you’re probably screwed.

Naa I disagree man, I pretty much smash my keyboard with my face on this game and kill things, I don’t think it’s hard at all but it is VERY different from other games skills so if you’re not used to it you should keep your distance from the enemy and shoot at em from far away and bring defensive skills too cuz you can get 1 shotted on here very easily if you’re not careful. Also never go anywhere alone ALWAYS bring back up if you can that’s very helpful since a lota people like to zerg you on here. That’s why rangers good if no 1 wants to help you at least you have your pet.

Ellie.5913:

Ross Biddle.2367:

If you click skills with your mouse (and thus are also looking at your skill bar) you’re doomed.

Propper keybinds are a must. That or invest in an MMO mouse (like a razer naga) and play until you have the muscle memory to hit the right buttons with your thumb etc.

If you are familiar, running a sound build is a must. Knowing your class and what each skill does is a must. Then knowing when/how to engage/disengage is a must.

Pretty much you need to be a pro if you want to succeed XD That or just play a mindless spammy class/spec that’ll hold you up while you get more comfortable with the general flow of incoming kitten flying your way.

When you break it down and look at it like this, you’re probably screwed.

Naa I disagree man, I pretty much smash my keyboard with my face on this game and kill things, I don’t think it’s hard at all but it is VERY different from other games skills so if you’re not used to it you should keep your distance from the enemy and shoot at em from far away and bring defensive skills too cuz you can get 1 shotted on here very easily if you’re not careful. Also never go anywhere alone ALWAYS bring back up if you can that’s very helpful since a lota people like to zerg you on here. That’s why rangers good if no 1 wants to help you at least you have your pet.

I’m sure if I knew what class/s you main/play this would make perfect sense. Since with certain classes a face smash approach wouldn’t.

I did look through your post history, but the only thing there is four pages of chatter about sexy armor XD

The OP is right actually. I’ve lost a lot of casual friends from GW2 “people I know in real life even” who don’t play often enough to be able to keep up with every single game changing patch that happens. They will sit down and learn a certain spec, which takes time for casual players. They may even grow to very much enjoy playing that spec. Then a couple months down the road, a patch hits and everything changes on them.

The only players in this community who really keep up competitively are the ones who play every day, who are investing the kind of time required to keep up and adapt immediately to every change that happens. It’s true, GW2 is not a game for casual players anymore.

Even in pve when a patch hits, if you don’t have the funds to revise your gear and get appropriate setups, you’re kitten out of luck. Casuals don’t tend to have 100s of gold laying around to revise their gear on demand like that.

Honestly arena-net needs to crunch out some time and find a good balance point to let the game settle on. It would bring a lot of players back to the game if there was some stability in their time invested to learn play styles.

Ross Biddle.2367:

Ellie.5913:

Ross Biddle.2367:

If you click skills with your mouse (and thus are also looking at your skill bar) you’re doomed.

Propper keybinds are a must. That or invest in an MMO mouse (like a razer naga) and play until you have the muscle memory to hit the right buttons with your thumb etc.

If you are familiar, running a sound build is a must. Knowing your class and what each skill does is a must. Then knowing when/how to engage/disengage is a must.

Pretty much you need to be a pro if you want to succeed XD That or just play a mindless spammy class/spec that’ll hold you up while you get more comfortable with the general flow of incoming kitten flying your way.

When you break it down and look at it like this, you’re probably screwed.

Naa I disagree man, I pretty much smash my keyboard with my face on this game and kill things, I don’t think it’s hard at all but it is VERY different from other games skills so if you’re not used to it you should keep your distance from the enemy and shoot at em from far away and bring defensive skills too cuz you can get 1 shotted on here very easily if you’re not careful. Also never go anywhere alone ALWAYS bring back up if you can that’s very helpful since a lota people like to zerg you on here. That’s why rangers good if no 1 wants to help you at least you have your pet.

I’m sure if I knew what class/s you main/play this would make perfect sense. Since with certain classes a face smash approach wouldn’t.

I did look through your post history, but the only thing there is four pages of chatter about sexy armor XD

Lolz, yessssssssss this game needs sexier armor does it not? Whatever you do you must do in style otherwise whats the point in doing it. And I don’t really main anything I play everything equally except thief I kinda hate thief and I suck at it so I feel sorry for whoever gets teamed with me when I’m on thief xD But if you ask my statistics thing it says engineer is my favorite profession and legacy of the foefire is my favorite map.

Trevor Boyer.6524:

The OP is right actually. I’ve lost a lot of casual friends from GW2 “people I know in real life even” who don’t play often enough to be able to keep up with every single game changing patch that happens. They will sit down and learn a certain spec, which takes time for casual players. They may even grow to very much enjoy playing that spec. Then a couple months down the road, a patch hits and everything changes on them.

The only players in this community who really keep up competitively are the ones who play every day, who are investing the kind of time required to keep up and adapt immediately to every change that happens. It’s true, GW2 is not a game for casual players anymore.

Even in pve when a patch hits, if you don’t have the funds to revise your gear and get appropriate setups, you’re kitten out of luck. Casuals don’t tend to have 100s of gold laying around to revise their gear on demand like that.

Honestly arena-net needs to crunch out some time and find a good balance point to let the game settle on. It would bring a lot of players back to the game if there was some stability in their time invested to learn play styles.

Yea that’s 1 thing I REALLY hate about this game is I find a build I love then BAM a patch hits like a bomb and blows all my stuff to absolute pure uselessness then I gotta start over with a different build that I don’t like anywhere near as much as my previous 1 that has become useless. Why do they do that……

Ellie.5913:

Ross Biddle.2367:

Ellie.5913:

Ross Biddle.2367:

If you click skills with your mouse (and thus are also looking at your skill bar) you’re doomed.

Propper keybinds are a must. That or invest in an MMO mouse (like a razer naga) and play until you have the muscle memory to hit the right buttons with your thumb etc.

If you are familiar, running a sound build is a must. Knowing your class and what each skill does is a must. Then knowing when/how to engage/disengage is a must.

Pretty much you need to be a pro if you want to succeed XD That or just play a mindless spammy class/spec that’ll hold you up while you get more comfortable with the general flow of incoming kitten flying your way.

When you break it down and look at it like this, you’re probably screwed.

Naa I disagree man, I pretty much smash my keyboard with my face on this game and kill things, I don’t think it’s hard at all but it is VERY different from other games skills so if you’re not used to it you should keep your distance from the enemy and shoot at em from far away and bring defensive skills too cuz you can get 1 shotted on here very easily if you’re not careful. Also never go anywhere alone ALWAYS bring back up if you can that’s very helpful since a lota people like to zerg you on here. That’s why rangers good if no 1 wants to help you at least you have your pet.

I’m sure if I knew what class/s you main/play this would make perfect sense. Since with certain classes a face smash approach wouldn’t.

I did look through your post history, but the only thing there is four pages of chatter about sexy armor XD

Lolz, yessssssssss this game needs sexier armor does it not? Whatever you do you must do in style otherwise whats the point in doing it. And I don’t really main anything I play everything equally except thief I kinda hate thief and I suck at it so I feel sorry for whoever gets teamed with me when I’m on thief xD But if you ask my statistics thing it says engineer is my favorite profession and legacy of the foefire is my favorite map.

The biggest thing is build choice without a reliable build and us seeing your skill level its hard to help you, i would recommend dueling someone to practice and posting your favorite builds here so people can help you find better builds if you arent running good ones. Posting a video here could help too but if you do prepare for all the supperiority complexes…try to find someone you know you cant beat who knows your class well so they can help you with combos and you can work on reaching their level of play and remember practice makes perfect so it is okay to lose if you are learning and practicing. Atm being ranked is closed i am doing a lot of this myself, trying to 1v3 on my bunker druid to try and figure out how to last as long as possible, trying to work on my rotations and keeping myself in good postion when enemies are coming off of spawn, and working on utilizing fields more when not solo queing for full team effect.

Ellie.5913:

Trevor Boyer.6524:

The OP is right actually. I’ve lost a lot of casual friends from GW2 “people I know in real life even” who don’t play often enough to be able to keep up with every single game changing patch that happens. They will sit down and learn a certain spec, which takes time for casual players. They may even grow to very much enjoy playing that spec. Then a couple months down the road, a patch hits and everything changes on them.

The only players in this community who really keep up competitively are the ones who play every day, who are investing the kind of time required to keep up and adapt immediately to every change that happens. It’s true, GW2 is not a game for casual players anymore.

Even in pve when a patch hits, if you don’t have the funds to revise your gear and get appropriate setups, you’re kitten out of luck. Casuals don’t tend to have 100s of gold laying around to revise their gear on demand like that.

Honestly arena-net needs to crunch out some time and find a good balance point to let the game settle on. It would bring a lot of players back to the game if there was some stability in their time invested to learn play styles.

Yea that’s 1 thing I REALLY hate about this game is I find a build I love then BAM a patch hits like a bomb and blows all my stuff to absolute pure uselessness then I gotta start over with a different build that I don’t like anywhere near as much as my previous 1 that has become useless. Why do they do that……

They hardly changed the meta in the latest patch. And a lot of classes still play ~ the same way they were played months ago.
Ele is still a healbot, thief is still a runner, necro is still a condinuke, revenant is still a hard to define damage dealing, bunkery, somewhat fast hybrid.
And those who are not playing the game on daily basis…I dont know if I would call that casual. A casual is someone who plays maybe an hour or two each day.
Everything less equals ‘not even trying’
Oh and the last thing needed is more ‘stability’ they already patch only once every season for that very reason. They dont want to ‘disturb’ us or ‘shake up the meta’ and as a result the game works the way it does.

Chase.2798:

Ellie.5913:

Ross Biddle.2367:

Ellie.5913:

Ross Biddle.2367:

If you click skills with your mouse (and thus are also looking at your skill bar) you’re doomed.

Propper keybinds are a must. That or invest in an MMO mouse (like a razer naga) and play until you have the muscle memory to hit the right buttons with your thumb etc.

If you are familiar, running a sound build is a must. Knowing your class and what each skill does is a must. Then knowing when/how to engage/disengage is a must.

Pretty much you need to be a pro if you want to succeed XD That or just play a mindless spammy class/spec that’ll hold you up while you get more comfortable with the general flow of incoming kitten flying your way.

When you break it down and look at it like this, you’re probably screwed.

Naa I disagree man, I pretty much smash my keyboard with my face on this game and kill things, I don’t think it’s hard at all but it is VERY different from other games skills so if you’re not used to it you should keep your distance from the enemy and shoot at em from far away and bring defensive skills too cuz you can get 1 shotted on here very easily if you’re not careful. Also never go anywhere alone ALWAYS bring back up if you can that’s very helpful since a lota people like to zerg you on here. That’s why rangers good if no 1 wants to help you at least you have your pet.

I’m sure if I knew what class/s you main/play this would make perfect sense. Since with certain classes a face smash approach wouldn’t.

I did look through your post history, but the only thing there is four pages of chatter about sexy armor XD

Lolz, yessssssssss this game needs sexier armor does it not? Whatever you do you must do in style otherwise whats the point in doing it. And I don’t really main anything I play everything equally except thief I kinda hate thief and I suck at it so I feel sorry for whoever gets teamed with me when I’m on thief xD But if you ask my statistics thing it says engineer is my favorite profession and legacy of the foefire is my favorite map.

The biggest thing is build choice without a reliable build and us seeing your skill level its hard to help you, i would recommend dueling someone to practice and posting your favorite builds here so people can help you find better builds if you arent running good ones. Posting a video here could help too but if you do prepare for all the supperiority complexes…try to find someone you know you cant beat who knows your class well so they can help you with combos and you can work on reaching their level of play and remember practice makes perfect so it is okay to lose if you are learning and practicing. Atm being ranked is closed i am doing a lot of this myself, trying to 1v3 on my bunker druid to try and figure out how to last as long as possible, trying to work on my rotations and keeping myself in good postion when enemies are coming off of spawn, and working on utilizing fields more when not solo queing for full team effect.

I think you quoted the wrong person, I’m not the 1 asking for help I would never….. I’m just trying to help the OP, but I think hes going to be fine now

Ellie.5913:

Chase.2798:

Ellie.5913:

Ross Biddle.2367:

Ellie.5913:

Ross Biddle.2367:

If you click skills with your mouse (and thus are also looking at your skill bar) you’re doomed.

Propper keybinds are a must. That or invest in an MMO mouse (like a razer naga) and play until you have the muscle memory to hit the right buttons with your thumb etc.

If you are familiar, running a sound build is a must. Knowing your class and what each skill does is a must. Then knowing when/how to engage/disengage is a must.

Pretty much you need to be a pro if you want to succeed XD That or just play a mindless spammy class/spec that’ll hold you up while you get more comfortable with the general flow of incoming kitten flying your way.

When you break it down and look at it like this, you’re probably screwed.

Naa I disagree man, I pretty much smash my keyboard with my face on this game and kill things, I don’t think it’s hard at all but it is VERY different from other games skills so if you’re not used to it you should keep your distance from the enemy and shoot at em from far away and bring defensive skills too cuz you can get 1 shotted on here very easily if you’re not careful. Also never go anywhere alone ALWAYS bring back up if you can that’s very helpful since a lota people like to zerg you on here. That’s why rangers good if no 1 wants to help you at least you have your pet.

I’m sure if I knew what class/s you main/play this would make perfect sense. Since with certain classes a face smash approach wouldn’t.

I did look through your post history, but the only thing there is four pages of chatter about sexy armor XD

Lolz, yessssssssss this game needs sexier armor does it not? Whatever you do you must do in style otherwise whats the point in doing it. And I don’t really main anything I play everything equally except thief I kinda hate thief and I suck at it so I feel sorry for whoever gets teamed with me when I’m on thief xD But if you ask my statistics thing it says engineer is my favorite profession and legacy of the foefire is my favorite map.

The biggest thing is build choice without a reliable build and us seeing your skill level its hard to help you, i would recommend dueling someone to practice and posting your favorite builds here so people can help you find better builds if you arent running good ones. Posting a video here could help too but if you do prepare for all the supperiority complexes…try to find someone you know you cant beat who knows your class well so they can help you with combos and you can work on reaching their level of play and remember practice makes perfect so it is okay to lose if you are learning and practicing. Atm being ranked is closed i am doing a lot of this myself, trying to 1v3 on my bunker druid to try and figure out how to last as long as possible, trying to work on my rotations and keeping myself in good postion when enemies are coming off of spawn, and working on utilizing fields more when not solo queing for full team effect.

I think you quoted the wrong person, I’m not the 1 asking for help I would never….. I’m just trying to help the OP, but I think hes going to be fine now

Ahh my bad XD

I get the feeling there are not a whole lot of new faces showing up in spvp, and if thats true that is a very real problem for new comers and casuals…

I feel for you OP, I’m a veretan player who has spent way to many hours on this game and I my self felt like there were a mountain of mechanics to learn at one point…

Wouldn’t it be nice if the majority of abilitys you were supposed to avoid were tied with some blatantly obvious telegraph? For example a sword lighting up bright with fire indicated you were about to be stunned, a lot of animations just don’t have very specific tells of what is going on. The animation doesn’t need to be flashy but it should be obvious what is being casted. I have talked to anet about this exact thing in the past.

perhaps if there were some better rewards in spvp tied into pve we would see more people giving it a go more often, if we had more players in spvp with a great match making system then I think you’d get the kind of match making you desire.

I also think it would be great to have some sort of tutorial that explained what to mainly look out for vs each class let alone an explanation of how to play your own class vs that class.

Cpt Decaf.5321:

Whenever I log onto to play PvP these days, it’s just a blowout.

Welcome to Esports, where “skilled play” is rewarded.
My opinion is that we have;

• insane CC because of PvE breakbars
  combining with
• unfettered damage spikes
  thus
• no chance for counterplay

It’s a whopping mess.

In my opinion we need

• shorter CCs
  and
• lower damage across the board.
  HALVE it if necessary, we need longer fights
  Also
• shadowsteps and stealth need to get intimate with the nerfbat – these are way, way, WAYHEYHEY too good at the moment!

As a new player who has been trying to find his way into GW2 PvP (just opened a thread on this same subject), I fully agree with the OP and with Grimreaper.

Because I like the PvP maps and many of the aspects of the game, I am still here, but trying to learn the basics of sPvP while being punched around is a horrible experience. Imho, the complexity and reaction speed involved make it almost impossible to have any kind of fun or learning beyond the stress and the ignorance on what may be happening.

Seventh Angel.4879:

As a new player who has been trying to find his way into GW2 PvP (just opened a thread on this same subject), I fully agree with the OP and with Grimreaper.

Because I like the PvP maps and many of the aspects of the game, I am still here, but trying to learn the basics of sPvP while being punched around is a horrible experience. Imho, the complexity and reaction speed involved make it almost impossible to have any kind of fun or learning beyond the stress and the ignorance on what may be happening.

This is a great post and I believe it expresses the typical PvP experience.

Great games are fun to play and difficult to master, but mastery should NOT mean roflstomping everybody with little-to-no reaction needed. This is why I believe it’s important that spike damage be reduced and thus fights last longer, giving new players time to react (not easy when enemies spike from a stealthed position) and making fights more satisfying when a victory does come.

One of the things the developers got wrong:

• Traits which allow abilities to do more damage when enemies are lower on health – this is the opposite of what should be happening. When enemies have high health you should do more damage, then as they get worn down, it becomes more difficult to finish them off.

Svarty.8019:

Seventh Angel.4879:

As a new player who has been trying to find his way into GW2 PvP (just opened a thread on this same subject), I fully agree with the OP and with Grimreaper.

Because I like the PvP maps and many of the aspects of the game, I am still here, but trying to learn the basics of sPvP while being punched around is a horrible experience. Imho, the complexity and reaction speed involved make it almost impossible to have any kind of fun or learning beyond the stress and the ignorance on what may be happening.

This is a great post and I believe it expresses the typical PvP experience.

Great games are fun to play and difficult to master, but mastery should mean roflstomping everybody with little-to-no reaction needed. This is why I believe it’s important that spike damage be reduced and thus fights last longer, giving new players time to react (not easy when enemies spike from a stealthed position) and making fights more satisfying when a victory does come.

One of the things the developers got wrong:

• Traits which allow abilities to do more damage when enemies are lower on health – this is the opposite of what should be happening. When enemies have high health you should do more damage, then as they get worn down, it becomes more difficult to finish them off.

I agree with you. The spike damage is just too much imo. Surely something must be wrong when someone can insta kill another player, with little to no time for reaction, for the player on the receiving end.

It really feels like people are going to just be driven away from sPvP, more and more. New players won’t want to stick around when this kind of thing happens to them.

Cpt Decaf.5321:

Whenever I log onto to play PvP these days, it’s just a blowout. Match after match of getting just shredded by coordinated teams of players using the most meta of meta builds they can find. Even when I win, I don’t get that feeling of satisfaction. I generally don’t know why we won, and usually didn’t contribute to the win.

Basically, I love Guild Wars 2. I’m not a fanatical player. I play when I have time, and I tend to stick with PvE, but in most other games, I love PvP, and tend to be able to hold my own. However, I feel like this game’s PvP was hard to understand before Heart of the Thorns, and now it’s just completely beyond me. Nowadays, I log in, and spend most of my time dead. I don’t even get time to figure out my mistakes because most fights end with me blowing up in half second, and I don’t even have time to decipher which of the 10 ridiculous particle effects killed me. Readability is a big issue for me.

I’m willing to invest time into a game, but generally that game has to be fun on some level first. I keep giving this game’s multiplayer a shot, because my friend and I were big fans of Guild Wars 1’s PvP, but we both feel there is no place for the casual player anymore. The point of entry is too high. There’s a mountain of mechanics to go through. The game is blinding fast, and requires incredible reflexes and precise dexterity to hit combos.

If I could log on, and have an even match where I felt my opponents and teammates were at a similar level of experience, I could slowly get into this. Did anybody else really love GW1 PvP, but hasn’t found any enjoyment from 2’s?

I know this is whining, but honestly, I just miss having a Guild Wars like game to play PvP in, and it sorta feels like all of the people of average video game ability have been sorta waysided in favor of this small, dedicated fanbase. Great if you are one of those people, but I wish for the days when Guild Wars was more inclusive, and I feel there is room for both audiences to exist without sacrificing in quality for either group.

Also, advice is always fine. My friend nor I never last long enough to ever figure out anything beyond how to wait for the death timer to come back up.

I happen to know exactly what you mean and how you feel since what you described has been my experience as well. I tried a few matches this past weekend, soloQ, faced organized groups every time. At this point the best solution is to just say F it. You dont owe anything to this game, you dont have to train yourself, you dont have to brainwash yourself into only thinking of what button sequence to press, you dont need a 100 euro gaming mouse. Basically if the game requires any of the above from you just so you can enjoy a certain aspect of it ( pvp in this case ) then the game is worthless. Artificially pushed into a mess of mechanics and inequality. Three major sins exist in the pvp aspect of online games – gear inequality, class imbalance, team compositions. GW 2 has the gear covered but is guilty of the other two. Here you will find class stacking and premade vs pug most of the time.
So let it go. They dont care about you, the casual player. They want to enforce hardcore pvp to fuel their esport bs. Let them. Dont bother yourself with something that was designed to frustrate you.

I don’t get frustrated, whenever I get put on an all solo player team or not so pro premade or half premade and we have to face an organized premade, after a few really bad wipes usually our team just goes afk and waits for it to end. Not much you can do in a battle like that except wait for it to end. So unless they ever put back solo queue(and remove making match ups based on mmr)you can’t really take the pvp too seriously here. Just do the best you can if you can, if you can’t then just wait for it to end, eventually you’ll get put in a better match if you handle waiting for such a match. Unless you’re playing ranked, if that’s the case then no you probably won’t stand a chance, ranked isn’t worth it anymore(unless you’re one of the lucky ones who gets put on the predetermined winning team) they screwed it up majorly.

Asrat.2645:

Ellie.5913:

Trevor Boyer.6524:

The OP is right actually. I’ve lost a lot of casual friends from GW2 “people I know in real life even” who don’t play often enough to be able to keep up with every single game changing patch that happens. They will sit down and learn a certain spec, which takes time for casual players. They may even grow to very much enjoy playing that spec. Then a couple months down the road, a patch hits and everything changes on them.

The only players in this community who really keep up competitively are the ones who play every day, who are investing the kind of time required to keep up and adapt immediately to every change that happens. It’s true, GW2 is not a game for casual players anymore.

Even in pve when a patch hits, if you don’t have the funds to revise your gear and get appropriate setups, you’re kitten out of luck. Casuals don’t tend to have 100s of gold laying around to revise their gear on demand like that.

Honestly arena-net needs to crunch out some time and find a good balance point to let the game settle on. It would bring a lot of players back to the game if there was some stability in their time invested to learn play styles.

Yea that’s 1 thing I REALLY hate about this game is I find a build I love then BAM a patch hits like a bomb and blows all my stuff to absolute pure uselessness then I gotta start over with a different build that I don’t like anywhere near as much as my previous 1 that has become useless. Why do they do that……

They hardly changed the meta in the latest patch. And a lot of classes still play ~ the same way they were played months ago.
Ele is still a healbot, thief is still a runner, necro is still a condinuke, revenant is still a hard to define damage dealing, bunkery, somewhat fast hybrid.
And those who are not playing the game on daily basis…I dont know if I would call that casual. A casual is someone who plays maybe an hour or two each day.
Everything less equals ‘not even trying’
Oh and the last thing needed is more ‘stability’ they already patch only once every season for that very reason. They dont want to ‘disturb’ us or ‘shake up the meta’ and as a result the game works the way it does.

That response is like a politician dodging answers by veering very far away from the problems that are obvious to everyone.

Trevor Boyer.6524:

That response is like a politician dodging answers by veering very far away from the problems that are obvious to everyone.

How comes?
I am well aware of the actual problems but stability is certainly not one of them.
Quite the contrary actually.
And that is the one that has been adressed by the person I was responding to.

Everything less equals ‘not even trying’

Trying to do what Asrat.2645? Trying to be part of the meta, trying to be elite. Perhaps (and i know this is a shocker) even trying to have some laid back fun? What are we supposed to be trying to do here? Playing a game is not a complex activity and if you repeat it enough times it will become no more than a reflex. It all boils down to ’ Do I want to commit precious time in order to memorize rotation sequences?’. Because that is what the so called skill in video games really is.

I don’t even know what he’s talking about in his response, he sounded drunk when he typed it, that’s why I didn’t respond to it xD

pepsis.5384:

Trying to do what Asrat.2645?

Not trying as in ‘trying’
‘Not even trying’ as in ‘you are not actually playing the game’
If you dont want to play at least an hour each day you are not actively playing the game.
That does not imply anything else, I didnt even say you should be blamed for it.
You may invest whatever amount of time you wish, but if you play the game once a week for two hours you might not have the right to complain if youre not good at it.
Our brain memorizes through repition. If you only experience a certain information once or only once in a great while, you are much less likely to memorize it than you are when repeatedly exposed.

Trying to be part of the meta,

I dont like to quotemine here, but this part doe not even make sense

trying to be elite.

Elite means you are one of the best. You dont have to try that and I never said so.
But you can at least try to understand the game you are playing.

Perhaps (and i know this is a shocker) even trying to have some laid back fun?

In that case we are not talking about a competitive PvP game. 99% of people dont play PvP to enjoy themselves but to prove they are better than somebody else.

What are we supposed to be trying to do here? Playing a game is not a complex activity and if you repeat it enough times it will become no more than a reflex.

Is that so? If it is not a complex activity, how comes they call it a ‘sport’
Gaming used to be relatively simple. Just a fun way to kill some time in an alternative reality that suits your needs.
But it has moved far away from that.
It now heavily involves social interaction with other people but also complex mechanics and incentives for people to make the most of what they have.
Reflexes and memorizing certain situations help you performing the task, but it wont do the task for you.
todays competitive gaming is probably closer to a high speed, flashy version of chess than to original single player rpgs.
You and your opponent both have a wide variety of tools to use and you have to try to utilize them as best as possible, at the same time guessing your opponents next move and trying to deceive them about your own.
But I feel like im getting off topic here, so I better stop.

It all boils down to ’ Do I want to commit precious time in order to memorize rotation sequences?’. Because this what the so called skill in video games really is.

Well. It obviously isnt, but let me put it like this:
-The more knowledge you posses the better your chance to forsee your opponents moves, the greater is your potential to win.
To compare it to chess again: You cant really expect to win if you dont know how a bishop moves. But knowing the movement doesnt mean you automatically beat your opponent.

Ellie.5913:

I don’t even know what he’s talking about in his response, he sounded drunk when he typed it, that’s why I didn’t respond to it xD

Might disappoint you but I dont intentionally consume neurotoxin.

FYI Im not a fan of post dissecting, I find it takes statements out context way too often and thus I didnt read your undoubtedly in-depth analysis. Off to more entertaining activities then shall we

Alright. And agreed. i hate if people do that to my comments. It just seemed the best way to deal with this particular situation.
I tried my best to respond to what you said and not just point out flaws in your argumentation like this way of quoteminig is usually handled.