Guild Wars 2

Specifically, that it’s hard to tell what is going on half the time. Important abilities, buffs, etc, are hard to track because there aren’t very definitive animations for them that are clear. Buff bar is extremely small and most of the time things like might/regen/etc aren’t visually represented.

I want to get good at it, but in all honesty, I can’t even tell what is going on half the time until after it happens.

If you don’t think that is true, ask yourself, if you were a person who never played GW2 and watched the pvp in it, could you figure out what was happening, where damage was coming from, and what classes seemed to be doing?

I’m not saying you’d know the exact mechanics, but if you can’t tell what is going on in a game, it’s a good indicator that it is not well presented.

The best tip for this: Practice with different classes.

It helps a lot to figure out stuff like different skills.
Most buffs actually do have an animation when they are first applied, i will admit though, they maybe should be more distinct.

GW2 is a visual soup that’s almost impossible to decipher. I was like you once, and put in several weeks of practice, studynig builds, pvp videos, etc. Eventually I dueled a guildie, still got my clock cleaned, and still couldn’t figure out why. We were even playing the same class, so I knew his abilities inside and out. None of it mattered, because I couldn’t see anything. Literally see. You know, with eyes.

Particle effects cover everything, scrolling numbers (crits especially) can fully block the entire center of the screen at times, character animations are inconsistent. Anet uses color as a telegraph at the edges of the screen (where your eyes can’t see color, but respond well to movement) and movement at the center of the screen (where your eyes see color and detail best, and movement poorly). Animations are full of parodoxical motion, where the animation is moving sideways or back but the action is moving forward. It’s like Anet took this chart (https://xkcd.com/1080/) and decided to make a game where they did the opposite to make things as hard to see as possible.

I suggest swearing off PVP. Elite specs ruined it anyway, and the game is just not suited for competitive gameplay. It’s a sad thing, since it’s so close to being good, but the problems are insurmountable and you’ll be happier if you leave it behind.

Chuckles.8153:

Specifically, that it’s hard to tell what is going on half the time. Important abilities, buffs, etc, are hard to track because there aren’t very definitive animations for them that are clear. Buff bar is extremely small and most of the time things like might/regen/etc aren’t visually represented.

All buffs have a visual effect on activation ( might = flamme in the hand, regen = blue aura, edige = blue shield, stab is a white thing, etc. )
Anyway f you only rely on what is on the center of the screen, you are doing something wrong. You need to rely on your UI a lot more. I always check buffs of the ennemy I focus before engaging, same for his stances/passives/etc.

If you can’t do it for buffs and condis that mean your map awareness, isn’t good either. Map awareness can really improve your pvp lvl. You can try to make your UI larger in the options for that.

Chuckles.8153:

I want to get good at it, but in all honesty, I can’t even tell what is going on half the time until after it happens.

Put on the normalized character models ( all humans with the same armor/height/skins/animations ). Enable the smaller particles effect from allies. Keep yourself out of AOE red rings.

As for the animations, well… Play a lot with other classes learn their mechanics and corresponding animations. Necro, Ranger and Ele have easy to read casting animations. The worst would be Dragon Hunter, I rely on sound for insta cast traps.

Chuckles.8153:

If you don’t think that is true, ask yourself, if you were a person who never played GW2 and watched the pvp in it, could you figure out what was happening, where damage was coming from, and what classes seemed to be doing?

I’m not saying you’d know the exact mechanics, but if you can’t tell what is going on in a game, it’s a good indicator that it is not well presented.

You obviously need to know the game to understand what is going on. A LOL teamfight is one of the worst thing to understand, even more when you never played it before. It’s the same for GW2. Once I had to watch a friend play, using the observator mode in custom arena because he was using a cheese engi build that applied 15 burn stacks in 2sec. I couldn’t even tell how he would do it without that.

Anyway, just keep practising and good luck. Pvp is nice in this game.

there is an option in the settings for “standard models” turn that on and the enemy team will use them, so you don’t have to worry about different animations on different races.

Chuckles.8153:

Specifically, that it’s hard to tell what is going on half the time. Important abilities, buffs, etc, are hard to track because there aren’t very definitive animations for them that are clear. Buff bar is extremely small and most of the time things like might/regen/etc aren’t visually represented.

I want to get good at it, but in all honesty, I can’t even tell what is going on half the time until after it happens.

If you don’t think that is true, ask yourself, if you were a person who never played GW2 and watched the pvp in it, could you figure out what was happening, where damage was coming from, and what classes seemed to be doing?

I’m not saying you’d know the exact mechanics, but if you can’t tell what is going on in a game, it’s a good indicator that it is not well presented.

Visual clutter has been reduced already significantly. Use standard models. Use your mousewheel to scroll out and in during fights. Look at rotations of all meta builds.

But the most important part, actually, is… being able to play your own build blindly. Practice your own rotations on golems, until you can do them without having to look down at your keyboard (big nono) or at your skillbar. This frees up your eyes to check for skill-tells, minimap, incoming adds, etc.

I agree with LouWolfSkin and Yasi, practicing on different professions and builds that you’re fighting against would help give you an advantage against them. You will come to predict the rotations and flow of battle against certain professions the more you play on/against them.

That being said, there are certain hard counters that exist between professions and roles, and generally you want to aim for never sinking into a rotation that puts your team at a disadvantage by being in an unfavorable match-up. An example would be a Thief 1v1’ing a bunker Ele – it’s a very bad match up for the Thief and he should go somewhere else asap unless teammates are coming in. Just keep practicing and honing your instincts.

Still being able to adjust freely the UI, (for example the enemy buff bar) like in many other games would be a nice feature.

Heya chuckles,

I think alot of the advice thrown around here is pretty good, but they slightly miss the point. Essentially you are at a point where you just want to play a lot. Ideally focus on 1v1’s. Literally every successful pvp player in this game has done this a kittenton.

Playing other classes helps, but personally I would advise you not to spend too much time on this unless you play 8 hours a day and instead focus most of your time on your 1 profession first, because this game is not just about knowing whats being thrown at you, but also knowing how you can deal with it in a way that still gives you the advantage.

The way I handled getting better and understanding every class was when I lost to someone, I would try and repeat that fight over and over until I had it down, I would look for them during the rest of the pvp match and ask them to duel me more afterwards if the match wasn’t enough time.

Also an important thing is that gw2 pvp is not just about watching for animations, its kind of like counting cooldowns and playing mindgames. I’ve gotten to a point where I can feel what the enemy wants to do because I know their cooldowns(not because I played that class alot, though that can help, but because I played that matchup so often), so now all I have to do is look out for how they want to set it up and be ready to counter that.

So tl;dr just play alot and try to take soemthing away or learn something new every game you play.

Oh and also: consider that you will be climbing skill levels, the necros you fought before might be an easy kill for you, but once you get better and play better players you need to reevaluate your matchups every time. Remember that you fight the player just as much as you fight the class.

Good luck:D

Chuckles.8153:

Specifically, that it’s hard to tell what is going on half the time. Important abilities, buffs, etc, are hard to track because there aren’t very definitive animations for them that are clear. Buff bar is extremely small and most of the time things like might/regen/etc aren’t visually represented.

I want to get good at it, but in all honesty, I can’t even tell what is going on half the time until after it happens.

If you don’t think that is true, ask yourself, if you were a person who never played GW2 and watched the pvp in it, could you figure out what was happening, where damage was coming from, and what classes seemed to be doing?

I’m not saying you’d know the exact mechanics, but if you can’t tell what is going on in a game, it’s a good indicator that it is not well presented.

man oh man…. where do i begin..

okey. first things first. “PvP awareness”. “PvP experience”. these things don’t just come after 1 or 2 weeks. i’ve been living in PvP for like 3 years. awareness and reaction i managed to kinda “master” just after like 3 to 4 months. so don’t just expect to dive into it and be good. tho i gotta say… HoT is a disgrace to PvP and GW2 in general. pre-HoT u needed to actually react quick and figure out your opponents build (yes – there were alot more builds back then. now in HoT we got just meta tunnel-minded builds. its basically clone wars 2 now.) so if you are a new player it’s really really easy to figure out what your opponent will do. like 99% of players. hell 100%. are using the same builds. so just study a lil and in like 1week u’ll be able to react to every move of your opponent. tho it doesn’t mean u’ll be able to win.. but thats another point. i’d say when it comes to awareness time is everything. and well.. just studying other classes skills/traits. but now another point…………..

so yea…second things second… GW2 being Gw2:HoT.. you’ll have another problem. even if u’ll master your countering techniques… you won’t win. yup. its that simple. depending on your class some classes you just won’t manage to take down. some people call it balance. i call it BS. even if you will reach a very skilled ceiling.. u won’t win against some classes that might be even 1 week players. so then my question to you is .. does it even matter to try hard and to learn everything? cuz in the end.. you know.. ^^ it wont matter much.

so yes. pvp awareness doesn’t come overnight and skill USED to matter. but in these days? .. well just roll meta Scrapper and enjoy killing 3year experienced/skilled pros that are playing Thieves and Zerker Shatter Mesmers. oh wait.. no1 plays that already. all good players quitted. k. ^^ but yea. i still suggest to roll Druid/Scrapper/Ele/Condi Chrono Cancer and just enjoy smashing buttons.

PS.oh and btw. don’t listen to haters and all trolls who say SKILL matters. as for now.. in this state of game CLASS > SKILL. it used to be other way around but in HoT CLASS will always be > then your SKILL. unless you are very very very bad. but i doubt you are very bad. so yea until the next balance patch or like after a year or two (hell knows how long) remember that CLASS is everything. don’t torture yourself and go with an OP class and pwn those try hard Zerker Mesmers and Zerker Thieves (irony…oh the irony…). take care

Pvt Frosty.6973:

The way I handled getting better and understanding every class was when I lost to someone, I would try and repeat that fight over and over until I had it down, I would look for them during the rest of the pvp match and ask them to duel me more afterwards if the match wasn’t enough time.

This is fantastic advice and I couldn’t recommend it more to you, OP. This is what I have done and now I can enter any 1v1 against any player and know that I have every chance of winning or at least holding the fight long enough for my team to come to help. I used to really struggle against engineers so instead of avoiding them because I knew I wouldn’t win, I actively looked for 1v1s against engineers who I knew were good and would beat me until I reached the skill level where I could win those fights. Now I don’t lose to engineers unless I seriously mess up. Recently I have been doing the same with warriors (specifically looking for the skull grinder animation and learning to dodge it). I used to die in seconds to warriors at the start of season 3 and now I win about half of these 1v1s even though I still have a lot to learn to fight warriors better.

What I would suggest to you, OP, is to focus on your 1v1s before anything else and then once you can win most of those fights, learn how to team fight better and to respond quickly to being focused. You do not need to actively try to improve your rotations because as you improve your general knowledge of pvp and which fights to take/not to take, the rotations will come naturally. The more 1v1s you take, the more you will learn animations and know when to dodge which is the most important aspect of 1v1 fighting.

you will learn from 1v1. its what i used to teach pvp when i was doing coaching in this game. you will learn the combos & skills you need. feedback over voice coms after fights is so good too. sometimes i would even spectate 1v1s from a players perspective & give them post match feedback, & real time tips.

I’d offer to duel you, but im currently trying to break 250DP on my zerker in BDO so i will be of no use to you.

I’ve been playing since beta and I can’t see what’s going on half the time, it kinda just comes natural that you know what your enemy is going to use and when once you get the experience.

I play thief so I am fortunate enough that I don’t need to be too much a part of the seizure inducing team fights in GW2.

I know what you mean, I’ve been there. In fact, I am still there. But, after practice, I have come to the conclusion that I understand the flow and actions in a lot of fights/duels “by feel”. Some animations I still fail to read/see or misread. I don’t know how to describe it but, I’ll give it a go.

I’ve played 2 professions for a long while. [Also, I’ve been playing these classes in all MMO RPGs that I’ve played over the years.] I (like to think I) understand how these professions work and what their role is.

By playing that profession over and over, you can observe various patterns; a pattern of which rotations each profession does, which combos players often prefer/opt for, what happens when you dodge THEN or later, what happens if you dodge at that part of their rotation and use the defensive ability at another part, etc.

Maybe this helps you, maybe it doesn’t. It’s just what (I hope actually) works for me

TL;DR: Experience will help you understand what is going on