Guild Wars 2

So I found a new life in GW2 in finally trying out PvP. Sure I have done WvW in the past but nothing serious. However I made some crucial mistakes when starting PvP and that mistake was jumping right in because I “knew” how to play my toons right? I could not be so wrong.

After making rank 20 in unranked arena and starting ranked there was much kitten going on because truthfully I could not stop getting owned in matches. Only THEN did I decide to read up more on PvP and realize where I had gone wrong:

1. Your gear means nothing lol. Everything is normalized except the look of your gear. Well… wish I would of known that up front.

2. Where can I get one of these amulets that these build sites keep showing. OH… there it is in PvP build section. Kind of wish I had known that.

3. Sigils and Runes galore. Had no clue I could use any sigil or rune I wanted. Wish I had know that too.

4. Built a thief to 80 to try in PvP. Farmed so many tomes during my level to 20 in PvP on my Necro only to find out… OH.. you can enter at level 1 and build a toon free of charge because it is an equal playing ground. Wasted my tomes because I suck bad at thief even after watching many videos.

5. Match making queue is interesting. If everyone accepts the queue it seems matches are close but sometimes because people drop the queue and the system does not perform another matchmaking session you end up in a match that had my team at 5 points until almost the end when I got a capture. End result was 5 min 30 sec battle that had my team at 16 points ad the winner at 500. NO LIE. Sure a GM can confirm this for you. Because the matchmaking is not performing re-matchmaking you end up lopsided with maybe 2 guards, warrior, necro and thief that will just own our variant team. I included a snippit image, maybe it gets attached.

6. Play a toon you are accustomed to. Ranger and Necro is where my experience is and I seem to sustain better and can handle myself on my own but you need the team to respond an make sure to watch map and respond to your fellow team members.

7. I started PvP for one reason and that is the easy ascended gear for season run though I started late. I found that I really do like PvP and find it much better in equality than most games where it is gear dependent.

My advice for anyone new to PvP is to learn from my mistakes to keep the kitten down in convo and maybe you will succeed where I failed.

My advice to Arena Net is maybe some type of personal story that kind of makes you do a walk through in learning what is where. POP UPS mean nothing to most of us because we think we already know what we are doing :P
Good Day!

Welcome to sPvP,

They sadly removed the tutorial for stomp/rez/capture mechanics but having to go through an instance, unskippable, where an npc slowly says things that should have taken 0,75s to cover with well done pop ups is something nobody wants :)
read dat popup please they cover nearly everything you “discovered”

Since you are new it’s pretty normal the first matches are hard for you (the system makes the assumption you are an average player which you are not since you got no experience before), your rating will go down quickly and you will likely find oponents more in your skill rating.

A couple of tips :
learn your role, what you have to do as a <insert profession> in a team
look at the map to perform your role the best (you don’t want to 1v1 if you are in a
support role)
try to optimize your build to your role
practise
learn what you can do and what you can’t do, staying alive is better than dying so don’t try to hold points 1v3 or duel people that rekted you just before
try to communicate with teammates
practise
ask questions in chat, look vids/stream
stay cool
practise

Good luck in the Mists

The first time I PvP’ed I had not utility skills because I didn’t know about sPvP being different. It was a Courtyard, yet despite me only having weapon skills my team still won.

Thanks for taking the time to share your experience; I wonder how many other new players share it. This really highlights the need to improve the “new to sPvP” player experience.

I think veterans of the game easily forget that they were clueless at first as well. Since the game is in its fourth year, a lot of us assume everyone should know what they’re doing.

Thanks for the replies. I have had a great experience with the veterans especially in unranked. “Don’t know what you’re doing please ask” or “If you are new speak up” but then there are also “all of you suck” people out there as well…. troll on soldiers :P

ich.7086:

Welcome to sPvP,

A couple of tips :
learn your role, what you have to do as a <insert profession> in a team
look at the map to perform your role the best (you don’t want to 1v1 if you are in a
support role)
try to optimize your build to your role
practise
learn what you can do and what you can’t do, staying alive is better than dying so don’t try to hold points 1v3 or duel people that rekted you just before
try to communicate with teammates
practise
ask questions in chat, look vids/stream
stay cool
practise

Good luck in the Mists

Good advice especially the practice. I

learned if you wreck me…i am staying far from you. Too many times I see people (especially unranked) go search them out to try and prove a point and I will just sit there and watch because really why not wait for back up? He/She wrecked you and then coming for me… I’ll pass.

Welcome and enjoy the stay!

ich.7086:

Welcome to sPvP,

They sadly removed the tutorial for stomp/rez/capture mechanics but having to go through an instance, unskippable, where an npc slowly says things that should have taken 0,75s to cover with well done pop ups is something nobody wants
read dat popup please they cover nearly everything you “discovered”

Since you are new it’s pretty normal the first matches are hard for you (the system makes the assumption you are an average player which you are not since you got no experience before), your rating will go down quickly and you will likely find oponents more in your skill rating.

A couple of tips :
learn your role, what you have to do as a <insert profession> in a team
look at the map to perform your role the best (you don’t want to 1v1 if you are in a
support role)
try to optimize your build to your role
practise
learn what you can do and what you can’t do, staying alive is better than dying so don’t try to hold points 1v3 or duel people that rekted you just before
try to communicate with teammates
practise
ask questions in chat, look vids/stream
stay cool
practise

Good luck in the Mists

This!!
I can’t stress how important looking at the map is. Map awareness is key for PvP games, be it GW2, MOBAS, whatever.
It gives you enough info to know what to do next. Finished capturing a point? Look at the map, killed a guy, look at the map, etc.
If you do this, you’ll know where the enemy is, and whether or not you should go there or avoid that fight to pursue a different objective.