Guild Wars 2

I feel like I’m really struggling with sPvP in this game. I have been rolling an offensive guardian build (http://tinyurl.com/k2ehzxr) and I think that – in general – I am doing alright with it in 1v1 situations. So I don’t think that I have a terrible build or that I don’t understand what my skills are or anything like that.

I think I’m at about a 30% win rate (mostly solo queue) and those are usually landslides, which tell me that I’m probably being carried to some extent. I don’t know. It just seems that I keep finding myself defending points in 1v3 situations, defending points and seeing nobody for extended periods of time, or roaming and constantly fighting in 1v2 or 1v3 situations. Sometimes I’m just scratching my head because I’ll be trying to cap and I’ll get jumped by 2 or 3 opponents…..but we’ll still control zero other points on the map. So I sit there wondering what the heck everybody else is doing. I don’t know. I’m getting the feeling that I’m doing something wrong here

I’m curious if anybody has any resources that helped you improve that you could share with me. I’m not new to MMO pvp (been playing wow BGs since vanilla and 3v3 arenas since burning crusade) but I’m still very fresh to GW2 and I know I have a lot to learn yet

Thanks!!

It sounds like those landslide fights are because your teammates aren’t reading the map or people aren’t communicating. If you have 2 or 3 people on you, let your teammates know when you get downed so they can move around them. If they’re too stupid to do that much, Shift+Left Click the map to “ping” it so you can direct them to a different point. Say you try to cap home but have three enemies jump you… Look at the minimap and find another point your team hasn’t captured yet, and Shift+Left Click it a bunch of times to tell them to go there instead of helping you at home. I’ve found fights tend to go a tiny bit better now that I’m using the minimap to tell people where to go.

Get a feel for how you do against certain classes. If you have trouble against thieves, you shouldn’t be the person to cap home at the start of the match, because they are the most common class to come and harass you there. (Unless there aren’t any thieves on the enemy team.) If two people come and you can hold them for a bit, ping the map to let your team know you need help.

If you notice people aren’t capping points, they’re fighting away from points, or they’re being generally stupid, tell them. “CAP POINTS FIRST. STOP FIGHTING AWAY FROM POINTS.” There’s a good chance they’re newbs who just don’t know.

Hello Solafein,

The only one thing that I can tell you is that soloq is really frustrating. For a guard it’s even more frustrating because nobody listen to you or leave you on a point that you have to defend.
You should make a team, it was hard before the update I couldn’t advise you to do that but now there’s a lot of new players like you or just curious pve players that want to start pvp.

Even if your team will not have a huge level at the start, it’s totally normal but with 4 others mates that you are with on teamspeak for teamquing, it’s way better than soloq

Just say your teammates that u are not a bunker guard maybe they think u will bunker the Points

As an offensive guard, you want to look for times to get in, do your damage, and get out. Prolonged fights against multiple opponents are not your strong point.

My advice, if you see 3 people coming at you, is to run. Also I think you can swap contemplation of purity for stand your ground, should help you get more stomps.

I’m really not the best out there. Highest 325 Solo, 383 Team with wins 55% and 52% respectively so take what I say with a grain of salt.

Offensive Guard is a roamer and you can’t really defend points.
You have nearly no team utility and the only way you can carry is by winning teamfights and get upperhand in 1v1s (until people rotate in to help you, or you come in to a 1v1, force 1v2 and win quickly). SYG! is okay but you are a zerker and might get cleaved badly when trying to stomp. You can save VoJ and VoC for stomp if you really really need it, but let tanky builds with stability do their job.
My experience is that people tend to be better roamers than bunkers and maybe if you ran a 0 1 6 6 1 AH bunker or 0 0 2 6 6 Virtues bunker you would offer more to the team and carry them better (resses, buffs, CC). Always spam team chat how many are on your point. “2 mid, 3 mid, im low, down on mid but thief low (mark target)” these should be typed early so that people can begin running to you while you try and survive.

In solo queue (which i assume will be the main thing you do) you need to watch map and decide where you should go (usually a teamfight). For example opening fight on mid, a 4v4. Look at their health, check the red and blue arrows for downed people, check the health bars to predict if the fight is going well or not. If someone seems to be dropping and you see a cluster of enemies, start heading there.
If you see 1 or 2 enemy red arrows (downed) the fight is ok, just see if you can spot incoming and tell your team. If there are 3 to 4 blue arrows and you see red healthbars on your team, that’s a wipe and you have to look at what the enemy plans to do and decide on a course of action. You can quickly kill enemies coming to close, or decide that there are too many and you can leave your teammates to wipe there and use that time to decap something.
Though if at start your team goes mid and immediately wipes, just take it easy that game, it’s 90% not going to go well (unless they suddenly start to play sides and make plays etc).

Target squishes and use your GS CC to stop stomps and resses. You can get to a point quickly by using the GS leap, sword blink, and JI.
You are running Trip Med 2 1 6 1 4 with mightstack and zerkers. Trip Med has 1 playstyle in tourney, and that is setting up a big all-or-nothing burst on a low-health condi or zerker class and cleave the downed body to let your team secure the stomp. 1v1 it is decent, and you could bring down things like shatter mesmers and thieves.

If you have really well understood how the conquest mode works and have a clear vision in fights, maybe consider going in TA (you can launch TA even if you are alone). You will fill other players who are premade. If you are good, you could even find a team or friends to play with. At the beginning, it may be a little hard for you and you may get “insulted” by others if you aren’t doing well. But listen to them, ask them advices, explain them that you are new to the game but a fast learner. If someone is really annoying you -> block. And in TA, you get more gold(30 silver per win), more ranking points and it’s where you will/can make really progress your skill. I’ve recently tried soloQ (with my thief, in order to test a build), and it just meant nothing, I was the alone capping points (so my team easily won), everybody is looking for kills; a lot of new players, who probably are a lot confused; you are never going to progress there, it’s more for fun or testing builds (for me). SoloQ isn’t serious at all.
My advice :
-Since, you find yourself defending a point against multiples enemies : go bunker, take a tanky guardian build (I cannot give you one, but in the “last tournament” (ToL), they were all going 0/1/6/6/1). If you play bunker guardian and get better, you will increase your chances of winning. A bunker guardian is always welcome and will be appreciated. (Play DPS guardian, if you only have a bunker guardian in the team.)
– your jobs will be : keep a point, ofc; stomp (finishing downed players) : revive downed allies. Always play attention to their life bars, be prepared when an ally downs.
-stomp is kinda one of your primary job: this means you must know all classes downed skills and also, if you will be able to succeed or not : (thiefs, better let allies dps them; ele&mesmer, may be to risky some time; for the others use stability/blind/dodge; look for their allies, will they interrupt you?)
-often, you’d prefer revive quickly (it will really be quick if 2 are reviving) an ally than wanting to stomp an enemy (because too risky).
-never hesitate to use the minimap; you can ping/draw on the map with shiftclick left. Ping whenever you see an enemy coming to your point. If you ping when he’s(or they) already on you, it would be a long wait before allies come help. Informations are important, so if you see an enemy going somewhere, let your team know! It can change a game.
-try at least each classes for one afternoon; see what they can do. It’s essential to know, and will clearly improve your skill.

If you are running a DPS guardian :
-Look at your minimap : you must know where to go or not. Going alone against a bunker who got already the point is often useless.
-Try to be often with your teammates to be really effective.
-Think about the dead enemies ; they respawn after 15s; where will they probably go after they revive? Try to be there when they come, so you won’t let your ally outnumbered. Exemple: your team is playing on far/close: you kill 2 of them on close, after the respawn they surely will go for close, if there’s your ally doing 1vs1, he’ll be 1vs3 -> go help him.
-go first for the right targets; the ones who are most dangerious, who most fragiles.
-2 points => win. Don’t be too greedy. While you go for the 3rd point; the others will respawn and may be dangerous. Exemple : you just got mid by killing all your enemies at mid, your 2 roamers go for far and the guard stay mid => those who died may come back and take quickly mid againts 3vs1 and even close if.
-Never go suicide. While you’re dead => your team is outnumbered.

I don’t play guardian so I can’t tell about your build. If you see that it’s effective, it’s ok I guess. But take at least one stability! If you are controlled when you want to go burst => ineffective/ often suicide. It also helps you to stomp.
-Maybe create a 2nd guardian who’ll be bunker, so if the team asks you to go bunker => you can switch.

must learn to read map even while fighting and learn to go where you will have the most value such as turning a 1v1 into a 2v1 or capping an empty point etc. for example don’t sit on a point with no fight for extended time – be watching hte map and when you can account for the enemy 5’s locations you can decide if its safe to leave the point etc. if you just afk then you’re losing 4v5 on the other 2 points

Wow, awesome….so much good advice in this thread!! Thanks to everybody!!! I appreciate you guys taking the time to write all of this up.

Yeah, I wasn’t sure if solo queue was just a cluster and filled with people headhunting instead of playing objectives (which is what it felt like at times) or if I was just a hot mess and was playing it all wrong and being a noob. lol. Probably more of the latter….but it sounds like team arena is more promising in terms of getting people that will work together. I guess that shouldn’t come as a shock.

Again, awesome advice though. I had no idea about using the minimap to ping/draw. And I’ll make it a point to get more vocal about what is happening in-game.

I’ll have to try out a few different builds as well. I can tell from your posts that there are tons of nuances that I am completely missing. And, actually, I think my biggest takeaway is that it’s pretty critical to experiment with each class and get a feel for what they can do. Right now I have a very limited idea of what other professions are doing against me. And I know there’s no holy trinity in this game…but I’m also getting the feeling that even all of the DPS classes are played very differently and effective with different things. Which is actually awesome

Anyways, thanks again! I am really liking this game, although it seems pretty difficult to jump into. There’s not much hand-holding for noobs, so it seems the expectation is to rely on experimentation, other helpful people on forums and in guilds, and community resources. Or maybe I’m just getting old and not picking things up as quickly as I used to. LOL!!