Guild Wars 2

I’ve been playing since launch, but I’ve never really bothered with PvP (I played 4 games at the VERY beginning). I just tried a few games again and, oh, wow. It left me extremely dis-heartened.

First off, How do you get more PvP skins? I see a lot of people in cool looking armor, and I’m stuck with lame looking newby armor.

Is there anywhere I can fight people more my level? I don’t consider myself a “bad” player in PvE, but last night, everyone was steamrolling me and stun-locking me to death. I have a build I like, it’s got a decent amount of toughness and vit, balanced with more power and Prec.

Also, how do you deal with being zerged? I specifically left WvW because I hardly ever get to fight people solo, before being overwhelmed by a group. I came to PvP hoping it would be different, and to find to see how I really stood up to other players, with no luck. It’s still a 4 man blitzkrieg through everything. I would really like to do a few 1v1’s against real professions, just to see where I am. Everyone I was against tonight seemed much more skill than me, and had a lot of different armor skins. To me, that indicated they all have a lot of time invested in this.

I just want to fight others in my bunny league in a small group setting or even some 1v1.

Take notes about this player’s needs and perceptions, ArenaNet. These are the exact players that we need participating and staying in SPVP to make it grow. They need to be introduced to SPVP in a guided, educational and fun environment, so that they want to come back.

This is an important thread. Hopefully soloq will help resolve this issue.

Axyl.9408:

I’ve been playing since launch, but I’ve never really bothered with PvP (I played 4 games at the VERY beginning). I just tried a few games again and, oh, wow. It left me extremely dis-heartened.

First off, How do you get more PvP skins? I see a lot of people in cool looking armor, and I’m stuck with lame looking newby armor.

Is there anywhere I can fight people more my level? I don’t consider myself a “bad” player in PvE, but last night, everyone was steamrolling me and stun-locking me to death. I have a build I like, it’s got a decent amount of toughness and vit, balanced with more power and Prec.

Also, how do you deal with being zerged? I specifically left WvW because I hardly ever get to fight people solo, before being overwhelmed by a group. I came to PvP hoping it would be different, and to find to see how I really stood up to other players, with no luck. It’s still a 4 man blitzkrieg through everything. I would really like to do a few 1v1’s against real professions, just to see where I am. Everyone I was against tonight seemed much more skill than me, and had a lot of different armor skins. To me, that indicated they all have a lot of time invested in this.

I just want to fight others in my bunny league in a small group setting or even some 1v1.

Hi! First of all, welcome to the PvP scene! Just so you know, it usually starts out this way for a lot of new players to PvP, and that’s okay.

The first thing I recommend is looking up suggested builds for your class. I know you have a build you like, and that’s great, but there may be some tweaks that could be made to help you have more fun while retaining a playstyle that you like.

Additionally, remember that succeeding in sPvP requires different tactics than in PvE. Things like increasing your mobility, bringing stun-breakers, and clearing conditions are all pretty unnecessary for the most part in PvE, but they’re absolutely vital in PvP, and are usually the key to staying alive.

Try to pick matches as well. If you hit the Play Now button, you could get thrown into a very unbalanced match. By selecting your own server to play in, you gain a bit of control over the number of players against which you fight. There are even some servers devoted to dueling, so if that’s your thing, try to get into one of those.

The biggest thing, though, is that you shouldn’t get attached to a build early. Beginning to PvP means learning what builds work and which ones don’t. Find a few that are effective, then find one that’s fun, and you’ll be a lot happier in the end.

Thank you for the replies! It’s good to know that this is a similar problem for everyone. Simply jumping into games is what I have been doing, which also explains a lot. Luckily, condition manipulation isn’t a problem with my Necromancer. Stun breakers, however are. I’ll have to add some more.
As for builds, I’m using a power based build, because I wanted to stay away from the terror/burning build everyone complains about. The numbers aren’t quite as high as I was hoping they’d be, so I’ll need to do more research.

Also, how can I get new armor and weapon skins in PvP?

You get armor skins from Achievement chests, as well as from glory vendors. As you increase your rank, you get access to better and better armor skins.

In order to get your own armor, you need to buy chests from the glory vendors. These come with a random assortment of skins based on your rank. Next, buy a PvP salvage kit. Now you can salvage Arcane Powder, Orbs, Crystals, and Slivers from the random PvP gear that you get. You can obtain PvP gear from the Mystic Forge in the mists by combining armor or weapon tokens (purchasable with glory from the Glory Vendor mentioned previously) with rank tokens (which you also get from chests, and maybe vendors. Don’t remember exactly atm.) and the arcane materials mentioned above for skins at your level. You unlock a new tier of skins every 10 glory ranks, which can take quite a while, unfortunately.

Alternatively, once you’ve figured out a good build for yourself, you can attempt to do free solo queue tournaments. Winning these gets you Free Tournament Tokens, which is used to create AWESOME armor skins. Good luck winning these, though, as competitive teams will frequently sign up for these for practice. >_>

Describes to me, how flawed hotjoin actually is and also not really beginner-friendly.
Something A-Net definitely should read.

‘’ but last night, everyone was steamrolling me and stun-locking me to death. I have a build I like, it’s got a decent amount of toughness and vit, balanced with more power and Prec.’’

watching more experienced players and their builds in spectator mode might help you getting started. you get boxes with random armor and weapons for reaching new ranks and winning tournies and you can buy them for glory at the glory vendors. you can salvage those items with salvage kits from the glory vendors and use the mystic forge to produce different items. heres a list of the recipes, skins that you get from specific tokens will also drop from the related boxes: http://www.guildwars2guru.com/topic/55030-pvp-mystic-forge-recipes/