Guild Wars 2

Hi all, I am Airanthus. Some of you might know me from a couple of my previous posts. I main a Necromancer and I am currently trying to get more into PvP. There is a limited number of resources though on the internet regarding SPvP in GW2. What I mean by resources is not just builds telling you “take this and this traits and press these skills in this order to profit” but how’s the game played, team compositions etc. Would anyone be kind enough to illuminate me please? Also if there is some kind of "tank in SPvP can a Power Reaper do that? Thanks in advance!

Airanthus.4592:

Hi all, I am Airanthus. Some of you might know me from a couple of my previous posts. I main a Necromancer and I am currently trying to get more into PvP. There is a limited number of resources though on the internet regarding SPvP in GW2. What I mean by resources is not just builds telling you “take this and this traits and press these skills in this order to profit” but how’s the game played, team compositions etc. Would anyone be kind enough to illuminate me please? Also if there is some kind of "tank in SPvP can a Power Reaper do that? Thanks in advance!

Hi and welcome hope you survive the experience ehehehe

I’d say start by reading this:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/pvp/New-to-PvP-Start-here

And go to the site at the end of that post for a nice tutorial.

Then pick your build at:

http://metabattle.com/wiki/MetaBattle_Wiki

Then proceed to watch gw2 leagues at twitch tv (guild wars 2).

This should help you out

thank you a lot Talyn!

why is it that many people both who write guides and the pro-players in the Tournament use Celestial Amulet? it gives a small bonus to everything but nothing you can specialize on

Airanthus.4592:

why is it that many people both who write guides and the pro-players in the Tournament use Celestial Amulet? it gives a small bonus to everything but nothing you can specialize on

Because when team size is 5 people you don’t have any room for “specializing”

Airanthus.4592:

why is it that many people both who write guides and the pro-players in the Tournament use Celestial Amulet? it gives a small bonus to everything but nothing you can specialize on

you can use boons to buff damage. cele makes great hybrid damage bruiser builds. that’s why people use it.

Compositions are good if the builds therein have good synergy and role versatility. For example, having a build capable of supporting and bunkering is better than having a build that can only bunker.

You really have 3 types of comp: out sustain, high damage, and inbetween.

Generally, the comp with more sustain plays more points, aiming to deny the other team captures, while the comp with less sustain plays fewer, aiming to focus fire targets down one by one, and simply overwhelm them with spike damage.

There are exceptions such as if the sustain comp has tanky players but lacks support and therefore recursive support; in such cases, splitting up more rather than grouping up, and relying on mobility to focus down the tanks when they are vulnerable is a better approach.

A balanced comp can decide whether to play two or three points based on the other team’s comp. For example, if the other team is all damage, they will play three. If the other team is tanky, they can play two, and if the other team is full on sustain with strong support, they should match the three point split and contest because once such a team has a cap, it’s hard to take it off them.

That’s the easy part. Then comes knowing your matchups, because that has an important part in rotating. For example, if the enemy +1s a 2v1 turning it into a 2v2, but it’s a very unfavourable matchup for you, it might be better to leave it and take a number advantage. Why? The guy that +1’d just spent time not helping his team while travelling, and now he has to travel again while you run to another point, leaving 1 guy to cap the point. If you are mobile, you have a good chance to get there and win the fight before that guy catches up. Another important factor is respawns and being able to estimate enemy rotations. For example, you’ll see many people die far because they decided to push it after wiping the other team, instead of taking the time to recover their cooldowns, and counter rotate the earlier respawns probably looking to contest or decap your close point.

You can’t rotate very well when out numbered on the map, so pulling out of lost fights is always extremely important to do, instead of staying to die. There are no heroic deaths in PvP because you just resapawn 15 seconds later, probably just as an ally died from being out numbered. Pull out before you die. Remember that if it’s your node or neutral, one of them must stay behind to capture it, which either gives you the number advantage or removes their number advantage as you travel to another point. You should also arrive ahead of them because you left first and can drop hard and soft cc behind you, so you’ll have a brief big number advantage at the point you arrive to.

There are also other, smaller but no less important points of tactic, such as...
...if you have a primary support, trying to force the fight away from the point while they sit on it so they do not take unecessary cleave, and returning when needing the support.
...instantly grouping around a fallen ally to revive - as he falls down, not after
...moving onto the point as you die so your allies can either group around you to res faster, or to allow them to cleave around you to damage any attempts to stomp or to counter cleave the enemy’s cleave. Your death might get your team a down and therefore not make them out numbered and not need to pull out.
...swarming over enemy players as they drop to cleave them out and any attempts at reviving.
...leaving enemy players to bleed out instead of stomping to hold a number advantage longer.
...rotating to secure a snowball rather than a point, and going for the points after once the enemy is in a weak position and needs to regroup.
...rotating to gank respawns instead of waiting for them to regroup.
...communication via drawing and pinging on the map or chatting, if without voice comms.
...trusting mesmer portal plays, and using the portal to over-extend.
...engaging off point, not extending or trying to kill, but to delay their movement onto your capped points.
...stealthing between points so the other team doesn’t know where you’re going.

The list goes on.

Another good ressource: http://qqmore.net/

Dont focus too much on builds and stuff, the most important part about beeing a benefit for your team is rotations, positioning, kiting and stuff like that. Get a build on metabattle, practice the use of it but focus on learning rotations/the game mode. Watch the minimap, dont run into fights you cant win(i.e. you vs. 2 on a node that is theirs), learn when to disengage, fight for your life! A dead player usually puts your team into a bad position, so try everything to avoid it. Lots of new players fight till they either drop or kill, dont do this!

You don’t necessarily need to play a build on meta-battle, but its a good starting point for new-ish players. That website just reflects what a lot of people on competitive teams run, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that they’ve fully explored all the options that are available to them, but use you intuition. If something feels right, then its probably good. But feel free to adapt and adjust to get the best possible feel for what you’re trying to achieve.

Just don’t get caught in a choke to think that theres only one way to play a class.

whoa I am overwhelmed by the support! thank you guys! especially you Impact for the mini-tutorial!