https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/WvW_Reward_Track
You don’t need a guild. However, you are better off with a guild if they have the WvW reward track boost which will speed things up. You can also purchase Badges of Tribute with badges you find to earn some gold:
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Badge_of_Tribute
Hopefully it’ll help you afford more materials for your legendary.
Essentially, you need to open the World vs World screen by pressing b and look at the icons on the left. One of the icons leads you to a reward track and there are various choices. Mouse over the one that says Gift of Battle, and a button that says activate should appear. If you did it right, it should be on top of the screen.
To earn reward track points, you need to earn participation by doing events or killing enemies or guards. Every 5 minutes you are rewarded progress towards your reward track based on that. You get a bunch of intermediate rewards along the way as the bar fills up, and you get the Gift of Battle at the very end.
Doing a couple of events fills up the bar quickly, but it starts decaying after what I believe is 10 minutes. To prevent that from happening, you need to participate in any event or kill an enemy. Going to kill a guard does the job too.
Events include things like capturing enemy objectives or defending your own. Attacted structures will display swords and if you pass by one of your objectives that is under attack, the defend event appears. If you repair any damaged gate or wall, or kill an enemy, you get credit, so just remember to do that.
The most important thing to remember for WvW is supply. It is used to build siege weapons that can destroy gates and walls, and also used to repair them. You can grab supply from a supply depot (but the objective must have supply). In general, it’s better to grab them from supply camps instead of towers or keeps if possible.
However, do note the upgrade level of a objective. It’s marked by stars at the icon on the objective location. 1 star means the first tier level of upgrades, to a max of 3. A tier 3 objective is much tougher to take. You can also click on a objective on the minimap which gives you a lot of information, most importantly, how long it’s been held. Structures held for less than 5 minutes have Righteous Indignation (RI) on the NPC leader of the objective— rendering them invincible and also doing much more damage. So don’t show up before 5 minutes or close to it. RI is marked by an icon and also blue flames surrounding the supervisor.
The importance of supply is also why dolyak caravans (marked as a dolyak symbol on the map) are important as they transport supply to objectives. Killing the enemy dolyaks is a good way to cut the enemy supply and also gives you credit for an event. They are the easiest things to do in WvW, as well as capturing camps which are only guarded by mildly strong NPCs. Towers and Keeps have walls and gates to breach, and thus isn’t as easy unless you have a group.
An intresting thing is that you only have to kill guards to get credit for an objective capture. Thus, the laziest thing you could do is run around killing guards and you may get credit if your team captures the structure later.
The easiest way to do progress your track is to do dailies. Keep an eye on what the dailies are. They give a chest that gives you a potion of reward track.
Because you don’t care much about Player vs Player combat atm, consider bringing a class with high stealth uptime and mobility such as a thief or mesmer. This will enable you to easily do things like Daily Ruin capture, Daily Land Capturer (sentry), or Daily Supply Disruptor (kill dolyak). Personally, I would suggest Mesmer if you see allied zergs running around, because it’s a bit easier to give utility in zerg fights without risking yourself. One thing you want to try is to go into options and map a key to “look behind”. This will help you be a bit more aware of your surroundings.
If you do join a zerg, they may occasionally ask you to join their Voice Comms; typically a third party program like Teamspeak is required. Guide: http://www.multiplaygameservers.com/help/teamspeak3-guide/
It’s fairly easy to set up though. Consider it; most folks don’t care if you stay silent, since listening in already helps a lot. However, note that Arenanet has no control over what gets said on them.
If you wish to spend as little time here as possible, I would suggest sticking around until your dailies are complete, hang around to refresh your reward track, and do a bit more the next day.
You might have to go to Edge of Mists if your server isn’t active when you play. The track gain is less, but it is also easier. While everyone might kill me to do this, use: http://mos.millenium.org/na to check when your server is most active (In general the higher the income is, the better it is)
Cliff Notes
- Do dailies (Veteran Creature Slayer, Ruins Capturer, Land Claimer, Caravan Disruptor are practically free and easy to do on a highly mobile, stealthy class)
- Follow Zergs if possible
- Help capture objectives
- KIll dolyaks and guards
- Use Edge of the Mists if your server isn’t active.
- Find and schedule times to PvDoor
- Pay attention to RI. Do not fight NPCs surrounded by blue flames.
- Using the server’s voice comms will help
For once you have tasted flight you will walk the earth with your eyes turned skywards,
for there you have been and there you will long to return.
