Guild Wars 2

My fighting against other players is such a shambles that I’m not sure how to improve it – by the way I’m a 61 year old guy and have never had fast reactions. Also I don’t really have instinct for weapons spells etc. I have been playing WvW for 18 months now so not a complete newbie.

A few days ago I joined someone to take camps in EB and on the way we met an ‘Elite’ player who killed me in 30s but took over 4 mins to beat my partner. When I arrived back my partner was finished off so I attacked the Elite player and he killed me in 10 secs. Frankly I don’t know what class he was or how he attacked me – it happened so fast. I was Dragon Hunter but have now gone back to combat healer setup with tougher armour, better healing but less DPS – at least I might be able to help keep my team mates alive.

After that fight my partner said he uses just keyboard for fighting whereas I use the mouse for clicking spells etc and just use keyboard mostly for movement. Perhaps a gaming mouse and a lot of practice with it might help me?

I thought the problems might be my slow reactions and lack of battle sense but now I think its also my poor understanding of weapon armour mechanics etc. A few days ago I was a kicked from a 3 man group because I didn’t put down the buffs they needed – I still don’t understand what they meant – acronyms .

WvW is still fun although I need to improve but where to start and what to focus on?
Would doing PvP help me?

The first thing you need to look at is your build and equipment. This will make all the difference. From there work on knowing your bursts and your defensive skills needed. A good place to start is metabattle.com Once you get your build its a matter of learning how to fight each class, what to look for and what their weaknesses are. Good luck.

Best bit of advice I can give is join a decent friendly WvW guild, most people will be more than happy to take you through the “guild build”, what the skill rotation is for that build, how best to use it etc.

Secondly yes a gaming mouse is invaluable in GW2, I use keyboard for 1-5 and movement, skills 6-0 are on my gaming mouse. Before the gaming mouse I had them assigned to z,x and c in various combinations. Skill clicking is a nono to become better than your average.

The third thing I can really offer is make every profession and play them, so you know what animations to look out for when fighting that class. All classes are OP if you don’t have any knowledge of them when you fight them.

You need to stop using mouse to click spells, keybind them to your keyboard

my gaming mouse only has to extra bottons which I use for the repetitive 1 and 2 skills.

start of by key binding as many skills as you can, I use; Q,E,Z,X,C,R left Ctrl and shift.

It will take time to get use to pressing the right key, at first i had to look at the key board to see were my finger was then I was hitting the wrong keys or forgetting which did what, but over time muscle memory takes over and you can strig moves a lot faster than if you used mouse alone. (and how fast you can use your skills is important in this game)

I would also suggets going super super tanky, it is more important to be alive and hit 1 damage than a build that can hit high dps but dies in 2 seconds.

once you get better with the class you can opt for more dps and less defence.

and yes play a lot of pvp, WVW has no match making so in it you could be fighting very high skilled players

pvp has a match making system that will pit you vs players at your skill level, you can also change stats to find the one you like and use that in wvw.

I am older but still several years from my 60s, I can say our reflexes will never rival that of the young’uns around here. However, reflexes aren’t your main problem. Until you switch from mouse clicking to keyboard you are always going to be at a massive disadvantage. Clicking is by far the slowest way to activate skills.

I suggest you completely stop clicking abilities. It will take a while to get used to it and you will die a lot at first. Once you get used to it your skill level will rise dramatically even with “old” reflexes.

I also suggest reassigning your 6 through 0 skills to keys near ASDF and bind some to your mouse. For example my heal is C, elite is E, Utility 1 is Q, Utility 2 is Back on the mouse, Utility 3 is Forward on the mouse, weapon swap is scroll wheel down, next target is scroll wheel up. Left Shift makes for a good dodge key and you can even use Caps Lock which I bind to Clear Target.

Load up some Typing of the Dead for some quality keying practice.

Experience is always the best teacher. Sometimes you just have to fight classes to learn strengths, weaknesses, repeated patterns, etc so you know what to watch for and what/how to counter.

1. use a specialization
2. use keybindings
3. roll your head over the keyboard

Just kidding. Playing PvP could help you, but most of the WvW builds won’t work in PvP because of the bufffood and so on.

If you are playing dragonhunter something like this could help you: http://tinyurl.com/gm9qennw or something with “Rune of Speed”. The build seems to be rather easy but it takes a lot of reaction time and skill to get the most out of it. I’ve used it to wreck other players after I’ve played it for 15 min + but you should be somewhat of a guardian pro if you want to do this (it’s easy to counter).
WvW small scale fights are nothing but composition and training, training, training, training. If you would like to take all the time needed: go for it! Otherwise: just stop it!

To improve: just run into 1on1s and give your best. You’ll improve with every fight. Make the best out of it and enjoy it.

For me WvW and GW2 is dead, so I will head over to another game, but those are the best tips I could give you for any class. Just do it and learn something new with every fight.

Yes, stop skill clicking. Even if it kills you, you won’t regret it in the long run.

Just practice on getting your skills off as quickly and accurately as possible. After that pick a build off metabattle, but the most important thing now is that you get your character do whatever you need it to do in a pinch.

I’m guessing you’ll have to learn about strafing and turning with mouse instead of keyboard as well; it’ll help you out in all aspects of the game.

And don’t feel bad about dying. It happens a lot given how there’s a lot of ways to instagib people these days.

Thank you everyone for the fantastic advice and details – its made the game much more interesting for me and given me somethings to aim for. By the way, I’ve died about a 1200 times with this Guardian over 668 hours – nearly all in WvW.

There is definitely no more mouse clicking for me – just keyboard – I’ll be ordering a gaming mouse in a couple of days – just got to research then choose one within my price range. Anyhow tonight and for a while I’ll be in EB, going after camps or perhaps just fighting NPCs by myself if I’m truly useless, but will see how the keyboard training goes.

Next is the builds, need to understand how they work and what role I’’m aiming for. Guess a lot to learn here as I still don’t understand things like condition damage etc. Need to think a lot more about bursts and defence than just damage and toughness.

Once I’m more comfortable with the keyboard and builds then I’ll try PvP – really looking forward to that. Only went in once, rezzed someone, then came back out.

In the mean time I need to identify what class my opponents are, what we can both do, and how to spot what they are going to do next – probably the hardest thing for me – I’ll try to start watching particular classes in our parties and see what they do.

Think i need to make a logbook as easy to forget this stuff – i’m also saving this thread to disk.

P.S. so glad I asked for help – last year when our guild went, then Alpine Borderlands went, it seems like a depression set in – now something to aim for. Perhaps might even look for a guild.

illenos.5134:

1. use a specialization
2. use keybindings
3. roll your head over the keyboard

Just kidding. Playing PvP could help you, but most of the WvW builds won’t work in PvP because of the bufffood and so on.

If you are playing dragonhunter something like this could help you: http://tinyurl.com/gm9qennw or something with “Rune of Speed”. The build seems to be rather easy but it takes a lot of reaction time and skill to get the most out of it. I’ve used it to wreck other players after I’ve played it for 15 min + but you should be somewhat of a guardian pro if you want to do this (it’s easy to counter).
WvW small scale fights are nothing but composition and training, training, training, training. If you would like to take all the time needed: go for it! Otherwise: just stop it!

To improve: just run into 1on1s and give your best. You’ll improve with every fight. Make the best out of it and enjoy it.

For me WvW and GW2 is dead, so I will head over to another game, but those are the best tips I could give you for any class. Just do it and learn something new with every fight.

Thank you for the ideas, tried head on keyboard before, not sure if it was better or worse – despair

Tried your Dragon Hunter link but its not working now but thanks for Rune of Speed idea.

Sad you are leaving game, know how you feel as its been depressing since last year. This last weekend though EB was nearly full and we are tier 8, although our side only mustered about 25, not like old Alpine Borderland days. All the best.

Also if you have trouble watching for all the skill triggers you may want to turn on “standard character models”, which makes everyone human. This way you only have to learn the skill triggers for one race. Empower for example looks very different on humans, asurans, charr etc…

Some builds just trump other builds and there is no way around it.

I think DH / Guard is generally at a disadvantage for roaming in WvW right now compared to Warrior, Ele and Mesmer. I sure wish they had given a speed trait with DH so I could switch out of traveler runes.

That being said, I have had some luck with a Medi-DH; Pretty much all of your skill buttons provide damage + healing at the same time as well as the wings of resolve if traited for damage. I don’t even bother with the longbow, I’ve just kept using my GS and scepter/focus.

Huh, Malkom if you wanna buy a gaming mouse have a look at the Redragon Perdition mouse… It’s made in China but i’ve never seen a mouse with this durability… I use mine since a year and a half now and it has no problems at all… My friend just uses his third Naga. Also if you are a lefty try Logi g300… They are also very good!

Good luck!

It really depends on a lot of factors, most of which have been debated already by the other answers but I’ll give a quick overview to make it systematic. Since you’re not familiar with the concepts used by WvW players allow me to explain.

1. Playstyles: roaming – zerging:

• The main playstyles in WvW are known as roaming and zerging. Roaming is mainly focused “small scale” combat (everything between 1-10 players). Zerging on the other hand is “large scale” combat, where you follow the commander or play in a group of 20 – 50 people. Depending on the playstyles your preferred class and build will be extremely important.
• For roaming people often try to find a class/build that is versatile, meaning that it is in general useable in different ways and allows you to turn around the situation very fast (for example being able to mitigate damage, deal large amounts of damage yourself and still escape when the situation becomes too heated). Mobility or the ability to navigate the field of battle in a flash is key to roaming.
• For zerging you will be aiming at more group support and using AoE spells (Area of Effect in order to damage other opposing zergs or big groups of players). Playstyles generally occupied in a zerg are those of frontline and backline. The frontline tries to force the enemy lines to break by going melee. The backline tries to deal as much damage as possible from a slightly longer range. Support comes in the form of both controlling enemies, buffing (might, swiftness, regeneration…), and applying healing.

2. Classes

• Some classes will serve better for roaming and others will serve better for zerging.
• I suggest for roaming you take a look at warrior – mesmer – guardian – thief – engineer, in my opinion these are the easiest to play with as a roamer. If you can access their elite specialisations, be sure to check them out as well (revenants herald is strong aswell).
• For zerging generally guardians, warriors, elementalists, necromancers are very useful assets.

3. Builds

• In each class certain builds are made especially for roaming and zerging. Metabattle is as suggested by others a good place to start out.
• You need to take good care of 2 things especially:
  - Your traits. Traits will give you options to enhance certain skills, certain class mechanisms and whatnot.
  - Your gear. Armour and weapons come with stats, and sigils and runes have a serious impact on your competitive performance. Berserker stats are a favourite for many roamers, sigil of energy, sigil of fire, sigil of air are extremely useful.

4. Occupying strategic positions

• As I said, mobility is a gigantic asset in WvW. Once you become an expert at your class and build and learn to counter other classes in a fight… there is much more to learn. For one strategically occupying the playfield. The playfield is rather big so always use it to your favour. Being shot at from a distance? Find an obstacle to hide behind and lure the enemy. Always keep in mind an escape route in case you might be set upon by more enemies than you originally expected.
• In a zerg you might also make use of this. For example if you are playing a backline class/build, you can look for a place that is defensible against melee rushes and still allows you to wreak havoc on the enemy.

I hope this helps! As you maybe guessed I have a lot of experience in the field of roaming, both solo and in groups. See you around!

Aggrostemma.1703:

Huh, Malkom if you wanna buy a gaming mouse have a look at the Redragon Perdition mouse… It’s made in China but i’ve never seen a mouse with this durability… I use mine since a year and a half now and it has no problems at all… My friend just uses his third Naga. Also if you are a lefty try Logi g300… They are also very good!

Good luck!

Thank you, the Redragon Perdition now looks the gaming mouse for me – they are for sale here in UK on eBay and get many good reviews on Amazon. They even cost a lot less than a used Naga i was thinking of buying.

Lots of good suggestions here.

The main thing is the skill clicking, so I’ll focus on that. It really does set a low ceiling for your overall ability. Commit yourself to using the keyboard for your abilities. Spend some time in easy PvE to get the hang of it. It’s not easy to make the change, but it’ll happen and you’ll be very glad you did.

My wife used to be a skill clicker (like 2 years ago), on an Elementalist, no less, which is probably the most difficult class. We’re exclusively WvWers, so you can imagine her challenges. She tried to change, but found it extremely frustrating each time and reverted back to her comfort zone.

So, I finally unbound her turning keys (they are unnecessary) and mapped those to left/right strafe. This also frees up 2 very accessible keys. Doing that pretty much forced her to change. Like I said, it wasn’t easy and she had a few choice words for me.

A few weeks after that, however, and she was literally a wizard at using her keybindings, and the mouse for movement. Like far better than I am. lol

Sirendor.1394:

It really depends on a lot of factors, most of which have been debated already by the other answers but I’ll give a quick overview to make it systematic. Since you’re not familiar with the concepts used by WvW players allow me to explain.

1. Playstyles: roaming – zerging:

• The main playstyles in WvW are known as roaming and zerging. Roaming is mainly focused “small scale” combat (everything between 1-10 players). Zerging on the other hand is “large scale” combat, where you follow the commander or play in a group of 20 – 50 people. Depending on the playstyles your preferred class and build will be extremely important.
• For roaming people often try to find a class/build that is versatile, meaning that it is in general useable in different ways and allows you to turn around the situation very fast (for example being able to mitigate damage, deal large amounts of damage yourself and still escape when the situation becomes too heated). Mobility or the ability to navigate the field of battle in a flash is key to roaming.
• For zerging you will be aiming at more group support and using AoE spells (Area of Effect in order to damage other opposing zergs or big groups of players). Playstyles generally occupied in a zerg are those of frontline and backline. The frontline tries to force the enemy lines to break by going melee. The backline tries to deal as much damage as possible from a slightly longer range. Support comes in the form of both controlling enemies, buffing (might, swiftness, regeneration…), and applying healing.

2. Classes

• Some classes will serve better for roaming and others will serve better for zerging.
• I suggest for roaming you take a look at warrior – mesmer – guardian – thief – engineer, in my opinion these are the easiest to play with as a roamer. If you can access their elite specialisations, be sure to check them out as well (revenants herald is strong aswell).
• For zerging generally guardians, warriors, elementalists, necromancers are very useful assets.

3. Builds

• In each class certain builds are made especially for roaming and zerging. Metabattle is as suggested by others a good place to start out.
• You need to take good care of 2 things especially:
  - Your traits. Traits will give you options to enhance certain skills, certain class mechanisms and whatnot.
  - Your gear. Armour and weapons come with stats, and sigils and runes have a serious impact on your competitive performance. Berserker stats are a favourite for many roamers, sigil of energy, sigil of fire, sigil of air are extremely useful.

4. Occupying strategic positions

• As I said, mobility is a gigantic asset in WvW. Once you become an expert at your class and build and learn to counter other classes in a fight… there is much more to learn. For one strategically occupying the playfield. The playfield is rather big so always use it to your favour. Being shot at from a distance? Find an obstacle to hide behind and lure the enemy. Always keep in mind an escape route in case you might be set upon by more enemies than you originally expected.
• In a zerg you might also make use of this. For example if you are playing a backline class/build, you can look for a place that is defensible against melee rushes and still allows you to wreak havoc on the enemy.

I hope this helps! As you maybe guessed I have a lot of experience in the field of roaming, both solo and in groups. See you around!

Thank you, a fantastic amount of detail here and clearly I still don’t understand a lot of the terminology. For instance i thought Roamers were lone players who ambushed people and took camps.

Systematic is just what I need – so much info can be confusing but just reading this posts plus other posts and web links has clarified a lot of things today.

I did used to play with my Guardian in a Zerg once, i just shadowed the commander and tried to keep her and our nearby guildies alive so they could kill the enemy. Its embarassing to think of now – i didn’t really have a clue what I was doing just pressing buttons, watching if their health improved, and rezzing people. Also I never thought in terms of front line or back line – to me it was often just chaos so shadowing our leader seemed to make sense. By the way, our zerg never used team speak – just chat from our leader and i often saw that too late.

I just realised today that spells put down almost randomly or in panic can nerf other spells put down by my allies – perhaps thats why i was kicked from the small group the other day.

Also i didn’t know that i needed a different build for small groups or for zergs – i’ll have to get this sorted as well.

The system you suggest should help put things in perspective because there is a huge amount to learn and practice – thank you

Boreal.9826:

Lots of good suggestions here.

The main thing is the skill clicking, so I’ll focus on that. It really does set a low ceiling for your overall ability. Commit yourself to using the keyboard for your abilities. Spend some time in easy PvE to get the hang of it. It’s not easy to make the change, but it’ll happen and you’ll be very glad you did.

My wife used to be a skill clicker (like 2 years ago), on an Elementalist, no less, which is probably the most difficult class. We’re exclusively WvWers, so you can imagine her challenges. She tried to change, but found it extremely frustrating each time and reverted back to her comfort zone.

So, I finally unbound her turning keys (they are unnecessary) and mapped those to left/right strafe. This also frees up 2 very accessible keys. Doing that pretty much forced her to change. Like I said, it wasn’t easy and she had a few choice words for me.

A few weeks after that, however, and she was literally a wizard at using her keybindings, and the mouse for movement. Like far better than I am. lol

You are certainly right along with others about its better using the keyboard than mouse.

I can understand your wife’s choice words – i’ve used a few tonight – spent 2 hours in EB and i’m mentally drained – couldn’t even kill 2 NPCs and was killed very quickly by players.

On the other hand some major improvements. Now use a key to swap weapons, a key to target players instead of trying locate them and click them with the mouse. Things are coming together but hitting the right spell keys is still tough to master.

Once my gaming mouse arrives then i’ll experiment with keyboard mappings etc and can only get better.

Malkom.5607:

Sirendor.1394:

snip

Thank you, a fantastic amount of detail here and clearly I still don’t understand a lot of the terminology. For instance i thought Roamers were lone players who ambushed people and took camps.

Systematic is just what I need – so much info can be confusing but just reading this posts plus other posts and web links has clarified a lot of things today.

I did used to play with my Guardian in a Zerg once, i just shadowed the commander and tried to keep her and our nearby guildies alive so they could kill the enemy. Its embarassing to think of now – i didn’t really have a clue what I was doing just pressing buttons, watching if their health improved, and rezzing people. Also I never thought in terms of front line or back line – to me it was often just chaos so shadowing our leader seemed to make sense. By the way, our zerg never used team speak – just chat from our leader and i often saw that too late.

I just realised today that spells put down almost randomly or in panic can nerf other spells put down by my allies – perhaps thats why i was kicked from the small group the other day.

Also i didn’t know that i needed a different build for small groups or for zergs – i’ll have to get this sorted as well.

The system you suggest should help put things in perspective because there is a huge amount to learn and practice – thank you

Haha. Well you could understand roaming that way. Typically there’s the solo roamers but often roamers group up to be able to take on more enemies. The size of parties being max 5 has made 5-man groups (so called havoc squads or gank squads) very prevalent aswell as a format of roaming.

As for the random abilities in zergs: the support often happens through placing ‘fields’ and comboing them with ‘blasts’. This is quite important. The link below explains what blasts do. Some skills have these blasts, like guardian hammer 2. Water field blasts are main healing source for many zergs. If you place another field on top of it, it blasts the wrong one. (https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Blast_finisher)

The concern about having different builds. Well it’s not completely exclusive but rather if you want to be really optimal. I often use my roaming set-up in bigger groups too because a roaming set-up is something like a self-sufficient killing machine. If you become really good on your roaming set-up you’ll be a good fight in a zerg aswell. Switching some weapons and utility skills around is often sufficient for zerging (for example staff/hammer & shouts on guardian instead of greatsword & scepter/focus).

Also glad to help.

Malkom.5607:

Thank you everyone for the fantastic advice and details – its made the game much more interesting for me and given me somethings to aim for. By the way, I’ve died about a 1200 times with this Guardian over 668 hours – nearly all in WvW.

There is definitely no more mouse clicking for me – just keyboard – I’ll be ordering a gaming mouse in a couple of days – just got to research then choose one within my price range. Anyhow tonight and for a while I’ll be in EB, going after camps or perhaps just fighting NPCs by myself if I’m truly useless, but will see how the keyboard training goes.

Next is the builds, need to understand how they work and what role I’’m aiming for. Guess a lot to learn here as I still don’t understand things like condition damage etc. Need to think a lot more about bursts and defence than just damage and toughness.

Once I’m more comfortable with the keyboard and builds then I’ll try PvP – really looking forward to that. Only went in once, rezzed someone, then came back out.

In the mean time I need to identify what class my opponents are, what we can both do, and how to spot what they are going to do next – probably the hardest thing for me – I’ll try to start watching particular classes in our parties and see what they do.

Think i need to make a logbook as easy to forget this stuff – i’m also saving this thread to disk.

P.S. so glad I asked for help – last year when our guild went, then Alpine Borderlands went, it seems like a depression set in – now something to aim for. Perhaps might even look for a guild.

As far as a gaming mouse goes, this is the one I use and I HIGHLY recommend it: http://www.amazon.com/Tt-eSPORTS-Thermaltake-Gaming-MO-VLS-WDLOBK-01/dp/B00EVVNMWW

It has plenty of buttons all over it, so you can pick the buttons that are most comfortable for you to use, and just leave the rest blank. It also has 10 different profiles, so you can set up different combinations for different games. It’ll take a little bit to get used to it, but it’s fairly cheap as far as a good gaming mouse is concerned, and definitely worth the price. Combine it with a few keybinds to your keyboard, and you should see a very noticable improvement after a bit of practice with it.

Malkom.5607:

Aggrostemma.1703:

Huh, Malkom if you wanna buy a gaming mouse have a look at the Redragon Perdition mouse… It’s made in China but i’ve never seen a mouse with this durability… I use mine since a year and a half now and it has no problems at all… My friend just uses his third Naga. Also if you are a lefty try Logi g300… They are also very good!

Good luck!

Thank you, the Redragon Perdition now looks the gaming mouse for me – they are for sale here in UK on eBay and get many good reviews on Amazon. They even cost a lot less than a used Naga i was thinking of buying.

I use this one for gw2 and i spend alot of time in wvw. It will serve you well.

I may be a little bit late to this thread.

But wow I am a almost a mirror image of you, and …yes, I use my mouse to use skills, and even my movement.

Believe me, I’m well aware this is not the optimum way to go.

I have close friends that tell me to practice using the keyboard. But its no use. If you never learned to type when you were young and you are my/your age, that kind of thing may be possible if you want to put in the time, but way more trouble than its worth.

After all, this is a game. We or anyone doesn’t want to make it some kind of chore just to play.

For some or even most, quick fingers are easy, but for someone like me, its just not possible.

Having said all of that. You can still be decent. I can solo camps ( yes I know that’s not that big of a deal, but I enjoy it )….well at least most of the time.

The key for me is the build….and my build is unconventional. No pro would ever use my build. But when you don’t have quick fingers and can’t dodge, you need a different type of build.

I guess what I’m trying to say, don’t rely on meta builds that you see on the net. Those builds assume you do have quick fingers.

I have tried many 5 star builds, and failed with them. I’m sure they are fine builds, but not for someone like me.

My only other advice, buy/craft the very best armor/weapons….and sigils/runes…….by the way having the right sigils and runes can make a huge difference.

All advice here is well intentioned and may even work for you…I hope it does. If not, don’t rely on meta builds, make your own that fits you. You may never be a pro, but you will get by.

I recently stepped up to a logitech gaming keyboard that has a row of 6 buttons on the left of the keyboard that you can bind skills to so I have bound skills 7-0 to the bottom 4 of those and can get them very quickly with my pinky. It has made my engineer game a lot better and on my elementalist I have bound my attunement swap(F1-F4) to them . this has made my play in PvP much better. The gaming mouse will greatly ease your life also , I use a Razor Death Adder which is simple as far as mouses go but is comfortable for me . Good Luck and have fun!

Seeing as everyone is mentioning Mice, I should point out that I have had a Naga, a TTesports but not the Redragon. But looking at it I would suffer the same issue I had with the Naga and TTesports mice. Which is they were just too big for my hand, having to move/adjust my hand on the mouse to hit a button became a chore and actually contributed to a bout of repetitive strain injury.

I now use a Mad Catz Rat5 which is a fairly small mouse but extendible in length, this has been my saviour for modern gaming and the button overload we are subjected to.

play a reaper……..

In WvW there is plenty of CC (crowd control) which can be either “soft” or hard. Soft CC implies that it is some kind of conditions like chill which will have an effect which slowdown your recharge (cool down or CD) on skills and visual cue in form of character turns blue and move very slowly. These type of soft cc can be cleared with in the same way as every other conditions, but if you have the effect of chill on you then it will take time to activate a skill which would clear condition (there are also a boon called resistance which reduce conditions effects).

Here is a link about conditions: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Condition
(you will find a lost of both condition and the opposite boon for it)

Control skill major purpose is to control movements and that is why CC is so important to understand in WvW. The hard CC are stun and daze among other and those you will need to counteract with stun breakers or use stability (boon). They literally lock you in place for short duration where you have no control of your own skills.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Control_effect

When you pick traits and skill try to get a combination where you at least access to some kind of stability (but this boon can be ripped/stolen or even reversed to a condition) or stun break which do not have a too long recharge time as you will probably need it more then once during a fight. Skill or trait that can remove condition will also reduce the problem of being locked in a place and bombed with condition or direct damage. Fear as an example is very hard to counter with only skill that removes condition, so you would need to use trait or runes/sigil to reduce its control and damage effect.

Look at description for NPCs (below health bar or hit point [HP]) before you jump into a fight at camps and be aware of those NPCs with hard CC as some can really annoying if they are capable of doing pull or push effects where you more less will need time to find out where your new position is and where your enemies are standing, maybe even re-target enemies as you now most likely need to protect yourself from incoming damage. Only some seconds hesitation can matter for much more damage you will get and it is visually no fun to be thrown back and forth.

In short:

Pay attention to your need to prevent CC on you and pick skill which help you to dish out either soft or hard CC before you make your main attack or to keep fast enemies to be in range of your own weapons and utility damage. Hard CC can be useful when you want to rezz ppl or stomp as enemies will be denied access to make stomp and downed player can not avoid/block your stomp.

Soft CC is something your should be prepared to remove on yourself with all other conditions and to have in your kitten nal for doing damage, if you are going for a more condition based build. Even a power build would have use of immobilize or chill to reduce incoming damage and to catch up with fast moving targets. It is also important when you want take down defiance bars to have abilities from CC to reduce that bar until you can reduce its main HP bar.

In WvW there is plenty of CC (crowd control) which can be either “soft” or hard. Soft CC implies that it is some kind of conditions like chill which will have an effect which slowdown your recharge (cool down or CD) on skills and visual cue in form of character turns blue and move very slowly. These type of soft cc can be cleared with in the same way as every other conditions, but if you have the effect of chill on you then it will take time to activate a skill which would clear condition (there are also a boon called resistance which reduce conditions effects).

Here is a link about conditions: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Condition
(you will find a lost of both condition and the opposite boon for it)

Control skill major purpose is to control movements and that is why CC is so important to understand in WvW. The hard CC are stun and daze among other and those you will need to counteract with stun breakers or use stability (boon). They literally lock you in place for short duration where you have no control of your own skills.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Control_effect

When you pick traits and skill try to get a combination where you at least access to some kind of stability (but this boon can be ripped/stolen or even reversed to a condition) or stun break which do not have a too long recharge time as you will probably need it more then once during a fight. Skill or trait that can remove condition will also reduce the problem of being locked in a place and bombed with condition or direct damage. Fear as an example is very hard to counter with only skill that removes condition, so you would need to use trait or runes/sigil to reduce its control and damage effect.

Look at description for NPCs (below health bar or hit point [HP]) before you jump into a fight at camps and be aware of those NPCs with hard CC as some can really annoying if they are capable of doing pull or push effects where you more less will need time to find out where your new position is and where your enemies are standing, maybe even re-target enemies as you now most likely need to protect yourself from incoming damage. Only some seconds hesitation can matter for much more damage you will get and it is visually no fun to be thrown back and forth.

In short:

Pay attention to your need to prevent CC on you and pick skill which help you to dish out either soft or hard CC before you make your main attack or to keep fast enemies to be in range of your own weapons and utility damage. Hard CC can be useful when you want to rezz ppl or stomp as enemies will be denied access to make stomp and downed player can not avoid/block your stomp.

Soft CC is something your should be prepared to remove on yourself with all other conditions and to have in your kitten nal for doing damage, if you are going for a more condition based build. Even a power build would have use of immobilize or chill to reduce incoming damage and to catch up with fast moving targets. It is also important when you want take down defiance bars to have abilities from CC to reduce that bar until you can reduce its main HP bar.

Great thread.

How to get good in pvp:

Step 1: Set your Hotkeys (WASD, §, 1-5, Q, E, R, F, Y, C, V, easily accessible mouse buttons) (Gaming mouse for GW2 is optional, there arent that many keys compared to, say, WoW) Dont only pay attention to skills, but have your movement and especially camera movement set up aswell).. in gw2 it means rebinding turning to strafing and holding right mouse click to look around while moving.

Step 2: Muscle Memory and movement skills – with your keys set up its time to dip into some easy repeatable gameplay to train those keys into your fingers. Over time you wont have to use your brain anymore, wanting something will mean pressing the according key automatically – from my experience this takes a few days at most). Change around stuff untill you are comfortable.

Step 3: Role – with the basic steering nailed, its time to find the role / class / build / gear / skill setup you want, are comfortable with, even maybe matches your personality – but also works overall as a build in terms of being competitive with other builds – having huge healing is nice as your skill level and understanding of the game progresses you will also want to kill someone Generally the most competitive builds are called “meta” and there are internet sites collecting those, a short google search should help you out.

Step 4: Training – now comes the “high art” – skill rotations, knowledge about other classes, min/maxing your build to get the stats you want/need – everyone is their own master here and while the other 3 steps are mandatory, kind of easy and straightforward – this is where you craft your own skill level and includes everythign you can think of to get better. For starting out in pvp its great to have a patient buddy who will let you try out your moves without punishing you at his leisure.

Do as I did as it will help keep up with the younger crowd raised on those twitch games.

You will never be able to keep up with them. I watch my nephews play and they do not even have to look down at the keyboard and can hit all manner of keybinds on demand. I am the sort that types with one finger each hand (I hate jumping puzzles)

Each class works somehow differently as to which skills they use the most. I did get a gaming mouse and started with binding what I considered my most used key outside the attacks to an extra button on the mouse. This my dodge followed by a lot of practice.

Do this for a while until it begins second nature and then add another highly used skill to the binds be it another button on the mouse or something easier for you to get to on the keyboard. You really do not have to bind them all. Just the most important.

As to the builds you encounter it just practice along with the acceptance that you can not win them all as reaction times slow as you age. Think of it as the same disadvantage people have when they play from a remote area with high ping/latency.

Every profession has builds that are just easier overall. While some will scoff at the builds or refer to them as cancer, do not let that dissaude you. It your game to play the way you wish to play it.

The engineer as example has a number of traits and ultilities that allow the build to be very forgiving of mistakes on your part. Many of these types of builds are not considered optimal or meta but I think a build so work around your own weaknesses and strengths and not someone elses.

As example I would early on watch videos of a thief using stealth and cloak and dagger seemingly at will in his build and tried the same. I get never get his sort of timing and would get far too many fails so I adapted the build to my own needs. My ability to play against those types improved not because I got faster and better at using the keyboard, it because I tried to play every class so I could anticipate exactly what they were trying to do .

Dal.5872:

Seeing as everyone is mentioning Mice, I should point out that I have had a Naga, a TTesports but not the Redragon. But looking at it I would suffer the same issue I had with the Naga and TTesports mice. Which is they were just too big for my hand, having to move/adjust my hand on the mouse to hit a button became a chore and actually contributed to a bout of repetitive strain injury.

I now use a Mad Catz Rat5 which is a fairly small mouse but extendible in length, this has been my saviour for modern gaming and the button overload we are subjected to.

If Razer is too big, try going for Logitech. Pretty much made for girly hands. Well you already have a rat5, but still the suggestion apply to everyone. Logitech mice like the G502 has considerably improved the thumb rest but they are still small and narrow compared to a real mans mouse like Qpad, Mionix or Func. The MS-3 in particular is like moving a mold of your palm, its so kitten perfect in shape (its a shame that some decent company doesnt take the China OEM shape and put real good tech in it). Unfortunetly they are all kittenty in other ways, but still. Personally I run with a Deathadder and its an acceptable compromise between shape and function.

The Redragon is a pretty big mouse and also heavy (you get extra weight cartridge) but my hands are the size of a small shovel so I need a huge one

Due my “claw-grip” I cannot reach easily the 123 numbers on the thumb-pad. This is where I have the about face and look behind keys.

So my keybinding is this:

WASD movement (strafe)
Q weapon swap
ER weapon skill 1 and 2
SHIFT+ER weapon skill 3 and 4
CTRL+E weapon skill 5
F loot-interact
T attack target
SHIFT+T call target
SHIFT+Space, CTRL+Space and SHIFT+CTRL+Space are for the three utilities (I always bind a teleport-gapcloser on SHIFT+Space on every prof so it becomes a second nature).
TeamSpeak: Í (the key between the left-SHIFT and Y…)

My mouse:

1: look behind
3: about face
789 and 11, 12: for F1-4 (5)
10: for healing skill
6: for Elite
extra button on the left-click: Dodge

I also unbind every unnecessary shortcuts so I don’t accidentally press them in combat (like BlackLionTrade, or GuildPanel).

Tom.6478:

I may be a little bit late to this thread.

But wow I am a almost a mirror image of you, and …yes, I use my mouse to use skills, and even my movement.

Believe me, I’m well aware this is not the optimum way to go.

I have close friends that tell me to practice using the keyboard. But its no use. If you never learned to type when you were young and you are my/your age, that kind of thing may be possible if you want to put in the time, but way more trouble than its worth.

After all, this is a game. We or anyone doesn’t want to make it some kind of chore just to play.

For some or even most, quick fingers are easy, but for someone like me, its just not possible.

Having said all of that. You can still be decent. I can solo camps ( yes I know that’s not that big of a deal, but I enjoy it )….well at least most of the time.

The key for me is the build….and my build is unconventional. No pro would ever use my build. But when you don’t have quick fingers and can’t dodge, you need a different type of build.

I guess what I’m trying to say, don’t rely on meta builds that you see on the net. Those builds assume you do have quick fingers.

I have tried many 5 star builds, and failed with them. I’m sure they are fine builds, but not for someone like me.

My only other advice, buy/craft the very best armor/weapons….and sigils/runes…….by the way having the right sigils and runes can make a huge difference.

All advice here is well intentioned and may even work for you…I hope it does. If not, don’t rely on meta builds, make your own that fits you. You may never be a pro, but you will get by.

Welcome to our thread – amazing answers here – really practical as well.

Uncanny we are so alike – must be a many more out there like us.

Yes, from mouse to keyboard such stress – nearly went crazy last night making change – i’ve spent over 1200 hours in game and been blissfully happy using mouse until a few days when I realized something had to change – for level 80 in WvW i’m clearly well below average.

I’ll give keyboard and gaming mouse a few weeks – hopefully my brain is wired to learn it. So far some improvements but a long way to go – new gaming mouse should help.

About soloing camps – its still a big deal to me – did my first one just before Alpine Borderlands closed down – seemed like coming of age – wonderful feeling – kept doing them till AB was gone – used to take me 5 mins or more – still does – even easy ones. That was first time i used a build but didn’t understand how it worked – just copied from website. Then I got Dragon Hunter build – lost web links and couldn’t understand how to set them or tune them myself – information overload. With the advice from here I’ll soon be able to make my own builds like you do.

About crafting, i’m only level 100 jeweler. Yet most in my old guild were experts and really helped guild with it. Crafting armour weapons does sound the way to go – a lot to learn there to but sounds fun. Guess for a while I’ll have to try and buy.

Just noticed, some of my equipment doesn’t even have slots filled

Some more fantastic posts just arriving – detail is amazing – also some from not so young players like us – all the best

An MMO mouse is overkill and IMO not as good as a typical gamer mouse with a handful of buttons. If you have the dexterity, MMO mice are fine but I suggest getting something that fits in your hand well and has a couple extra buttons.

Something to consider is the Action Camera which can free up the right click for dodge. To make that work you have to remap your mouse right click to a keystroke but modern mice generally allow that.

Why is it overkill?

Even if he uses only 9 buttons from the thumb-pad (from the two side column) and the extra red button for dodge this means he (as a clicker) has 10 more options…

My mississ uses a G300 as an Ele but she plays the piano on the keyboard as well… The g300 does not have enough buttons for her…

My 2 c

1. It’s either last 1s longer next time or do a bit more damage than previously, or both. Also win is less important than having fun most of the time – and improving should be fun, we all can improve

2. Use a mouse and keyboard that fits your hands, always change the keys to allow a more natural reaction – not just fastest possible, but strain free. Don’t listen to anyone about what hardware or keys to use specifically, that depends on your hand & finger size, position, and so on – it’s unique, but also depends on class and build, you should always make improvements, find a better a key that works better for you for to activate that specific skill – so go and find hardware that suits you best and dare to customize it until all is almost perfect, but only to you, because fits you now, but in time you should improve that even more

3. Adapting = improving > getting closer to your own “perfect” level — never stop doing this, stay “young”; static means death… don’t stop prefecting hand position, body position, swapping keys from one skill to another – you need one skill faster, the other can activate a bit slower… think and choose which, based on what you play… and change it again when playing something else

4. learn more and more about each skill, hidden “secrets”, intricacies, unique effects when combined with something else… and most impostantly: play a class you like… you will have fun all the time then. Find a class that suits you, not all of them are based on “lightning fast” reflexes – quite the opposite, keep your composure and never try to be faster than needed – only the worst players press buttons in a hurry – keep in mind that a skill on cooldown can mean death to you – use it wisely.

5. You can play something that doesn’t rely on lowest pin and quick reflexes (such as instant CC followed by burst down)… know your place and hunt something you can handle, there is always a bigger fish out there, don’t be disappointed by that.

There is always a new day, another fight, the end is still far away. Enjoy your time, that’s all that matters.

As the ‘clicker’ who started this thread with a cry for help – here is a big thank you to everyone and an update on my progress.

This morning I solo’ed my first camp as a non-clicker – just using keyboard made it so much easier. Keys still need optimising and I still glance at the 6-0 keys but when my mouse arrives I’ll use the suggestions from posters here to find new bindings that work for me.

About mouse – just ordered Redragon Perdition – not because it seems the best – but it seems a safe choice – and I’ve never used or even seen a gaming mouse before.

As for how I stopped clicking – 3 steps as others have suggested
1 – spent 2 hours in PvE and EB – was a nightmare – lots of choice words and hard to find keys – was completely exhausted.
2 – next day spent an hour in PvE – Plains of Ashford and Blazeridge Steppes – seemed much easier going and even managed a couple of Hero Points.
3 – this morning tried to solo a heavily reinforced camp but got slaughtered. Then tried a newly flipped camp and it fell so easily- fastest I have ever taken one – complete suprise for me – thought it would take weeks

Still a lot to do – especially learning about traits, weapons armours signets runes and how to balance it all – perhaps even crafting stuff. Then the lengthier but still fun part – learning about different classes and how to defeat them or at least survive for a while against them.

For non-clickers – this is how fighting is for many of us clickers. My team mates probably wondered what Malak is doing there – standing still and do nothing in this large battle, we are getting slaughtered and he’s doing flip-all nothing. Truth is, my cursor would have ‘vanished’ and without a cursor us clickers are virtually paralysed. I even thought of modding cursor so it looked large glowing pulsating arrow with trails so it wouldn’t get lost in the chaos of battle.
Anyhow, i don’t need cursor for fighting now – thank you all

I honestly think that key bindings and a higher Action Per Minute(APM) is the key in pvp and wvw. Even with inferior exotic gears a player with greater reflexes and key bindings controls will outperform people with greater gear.

After i bought my razer imperator and now using G502 I really became competitive.

For the the Logitech G502 i can enter deathshroud, cast utilities, heal and elite much faster while still maintaining movement. And I consider myself to be fairly casual.

So yeah, work on your APM. practice them by doing rotational castings even when there’s no enemy or on mobs.

i have the same problem of dont have fast reactions, that why i always pickup heavy classes/warriors on mmos. but its not linked to age, since im teenager i always liked more fight games instead of “jumping” games.

i rarely use mouse, i use num pad keys section to bind skills, so right hand deals with skills, and left hand only with movement, i use mouse only when i need adjust camera.

the square design of numpad section of keyboard allow fast choice of skills and finger movements. and even if u need mouse, the numpad is on right, then is close to mouse.

theres a pic of my config.
http://i.imgur.com/9xeNvGJ.jpg

I’d like to add to try using or getting familiar with the combat log.

My vision is not really that good so I kind a rely on that sometimes to watch for a simple rotation. (at least know some simple rotation for all class)

The skill animations here is so hard for me to see/tell, it all looks the same to me. That’s why I miss GW1 sometimes.

I am curious about your build. This game isn’t called Build Wars 2 by accident and weak build can stop you from winning. If you want you could build your build here and share a link to it to us http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/ . Or you could just write down here everything that you run, or maybe take screenshots that show the stats you got and share it : )

Personally I learned to play guardian because a guildie saw me getting wrecked in duels and suggested to play a meditation guardian build. That build was really easy to play, in the beginning I just used utilites pretty randomly and still did well against normal opponents. After some time (long time xD) I learned to use my skills better.

BTW Did you know that in PVP lobby there are NPC’s that fight against you and you can practice with? They have one NPC for each real profession, 2 beasts and a lord with his crew. Profession NPC’s are easy, but you can practice your rotation on them. Beasts are powerful and new players often get destroyed by them. You should totally practice against the beasts! Lord and his friends are more difficult, if you want challenge take them on!

This must be one of the most constructive threads I have read in a long long while on the WvW forums. Great contributions from all of you.

Hope Malkom and others in his situation can use this to their advantage!

Coinhead.7591:

I am curious about your build. This game isn’t called Build Wars 2 by accident and weak build can stop you from winning. If you want you could build your build here and share a link to it to us http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/ . Or you could just write down here everything that you run, or maybe take screenshots that show the stats you got and share it : )

Personally I learned to play guardian because a guildie saw me getting wrecked in duels and suggested to play a meditation guardian build. That build was really easy to play, in the beginning I just used utilites pretty randomly and still did well against normal opponents. After some time (long time xD) I learned to use my skills better.

BTW Did you know that in PVP lobby there are NPC’s that fight against you and you can practice with? They have one NPC for each real profession, 2 beasts and a lord with his crew. Profession NPC’s are easy, but you can practice your rotation on them. Beasts are powerful and new players often get destroyed by them. You should totally practice against the beasts! Lord and his friends are more difficult, if you want challenge take them on!

Thats a brilliant idea – thank you

Here is my build – i’ve learnt a lot by setting it up

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vVEQJARTn8ABVdiddCmCB8DhlEiCbDygy8aZDgEQe5j+sH-T1gIABAoEUQ1fKZ/BSBYiwK-w

About armour – only 1 of my accessories are in the list – the rest aren’t in the list and are either ‘rare’ or ‘unique’ items with not very good stats compared to those available in the editor. Some of my accessories also have empty slots. My underwater gear isn’t listed either and also has empty slots.

About the results, it shows mine as being lower than they actually are – perhaps my unshown accessories cause the difference:-

TYPE —-———— EDITOR — ACTUAL
power --————— 1315 — 1715
toughness --———- 1490 — 1927
vitality --————— 1319 — 1294
precision --———— 1019 — 1148
ferociity --————— 0 —-- 300
cond damage —-——- 0 —-- 257

armour —-————- 2761 — 3138
health --————— 14835 — 14585
crit chance --———- 4.9 —-- 18.4
crit damage —-——- 150 —- 170
healing power —-— 465 —- 791

I don’t really know what numbers I should be aiming for – was just trying for some toughness, healing and damage – trying to be a combat healer – yet survive if ambushed by a lone player.

I didn’t know about the PvP lobby – i’ll defintely try that out

When I see a dragonhunter in large scale wvw I expect he is something like this:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vVEQJARWnsABtCh9CBWdC8DhlEiS+5n+r/aZDgDIbG+vAE-TlSDwAwU/ZwRAQvmgEPAAa7PAwEUUlfw1BI5SAoQJIZAK2CA-w

If you want to get into large scale wvw it would be good build to try out.

If I see a dragonhunter in small scale wvw I expect it to be more like this:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vVEQJARTlsAhqhY3QwcIwPELJE11yGAJQW+9fBo8zP9ZPA-T1hFwAr2fAwDA4k6PJuAAGV+dWXQVlgkCwclRA-w

This time they are more focused on self healing through “Meditations” and have sacrificed a lot of their group support and defense to achieve more damage. These dudes can wreck you in matter of seconds if they can land all of their attacks.

If my writing helps even one bit I am really happy.

tappajabob.5983:

When I see a dragonhunter in large scale wvw I expect he is something like this:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vVEQJARWnsABtCh9CBWdC8DhlEiS+5n+r/aZDgDIbG+vAE-TlSDwAwU/ZwRAQvmgEPAAa7PAwEUUlfw1BI5SAoQJIZAK2CA-w

Explaining basics of the build

hide spoiler

This build is called something like “AH – Frontliner”. AH means Altruistic Healing (trait) that gives guardian a small amount of healing when he gives boons to allies. Assuming the guardian has enough allies near him/her it turns every skill into mini-heal. For example “F1 skill” that trows the spear also gives might to allies and can heal the user for around 1000 hp. Staff skill 4 “empower” can in total heal 6000 hp. AH helps guardian live in those long team fights.

As a frontline guardian this build supports its allies by giving them Stability. “Stabi” prevents opponents from getting stunned/dazed/knocked down. Shout “Stand your Ground” gives 5s to you and your allies within shout range. “F3 – Shield of Courage” also gives some stabi, but more importantly creates this shield in front that is strong enough to deflect any bombardment. (Unless its unblockable or comes from behind the shield!).

If you want to get into large scale wvw it would be good build to try out.

How to actually play the build in group

hide spoiler

In my experience most fights go something like this:

1. You follow the commander, try to stay as close to him as legal.
2. Commander spots enemy group and moves closer.
3. He/she asks for “Empower” or simply uses his/her’s own empower. At this point use your staff 4 skill.
4. You move even closer to the enemy. Stay with your brave commander. If you are close enough to cast your staff 3 “Symbol of Swiftness” into enemy feel free to do it. You can also cast staff 5 “Annoying Wall”. If you are able you can use F1 to pull an opponent into your group!
5. Either commanders calls for “stabi!” or just rushes into the enemy. At this point you use your stability shout or “F3 shield of justice” to make sure you can follow him.
6. Use a leap skill “F2” or “greatsword 3” to get to enemy. Use weapon skills 5 and 2 to damage opponents. Stay close to your commander.
7. Commander retreats. You follow him. You are most likely in need of heals. Commander calls for heals. Use staff 4 and 2 to heal as much as you can.
8. You most likely attack again and steps 4-8 keep repeating until either side is defeated.

How to stay alive?

hide spoiler

1. Avoid red circles and big AoE. Nothing can save you if you walk into necromancer’s “bomb”.
2. Active use of shelter, F3 and Reneved Focus to stay alive. You are not allowed to die before you have used them all.
3. Stay near allies. Lonely targets get picked of easily!
4. Continuous stream of small healing.

If I see a dragonhunter in small scale wvw I expect it to be more like this:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vVEQJARTlsAhqhY3QwcIwPELJE11yGAJQW+9fBo8zP9ZPA-T1hFwAr2fAwDA4k6PJuAAGV+dWXQVlgkCwclRA-w

This time they are more focused on self healing through “Meditations” and have sacrificed a lot of their group support and defense to achieve more damage. These dudes can wreck you in matter of seconds if they can land all of their attacks.

If my writing helps even one bit I am really happy.

This is really amazing and thank you for this.

I’ve had a quick look at both builds and will try them tomorrow – some more pieces of the jigsaw – more things are starting to make sense and I can see both the large holes in my build and the mis-match of accessories etc.

Thank you also for the tips and steps on following a commander – I have been looking for something like this for over a year but never found it. By the way, I have occasionally seen commanders asking for ‘Empower’ but didn’tknow what they meant – sometimes I miss the obvious.

Malkom.5607:

so glad I asked for help – last year when our guild went, then Alpine Borderlands went, it seems like a depression set in – now something to aim for. Perhaps might even look for a guild.

Not sure which server you are in, but most servers do have a community guild you can join. It’s a bit softer landing than trying to figure out things on your own and helps you to find like-minded people to play with.

FrouFrou.4958:

Malkom.5607:

so glad I asked for help – last year when our guild went, then Alpine Borderlands went, it seems like a depression set in – now something to aim for. Perhaps might even look for a guild.

Not sure which server you are in, but most servers do have a community guild you can join. It’s a bit softer landing than trying to figure out things on your own and helps you to find like-minded people to play with.

Thank you, I’m on Fissure of Woe Tier 8 and luckily I’ve had a few nice guild invites – a nice one since this thread started. I was hoping our old guild might re-activate but think with members’ real life changes, plus Desert Borderlands and some other game issues that guild won’t be re-activating any time soon, perhaps never.

Apart from being a ‘Clicker’, think the root of my problems was a terribly unbalanced game play – unlike most other players I rarely looked at my character stats. When I did login, it was straight into WvW with zero time spent on character development such as armour, weapons, crafting or even practicing how to fight.
Clearly I got lazy, had information overload, and because I couldn’t understand traits, skills, build or even opponents classes, the fun option was just to play WvW.

These posts have completely changed everything for me, from keyboard usage to character development – this game is fantastic now with many more things to do – and after just a few hours i’m a wiser better player than before – still below average but getting better

By the way, just been into Heart of Mists and found those NPCs – got downed by Engineer NPC – then killed near Lord. Now will change builds etc, practice practice, and have fun.

It looks like most of the basics have been cover, but there’s some things I haven’t seen mentioned yet. You’re going to want to have “Turn Around” and “Look Behind” bound as well. “Turn around” is pretty handy against backstab thieves. “Look Behind” is great for a quick peak to see if someone’s coming or if that zerg’s still chasing you. You’ll also want to keep right click held in, and use the mouse to turn. It’s waaaaaay faster than trying to turn with the keyboard, so you’ll find yourself a lot more nimble. Oh, and once you get comfortable with the combat, I’d suggest getting comfortable with marking targets and targetting marked targets. It makes fighting in a small group a lot more effective.

You might also ask around to see if your server has a community forums. A lot of servers have those, and they tend to have a lot of handy info on them too.

Malkom.5607:

My fighting against other players is such a shambles that I’m not sure how to improve it – by the way I’m a 61 year old guy and have never had fast reactions. Also I don’t really have instinct for weapons spells etc. I have been playing WvW for 18 months now so not a complete newbie.

A few days ago I joined someone to take camps in EB and on the way we met an ‘Elite’ player who killed me in 30s but took over 4 mins to beat my partner. When I arrived back my partner was finished off so I attacked the Elite player and he killed me in 10 secs. Frankly I don’t know what class he was or how he attacked me – it happened so fast. I was Dragon Hunter but have now gone back to combat healer setup with tougher armour, better healing but less DPS – at least I might be able to help keep my team mates alive.

After that fight my partner said he uses just keyboard for fighting whereas I use the mouse for clicking spells etc and just use keyboard mostly for movement. Perhaps a gaming mouse and a lot of practice with it might help me?

I thought the problems might be my slow reactions and lack of battle sense but now I think its also my poor understanding of weapon armour mechanics etc. A few days ago I was a kicked from a 3 man group because I didn’t put down the buffs they needed – I still don’t understand what they meant – acronyms .

WvW is still fun although I need to improve but where to start and what to focus on?
Would doing PvP help me?

Hello,i cant say how to improve your skill,maybe survivability,but i can offer you dueling partner,feel free to PM me,am bored lately anyway.This offer is purely for your excercise.Dont worry,i dont have ego isues,thou lil dance on dead cant ever hurt “just kidding”.Cya on battlefield.

KaporHabakuk.6219:

Malkom.5607:

My fighting against other players is such a shambles that I’m not sure how to improve it – by the way I’m a 61 year old guy and have never had fast reactions. Also I don’t really have instinct for weapons spells etc. I have been playing WvW for 18 months now so not a complete newbie.

A few days ago I joined someone to take camps in EB and on the way we met an ‘Elite’ player who killed me in 30s but took over 4 mins to beat my partner. When I arrived back my partner was finished off so I attacked the Elite player and he killed me in 10 secs. Frankly I don’t know what class he was or how he attacked me – it happened so fast. I was Dragon Hunter but have now gone back to combat healer setup with tougher armour, better healing but less DPS – at least I might be able to help keep my team mates alive.

After that fight my partner said he uses just keyboard for fighting whereas I use the mouse for clicking spells etc and just use keyboard mostly for movement. Perhaps a gaming mouse and a lot of practice with it might help me?

I thought the problems might be my slow reactions and lack of battle sense but now I think its also my poor understanding of weapon armour mechanics etc. A few days ago I was a kicked from a 3 man group because I didn’t put down the buffs they needed – I still don’t understand what they meant – acronyms .

WvW is still fun although I need to improve but where to start and what to focus on?
Would doing PvP help me?

Hello,i cant say how to improve your skill,maybe survivability,but i can offer you dueling partner,feel free to PM me,am bored lately anyway.This offer is purely for your excercise.Dont worry,i dont have ego isues,thou lil dance on dead cant ever hurt “just kidding”.Cya on battlefield.

Thats a very kind offer, thank you.

Things were going well untill my mouse arrived on Saturday – a Redragon Perdition. It seemed wonderful for first couple of hours – then unfortnately it seems to have some faults – side numeric keys are very unreliable and pressing 9 for example often activates 8. Also after pressing any one of them the other side buttons don’t respond until a second or so has passed – spamming them makes them all unresponsive for several seconds.

Been out tonight in EB – was killed 3 times in 5 mins – using keyboard alone I would have lasted longer in those fights than when using this mouse. I need to figure what to do with key mapping and mouse. Think i’ll sleep and see how it goes tomorrow.

Anyhow, see you about

It h

@Malkom (I send you a PM)

Apart of the technical issues I messaged about I can think a few things what might happened.

If you get interrupted the skill you used goes on a long CD. This means it is unusable for a short while. Same goes for Stun, Knock, etc…

You can also interrupt yourself… Like casting WhirlingWrath and immediately pressing ANY other buttons may interrupt the skill if it’s not instant cast. (the tiny clock icon shows this in the skill’s mouseover-menu).

Possibly you got infected by “spamfest” like I did with this mouse. Since you can use skills with your left hand AND with your right one as well you do not pay attention to casttimes and so on. You you are actually LESS effective

Using the thumb-pad is like reading Braille… It takes time till you master it.

Can you please spend a few minutes on a neutral mob-PvP golem to test this?
(I would feel myself really kitty if you’ve bought a mouse -what I suggested- and it’s a crap…)

I’m not saying it’s all your fault! It can be the mouse as well! But I know this:
- a 20 button MMO mouse can be a challenge for anyone who did not use this before.
- a new keybinding method also needs time to settle in.
(you should have seen me playing on my ele after my Redragon arrived…The funniest Tequatl kill ever Than I went for some WvW… Our commander still sobs in his sleep when he dreams about it)

Just keep it up!