Guild Wars 2

It was suggested to me that I try leveling in WvW. I’ve been wanting to try out WvW and level my thief so that’s two birds with one stone.

Does anyone have any advice on how to best level in WvW and also be productive and helpful to other players?

Thanks

What server are you on? First thing I would say is forget about being helpful to other players and learn some “farm paths” where you can do events. I have a few loops I do. Once you learn these paths, then have a think about how you can contribute to your teammates a bit more. In general, it can be more efficient levelling a thief in a small havoc group (IE 5 player party), however, if your in a party of inexperienced players I would say they will actually slow your levelling down.

My strategy for stat increases on my thief atm is to level guard killer. This allows a very slight increase in killing guards which makes flipping sentries and camps slightly quicker. Once I get up to the one that takes like (75 levels?) I might switch to mercenaries bane.

EDIT: Also I find the borderlands better than EB. Borderlands has a bit more open space. The quality (skill) of player in the borderlands tends to be higher than EB though.

Two tips:

1. Try to remain as geared as possible. The way the uplevelling system for wvw works, a character at level 20 who has the best gear for a level 20 to have won’t be that much worse off than a fully geared 80. At that point it’ll mostly just be a trait difference.

2. Follow zergs. Regardless of level, you can still carry around supply like everyone else, which matters much more for larger groups. Moreover, your inferior stats will be much less noticeable and harmful in a big group. If you try running havoc or solo while underlevelled, you’re going to die a lot.

If you want to level i would ask does your server have a regular karma train rolling and also i would ask if you have a guild. Running with either of these will increase your chance of staying alive and also you will level faster.

Preferably be on a server with a comfortable lead, I say this because turnout is high and usually a couple zergs running a karma train.

Be mindful that some organized groups/guilds will hate on uplevels. The reason being if you die you potentially rally everyone they just killed.

Main thing, find a commander tag and stick to that tag like your trying to eat his Doritos. Listen to what he says and preferably join your community team speak if there is one available.

Good luck and have fun.

Hi OP,

Stay with zerg and run support build. You job is to provide cc, combo field, rez, and repair. The zerg will take you to camp and towers for max karma/exp gain. Join the big zerg, but not small groups. Your low stat is less obvious in big zerg.

For example, I am currently leveling a thief. I use short bow 4 to provide poison field, then 2 to blast it. So enemy zerg just get mass weakness. You might not contribute to dps, but you help your people fight easier. And use shadow refuge to rez people. Something like that. Every class has good sup builds.

You don’t have to stay geared. Get a shortbow, follow the zerg, stay out of the fray and spam AoEs. Of course your server would have to have zergs running around regularly to begin with.

Oh is he talking about levelling a char in WvW? Not WXP levelling?

That seems to be the case.

Also, you’re going to have to choose between being helpful and leveling lol :P Running yaks, building siege, upgrading and watching structures is helpful to others but it slows down leveling big time.

this may go without saying, but: choose gear for toughness and vitality. as a low level, your job is not to do DPS, it’s to provide crowd control and buffs.

also, you have a duty to avoid dying whenever possible. this is especially important to keep in mind at lower levels because you don’t have all your survival tricks yet. hang back if you have to, but don’t allow the enemy to use your death to rally up their downed players.

-ken

I believe there is a misunderstanding, I think the OP is asking about normal XP leveling through WvW, in other words taking a character to level 80. I have to ask how many of the previous posters have actually tried to level a character solely in WvW?

I have tried doing this and while I really enjoy WvW and do it for fun, I have to say that is very impractical for leveling purposes compared to every other method in the game.

The general advice of sticking with zerg and playing a support role is very accurate for anyone entering WvW with a pre-80 character. And it’s certainly good advice for WvW XP.

But every other form of activity from dynamic events to exploration to karma hearts to plain old boring grinding like a bot will get you more XP, money and loot at a much faster rate than WvW.

One big reason for this is that WvW is often about strategic positioning, moving from one point to another as quickly as possible before the enemy reacts. There are stretches of time where you are simply moving from one position to another, not killing mobs and not gaining XP or loot.

Think about what it’s like to play a PvE zone compared to a WvW zone, you don’t spend nearly as much time running around and covering as much distance. And that time difference becomes very significant.

Another issue is loot. You might getting those bags of loots from kills in WvW but you’re going to be leaving many of them uncollected because the flow of battle will push you away esp. if you are running with a zerg as people are recommending.

Assuming you can even see those bags in the middle of mass battle (which you often cannot), unless you always try a suicide dive into your enemies to get one that has dropped there before you die, you will certainly be missing loot you have earned from WvW kills.

Compare that to PvE kills where you can loot every single time. This could easily be fixed by an autoloot mechanic in WvW but ArenaNet chose not to do this. The result is that once again WvW is far inferior to gaining loot and money compared to any other activity in the game (save crafting but you get XP far faster in that).

It’s a shame because I deeply enjoy WvW but like the OP I was hoping I could level one of my alts to 80 solely through WvW, killing two birds with one stone because of my limited gametime.

I had hoped that the WvW improvements would fix this but they are only for WvW XP. Regretfully it looks like my WvW alt is going to have to have to end up doing exploration and personal story just like my other characters because the rate of progression is just so much faster through those activities.

To the question above, I haven’t tried levelling any of my 8×80s in WvW. I rush levelled them in PvE before taking them to WvW.

I PvE to level 7 for weapon swapping then only leave WvW for the occasional personal story.

If I’m reading the first post correctly you have two disadvantages – low level character and inexperience in WvW.

Learn how WvW works as soon as possible, I mean the whole picture of WvW and not just elite roaming ganking or 5v5 battles.

The great thing about this game is that your CC’s, group buffs and such are basically just as effective against a full 80. Even a low level Guardian can throw down speed boosts, might, retaliation for the group and drop some AOE to tag for badges.

Knowing how WvW works, what not to do (ie taking supply from keep to repair wall while the attackers trebs are still up) and how to scout intelligently can give benefits to your server beyond your level.

Once you have a handle on this then practice getting as aggressive as possible in the mob battle without dying.

as an uplevel always keep your gear as best quality and as close to your level as you can afford. The trading post is great for this because there are a lot of cheap greens/rares that you can buy for very little.

join the karma train choo choo

Be nice, stay away from any group that asks you to do just that. You will never be as good as a fully geared lvl 80 and you don’t want to drag others down of course.

Thieves have it easy in zergs to level. Clusterbombs and choking gas will get you a lot of credit for kills (and if you spread some weakness you can help your allies).

If there are no zergs to follow try to find an arrowcart or go flip camps like others have suggested before.

To be honest, I much prefer people would not come to WvW to level. It is easy to do in PvE and if you have gold (which most WvW won’t) you can also do it with crafting.

I leveled 3 toons to 80 in WvW
1) get AoE – shortbow, caltrops,traps
2)stay in the middle of zerg, you will die often, but if your side wins,they will ress you
3)your job is to tag as many enemies as you can so you will have xp from them. Also always try to be in capturing circle to get XP from capturing
4cluster bomb- dont let it detonate on groud, do it manually, instead of 1 blast, it will make 3 blasts. because of aoe limit you will tag 3x more enemies than detonation on ground
4) throw poison field not on enemy, but on your front lines
5)forget about buying gear, just repair what you have, equip from loot and save badges to lvl 80
6) learn when and where have guilds on your server their events and join them- guaranteed fights
7) learn about your server and those playing againts, if you have all on EB, go enemy keeps, build cannons and shoot the zerg trying to get back their keep, you ALWAYS need to choose siege instead of fight with your weapons

enjoy quick trip to lvl 80 and some wxp levels.Actually i am leveling engineer, and in about hours i gained 3 lvls. 70-73 just by standing on cannon at enemy Valley and shooting to zerg trying to get inside, and these bigger lvl dont go as easy as lower ones.

DoctorOverlord.8620:

I believe there is a misunderstanding, I think the OP is asking about normal XP leveling through WvW, in other words taking a character to level 80. I have to ask how many of the previous posters have actually tried to level a character solely in WvW?

I have tried doing this and while I really enjoy WvW and do it for fun, I have to say that is very impractical for leveling purposes compared to every other method in the game.

The general advice of sticking with zerg and playing a support role is very accurate for anyone entering WvW with a pre-80 character. And it’s certainly good advice for WvW XP.
……………….

Ok, so DoctorOverlord is generally right. The most efficient leveling is not through WvW but some other pve contents. Like crafting from lv 1 to lv 30, complete some pve maps, do dungeon exp (CM is a good choice) for power leveling, etc. No argument, it’s a lot faster.

Thing is if you were to level many characters for different professions, repeating the pve contents gets boring. WvW adds some variety. The longer time you stay in WvW, the more player experience you have playing WvW. You will be learning stuff/tricks running with zerg, listening to map chats, getting involements with the community. It’s all about player experience. If you only have been doing pve to reach 80 and not playing WvW, you ’d not know what you have missed.

But really, running with zerg is fun. That’s all that matters to me. :P I just do not like grinding/farming/repeating in endless contents. XD

BBMouse.6510:

It’s all about player experience. If you only have been doing pve to reach 80 and not playing WvW, you ’d not know what you have missed.

I do agree, WvW is a very fun experience. I have been doing it but I just find it a bit frustrating that it is so much slower than any other method at progressing a character, esp. because I don’t have unlimited gameplay time.

I will try Hule’s suggestions above (modified for an ele) and see how they work. Maybe focusing on tagging is what I really need to do.

I m currently leveling a Necro in WvW. She was level 7 when I started and is now level 60. Leveling in PvE is defintely more efficient, but I had lost interest in teh game and quit for a while, so this was my way back.

It can be hard and frustrating, but it is possible. Your biggest source of XP is in events, specifically taking or retaking camps/keeps/towers. Stay as geared as possible. I tried to do the stuff that any level could do to help the team: always carry full supply, repair, build siege, rez allies, keep lookout to keep sieges from getting attacked and left the actual killing of enemies to the pros. None of those things necessarily give you much XP, so you have to make sure you are in the cap area when the objective is capped. Almost to the exclusion of anything else.