Guild Wars 2

Hi fellow PvP community, my name’s Max and I used to roam for D O O M S Q U A D [DSQ] as a glassy gs warrior. We dominated with a tremendous 116w-4l record. Unfortunately the wait for the ranked ladders was really long yet they weren’t implemented, so we all rq’d and went back to games like WoW and LoL.

Oh and I’m pretty sure that if we continued playing, we’d be esport atm. But that’s a story for a different evening.

I’ve recently come back to the game and after a quick warmup on PvE I went PvP.
And it hit me like a truck, straight in the face.

I can’t play it ._.
Now don’t get me wrong dudes and dudettes, I played a couple of warrior builds and I execute the theorycrafted plays perfectly, chaining them on quarters, even. But I have a feeling that even though I’m trying and paying attention to my plays – a mid-grade player will just own me without too much of an effort. And that is unacceptable.

I’ve been trying to practice and research but all I’ve stumbled upon was builds. More and more builds. Builds here, builds there. Took a break to eat a sandwich, opening up my fridge, builds. Went out with a buddy to buy a bag of kittens – no buds, BUILDS!

An intelligent player will know how to adapt to a situation simply by looking at the map and gathering information from his teammates. An intelligent player will be where he needs to be without having hyper supreme mechanical skills. They’re naturally very important when it comes to top level play, but adaptation and decisioning is the most important thing in a team. Why am I saying this? Because I’ve tried to form a team, which came out as a huge failure due to 1 particular reason.
People can’t play conquest properly. They can’t fill the roles properly. The roles are simple, you don’t have to be able to win a 1v1 with The God in order to roam EXACTLY where u should roam. You don’t have to be able to stomp people in a 1v2 to know when to leave close point and assist middle WITHOUT me telling you to do so.
Now the problem is, that I can’t just tell them that they’re bad, because even if they can play their class, the BASIC stuff such as movement is random, which means there’s no movement at all, therefore ’’bad’’ is not enough. There’s 1 more reason though.
I can’t tell them they’re bad, because if they ask me ‘’when to cleanse rabid engi’s stacks?‘’ or ’’what is the evade priority when fighting a (insert build) elementalist?‘’ – I can’t answer because I simply don’t know.

Is there a chart of evade priorities somewhere? Like – all the weapon setups in all classes, 2-3 evade priorities next to each one of them? Would b cool.
A chart of the big most impactful cooldowns would be great as well.

I know that sooner or later I’ll have to play all the meta builds, or even all classes with all weapon setups and learn EVERY animation and EVERY ability in the game, it’s pretty straightforward and I’m down for it, yeah. Before though, I’d like to hone my mechanical skills to perfection. Perfect movement, perfect positioning, perfect camera and target control (I’m talking PERFECT). I’ve recently had this issue of getting confused in a fight and wasting 3 seconds to run around in a fight looking for a target and that, my friends, is unacceptable and can’t happen.

If anyone could help me up with a huge-kitten mofokin guide, then I’ll hug him. Maybe videos as well. I wanna learn about the aspects that I’m bad at, not to check autotargetting or bind face-about to a key.

Thanks in advance,

Max

Play sd ranger or acro thief. No need to learn what to evade, with those setups you can evade almost everything, always.
But on a more serious note, watch for slow moves that takes about 1-3, 25 seconds to complete cast times in that range is usually reserved for skills that deal exceptional amounts of damage

Save all your dodges for the Rapid Fire ranger.

But seriously, for a Thief for example: Entangling, Eviscerate, Net Shot and Rapid Fire should all be evaded or dodged.

While some classes have less dodges/evades, they might have more immunities or cleanses. And some of the easier specs can facetank about everything.

Somtimes it comes down to random dodging: Steal, Scepter Ele, Medi Guard.

The most important thing is knowing what your cheap and expensive escapes are. Andd kite like a boss. (Might not apply to some specs)

Max.1204:

Is there a chart of evade priorities somewhere? Like – all the weapon setups in all classes, 2-3 evade priorities next to each one of them? Would b cool.
A chart of the big most impactful cooldowns would be great as well.

There’s a reason why such a chart doesn’t and will never exist. It would have to include all builds, all sigil and rune variations, all possible combinations of certain skills already being on cooldown, the way you’ve positioned youself (for example avoiding something by line of sight), your own and your opponents remaining hp and endurance, all possible condition combinations already applied. Not to mention the rng factor of crits and passive procs which are hardly possible to factor in at all.
Also, all of that would imply that everyone has the same style of gameplay, which they don’t. Even players that are both on a top skill level and play the same or a similar build will have different reflexes and muscle memory, different keybindings, different experience with their own and other classes. That means that even if they seem to both have a flawless mechanic, one of them will have an unconscious bias for dodging to the right more often and the other to the left (just an example), stuff like that will create a ripple effect that will inevitably make you have completely different fights with those two players.
And the whole thing would get another 100 pages longer if you add more than one opponent or ally.

Simply put: it’s impossible to make a general formula of when to dodge what.

The only advice I can give you to improve your mechanics and knowledge of classes is to practice duels. Either in PvP or in WvW, doesn’t really matter, but get someone who can give you constant feedback in a repeatable trial and error scenario. This will improve your personal skill a lot faster than playing actual pvp matches.

Hi random pedestrian here.
Play all the meta specs to a decent level then go back to your warrior (and run an effective build).
You’ll start to see how certain specs ramp up their damage/initiate and you can then count CDs and dodge etc
Rather than reading off a checklist that someone compiled with their own interpretations of priorities, and you having to compensate for that bias, wouldn’t it be better to have you try everything out and come to your own conclusions?
Read and know all skills across all weapon sets and utilities for all classes, that’s just maybe couple minutes. Play each meta build the way it’s meant to be played or play enough tPvP and critically appraise your cons vs each matchup, and constantly ask why I died to that, what I could have done better, is there something I can tweak or look out for etc etc.

As a general rule of thumb, you want to conserve your dodges as much as possible. You should rely more on your skills (weapon skills particularly) and positioning to help mitigate damage. You almost always want to have your defensive structure be incorporated into your offensive structure (i.e. use your skills to build momentum).

As an example of bad positioning, if you have bombs on your engie, you should pretty much consider it suicide to run into a large teamfight to try and lay them down. However, does this mean that you should never take risky actions? Of course not, because when you “do kitten” your force your opponent to “do kitten” too, and they might mess up giving you the advantage. So don’t be predictable – rotations are a bad habit to get into.

Long story short, dodge the stuff that hits like a truck, or dodge the stuff that sets up the skills that hit like a truck.

Also, learn how to bait dodges – it’s important. One of the best changes to the longbow as a warrior was the animation change on Pin Down. It’s a skill that people NEED to deal with (as it sets up damage that hits like a truck). Now a warrior can bait out a dodge with it as people will most likely try to dodge it. Skills that people know needs to be dealt with, should be used as a baiting mechanic. Engie magnet is another case.

Hi and thank you for good intentions but this is basic stuff that is straightforward and doesn’t help at all.

Baiting dodges on the other hand is a somehow advanced mechanic that I’m interested in. I’ve been doing it myself but I think there’s much more to learn in that aspect. Mind going deep into it?

Max.1204:

Hi and thank you for good intentions but this is basic stuff that is straightforward and doesn’t help at all.

Baiting dodges on the other hand is a somehow advanced mechanic that I’m interested in. I’ve been doing it myself but I think there’s much more to learn in that aspect. Mind going deep into it?

Well there really won’t be any type of a “guide.” Besides, no guide is truly going to help you. You just need to play. So while some suggestions might be basic, that’s the best we’re going to do for you as “basic” helps you apply the core concepts to a broader perspective.

As an example, know the effective ranges (not necessarily the printed range on the skill), cooldowns, and purpose of all skills (does it deal damage? does it prevent damage like a cc? how many different forms of cc does a weapon have? these types of things) and you will then start to understand what someone would consider a “good build” or a bad one.

Many people will say that turret engie is really good right now, but it’s not. Fundamentally its because it depends on you going afk on point and trying to 1v1 anything that comes your way – it’s very one-track minded. The problem with it is that turrets die to cleave very easily, it is a static build (they have trouble moving around on the map), and they die to a 2v1 pressure way too quickly. So you have a build that is useless in teamfights (where there is a lot of cleave), and afk’s on node (which means that there is a +1 advantage for the enemy team somewhere else on the map) the enemy team just out-rotated you as a turret engie without ever having to rotate. You need to be able to understand these qualities of every build.

Now lets look at another example of an engie: the toolkit, nade, elixir s engie. You have a stable defensive structure – gear shield is the best 3 second block in the game. You’re able to significantly contribute to teamfights and skirmishes as well. You have a lot of reliable damage, and a variety of ways to help protect your teammates. Toolkit magnet basically allows you to not sacrifice your positioning (infact pulls an enemy out of position) in a teamfight and still be able to have access to your secondary source of burning (besides incendary powder). Nades allows you to apply incredible cleave pressure. And in a skirmish, you do a kitten job as well (since engies are really good at that sort of thing naturally). Elixir S allows you to prevent yourself getting pincered by the enemy, and is a reliable stunbreak in general (say a thief approaches mid node from your home and jumps on you from behind – that’s a “pincer”). If you decided to bring bombs instead of toolkit, you -may- get more mileage out in skermishes, but you’re going to suffer significantly in teamfights because the best you can do is just chuck nades as you have to sacrifice your positioning to be able to lay a few bombs in cleave damage land. Above all, just try things out and see what works. The best builds are the ones that are able to contribute to the team in some meaningful way, require some level of coordination with the team, and the build can’t be “one track minded”.

However again, that being said, you’re going to need to just play the game. A lot of the game revolves around certain matchups and what to look for in teamfights. This comes from playing the game.

How to bait dodges: You cancel cast (usually by pressing the stow weapon skill) an important skill to bait out a dodge. It’s a very useful tool that should be used at appropriate times.

Things like in the heat of a fight, a Hambow switches to Hammer. There’s an Intelligence Sigil hardbuff on his status bar. Most people in the heat of a fight will dodge immediately to avoid the Earthshaker that’s sure to come, but you can wait for the dodge to finish.

Stowing Pin Down as well, that usually makes anyone dodge. Dark Path (OP Chill + Path of Corruption), Signet of Spite, Fire Attunement (Glorious Burning Speed), Basi Venom, Magnet, Moa, Point-Blank Shot (because Rapid Fire is going to come), Dark Pact (power necros are super rare), iLeap (not iStumble anymore), iZerker, Flanking Strike hit -> Larc Strike Buff… Thief walking toward you with Dagger offhand… Shield Bash (usually stunbreak + dodge roll if you are Axe + Shield)

Generally anything that’s hard-hitting and has a 0.75 cast time (but is not a leap so you can stow weapon to fake cast) or above is going to make people dodge. Unless he knows you super well he won’t bluff your bluff…

Big Picture issues:

Because of mechanics that this game has like the downed state Rez, you will never win a fight or even get a kill against a half descent opponent if you are outnumbered.

The best that you can do is stall, and if your bunker build isn’t capable of stalling 30+ seconds outnumbered against capable glass cannons then you are hurting you team by being outnumbered.

The maps tend to snowball based on how far the points are from spawn. So, getting the first kills wins (and the team that outnumbers gets the kills). Foefire is the most snowball and you have to play the most conservatively there.

This means never get yourself into a situation where you are outnumbered,. The easiest way to do this is DO NOT RUSH FAR.

Do not rush far

Do not rush far

And tell your teammates to not rush far. Numbers are too important to determining outcomes of fights, again it’s impossible to even get a kill while outnumbered, so don’t leave your teammates outnumbered.

Certain classes and specs have rock paper scissors advantages over others, so your team can take advantage of this in sending your 2 against their 2, but this is advanced level stuff. Get the basics done first.

Message me ingame and I will give you a rundown on any question you have, even if you were in a top 1 team when gw2 released, its totally normal to SUCK now, there was an influx of top players in eu that came back a couple months ago and expected way too much as in they thought after a short amount of time they will be back to where they were before. Lets just say reality didnt live up to their expectations (not blaming them, if they read this, I like almost all of them as persons but this expectation wasnt reasonable). Anyway im not just some random guy talking, I wasnt in a top team for a while, but working on that (my soloq best is smth like top 10, teamq best smth like top 20?) and almost every eu player that played at the top in the past year knows me. (not trying to sound arrogant here or something, just trying to make my opinion respectable to the people who dont know me)