Curse

moondriane · Nov 30, 2010, 11:54 PM // 23:54

ive been playing this game for about 2 weeks now and just started trying to pvp.

i am getting my butt handed to me.
i dont know what im doing and have no idea how to improve.

whats a class for beginners?
when looking at abilities they all seem way to situational, kinda turns me off to the pvp side of this game, i kinda get confused and lost to what i should be using.

any tips/help will be greatly appreicated.

Caw521 · Dec 01, 2010, 12:13 AM // 00:13

I'm not really an avid pvp'er, but...

I'd suggest that if you haven't done so already, start in pve and learn the ropes before you pvp. Pvp is mostly full of experienced players or elitists that won't accept anything that goes wrong while they're playing. Make sure that you have at least a decent view of the mechanics of the game before you try to pvp, because 2 weeks isn't that long, lol. Also, you can unlock waaay more skills and items in pve that you can use for pvp.

Another solution if you don't wanna learn the ropes from the beginning by yourself is joining a new-player friendly guild (pvp/pve/mixed) and they can help you. And if you don't wanna really take the time to learn, you can just join a pvp guild that is willing to teach you.

Profession-wise, the kinda-basic professions are the warrior and elementalist, although of course you have to know what's good and what's bad in situations, they're easier to play in my opinion. Other professions, such as the mesmer, ranger, and sometimes necro, are a bit harder for new players to play. Mesmers and Rangers have to know when to interrupt what, and rangers should spread conditions to be effective. Mesmers and Necros need to know how and what to punish too. If you like party support, you could try a hand at a monk or rit or possibly paragon (not as common in pvp though), but you'd have to be semi-decent at it and know who to heal, who to prot, etc, etc.

Good luck!

**Marty Silverblade** · Dec 01, 2010, 12:32 AM // 00:32

In PvP you need to know what you're doing. There are no excuses. The opposing team will be doing everything it can to beat your team. If you have no idea how to go about destroying your opponents, you have no place in PvP.

If you want to PvP, there are two things I recommend you do.

Firstly, complete the PvE content. This gives you an opportunity to understand the profession/role you're playing, be able to distinguish between good skills and bad skills and why this is so (of both your profession and other professions), strengths and weaknesses of the professions, managing energy, battlefield awareness, have the names and skill icons (ideally the energy cost, recharge time, and casting time too) of key skills memorised, etc. Some of your opponents have had 5 years of experience; you're not going to be able to contribute if you don't understand what you're doing.

Secondly, join a PvP guild that participates often and is willing to teach new players. Trying to learn PvP by yourself is hard, and getting into groups with random people is nearly impossible unless you have experience and have the titles to prove it.

RedDog91 · Dec 01, 2010, 01:06 AM // 01:06

Quote:

Originally Posted by Marty Silverblade

In PvP you need to know what you're doing. There are no excuses. The opposing team will be doing everything it can to beat your team. If you have no idea how to go about destroying your opponents, you have no place in PvP.

Even though it does seem to be worded rather harshly, this pretty much sums it up.

I'm not that big on PvP, but I still have a more-than-general idea of what I'm doing when I'm there; and its painfully annoying to have people that have no clue what they are doing on your team.

When you say the abilities sound situational...well, they are. You have to find ways to combine skills to work together.
The easiest example would be Sever Arty and Gash. Sever Arty doesn't deal any additional damage, so you won't see immediate health loss, but it does cause bleeding, which by itself isn't that great of a condition. Gash deals extra damage, but in order to get the full advantage (deep wound, which lower's target's max health by 20%) your target must be bleeding. You have to use these 2 skills together to get full effect.

xPc · Dec 01, 2010, 02:04 AM // 02:04

1. Consider a playstyle which suits you and look at some of the successful PvP builds available on PvX wiki (http://www.gwpvx.com). You may be able to create your own builds in a few months but right now you probably can't. You're probably better off playing a damage caster at first as they are generally the easiest position to play. I would suggest something like Mind Blast for a new player as it has a lot of easily sustainable damage and it has reasonably good survivability through your optional skills.

2. Play through the PvE campaigns to unlock skills/items and get a feel for your skills and the others in the game. You won't be successful without skills and items unlocked. You'll also get more used to the movement system in Guildwars.

3. Unless you can find a group of PvPers who are willing to adopt you, start with a simpler form of PvP such as Jade Quarry, Fort Aspenwood or Alliance Battles. These game types are WAY more forgiving on a new player as they have far more static goals, opposition team comps and the players are also generally worse. You'll quickly learn the goals of the game type you're playing, the standard builds you'll be coming up against and how to play against them.

4. Once you actually have a bit of experience and you've unlocked a few more skills you can probably progress into RA which is more about direct confrontation. You'll have to be able to recognize and directly outplay your opposition to win in this game type.

5. By now hopefully you'll have a vague idea of what is going on in the game. You'll have unlocked a few builds (in different roles) and the basic items for different characters (defensive sets, casting sets, high sets, various different melee weapon mods). At this point you'll need to find a group to play with so you can progress to HA or GvG. PuGing either of these are basically impossible but so is finding a group with practically no experience. Basically try and find a PvP guild to adopt you if you want to progress past the stage of RA/JQ/FA/AB Hero.

If you need more direct help, send me a PM or message me ingame if you see me on.

xPc.

IGN - M F Ninja

Fate Crusher · Dec 01, 2010, 02:36 AM // 02:36

Understanding is key. Understand your skills, understand your role in the team, understand what you can do to help your team win.

PvP is very logical, but has gone through several stages throughout its tenure.

Example of builds: Utility is key to most teams. Utility means anything players can do outside regular damage and degeneration. mainly focussing on rangers and mesmers who can interrupt and degen (ranger) or interrupt and shutdown (mesmer). I'm not going to explain this in anymore detail simply because it will get too confusing for you.

Best to try out 4v4 gameplay with the Zaishen training arena. Have a look at PvX wiki and browse through the PvP builds and try to understand what each build is trying to look at.

The last thing I can recommend, is to press B and go observe some PvP matches. Follow each character for a while and see what they do in each scenario, as confusing as it may look. Maybe follow the caller of the team (usually number 1 in the party list). You'll see where the damage is coming from and what they're trying to achieve.

All professions are easy enough for beginners, but the ones that take more understanding and skill to reach the effective potential, would be mesmers and rangers (you'll need good reactions and a good brain). However, it seems like Anet decided to turn mesmers into a joke and have just recently let them faceroll wins in RA.

Good luck.

I Echo Dshot · Dec 01, 2010, 03:25 AM // 03:25

Just to learn the basics, play this in random arenas (RA):

1)ebon hawk
2)stoning
3)optional elite (i recommend empathetic removal)
4)ash blast
5)wild throw (or other skill)
6)earth attunement
7)aura of restoration
8)resurrection signet

If I had to give one piece of advice to new players it would be to make friends with people who are good. Its the only way to get into groups without rank. Also, once you become good, you will have people to play with regularly.

The only "real pvp" is GvG (guild vs guild), RA, HA (heros ascent). Don't waste your time with fort aspenwood, jade quarry, alliance battles.

PvP is a very competitive environment. Players are unfriendly to bad players.

The poster above me said that you should observe some PvP matches. Don't do this until you have a basic understanding of the game.

moondriane · Dec 01, 2010, 03:33 AM // 03:33

thanks for the advice.

i have been playing the pve side for a bit, guess i'll stick with it more and experiment.

i never knew i could watch the pvp going on in arena's that'll help get and overall idea one what i should do or atleast try to do.

one of the things im having a hard time getting used to is the energy management in this game. Coming from DAoC and WAR, going broke after what seems like 3 abilities drove me insane and i knew i was doing something horribly wrong ;/
Plus only having a hand full of them at a time too.

Delete HB Already · Dec 01, 2010, 04:49 AM // 04:49

Yeah energy management is hard at first. You have to look at the energy cost of the skills on your bar and also see the recharge time to determine how often you may use a skill and if it would be too much of an energy cost to use in your bar. But you can't just look at one skill, you want an entire skill set that you will be able to use and be able to manage energy with. There are skills in the game that give you back energy. PvE like everyone said is definitely a good place to start. Once you get a feel for the game you may start doing Random Arenas which is the most basic form of PvP. I would stay away from the other forms of PvP for a while. And yes, finding a nice guild would be helpful.

X Ghoul · Dec 01, 2010, 04:52 AM // 04:52

Quote:

Originally Posted by I Echo Dshot

The only "real pvp" is GvG (guild vs guild), RA, HA (heros ascent). Don't waste your time with fort aspenwood, jade quarry, alliance battles.
.

Lol? But on-topic you don't have to play through pve just maybe 1 hour and know how to target, move around, use skills (any type) effectively know cooldown rates and when would be the best time to use what skills. When you move onto gvg or ha Know your role skills act differently in pvp then pve so don't rely on skill descriptions in pve. Update yourself on current meta builds and how they work and have ALOT of patience

Sundar · Dec 01, 2010, 08:47 AM // 08:47

For RA, Mind Blast ele is by far THE easiest build to play yet so effective. Take dervish secondary, put all your attributes in Fire Magic and Energy Storage and the remaining 3 points in Earth Prayers and take these skills. Take +1 Energy Storage rune, +1 Fire(I personally use +3) and Fire Headgear. Run survivor/blessed insignias and a superior vigor and a 40/40 fire set.

Mind Blast
Immolate
Rodgort's Invocation
Meteor
Mirage Cloak
Fire Attunement
Aura of Restoration
Resurrection Signet

Buff up Attune first and then Aura(lot of people do it the other way around), use Mirage Cloak whenever you see a melee headed towards you. The reason this build is easiest is because most melees will never give you any trouble as long as you maintain Cloak and Aura. Also if you're low on health and have aura up, you can spam Cloak(it has no recharge time) for self healing though you often wouldn't have much energy for that.

Play this build for a while until you get familiar with RA and how most matches, team combos, maps play out, then move onto try other professions when you get bored. As you play more you'll understand what kind of teams have a good chance of getting decent streaks and will leave sub-par teams after the first match and re-enter and repeat this until you get a decent team.

I've had GW for exactly a year now and spent roughly 6-7 months in RA, I'm g5 with about 500 glad to go for g6, I'm terrible at set switching and playing most of the other professions in pvp and almost all of my glad points have come with this build. Hope that helped.

Missing HB · Dec 01, 2010, 09:48 AM // 09:48

1- Don't bother trying to GvG or Codex , you will waste your time.

2-If you do have factions , try to play Fort Aspenwood and Jade Quarry first. It you don't , just play RA. It will give you an idea of builds you can run and by watching other players run it , you could learn how to use them by yourself. However , i think you should learn how to play monk , you will learn more than playing warrior for example.

3- Then it depends on your guild. If it's not that active , you can try to play Alliance Battles . If you have many players on , or not any , i would recommend to play HA either as Wota + esurges ,either as Sfway.

infi · Dec 01, 2010, 10:02 AM // 10:02

this is my guide how to get into GvG

DISCLAMER: GvG is the real one pvp. If you good at GvG you can participate whenever you want and whoever you want with .

You dont need to complete pve if you want to get better at pvp. PvE can't help you with anything about PvP. It is just useless waste of time.

First step - choose your role: Frontline, Midline or Backline

Frontline - melee characters which usually do dmg.

Frontline includes archetype Warrior, Dervish, Assasin. The most demanded is Warrior.

Midline - utility characters which can do everything. Mostly casters or range attackers.

Important: if you want to play midline you have to know how to deal with every midline profession. Thats important. It doesnt include rupt characters as few ranger and mesmer bars.

Midline consists of Paragon, Elementalist, Necromancer, Mesmer, Ranger, Ritualist. The best choise at the start is Elementalist AND Necromancer because they are very popular everytime.

Backline - protects and heals your allies.

Backline consists of monks. The best choise is monk! isnt hard to understand, right? ^_^

If you want to play monk you will be blamed very often but you dont need to learn alot of skill sets and master them. In another side, monk templates requie not average personal skill.

Second step: get a right bars but remember that only at the start of your gvg careree you have to take bars from another resourses like observer or pvxwiki.

How do you get right bar? Easy. Just press b and open observer mode where you can find in tournament matches section a match with hight ranked guild. Open it. Find your defined profession and look at her skills. Remember them and build up your bar based on this skills. Then go to the pvxwiki and find exact same/close bar. Take attributes only from wiki build for your bar and spread them right.

Now you have a right bar. Congratulations!

Third step: After you defined your role and made right barMAKE RIGHT EQUIPMENT AND WEAPON SETS for them

Find your current build or another but close to yours on pvxwiki and take equipment from it.

i also post another good guide about equipment.

from teamquitter by axiom

Quote:

The Rundown:
Bring as much +armor as humanly possible. This includes +5armor weapons, btw. Find the body armor that will give you the highest up-time of armor bonus: enchant armor on an Ele, recharge armor on a Mesmer, shout armor on a Paragon, etc. Make at least 4 shields for various scenerios, sometimes even more (metagame-dependent). Too often, I see people just roll basic armor with as much HP as possible and think they're doing the right thing.

The Reasoning:
Midline defense is basically dead right now. Monk bars (read: pre-Prot) have been rendered almost entirely useless, thanks to an over-abundance of enchant strips, hugely diminished party healing skills, and interrupt spam, meaning unless you're playing on a team that knows how to actively pre-kite and maintain some kind of line formation, your 2 Monks are virtually all that's standing between you and death. (note that Armor has always been a vastly under-utilized resource in Guild Wars, but I especially sympathize with people who are just now getting involved in more competitive GvG and are facing an uphill battle against the current play-style).

With that being said, the single largest strain on Monk energy is red-bar assistance. Monks have to keep people above 75% or they become exponentially more susceptible to deadly (or near-deadly) spike damage. Think of +Armor as a shielding hands every time you get hit - it's nearly that impactful. You're basically arming your Monks with a 9th skill slot, all the while allowing them to spend their energy in a more active way (prot, cleans, etc.) Sitting on your 40/40 set while being hit by a Warrior is going to cost your Monks at least 10 points of energy more than if you'd been in a shield set and kiting properly - so unless your actions are resulting in MORE than that being expended by the opposing Monks, you're hurting your own team.

One of the most important differences between good teams and great teams are the little things they do to help their Monks keep them alive. Spending that little bit of extra time to improve your positioning, pack as much +Armor as possible, and study the patterns in your team's play-style that could diminish damage intake will all give you a vastly greater chance of success.

Fourth step: master your skill set

How to do it? Well, you can go to RA and play there untill you will get better. It will take quite much time but u have to do it if you want make sucсess.

Fifth step: Observ top guild matches every day and learn how to play and what to do with your role. But dont forget about complex team tactics and another enemies/allies. You have to learn and master how to react and what to do in different basic situations.

Sixth step: find a friends and build friendlist

How to do it? Easy! If you will play well on ra you will find frends very quickly. People are always looking for some guest for gvg or ha. They will ask you to guest or you can do it by your own. You can even be an asshole but dont play bad and everything will be fine.

Seventh step: If you want to grow up dont rely on HA. Try to find a gvg guild.

DONT GIVE UP. BE PATIENT. AND REMEMBER ONLY TEAM COORDINATION AND TACTICS WINS MATCHES NOT BUILD OR PERSONAL SKILL.

gl

We Play ''Fragway'' Alot · Dec 01, 2010, 10:17 AM // 10:17

If you wanna learn PVP you should read guides about it and ask people in game some information. Ofc you will get some raging people calling you a noob but who cares just ask sombody else. Believe it or not there are also nice people that play PVP.

Also learn maps for this go to www.guildwars.wikia.com there you will find lots of info about Guild wars itself aswell.

Learn basic stuf that is alrdy said before and if you get better learn stuf like recharge time of skills, watching field(this is rly helpfull for pvp), how to weapon swap fast, etc.

People here say first start pve then go pvp ofc that is true but it takes alot of time so be prepared to put alot of time in it before you will rly become a good player. And last but not least if you fail at somthing dont quit but just do it over and over until you learn how to do somthing.

urania · Dec 01, 2010, 02:44 PM // 14:44

the best advice i can give you is learn some of the basics of each proffesion and wait for GW 2. GW doesnt really have much to offer pvp-wise, im afraid.

Cool Name · Dec 01, 2010, 03:11 PM // 15:11

I just have one thing to say about the person that said PvE is useless if you are wanting to play PvP. This is wrong.

OP has been playing guild wars for two weeks. Chances are he has played(none of this is criticising OP) one profession, has a very limited set of skills and therefore has a very limited view of what role each profession plays in a party, general game mechanics (as we can see from his initial difficulty with e-management) and therefore, as he says, he will get raped in PvP.

Although PvE is very different compared to PvP I agree with most other people that he definitely should complete a lot of content before he tries PvP. Also it might be good to try some of the harder content like DoA and UW etc. People have said don't do AB because it isn't PvP, but because of your situation I think it might be good for you to try AB, because it is playing with other people, and if anything it will get him used to being raged at.

Fate Crusher · Dec 03, 2010, 03:18 PM // 15:18

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pthoms T

I just have one thing to say about the person that said PvE is useless if you are wanting to play PvP. This is wrong.

OP has been playing guild wars for two weeks. Chances are he has played(none of this is criticising OP) one profession, has a very limited set of skills and therefore has a very limited view of what role each profession plays in a party, general game mechanics (as we can see from his initial difficulty with e-management) and therefore, as he says, he will get raped in PvP.

Although PvE is very different compared to PvP I agree with most other people that he definitely should complete a lot of content before he tries PvP. Also it might be good to try some of the harder content like DoA and UW etc. People have said don't do AB because it isn't PvP, but because of your situation I think it might be good for you to try AB, because it is playing with other people, and if anything it will get him used to being raged at.

First thing I did on this game over 5 years ago, was create a PvP character. 20 minutes later I created a PvE character.

Surprisingly, and I don't know if this will be a shock to you, but I was able to simultaneously play PvE and PvP, with PvP taking up the majority of my time.

Surprisingly, and I don't know if this will also be a shock, I believe Anet made easy character swapping and Map Travel for this very reason...

The game was built with PvP in mind.

Cool Name · Dec 03, 2010, 04:09 PM // 16:09

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fate Crusher

First thing I did on this game over 5 years ago, was create a PvP character. 20 minutes later I created a PvE character.

Surprisingly, and I don't know if this will be a shock to you, but I was able to simultaneously play PvE and PvP, with PvP taking up the majority of my time.

Surprisingly, and I don't know if this will also be a shock, I believe Anet made easy character swapping and Map Travel for this very reason...

The game was built with PvP in mind.

What is your point? I didn't say he can't do it, I'm saying he will not be very good at PvP. Also over 5 years ago is completely different from now. People in PvP have had over 5 years of practise, but when you started they hadn't.

Also I doubt the main reason for people travel was pvp.

Surprisngly, this might shock you, your post didn't disagree with anything in mine.

Fate Crusher · Dec 03, 2010, 05:30 PM // 17:30

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pthoms T

What is your point? I didn't say he can't do it, I'm saying he will not be very good at PvP. Also over 5 years ago is completely different from now. People in PvP have had over 5 years of practise, but when you started they hadn't.

Also I doubt the main reason for people travel was pvp.

Surprisngly, this might shock you, your post didn't disagree with anything in mine.

Simply put: Anet were not dumb and created a divide between PvE and PvP, they knew players would cross between the two constantly to sample both content. Variation is key, and understanding is absolute. Play both sides of the game and actually learn something.

Of course, things have changed very much so and there definitely is a divide. But to a new player, this divide does not exist yet.

Advice has been given, but all this advice has been extremely opinionated. The only factual help this person has received has been the quote of axiom's breakdown of PvP lines.

Oh and it didn't shock me, because I wasn't disagreeing.

Cool Name · Dec 03, 2010, 05:51 PM // 17:51

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fate Crusher

Simply put: Anet were not dumb and created a divide between PvE and PvP, they knew players would cross between the two constantly to sample both content. Variation is key, and understanding is absolute. Play both sides of the game and actually learn something.

Of course, things have changed very much so and there definitely is a divide. But to a new player, this divide does not exist yet.

Advice has been given, but all this advice has been extremely opinionated. The only factual help this person has received has been the quote of axiom's breakdown of PvP lines.

Oh and it didn't shock me, because I wasn't disagreeing.

I disagree that the divide doesn't exist to a new player. Firstly, as he originally said, he is finding PvP very hard. This is the first difference between PvP and it is apparent to a new player. Another main difference was also mentioned by OP is what he says is skills being too conditional, but what I think also encompasses meta builds. At least with lower end PvE you can play around and have fun with your builds, and find out for yourself what is fun and useful. With PvP you will most likely get raged at and/or get beaten badly if you try something fun and new.

OP asked for ideas on how to improve. My suggestion was to play PvE and let the game teach you how to play. With a lack of knowledge of what skills do PvP will be very hard. You'll get backfire + SS on you and die instantly, and if you don't recognise the hex icons and know what the skills do you will have no idea what just happened. In PvE this learning process is much gentler, with multiple monks who can heal you, and repeatable scenarios where you can figure out what went wrong.

I could go on for much longer about the differences but I don't think these differences are purely subjective. The fact that he has come here asking for help on PvP specifically demonstrates the existence of differences.

Finally, if you weren't disagreeing with me I don't understand why you quoted me and made snide/sarcastic comments.