Curse

Gift3d · Apr 21, 2008, 10:12 PM // 22:12

Observed others builds, copied others builds, played others builds until i had enough knowledge to start making my own builds.

Alex the Great · Apr 21, 2008, 10:40 PM // 22:40

i didn't pvp in the beginning, but then i started to do it, and used my resources online so i wasnt super clueless.

joined a gvg guild and played warrior for a while, then left when they switched to HA.

now i mainly do pve agian lol

Trax Reborn · Apr 21, 2008, 10:46 PM // 22:46

I took 3 chars thru Ascalon and Yaks arena's, war ->mes ->monk, in that order. i divided time between each, and tried random arenas when my war was lvl 19(back when u could do that.) people got mad and raged, even tho my skills were better than many of the lvl 20's.

my best experience came from running my Me/N, with a dom/blood build. I noticed that i could beat both melee and casters with it, and even got to 42 wins 2 weeks after i started the game, then our monk had to go so we lost.

so basically i learned the counters to every normal build, and was able to go on to make almost 2 million faction by now.

Shayne Hawke · Apr 21, 2008, 10:57 PM // 22:57

I probably didn't understand PvP very well until after I played Snowball during the first Wintersday. I knew nothing of kiting, or anything like that. I never touched HA, or TA, or RA. The only "PvP" I had done was the Zaishen training group things, but those aren't exactly the best teachers for a real experience.

Then when Factions hit and the Scribe posted an article about Touch Rangers, I tried them. It worked out well, since it was new, and it gave me enough of a build to explore PvP options out in a general sense, since AB carried a lot of different builds back then. I studied skills used against me and other builds I might like to try in the future.

The Dragon Festival is probably what turned me from knowing so little about PvP to knowing enough. In the Dragon Arena, I finally learned how to kite and learn how to strategize as far as position, numbers, and other things I'd have to take into account. Still, I didn't do a lot of PvP.

Eventually, I joined a guild in an alliance with a few HA guilds, and so I got some experience working side-by-side with them, along with my first 24 fame.

After that, I was already being exposed to the first GW wiki back when it had builds, and eventually I moved into here and watched for new builds in the PvX wiki. Nowadays, I don't do PvP unless it's a bonus weekend for RA or HA, or if the festival arenas are open. I'm a firm believer that all of the festival arenas are the best forms of PvP due to them being balanced the best.

Pyro maniac · Apr 21, 2008, 11:23 PM // 23:23

playing the paladin premade build and lying my way into HA and GvG guilds

la_cabra_de_vida · Apr 21, 2008, 11:42 PM // 23:42

Obs mode and pvxwiki.

Food · Apr 22, 2008, 02:21 AM // 02:21

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ordovian Prince

How did YOU learn how to pvp in the arenas?

No.

You don't learn how to PvP in the arenas. Only how to button mash and make red bars go down/up.

But back on topic, I basically sat around in RA for a week, figured that it dragged balls having warriors who hamstormed and mended on my team and HA'd/GvG'd.

Legendary Shiz · Apr 22, 2008, 02:27 AM // 02:27

I was just born with it.

I actually learned to PvP through GvG, after that picking up TA tactics was pretty simple.

I actually quit GvG to do TA seriously, so you pretty much just have to meet the right people and go with it.

I got to where I got in arenas (since that's what the topic is about) by being persistent and forcing relationships onto people that I know would help me get to where I wanted to go (which at the time was high ranked glad).

Lord Natural · Apr 22, 2008, 03:09 AM // 03:09

I started off in arenas and just played a lot, with every class. I learned what things were most dangerous while I was monking, what shut me down most effectively while on warrior, etc. Basically a ton of trial and error, analyzing wins and losses. As time went on and I gradually became more familiar with skill synergy, I got into HA/GvG and continued learning there. The introduction of obs mode helped a lot too (not just for builds, but for the ability to watch a good player throughout a match and see exactly what he's doing to help his team).

Made In Ascalon · Apr 22, 2008, 04:00 AM // 04:00

observer mode, reading forums. I'm not dedicated enough to actually do high end pvp and get really good, though. The most I'll do is TA teams with friends and guild mates.

Lykan · Apr 22, 2008, 07:46 AM // 07:46

Tombs. No obs mode, no wiki, you had to learn builds from people forming teams, farmed r2 with randomway then found a guild to take me, got r3, went to another guild started making teams with builds i learned and went from there.

Patrick Smit · Apr 22, 2008, 07:53 AM // 07:53

As mentioned before I pay attention to what is killing me, I adjust if possible, and if the player's build was not 100% clear I pm him/her if available. Start of with a compliment (which is justified) and then ask if they are willing to share their build. I found that good players usually do not make a secret out of it.

Reading fora like this helps too, and finding which profession suits you most. I personally only like core profs for PvP, they seem to fit in most, while not being overly gimmicky.

-Pluto- · Apr 22, 2008, 08:31 AM // 08:31

The hard way for me. I actually progressed backwards at first, since my first pvp build was a water trident warrior with conjure frost and flurry. Had a bad ias, conjure was pretty bad (+9 damage or something really pathetic), and no deep wound, but since I moved from that to vigorous spirit + live vicariously wamo, with no ias and 1 attack skill (cleave)... well, like I said, backward progression. Though a good while after that i moved to an eviscerate warrior with Tiger's Fury, and started to suck considerably less on warrior from thereon out.

I started out monking with a really bad WoH bar (back when WoH was bad, naturally) that had balthazar's spirit, healing touch, no hex removal or prots, and bonetti's defense. Eventually copied the boon prot bar I'd seen everyone else in RA running (the MoR one) and learned to play it fairly well (good enough for RA at least). I managed to get picked up by a r500ish GvG guild and went on from there.

Quote:

I personally only like core profs for PvP, they seem to fit in most, while not being overly gimmicky.

Necromancers

shoogi · Apr 22, 2008, 08:32 AM // 08:32

When I started PvP there weren't many people to flame noobs because almost everyone was new to pvp. And I played with Guild from the beginning so it wasn't very tough. Oddly enough, I started to play arenas seriously after tombs and gvg, so I had a clue about pvp.
Oh and don't be offended when people flame you, I can tell you that very often they are more noobish than you are (our rspike failed to launch one succesful spike in 10 minutes, but that's the monk's fault that we lost!!!).

*lemming* · Apr 22, 2008, 09:07 AM // 09:07

Most of the rest of the people in this thread are bad.

-------------------

I joined xoo training.

C2K · Apr 22, 2008, 09:07 AM // 09:07

TA. Granted it was prophecies TA and pre-title so the community was not as vulgar as it is these days. The process of trial and error along with exchange of advice were not rare.

My first build was an E/W Hammer/Aftershock which today would be a horrible build, but early on in game no one expected it and it did rather well. After a while, witnessed and learned Ether Renewal Smite and Air Spike and I moved on to that. I learned alot watching the Koreans play, because back then there was a mantra that when you face Koreans you will lose to their skill so it made sense to observe them more.

I still try to keep that spirit alive when I pvp, but titles and AB can make people stubborn into learning how to be effective in PvP. Not to mention the occasional elite PvEer that believes his/her pve farming build is the greatest thing since sliced bread and pushes the blame on to everything else but the poor build or their poor play.

Captain Robo · Apr 24, 2008, 03:40 AM // 03:40

I used to main an elementalist in the beginning, went to RA in PVE gear (not even max armor), back when RA was on the island off of Lion's Arch.

Played fire nuker when I started GvG in a long-since-defunct guild called Moonlight Assassins.

Got good at pvp when my friends and I joined Nice But Deadly, and basically learned to play. I learned assassin (back when this meant something), ranger, and warrior, but midliner has always been my strongest position.

After a year with Nice, some guild drama resulted in my friends and I leaving the guild, and we drifted around for a while, until we joined Lords of the Dead.

LotD was pretty damn good, and we really got into the late-factions/nightfall metagame. However, our guild leader effectively disappeared (learned later he was imprisoned), and I haven't heard from him since. After that, the guild kind of fell apart, or at least the north american counterpart did.

At this point, my friends quit the game, and I went it solo for a while. I really got into RA, learned to play monk and mesmer, along with ritualist, and worked on fine tuning my warrior.

I hooked up with [goth] after being recruited out of an RA match, and with no real attachments, I joined up. I've been with them, on and off, ever since. At the moment, I'm way too swamped with work to gvg, but in the summer I'll be making a comeback. Goth gets a bad rap because of their spike, but its not like the game is particularly deep at pvp anymore, and I'll resign the issue to lots of people just being huge whiners. I'm not the biggest fan of it myself, but if it wins: play it.

tl;dr : I was raised in RA and GvG.

Jam Jar · Apr 24, 2008, 03:46 AM // 03:46

Let me tell you my story. A story of me.

It all started a little back. When I created a PvP character for fun. Little did I know I got free skills, and that an RA existed. But I figured it out. For the first time, I used my crappy skills in RA, and experienced it. It was great.

I leveled up. And learned. And I conquered.

(but I still have a lot to learn)

RhanoctJocosa · Apr 24, 2008, 06:53 AM // 06:53

unlocking stuff with these euros in pve then testing stuff in arenas. one thing led to another i guess.

Tab · Apr 24, 2008, 07:43 AM // 07:43

I leeched off people better than me.