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Guide to getting the Gift of Battle for WvW newbies


Danikat.8537

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Note: There's a tl;dr version at the bottom, originally provided by @Illconceived Was Na.9781

This was originally posted on the old forum when the Catmanders were added. One requires the Gift of Battle to attract it to your home instance, so I set out to get it. I was recently asked to re-post it on the new forum as it might be helpful for some people.

For someone who hadn’t played WvW in years (and never played it much at all) obtaining the Gift of Battle and 200 Skirmish Claim Tickets for the minis seemed like a daunting task. Then I got started and found I’d completed most of it in 3 evenings, or approximately 6 hours total. (I was just short 100 Claim Tickets.)

So if anyone’s interested here’s my guide to getting the Gift of Battle (and the other stuff along the way) for WvW newbies.


Things to know before you start

It doesn’t matter which world you’re on

Leaderboard position has very little to do with your individual rewards so there’s no need to change servers. (I did all of this on Desolation, which is about ½ way up the leaderboard and was often in 3rd place in the skirmish.) On a related note don’t worry about your worlds score, or potential points, or the difference between a match and a skirmish. The score does have a slight effect on how quickly you gain Claim tickets, but not enough to worry about it.

 

You will die, and die often

But waypoints and repairs are free so the only problem is having to run back. Do not wait around for people to revive you, there isn’t time. (Unless they’re right next to you and there’s no enemies nearby.)

 

It’s best to play at peak time & for a few hours at a time

Progress in WvW reward tracks is like HoT meta events – you build it up by doing stuff and then it decays gradually when you’re inactive, so it’s better to play for as long as you can at once than to do a little bit at a time. Peak time is best simply because there will be more people online and so more activity.

 

WvW often involves waiting, but that’s ok

You’ll wait for a group to form, wait for the group to move off, wait for siege to be built, wait for siege to destroy walls, wait while you claim points, wait for the enemy to arrive, wait for the enemy to leave, wait for people to clear their bags/go to the toilet/get on the same group chat…and sometimes (at least if you’re not on the group chat) it won’t be clear why you’re waiting.

 

Sometimes you’ll also spend what seems like ages heading towards an objective only to abandon it and go somewhere else because plans have changed.

But that’s ok. As I said WvW participation for the reward track builds up and decays slowly over time, so you’re not really losing anything by waiting and it’s an important part of playing tactically, which will allow you to achieve more in the long-run.


Getting set up

WvW uses the same equipment as PvE, but you can set different traits and skills. I won’t suggest builds because I haven’t got a clue what to recommend, but the option to have a unique WvW setup is there if you want it.

 

I strongly recommend some type of speedboost (mounts aren't available...yet) however as it makes it much easier to keep up with a commander. (I find Signet of the Hunts passive 25% boost is fine.)

 

I also recommend unlocking WvW gliding as soon as possible (requires HoT). To do this open the WvW menu and select the last tab – Ranks and Abilities and scroll all the way down to the bottom. You need 3 World Ability Points to unlock gliding and you get those from gaining XP in WvW so you may need to play a bit before you get it, but it’s worth getting as soon as you can.

 

Also don’t forget to select the Gift of Battle reward track (3rd tab down). There’s no point working towards a reward you don’t even want.


Starting

When you open the WvW menu you have 5 maps to choose from – Eternal Battlegrounds, 1 Desert Borderlands, 2 Alpine Borderlands and Obsidian Sanctum. Ignore that last one – it’s a jumping puzzle. But you can choose any of the others. Lots of people prefer certain ones, but any is fine. I recommend picking one without a queue if you can just because it’s easier to get in. (I also recommend the desert borderland, for reasons I’ll explain below.)

You’ll start off in your team’s home base, which is completely safe from enemies and has a bunch of NPCs offering different services. This is a good time to sort your build out, and check out the map.

 

The WvW map

At first it’s really confusing, there’s loads of coloured lines and symbols, some of them are moving, and it will probably just look like a mess. Basically symbols are control points and the colour shows who controls them. The lines show the area controlled by that point – important because you can only glide in areas your team controls.

There are 4 main kinds of control points: Keeps, Towers, Camps and Ruins:

  • Keeps are the hardest to take over – they have several layers of defences and are the most likely to be defended, they need a big group.
  • Towers only have 1 layer of defences, but still need siege to get in.
  • Camps have no walls, just a few guards so they can be taken solo.
  • Ruins are undefended and often unclaimed because they’re not as useful and ownership decays over time.
  • There’s also Stonemist Castle in the middle of Eternal Battlegrounds, Shrines in desert borderlands and Sentries on all the maps.

The Match Overview tab on the WvW menu will show you what each team controls on each map. It may seem like a map where your team is winning is best, but that just means you have fewer objectives to take over and getting participation credit will be harder. I find maps where you’re losing are often best for gaining reward track progress.

 

The Reward Track

If like me you don’t play WvW or PvP (last time I played it reward tracks didn’t exist) the track itself will be confusing. But it’s actually pretty straight-forward. Each track shows 7 small rewards and then the main one. But that first one is not the first thing you’ll get. Each of the 8 sections is divided into 5 sub-sections (you can see these by hovering the mouse over it).

 

For example the Gift of Battle track will give you 2 Disciple of Balthazar Loot Boxes, 5 Memories of Battle, 2 Acolyte of Balthazar Loot Boxes, a Tome of Knowledge and then the first ‘minor’ reward – 4 Obsidian Shards. Your progress towards the next reward is shown in a little pop-up menu above the map. The timer counts down to the next time rewards are granted and the number next to it is how many points you earn.

 

You’ll earn more points for higher tier participation (Tier 6 is the maximum) and you raise your participation level by…well, participating. Killing enemies, claiming things, completing events, defending objectives etc.

 

Other rewards

Periodically you’ll also get WvW rank chests and Skirmish chests popping up above the map. The rank chests contain random loot, but most importantly they mean you’ve got another rank point to spend on the Ranks and Abilities tab. Skirmish chests are shown on the Match Overview page and contain some nice stuff, in particular this is how you get Skirmish Claim Tickets. Basically anything you do to progress the Reward Track will also progress these two, so you don’t need to worry about them too much.


When you first enter

  1. Look for a commander tag – if there is one go join them. Follow them, attack what they attack, build siege when they place it, claim control points when you get to them. Try to actually pay attention to what’s going on rather than blindly following because you’ll learn more that way, but the important thing is to stick with the group and do what they do.
  2. If there isn’t a commander tag - Maybe switch maps (if there are others without a queue) to see if you can find one. But if not don’t give up. The best thing to do now is explore the map – even just roaming around aimlessly will help you learn your way around, which will come in useful later on.
  3. But there’s also likely to be stuff you can achieve on your own – claiming camps is best but you can also claim sentry points and shrines (this is why I recommend the Desert borderlands, it has more of this stuff) and ruins.
  4. Keep a look out for commander tags – one could turn up at any time. Or you might find a group of players running without a commander– they’re harder to spot (and sometimes don’t want randoms, they’ll let you know if that’s the case) but they can achieve just as much as a group with a commander – it’s just harder to attract new people without the tag.
  5. If there’s more than 1 commander tag - Ask in map chat which one to join, or see which one/s have their squad open so you can just right click and join. It’s likely one is the ‘main’ squad and one or more is a specialist one – a guild doing their own thing or a 2nd group sneaking into objectives – they’re less likely to want extra people. But it may just be that there’s enough people for multiple squads and you can join whichever.

From then on

Keeps going. Keep running with squads, claiming objectives, or exploring solo and claiming what you can until you’ve achieved your objectives.

 

For the specific items I mentioned in the introduction:

  • Gift of Battle – complete the reward track
  • Skirmish Claim Tickets – come from Skirmish chests. You get more at higher tiers, you need to get part way into the Mithril tier to get them all in 1 week, but if there isn’t time to do that don’t worry, just keep going until you’ve got enough. As I said it took me 3 evenings to get 100 by getting part way into the Gold tier.
  • For the two Catmanders (you have to unlock both for them to show up) you'll also need a Can of Spicy Meat Chili – get a Skirmish Chest, choose the Canned Food Crate from the list of rewards and then choose Spicy Meat Chili from the options.

Other tips

Carry supply whenever you can but do not take it from Keeps or Towers. Camps are the best place to get it. It’s used to build siege and repair walls, so it’s useful to have and by carrying it (and being willing to spend it) you’re helping your team out.

 

Don’t attack walls or gates unless the commander says it’s ok: this will alert the enemy to the fact that you’re attacking (which using siege weapons doesn’t) which gives them time to come and stop you. Sometimes that’s ok because they’re busy elsewhere or there’s too few of them or whatever, sometimes it could ruin the whole attack.

 

Try to have fun. You may go in expecting to hate WvW, or at least thinking it’s not for you. But give it a go and you may find yourself enjoying it. I doubt I’m ever going to be a dedicated WvW player but I’ve had some great moments. The other day we were claiming a keep when a massive wave of enemies attacked us – I was downed twice but somehow got back up and out the way, we actually managed to defeat them and finished claiming the keep and it was a great feeling.

And if you really do hate it? Well, you don’t need to go back again (at least not until you want another unique reward.)


TL;DR

  • It takes about 5-10 hours to get the two cats plus minis, even if you start out knowing less than Jon Snow (i.e. nothing).
  • World & score aren’t important for this goal.
  • Waypoints are free & running helps you learn the the area.
  • Be patient. Things don’t happen quickly.
  • Think of it like bumper cars: rush in, make mistakes, back up & try again.
  • There are lots of details; you need not worry about most of them initially.
  • Your PvE build will suffice to start.
  • Don’t forget to set your reward track.
  • And if you really don't want to do any of that there's a list of WvW dailies that don't require fighting, or which only require fighting NPCs 2 posts down.
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Looks good. Can you include a part about being able to obtain it by just doing the dailies that can be done solo without enemy player interaction (most of the time) such as the veteran mob (worm, harpy, boar), camps, etc? Others may be reading this who are not strictly WvW players or wouldn't consider themselves as such.

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@"Ayrilana.1396" said:Can you include a part about being able to obtain it by just doing the dailies that can be done solo without enemy player interaction

Voila, a list of WvW Dailies that don't require WvW (these are good for progressing the reward track; they don't help with getting skirmish tickets though).

WvW Dailies Without Any Combat
  • Big Spender: spend 25 badges of honor, e.g. buying siege in your home BL or Badge of Tribute from Davis in your guild hall
  • Master of Monuments: "cap" a shrine. (this one has risk while you wait, but there's no combat involved)
  • World Ranker: Gain two WvW ranks. This can be done without entering WvW by stocking up on Boxes of WvW Supplies from Sigurlina (for G-Commendations).
WvW Dailies Requiring Fighting NPCs in WvW
  • Caravan Disruptor: kill any yak, easily done at an enemy camp (they spawn often)
  • Land Claimer: kill a sentry and cap their protected spot
  • Mists Guard Killer: kill five veteran NPC guards, often easily done in enemy borderlands, either at a nearby camp or two-at-a-time if the enemy holds your nearest tower
  • Veteran Creature Killer: there are three veterans on each map that qualify. The safest to kill is often the Wurm on an Alpine borderland, if your team owns 'Bay' with a waypoint (you port, head north, kill worm, done).

Notes About Boxes of WvW Supplies
  • Check daily for offers. Each day, the vendor has different offers at each tier of Guild Trader, so if available to you, visit multiple Guild Halls.
  • You can identify which tier by how many commendations you're allowed to spend: you can spend one at tier 1, two at T2, and three at T3.
  • The amount of WXP is random. It can take as few as three boxes or over a dozen to trigger the daily.
  • Personally, I hold the boxes in reserve for when I need just one more daily and don't like any of the options.
Skirmish Tickets Versus Reward Tracks

Since there are a number of 'rewards' and vendors, here's a quick list of the main differences:

  • Skirmish tickets are obtained only via participation (at Tier 3-6).
  • S-tickets are the currency needed to unlock the catmander tags and two home instance cats, as well as for special armor, including WvW stat-swapping armor.
  • Reward track progress is obtained via participation at any tier
  • Reward tracks are needed to obtain the Gift of Battle, as well as special WvW skins. (As well as useful for dungeon skins, various map currencies, and festival rewards.)

edits

  • added the World Ranker daily, per @Meow Ren.5382's suggestion
  • added notes about Boxes of WvW Supplies
  • added a brief comparison about the differences between Skirmish tickets & reward tracks
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@Tanner Blackfeather.6509 said:Super helpful thread!Regarding dailies - note that if you want the GoB for the Catmander, you need the skirmish tickets too. Those are not available without actually participating.

The dailies are however an excellent way to get the GoB for a legendary, or to get it (and other reward track rewards) faster!

It depends on what you want from the Catmander. If you just want the cats in your home instance then all you need is the Gift of Battle. Although you also need a Can of Spicy Meat Chili, which comes from Skirmish containers, for the Yellow Catmander because neither catmander will show up unless they're both unlocked.

The 100 Skirmish Claim Tickets are for the mini Catmanders.

If you want both the mini(s) and the cats in your home instance it makes sense to progress the reward track by actually doing WvW so you get both together. If you just want the home instance cats you could focus on PvE dailies, at least once you've got 1 Skirmish chest.

But if you've literally never tried WvW before I'd recommend at least trying playing it properly instead of going straight for the PvE dailies. I had never done it before they introduced the mini Dolyak and was only doing it to get the mini. I didn't expect to like it but I actually enjoyed myself a lot of the time. I'd never have known that if I went out of my way to avoid it. And if you don't like it then at least you know that for sure instead of just assuming.

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@"Danikat.8537" said:Although you also need a Can of Spicy Meat Chili, which comes from Skirmish containers,

It’s purchasable from the Permanent Portable Provisioner (1g from the Outfitter in WvW)for 5 Badges, no Skirmish tickets/chests needed for that one.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Permanent_Portable_Provisioner#vendor66

I’d recommend this device regardless tbh, it’s cheap food access everywhere. (The description is wrong, you can use it in PvE.)

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@"Kay Hude.2910" said:Hi.Nice guide, thumbs up for that!

Getting the Guild Hall WvW boost before starting would be helpful, correct?

Thanks,--kay

Any boost to Reward Track progress will cut the time a fair bit. That boost isn't huge, but it's no cost (if the GH has it unlocked) so absolutely get it!

@Danikat.8537 said:But if you've literally never tried WvW before I'd recommend at least trying playing it properly instead of going straight for the PvE dailies. I had never done it before they introduced the mini Dolyak and was only doing it to get the mini. I didn't expect to like it but I actually enjoyed myself a lot of the time. I'd never have known that if I went out of my way to avoid it. And if you don't like it then at least you know that for sure instead of just assuming.

I can't reiterate this enough!! I'm very much not a PvP player, so was incredibly put off about getting GoB for a legendary! After trying it a bit, I found I absolutely love roaming in Borderlands when I feel like a pretty low-intensity playing, occasionally spiced up by a 1v1 fight (even though I lose 70-80% of those).

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@rwolf.9571 said:Also it takes 80ish wvw pots to complete a track. Or under a month of wvw dailies (+20 days).So considering most ppl take months to make a legendary, it only looks like a minor bump in the road.

It's certainly better than WvW map completion, which used to be required for legendaries. Although I think the worst thing there was that people didn't know it was needed, and map completion was often one of the last things they finished. So people would have all the other parts ready, finish their last map expecting the Gift of Exploration and find they were only on 80% or something and the last bit couldn't be rushed because you couldn't get into the enemy-held keeps and things to do it.

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@Danikat.8537 said:

@rwolf.9571 said:Also it takes 80ish wvw pots to complete a track. Or under a month of wvw dailies (+20 days).So considering most ppl take months to make a legendary, it only looks like a minor bump in the road.

It's certainly better than WvW map completion, which used to be required for legendaries. Although I think the worst thing there was that people didn't know it was needed, and map completion was often one of the last things they finished. So people would have all the other parts ready, finish their last map expecting the Gift of Exploration and find they were only on 80% or something and the last bit couldn't be rushed because you couldn't get into the enemy-held keeps and things to do it.

98% without WvW maps. It got the completionists riled up as well even if they weren't going for a legendary.

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@Illconceived Was Na.9781 said:

@"Ayrilana.1396" said:Can you include a part about being able to obtain it by just doing the dailies that can be done solo without enemy player interaction (most of the time)

Voila, a list of WvW Dailies that don't require WvW (these are good for progressing the reward track; they don't help with getting skirmish tickets though).
WvW Dailies Without Any Combat
  • Big Spender: spend 25 badges of honor, e.g. buying siege in your home BL or Badge of Tribute from
    in your guild hall
  • Master of Monuments: "cap" a shrine. (this one has risk while you wait, but there's no combat involved)
WvW Dailies Requiring Fighting NPCs in WvW
  • Caravan Disruptor: kill any yak, easily done at an enemy camp (they spawn often)
  • Land Claimer: kill a sentry and cap their protected spot
  • Mists Guard Killer: kill five veteran NPC guards, often easily done in enemy borderlands, either at a nearby camp or two-at-a-time if the enemy holds your nearest tower
  • Veteran Creature Killer: there are three veterans on each map that qualify. The safest to kill is often the Wurm on an Alpine borderland, if your team owns 'Bay' with a waypoint (you port, head north, kill worm, done).

One other Daily that can be gotten with no fighting (but needs planning ahead for):

The downside is that it takes time since the sources for the Box offer them randomly. You basically have to check daily. It can take as little as 3 or as many as 8-10 of them for the required two ranks.

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@"Meow Ren.5382" said:

One other Daily that can be gotten with no fighting (but needs planning ahead for):

The downside is that it takes time since the sources for the Box offer them randomly. You basically have to check daily. It can take as little as 3 or as many as 8-10 of them for the required two ranks.

Yeah that's a good point. I usually leave that off any list of suggestions because of the amount of effort required. At your urging, I'll add it I've added it to the list above.

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@Haleydawn.3764 said:

@Evellynn Capone.6584 said:Bring back Gift of the Battle to the Vendor.

That will not happen. Devs have already stated the vendor will not make a return.

Yep. It was always intended that getting the Gift of Battle would require you to play WvW. Originally the vendor did that, because you had to play it to get Badges of Honour. It was only when they added achievement chests (which gave badges) that it became possible to simply buy it without ever touching WvW. That was fixed initially by adding a rank requirement to the vendor, then when WvW rewards were re-worked by making it a reward track.

It's highly unlikely they'll revert that. It's possible another update in the future will add another work-around, but that could be years away, or it might never happen.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Apologies for bumping this up but I wanted to add something I've only just realised now I'm going for another Gift of Battle. If you know you're going to want one in the future it's worth setting the reward track now and using the WvW dailies (or even just Big Spender which is probably the easiest, and one of the easiest daily achievements in general) to get a head start, even if you're planning to play WvW to complete it.

I'm just starting on the collection for The Lover, and I'm planning to make The Dreamer later. So I need a lot of gold, which means I've started doing dailies (I don't normally bother) and it just occurred to me the other day I could be using the WvW one to progress the Gift of Battle track. As an added bonus I'm progressing Big Spender by buying cultural armour from the WvW vendor, so I'm finally working on that achievement too.

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  • 9 months later...

This was a very helpful thread! I will be referring to it again. Thank you Danikat and everyone else!
I've decided to take the WvW plunge for my second Gift of Battle. The first one I needed for Twilight, (which I made a mess of...but got it in the end) and was delighted when I realized I could use the Big Spender (for an easy daily to save time and cultural armor achievement) reward track bonuses, that I'd been saving, all at once! I had more than enough but since used them all.
I am on the last leg of making HOPE and using only the Big Spender bonus feels a bit tedious. This thread has provided me with options to get to know WvW without burdening other players in game, while still progressing the reward track. Thanks again everyone! <3

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@Ayrilana.1396 said:Looks good. Can you include a part about being able to obtain it by just doing the dailies that can be done solo without enemy player interaction (most of the time) such as the veteran mob (worm, harpy, boar), camps, etc? Others may be reading this who are not strictly WvW players or wouldn't consider themselves as such.

This, I had to farm a few Gifts a while back and I did it more or less just by doing dailies and capping a few points here and there when I could.

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