What I like about GW2 PvP

TL;DR: Wall of text about what I like about gw2. Gw2 > swtor. What do you like about gw2 pvp? Please focus on the positive as I'm genuinely interested in what others like about it.

Now for the wall of text:

With all the negativity going on in the pvp community I thought I'd share some more positive thoughts on what I enjoy about gw2 pvp.

A little background. I'm fairly new to mmo's compared to a lot of people. I played City of Heroes/Villains for a couple years and then took a break from games. Started back up when swtor launched and play that until I picked up this game a little over a year ago. In all of them I focused on pvp because I like the dynamic nature of pvp.

So, what do I like about gw2 pvp:

1. I absolutely love the fact that gear is irrelevant in instanced pvp. Sure there are other imbalances, but not having a gear gap in pvp is awesome. That is one of the reasons I quit swtor because they were heading more that way after the community thanked them for how forgiving gearing was. Their response was to destroy that. My favorite thing is that you still get customization with amulets, runes, signets, and specializations, but that you don't have a gear grind or a gear gap. It's awesome.
2. As much as people may disagree with me I like how much more variety there is in builds in gw2 than swtor. Sure it may not be as versatile as COH was, or as some other games might be, but in my opinion it beats swtor by miles. For a lot of professions I can have a viable, if not optimal, build using various weapons, skills, and specializations. Some are better than others sure. One will always be optimal. But there are many that are viable and fun.
3. I like how you can get to level 2 on any given toon and hop right into testing a new play style in pvp. Ideally unranked for sure. This was really nice for me as a new player. As I was able to get a good taste for each profession without having to level it up all the way first.
4. Gw2 pvp is fast paced. When I first started gw2 I was amazed at how fast fights were in pvp. People would die within seconds a lot of the time. I chalked it up to me just being a noob. After a year, I'm still a noob compared to many, but I do think that the combat in gw2 is much more fast paced than swtor. And I like that a lot. I hated in swtor how a tank/heal combo could last forever against 4-6 enemy players. I played a tank and my friend a healer and we could last forever without much effort. I know some of that happens in this game too, but not nearly to the same degree in my opinion.
5. I also will probably get flamed for this too, but I like how friendly it is to free players while also enticing them to buy expansions. Are POF and HOT builds better than core? Yes. Hence people are enticed to buy the expansions. Are core builds completely and utterly unplayable? No. They may not be optimal. So in the super elite hardcore realm then yeah core might suck. But even in ranked pvp there are some good fun core builds. You can just download the client and have access to a lot of fun without paying a penny. I did and that is what encouraged me to buy both HOT and POF. It was fun enough free that I figured the paid versions would be even more fun and I think they are. Plus, no subscription wall for a game of this quality is awesome.
6. Toxicity. As much as I have seen some people complain about toxicity in this game it is nothing compared to swtor. NOTHING. The pvp community here has been generally pleasant and helpful compared to the filth that is the swtor community.
7. Dev interaction. Again I see a ton of complaints about lack of dev response or lack of balance patches. Those complaints may be perfectly valid. So I don't have anything against anyone complaining about that. But I have seen more interaction from the anet devs than bioware by a long shot. So that is nice. Could be better, but it's better than what I'm used to.

Anyway, those are a few things that I thought I'd share. I have my frustrations with this game too. But there are enough things that I like about it, especially comparative to other games I have played, that still make pvp very fun for me to play in this game even with it's issues.

What does the rest of the pvp community like about gw2 pvp? Ideally, I would like responses to be geared toward what people enjoy and less about what frustrates them. There are already tons of threads devoted to that.

That has been talked previously, but can't remember the outcome, but what if level needed to play PvP (rank 20) would be to every character? So if you make 3 different thieves, you could play ranked as any of them, but if you made warrior which you have never played in ranked, you would need to "grind" to rank 20 with it before entering ranked?

This would make PvP interesting and players would need to practice even a little bit with the class. I know the downside of this. "Why anyone would bother to grind ranks over and over again for 9 classes?"

Well, it would separate PvP players from PvE loot grinders. Even PvE players would then play one class only and get decent in PvP with that one class. For PvP players grinding to rank 20 wouldnt be problem in unranked.

I may have misread judging the comment above me...

What I like about GW2 is the combat mechanics, the fields, the finishers and so on. I love how the skills, traits and gear all intertwine with each other to turn 1 class into potentially 5+ subset classes.. You've got the obvious elite specs but then you can build for certain roles further diving into more subset classes...PvP allows for "roles" and these subset classes to prevail, in PvE it's just berserker.

@sephiroth.4217 said:I may have misread judging the comment above me...

What I like about GW2 is the combat mechanics, the fields, the finishers and so on. I love how the skills, traits and gear all intertwine with each other to turn 1 class into potentially 5+ subset classes.. You've got the obvious elite specs but then you can build for certain roles further diving into more subset classes...PvP allows for "roles" and these subset classes to prevail, in PvE it's just berserker.

No you got it right. I'm interested in knowing why people like gw2 pvp. I know why I do. It's just interesting to know other people's reasons too.

Whatever we may say about it we all know this game is amazing. The combat mechanics are lit af, so it makes up for all the flaws.

Dynamic combat, Skill/class interactions, Graphic design, and it feels more like Fashion wars before Build wars. There may be flaws but once you're into it, it is so addictive.

I was thinking the other day, that it would be great to be able to enjoy more the great sceneries/features in the game. A "Last man standing" mode in places like Divinity's Reach, or Lion's Arch, where 40 people would fight each other until only one remains. No respawn. Gliding and mounting as a part of the mode as well. And you would see your ennemies locations on the map, without knowing who it is.

I too have played swtor (for a long time) and I agree, that game made huge mistakes when it came to gearing for pvp (used to be easy, now its not) and when they simplified their class/specs into basicly 3 specs per class. When I started playing this game I was amazed by the same things as u, but mostly by how much I could customize my characters profession through builds and elite specs. More to choose from is the way any MMO should go, sadly its something that most other mmos (swtor, WoW etc) have gone away from, leading to boring gameplay.

I've bought GW2 almost 3 years ago. Played a bit and never touched it anymore. And now (3 months ago) i just installed it and tried sPvP. Thing is: I LIKED IT A LOT.As stated above, the fast paced combat is just great! Even in long skirmishes the combat is really fluid and punishes you for your mistakes, so to master this is a lot of learning and practice.

Never experienced a combat system as enjoyable as Ultima Online's (tweaked in a big private server). It was fast, required timing and thinking, but not even close from what GW2 requires. I feel really sad about all the negativity in the forums too. I've seen it in other games forum's too, it's a circle of negativity: The community gets angry from unbalancement of classes, the devs don't answer those calls (as they know they'll be harassed one way or another) and the chaos multiplies.

Let's hope the clearly needed tweaks gets done wisely so we can have more times of peace and productive discussions.

If they removed the horrible visual clutter, fixed the condi/boon mehtastic UI and made stability not so stupid then it would be gold. Oh and increase melee range by 1 yd/step to fix any lag/desync swing problems, I mean even WoW learned that in 2006.

I love tinkering around builds. I love taking current meta and then modifying it for my playstyle.

@nastyjman.8207 said:I love tinkering around builds. I love taking current meta and then modifying it for my playstyle.

This and all the points the OP wrote. Love the game. Visual, feel, pace. My best and only game in the past 5 years

@trooper.2650 said:

@nastyjman.8207 said:I love tinkering around builds. I love taking current meta and then modifying it for my playstyle.

Ditto, now I got a friend hooked. I don't think he's played any other games in the last week since I bought him both expansions to this game. He's brand new and almost finished PoF/HoT already 0.0

@sephiroth.4217 said:

@trooper.2650 said:

@nastyjman.8207 said:I love tinkering around builds. I love taking current meta and then modifying it for my playstyle.

Wow I've had HOT for a year and haven't finished it haha. Just got the hero points, did map complete on verdant brink to get Bo on my daredevil, and did pvp the rest of the time.

Your friend has some dedication.