How is sPvP for new players?

[Gerrick.7489]

I've been looking into sPvP lately but I have very little experience and my rank is some sort of timid woodland creature. I'm not a huge fan of pvping in a game without doing my homework and I want to contribute to my team. So what resources are there to learn about sPvP these days, how much should I practice before diving in, and what should I know about Guardian in particular?

[Khalisto.5780]

terrible I'm sad to say

 

you gonna be matched with experienced players very early on, cuz the player base is so low that those are literally all players available for the match

 

report system doesn't work

 

game is not very intuitive and you gotta search for outside sources to understand it

 

 

[JunkJunk.8971]

It is fine.   Go in and have 🤩 

[Kuma.1503]

It's a mixed bag. 

The PvP itself is very fun. Gw2's combat system is one of its biggest strengths. 

The rewards are good if you play ranked. You can use PvP to gear yourself out for other areas of the game. You can earn legendaries through PvP. You also get a good chunk of liquid gold. 

The match quality is, sadly, very poor. Blowout wins/losses are common and it can make games feel very coin flippy. Hacking, botting, afking, and match manipulating are not punished. 

If toxicity bothers you, I recommend turning off chat if you're new. 

If you decide to play it, I'd recommend doing so with a friend.

It'll ensure you get better match quality (1 less random), you can co-ordinate with them and/or play builds that compliment each other, and it's just more fun that way. 

Overall, if you enjoy it, I'd say it's worth playing in spite of its flaws. 

[Curennos.9307]

https://metabattle.com/wiki/MetaBattle_Wiki

https://www.godsofpvp.net/

https://www.youtube.com/c/B2TheRye (has some good vids but you might have to dig a bit for them)

 

Overall - learn the role(s) your class can fill and the roles other classes can fill, learn about the game mode (both map mechanics and how rotations work - Vallun has some good role-based and rotation guides).

 

Find a duo partner.

 

Don't queue outside off hours unless you're willing for the results to be a coinflip - the matchmaker struggles with the low population. I'd say every 2 out of 10 games are actually 'good', evenly matched games, while the rest are some level of blowouts.

 

Don't worry much about rating when you get to the g1-g3 range - it doesn't really matter at that point and the matchmaker is so finnicky trying to actually climb in any sort of concentrated fashion, or making it a goal, can be detrimental to enjoyment of the game mode. That isn't to say it can't be nice - there are titles, rewards, etc, but I would recommend completely ignoring the lil number and badge.

 

I would also spend a bit of time getting to know the other classes, or asking someone to give you an overview of what to look out for. There are some high impact skills and mechanics that are...unfortunately difficult to learn to play around just by playing pvp matches and the game is not really well designed in a way that you can easily tell what, exactly, went wrong. Log onto the classes, go through the weapon skills, cast them a few times on a target dummy before moving on to the next.

[Swagg.9236]

8 hours ago, Gerrick.7489 said:

I've been looking into sPvP lately but I have very little experience and my rank is some sort of timid woodland creature. I'm not a huge fan of pvping in a game without doing my homework and I want to contribute to my team. So what resources are there to learn about sPvP these days, how much should I practice before diving in, and what should I know about Guardian in particular?

Extremely bad.  You will either drop it pretty quickly, or you'll abandon creativity and conform to a narrow meta.

[greedywholesome.9081]

Well the fact that you made a thread seeking advice and how to contribute to the team already makes  you a good PvP candidate. Appreciate the consideration. Core guardian is good if you like playing the support role. Give it a try and if people are toxic and nasty, don't take it personally. You will also come across friendly players. 

[chokela.4823]

Yep welcome mister.

 

Practice class mechanics with 1v1. Make a lot of them. A lot. Stay months in 1v1 only with all class and master them. Then pick one and deep into advanced reflex/anticipation/kiting and ganking scenario.

 

Then yu will be mechanically okay to play ranked and u will just have to learn to read what is happening in the game and to rotate.

 

The best tip in sPvP (one that a lot players forget) is wtv u do, ur main priority is stay alive.

[Hotride.2187]

I also don't like playing pvp unprepared, so I roamed/dueled in wvw for a few months to know what I'm doing before starting spvp.

As for how spvp is, depends on how fast you improve and by how much. For me it isn't super fast, I still don't know how to "rotate" and whatnot. So I got kitten from high skill players every once in a while. And you get high skill players in your games (or at least I did) relatively quickly - the population is pretty low.

The mode itself is very fun, when compared to wvw roaming. There is constant action and fewer kitten builds. The reward system unfortunately rewards only ranked, where the sweats go. Unranked has been way more fun for me (as less meta builds are played and I don't play meta myself)... but no rewards worthy of mention.

[TheDarkness.6947]

15 hours ago, Gerrick.7489 said:

I've been looking into sPvP lately but I have very little experience and my rank is some sort of timid woodland creature. I'm not a huge fan of pvping in a game without doing my homework and I want to contribute to my team. So what resources are there to learn about sPvP these days, how much should I practice before diving in, and what should I know about Guardian in particular?

 

You’ll be forced to “practice” for a while in unranked until you reach a certain number of rank points to be able to play in ranked.  It’s prob somewhere between 30-60 unranked matches depending how well you do.

 

Part of the challenge as I see it is that there really isn’t a great space to practice, learn, and grow at your own pace.  As others have said, once you start playing ranked, you’ll be mixed in pretty quickly with players who have played thousands of matches over many years.  Kind of like learning to swim in the deep end of the pool.  I don’t think unranked is great for learning either, though.  You’ll frequently face 5-man pre-made teams there that are well coordinated and will dominate the match.  Who knows what they’re doing there since unranked rewards are terrible… practicing for ATs maybe.

 

As others have said, many of the problems PvP currently has are rooted in low population.  So I say jump on in, welcome, and just try to have fun.  Bring a friend or fifty if you can. 

[Fueki.4753]

For new players, sPvP is the same as for everyone else:

It's in a sad state that favours spamming abilities to cause as much CC, conditions and AoE as possible over actual player skill.

Just don't take it serous and you'll do sufficiently fine.

[Hogwarts Zebra.8597]

16 hours ago, Gerrick.7489 said:

I've been looking into sPvP lately but I have very little experience and my rank is some sort of timid woodland creature. I'm not a huge fan of pvping in a game without doing my homework and I want to contribute to my team. So what resources are there to learn about sPvP these days, how much should I practice before diving in, and what should I know about Guardian in particular?

To practice mechanical skill you can just go to the FFA arena and fight everyone there, then invite the ppl u can't beat to a 1v1 server and ask them to help u. Also make sure to learn at least 1 common build from every class, so you know how they work and don't join the lemmings who die to stupidly obvious things and cry "X class broken pls nerf". 

[otto.5684]

First thing to do is use a build guide. Do not try to come up with a build on your own.

 

Second, key bind most, preferably all your keys. You have very limited response time in PvP. 
 

Thirdly, avoid trying to fight solo. Try to stay where most of your allies are.

 

Fourth, fight in or around the capture points.

 

Lastly, expect to suck for the first few dozen games. It will take you a while to understand maps, positioning, roles and so on. 

[TheQuickFox.3826]

sPvP can be a bit toxic and intimidating to new players. PvP is more enjoyable if you don't care about PvP. With that, I mean: don't care too much about individual matches. Some will be terrible. Play through them and go to the next one.

Give the matchmaking system some time to determine your personal skill ranking. This will take around 10 to 20 matches. After this, you will get approximately 50% winning and losing matches. However, this can still allow for 7 losses in a row. But with the ranking system, every loss is a ticket to future wins and vice versa because your ranking determines the difficulty of future matches.

Edited April 11, 2022 by TheQuickFox.3826

[fluxGER.8416]

If u like ur mental health , dont play spvp . Its just not worth it anymore . It hurts more than it is fun

[anjo.6143]

Its bad cause it will put in veterans matches, so you will ruin their match and they will ruin your experience. 

[tunococman.7324]

It's not for new players because new players have to count a million dodges and a million stun breaks and a million defensive cds before someone dies in sPvP.

 

It's bad. Revert this game back to launch, sigh.

[Bunny.9834]

terrible. lol. 

they need to do something about the match making in this game. 

if you win a couple of matches... your next ten matches will be with the worst type of players... 

[nightcore.2789]

Spvp is a meme unfun not balanced gamemode that is 90% rng on u teammates and 10% personal skills. There are reason almost All don't play it

[Nymthalas.4019]

A game that instead of trying to find a way to make less punishing facing enemies that are 5 ppl party, they just don't let you play spvp with friends. (Sarcasm) Not playing with friends, way so much fun!

[Lonecap.4105]

PvP is good.

[Kozumi.5816]

I saw a brand new player queue their first game and get put against Naru. New player experience is terrible.

[Buzzbugs.1236]

I'm an old returning player and it's pretty bad.

Getting matched with the same opponents who beat you multiple times in a row, so I can just keep getting beaten again and again. So I have to leave and come back later. I wish I could have completely different opponents and team mates for every match but this isn't the case. Likely due to low population.

 There are also just too many 1-hit-kill mega builds out there with very limited tells. And some really abused abilities that do hard CC on top of high damage. So you basically explode the moment you get focused by one of these guys in a fight and you are left wondering, wth happened?

 I think  lot of it's problems could be resolved with higher population. I made a suggestion thread a few weeks back suggesting we should increase Gold rewards in ranked PvP. But most of the responses I got were negative, stating that it will bring more bots or more "farmers" to the mode.

To that response I say; if the mode gets a ton of new players who are only playing for the gold, then it's just more meat for the grinder for the dedicated PvPers who want to win. Since the rate at which you earn gold when losing is much slower, I don't see how increasing Gold rewards is an issue.

Boost the amount of Gold earned in ranked to reward the very few dedicated PvPers we DO have, and bring in some new plebs at the same time. Some of them might even find they like the mode and stick around for off seasons. But we'll never know the true result of these changes if we don't try it, and shut down any suggestions to make change.

Edited April 13, 2022 by Buzzbugs.1236

[Okhu.7948]

It is the worst game mode and you meet the bottom of the barrel when it comes to players there personality wise.

[Okhu.7948]

22 hours ago, Buzzbugs.1236 said:

I'm an old returning player and it's pretty bad.

Getting matched with the same opponents who beat you multiple times in a row, so I can just keep getting beaten again and again. So I have to leave and come back later. I wish I could have completely different opponents and team mates for every match but this isn't the case. Likely due to low population.

 There are also just too many 1-hit-kill mega builds out there with very limited tells. And some really abused abilities that do hard CC on top of high damage. So you basically explode the moment you get focused by one of these guys in a fight and you are left wondering, wth happened?

 I think  lot of it's problems could be resolved with higher population. I made a suggestion thread a few weeks back suggesting we should increase Gold rewards in ranked PvP. But most of the responses I got were negative, stating that it will bring more bots or more "farmers" to the mode.

To that response I say; if the mode gets a ton of new players who are only playing for the gold, then it's just more meat for the grinder for the dedicated PvPers who want to win. Since the rate at which you earn gold when losing is much slower, I don't see how increasing Gold rewards is an issue.

Boost the amount of Gold earned in ranked to reward the very few dedicated PvPers we DO have, and bring in some new plebs at the same time. Some of them might even find they like the mode and stick around for off seasons. But we'll never know the true result of these changes if we don't try it, and shut down any suggestions to make change.

I don't want the economy busted AND have horrible people just there for the gold. They won't play they'll just afk in spawn since Anet also doesn't do anything about AFKers.