How is sPvP for new players?

[Buzzbugs.1236]

9 hours ago, Okhu.7948 said:

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.

I don't understand this logic at all.

Current PvPers are already afking.

If new players are only there for the Gold, why would they just afk when it takes significantly longer to earn gold when you lose?

If anything; having some fresh players will dilute the current pool of jaded players who are the majority when it comes to afking.

You know, the self proclaimed pro players that go "ur all bad. afk"

Edited April 14, 2022 by Buzzbugs.1236

[TheDarkness.6947]

44 minutes ago, Buzzbugs.1236 said:

If new players are only there for the Gold, why would they just afk when it takes significantly longer to earn gold when you lose?

If anything; having some fresh players will dilute the current pool of jaded players who are the majority when it comes to afking.

 

The thing is, I don’t think just increasing the gold would bring any new players into PvP.

Let’s say they increase the gold/hour so that it is on par with Drizzlewood  - a really big increase.  Let’s say you are currently farming Drizzlewood, AB, Dragonfall, etc. for gold, and you hear that you can earn the same gold/hr in PvP.  Do you switch?

To switch, you’re essentially asking a person to sit in long queues, run a build that perhaps they don’t want to run from a limited selection of builds that actually work in PvP, endure a long, steep learning curve just to not suck, feel bad 50% of the time when you lose, be humbled at how well you actually are not playing your character, deal with toxic players, etc.  Why switch?

The carrot for PvP is ascended and legendary gear, with the main competition being fractals and raids, I’d say.  So what I think might work is to decrease the time/level of effort required to get those items from PvP by some amount.  For example, decrease the number of shards required for ascended gear, increase the number of pips awarded to the losing team (which indirectly increases gold/hour), lower the requirements for achievements like ascension, improve the cosmetic appeal on legendary PvP armor with some FX.

If people hear it’s now faster to earn ascended and legs in PvP, maybe that would be enough carrot to attract some new players.  Maybe in turn the population goes up, the match quality increases, the matches are more fun, and more people want to stay after they get the rewards they came for in the first place.

[KeoLegend.5132]

Its fun at the begginning if you have the patience to understand that will suffer a little before having solid results.

To be a good PvP player you need these skills

 

1. Understand your class and rotations

2. Understand the other classe's and their rotations

3. Understand the objectives of the match.

 

You might have a bit of skill 1, but getting skill 2 is the hardest part, you will get it, but it will take time. Untill it happens its a bit hard because you don't know what are you fighting against, but its very fun regardless. GW2 has the best PvP of any MMO by far, even with all its flaws

[soltrain.5960]

I would recommend playing a spec with more sustain as a new player. Also, I would get into ranked sooner than later, if you are bad (like me) you get put in games full of bads, and that can be a bit easier to deal with. 

[Paradoxoglanis.1904]

The pvp new player experience is terrible.

There are next to no learning resources and the barrier to entry is huge, so you are kind of on your own. You can ask streamers or join a guild but that wont teach you how to play. Matchmaking is awful because population is low, so you have high rank players fighting low rank players. PvP gets no development from Anet. Aside from the new elite specs and rare balance patch, nothing has really changed in years. There is so much visual clutter and aoe spamming that you wont have any idea what skills are going off,  what you need to avoid, what you can ignore, etc. Also conquest is not an easy gamemode to learn so things wont really start to make sense until you have 100s of games played, and you probably wont be "good" until you have 1000s of games played.

So basically its fun if you are a veteran and can appreciate how much better the combat is than any other mmo out there. But even then its still frustrating as hell so you better really like the game if you want to try and get into pvp now.

[Bilgato.8034]

Just get in there and start doing it.

[AusarViled.7106]

SPvP is fine if your willing to play it for about 30 min then log off. I play pvp about an hour for my dailies then I go play other games. Here is why:

 

1) botting is a serious problem. In practice, almost 20% of the players in prime time are going to be bots. If you play in none popular time, you will be having 80% chance of 1 bot, 50% of 2, and around 30% of 3.  Ranked is a bit better, but it’s a boring slog of meta chasing clowns. 
 

2) major disparity amongst classes. You can play anything you want- do know that people will throw tantrums at you thou. My meme current build: revenent stomper [you dodge onto enemies and stomp them]

 

3) pvp rewards are really bad, unless you do tournaments. It’s free gold. I wish I could play during them.  If you play a lot you can mKe like 100 gold a day. 
 

Which ones should I start with [classes]
 

1) minionmancer necro: very easy to learn, makes strong bunker build. You can learn and be effective within 20 min. 
 

2) firebrand guardian: very easy to play, just pop your skills with carian amulet. Takes 5 min to learn to play

 

3) Mechanist Engineer: very weak and easy to counter by players, but decent enough for new players. Set it for malee attacks and just put turrets as your main skills. 

[Hotride.2187]

2 hours ago, AusarViled.7106 said:

SPvP is fine if your willing to play it for about 30 min then log off. I play pvp about an hour for my dailies then I go play other games.

Yeah that is how I did it too. Do this every day and you chip away at the rewards needed for spvp legendary gear and you slowly raise your rank. I'll go at it again when they do some balance passes though, eod drop really got me mad.

[Acelidon.1358]

Pros of PvP

-basic gw2 combat system is engaging

- easiest way to get leggy armor unless you have a raid group

Cons of PvP

-botting and afkers that will not get touched no matter how much they are reported

-balancing of classes is a joke

-incredible amounts of toxicity (expect to get flamed even in unranked, especially by metaslaves when they see you aren't playing a meta build)

-matchmaking system is designed to keep you at 50% winrate

-low PvP population means you will be fighting against players of much higher skill 

-no new maps or modes released in years

Overall: cursed game mode, save yourself. play PvE and just be happy

[Bojjang.1052]

I suggested a necro to metabattles because he was playing a bad build and did not contribute to the team. I said "Just a tipp check out metabattles.com"

 

Random on my team I was not talking to started to explain to me how to play guardian. He said "He was sick of elitist who play trash themselves"

 

I like to think that these same people come here asking why pvp is deed

[zonias.1083]

On 4/10/2022 at 12:48 AM, 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?

If you wanna do some research search for Vallun, he does really good guides and has covered the basics of roles, rotations, etc. it has been really helpful and has helped me push into platinum consistenly. 

And then watch some pvp streams, if you wanna see some more advanced micro. 

 

I would also recommend you to get a good dose of patience, gw2 pvp is really explosive and then death details are not too great. and i play without chat, because most people talk crap during games. 

 

If you play in the european server, feel free to hit me up, i play a lot of pvp and this season of today i ranked 94, so i am a decent player. I do not mind training in normal games in case you want to.

[SlayerXX.7138]

On 4/10/2022 at 12:48 AM, 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

Guardian is op and you already increased your win chance by a lot. Kidding aside, look into the link already posted, but take the builds in them with a grain of salt and try to play with them if it doesn't work out. But you should always have at least 1 Stunbreak and condition cleanse in every build. Most builds online are made by really good players which doesn't translate well for people with average skill/or learning the game.

For Example second best rated thief build is Power daredevil thief with dagger/pistol. But the build is frail and assumes you know how the game works. If you don't know when you can go in and when don't that is a pretty bad build. At the start I would always go for something resilient who doesn't relies on a class mechanic you have to manage. Core guard not much to manage = good. Holosmith engineer managing heat = bad.

 

https://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Guardian_-_Core_Shout_Support
Best rated guardian build is pretty good because it is tanky and leaves room for errors. No extra mechanic to manage. BUT it is support so you slow and somewhat reliant on your teammates.

Stuff to ignore:

"Your role is to rotate wherever the teamfight is and keep your team alive."

Rotating means nothing in low elo. Player will use the word but the have no ide what they are talking abou in 99% of cases.
Rotating means moving "smart around the map".

What smart is you will learn by playing the game. But some pointers.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Conquest

Scoring:

• 1 point is gained every 2 seconds per location captured
• 5 points are awarded for each player kill (if someone dies they have to wait 15  seconds)

 

You are holding a point and 2 people try to capture it, as tanky guardian your survive for 30s-60s and eventually die on point.

You made15 - 30 points  for your team, gave 5 points to the opponent. In these time frame your team played a 4 v3 for 30-60 seconds and now have to play at worst a 4v5 for 15 seconds. All in all a good "trade".

You are holding a point and they ignore you. After 1 min you move from that point to do something. Your team had to 4v5 for a minute. Bad "trade".

 

Your moving with 4 people mid and so does the other team. Your are a support they don't have one. Your team probably gonna win that fight. Good "trade".

 

You run to the far capture point and try to capture it. But it is guarded by an opposing player and after 44 second you are alive but cant kill or bully the opponent of the point. So they still hold it, made 22 Points of that and your team is in a 4v4((without there support). You wasted 44 second + travel time(as core guard you are slow) for nothing. Bad trade.

 

Your job in Conquest is to rotate around the map to make as many good trades as possible and avoid making bad trades. Try to avoid getting killed of course but don't stress to much about it, player overvalue kills anyway. Nobody under gold rank is going capitalize on your death if you made good trades before you died. Obviously getting killed in 2 seconds against 4 people is always a bad trade.

 

If you lose people will find the error in you no matter what(can`t be them, it always the other who are bad). Don`t let it get to you. On the off chance they are right try to fixed that next game. PvP is fun. The combat is great and smooth as butter. But its is kind of deep and knowing what other classes to becomes more important as you go up the ranks.

If People get too toxic you can always disable teamchat and whispers:D.

[DragonLord.8304]

I'm a new player, been playing a few weeks, and I've been doing some PvP. Winning or loosing doesn't bother me, it's the constant blaming the new guy that bothers me. Just because i don't have flashy things doesn't mean im bad. Also don't bother going support Guardian. If you get focused and killed it's your fault, if you don't heal everyone thats spread around the map it's your fault. If they stand in the crap and die it's also your fault 🤣

 

If you can ignore the constant whining or people blaming each other, go ahead its fun 😁

Edit: My comment about guardian was more towards the 3v3 ive been doing, it's probably a lot better in conquest 🙂

Edited April 29, 2022 by DragonLord.8304
Wanted to add something

[Nabbut.7480]

What I've learned from years of sPvP is to not even try to learn to fight. Because there are players with optimized one burst kill meta builds, lots of interrupts and instant reflexes.

What a new player can do is to spam ranged autoattack and some nasty aoe from edge of a fight and run away and stealth if able the moment someone looks at you funny.

Better still, decap unguarded points.

Learn to never ever go into losing fight, and completely ignore your teammates trying to teach you to become a respawner like themselves.

[pukish.5784]

Wait for steam launch, tsunami of newbie rush.

[Sahne.6950]

On 5/2/2022 at 6:52 PM, paShadoWn.5723 said:

What I've learned from years of sPvP is to not even try to learn to fight. Because there are players with optimized one burst kill meta builds, lots of interrupts and instant reflexes.

What a new player can do is to spam ranged autoattack and some nasty aoe from edge of a fight and run away and stealth if able the moment someone looks at you funny.

uhm... not really.

it sounds weird but you have to lose and die to become better. Loosing is the only thing that will make you better in the longrun. If you are "winning" constantly / not dying you are not gonna change how you play. The best thing you can do is improve by trail and error. You just gotta figure out what you did wrong and change it. If you are playing sissymode and just avoiding fights completly you will never improve. The only thing you can do to improve in pvp is actually play it like everybody else. You will get roflstomped at times, but you will improve. Just gotta tank thru the losses and inevitably you will improve.

Watch some youtube videos of the class you are playing so you get a basic knowledge of your class. If you are strugling with a specific enemy, it sometimes help to watch youtubefootage of that class and see what they are doing. You can then work your way around those builds and eventually beat them....  rinse and repeat....

Edited May 4, 2022 by Sahne.6950

[Eday.4850]

> How is sPvP for new players?

 

Easy: *It starts with a "C", ends with a "R" and contains only "ANCE"*.

Just. *The last word*. ((Yeah, Anet love censorship for "baaaaaad words"))

 

If you don't play the meta, get ready to get kittened up. And don't count on Anet to nerf the new specialities. That's 80% of what you'll see in game.

 

And I won't even talk about how disastrous is the matchmaking. Like, for my first time in ranked, one of my placement game, I've been set with a TOP 1. And I'm not even joking! His tag was literally God of the Arena. Ofc, we won the game but this was totally f*** up when you know that my final rank was Gold 1. Not great not terrible, but I've been matchmaking with a TOP 1. Why does this happen? Simple. The matchmaking is just horrendously bad! And this repeat for each new season! Until everyone is set on a level, you'll just get your kitten kicked without knowing how or why.

 

And I'm not even talking avec unranked matches, this time, it's the fiesta. Or you get your kitten kicked so high that you can see the whole map of the Mist, or you can AFK in spawn while winning 480pts vs 60pts (legit).

 

That's maybe one of the worst matchmakings I've ever seen in a video game. That's simple. From most of the games I've done so far, I can give those stats:

 

45 %: Get wrecked against plat.

40 %: You can stay at spawn ez win after 5 min, you're nothing and your help means nothing.

5%: Actual interesting games where the fight is hard and you're in the most exciting moment of the game that can go up to 15 min (instead of the usual 10 min / game), where each little life and points count.

 

In a nutshell, the only reason why you would do PvP for the moment is for one. Single. Reason: Reward chest.

 

I've been a PvE player since a long time and I've never won that much gold since I've started PvP. The last chest Byzantium is a bit frustrating to get, but if you play non-stop, I4ld stay 1-2 day and you go on it. 20 gold. Free. Repeatable. The only thing more interesting that this is Raid. ... Or maybe Fractals, but I have some doubts.

 

Coming back to the balancing. That's just bad. Horribly bad. You want to win? Take a specialisation from the new extension and roll your head on your keyboard. Nothing less, nothing more. And don't count on Anet to nerf those one before at least December. Hey, they have to frustrate enough player to make them buy the extension. And don't tell me that it's a very hard task to do so. There are 9 professions. Each of them has 4 specializations. It's 36 probable specialisations. 

 

In conclusion:

 

Why you want to play PvP (especially ranked):

 

- Reward chest, especially the ranked one. (Goldy, goldy, goldy!)

 

Why you will hate PvP:

 

- Horrible matchmaking, even in ranked.

- Terrible balancing. Even League of Legends with 157 characters (so far) does a better job.

Edited May 4, 2022 by Eday.4850

[Fueki.4753]

44 minutes ago, Eday.4850 said:

And I won't even talk about how disastrous is the matchmaking.

The match maker is doing the best it can do, after Arenanet managed to massacre the sPvP population with their disastrous changes that caused sPvP turn from skill-based to 'spam everything that can be spammed'.

[Eday.4850]

39 minutes ago, Fueki.4753 said:

The match maker is doing the best it can do, after Arenanet managed to massacre the sPvP population with their disastrous changes that caused sPvP turn from skill-based to 'spam everything that can be spammed'.

 

Can you tell me more about this? I've never heard of those changes.

[Fueki.4753]

13 minutes ago, Eday.4850 said:

 

Can you tell me more about this? I've never heard of those changes.

all that powercreep over the years,

the constant changes that make conditions more and more viable,

the increase in condition stacks application,

the increase in CC and movement impairing conditions,

the increase in AoE spam,

the increase in boon application...

the removal of runes and amulets instead of trying to fix the actual issues

You might not have "heard" these changes because you are one of the people playing with the audio turned off, but anyone playing sPvP over the years without a blindfold would have noticed all that.

All of that is fundamentally different (in a bad way) from when sPvP was decent and still had a semi-decent population.

[Eday.4850]

8 minutes ago, Fueki.4753 said:

You might not have "heard" these changes because you are one of the people playing with the audio turned off, but anyone playing sPvP over the years without a blindfold would have noticed all that.

That's insane... That said, I did start PvP a bit more seriously quite recently, so I never really saw how it was "before". I don't even know when this started to change.

 

That said, I'm a bit confused, there's still runes & amulets in-game.

[Fueki.4753]

29 minutes ago, Eday.4850 said:

That said, I'm a bit confused, there's still runes & amulets in-game.

What I meant to express was that a sizeable number of amulets and runes have been removed, not all of them.

In 2016, we lost the following Amulets: Celestial, Soldier, Settler, Sentinel, Mercenary, Cleric.

In 2016 we also lost the runes of Mercy and Durability.

From February 25th, 2020 to April 4th 2021 we lost the following Amulets: Deadshot, Viper, Wanderer, Diviner, Harrier, Seeker, Knight, Cavalier, Barbarian, Mender and Marshal.

 

[Trevor Boyer.6524]

On 5/2/2022 at 12:52 PM, paShadoWn.5723 said:

What I've learned from years of sPvP is to not even try to learn to fight. Because there are players with optimized one burst kill meta builds, lots of interrupts and instant reflexes.

What a new player can do is to spam ranged autoattack and some nasty aoe from edge of a fight and run away and stealth if able the moment someone looks at you funny.

Better still, decap unguarded points.

Learn to never ever go into losing fight, and completely ignore your teammates trying to teach you to become a respawner like themselves.

The messed up thing is, this is actually solid advice for new players looking to run Thief.

[Azure The Heartless.3261]

15 minutes ago, Trevor Boyer.6524 said:

The messed up thing is, this is actually solid advice for new players looking to run Thief.

Can confirm "pick off weaks, run,  dont be altruistic" will make you a good thief. 

[SlayerXX.7138]

17 hours ago, Eday.4850 said:

That's insane... That said, I did start PvP a bit more seriously quite recently, so I never really saw how it was "before". I don't even know when this started to change.

 

That said, I'm a bit confused, there's still runes & amulets in-game.

The person is just being dramatic. They nerfed all Heal and toughness amulets over time or flat out removed them. As being tanky and able to sustain is pretty broken in a game mode where  holding points is the way to win. Add to that block and dodges and tanky bunker builds were quite strong.  

 

PvP is nice. There are just 2 main problems: The game mode itself isn't updated. Same maps for years. But we get balance patches! With Anet update speed sadly. The other is, like you probably noticed, there is a lot of skill expression in the game. Coupled with the game being 10 years gold there is a wide gap between noobs/newcomers and Veterans. Which makes it hard for new player to get into the game-> which means player numbers are low-> which means matchmaking can be a pain(if you don't sit at the "good" populated low gold rank)-> which makes people are a little more toxic then they should be.

 

PvP is fun! Knowledge about other Profession is a real asset. Combat is responsive.

 

As the population is so low there is room for experimentation. Don´t let people convince you that a game with a low population Problem is "solved" and the meta is set in stone. Especially in the lower ranks. I got into Platinum with my Dagger/Dagger Condi Daredevil "meme" build. If you are content with Gold you can play basically anything reasonable you like and make it work. All that stuff about broken game only becomes partly true at the high end of gold or low plat. Mobility creep mainly.