Grouch's Guide to structured PvP - Meta builds and more

[Karizee]

The sexy new glory rewards in sPvP prompted me to jump back in and try my hand. It's very cool - fast games, 1 minute solo queues or instant hotjoins and the glory rewards are very nice! If you want to give it a go I can recommend this great guide put together by Grouch.


Introduction

Player Vs. Player in Guild Wars 2 is an exciting game-type that pits you against other players from across the world in the ultimate test of skill. Whether you’re looking for casual skull-cracking or competitive domination – we’ve got you covered.

There are four main avenues to choose from to participate in PvP in Guild Wars 2.

• Hot-Join – The go-to place to get your feet wet. This is the most casual form of PvP in Guild Wars 2 – great for learning. In Hot-Join (accessible from the PvP menu) you’re able to hop in and out of games at will, allowing you to play at your own pace.
• Custom Arenas – Duel your friends or setup scrimmages with competing teams! These servers have many customizable settings.
• Solo Arena – Ready to get a taste of rated play and get your name on the leaderboards?
• Team Arena – Feeling brave? Jump in against other teams and fight for bragging rights!

Conquest

In Conquest, two teams are matched up against each other. The objective is to be the first team to reach 500 points. Points are awarded through holding capture points and kills. There are 3 capture points on the map, and when captured, each location grants one point every two seconds. Each player kill grants five points. If neither team reaches 500 points, the team with the most points will be declared the winner after the 15 minute time limit.

Each map (listed below) also has a secondary objective:

• Forest of Niflhel – NPC monsters spawn after some time and then after every 3 minutes in the north-western and north-eastern corner. Defeating them grants your team 25 points and a short-time buff (+50 to all stats).
• Legacy of the Foefire – NPC guards and ‘guild lords’ spawn at the beginning of each match in the starting zones of their respective team. In order to get to the guild lord, the enemy team has to take down a wall first. Walls can only be damaged by direct damage. Defeating the Lord grants 150 points.
• Battle of Khylo – Each team has access to a trebuchet which can bombard any enemy or area on the battlefield. It causes massive damage to enemy players and causes knockback to players who get caught in the area of effect. It does no friendly-fire damage or knockback.
• Temple of the Silent Storm – Four ‘meditations’ spawn periodically through the map. After completing the channelling for each meditation, the respective team acquires the buff granted by that meditation.
• Spirit Watch – Capture the Orb of Ascension and bring it to any of the three shrines for bonus points.
• Raid on the Capricorn – Hostile sharks roam the waters of the map, but when a team captures the Ruins point they turn friendly toward them and will attack the opposing team.
• Skyhammer – Calibrate the Skyhammer to your team to do massive damage to the areas you select.

Conquest Tips

• Your personal score doesn’t correspond to the amount of glory/rank you gain. You fixed amounts of glory/rank for winning and losing. Play to win!
• You only need one person to stand on a point to capture it.
• You cannot capture a point if you’re stealthed or invulnerable.
• Try not to take part in uneven fights. Use numbers in your favor.
• Watch your mini-map! You can see the location of your teammates and any enemies that they can see.

Rewards

As you participate in PvP you accumulate glory, rank points, and gold.
Rank – There are 80 ranks available separated into 8 tiers.

• 1-10 – Rabbit
• 10-19 – Deer
• 20-29 – Dolyak
• 30-39 – Wolf
• 40-49 – Tiger
• 50-59 – Bear
• 60-69 – Shark
• 70-79 – Phoenix
• 80 – Dragon

Gold/Glory Rates

• Hot-Join/Custom Arenas

• Win: 15 Silver, 200 glory | Loss: 10 Silver, 125 glory

• Solo Arena

• Win: 25 Silver, 250 glory | Loss: 12.5 Silver, 150 glory

• Team Arena

• Win: 30 Silver, 300 glory | Loss: 15 Silver, 175 glory

Gold and glory can be used to purchase Tomes of Knowledge to level your character, armor, and other exciting rewards! Head to Heart of the Mists to find out more.

Bragging rights should probably be in the list somewhere as well.


How do I participate?

The Heart of the Mists is the central hub for all things PvP-related. Here you can find armor and weapon vendors, other players, and PvP rewards vendors.

• To access Heart of the Mists, click the crossed sword icon in the top left-hand corner of your in-game interface.
• In the top left-hand corner of the PvP window, select “Go to Heart of the Mists”.

What now? Builds and beyond!

Now that you’re in Heart of the Mists, you need to setup a build for your profession. The Guild Wars 2 trait system allows for incredible customization, letting you to play your character exactly the way you want to. Before we get into that, allow me to explain the basic profession roles in Conquest.

• Bunker – As a bunker, your main role is to support your teammates and to keep control over capture points. Players accomplish this by building very defensively, either through large health-pools, high-healing power, or builds that focus on evasion.
• Roamer – The roamer is a mobile damage-orientated player, focused on moving between capture points and helping his allies where needed. He moves quickly and strikes quickly.
• Far-Point Assaulter – This player’s role is to constantly assault the enemy team’s capture point and to keep them distracted. This player is usually very defensive and can hold off multiple opponents at once.
• Home Defender – The Home Defender’s job is to make sure that nobody takes their home capture point. I mean nobody! This is usually a very mobile profession or very tanky.

Grouch, give me a build, yo! (Courtesy of Ostrich)

Elementalist:
Basic Fresh Air Burst Build
Basic Rock Solid Soldier’s Build

Engineer:
Bomb/Nade
Chaith’s Power Nade

Guardian:
Ctang’s DPS guardian
Kensuda’s Bunker Guardian Guide
Arken’s DPS Guardian Build

Mesmer:
Supcutie’s Shatter
Countless’ Clone Kill
Helseth’s Halting Strike/Shatter

Necromancer:
Basic Necromancer Condi Build
Basic Necromancer Power Well Build
Lopez’s Dhuumfire Necro Guide

Ranger:
Basic Spirit Ranger Build
Basic Trap Ranger Build

Thief:
Jumper’s Double S/D
Caed’s D/P

Warrior:
Tarcis’ Hammer Longbow
The ‘Ham’ Build
Basic Bunker Warrior Build


Now you’re geared up and ready to roll. But here’s a bit of advice….

PvP in any game has a fairly steep learning curve. Don’t get discouraged if you get owned the first couple of matches you play – you’ll get better!

[Deleted]

I don't understand, if this is a game based on how future will look like, ok =) But they had blogpost quite recently about glory being removed and glory ranks and it would be interesting to find more info about that.

[Deleted]

WoodenPotatoes said they`re keeping ranks in recently I`m sure.
Makes sense, all those that got their shinies & titles/ranks wouldn`t want to of wasted their time for no rewards.

P.S. Are those builds by Groucharoo or by Ostrich?
Fairly sure Gtoucharoo only played, or at least mained, Engie.

[Karizee]

These builds come from many different players, some whose names are carved on the Wall of Champions inside the Heart of the Mists for their wins in the First Year Invitational.

[Meledelion]

And then you get into the game and you're in a 4vs5 with people 30ranks below you playing against people 10ranks above you.

After that you played all maps and notice that the bottom 4 are shit and should be removed from the game.

[Karizee]

Here's another great guide for those getting into sPVP put together by SongofTranquility:

http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/c...guide_to_spvp/


Greetings! It seems to me that the PvP community have been growing quite a bit lately. Also seen quite a bit of frustration among the PvP communities with certain aspect of PvP. This guide is written for all the PvPers, especially for those cute new comers :3! Since this guide will be quite lengthy, I am going to do a TL;DR section all the way on the bottom of this guide. Before we go any futher here is a list of builds in the current meta collected by DantesS_P http://www.reddit.com/r/gw2esports/c...lds_as_of_the/

Let’s begin with the most basic and essential things that we have in mind.


How does the matches work?

For every single game mode (except custom arenas) a team will only need 500 points to win the game. One way to gain points is for every map and every single type of pvp game mode there will always be 3 nodes that player need to cap. The cap will generate 1 points per tick which is about every 2 seconds. This is extremely important.

If you manage to keep 2 points of the map you will have the upper hand advantage over the enemy team. Although it doesn’t seem a lot in the beginning, however I can assure you that it’s a lot of points as time passes on. For example, if a team has 2 points for the entire match, the opposing team only have 1 point for the entire match. The score will be 2 to 1 in the beginning, it doesn’t seem a lot does it? I kill will get you the advantage. However10 ticks later it will be 20 to 10, 100 ticks later it will be 200 to 100… as you can see where this is going. I can not emphize enough how important nodes is. Killing enemies are a great way to get points however, if there aren’t any nodes around it will take 100 kills to finish up the match. This is insanely difficult if not downright impossible. Keep holding nodes as much as you can that’s how pvp actually is.

Fighting over nodes is the real game.

As everyone can tell that an obvious way to win/get points is to kill enemy players. For every single player kill the system will reward the player and their team 5 points towards to the score. 5 points might seem like a lot since you only need 500 points to win the game, especially in the beginning it can give you a little bit of the edge right off the bet. However, the nodes are still better way to get points by far. 5 points will be easily overhauled within 6 seconds (3 ticks if you have 2 nodes). Another important thing to mention here is dying. In the PvP mode dying is very crucial to the team because every single time when a player gets stomped by opposing team that player won’t be able to do anything for the next 15 seconds! 15 seconds might not sound much however; 15 seconds could mean the match. 15 seconds is 7(.5) ticks on the nodes that means the enemy will be able to get 7 ticks in meanwhile they are having the number advantage against the player (5v4, 4v3…).

Lastly, I bet some of you are asking what if both teams have 500 points at the exact same time? Although it’s extremely rare, the way system determine the winner is whichever team have the highest personal game score across all their teammates wins. For example team A have 5 players with 100 points each from their players that’s total of 500 points. Team B have 5 players with 100 points on 4 of their players, the 5th player on the Team B have 101 points, that’s a total of 501 points. Since 501>500 Team B wins the match although they have the same score.

Classes and roles in no particular format: Generally speaking there really are just 2 categories in a team.

Bunkers: The person who has the ability to hold up a point against opposing assaulter long enough for the teammates to come and help out.

Since launch Guardians has always been the most desirable choice for bunking, due to their supportive play style.
Aside from Guardians, Spirit Rangers and Minion Master necromancers also have the ability to bunk a point pretty efficiently. Very often in time they will be able to facing more than just one enemy for a certain amount of time. Spirit Rangers and Minion Master Necromancers have the ability to summon creatures to support them in a fight, they are also very idea to do a certain degree of team fights.

In my opinion the most important role for a bunker player is to be able to call out what kind of situation they are currently in and how long do they think they will last. This is very important since the level of action that’s required from teammate will vary depends on how danger the situation is.

For example, if the guardian saw 3 enemies coming towards to them they will call out for help, and the supporting teammates will have to get to bunker guardian within a short amount of time and the number of teammates and the composition of teammates required will greatly change the outcome of the fights. In this particular example 3 enemies are approaching the bunker guardian. Bunker guardian cry out in the team (or mini map) there will need at least the same amount of teammates to back up the bunker guardian if not out numbering the enemies. If this is done correctly, not only the bunker guardian will survive, also the teams will get 15 points for killing enemies. 15 points out of 500 points that’s 3% of the match right there. Also there will be a spawn timer for opposing players is 15 seconds. There will be more discussion about respawns in the tip section of the guide down below. In conclusion bunker is definitely one of the most essential members out of the team.

Before we go any further there are difference between Home Bunkers and Mid Bunkers. Most of the times there will be 2 bunkers on the same team one is responsible for defending/guarding home node(point closest to the spawn point), while the mid bunker will stay in mid node. Both of these bunkers are very essential to the team play. Sometimes a team can get away with just 1 dedicated bunker and constantly roaming around. In certain situations there might not be a guardian. That means you might not get middle node, however, that's perfectly fine. All nodes are created equal, so you can do the same with home and far nodes. They are the same. All you need is 2 points.

Roamer/Assulter/Responder: The person who have the ability to move through map in a short amount time in order to either reinforce or assult.

As the description reads this category is very mobile, they are basically fast responders. The reason why they have to be fast is because they need the ability to disengage and accomplish other objectives such as going to cap other nodes that no one is currently sitting on, or going back to home to help out allies by eliminating the opposing players that are pressuring the ally. It's also very ideal to make sure these responders have substantial amount of DPS in order to be very effective.

Another key thing about Roamer/Assulter is essentially to make things uneven and tips in their favor. For example, thieves can move around map and interact and engage in an even fight to make it uneven. As soon as the fights are over thieves or any roamer/assaulter keep pressuring are keep pressuring the advantage. At the same time if the fight isn’t going well at all the roamer will disengage and prepare for the opposing assaults.

In my opinion this category has one of the most interesting diversity, since many professions can do this job pretty efficiently. For example thieves can use their teleportation skills (infiltrator’s arrow) to get around very quickly in certain maps, which make thieves a really good team player to either back up allies on a point or either sneak pass by enemies to get a free node that no one is paying attention to.
Aside from thieves, Mesmer also can utilize their portal to do essentially the same thing but on a bit longer cool downs. Engineers have been doing very well for a long time as Roamer/Assulter due to their ability to run around the map with their permanent swiftness, also their long range grenades tossing ability. Keep in mind that these aren’t the only Roamer/Assaulters out there; these are just couple classes that I’ve seen the most in tournaments.

Some basic strategies and small tips:

--Initial Splits
As anyone would tell you that the beginning split and the initial encounter is very important in a match. The reason why is in map such as the Legacy of Foefire if the middle node is capped by the opposing team it will be very hard to regain the node since the bunker have a very large area in the middle to bunk around and kite around opposing players. Very often in time I see a 1 home 3 mid 1 far split. However, it’s not effective compares to 1 home 4 mid split. Since if 1 goes to far that means the team will be out numbered to play 3v4 in the middle and the chance of winning will be very small. When the middle is lost they will rush home and wipe out the last person who went to far, so it’s basically a lose-lose situation. Even if the 1 went far actually won 1v1 it will take him very long due to the nature of bunkers. If teammates in the middle have been wiped 3v4 they will be in a terrible position and find themselves down to 2v5 or even 1v5 for 15 seconds. During these 15 seconds the enemy could push home causing entire team unable to hold on to 1 single node. So make sure that you win the mid fight is very important on certain maps.

--Playing Safe
Once your team acquire 2 nodes make no mistake, don’t push for another point! This might sound very shocking however it’s very true. If the team going to assault another point, all of the respawning players will head to that point and help the bunker defending it. Since your team already held on to 2 points therefore you will be left with 3 roamers/assaulters. If all 3 of the people went to far point they will likely be facing 3 or more people depends on how many people have respawned, it’s without a doubt a very hard fight. So when your team just successfully defend/gain a node by eliminating the opposing players, make no mistake just held on to those 2 nodes. Like what I’ve covered in the first section, in order to win 2 nodes is all you needed. Play safe! I can’t tell you guys how many times people make the mistake costing the entire party to wipe by the opposing team. The core of the strategy is let the opposing players come to you, instead of chasing after the opposing players into an uneven fight.

--Killing isn’t as important, Make sure to avoid getting defeated
People might be confused when I say that, the important part of the game isn’t killing as much enemy players as possible. It’s all about holding onto nodes and make sure you keep all of those nodes for as long as possible. However, make no mistake that dying isn’t important, every single time when someone is defeated it will take them 15 seconds to respawn + 1 second or 2 seconds extra for the loading screen. Once the players respawn it will take them around another 15 seconds or so just to get back onto the home point (as a home defender it took me 13 seconds just to get onto the home node from respawn point with swiftness!). That’s around 30 seconds just to get back into the game when a player is defeated! 30 second in a 15 minute match is a very long time. So if you are go into down state or about to go into down state please tell your teammates to avoid the long wait.

--Make sure you group up before you go
This is very important in a fight where a team already lose the advantage. When you respawn make sure to wait for your teammates before heading back into action. Player don’t want to triggle back into 1v3, 1v4 fights and keep getting defeated 1 by 1, over and over again. Trust me on this one, even if it takes a couple more seconds please wait up for your fella teammates so you guys can go in as a group instead of going as a single player. Doesn’t matter how skilled you are you won’t last very long in a outnumbered fight against similar skill leveled players.

--Play smart
When you see that one a certain node you are outnumbered, make no mistake, get out of there. Outnumbered fights aren’t fun for anyone. If you can’t out number them on this node, try out some other nodes. If you see 5 people on mid that means their home/ other node is open. Take this opportunity go take their point! Don’t try to jump into an unfair fight even if you are insanely great. The odds are just simply not in your favor.

--Don’t get discouraged
This is very very very very very very important in tournaments. Don’t ever lose faith or get discouraged. One night my team was down by 150 points in Temple of Silent Storm, we didn’t lose faith we kept fighting, and we end up winning 501 to 496. Even if you are going up against super famous/well known players, just remember the fact that “a back stab is a back stab, doesn’t matter who it’s on, it’s going hurt a lot”.

--Lastly,
Keep in mind that this is just a game, a virtual simulator. There is no need to get upset or angry. Like what my guildies always says “Game Is Made To Play!” if you are not having fun then you are doing it wrong. Just try to have fun! Don’t get angry, don’t get upset. In the end of the day it’s just a game.

TLR
-Don't try to over-kill
-Play safe just hold onto 2 nodes
-Avoid defeated
-Avoid outnumbered fights
-Play smart
-Be positive
-Don't ever get discouraged/Don't ever give up
-It's just a game so relax and enjoy
-GAME IS MADE TO PLAY
If you have any questions feel free to PM me on GW2 I will try to answer them to the best of my abilities.

Sincerely,
Babydoll Violet from Veteran of the Mists (redt)/ Karma (KA)
A very special thanks to my friend DantesS_P to helping me with this guide.

[Salech]

I play my engineer in my own way i can bunker and kill quite well on the capture points but i do see that these builds are probably better but when i play it's my playstyle that i prefer and i am doing an extremely good job, these builds though would be way better for a new person though to learn the ins and outs.


And thanks for the post(s)

[Meledelion]

"i do see that these builds are probably better but when i play it's my playstyle that i prefer"

So basically you're griefing others...

[Karizee]

Supcutie's blink location guides:

Spirit Watch
Battle of Khylo
Skyhammer
Forest of Nifhel
Legacy of the Foefire
Temple of the Silent Storm
Raid on the Capricorn

[Karizee]

Here's the blogpost on current and future reward changes in PvP:

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/p...wards-roadmap/

What you need to know now: PvP glory vendors are currently selling dungeon and racial sets as well as Tomes for leveling. You can also cash out by getting Wintersday gifts to sell for gold. These vendors are temporary and will get removed when they roll out the rest of the changes, they will give us adequate warning before glory and glory vendors are removed.


And here's some stomping guides from Killchain:

Warriors
Mesmers
Rangers
Guardians
Elementalists
Thiefs
Engineers
Necromancers

[Lazuli]

Lolololololololololololololololol they're adding progression for items in spvp? So to use that sigil, or berserker amulet, I have to grind for it?

GG ANet - what a bunch of fucktards.

The one, ONE thing that they shouldn't have brought from GW1 and wouldn't you know... these guys are seriously so retarded it baffles my mind!

This is going to make the 5 people playing spvp just up and quit.

edit; guess I'm not alone on this lawl https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/foru...are-a-BAD-idea

There are productive, non-ragey ways of expressing frustration or dislike of something that aren't flat out game bashing, please use them when posting. Infracted. -Edge

[Karizee]

<snip>

That is incorrect. The gear unification system is for skins only: they will be allowing skins you've earned in PvP to be worn in PvE and vice versa. Stats are and will continue to remain free in PvP.

[Vizardlorde]

How did you not include minion master in necros build when its one of the toughest cookies in pvp losing only to polymorph moa. They literally just focus on vit/toughness and let minion and weapon conditions do the rest while kiting enemies trying to hit them or just taking on their attacks head on and laughing about how they only chipped a bit of their 23k healthpool not including deathshroud.

[Meledelion]

Because that build is horrible and you won't ever see anyone run that in tPvP...

[LilSaihah]

Because that build is horrible and you won't ever see anyone run that in tPvP...

Except that's wrong. Zoometa is zoo

[Meledelion]

It's not wrong at all. Go watch any pvp streamer and you won't ever see anyone run MM since minions die in seconds in the current meta.
I'd love to know what rank you are and what your highest ranking on the leaderboards ever was too.

[LilSaihah]

It's not wrong at all. Go watch any pvp streamer and you won't ever see anyone run MM since minions die in seconds in the current meta.
I'd love to know what rank you are and what your highest ranking on the leaderboards ever was too.

33, 380 something iirc.

I'm curious what exactly you mean by "won't ever see anyone run MM". If you mean nobody streaming runs it, it's because it is not fun to watch at all because there's so much shit on the screen that you can't make sense of it as a viewer.

It is a stable and fairly popular build in the ranks that I play in, and this is a beginner's guide. It's a fairly simple spec to pick up with a good bit of learning curve so I don't see why you wouldn't want it on the list.

[Meledelion]

No what I mean is that you won't see anyone run it the moment you play with the "serious" guys.

MM is crap because the meta is focused on teamfights with AoE. Powermancers, hammer/lb wars, Shatter mesmers, nade engineers,... all wreck minions and guess what, every time you enter a match you'll see those builds.

The only thing you can do as MM is defend close, but the roamers out there (mainly wars) wreck you.

What's your IGN? I doubt you reached top 500 if you don't know the basics as to why MM is bad...

[LilSaihah]

No what I mean is that you won't see anyone run it the moment you play with the "serious" guys.

You're assuming that everyone reading this guide is trying to play 'seriously' but okay. MM builds do have quite a bit of success in games and some teams are specifically built around exploiting petting zoos.

What's your IGN? I doubt you reached top 500 if you don't know the basics as to why MM is bad...

I think this conversation isn't going to go anywhere if you're just going to call me a liar.

[Meledelion]

Hang on, so your defense is
"not everyone likes to play seriously"? then don't join PvP, go play tetris or angry birds or w/e.

No, the petting zoo meta has been dealt with, it's condi cleave ftw now.
Both spirit ranger and MM necros are too weak in the current meta since all previously mentioned classes counter them. So not much of a zoo left...