PvP battle between three different servers, or worlds. Players can siege structures such as Keeps and Towers with siege weapons, battle over resources, and win rewards for their world. There are 4 maps total, 3 Borderlands maps, and 1 Eternal Battleground map.
WvW MAP (click to see better)
BORDERLANDS
The Borderlands are three identical maps in World versus World, with each map belonging to one of the participating worlds. Players on their own borderlands get a small buff as a "home advantage".
Here is a typical Borderlands map where you can see how the resource camps, towers and keep are placed. Invading worlds have waypoints at the bottom left and right side of the map. None of the waypoints can be captured - they are guarded by legendary defenders that one shot enemy players. Waypoints are also unuseable by enemy players - they will appear contested to all but the world that owns that waypoint.
At the bottom half of the map, you have two towers, one near each inviading world's waypoint. You also have three supply camps, one near near tower and the third at the bottom middle section of the map, between the two world’s waypoint.
Moving up, you will see two keeps on the left and right side of the map and a third keep positioned almost in the middle of the map, right in front of the home world's waypoint. This keep is flanked by two nearby towers and since they are all near the home world's waypoint, it give them somewhat of a home map advantage. There are three supply camps at the top half of the map as well, one near each tower and the third all the way up in the north, near the Orb of Power.
If you count up the objectives, each Borderlands map would have 3 keeps, 4 towers and 6 supply camps.
Orb of Power
Each Borderlands map has a single Orb of Power. It is initially located at the very north end of each map in a special place called Cradle of Power. This Cradle of Power is initially protected by an invulnerable force field that cannot be removed until you defeat the guardian – L83 champion Keeper of the Orb that deals massive damage.
Once the champion is defeated, the force field drops and anyone can retrieve the orb. Each keep you world control on the map has an Altar of Power where you can place the orb. You have a 15 minutes window to place this orb on this Altar before it returns to the Cradle of Power so make sure you world has a keep under control before capturing the orb.
Once the orb is placed on the altar, your keep will gain 5% boost to maximum HP. Since there are three borderland maps, your world could potentially end up with 15% boost to maximum HP if you capture all three orbs.
ETERNAL BATTLEGROUNDS
Eternal battlegrounds is the middle map where all three worlds start off on equal grounds. There is a massive Stonemist Castle in the middle that three worlds compete to capture. It is a triangular map, with 1 keep, 4 towers and 2 supply camps on each angle, totaling 1 castle, 3 keeps, 12 towers and 6 supply camps on the entire map.
Stonemist Castle under attack of siege weapons.
OBJECTIVES AND GOAL OF WvW
There are three types of objectives that are available for capture on the WvW maps. They are the keeps, towers, and supply camps. The central map, Eternal Battlegrounds, also features a massive keep called Stonemist Castle that give additional points for capture. Every 5 minutes, all the objectives that a world controls are counted and points are generated which are added to the cumulative war score for each world.
The cumulative war score is erased every two weeks and used to generate rankings for the next match. Along the way, there are certain war score thresholds that when reached will unlock temporary bonuses for everyone from that world for both PvE and PvP activities.
SUPPLY
Supply is used for constructing siege weapons, upgrading structures and repairing damaged walls&gates. Supply is stored in Supply Depots in resource camps, towers, keeps and Stonemist Castle. Players can interact with any (friendly) supply depot to take up to 10 units of supply from it, as long as depots is still stocked.
Resource camps produce supply and automatically send out NPC dolyak caravans, which restock friendly nearby structures with 35 or 70 supplies per run (depending on the level of the caravan). Supply caravans can be intercepted by enemy players. Resource camps feature their own supply depots, which refill over time.
Supply caravans can be upgraded via the resource camps' upgrades. Without upgrades, they can be easily killed by a lone player. If you kill an enemy supply caravan's dolyak, you can loot supplies from them.
SIEGE WEAPONS
Requires a Blueprint for its construction. These blueprints can be purchased at Siegemasters (there is usually one in the place where you first enter a map). Building requires supplies.
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Arrow cart: fires a volley of arrows, dealing significant damage to players but weak against structures.
Blueprint cost: 4 silver
Supply required to build: 30 |
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Ballista: fires a giant bolt, dealing heavy damage to structures and players in its path.
Blueprint cost: 6 silver
Supply required to build: 20 |
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Catapult: great for dealing with walls, gates, and clustered enemies.
Blueprint cost: 8 silver
Supply required to build: 50 |
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Flame Ram: rams gates at close range, dealing heavy damage to it.
Blueprint cost: 4 silver
Supply required to build: 40 |
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Siege golem: slow and short ranged but capable of dealing significant damage.
Blueprint cost: 1 gold
Supply required to build: 100 |
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Trebuchet: long-ranged rock thrower capable of dealing significant damage to players and structures alike.
Blueprint cost: 16 silver
Supply required to build: 100 |
DEFENSIVE STRUCTURES
Acquired from the quartermaster within the keep/tower. Do not require a blueprint to build, but requires supplies to work.
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Cannons: have a pretty good range. It rotates where you place a skill’s target. This weapon can be used against a group of enemies, and as a additional ability you can freeze the enemies or cause the opponent to bleed.. |
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Mortars: long range weapons. You can load two types of ammunition: Exploding Shells and Incendiary shells. The Exploding Shells will make a huge fire cloud but it will promptly disappear, while the Incendiary shells will make a small fire explosion but it will last a few seconds. |
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Boiling pots of oil: placed above gates and walls. Are effective against Flame Rams. There are two attacking skills: an oil skill that drops burning boiling oil which causes significant damage and a tar skill that decreases player’s movement speed |
Shortly:
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Keep the supply flowing: You need it to upgrade your camps, towers and keeps. You need it to build siege weapons. You need it to repair gates and walls. Every world that wants to succeed should make sure that they keep their supply camp & caravans safe. Make sure that you have your personal 10 supply with you.
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Stay with the group: In order for towers and keeps to be taken, you are going to need a large group of players. You just aren’t going to take a keep with 2 people in prime WvW hours, feel free to do it against the night watch. Watch your chat or search your map for the Squad Commander and join the squad.
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Defend what you control: You don’t need 100 people in the tower to defend it, usually 2-5 will hold it. Here is where you can leave the group play if you want to, and form a smaller party of defenders. Share the cost of upgrades between all the defenders. Simply put, you buy 1 upgrade, someone else buys another. When the attacking force does come stay up front and harass them with ranged attacks or defensive siege weapons.
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Trebuchet’s/Mortar’s need spotters at longer distances. You will most likely be firing into fog if you shoot it at long range, so make sure you have a spotter to tell you where the ball of destruction landed.
- Siege weapons don’t move and they can’t be taken down. Don’t waste a lot of money and supply just taking 1 little tower.
- Monsters in each map have a chance at dropping blueprints, so run around and kill them if you don’t want to buy one.
- Don’t run around with the Orb of Power unless you know where you are going.
- Don’t forget to take towers and keeps in your guilds name. Your guild will get influence from players defending it.
- Expect to run around a long time until someone upgrades a keep with a waypoint.