Guild Wars 2 Newbie’s PvP Guide

Guild Wars 2 Newbie’s PvP Guide by cactuspuncher

Hello, this is a PvP guide for beginners. If you’re not sure what you should do in PvP this guide will hopefully help you. Reasons as to why you should try PvP: it uses most game mechanics (cc, condis, boons), to improve your skills as a player, it’s fun, easy ascended mats and level up tomes.

To enter PvP you can either go through the portal in Lion’s Arch or click “Go to the Heart of the Mists” in the PvP tab. For beginners I would recommend choosing a build from metabattle. There are three ways to play PvP: practice/hotjoin, unranked and ranked mode. I would recommend starting in practice and then trying unranked when you are used to your build.

Keybinds and options

Before you start playing PvP you should set up your options properly and make sure you have good keybinds. Here are some important options to set up:

• Use Free Camera (enable)
• Double Tap to Evade (disable)
• Autotargeting (disable)
• Melee Target Assist (disable)

I would recommend binding dodge to a button that you can reach quickly. Movement keys should be bound to WASD or ASDF (backpedal is optional). You can bind your skills to the keys around your movement keys and/or 1-5. Other good keys to bind include About Face and Stow Weapon.

The basics of conquest

Conquest is the main game mode of GW2. Each conquest map has 3 capture points (close, mid and far) and a secondary objective. Neutralizing an enemy point is twice as fast compared to capping a neutral point. Having multiple players on a point does not speed up capturing. Each team has 5 players and the first team to 500 points wins.

Rotations

Rotations are an important part of conquest. Rotating means moving between moving between points. Common opening splits are 1-4-0, 1-3-1, 1-0-4. Good rotations use all players on the team efficiently. If you can survive in a 2v1 your team can 4v3 on the other points. Usually the priority when rotating is: team fights > defending your teams points > decapping enemy points. When you are rotating you also need to pay attention to respawns (for example: don’t try to decap far point when an enemy is about to respawn).

Team roles

There are 5 common team roles:

• Close point defender: good 1v1 potential, semi tanky (example: necromancer, ranger)
• Far point assaulter: good 1v1 potential, decent mobility (example: engineer, warrior)
• Team fighter/bruiser: good sustain, AoE damage, tanky (example: elementalist, warrior)
• Team support/bunker: tanky, utility (example: guardian)
• Roamer: good mobility, burst damage (example: thief, mesmer)

Map specific tactics

Forest of Niflhel: Killing boss creature at the beginning of the game is not recommended because it delays your arrival to the mid fight. You can send a roamer like a thief to steal the enemy boss if they are fighting it.

Battle of Kyhlo: You can send a roamer to your treb. If the enemies try to destroy the treb the roamer can leave quickly because of their mobility. If the enemies are using their treb a power based class can destroy the treb.

Legacy of the Foefire: You can kill lord after 350 points to win. Some classes like engineer can solo the lord quickly. Your own lord can receive healing, stab , stealth etc.

Temple of the Silent Storm: Stillness buff spawns at 11:30, 8:30, 5:30 and 2:30. Tranquility spawns at 8:30 and 2:30. A Common mistake is sending too many people to the tranquility buff.

Pro tips

• Knowing downed state skills on each class and how to counter them is useful for stomping (guide by killchained).
• If you have a hard time fighting a certain class try playing that class and learning the skills.
• Poison reduces res speed by 33%.
• You can stealth downed allies to prevent stomps.
• There are ledges which ranged characters can stand on near each capture point.
• Use combo fields to your advantage.
• You can let downed enemies bleed out if their teammates aren’t nearby.
• Personal score doesn’t matter.
• Try learning which jumps you can or can’t make on each map.
• If someone flames you just block them.
• It’s usually better to let a point get decapped than die.
• Watch your allies’ health bars so you can res them quickly if they go down.
• Never vote for Skyhammer on map selection.

If you have questions or feedback please leave a comment. GLHF in PvP.