Guild Wars II GAME RELEASE happened a while ago

[GreyICE]

Well if there's one convention MMOs need to groom out of us, its definitely raids

I always liked raiding.

[xRECKONERx]

I'm level 30 as of last night and my first group FAILED HARD at AC

[hitogoroshi]

anyone have any experience to share on the pvp side of things?

[Bitmap]

I'm level 30 as of last night and my first group FAILED HARD at AC

You would think that after people learned how to AC that CM would be nbd.... apparently not.

[Flameaxe]

Games change.

PUGs don't.

[Staeg]

anyone have any experience to share on the pvp side of things?

1) Thieves are broken
2) The combat is generally balanced, but there are builds that are way better than others (but it's available to everyone so yeah)
3) Thieves are broken
4) Pubs can't help but fight that lone guardian outside any capturable points when they're down in score
5) Thieves are broken
I mean, there's a few observations, but what exactly are you looking for?

[hitogoroshi]

I guess just a general understanding? What are the skills you need to use to succeed? How does matchmaking work?

I've heard a lot of people talk about this but almost none on the PvP. I'm just curious whether that's a factor of the game being so new or if the PvP isn't as engaging as the PvE.

[Staeg]

PvP is a completely different beast from PvE from what I've seen so far - in PvE, you're generally fighting 1 big bad guy, so you have to look for his skillshots that you dodge out of, probably ward off some adds and then maybe something specific to the bad guy. In PvP, you have to keep an eye out for what weapons the enemies are using - you should memorize the general skillsets of all professions (most importantly, what kinds of CC do they have, how dangerous they are at which range with each set of weapons and their downed state skills); you have to look if you're getting backup soon or if the enemy's getting support, you have to see if fighting in the spot that you're currently in is beneficial to your winchance (aka, if you're winning 400-350 and you have 2 points to their 1, it's probably a good idea to spend people's time miles away from points), you need to know the specific strategies for each of the 4 maps (not that this is hard at all, but still).
All of the stuff for PvP is obviously only for tournament play - I've never actually seen a pub player have more than 2 of the mentioned skills (me included, probably .-.)

[Brandi]

I'm at 64, pushing for 80 today.

Nice!
I stopped at 40 and am going to play around on the other races for a bit.

[ToastyToast]

Feels like I'm always 1 level behind the recommended level for places. I only have like one place left in sylvari land so all I've been doing is finding vistas

[Fate]

Me and Staeg have raped it up in sPvP and got 2nd in a Free Tournament with some pubs, but everytime we've been on opposite teams (no way to queue on the same team except to switch sides or queue as 5 for tourny mode) I've raped his face off so we've established Rangers > Warriors

[Brandi]

what kind of ranger? (weapon) ?

[Nocmen]

Got to 77, 70-77 was all crafting. Though this means now I'll be gimped for the next few zones.

Mount Maelstrom is by far my favorite zone so far.

Off to Orr tomorrow, will hit 80 then.

[Katsuki]

Seems fun.

[Fate]

what kind of ranger? (weapon) ?

Two builds have worked really well for me.

Glass cannon full Power/Crit with 30 Marksmanship, 20 Skirmishing, and the last 20 personal preference, with Long Bow/Short Bow sets is pretty damn effective. There's something that counters it hard but I'll keep that under wraps >.>, but I've been able to kite Warriors/Guardians (and Thieves on a good day 1v1) for days, and EXPLODE squishy casters who can't out dps me.

I use that when roaming with a group/Staeg and can just unload and no one wants to try to bother to reach me and goes for other targets.

For a more "solo defender ninja" build the cookie cutter condition build with Axe/TORCH (not Warhorn that's for scrubs) and Shortbow with plenty of Toughness/Condition and 3 trap utilities. I've 1v2ed with this build and won (well it was more like a conga line of failure with the 2nd one showing up just as the first was going to die, and it was a Warrior/Guardian so trolol)

This build gets raped in 3v3s or 4v4s, because you just die when you get into (near) melee range to set down traps even with the extra toughness in the build, so you either lose out on trap dps by staying at range (which is probably how I should play it, but I like to set traps on points), or lose out on dps by dying to put down 3 traps.

[Brandi]

man guardians sound pretty useless i dunno what to do with mine. She's fun but I don't think I could PVP very well. v_v

[Fate]

Play her like Sona >_>

People are getting close to your carries, you have that AoE bubble thing. AoE light fields (=free condition removal) stuff like that.

Or just build pure trololtank and sit at a point like Stag said and force people to chase you around.

[Bitmap]

man guardians sound pretty useless i dunno what to do with mine. She's fun but I don't think I could PVP very well. v_v

Guardians are so much fun in PVP. What skills and weapon loadout do you have? I can tank like 5 people.

[Bitmap]

I use a sword and a shield and a greatsword. Both have a skill to leap or blink to an enemy so I can stun and slow them.

[Staeg]

So, my experience in PvP as a warrior:

I first played a mace+mace/hammer combo, but I sucked at the game at that point and I decided that it wasn't fun (heh, I was wrong but more on that later).

I then switched to axe+axe/rifle glass cannon power-based combo. Used bull rush, that aoe fear thingy and the 5 second damage immunity. If I got a bull rush+double fury+spin2win combo off on an elementalist or necro, he was dead. The problem is, those two classes aren't actually that good in pvp and things like ranger, thief and mesmer could use lololo blink/trap/invis, go about 300 feet away from me and /laugh while I die a sad death (no, switching to rifle didn't help much because their ranged damage would be better than mine). I also encountered a problem where, when I faced another warrior I could get them into downed state but they'd just go lol I'm a warrior and VENGEANCE and they'd get backup and I'd be sad.
So, I switched to a more condition-damagey build with sword+axe/rifle, bull rush, aoe fear and the stability signet. This fared much better; very few things could go 1v1 with me... and by very few things, I mean some specific rangers and literally every competent thief ever. Those fucks would throw ten billion cc at me and when I activate stability they go lol I'm a thief and just disappear. If I was somehow winning the fight they would again go lol I'm a thief and just invis away.

One day, I fought another thief and got reasonably mad at him, so I decided to make my enemies cry: the dreaded stunlock brickwall warrior build. Axe+shield/hammer. Full vitality+toughness build, focused on extra stun durations and less cooldowns. Bull rush, stomp, AoE fear, Juggernaut. If I want a point, I'm getting that point and nobody's going to be capable of doing jack shit to stop me (CC me? I guess that'll work for .5 seconds. Kill me? hah). There's a slight problem where I don't actually do damage but points win games, not kills (although they certainly help).

[Nuwen]

pistol mesmer pew pew pew crit bleeds pew pew fury phantasms

[Flameaxe]

I started running dag+dag/dag+dag toughness/cond dmg thief in pvp.

Hilarity ensued.

[Sudo_Nym]

I'm aiming for a dag-dag/pistol-pistol conditions/stealth thief for PVP. We'll see if that works.

[hitogoroshi]

hito.2170.

downloading now so I might not be friendable yet.

[Fate]

Gates of Madness if you can member