PvP - First Day

So, a long time ago I bought guild wars when I was living with my brother, and once I had moved out I stopped playing. Well, I've been playing WoW for about a month now and before paying up for a new subscription I thought I would pick up my copy of Nightfall and see just what the game was really about. I'd never really gotten far.

The main reason I play these kinds of games is for the PvP action, and really, GW pvp is giving me just the kind of entertainment that I'm looking for. But, I have a few questions...

1) Is there a way to upgrade to new armor/obtain gold/get new crap just with your PvP character? (As in, without having a PvE character at ALL)

2) If so, how?

3) Is there an advantage gained in PvP by doing PvE as well? (I'm aware that you can unlock stuff in PvE that is usable in PvP, but I basically want to know if this is a significant advantage. As in, perhaps in the long run, people with RP characters will inevitably outgear those with pure PvP characters?)

Yes.

Playing PvP will earn you Balthazar Faction, on the rate of several thousand/hour. You can spend it at Priest of Balthazar to unlock skills and gear. If you're logged in as a PvP character, press J to open equipment setup panel.

No significant advantage. The only potentially useful PvE-only item that I know of is req 8 shield, which gives a small advantage to certain specific monk builds; however, once you've unlocked everything (and need better ways to spend Balth faction), you can trade Balth faction -> Zaishen keys -> gold, then buy stuff with gold.

Otherwise, PvP-only gear is at maxed stats.

1) Yes
2) Rewards points: http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Tolkano#Rewards
3) Erm, no. You can play GW stritctly with pvp chars, pve's don't have any kind of advantage. The only think different between both worlds is the EOTN gear gear doesn't exist as pvp reward (actually it did for a week or so and was removed after that, for no apparent reason). Skills, and everything else including heroes are available. The gear that's missing is purely aesthetic so you won't be at any disadvantage.

Items unlocked in PvE (e.g. buying skills from skill trainers, identifying mods on blue/purple/gold weapons, identifying runes on dropped armours) will be available to your PvP characters, as items unlocked are account-based. You'll get plenty of blue items dropping on the starter island in NF, so it's a quick way to unlock the lower stat mods/runes, meaning you can spend your Balth faction on more effective stuff.

I wouldn't say it's a massive advantage, but more of an alternative method if Balth faction isn't coming as readily as you hoped.

Since everyone else has pretty much answered your question, i'll ask the one question that everyone wants to ask you but is clearly to afraid to =P.

If you like good PvP, why were you playing WOW?

I;d also add that if you're really into the pvp side of things, you can unlock all skills and weapons by purchasing the unlock packs in the in-game store. This allows you to save your unspent balthazar faction to unlock heroes and other items such as armour and zkeys...

Thee's pretty much always a way to acquire the kit you like through pvp but your pvp character won't be able to travel through the pve content... but then again, i guess you're here for the pvp stuff...

Reward Points are definitely the way to go if you want to pimp out your pvp character. It gives you access to skins that normally would only be available in pve.

From your post, it seems like you only have Nightfall. If this is true, you'll be at a severe disadvantage in PvP. To be able to play in PvP effectively, you need all three campaigns and the expansion pack.

When you play high-end GvG you might also want a double vamp weapon to help prevent timekills and such (obviously not needed yet for this guy, but for your own info).

That aside, this post I'm referring to is 100% correct and enjoy your GW.

First, thanks to you all for the answers, it's much appreciated and helped quite a bit with making my decision.

A friend asked me to get the game and play with them. I wasn't playing WoW only for the PvP, but during this time that's what I've shifted my focus to since I'm getting tired of these quests. Not to mention that I didn't know much about the differences between GW and WoW until yesterday when I decided to pick it up and actually play it this time.

Ah, I had wondered about that, since it seems like I read a lot about different availabilities from each campaign. Thanks for the warning. I'll probably end up buying the skill packs for them.

And again, thanks to all for the answers.

As a heads up, you can't buy the skill packs for a game without owning the game.

one of the only advantages of having a pve chara for use in pvp is cosmetics
pve-only armour&weapons

that line becomes thiner and thiner as the devs add the ability to get these skins thru pvp reward points

but there r still some skins unique to pve-only
(i cant remember which ones exactly)

pvp'rs recently got the eotn armours
but i heard some were bugged and removed?


oh, side note...does anet still sell the pvp-access version of gw?