Looking for some info on the game

Hey everyone, I am looking for some info on guild wars mainly regarding pve and pvp. I bought the 3 pack of prophecies nightfall and factions a while back. But I really have not gotten into the game really. I've just played around and got to level 16ish then set it aside for other things. On to my main questions.

I see I can make a roleplaying character and a pvp only character. I've read some gw wiki and it states pvp only cannot access pve areas, but can a roleplaying character access all aspects of pvp?

Next, what is the point of pve aside from experiencing content? Is pve content there so I can acquire new skills and runes basically? Or are there distinct advantages of making a roleplay character that would be stronger than a pvp only character?

Lastly as a brand new player basically, should I just go through all the campaigns first to get a good amount of skills? Or am I able to jump right into pvp? Looking for suggestions on how to progress.

Thanks for any help.

Yes. I beleive you may have to hit level 20 first, but I am not certain. I am certain you have to reach your campaign's port city first (Very fast (Kamadan) in Nightfall, Fast (Keineng Center) in Factions, painfully slow (Lion's Arch) in Prophesies).

I also beleive that PvP characters cannot immediately access all PvP aspects on a new account. IIRC, you have to win 5 Random Arena matches to unlock Hero Battles and Team Arenas for your account, 5 TA matches to get access to Heroes' Ascent. (I may be wrong, I gave up on PvP a long time ago.)


PvP characters can regenerate their equipment from a select subset of skins at will using any runes/insignias/inscriptions you've unlocked. PvE characters can play the PvE side of the game for unlocks as you mentioned, non-PvP skins, etc... These don't make a stronger PvP character, no.

You can jump right into PvP with the few skills you have and unlock more with Balthazar faction, though this will take awhile and be particularly annoying since the skills unlocked by default aren't particularly..well.. good. It all depends on how you want to play the game. A third option is to buy the PvP skill unlock packs (since you do sound like you have little to no interest in the PvE side anyway).

If you're not particularly interested in playing through the pve content, you can play the pvp content and unlock skills through acquiring balthazar faction as noted.

However, if you think that's too tedious and you want to reduce the pve side to 'nothing more than' a way to gather skills, you can just buy the skill/item unlock packs from the ingame store and then start using these skills on your pvp characters.

If you want to acquire skills, items or weapons, anything you acquire through pve can be used by your pvp characters.

If you're realtively new, you'll need to unlock a number of skills for PvP. If you don't want to play PvE, then play PvP,and trade in the Balthazar faction for skills.

However, your PvP-only characters will have very few unlocked skills, I think, and you may find it hard to join groups or to succeed at first, by JUST playing pvp.

Factions' Kaineng Center, I think, has the best Skill trainer of any of the three Port cities. if you play some PvE and earn money, you can unlock skills there. You also unlock skills in Factions by completing the monastery training quests given to you by Instructor Ng. In NF, I think you talk to the "expert whatever" NPCs in Churrir Fields to learn skills.

I think SOME of the original intent of PvE was for you to acquire skills and runes to unlock, to "train" you for PvP. Not sure if it works.

Same goes for unlocking runes as it does for skills... So I think you may need to spend some time earning lots of Balthazar faction, and unlocking runes and skills that way, or playing PvE, and unlocking and buying skills that way.

Whichever way you roll, good luck!

Edit: I don't think there's an "advantage" to playing PvE, because it doesn't really prepare you for some of the challenges of PvP (I had NO clue what to do in my early PvP experience), but I think it will be a less frustrating way to earn the skills and runes you need.