GW PvP community population/quality today?

Hello, I have bought Aion when it got released, unfortunately I didn't like it at all, so I suffered through the initial month and leveled 44 so I could sell it with some profit, because I was dumb enough to buy it on my ncsoft master account where my GW was.

Anyway, I have been playing GW with longer and shorter breaks since the release, and now I would like to play again. I don't actually want to play PvE anymore, so I was thinking of buying cheap PvP Access Kit to get into game. My question is is it worth it? Are there enough people for occasional RA, AB and if I'll get into some casual guild eventually some GvG/HA?

Thanks for answers!

the pvp community is still alive, though smaller than before. even then, it should be pretty easy to get into casual pvp guilds.

Thanks, but what about waiting times for (TA/RA) or AB? I live in Europe, so evenings-midnight.

Team Arena has been removed from the game.

The wait times for RA are very short, as teams are selected from all districts now.

European times for GvG are the busiest I think ...?

only AB seems to have it's ups and downs, but just wait till it's zaishen combat if you don't like waiting a while ;p

Wow. How do people match up together for some instant action, only AB? Or can you invite someone in RA so you play together?

you can try sync joining, but that's a bit of a gray area in terms of bannable offence. however, it's not like anet can ever conclusively prove that you are sync joining.

There's also Codex Arena, it's a seal-deck format. It replaced TA.

Unfortunately, HA, and to a lesser extent Codex, are still populated by Rankist types who won't let you in their party unless you have such-n-such Rank.

There are always people trying to RA/AB. Wait times in AB can vary depending on the time of day, but RA is and always was instant.
JQ is now very popular.
TA and HB have been removed from the game.
HA community has died down some but you should still be able to find a group and work your way up the rank.
Mid-low end GvG is all but dead. Unless you already know some people in some of the few good guilds left who will take you, you efforts will probably be better focused elsewhere.
If it means anything to you, PvE population and support is still very strong.

HA community is meh, only the same people really play it you hardly see any new people try it. You can always see the most groups form during euro hours and it starts getting lower into american times ~then dead hour

Thank you very much for your answers so far! So basically it's easy to join some instant fun-action in primetimes. I am somehow disappointed by removal of TA/HB though. Did Anet remove it because of long waiting times?

Codex Arena sound interesting, however are skills generated randomly for each day, or are some sets of skills that change every day?

TA was removed because of a lack of playerbase and because it had gotten so dull over several years because of skill balancing that it just wasn't fun for more than a handful of people to play.

HB was removed due to mass amount of abuse.
The monthly tournaments had people resign out.
Normal matches people would use emotes or teamcolor to determine who would leave for title points.
And the final nail in the coffin was the addition of zaishen quests that reward faction, gold and zaishen coins for wins gotten through resigning or leaving mass inflating and in general just being retarded.

If you're american, anything else than casual low level pvp will be difficult to get into unless you can make some odd playing times.

HB was getting abused and TA was just dead; barely anyone ever played them seriously so Anet removed them to make room for a better PvP format.

I think there are a few skills that are always available (Charm Animal, for example, and I think a self heal for each profession), otherwise the rest of the skill set is random. For example, Elementalists can get Fire Attunement with only one other fire spell, but get six air spells and no attunement.

By your questioning to waiting times, it seems like you're very concerned that the PvP is dead.

Well, it isn't. RA is still going strong, especially since with TA gone, it's the only place where you can get glad points. I have never, not even once, had the countdown timer restart in about a years time.

FA has somewhat longer wait times than RA, but the community stays healthy. It's mostly PvErs/casual PvPers who do this arena, since, well, it's 60% PvE.

JQ has gotten quite popular and is now the main place to grind faction for PvPers. Wait times here are shorter than FA and the fights usually shorter, mostly due to kurzicks dominating the arena.

Codex arena is the new sealed deck arena that has been added instead of TA and HB. Skillpools change daily, but since it's random, dervishes and paragons generally gets the better decks as they have fewer skills and are balanced around that.

HA still provides more drama than quality PvP matches, but whatever, the QQ forums are good reading stuff when you're at work. The playerbase has dwindled quite a bit, so now it's mostly a core of players that logs on each day. Newer players can still farm Underworld/Fetid river for fame so they can get into the "better" pugs.

GvG has it the worst at the moment. Top 100 is the same old teams with the same old players, top 400 is their alts/smurfs, top 2000 is the newer teams who tries to get into GvG, but often can't since the learning curve becomes extremely steep around rank 800-600, where the better but not as good teams are. This is the PvP area with the most need of new and fresh blood.

Theres more people in pre searing than pvping if that answers yor question.

Funny though, makes you wonder how the fine folks at anet can justify so much development, time and energy into a part of a game so few people play. Maybe we'll start seeing monthly pre searing balancing/updates?