I keep hearing about PvP skills...so..what skill?

People keep saying this is skill based PvP.


How so?

tell me what I can do as a player that will give me an edge?

Never having played the game, is it possible to dodge an incoming ranged attack through reflexes?

Are we talking twitch based skill or what?

Clue me in.

Well first of all, skill isn't restricted to hand/eye coordination where you're just "dodging" ranged attacks. I really don't know why people think that's all there is to skill.

The skill in GW isn't twitch based skill used in FPS shooters but as in strategic and preparation and timing. Knowing what skills to bring, how to build your character, when to use those skills, etc etc. You'll just have to play the game to find out firsthand.

I would not call a character build skill either. 90% of the "skilled" players just copy a template. Knowing what button to press when you see a certain situation on screen isn't skill either.

You mentioned timing. Please tell me more of what has to be timed. That is starting to sound like skill.

Yes you can move out of the way of arrows and almost all AoE spells(maybe all?) Also there is team work, communication skills, creating an unexpected build that people underestimate is a skill(this happened with me till last BWE seemed people ignore trappers up till then), its not purely twitch based, but there is some that twitch skills could be useful with. Calling is another skill, knowing who to call and when, knowing when to change the target and when to increase the pressure, defensive and offensive manuevers, not all battles take the same plan for your team build and you usually have to adjust on the fly. Its all a type of skill.. it really is unlike anything ive ever played before, it combines so much into one massively fun frag fest.

oh yeah
PS. PvE RULES!

Skill AKA TACTICS.

Basically, the general idea here is that uber gear is not the deciding factor in PvP combat (*cough* DAoC *cough*)

Nor do levels, your level doesn’t necessarily make you UBER either. It is possible for a lower level toon to take down a higher level toon.

- Iczer

Mesmers for example have spells that are fast casting times and shut down other player's spells - if you see a player start a casting gesture you can quickly target them, check what spell they are casting and decide whether to use your counterspell - that requires speed and decision making - is that going to be the biggest threat in the next 20 seconds while your interrupt recharges? Is it worth the cost to you to counter it? Think fast, you have about .75 seconds to get the whole thing done vs a 1 second spell, and you need to do this a lot. Healing is a skill, you are constantly trying to minimise the impact of the opponent team's attacks on your side - when to use what skill is important - deciding on what heal goes where is skill based and requires anticipating what damage will be coming in. There is skill in build design, but it is easy to copy - what's hard is to play it well.

Other builds though are pretty plain - someone calls a target and you all dump damage at it. Might take a bit of skill, but essentially just pouring out damage is lacking in finesse.

Just to add an extra point, when talking about timing in GW, this is also accurate for skills and attacks, not only in the sense when do I attack but also with what skill.

For example, this is just one, but this is accurate for many skills in the game. Of course like it was mentioned choosing which 8 skills to bring is one thing and the timing is not only important in the sense of when to attack and when to defend, but also when to use which skill.

So in battle using for example using *Backfire* on a warrior just after he as burned is little energy reserve, will most likely turn into a miss, as he probably won’t be casting anything for a while and Backfire will have time to ware off. The same type of timing can be associated with skills that have extra effects or damage when foes are knocked down like aftershock.

In a completely different aspect timing is also important between team members, two players casting the same degeneration skill on the same target at the same time will not stack as the second skill will only reset the first, in this case wasting one obviously.

These are just a couple of situation that came to mind regarding strategy and the importance of timing in GW, I’m sure many more cases and situations can be applied. I hope this helped and wish you the best in GW.

Unik

oic, so we non-mesmer playing people have just "a bit of skill" while you and your godly skills comand the mesmer.

Please, there a different types of skill need for every class. Granted the mesmer is a tough class to play, but to say that the other classes require little to no skill is not even close to the truth.

I guess you and I took different meanings from his post. I thought he was refering to the mesmer as an example of an alternative to just bashing someone with a sword. Most mesmers simply are not there to do damage. Many builds from many roles contain situational abilities that are not solely based around damage.

He mentions the mesmer and the healer, which you seem to have not noticed, as two examples of difficult classes which require skills to play.

Skill in Guild Wars is...


20% Your Build
20% The way your build works with your team's build
40% How well your team works together
10% How you work alone
5% Luck
5% FPS twich skills


Mostly tactical, a tiny bit of twich, and a tiny bit of luck.

I was speaking of classes I know. I am not certain about how much skill goes into classes I don't play - I do know that in any game there will be straightforward builds, and I imagine that some builds I have seen described are essentially dumping damage. You'll notice that I didn't say other classes - I said other builds - there are ridiculously simple Mesmer builds based on DoTs and such, and I am sure timing a disrupting chop is hard too. I never said other classes are easier or harder, I said that some builds are just damage dumpers.

A few thing that you can use during combat that have nothing to do with your character level/attribute/skills:

-Dodging Ranged Projectiles with movements
-Buy Time To Heal And Avoid Getting Hit by Ranged Projectiles by hiding behinde walls
-Force The Chaser To Get Stuck by running around a cluster of characters doing battle that formed a blockade.
-Help Team Mate To Escape From The Chaser by jumping into the middle of the way between the chaser and your team mate.
-Intercepting The Enemy's Skill Usage by using the apropriate skill in the middle of their animation phase.
-Use Height Advantages
-Ignore The Opponent's Shield Effect by attacking them from behinde.
-Take Advantage Of Opponent's Lower Level Armor On Specific Part of the Body by using different skills that attack different places (hamstring -> Leg, Fire Storm-> Head etc)
-Gain Advantage During Battle by planning ahead of time before battle.
-Force Opponents To Move Out Of Specific Area Beneficial To Them (ex: Wards) by throwing an AoE in the middle of the ward.
-Improve Combat Ability by merely doing a good job in putting coresponding skills into the 8 skills slots.

Ahhh... That's all for now

90% copy a template? Where the heck did you pull that number? Anyway, people who blindly copy a template won't completely understand how that build works. You're still thinking of skill as something "physical" which is crazy considering it's a computer game.

Since you singled out the Mesmer class i just asumed that you meant the healing class.

To Pocune: So skill to you is a build that does not focuse on dmg? A dmg dealing build can be a hard class to play, just as the mesmer can be a hard class.

Guild Wars is heavily build-based atm. If you're looking for something where your individual player skills shine through (esp. twitch based ones, like dodging, reactions, aim) you won't find it here. But if you are good at these things you will probably be a "good player" in GW.

That said, to be a successful team in GW you need players that have experience together and good strategies along with a certain level of individual competency... along with a powerful build. The days when you could just pick any class skills and with a good team make them work are long gone.

By the way, check your PM Gorillastein.

I have also been wondering about the skill for this game, I have lots of experience with other MMO's but not much with guildwars..

This list is VERY good, and answers most of my questions about what the game will be like!! My most favorite is the first one..

-Dodging Ranged Projectiles with movements

In CoH, if you get targetted it doesnt matter: how far away you get, what was between you and the target, or, what type of projectile weapon it was! you always got hit as if you were point at blank.

so im looking forward to not having that annoyance and moving about a bit

On the general discussion about skill and its definition,

No matter how you define it, I think we could all agree that skill of any kind takes time to attain, its a process of learning and applying knowledge which we all do and perceive in very different ways.

Snowman

I'd have to agree with Weezer_Blue's assessment. About 90% of combat in PvP in this game is how well you and your teammates work together. Not necessarily the idea of "skill" the team at ArenaNet and NCSoft might have wanted to convey. It's more about how well you know your teammates and how well you can coordinate with them. This is why the idea of Guilds is very important in the game. Unfortunately, in my time playing the betas, I have seen far too many teams or even whole guilds fall victim to poor coordination. It makes me worry a bit to see such a problem, however the game apart from that still seems quite good.

I once heard someone say Guild Wars is 90% planning and 10% execution. I have to say that I agree. I've spend as much as 5 hours coming up with a build for a match that might only last 20 minutes.

Most of these post are accurate. I believe Cains post for the most part sums it up, but I would go one step further to state...

Skill in GW can be equated your knowledge of what your skills as well as your teammates and opponetns skills do and how to apply your skills given the current situation at hand.

I think reflexes and dodging ranged attacks has very little to do with actual skill.

Don't forget that being in beta phase is going to skew your point of view quite a bit... So far you've been able to plan 24/7, while only being able to play one weekend each month. Nothing can really substitute the experience you gain from playing the game, which is exactly why having Alpha Testers around is so darned useful -- they can provide surrogate information for you (but even that only goes so far). Only so much can be gained by reading a skill's description, you don't know how it will work until you've used it yourself, up to that point you only assume.

Once the game comes out I know for a fact I'll be spending much less time leafing through forums, looking at build ideas and sketching out my own and spending much more time down in the nitty gritty finding it all out for myself. Nothing can replace that kind of experience.

I highly disagree you can spend all the time in the world on a build but execution is crucial. Body blocking is hard to do but can really help in GvG. knowing when to use a skill is also crucial. There are so many things that look good on paper but do poorly in the real...fake? world

I would have to say this is how I view PvPing and GvGing:

Planning - 18.8%%
Reaction timing - 23.8%%
Skill Timing - 22.5%
Placement/Targetting/Teamwork/Formations - 27.7%

What is needed in these areas:

Planning - It is possible to succeed without a plan, but when it comes to GvGing, the highest you will get w/o a plan is probably 108 or something. Planning a team build is very important, but what seems good on paper may not be as good in the midst of battle. Engineers definately have an edge in this sort of category, because they are very good at realizing this.

Reaction Timing - Of course as many have you put, you don't want to be standing around AoE, cause it stings. Plus, following your survival instincts plays a good role whatever you are doing. If your low in health, for god sakes run away, that way the enemy has only two choices, to attempt to catch up to finish you off, or go after someone else.

Skill Timing - Just read the skill descriptions, you'll know what im talking about. Mostly applies to situational skills such as interruption spells and attacks and some elementalist spells and a whole lot of warrior attacks. But i am only skimming the surface... skill timing depends on your build.

Placement/Targeting/Teamwork/Formations - It is very important to have a big sense of awareness where you are and where your enemy is. If you are a ranger or an elementalist, it is best to be higher than your opponent so your attacks do more damage. If you are a supporting monk, it is best to be out of the enemy's view so they have less of a chance to spot you and kill you first. If you area smiting monk, go wherever you please since you are tough bastards . Warriors can go wherever they want as long as they dont go too far away from the team. Targetting is very important, because you dont want to be trying to take down a warrior for five hours because there is three monks behind him making sure he doesnt die. Teamwork is pretty obvious, stay together but not too together where you will be owned by AoE. Formations should go along with how your team builds work... if you have a normal build of damagers and healers, then healer in back, and damagers in front and such.

When you play with the top teams in the game twice a week you need to know what you're going to do well in advance. Not planning your strategy is planning to fail. Bring all the execution you want into a battle against Lord of the Dead, Negative Zero or Fianna, but if you don't plan your strategy well ahead of time you're not only going to lose, but they will wipe the floor with you. You have to have plan B for when plan A fails, and then you need plan C and D and E and so on. You have to expect the unexpected, espeically playing talented guilds like those mentioned. If you know you're build's strengths and more importantly it's weakness and how to deal with it, then it's just a matter of practising and making it happen.

EDIT: I'm not saying execution isn't important because it certainly is, but you need to know what it is you want to execute and that's where the planning comes in.

Just for FUN though, it's really cool when you circle strafe a volley of projectiles coming at you.

I am not saying execution is everything either but Definately more imporant than 20%

Maybe if you had higher execution you would change out some of those top guilds

Maybe you shouldn't question how we handle our PvP because by the looks of things we're doing quite well.

The only guilds we lost to the final weekend were Fianna, IVEX (we beat them once though) and KOR. All our losses had nothing to do with our execution and everything to do with the fact that their build was a great counter to our build. KOR showed us how weak we were against melee so we made some changes. IVEX showed us how the build was weak against DoT so we made some changes. Fianna showed us how crazy energy denial hurt us so we made some slight changes. Losing to them allowed us to learn the weak points in the build so we'll be better prepared next time we face them. Sometimes you have to lose a battle or two before you win the war.

Guild Wars is about counters. The first time we fought IVEX we worked them over bad. The next we fought they worked us over because their new build was a better counter to ours. Neither team is necessarily better than the other, but rather had the better of the two builds. We've had nights in the alpha where we beat The Fianna one match, only to lose to a weaker guild the next match because their build was a great counter to ours.

Go ahead and use your leet twitched quake-based skills to dodge my attacks, and then watch me beat you with my mesmer. Your probably losing because you have an fps mindset in a game that plays more like magic the gathering.

Dodging incoming projectile attacks has NOTHING to do with the level of skill involved in GW. Twitch relflex is an fps skill. GW is more about strategy, countering and being able to out-think your opponent. Being in situations where you don't know what to do and using the proper skills and tactics to beat an opposing team.

Making builds and using them effectively IS half the skill in GW. Despite what you think.

Also, planning is as Cain said, a very large portion of the pvp skill level. Knowing skills, knowing what counters them, knowing your builds strengths and weaknesses, having plans and backup plans are all keys to winning in guild wars.

And to the person above, Cain DID mention KOR. We had 2 losses to them. We didn't have enough time or items to come up with proper counter builds to what KOR and IVEX were running. The fights against the fianna went back and forth so we knew we needed to change less for them. After fighting KOR we added in a ward, but that wasn't quite enough. After fighting IVEX we added in more removal, but it was still un-organized and rushed, so we took more losses from them.

I would have to say execution makes up about half of my game.

Sometimes my guild will lose and when we try and pinpoint the problem a lot of the time we think the loss was due to poor execution.

While planning and creating a truly competitive and diverse PvP build is no easy task and is in itself an incredibly complex and skillful endeavour, getting 8 people to play it and co-ordinate every aspect is to me even more difficult. Once you have a good build, execution becomes far more important because it's not an area where you can make simple adjustments in.

In my experience this isn't always the case. In most cases we've simply got beat because we were beat by something un-accounted for in the build.

IE a well rounded build set for everything goes up against a build with 1 trick. If you were lucky enough to be able to properly counter that 1 trick in the first place then it shouldn't be so hard. But if you missed it then in most cases it doesn't matter how well you execute the plan. You have to go back to the drawing board and decide wether to re-do the build if you expect to win against that kind of thing.

After playing for so long, things like execution drop off for me and my guild mates, we know how to work, we know what to do. It simply becomes a problem of how you want to lay out the skills so that they complement themselves the best without sacrificing the damage. And then building up an attack strategy and counter-strategies. Then you go in and simply play how you would.. Execution becomes intuition for a more experienced gamer imo.

It is about equal I say. You can have the best execution in the world but if you lack a skill that would be needed (a ward if they are all phys damage for instance) then you lacked planning. You could also have the best planning in the world(theory crafters) but you have to leave room for human timing and other variables (nothing is picture perfect like it is on paper).

Of course sometimes it is best to have 1-2 guys with heavy planning and everyone else with good execution. Too many cooks spoil the broth kinda thing.....or you can't win a war with only generals

We rarely make trick builds and when we do have a focus in the build we cover a lot of bases as well just to make sure we aren't out tricked ourselves.

To me I don't think its possible to know exactly what to do all the time, execution is a never-ending improvement area, as it includes not only how well you play your character but how well your tactics respond to what the enemy is doing.