Need a PvP Guide for Dummies...

Me and a couple of friends decided to try Team Arena a couple of days ago ... and obviously we were squashed like bugs ... and we all got so fire up about PvP ... But our guild is so heavily orientated in PvE even our boss has barely enough exp or time to explain about it in details for us ... I couldnt find any faqs or post that initiate you into PvP either ... or maybe i'm not looking at the right place ...

What i need is someone or some guide to help me with the first step ... meaning where to go, what should i have ... stuffs essential for PvP ... neither of my cha racters are ascended (E/Mo19 & Me/Mo18) but i'm already at dessert and Forge so things should be done pretty easily with the guild i have ...

Should i create a PVP char for competitive arena or can i play with current char in CA? or should i try those random arena in Yak or Lion's Arch? Basically where should i start?

Huge thx for those who answered...
Once more questions: Are the guys always that uncivilized in Team Arena? or it's just my luck?

yes make a pvp char. Do some random arenas to build up faction to unlock skills and perfect items. People get pretty bitter when they see anything less than lvl20 in the arenas. You can make a monk and even a halfway decent one can rack up some faction fast in random.

team arenas and comp arenas are basically where newbs play, actually. any decent team can go into team arenas and go on a winning streak of 100+ until someone has to leave or you get bored. for more competition in pvp go to tombs (tomb of the primieval kings, an arena in dragons lair)

When I started PvPing I did the random arenas (Off Lion's Arch)...that's really the best way to learn for a couple reasons:
1). You have to adapt your playstyle according to who you have in your team vs. what you're facing, and you learn a lot quicker through that experience. For example, you learn how to keep your health up when there isn't a monk, or how to deal with interrupt rangers or shutdown various casters, etc. That's something you may not learn if you have a group that's balanced since others will be doing that job.

2). They're random. If your team sucks & loses, you get a different one. If YOU suck, you don't have to feel bad, since there's a lot of sucky people in random arenas and you only play with them til your team loses, and can learn from your mistakes, switch up your skills, and go in with another team.

3). It's quick, you hit the "Enter Mission" button and you're playing within 30 seconds. No putting together teams or talking through strategy, just BAM go kill people. This way you can get more experience faster, and if you get some good teams, get a good amount of faction. I don't PvP much at all (maybe...2 days total when you add my hours together), yet I've had over 10,000 faction.

I can vouch for that. I had a lvl 18 Ele/Me, with full points in fire & energy storage, rest in Domination, drok's armor (was a second char so I ran her to save on material costs...and NO I only pvp'd in LA, I'm not one of those jerks who did the ascalon arenas with droks ), and an awesome 20/20 recharge/fast cast, and 2 hale mods, and even though I was the LAST one down, and even killed 2 warriors from the other team by myself when they decided to take me on, I still got crap from people for having the 'stupidity' to enter arenas at low levels. They got killed by the other teams ele when they were stupid enough to continue to attack her through firestorm, meteor shower, and inferno.

What's funny is that people tend to ignore anyone below lvl 20 there, and those people are usually the ones that kick people's butts because of that. I went in there a couple more times just to go "nah, nah, I'm still standing" at the jerks who would say "OMG leave you n00b" when they saw a *gasp* lvl 18/19 in their group.

ugh well. anyone halfway decent will hit the person that isnt lvl 20 because they take alot more damage and a monk if they have one just wastes energy trying to heal them.

I will warn you that builds that work in team arena dont necessarily scale up to tombs/gvg and vice versa. It is however a good way to understand pvp and all that it entails like the art of targetcalling/attack coordination, effiecent healing, and designing/countering builds.

heres some main points:
#1 Bring Resurrection Signet
#2 copy builds that beat you so you learn common setups once your familiar with them you can counter or use them and improve on them to increase your win/loss.
#3 ventrillo/teamspeak for target calling and efficent hex/condition removal
#4 let your monks heal and your damage dealers do damage builds that everyone is solo and keeps themselves alive are rubish this is a team game.

target calling is a complicated haphazard mess so at first to make it simple go for the monks disable and kill them and then go for their disablers/damage dealers. this is not always the best way to go about it because.. well.. their is alot more to coordinating your attacks like making them coincide or switching targets at the right time. not to mention monk is not necessarily the best target since it really depends on the enemies build and your build.

Im a target caller quite often im sure their are fine points to healing or other aspects of the game i dont apreciate yet but i hope this helps and #2 is crucial if you want to improve .

i should have put turn off local chat as #1 heh. The random team chat is decent most of the time though especialy if you get a good group going.

edit: props to audioaxes for giving good advice also

Dude, I've seen level 18-20s own in LA because they're skilled enough to know what they're doing. Yes, I've seen horrible players that must have accidently stumbled in, but seriously, 2 levels isn't THAT much of a difference when you're in LA pvp. I thought I said that they WERE going for me, but they killed themselves from my hexes & attacks and couldn't bring me down in time. There are so many sucky players out there that if you're good, why not compete at that level? It's not like there's anywhere else to compete above lvl 15, and I was bored and wanted to PvP a couple rounds. But OMGZ STAY OUT OF THE ARENA IF YOU'RE ANYTHING BELOW 20!!!

And my whole post I was speaking in terms of Lion's Arch...and besides it's good to have at least 1 method of keeping yourself alive whether its a stance or a self heal...monks do get screwed/die/run out of energy/just plain suck/have hexes on them/etc. and that extra couple seconds of you being alive might be what they needed to throw a heal at you.

Ok, well, first off, if you're starting PvP, you should do random arenas. I know it's better if you can play with a couple of friends in the team arenas, but frankly, many of the teams there are very experienced, and will probably cream you before you have the chance to learn anything. So, head over to Lion's Arch (or even earlier, if you want, although some of those arenas have twink problems that are more frustrating), and start up.

Now, here's a brief crash course in arena PvP. It's not meant to be that comprehensive, and while some of the general concepts do apply to team arena or GvG type, many do not particularly, so you will have to adapt as you see fit with the new types.

First off, preparation. I'm going to assume you're at Lion's arch, at your present level of 18-19. Since you have access to the ascension missions, it is probably worth your while to try them for some elite skills. For instance your E/Mo will greatly benefit if you can pick up ether renewal skill that I believe you can capture at Thirsty river. For arena fighting, if you don't have Draknor's armor, you're at a disadvantage. A fairly significant one. It is disadvantageous to be under level 20 in this arena, so you might want to see if there are a few quests you could complete to try to level up, but even at level 19, or 18 if you're careful, you're still pretty competitive. Just remember, you take more damage and deal out less to a higher level player.

Next, skills. Because you're in a random arena, you may find yourself in a party that is in some way deficient in certain areas. Most significantly, you might not have a healer. Since you can't really assume you will, you should grab some form of self healing. You should also grab a resurrect of some kind. Be mindful of the casting time though: while restore life may look really tempting, the fact that is a touch spell AND has an 8s casting time, makes it pretty hard to use effectively. If you can, particularly if you're a caster, you should try to grab one skill that does energy management (ie, some way to get back lost energy). There's nothing worse than having your monk run out of heals and have to wait for his 3 pips of energy regen to fill up so he can get a single cast of orison of healing.

Next, look for a niche. Try to figure out what it is that you will be contributing to your team. These fall into a few different categories: spike, disruption, healing, protection, damage over time (DoT), area of effect (AoE), etc. What do these terms mean? Well, spike damage is like getting hit by a falling piano. You get hurt really bad really fast. Disruption means using hexes, certain types of attacks, etc, to try to keep your opponents from attacking properly or using skills. Healing and protection are exactly what you would expect them to do. DoT refers to either healer drainer type characters, or your basic tank/ranger type who just keeps dishing it out. AoE uses skills that try to damage multiple targets at once. But what should your specific class do? Well...

Warrior: You have two basic jobs. One is to absorb lots of damage from the enemy. The other is to kill enemy monks (and mesmers, to a less extent). Since you do a lot of damage, the monks will probably try to run away from you, so you want to bring skills that improve speed, or better yet, slow the enemy down. If you use a hammer, take knockdown skills. For sword or axe, take high damage skills, and don't forget things like cripple or disrupting chop. Any status inflicting skills are always a bonus. I wouldn't take too much healing, even as a W/Mo. A healing signet or something similar is probably good enough. If you are a W/Mo and bring healing spells or especially enchantments like mending, you should put them on your monk.

Ranger: Rangers are either disrupters or spikers. They do very well at both. If you're a disrupter, pump up your expertise and marksmanship, and take skills that cause interruption. Distracting shot, punishing shot, etc. are good examples. If you have something like apply poison, crippling shot, etc. these are also worth having for extra damage. Spike rangers will need to probably look to their secondary for help to deal extra damage. In particular, if you're a R/Me or R/E, there are a lot of good options for dealing tons of damage. Check around these forums for various spike builds. As a ranger, you should *always* be targetting an enemy monk or mesmer.

Monk: If you're a monk in a random arena, I recommend you be a healer. Healing monks are everyone's best friend. Your job is to keep your team alive, and, more often than not that means keeping yourself alive. Any decent team will try to kill you first. Be prepared for it. Bring lots of cheap heals with low casting times (orison, dwayna's kiss, mend ailment is good for conditions even if you have only 1 or 2 points in protection), something like healing touch for yourself, and if you can find the space, grab something to try to keep a warrior off your back. Ideally, you should be able to tank the average warrior without having to run or waste too much energy on yourself. That doesn't mean you *should* tank the warrior, but having that option is a bonus. Try looking into your secondary. In particular, anything that does slow, blind, or weakness are very useful. Don't worry about damage, avoid things with high energy costs or long casting times. If you have a good energy management system (I use offering of blood with 10 pts), then you can actually tank the warrior and heal your party without needing one of these spells, as long as he isn't using a hammer or certain other builds. Once you get more experience, you might want to look at some protection/smiting builds as well.

Elementalist: Eles can be tricky class to play in PvP. A lot of the spells that are the elementalists bread and butter in PvE aren't very useful in PvP. In particular, spells like Meteor Shower, Firestorm, Earthquake, etc. are out. Ideally, you want to avoid anything that causes exhaustion, because it can really cripple your energy management. That said, you still have a couple of options. If you focus heavily on earth, you can act as a protector, using wards, slowing hexes, etc, to gain the upper hand. If you take water, you'll be playing as a hexer, trying to use your debilitating water hexes to confound your enemies. Will, maybe annoy, at best. If you play fire, you'll be looking more toward AoE. Sometimes these spells are useful defensively, like if you drop a searing heat or firestorm on top of the guy attacking your monk. They can also be used offensively, as either AoE or spike damage. Try to take ranged spells with medium to low cost and short casting times. As usual, your main job is to try to take out enemy monks, or use AoE as a disruption to their healing. But, in my opinion, if you really want to be an elementalist (and actually use elementalist skills--smite monks are often E/Mo) in PvP, air is the only way to go. These spells are fairly low cost, fast cast, many can strike without a projectile (good for killing runners), have armor penetration, goodd damage, and have some nasty disruptions or conditions associated with them. Take things like enervating charge (best air spell in the game IMHO), whirlwind, lightning strike. Attack enemy monks/mesmers from a distance. If you feel like it, you might want to try combining with earth for some interesting combos. Whirlwind/aftershock and enervating charge/stoning come to mind as good options. If you have ether renewal, you can also use stone daggers as your spam spell. Finally, elementalists can make decent healers (E/Mo at least). Max out your energy storage and healing prayers, grab ether renewal and a bunch of healing spells. You don't have to worry so much about higher energy ones like heal other or heal party, since your energy management far outstrips the monks you'll be competing with.

Mesmer: You have basically one job. Disrupt, hex, and otherwise piss off the enemy. Grab energy steals, backfires, etc. for enemy monks. Bring something along for warriors too, since you will be a major target. Don't bother with empathy for warriors, get something that does blind or reduces hit % or even slow. Try to stay on the sidelines and make life miserable for the other team.

Necro: Necros are tough in PvP. Particularly in arenas, there aren't enough corpses for you to really benefit from those types of spells. Focus on curses or blood magic probably, particularly either heal drains or things like mark of subversion. As with the mesmer, your target is mainly to wreak havoc on enemy monks. Bring something like chillibans or rend enchantments, too (careful using this last one!) Alternately, fill your skill bar up with condition skills, and try to use these skills to decimate your opponents.

That's all I can think of for the moment. The best way to learn PvP is to play a lot, and have fun doing it, really.

Rico

Thx for all the great comments ...

Create a PvP char yesterday and playing a bit in Competitive arena as a heal/prot monk since we obviously need one for my guild . But i tend to go prot/divine since i always run out of energy ... I dont have much of problem with mesmers and necro yet ... and warrior is easy to deal with up till now ... but ranger always killed me ... or hurt me bad ... is there anyways to counter them?

I realized that you gain 20 factions per kill, 25 per win and 25 extra for flawless win ... is the amount of faction gained gonna increase somehow? Took me an hr to gain 1000 factions ... i know i'm sux ... so i'm more tempted to use the PvE char than PvP since i'm more familiar with it. My fav is E/Mo since i never ran out of energy. Forge armor and skills are not the problem, the build is ... but i'll try sth new tonite with Rico's advice.

It was pretty funny to see a random group of 4 monks ... healers ... :lol: happened to me twice ... we were waiting for a certain death. Well it was fun untill someone try to go all macho manly about his b...s ... Great advice for banning the local chat channel ... that is one of those time i wish to be a guy and not be embarassed or disturbed by what they said.

There used to be a lot less faction per kill/win, and none for flawless at all, and it took me ages to get to 10000 faction then (like a month or two). Prot/divine is surely a good build, i have run it for quite some time with alot of succes, and heal/prot is a good combination as well, but then i suggest you go 11 healing, 10 divine, 10 prot (prot doesnt require a lot of attribute to be strong, although i like having 16).

I've been trying to adapt a "Korean" standard of thinking whenever I do pvp or pve. I only chat in pve mostly on the keyboard but recently, the only words I ever type in pvp are

gg
Hi all.
I'm target caller / not target caller.

That's it.

Why? Cause the minimap and ctrl+click will be FASTER than anything you can say or do on a mic or keyboard. Plain and simple... Why can't we all do this? Cause nobody's as smart as the Koreans...

i have nothing agaist less than 20 player , after all im playing in random arena

but 2 level are A LOT!

2 level mean 40 hp less

20 attribute point less

if you are lev 18 prob you havent completed attribute quest

that mean 50 point

50 point over 200 isnt few.

2 level less mean also you will make less damage agaist 20th
and take more damage.
(check http://www.guildwarsguru.com/content...nics-id674.php)

Sure if you meet sucky people you can beat them but this mean nothing , i can beat the mirror for ascension even im lev 11 becouse he is sucky

I was playing during the PvP Extreme with that character...so yeah lots of sucky players, lots of people that haven't bothered to change their skill bar or do the 15-att quests, etc. But I had 14 in fire (12 + minor rune + flames eye), and whatever was left over in energy storage (10 I think? plus minor) and I was doing pretty damn good compared to the other people I was grouping with.

Thing is, I'd never take less than a 20 to team arenas or on a daily basis, but I just felt like playing a couple rounds of PvP during that event and was too lazy to switch characters (I was going through my inventory while waiting for it to start and killing 2 birds with 1 stone lol), especially if there were gonna be all the non-pvpers/first timers out as well lol.
But I still say it doesn't matter THAT much if you're skilled at it...after all if you think about it how many ppl in LA (which is filled with people who pvp for fun instead of being serious about it) have mods they choose themselves for that purpose, vigor/minor/major runes, drok's armor, or high points in only 2 attributes? In my specific case, I don't think it mattered much aside from the damage I recieved (runes + 2 high as they can go attributes, +45 health from (max)staff mods, + major vigor, top armor...yeah the health evened out, the 14 fire dealt more damage than the 12 I have now that I'm at 20 and spread my att points better...lol I dunno.

I've seen people go down MUCH quicker and do MUCH worse than my ele at lvl18/19, so I'm still gonna say that it's on a per-case basis. And I'd much rather have a skilled lower player than a souped-up, maxed-out idiot anyday

If you keep running out of energy, try grabbing a secondary with good energy management options. Mesmers have TONS of energy stealing abilities, take your pick. I think channeling and energy drain are the most popular, but a lot of them look promising. If you're a necro, offering of blood is a *great* energy management option. If you're maintaining a bunch of enchantments all the time, try grabbing blessed signet to boost your energy. Some of these are elite skills, so you might need to earn some faction or go unlock them yourself.

As for rangers, well, there's only so much you can do. The right ranger build is going to own you, there's not much you can do about it. Be sure to bring along something like mend ailment, it can be a real lifesaver against poison. Bringing spells with short casting times will limit the effectiveness of their disruption spells. If you're getting hit with fragility rangers or something, you might want to pick up contemplation of purity. If you don't mind losing your enchantments, you can get rid of pesky hexes and conditions really quickly. If you're fighting a ranger, remember that he can only hit you if he can see you, but YOU don't need to see your targets to heal them. Keep an eye on where the rangers are, and try to keep something like a wall between them and you. Avoid standing still when you aren't casting, since their arrows can miss you if you're moving. Remember, if you aren't dead, and you still have energy, then you're doing fine. If you take a couple hundred spike damage, just use healing touch on yourself and keep running. It will take them awhile to build up another surge.

Building up faction does take awhile. In an average win, you should get about 150 faction (assuming ~2 enemy res + victory bonus), and a little more with a flawless. If you build up a good winning streak, you will get a bit more faction every so often, but not a whole lot more, really. So it really depends on how long you're taking to kill the opposition, and how many consecutive wins you can build up. 1000 faction/hour probably means that you're winning about 6 matches an hour, or one every ten minutes, which isn't too bad. Getting a lot of faction isn't meant to be easy, because of how much better it can make your PvP characters. Don't worry too much about it, just have fun. I personally would suggest you avoid unlocking skills for the most part, since those are pretty easy to get ingame anyway (I think they cost more too, go figure).

Rico

Since i get such detailed answers, i'll keep spamming the questions ...:lol:

I'm actually playing Mo/Me in PVP b/c those are the 2 classes i'm most familiar with in PvE . I'm just wondering Pacifism would work well on ranger like it did on warrior? And also i dont really understand the concept of divine favor ... is div give you 3 extra heal for each lvl of div? is it more profitable with Divine energy mangament or inspiration ... Since i like protection more than healing, it would work well with blessed signet ... is essence bond good too?

Easier to see if i write the build down
11 div
10 prot
10 heal

Peace and Harmonry
Pacifism
healing breeze
vigorous spirit
reversal of fortune
shielding hands
mend ailment
rez sig

and i realize this build only work well when i'm not dying ... cause as soon i took the dmg i cant heal myself fast enough ... and yes i'll work hard on unlocking skills in PvE ... so i guess faction is use to unlooking runes ...

Btw what is a good team for TA ... we have a Mo/Me, W/N, R/Me ... which class should be good for 4th spot?

the guys are all very professional.

Yes, Pacifism does work on a ranger as well. Just make sure you announce that you are casting it so that your teammates don't attack him and cause Pacifism to go away.

One thing, however: Pacifism will not prevent a ranger from setting traps, or throwing dirt, or preparing the next preparation, or healing. In fact, as a ranger I might enjoy some Pacifism to give me time to set traps!

I just wanted to thank you for your great wisdom, but would like to point out the pleasures of reading. He wants basic PvP, fundamentals, starting tips, etc. Not "go to tombs or your newb". I think pretty much anyone can figure out Tombs takes a little bit of skill, unless you felt compelled to think that since it may have taken you a little bit of time to figure this fact out, it will take everyone that long as well.

Back on Topic

I suggest starting in Competition arenas from LA. You don't have to wait forever to get a group, and can practice different types of builds quite easily in a short amount of time.
I would probably start as one of the preconsturcted monks just to get a bit of faction easiest, unless you have your own monk build that works. Once you have some faction, you can unlock whatever items/skills you need for other builds, and gradually expand on your role that you can play

i agree that is prolly the best place to get experience..... though its also good to get experience early on with a pve character at ascalon and yaks...... while ppl who are weak will get themselves rushed for the best armor and skills at those arenas.... no offense intended towards anyone here.... it prepares you for going against those later on in LA.... so either way really is good to go but i would recommend the random arenas just because they give you the most pvp experience in different areas....

A good place to start for your guild is droks. Start with the basics, a warrior, a monk, and two other characters. Work on target calling, everyone focusing on same target, staying within healing range, staying together. Once you get that stuff down, then start working on counters as a team to the different strategies.

Once you start winning and talking about it in guild chat and on your boards, it's gonna become contageous.

One final thing, pvp also includes warfare tactics. It would be a good idea to know some basics. Flanking will get you more times then any fotm/w build.

the best builds actually incorporate skills from their secondary classes. Mo/Me is a very solid combo, just take a closer look at the mesmer skills that can help you as a monk, pick either healing or protection and invest points in the mesmer attribute line.
For a more specific hint, drop the healing, use divine boon, and check out some skills in the inspiration attribute using minor runes for a 12-prot 12-divine 10-inspiration setup.
For an overall 4v4 team my favorite setup is: one monk, one warrior with another class that will work to kill someone fast, and another class that that can shutdown/kill an offhand target solo.

my only warning is dont spread your atts too thin..... that is a mistake i made with my first character and i never lasted in pvp..... so i would stick with maybe two or three att areas and change as needed..... you can always change back or try something new as you have unlimited refunds now......

Good healers, people who can keep themselves alive, can totally dominate LA. Also, Mesmers and Necros are really much better in PvP, IMO.

I'd suggest making a Necro and wreak some havoc with Curses and Blood. The dumb groups save the Necros for last so you'll have things easier.

If you want to be a Monk, that's a heavy load, but if you look around you can probably find a good PvP build.

Final note, tanking Monks can make a team very powerful, as the other team will waste all of their mana and time on an indestructable target, while your team takes them apart.

that reminds me off the time my team was wiped out cuz they were trickked into attacking a monk when i was warning them to attack the nec first but noone ever listens to nicky nightmare......

Haha, gj! :P

Wow, what a meaningful addition to a 2 & 1/2 year old thread.