Weird pvp issues/questions

I am just starting out in PvP. I earned some faction and bought a hale staff head and enchanting staff wrap. I deleted the PvP character to create a new character using those items. I did this a few times because I didn't like the build of my character. I found a build that I liked and unlocked just over 7000 faction. When I hit 7000, there was some message saying that I should see the Priest for something, but I don't know what. When I went to the priest, he didn't have anything to say. However, the items that I unlocked were no longer unlocked. Does anyone have any idea what is going on? I still have the staff using the head and wrap, but would rather not respend the faction to unlock it again for my next character.

Which Arena are you at? What upgrades did you get?

There is a message that tells you to visit the Priest of Balthazar at every 1000 faction increment.

I'm pretty sure you have unlocked the items that you stated, you might've missed them. Make a new character and equip him with a staff, see if you can add those upgrades to it. If you cant, then there is a problem.

Once you unlock an item for pvp through faction, it is always unlocked for any pvp character that you create from there on.

The message that you got is a common message saying that you can visit the priest to "cash in" your faction points for more skills/weapon upgrades/rune unlocks.

Here is one more piece to the puzzle. I bought three things so far through faction, the hale (edit: not hale - +5 energy insightful) staff head, the enchanting staff wrap (edit: I believe it's 20% - I don't have the game available right now), and a superior vigor. Of the three, only the superior vigor seems to still be unlocked when I visit the priest. Assumming that I paid 1000 faction each (edit: the superior vigor had to be 2000 faction though), plus the 7000 faction I had when I got the message, I would have hit 10,000 faction. What are the cutoffs to increase in either rank or fame? I'm still level 0 in each. I play only in CA so far (although I've been to TA a few times through consecutive victories), so I got everything from the priest outside Lion's Arch PvP area. Also, I don't seem to recall seeing any other messages for 1000 faction before (is it possible that I might have missed it every time so far). I'm not ready to delete and recreate this character at this time to test if those items are still unlocked at character creation because I think this character is "complete" for CA and I still need to figure out what I need to unlock for a mesmer character I want to use next.

You likely missed the messages for 1k-6k, unless you hit the mark at the right time, they tend to get scrolled off pretty quickly by calls, people enter/leaving the match. I'm not sure why the priest would be showing that you still need to unlock the mods you've already unlocked, but if you can still use them at pvp character creation, that's not a big deal. If you can't use them, however, it sounds like you caught a little glitch there, and I don't know of anything you can do about it other than reporting it to support, and most likely, you'll still have to re-unlock them. Incidentally, you can see how much total faction you've gained by hovering your pointer over the section that shows your current faction points. A little pop-up box will show all the faction you've gained over the life of your total account.

As for rank and fame, they are not related to faction. You get faction for kills and wins in any pvp match, reguardless of type (Ca, Ta, gvg, tombs). Fame and rank are gained exclusively in the tombs. You gain fame by winning matches in the tombs, and rank goes up at certain fame levels (the breakdown of each rank is listed somewhere here in the forums, a quick search should find it for you).

I was similarily confused when I began unlocking things with faction (rather than with PvE identification). What you've got to keep in mind is simple:

Ever been out in PvE when you were newer, and you unlock, say, a 15% longer enchant axe mod ... it says "Item unlocked: 15% yada yada" ... if you later find a better mod you get the unlock message again.

It's more or less the same way with using faction ... certain items (namely runes and some upgrades) require multiple unlocks if you haven't ever come across one before. Upgrade examples escape me at the moment, but I believe sundering or fortitude work this way, and pretty much all the profession-specific runes definitely work this way ... you must first unlock the minor rune, then the major, then the superior.

Hope this helps

EDIT: Unlocking a higher rune in PvE (such as finding a superior rune before a minor is unlocked) will unlock the lower levels of that same rune. You only must go in order if you are using Faction exclusively.

I guess I won't be getting an answer to why the upgrades are no longer unlocked. I'm fairly sure I got the maximum upgrades (+5 energy and 20% longer enchant), so I must have unlocked the minimum upgrades in PvE. I also unlocked many minor and major runes in PvE, which is why I was able to go directly for the Superior Vigor. I'll be creating a new character soon (considering it's fairly easy to gain several thousand faction in a quick PvP session for my current boon protect monk character) so I'll report my findings on whether it remains unlocked during character creation at that time. If not, it's not like I lost anything major considering 2k faction is easy to recover. I'll have to generate screen prints if I need to buy them again, so I don't get screwed and I have proof before I can report it to support. One other thing that I read somewhere is that there is a faction cap at 10k, so I'll have to start spending my faction. Thanks for the information on fame and rank.

Sounds right, also be sure that you were unlocking upgrades for the right weapon you were looking at (ie, sometimes i go axe crazy unlocking, then look at sword and say "where the hell are all my unlocks?") ... then again I am a little crazy, and you sound quite sure of what you did ...

100% correct.

Yes, absolutely true. There is a faction cap at 10k faction, good you noticed it early, I think first time I noticed I had been PvP'ing for a few hours without even glancing at it, and then came to the realization that it wasn't increasing doh!

Turns out I was just being stupid. At least I got to learn about the 10k faction cap and the min/max and minor/major/superior upgrade during my research.

I took a close look at what I needed to unlock and what I was using. I discovered that I had a 10% enchanting staff wrap instead of the 20% enchanting staff wrap. That means, I unlocked the minimum weapon upgrade and still needed to unlock the maximum.

The +5 energy staff head was unlocked and it was what I was using. The only thing I could figure here is that I mistook the hale staff head for the insightful staff head, so while I unlocked the insightful staff head, I thought I unlocked the hale staff head and that it was the one that gave energy.