SPvP 101: A Guide for Everything You Need to Survive Your First Day in SPvP

[u/maldrame]

Structured PvP 101: A Guide for Everything You Need to Survive Your First Day in Structured PvP

Updated 12/1/13: Updated general out-of-date information. Updated Quickness to reflect nerfs (3-c). Included Torment (3-d). Added descriptions for all maps (4-d).

Introduction:

I won't lie: the first time you PvP it feels like a great big mess. The upgrade to level 80 opens up a truckload of choices and the combat will drown you in particle effects. You're going to feel confused, lost, and very often disoriented. That's all perfectly normal. It took everyone some time to get used to it. And I promise: it does get a whole lot better.

This guide is to help you more quickly overcome the first-time confusion. To help you reach the point where you can look at combat and say to yourself, “Yeah, that all makes sense.” I won't tell you which weapons to use, what talents to choose, or the strategy to win games. Instead, this guide explains the fundamentals. Issues like: how animation-based combat functions, what to know about buffs and debuffs, and how the map mechanics work. For those players who have already experienced a great deal of PvE content, some of this will sound very basic. I apologize for that, but this guide is largely written for those players who have skipped the level grind to get into the PvP action right away.

This is a lengthy guide. You may not want to read all of it at once, and I don't blame you. I do encourage new players to read section 1, especially the part about Animation Based Combat, as that seems to cause the most confusion when players start. After that, go by the index. You can search for a section by its header (1-A, or 2-C, and so forth) to quickly pinpoint the topic location. Find the topic you need help with and read on.

I wish you all the best of luck.

--The Pinder

PS: Did I make a mistake, misinform, or get it altogether wrong? Tell me about it. I will update as necessary.

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Index

Preface. The Three Golden Rules of PvP.

1. Combat Fundamentals

1-A: Before You PvP

1-B: An Animation Based Combat System

1-C: Skill Targeting and Avoidance

1-D: Movement and Positioning

1-E: Your First Custom Build

2. Advanced Battle Tactics

2-A: Dodge

2-B: The Downed State

2-C: Dealing Damage and Healing

2-D: Combos

3. Boons, Conditions, Controls and Other Effects

3-A: Categories

3-B: Status Stacking Rules

3-C: Boons and Positive Status Effects

3-D: Conditions and Negative Status Effects

4. Map Fundamentals

4-A: The Basics

4-B: The Scoreboard and Glory

4-C: The Control Points

4-D: Unique Map Mechanics

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0: The Three Golden Rules of PvP:

Rule #1: Keep your health in mind and take regular breaks away from the game. Go on a walk, eat some fruits or veggies, talk to a friend, check in on your kids/pets/significant other. The game will be here when you get back. Your body will thank you.

Rule #2: You will die, and you will lose matches. You will do a lot of both. Don't stress out when it happens. Our ultimate goal is to have fun, and we want you to have fun too. If you aren't having fun, see rule #1.

Rule #3: Be nice to other players. It is our responsibility to build a community worth joining. Insults and rage-tantrums bring it down for everyone. If you cannot muster the energy to stay positive, see rule #1.

[u/maldrame]

1: Combat Fundamentals

1-A: Before You PvP

Before you can enter the Mists (the PvP Lobby) the game will force you through a quick tutorial where you resurrect some NPCs, Stomp some NPCs, and capture a point or two. You'll only need to do this once for your account. But be warned, you are not yet prepared to PvP. Each character you take to the Mists will receive a template set of armor, weapons, skills, and talent build to start out with. You're fully welcome to PvP with this template, but at the very least you should take a gander at what it all means.

First and foremost, know your stats. Find out which stats you're stacked on, and which stats you're weak on. Find out if your template leans towards defense or offense (it will probably have a balance of both). If offense, do you have a high critical chance, Power, or a lot of condition damage? If defense, do you mitigate with high Toughness and armor, or do you have a large health pool? These differences won't change a lot about your moment to moment combat style, but they're critical to know before you enter battle.

Second, look over your weapon and utility skills. Test them out a bit, too. On the north-center of the Mists, just west of the lake, you can find a bunch of NPCs designed to mimic actual players. I highly suggest going there to get a feel for any skills you do not yet know, not to mention combat at level 80 on a whole. This will save you a lot of button searching and chaos when you get into the real PvP.

After that, you have completed the minimum requirements to do some real PvP. Happy brawling, and have Fun!

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1-B: An Animation Based Combat System.

New players quickly discover that the combat in GW2 feels substantially different from what they expect, especially if they're accustomed to an older MMO. It controls a little weird, it moves weird, the timing is weird, and the combat flow definitely feels weird. It doesn't take very long to adapt to the feel of combat, but even once you adapt to the flow, your expectations will sometimes lead you astray. You can blame this all on Arenanet's choice to use animation based combat mechanics. Thankfully, it's a wonderful system once you get to know it.

“Animation based combat” means the combat functions exactly how it looks. This gives the game a feel much closer to a hack-n-slash action game (see: God of War, Devil May Cry, or Prince of Persia) and less like your standard MMO. Almost all skills in GW2 have unique animations (and for this you'll learn to love the developers). In order for the skill to produce its effect, your character must finish the skill's animation. If you swing a sword, you have to follow through the whole swing before you deal damage and begin the next action; if you back flip, you have to land again before you attack; if you loose an arrow, you have to reload; if you float up in the air to call down meteors... you get the idea. Animation is the reason your instant-cast heal has a 1-2 second delay: the animation first needs to play out, then you get the heal, then you can cast the next skill.

Those of you transitioning over from WoW or other MMOs are probably used to combat based solely on cool down lockout, where as long as the cool downs have finished (global cool down included) you can cast the next skill regardless of your character's position or animation. This is not the case for Guild Wars 2. Here, each set of skills will have an inherent tempo to learn based on their animation timers. You can figure out the delays and patterns fairly quickly just by paying close attention to your avatar as they cast spells. Watch for that moment when the action fully occurs: the sword swung or the arrow loosed.

You can interrupt nearly any skill by interrupting the animation. In order to play the animation skills have a slight delay between the button press and final effect. That's your interrupt window. Once interrupted, skills will gain a nominal cool down, 2-5 seconds, often without triggering the full cool down timer. Channeled spells, however, will always trigger the full timer when interrupted.

Be careful, you can also interrupt yourself. Skill animations seem to have a priority ranking system. Low priority animations such as channeled spells can be interrupted by anything at all, even just movement. High priority skills, like the Warrior's Kick, can only be interrupted by a weapons swap. Dodging will interrupt most skills that are not inherently mobile. There's no clear-cut evidence as to which skills take precedence and why (not yet, at least). First hand experience is currently the best way to learn. Take your character out of battle and use your skills in different sequence combinations to find out which take precedence.

Then again not all skills like to interrupt each other. Some will queue up and wait for the first skill to finish. Some skills can be cast while other animations play out unhindered (Shouts, for example, work this way). And some skills have such short animations that they become nigh impossible to interrupt at all. You can tell these ones because, unlike most other skills, they will not display the orange progress bar when pressed.

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1-C: Skill Targeting and Avoidance

This section gets a bit dry and long-winded, but it does set up some necessary information for when we later talk about Movement and Positioning, so try to stick with me.

Skills acquire targets in one of two ways: Direct target or Area-affect.

Direct skills automatically seek a specific target (player or npc) and when cast in range will always hit the target. Evasion abilities, anti-projectile abilities, and hiding behind pillars, walls, or other environmental objects are the only way to prevent direct damage. Skill slot #1, the auto-attack skill, will use a Direct skill for all standard weapons. A select few other skills (mostly single-target projectiles) also use Direct targeting, but it is most commonly found in auto attacks.

Area-affect skills affect specific positions, and will not automatically seek out targets. The best known examples of this system are circular, ground-targeted spells. Abilities with red cross-hairs below their icon will change your cursor into a green, ground-targeted circle (or bar). Wherever you place this circle is the area the skill will target. Area skills will miss if Evaded or when obstructed by an environmental object. But even easier, players can simply run out of the affected target area to avoid damage.

Most abilities in the game will use some form of Area targeting. Technically, this even includes Direct target skills: you are allowed to cast a Direct target spell when you do not have a hostile target selected. In this case the skill will behave like an Area target. You will still cast the spell, and if aimed properly (yes, you can aim your skills FPS style, though I do not suggest it) you will still hit and damage opponents. Very useful for trying to hit opponents who have stealthed.

Many skills that you might expect to use Direct targeting actually use Area target. For instance, if you wield melee weapons you can cast skills even if your target is behind you or out of range; the skill will hit nothing and go on cool down. No preventative warnings exist for “Not in Range”, or “Not Facing Target”. Another example: some ranged skills may have you target a hostile player, but will actually target the player's position when you cast; the spell will affect exactly that position, even if the player has moved out of the affected area.

Curious about what targeting system your skills use? Just watch the projectile animation. If the missile (or laser) bee-lines to your target's chest, 99% of the time it's a Direct target spell. If the missile moves slower, crawls along the ground, hovers for a second, or does any other sort of inexact behavior, 99% of the time it's an Area target.

[u/maldrame → u/maldrame]

1-D: Movement and Positioning

If you have not yet, go give the Skill Targeting section (1-B) a quick look. It will help you understand why I place so much emphasis on Movement and Positioning.

Movement is paramount to survival. On the defensive, simply moving around in a fight will save you a whole lot of pain and trouble. Lots of Area skills will miss moving targets entirely without the help of an immobilize or slow. Area skills with a countdown timer or that leave a persistent damage field will display a red circle on the ground where the effect will take place. Constant movement can keep you out of these effects. (Important side note! Basic movement will almost never actually Evade attacks, it just gets you out of range of those with an area check. But keep in mind, projectiles with a long travel time, like an arrow shot at long distance, have an area check even though they're a Direct target. Near the maximum distance, with proper anticipation, they too can be strafed.)

While on the offensive you need to stay aware of your opponent's movement. Most Area skills will have a short delay between the cast and effect. You'll need to lead your opponent so that they run into the skill as it occurs. If you target exactly on top of players they'll often escape the area before your spell hits. Pairing Area damage skills with Control debuffs will become a large part of effective play. This also makes mobility impairing effects highly valued, as they allow your damage dealers to maximize their output.

After movement, your position matters most. The best way to control a battle is to control the best position. Standing in the open makes your character vulnerable to attack. Giving up advantageous positions makes it dangerous to attack your opponent. Use the surrounding environment to your advantage. Try to deal damage to one opponent while blocking another opponent's line of sight with a wall or pillar. Or shoot down at a melee class from atop a wall, since they can't just run up the wall to attack you. Simple use of the environment can provide a significant advantage in battle.

Many combat hot spots, such as Capture Points, do not have any immediately available environmental doodads for you to utilize. Fortunately, player skills can create effects similar to environmental obstruction. Many utility skills will put up fields that block opponents and their attacks, but the spell has to lie between you to work. Movement wards will stop players from passing through a certain area; projectile wards can stop opponents' missiles in midair. Some skills even allow the players themselves to become the barrier, so that your teammates can intercept and block attacks which are sent your way. If you aren't careful, you can lose the entire benefit by standing outside the effect range. Likewise, when used against you, it's important to reposition yourself so that your opponents cannot use their own barriers as effectively.

Proper positioning also keeps you safe from abilities that push you around. GW2 has a full repertoire of knock backs and pulls. If you stand at the edge of a drop off, players will be happy to launch you off. They won't always need to be right behind you, or even on your same level, either. Knock backs and pulls work vertically, too. Keep this in mind when you're standing somewhere precarious.

Finally, position matters because of Combo mechanics. But Combos get their own section. You can skip down to 2-D if you want to read about them right now.

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1-E: Your First Custom Build

When you feel comfortable with the starter template, it's time to move on to a custom build. It is important at this moment that you absolutely do NOT start off with a talent build you found on the internet. Why not? Two reasons:

First, a build is much more than just a collection of stats and damage bonuses. Many builds create a specific tempo of play that may not match your style. Some are geared towards twitchy, high energy, constantly active players, while others best suit the stable, collected player. Try not to confuse this with ideas like high damage or tanky; you can find twitchy tanks, and low-key damage dealers. When you play a build counter to it's required tempo, it wastes a lot of the latent benefits.

Second, you learn far less about your profession when you jump into a build someone else made. By experimenting with builds on your own, you can learn a lot more about what stats feel best, what weapons suit you, and what utility skills you prefer. Take this time to test out the extremes: make a fully defensive and fully offensive build. You may never stick with such an extreme build, and that's fine, but it can really help you understand your profession's effective boundaries. After all, you can only deal or survive so much damage. Going in to battle with an expectation that lies outside of your plausible damage range is a recipe for trouble.

As a disclaimer, although I don't suggest you start out with an internet template build, that doesn't mean you shouldn't reach out to the internet for help at all. A lot of knowledgeable and helpful players exist out there on forums, on Reddit, and even standing around in the Mists. Talk to them. Ask questions, investigate their personal experience. Share advice and test out new ideas. We are amateur sports players here, budding enthusiasts, and each of us has learned a little trick which we can use to coach another player. Facilitating this discussion will not only help you learn, it will help create a community.

Experimenting is also a great way to learn something about your opponents. Having trouble against Thieves? Make a Thief. Test out their skills in the Mists a bit so you know how they look and feel and what they do. Play some PvP as a Thief, too. After all, the best way to learn your opponents weakness is to go out and experience those weaknesses yourself. And who knows, while you figure out all the rest, maybe you'll find a new profession to love.

Remember, it costs nothing to experiment with new a new build. Even to experiment with an entirely new character. Take this opportunity to try out whatever you want, whenever you want. After all that, after you've experienced a wide range of stats, weapons, skills, and maybe even professions, then you should look in to build templates on the internet.

[u/maldrame → u/maldrame]

2: Advanced Battle Tactics

2-A: Dodge

The Dodge mechanic is pretty simple to understand: during the dodge roll, damage or effects which would normally hit your character are Evaded instead. This applies to almost everything. Arguably, it makes dodge the best defensive ability in the game. But only if you don't waste it.

Let me quickly make one thing clear: if you dodge a lot, but waste it avoiding the unimportant skills, you will still survive better than someone who rarely dodges and saves their endurance for one critical moment. Each battle will have a lot of critical moments to dodge, and very few will hinge on one big skill. So get used to dodging a lot early on. You can refine the timing later.

The talent builds which allow you to dodge and dodge and dodge until your little heart bursts with joy are few and far between. It takes a handful of talents, all centered around dodge and endurance buffs, to allow a Thief to dodge every 3-5 seconds; and that's the most extreme dodge-build in the game. For the rest of us, baseline endurance recharges 50% (one dodge) every 10 seconds. That means 20 seconds for a full endurance bar refill. Keep that in mind when you choose to dodge.

Despite what you may think, you will not get to the next point more quickly when you dodge roll. The forward dodge roll is almost exactly the same speed as running outside of combat. Lots of players fall into the trap where Dodge feels faster than running. They expend all their endurance on the travel and show up to fights with an empty bar. This will put you in a very vulnerable situation, since now you need to spend defensive utility spells (if you have them) in order to save yourself from burst or control effects. Save your endurance for when you get into battle. If you absolutely must speed up your travel time, find a swiftness buff or equip a weapon that includes gap-closing skill.

While on offense, pay attention to when your opponent uses dodge. Opening with your best skills before your opponent has dodged allows them to Evade most of your damage. Instead, open with a small burst or debuff to spook your opponent. Flashy spells do the trick nicely. Lay into your better spells after they dodge. If you play melee, often rushing up to an opponent or using a charge skill will worry them enough that they dodge out of instinct. That's a great way to set up your opportunity.

Area affect skills have complicated interactions with dodge. Whether or not dodge will work at all largely depends on how the Area spell functions. Spells that produce a single impact (bombs and explosions) can be evaded with a dodge. Spells that produce a persistent field (poison gas or a lava fountain) will avoid damage as you roll into them, but will continue to deal damage once the dodge roll ends. Spells that use a perimeter trigger (like Elementalist's Static Field) cannot be dodged. Traps, which only trigger when a player enters the affected area, will trigger and consume the trap but deal no damage if you dodge roll onto them. Finally, movement wards, any field which prevents players from moving past, are impervious to dodge.

Knowing when best to dodge is a complicated business. To make this decision you will need to know which skills are worth dodging, and that requires you to know the animations themselves. That just takes a lot of time and experience, so I can't give much advice except, Keep Playing. Oh, and, Don't Panic.

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2-B: The Downed State

The Downed State works like this: when your health bar goes to zero you won't immediately die. Instead, you go into the Downed State. You now have another health bar which slowly bleeds down, and a couple new skills. Once the downed health bar hits zero, you're right and truly dead. Your allies can resurrect you, either by kneeling down to bandage you up or by finishing off a nearby enemy player or NPC. If you've downed an opponent, you can finish them off with your regular damage or by using a coup de grace finisher (which players call the Stomp) only available against downed players. The Stomp will immediately kill a downed player, assuming you can finish out the animation.

Once downed, you have two options: fend off death, or welcome it. Since almost every class has a downed-state skill which interrupts the Stomp animation, you can try to fend off your opponents and prolong your downed state in the hope that your opponent dies first (unlikely) or that an ally will notice you went down and come by to revive you. Your other option is to lay back, accept your fate, and let yourself get stomped. Not a very glamorous choice, but it can put you back into combat a few seconds faster, which is sometimes more helpful. The decision to delay or accept death should largely rely on how many allies are nearby. Don't expect a resurrection without any teammates in the immediate vicinity. But if you do have some buddies around, it is certainly worth the effort to stay alive for resurrection.

If your teammate goes down, prioritize a rescue and get them back on their feet. Strength in numbers is your best chance of winning. Unfortunately, a rescue also presents significant danger: the loss of movement. Resurrection requires you to kneel down and take whatever hits your opponent throws at you. No moving, no dodging. You'll have to gauge whether or not you can resurrect your friend without going down yourself. I encourage you to try, because a resurrection can turn the whole fight in your favor. Just try not to sacrifice the whole skirmish in the process. (Important side note! You can resurrect fully dead players. Don't do it. It takes more time than the respawn timer.)

Stomping feels great. In fact, it feels so good that many players rush in to get the Stomp when it's actually a bad idea. That's right, sometimes you should not Stomp a downed player. Gauge the situation first. Just like resurrection, you cannot move during the Stomp animation. This opens you up to a whole lot of incoming damage. That doesn't matter too much when 1v1. But when in a group, especially if you're outnumbered, you might be better off to avoid the Stomp. Instead, concentrate on the players who are still up and active. Quickly poke the downed player with a basic attack every few seconds to prevent self-resurrection, but otherwise ignore them. Often times the downed player will bleed to death on their own.

Similarly, it only takes one player to stomp. In many larger scale battles, whole groups of players will swarm a single downed opponent to get the Stomp. Don't do this. At the maximum, only two players should stomp. The rest of you should stay focused on any ongoing battle. If the battle is over, start heading for the next Capture Point instead of joining the Stomp crowd. (Important side note! You can cancel the Stomp simply by walking away. The animation is structured so that it can be interrupted at any time. Don't force yourself to finish the entire animation needlessly.)

Because of Resurrection and Stomping, skills which interrupt and effects which defend against interrupts are high priority in PvP builds. You cannot easily prevent an opponent from Stomping your friend or reviving theirs without equipping an interrupt spell. Likewise, effects which protect you from interruption will guarantee your own ability to resurrect and stomp. (See sections 3-C and 3-D).

[u/onorarono]

Karma train coming in - great post and will definitely read through when I finally convince my friends to join me. Thanks for this!

[u/maldrame → u/onorarono]

You're very welcome! And thank you for the compliments, I'm very happy to hear people appreciate the work.

[u/kambo_rambo]

You should include a section on PvP rewards, going into such detail as crafting, tournaments (what theyre about), salvaging, mystic forge, ranks, rewards, finishers, glory boosters etc.

[u/maldrame → u/kambo_rambo]

Thanks for the interest. I thought of including those points, but many other guide and FAQ writers have focused on them in great detail already. For me to include the info here would be to re-hash a lot of common information.

And to be perfectly honest, as much as I love to play, study, and write about PvP, I don't have a whole lot of time to spend playing and thus I still rock a pretty low rank. I'll leave those points to players who have time to properly investigate the system. It would be cheap of me to presume I know more than they do.

[u/threeandseven]

Sorry for not totally understanding, but could you go just a bit more into the animation combat, and when hitting a new ability cancels your current one vs. when it is queued? Coming from other games, I think I inadvertently cancel my spells too often thinking I queued up a new one. When exactly is it safe to hit that next button? And how does one cancel--just by dodging or hitting another action really quickly after hitting the first?

[u/maldrame → u/threeandseven]

No need to apologize, the system certainly takes getting used to. Rather than gush a bunch of info on the animation system that may not help, is there anything in particular you wish to know more about?

As for the Queue, I actually just figured out, since posting the guide, that not all weapon and utility skills share common priority. At the time of writing I believed that Dodge overwrote all actions, and skills just queued in line with each other. This is not the case, as I now know that skills have a multi-tiered hierarchy, and dodge does not necessarily override all skills.

Whether the interruption system is arbitrary and skills were manually assigned priority, or if it is categorized and, for example, channeled skills have the lowest priority while Control debuffs have the highest priority, with others falling in between... that's yet to be figured out. Although weapon swapping, it seems, overrides absolutely everything. It will take more testing than I've completed. And I do plan to update the guide as soon as I can validate the info.

In the meantime, the best way to find out is to play with your skills outside of battle and see how they interact with each other, and with dodge. If they queue, then it's safe to hit the next button at any time during the animation. If they interrupt, you'll want to save the next action for when the current one "enacts". That is to say, as soon as the damage numbers pop up or, if you have a projectile or other middleman object, as soon as the object of effect (the projectile itself) is out of your character's control. After that, you've done the attack and even if you're pulling out of the animation, you might as well start up the next.

Hope that helps. Or, at least, I hope that doesn't confuse you more.

[u/[deleted]]

You are the greatest person ever for this guide. Seriously. I barely pvp, but a lot of this information will help with pve (especially the info on conditions). Hell, it may even push me into sPvP, because you make it sound pretty exciting. Thank you so much for this guide.

[u/maldrame → u/[deleted]]

Yay! Glad to hear it will help. And, Yes, sPvP is very exciting, some of the most entertaining PvP I've ever played (and I've played a lot). I hope it goes well for you if/when you try it out.

[u/[deleted]]

am I uspposed to see a link to open int his? it's just a table of contents?

[u/maldrame → u/[deleted]]

Since the guide is too large for single post, the bulk is contained in comments. Searching by section header in your browser (CTRL+F and 1-C, 2-A, etc) will help take you to the sections you want to read.

Hope that helps!

[u/DiogenesHoSinopeus]

EDIT: confirmed, Direct attacks will not always hit the target even in range if the target manages to move out of the way in time. No more homing missile arrows like in WoW! How awesome is this game?

You can move away from projectiles that were targetted at you by moving fast enough, same goes for melee attacks that were started at correct range. I have many instances on tape where a ranger arrow flies past me as I have aegis on and I'm moving sideways. Same goes for many projectile spells too, some spells are homing though like the Guardian scepter orbs.

[u/maldrame → u/DiogenesHoSinopeus]

Oh, this would be so much easier to test if we could Duel. Alas.

I'm not outright inclined to agree, as I've seen the projectile "miss" a player but still deal damage. A tick of the animation that doesn't follow through on the charts. Although I can imagine this being the case if you sidestep outside the 180 degree attack angle in front of the player, which can be easy to do while getting kited.

Nonetheless, I'll keep an eye out. Pending further tests, if it proves correct, I'll update the guide. Thank you for the notice.

[u/breaking3po]

How about this blockbusting question?

How do you get to the mists?

[u/[deleted]]

I've not been having fun in sPvP as much as I would like to, for one reason: Thieves. Four hits on my Warrior from Heartseeker did 18,000 damage to me, routinely I see 14,000 damage from that ability alone on my death charts.

Basically made me quit my elementalist. Sure, I can throw down a regen field that ticks for 100 and drop an aoe heal that heals for 1000, but what am I supposed to do against 6k Heartseekers?

Not whining, actually looking for tips on how to deal with the burst. Does a 'tankier' warrior build exist?

[u/maldrame → u/[deleted]]

"Tankier" often refers to mitigating damage over a long period of time. For example, in a raiding situation, Tanks survive a ten minute fight. Any class can pop the right cool downs and survive a hit or two, but that doesn't make them tanks.

I point this out because fighting a thief is not like going tooth and nail with a raid boss. You're better off being that guy who survives (or altogether evades) one or two hits, and generally stays out of the way for the rest of the fight. So yes, a tankier build might exist, and it would help a little, but that's probably not what you need. If you're Melee: kiting, timing the moments you dive in to burst, then backing out again is most effective against HS Thieves. If you're Ranged: Kite like your life depends on it. Because it does.

Primarily, you want to run with a couple ways to completely negate one or two hits. If you can apply a blind (Elementalist can do this a couple ways, Warrior can do it with a Longbow), Block an attack (Warrior shield, mace main hand, and sword off hand, Elementalists have Arcane Shield), or apply aegis (befriend a Guardian), each one will save you from at least one HS strike. After that, you can Dodge them as well. Avoiding just one or two Heartseekers at a time will save you a whole lot of health in the duration of the battle. Don't forget: Heartseeker does more damage to targets with low health. Avoiding those first two HS hits reduces the damage for all subsequent hits.

Second, look for methods of deterrence. Immobilize helps you stay out of trouble, preventing Thieves from leapfrogging on top of you. Weakness can mitigate a whole lot of damage (50% less damage on half or more HS strikes? Yes please.) over the course of repeated HS spam. If you have it, absolutely use it.

Staying just out of range can sometimes goad Thieves into using HS without being able to land it on you (cripple and immobilize really help here). Try to wedge some environmental obstacles between you whenever possible; small ledges, wall corners, and pillars really work well: the Thief can use HS, but it won't necessarily wrap around the obstacle to hit you.

If you get low on health (50% or below), get out of range at all costs until you can heal up. Pull out every defensive trick you own if you need, just don't let the Thief get to you. Low health is where HS gets deadly, it gains a significant amount of damage, and walking up to a thief while you have low health is just asking to get wiped out.

Once the thief goes low on initiative (most HS builds will spend all of it at once), that's your chance to jump in and open up your own burst. After a few seconds, back out again, rinse, repeat. It's not clean, but it works.

Hopefully that helps.

[u/Vaethin]

I have a question: Is there some kind of meta? I have heard people talk about different roles like roamers and point defenders - What are their jobs, which classes work, what team compositions work?

I would suppose 1 Roamer who takes mid and then goes wherever he is needed (or does stuff like taking out enemy trebuchet), 1 Defender who just holds a point until the roamer can help him and 3 attackers would work ?

[u/maldrame → u/Vaethin]

As far as I know, there's no concrete Meta at this time. People are still trying to fill out the conceived roles, not to mention team composition and overall strategies. Granted, this is a Tournament thing, the casual hot-join system does not lend much to meta play. And since I don't play many tourneys (lack of schedule overlap with my usual group), I haven't invested too much energy in following the Meta development.

But since you asked, to the best of my knowledge, these are the primary roles:

Roamers: Never sit still. At worst, if there's no action to find, they'll run around in the dead space between nodes waiting for someone to pop up and start a fight. As soon as a teammate calls for help, they respond. Treb, contested point, 1v1 in the dead space, whatever. If they can help, they go. Often times, Roamers are high dps so that when they show up, they can end the battle.

Point Defenders: Opposite of Roamers, Defenders are your team's flag of ownership. Set one up on a base and force the other team to take it down. Ideally, a defender should be able to survive 1v2 for a few minutes, and a 1v3 for at least 30-60 seconds. Killing is in no way a priority, that's what your roamers are for. Defenders just need to be impervious.

Neutralizers: A neutralizer is like a roamer, except they aren't looking for a fight. Their job is to re-neutralize any enemy owned node as quick as possible, blocking their team from scoring points. Fully retaking the node for your team is not a high priority. It leaves them vulnerable to attack (your Neutralizer wants to stay alive more than he wants to chance death) and wastes too much time. If there's nothing to neutralize, they can act as Roamers. Their builds probably lean just a little towards survival or escapes.

Blockers: I'm not sure exactly what to call these guys, as their job is pretty new to the meta. Blockers run interference. They tend to roam, and will prioritize returning to contested points over helping players win fights. But most importantly, they like to control the dead space between nodes. Trapping opponents in the bottlenecks and holding them there until the roamers swoop in for a gank. They like to catch lone roamers and neutralizers, or to interrupt opponents when they go for npc objectives. Usually building a mix of survival and damage.

And, that's all I can remember off the top of my head. This list is by no means comprehensive, as things are still getting worked out. But a lot of the general tactics fall into these categories.

As far as how many you want of each type on your team? That's entirely up to the group, the classes they run, and the way their play style jives. A general setup has one proper defender, three roamers, and either a neutralizer or blocker. Nor is profession choice a big deal. For instance, I've seen every profession excel as a defender except ranger and thief (not that they can't defend, I just haven't seen it).

If you want to look into this more, I'd suggest checking out r/gw2esports. There are other sites, but I can't recall them at the moment. I'll add links to this post as I find them.

Hope that helps!

[u/DiogenesHoSinopeus]

I must admit. Whenever I dominate a server or get a major win against two players at the same time...or a huge killstreak, I tend to revert back to my teenage years and start trash talking like a douche.

I hate my self for it.

[u/maldrame → u/DiogenesHoSinopeus]

Well, at least you're aware that you do it wrong. That's a good start to fixing the behavior. I mean, I begrudge no player a certain amount of gloating when they've earned it, as long as it stays friendly. But you seem to know the line between gloating and trash. Just have to walk it now.

You know what I see too few people do? Applaud an opponent for a well played fight. Nothing generates mutual respect more than forcing yourself to admit that, although you tried hard, the other guy just played it better, and then telling them you feel that way. (Not that this is necessary every time you lose, either).

In fact, I bet if you started off on this side-- complimenting players beat you in a good fight-- you'd have a much easier time staying respectable while you're on a streak.

Either way, I hope you continue to work on that. And the best of luck if you do.

[u/deadwisdom]

So I should focus on getting my score to the top on the scoreboard, right? Because then I get the most tangible benefit, that being glory.

It seems to me that helping your team means little or nothing unless it coincides with getting scoreboard points, especially if you only make 18 glory for winning, why even bother trying to win? In my next game, I will focus on tagging enemies in fights, and then running away to capture an abandoned point.

Please don't mistake me, I think it's a shit situation, but the game is reinforcing this behavior.

[u/maldrame → u/deadwisdom]

It is a shit situation. But ultimately, it's a problem of leader boards in objective oriented games at large. I have never seen a game create a fully accurate personal score and scoreboard. Fairly certain it isn't possible, too. Which is fine by me, ultimately, because at the end of the day I can ignore a score with ease.

The fact that GW2's scoreboard equates to glory feels unsatisfying. But in casual games I don't think that necessarily makes the encouraged behavior wrong. As long as everyone has fun in a casual game, and players do not neglect the objectives, then there's no such thing as wrong behavior.

Tournaments are, of course, a different case. I'd be a little surprised if Anet wasn't already talking about ways to improve player scoring in that area.

[u/jgorthom]

Just out of curiosity, as you progress up the ranks do you receive better looking gear? I imagined a new tier of gear looks would open at rank 10, rank 20, etc.

am i incorrect with that? i hate the look of the starter gear.