PVP 101

INDEX

In this guide i want to share some basic concepts about pvp for everyone who is new to this game mode. This will be the content discussed in this guide:

1. Wiki (what is pvp, how to get there, maps, conquest / stronghold)

Source: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Structured_PvP

Objective

PvP Levels

Ranked divisions

Game modes - Stronghold

Game modes - Conquest

2. Wiki (Special mechanics)

Worth mentioning

FOREST OF NIFLHEL

Chieftain and svanir here give 25 points each + a buff for the team. Killing an enemy player yields 5 points. So if you do the math this means you should kill the whole enemy team to get as many points as you get from one of these creatures.

Chances are you will have more luck killing a creature than the whole team and you will do it much faster which is going to allow you to go elsewhere and keep getting points.

For this particular mechanics you can solo the creature but they do a lot of damage so try to team up with at least one ally.

AND BE CAREFUL! the points are given to the player dealing the killing hit. So try to be sneaky dont let the other team see you going towards the creature, kill it fast and if you have +1 in the place, try to have one person killing the creature while the other keeps enemies away from it.

OR if you see the enemy doing the heavy lifting you can always try to steal the creature range skills and condi damage, are the way to go for this

LEGACY OF THE FOEFIRE

Here killing the enemy lord is going to award 150 points (30 kills).

BUT BE CAREFUL you will have to break a gate to get there, and the lord is strong, chances are you will not be able to solo it, and its location is very close to the enemy spawn so enemies can go defend it.

If you plan on taking it announce it on chat with anticipation and prepare a sub-team to go for it, it is not very wise to go alone because you leave the rest of your team in numerical disadvantage and you are most likely going to die

Even when going with a subteam it is still dangerous because the enemy can capture all 3 points meanwhile and then return to the base to kill you and your sub-team.

People usually avoid this mechanic when they are sorted with random teamates

3. Wiki (Gear)

4. PvP is not about killing people?

YES PVP IS NOT ABOUT KILLING PEOPLE

Shocking isnt it? But yeah pvp is not about killing people, pvp is about earning 500 points for your team.

So lets recap, what gives points on pvp?

Bases, special mechanics, and kills

Your main focus should always be getting the most points you can at any moment of the match. This means every single moment during the match you need to be aware of the 3 point givers (bases, special mechanics and kills) and you need to decide which is going to be a better point income.

SPECIAL MECHANICS OF EACH MAP: are the biggest point givers but they only happen at specific times during the match. There are several mechanics that give points and your job is to visuallize the field and the moment of the match and think if the award is worth the time/risk.

CAPTURING BASES/NODES: Are the second highest point source. As you read above you get 1 point every 2 seconds.

If you think about it, this is a great way of calculating your efforts:
- If you get 1 point every 2 seconds, that means you get 5 points in 10 seconds of having a base. Remember we said that a kill earns 5 points. So the conclusion we can draw from this, is :
  - if you can kill an enemy in less than 10 seconds you are getting more points than you would get if you go and capture an empty base
  - if you defend a base for more than 10 seconds you may die but you still got more points than you lost, so its a win
  - if you chase an enemy to the other side of the map and you kill it but it takes you 20 seconds to go back to capture a base, you are losing
  - same thing in the opposite way, if you lure the enemy away from your captured base, you are winning points
  - if you do the special mechanics fast you may get more points than if you capture bases, so you win. If you take too long or fail to do them while giving away your bases, you lose (all this is even more important in the map Temple of Silence, since the mechanics can award 1 point per second)

So now you see that pvp is not (just) about killing people, is about: choosing the best point income at every moment of the match. In certain situations that might mean going to capture bases, other times it might be going for the special mechanics, and other times it will be killing people.

In this clip you can see a huge mistake by the player that didnt calculate the efforts he was putting into the base and enemy.

Notice at the start of the clip the base belongs to the enemy, there are 2 enemies, player has dps equipment with only 16k health (0 additional health and probably 0 thoughness).

The smart choice here would be to go help somewhere else, even dying fast here would have been valuable because he can reposition in a better place of the map.
Instead player decides to fight for the base

So lets analyze his choice and the info he had:

At 0:28 he is in a nice position to stop and analyze map and timer
- Timer is almost on third minute, in this map every third minute the bell is available and the team that captures get an increasing reward that starts with 25 points (5 kills)
- His team is fighting in 2 bases. That means he will not get help from teamates
- He is in a dps equipment, not the best suited for Solo fighting
So at this point he should have gone for the bell where his allies are most likely going
Instead he thinks that "pvp is about killing" and tries desperately to get the kill. He is even more taunted due to the enemy using same class, and his ego thinks he need to be better than the enemy. (i couldnt upload the audio but thats what is happening)

Well as the clip goes on you can see the ally team lost the bell, probably they lacked the dps of this player. So thats -25points.

You also see since the begining of the clip it took 92 seconds for the player to be able to defeat and decap, so that is -46points, and only +5 of reward.

In total player helped lose -66 points (13 kills) just for choosing to get a single kill. Needless to say they lost the match.

Thats why pvp is not about killing it is about getting score points and choosing the best income at every moment.

5. TRADITIONAL ROLES VS FULGUR AURI ROLES

Usually players choose to do certain roles to reduce the amount of load on each individual. Traditional roles are several, and they often have multiple names but most people would agree with:

Duelist, Side noder, Tank, Roamer, DPS, Support

Duelist is a player using a build that allows him to engage 1v1 and kill the enemy, regardless of its positioning in the map. Side noder refers to a player that focuses on capturing home base or far base, and does not participate in mid. Tank is a player that has a build that allows him to survive a lot. Roamer is a player that moves around the map trying to help in +1 situations, trying to capture empty bases, and trying to get special mechanics. DPS is a player that does a lot of damage but needs support. Support doesnt do a lot of damage but does support.

So as you can see traditional roles are somehow a mixture of several concepts: positioning, job, build. Too many concepts that make it very specific what the player should do.

Example: i am a "duelist" i am in forest of nifhlel I have just spawned and i see an enemy running towards mid, but home base is empty, and the creature in our side of the map shows the timer saying it will appear in 25 seconds. What should i do?

My name duelist implies i should go for the fight with the solitary enemy... so should i lose the base and creature points just to go chase someone that i dont know how much time will take me to kill?

That is probelmatic!!

But what if i go for the base?

Im capping the base but the "side noder" is already on his way home because his name says he should come for the side node... oh man!

now we have 2 players on an empty base...

Hey but what if i do my name job and i go duel the enemy player and trust the "side noder" is going for home, and "the roamer" is going for the creature?

(Expectation)

Turns out the "side noder" gets killed on his way to home, and the roamer was doing +1 at other part of the map, the enemy is going to get at least 1 base capture and 2 creatures more than 50points

(actually happened)

See how problematic is that, this traditional role naming has lead to neverending blaming toxicity in pvp chat, not to mention lossing matches that could have been won. People expect their teamates to do a certain job, they stop doing it because it is the teamate's job, and then they see the teamate not doing it, and sometimes it isnt that the teamate was a bad player he was just stuck in a difficult situation.

That is why i dont like those traditional roles. Instead i prefer to keep the roles we use for all game modes, which you can see in ROLES. Our roles focus on the fighting job of the player.

Here you can see examples of this happening to Platinum division players:

In this match you can see the player is a type of traditional side noder, he is a "far noder". As the name says he is suppossed to get control of far base.

You can see during the first 3 minutes that he is agile and with his team they have the strength to defeat the enemy, they do get ahead in score with kills.

But from minute 4:00 onwards you start seeing the mistakes the player does.

He doesnt realize he was getting kills thanks to his allies participating in the fight, now that he is alone he takes too long to kill
He is a "far noder" so he is determined to stay at far

At 4:15 he decides to go for the far base which is controlled by the enemy blue team. The enemy dragon hunter defending the base is able to keep it for 1 minute and lures Player into chasing him away from base. In total enemy dragonhunter got 80 seconds of base control and he doesnt even die, he is revived so he got 40points.

If player wasnt a far noder obssessed with fighting he would have realized he was giving a lot of value to the teamfights, and he would have moved to another place of the map.

Player gets base and makes the mistake of not checking for enemies coming, so he loses it immediatly only 8 seconds = 4 points.

If player was not a "far noder" he would have just accepted the mistake and go elsewhere to recover score.
Instead he is obssessed to get far, and he goes for it even drawing another enemy in a 1v2 situation where the enemy controls base.

From 6:18 to 7:42 he has complete disregard about the rest of the map, which gets fully controlled by blue team

Instead of going to help and get kill advantage again, he is still obssessed about far, and is doing a big favor to the enemy team:
- He is allowing teamfights to go in favor of blue
- He is allowing blue to earn score on controlled bases
- He is allowing blue to keep strong player prescence in the controlled base (they get 84 secs = 42 points)
If he wasnt a "far noder" he could go help at home, giving away far and baiting enemies away from it, then another teamate would be able to find the base empty

At minute 8:00 he forces 2 players of his team to come to the farthest place of the map because they notice how hard is Player struggling. This decision gives numerical advatange for the enemy on the rest fo the map and they easily control 2 bases for the next 30 seconds (30points). At 8:28 finally they get a a far cap and a kill

Here you see although Player is very agile he is not a good player for the team, in 4 minutes Player only was able to get 4 points for his team, further more he gave away 72 points for choosing to follow his traditional role of "far noder"

At 8:45 the enemy is able to bring reinforcements fast (because their spawn is in front of the base) and they get a decap on 8:55. All that operation by ally team only got them 12 base points. 5 minutes of game for 12 base points...

At 12:17 he is finally able to capture the base... when his team is losing 358 vs 468... after 8 minutes of game where he only got 17 points... after he has given around 100 points alone plus the points on other bases where he wasnt helping.

Of course during the whole match player was complaining about his team because his roamer wasnt coming to help him, and the rest of his team wasnt getting mid and home. (audio not available but you can search on twitch if it hasnt been removed)

In this next match i am not gonna break down every part of it, instead i want you reader to watch it and see if you can spot the mistake that happened due to the traditional roles:

At first sight you would say, there isnt any issue here. Player is doing a duelist role, he is suppossed to duel with enemies and try to get kills, thats what he is doing, and he is performing well.

But remember pvp isnt about killing!! is about getting score

So now watch again, what did Player not do even once in the match?

He disregarded completely base captures
He disregarded completely forest creatures that give +25 points
- The enemy team meanwhile gets the creature at 2:54, 4:12, 7:15, 7:54, 12:00 That is 5 creatures, equivalent to 125 points.

And again player did this because his traditional role of duelist doesnt include going for the creatures or bases, thats traditionally the job of the roamer and side noder.

That is why i dont like those traditional roles. Instead i prefer to keep the roles we use for all game modes, which you can see in ROLES. Our roles focus on the fighting job of the player.

WHAT DO WE DO AT FULGUR AURI?

We will ALWAYS analyze: what is going to give me more points?

The roles we have are support, dps and Solo. So none of them tells you where to go, so none of them limits you to the place you can go, but they still give hints to what value you can bring:

If you are support:

joining another support will make a great bunker, good for defending bases
joining a dps will make a great duo to break stalefights and put pressure on any place of the map
joining a Solo player will allow him to keep fighting longer, so is good to defend or just to support it for a while boost him and keep going elsewhere
being alone in a base you have to think i can defend the base for a long time which is good, but does my team need me to push elsewhere, they count on me for this because they cant push by themselves, so i have to think is it better to keep defending or push?
if you get wiped you can decide to go back into the fight or tell your team to regroup close to spawn and go as a group

If you are a dps:

joining another dps you both will be fragile so you risk on leaving the team without any damage if both of you die
joining a Solo player he can act as distraction and you can get the kill
being alone on a base you can capture it but you wont be able to defend so while you're standing there you need to think what is the next place to go, and how do you escape if an enemy appears or how much will you invest in trying to repel that enemy?
if you wiped you can think is it smart to go back into the fight? do we still have players that can serve as distraction so that i can do my bomb effectively? or should i better go elsewhere or wait for allies to go together?

If you are a Solo:

joining another solo you have a lot of sustain and decent damage so you can fight against anything that is not a strong bunker
being alone on a base you can capture and defend it effectively, do your team need you to prevent a wipe or cause one? or are you good by defending the base?
If you wiped you can be the person to take the aggro from the enemy moving fast and dividing them to allow your team a better second round

See all of the sudden my decision making is easier and cant be subject of blaming because any choices will be intelligent. If i did that evaluation on every situation, even if the result wasnt good i was doing the best i could, and im contributing to the team every second of the game and not only when the situation in front of me matches the description of my name, im also not stopping doing something useful because im afraid of doing anything outside of my scope.

In the following video you will see 2 examples of different Fulgur Auri roles: Warrior with MELEE DPS ROLE, and revenant with BOON SUPPORT ROLE. Notice in both examples I was doing completely different things, fighting or spawning, and i see my map i see the mechanics are up, and i ANALYZE AND DECIDE what is the best thing to do in that moment, so i drop what im doing and i go for the best point income.

First part of the clip i spawn, there is an enemy at base. I know i am dps so not well suited for dueling, instead of risking -5 points i go for creature, getting +25 points really fast.

Next i am helping getting kills and base capture in far, after im done i can stay there to defend with allies which would give 30 points if we can hold for 1 minute, but i see creature and i know i can kill it in a less time so i think of going there, halfway there i stop to analyze because allies didnt come with me so i need to be sure i am not needed with them, as soon as i see in map an elementalist coming i know we can get the kill fast and go back to defend, so we did and got +25

Last part i am a support defending a controlled base, thats ideal, but i think is it better to push somewhere else for more points? and i tell in chat, i see ally going accepting the suggestion and now we can get points easily. We then ignore mid base and go for second creature. We traded a few points for 25 and a good positioning.

6. FULGUR AURI TIPS FOR GREAT MATCHES

Concerning mechanics:

Forest of nifhlel, Revenge of the capricorn, Temple of silence. These maps have mechanics that are fundamental for the win, since they give lots of points with fast to do mechanics.
Spirit watch, Legacy of the foe fire. These maps have mechanics that take a long of time to do and can very easily go wrong, try to avoid them if you are not with a team you trust.
Eternal colisseum, sky hammer, Djin domain. The rewards do not give points, instead they give buffs and decaps, which dont really add points by themselves, you might lose some time doing them and not get any reward in terms of actual points. Avoid them as much as you can.
Battle of khylo. The trebuchet does a lot of damage but you are leaving your team in a 4 v 5 situation. This one is a gamble, high division players usually avoid it.

Concerning facing stronger enemies:

When the enemy is stronger as a team try to break their formation.

If they are winning playing on subgroups, try to go with your full team and start capturing bases, starting on your home, try to force them to regroup, and then you can send a sneaky player for decaps or try to play for a wipe.
- You can also try to change the matchups, if you lost to a certain player leave that one for another ally and go to a different one
If they are winning while being together in a single group, try to divide them by splitting your own team make the faster allies go for the farthest base.
- Dont engage on enemy controlled bases.
- Make the tankiest player hold them or lure them away from your bases.
- Focus on getting mechanics, getting bases, obstructing the enemy in their trayectory from base to base.
- Individually focus on your defensive rotations.
- Move a lot around the enemy, dont give them an easy stationary target.
When the enemy is stronger individually but doesnt play as a team, focus only on 2 bases and keep numerical advantage, the faster ally should rotate within bases to keep numerical adavantage where needed.

Concerning lost fights:

If you have fought an enemy and he killed you, dont engage him alone again because he will most likely kill you again.
If you know for sure you are going to die against an enemy lure them away from your bases or away from the main fight or special mechanics.
If it is several enemies, dont escape towards one of your empty bases or towards a single ally. They will kill you and kill your ally, or kill you and capture the base.

Concerning the start of the match:

Communicate with your team, figure out who is capturing home, try to always send the faster team member.
If the team going mid dies completely, wait for the whole team to respawn, dont go one by one or you will keep dying.
If the team died horribly you need to realize the enemy is stronger so you need to adapt your strategy.
If an ally is having internet issues and he is not in map when the match starts, aim for far instead of mid. Far will most likely have only one enemy so you can fight 3v1, instead of 3v4 in mid.
In the start of a normal match 5v5. If you are not the one going for home, then stay with the group, avoid going for Far alone and leaving mid on a 3v4, unless you know they are tanks that can afford it.