A PvEer's guide to PvP in Guild Wars

So you think you want to get into Guild Wars PvP. Maybe you've taken a look at Observer Mode and thought, "Hey, I can do that!". For the sake of argument, let's assume that you're a veteran Guild Wars player, but you've focused solely on PvE for the duration of your stay in Tyria. Let's continue the hypotheticals and say you've become quite bored with farming the same vermin, or clearing out the same certain Woe of the Fissure-like nature night after night with PUGs. After almost three years of playing against mobs and spawns with predictable patrol patterns, you're looking for something new to spice up your favorite game.

PvP in Guild Wars can be quite intimidating at first. You can enter one of the arenas, jump into a battle and get slaughtered in a matter of seconds unless you know what you're doing. This might be the very thing that has turned you off of PvP in the past, but we're here to make sure you get off on the right foot to eventually enjoy your PvP experience. You'll be flashing a Phoenix before you know it!

There are several variations on the player versus player battle. You can fight in groups with your friends versus other groups of friends. You can fight in randomly-chosen groups. You can fight one on one against another opponent. You can command a small group of NPCs against another. The possibilities are vast, and there's bound to be something to appeal to your particular taste.

Please be aware that this guide is simply a general run-through of PvP for the experienced PvE player. These PvP battles are extremely challenging and the strategies change almost monthly according to any skill balances set in place by ArenaNet. You will only get better through practice and experience, but we hope to merely break the ice with this guide.

So let's begin by creating a PvP-only character. This is done in much the same way as building a PvE character, yet you start at level 20 automatically, and you have various choices for max damage weapons as well. Still assuming you are an avid PvE player, you should have many skills and weapon mods already unlocked on your account. Once these items or skills are unlocked through PvE discovery or by purchasing a PvP pack from the Guild Wars Online Store, you will be ready to use any of these on any PvP character you create on that account. This is also the way Balthazar Faction points work as well. These points are earned during PvP battles and go towards unlocking other skills or items on your account.

After your character is created, you will appear in the Great Temple of Balthazar on the Battle Isles. This is a neutral location that is accessible through any chapter or expansion of Guild Wars. The only explorable exit from the GToB is the Isle of the Nameless, where your new character performs a series of tutorial quests in order to unlock the Zaishen Challenge location, which you can use to hone your PvP skills against non-player characters. This is a good place to start if you're afraid of being called a noob when you screw up really badly. After completing 5 battles against 5 different opponents in the Zaishen Challenge, you can then move on to the Zaishen Elite where you earn more Balthazar faction points and face increasingly more difficult NPC enemies. These Zaishen training grounds work well to prepare you for the real PvP later on.

The Random Arenas are also a great place to test the PvP waters and try out new builds you may be working on. The basic premise of this area is that you enter a battle on your own and are randomly paired with 3 other players to fight against another 4-man team. You can win by either Deathmatch or by Kill Count. To win a Deathmatch, you need at least one player to remain alive on your team, while defeating all players on the opposing team. With Kill Count, your team simply needs to kill as many enemy players as possible in three minutes, and the team with the highest kill count wins. The down side of this arena, of course, is the fact that random players can rarely coordinate their builds effectively against other teams, so gaining a series of consecutive wins requires more than simply skill.

Once you achieve five consecutive wins in Random Arenas, you've unlocked Team Arenas. This is where your PvP knowledge becomes a bit more strategic, but victory conditions and rewards are similar to those of Random Arenas. Instead of being randomly placed within a group of players, in Team Arenas you can choose your teammates and work together against your opponents. Still consisting of 4 members of each team, it's an introduction to the camaraderie needed for much more advanced versions of team PvP.

After five wins in Team Arenas, you then graduate to Heroes' Ascent where the big boys play. In a planned team of eight, you match up with other players to hold control of a variety of arena maps. Consecutive wins earn you Fame, and a win in the final map, known as the Hall of Heroes, grants you the prestige of having your team's name announced to all of Guild Wars as the winner. If more than half of the team's members are in the same guild, that guild's name will be displayed instead of a single party leader's name.

Fame is a very valuable thing in GW PvP. Each rank of Fame, earned by consecutive wins in the Heroes' Ascent arenas, grants you a progressively-larger amount of Fame points. These Fame points accumulate to give you rank towards your Hero title. In turn, higher ranks of this title grant you exclusive emotes that you can show off to your family, friends, guildmates or your dog. For example, after 180 Fame points are earned, you've achieved Rank 3, which gets you the Deer emote. From there you get the Wolf emote at Rank 6, the Tiger at Rank 9 and the Phoenix at Rank 12. As an inevitable testament to human nature, many HA groups won't let a player into their party unless they are of a certain rank.

Next we come to the ladder-based side of the PvP fence, with Guild vs. Guild and Hero Battles. GvG is just as you'd expect: Eight members of one guild fighting against eight members of another guild for their spot on that season's Guild Ladder. The tactics and strategies of GvG are different than the Random Arenas, Team Arenas and Heroes' Ascent battles, as the goals are different. In a GvG battle, the ultimate intent is to kill the other team's Guild Lord. Of course it's never just that easy, and there are secondary goals to achieve throughout the course of the battle, such as capturing the flag for morale boosts or the NPCs' final stand at "Victory or Death".

Hero Battles are fought in much the same way, also on a ladder system, but the major distinguishing feature here is the fact that you act as a commander of your own band of three heroes. You command these heroes to capture a series of control points or shrines to gain morale. The first player to score 20 morale points is declared the winner.

Alliance Battles are yet another form of PvP first introduced with Guild Wars: Factions. These are 12 vs. 12 battles consisting of three groups of four players for each side. The side you are on is determined by which alliance your guild has chosen: Luxon or Kurzick. This is similar in nature to the Hero Battles, where your teams spend most of their time capturing control points. Yet there are many other factors in gaining the 500 points needed for victory, such as enemy kills and the amount of shrines your team holds when the game checks, every seven seconds.

Fort Aspenwood and The Jade Quarry, both exclusive to GW: Factions, are yet another form of PvP very similar to the Alliance Battles. Victory here consists of several different factors, depending on which Faction you are playing at the time. This type of PvP battle is best for those who enjoy achieving victory through means other than simply fighting. There are gates to be demolished, giant cannon-wielding turtles to protect and amber to run. It's a much more spread-out version of PvP that relies on more than just the skills making up your build.

So that's it in a relatively small nutshell. One thing to realize when it comes to Guild Wars PvP is the fact that it is an extremely prominent part of the game and is supported by seasonal tournaments all around the world for valuable cash and prizes. ArenaNet originally created the game to be the perfect junction between PvE and PvP, which was lacking from other MMOs at the time. Over the years, the PvE-to-PvP system has been refined to the point that it is not only unique, but also a major selling point of the game.

We hope this guide has helped pique your interest and possibly act as that extra push you needed to get you into the PvP style of your choice. Be sure to explore more in-depth information with the hotlinks provided in this article to learn everything you'll need to create and perfect that ideal PvP build.