38 replies to this topic

[Grav]

As some of you may know, I've been keen on a Bifrost for a while now, but have been equally resigned to never getting one because tokens means Arah and I hate dungeons.

As some of you may also know, I've also never done PvP, because I'm the sort of person that hates giving my enemy what they want, in this case fights.

Well tonight I just learned that apparently you can get dungeon tokens from doing PvP (I swear to god I never knew this!), and suddenly I find my desire for Bifrost is overwhelming my dislike for PvP.

But first things first.  It seems before I can start repeatedly throwing myself under the PvP bus for the greater good, I first need to endure the Arah storyline and kill Zhaitan, and so I'm LFGing for a team to endure that with me, just this once.

If/when that's done, I'll then be putting myself up for temporary adoption by some PvP peeps who can hopefully carry me through enough of whatever I need to do to get the tokens I need please.

I'm not in any particular rush - after all, I've been playing GW2 for years already without knowing any of this was even possible* - but I can make myself available weeknights Kiwi time (late NA/early OCX), or weekends by negotiation.

Thanks in advance.

*Go on, laugh you bastards.

[Sanji]

You cant get all your tokens from PvP Gravey unfortunetely, Nessa was same thing she bullied fought Fay in pvp:)) for the tokens and we still had to run a few ghastly arah paths.

gl all the best Graveynator

p.s: i dont know the specific amount but it cuts off before 500 maybe am wrong...

[nessarena]

I think it is 240 you can get.  The rest you will still need to do 5 dungeon paths.

[Slein Jinn]

You can access the reward track without having done the story mode for a two week period beginning three weeks from now.  The dungeon tracks are all unlocked in a rotation if you haven't permanently unlocked them with the story modes.  You'll need to do the reward track about 2.15 times to get the tokens you need.  Depending on how much you play and how successful you are at winning, you can potentially do that in as little as a weekend.  

Whether you wait three weeks or do the story mode, let me know when you want to PvP, and I can certainly take you through the basics.  After that, we can run some queues together.  From various comments you've made over the years, I think you'll actually be really surprised how much you enjoy the Mesmer role in PvP once you get the hang of it, but be advised that Mesmers are arguably the most nuanced of all the classes to play in sPvP.

What time do you typically log on, and what's your UTC-offset?  You typically play during my late-mornings, right?

Grav, on 15 June 2015 - 03:53 AM, said:

As some of you may also know, I've also never done PvP, because I'm the sort of person that hates giving my enemy what they want, in this case fights.

That's perfectly compatible with sPvP.  What people want in PvP is fights they can win and ultimately victory in the match.  Being successful in sPvP is all about creating conditions where the fighting is imbalanced in your team's favour.  The other team wants to have an advantage, and you're trying to put them at a disadvantage.  Mesmers have some especially potent tools to facilitate this for their team.

[Silvernis]

The reward tracks are semi-recent-ish additions to PvP, so don't feel too bad about not knowing about them. I am still finding out elementary things about this game despite having played it for three years because I suck at games.

[Slein Jinn]

Silvernis, on 15 June 2015 - 07:51 AM, said:

The reward tracks are semi-recent-ish additions to PvP, so don't feel too bad about not knowing about them. I am still finding out elementary things about this game despite having played it for three years because I suck at games.

They've been around for about half of the game's life at this point...

[Blackthorn]

We can help you get the tokens, and possibly even do Arah, although we need Zeshar to lead. Did Arah story with him and a couple of pugs a year ago. EZ (but took 40 minutes IIRC). And, we have a few who PvP regularly - Lucent, Dax, Rev, Zesh. Plus, we use TS.   Feel free to reach out if you see any of us around.

[Silvernis]

Slein Jinn, on 15 June 2015 - 08:16 AM, said:

They've been around for about half of the game's life at this point...

Which would be about a year and half or so, which I'd call semi-recent-ish. Sort of. Point being that they weren't around at launch.

[Aduah]

I've not finished my story and I've not ever run the Arah Story. I've been in an Arah once. I'd love to do it with you because I'd like to complete the story mode on all the dungeons. Arah might be the only one I haven't completed. (I'm not sure because anet doesn't tell you in the hero panel ;-; )

As far as the tokens go, you can activate a reward track more than once.  I got most of my SE tokens from PvP. I only ran SE for tokens maybe 2 times.

[Silvernis]

Aduah, on 15 June 2015 - 10:00 AM, said:

I've not finished my story and I've not ever run the Arah Story. I've been in an Arah once. I'd love to do it with you because I'd like to complete the story mode on all the dungeons.

I finally lfg'd the Arah story a couple weeks ago because Sanji and Nessa didn't want to suffer through it again. It's long, but pretty easy (and pretty anticlimactic, but I digress).

[Sanji]

Silvernis, on 15 June 2015 - 10:33 AM, said:

I finally lfg'd the Arah story a couple weeks ago because Sanji and Nessa didn't want to suffer through it again. It's long, but pretty easy (and pretty anticlimactic, but I digress).

Nah you forgot the best part is that for the 1 hr your in the story mode in Arah, you get no loot whatsoover in there...compared to the regular dungeon story modes where you do.

Did a few times its boring and a pain but easy enough shrug.

[Silvernis]

Yeah, I was honestly disappointed at how easy it was. The personal story builds up Zhaitan into this terrible threat looming on the horizon, and when you finally march (or fly) to its lair to give it what for...well, you don't really do much.

It doesn't help that Orr hasn't changed/recovered at all, and that the events still go on like Zhaitan is still around. I mean, if ANet can trash LA and make the personal story instances look ridiculous, surely they could add some fresh greenery and stuff besides zombies in Orr.

[Sanji]

Never finished the story either i think am at level 70...doesnt interest me since it seems it doesnt have a great impact.

Greeneries...?...I saw a vision of a colony of asurian farmers in the Orr fields Silvers...

P.S. GL Gravey stay strong and uncorrupted by pvp and dungeon mode.

[Grav]

nessarena, on 15 June 2015 - 06:21 AM, said:

I think it is 240 you can get.  The rest you will still need to do 5 dungeon paths.

Yeah so I've heard.  Luckily Chef held my hand through a few Arah runs some months ago.  I currently have 267 tokens, so 240 will be just enough to get to 500.

Slein Jinn, on 15 June 2015 - 06:56 AM, said:

What time do you typically log on, and what's your UTC-offset?

+12.

Slein Jinn, on 15 June 2015 - 06:56 AM, said:

That's perfectly compatible with sPvP.  What people want in PvP is fights they can win and ultimately victory in the match.  Being successful in sPvP is all about creating conditions where the fighting is imbalanced in your team's favour.  The other team wants to have an advantage, and you're trying to put them at a disadvantage.

Yes, but the approach from both sides has to be pretty much the same, right?

What I love about WvW is dealing with opponents of all types and taking different approaches to dealing with them depending on who they are.  If I see a group of PPTers, I want to kill them until they go away; if I see roamers, I want to try and make them PPT, then AC/siege disable them etc, until they go away.  Either way, they get no fun.

With sPvP, I have to fight.  sPvP is also a format that attracts other natural fighters, so there's less of a natural playstyle discrepancy there, I would think?

[Sanji]

Cant you just run ard and not get killed poke players when you see an advantage then more running and circle capping...

[Maksyn]

I've never stopped getting tokens from dungeon tracks. Just reactivate it when complete and keep getting them.

[Sorrows]

I was going to say what Maksyn said... But he said it...

Anyways, Arah story mode (needed to unlock track permanently is super easy and you can have 4 friends carry you while you afk too. Or they do it and you jump in for the final (underwhelming) fight. And soon, it will become a solo dungeon instance at the end of your personal story with the personal story revamp coming out in the next month or so.

Finally, if you want build up reward track points before that free Arah dungeon track in 3 weeks like Slein said, you can do the daily severs (usually have daily in thier name),

Details on the 3 i've always used:

[KoR] Red wins always, if admin (KnightsoftheRose.6439) is on he will move everyone to red at 400+ points. If not, you create a 2 person difference ( red has 2 more players than blue) to force Autobalance < 400 points. Spam click from spectator onto Red (roughly 20 seconds after the difference of 2). Alternate cap/defender daily at middle. (People here can be jerks)

[MAD] same way, but blue wins and you get kills behind B to speed up match. No admin that moves people. Sometimes there are trolls.

"Open Room for Dailies.." Spirit watch, switch caps at far right, kills at orb, defender at mid capture point. Color is supposed to switch every round, but winners leave thus creating overbalance on new color.

Every daily you complete, you get a wiggly daily chest and reward track potion. Save all the potions every day and use them the week of Arah. 80 potion (you can get 6 a day) = full reward track.

[Grav]

Sorrows, on 15 June 2015 - 07:21 PM, said:

And soon, it will become a solo dungeon instance at the end of your personal story with the personal story revamp coming out in the next month or so.

Ah, I was not aware of that either.  I will wait for that, then.

Sorrows, on 15 June 2015 - 07:21 PM, said:

Finally, if you want build up reward track points before that free Arah dungeon track in 3 weeks like Slein said, you can do the daily severs (usually have daily in thier name),

Every daily you complete, you get a wiggly daily chest and reward track potion. Save all the potions every day and use them the week of Arah. 80 potion (you can get 6 a day) = full reward track.

Also good to know, although as a complete PvP noob those dailies would still take some time for me to figure out.

[Slein Jinn]

Grav, on 15 June 2015 - 03:29 PM, said:

+12.

And when do you usually log on?  

Quote

Yes, but the approach from both sides has to be pretty much the same, right?

What I love about WvW is dealing with opponents of all types and taking different approaches to dealing with them depending on who they are.  If I see a group of PPTers, I want to kill them until they go away; if I see roamers, I want to try and make them PPT, then AC/siege disable them etc, until they go away.  Either way, they get no fun.

With sPvP, I have to fight.  It's a format that attracts fighters, so I can't take the same approach as I do in WvW.

Well, once you get out of the gutter-tier of MMR, people aren't really mindless fightmongers like you find in WvW.  People want to win.  Winning in Conquest is a rather complicated endeavour.  

The ultimate goal for both sides is the same.  But the means to achieve it will necessarily be at least somewhat different--exactly how different depending upon the teams' comps.  It's all fights, but there are a lot of different kinds of fight.  The level of nuance that goes into exactly how to get what you want at the expense of what they want is way way way beyond the scope of a forum post for someone green to sPvP, but there are some fairly straightforward elements.  

For one, there are different kinds of comps suited to different kinds of engagements.  Skirmishing comps want to try to force 1v1's and 2v2's across all three nodes, whereas teamfighting comps want to try to force 4v4's and 5v5's.  Moreover, different individual builds are suited to different kinds of fights regardless of what kind of comp they appear in.  Bunker Guardians are very strong in 4v4 and 5v5 fights, but they can't win 1v1's, and they're arguably the worst build in the game for 2v2's.   Condi Necros, by contrast, are strong 1v1, one of the strongest 2v2 builds in the game, but extremely weak in 4v4 or 5v5 fights.  So you want to try to force enemy Condi Necros into team fights, or force enemy Bunker Guardians into small skirmishes.  Moreover, with the "rock, paper, scissors" balance in GW2, there are lots of counters, which means lots of potential to force matchups that are inherently advantaged for one side or the other.  So Thief counters Mesmer, but Engi counters Thief, whereas Mesmer counters Engi.  And that's without even touching the issue of outnumbering particular fights.  

For a more macro example very relevant in the current meta, team fighting comps often have a D/D Elementalist and a Shoutbow Warrior for their node holders; the Shoutbow has much more to offer in team fights, but the D/D Ele is strong in skirmishes with better disengage potential if it gets +1'ed.  So if you're fighting such a team, you want to try to push a 1v1 against the Shoutbow to tie him up while you escalate a team fight around the D/D Ele, then +1 the Shoutbow as soon as you secure the advantage in the team fight.  Meanwhile, the other team wants to try to get their Shoutbow into the team fights while leaving their D/D Ele to push 1v1's.  

As a Mesmer, you can influence these sort of issues more than any other profession, because Portal.  You can push your team into a team fight, then Portal out when the other team commits and take a more favourable engagement.  Or, if you're team has a bad matchup, you can Portal to swap players between two engagements, turning disadvantaged matchups into advantaged ones.  

There's way more to it than that, but those are some of the basic ideas.

[Slein Jinn]

Grav, on 15 June 2015 - 07:57 PM, said:

Ah, I was not aware of that either.  I will wait for that, then.

If you don't like that sort of content, I'd probably try to do it before they change it.  Post-change, you'll be on your own to figure out and handle the content, but right now you can be carried.