Reviewing The Guild Wars 2 Beta, Here’s What I Loved: World vs World

My final entry in my Guild Wars series of What I Loved talks about PvP and, specifically, World vs World.

Guild Wars 2 took another step towards release with the first weekend beta last week, but some improvements are needed

I didn’t invest as much time compared to PvE, but I invested enough to realise how awesome it can become.

World vs World combat basically pits three teams – red, blue and green – against each other that mark a sever. I was on Istan, and we were red team. There is no player limit, and the battles go on for two weeks at a time. The beauty of this is that when one server has less players online, other servers have the chance to gain ground and take points. This also plays into the World vs World being built around teamwork, as players are usually fighting in huge battles over a key point of the map.

What I quickly found out during the weekend is that you can’t just run in. As I was playing a healer, I got quickly stomped by the mass damage. If you’re playing as an Elementalist, for example, a good strategy is to stay on the perimeter of the battle, gain higher ground or both. Then you can inflict a steady stream of damage.

Tweaks needed

The maps are huge in World vs World – it took me five minutes to get to the enemy. Though while players can set up waypoints, there were plenty of complaints about walking all the way back to a battle. Also, to ge through gates that haven’t been destroyed players run through green portals. I didn’t know what these did until my friends told me, so their functions need to be made clear.

The WvW PVP is also awesome because you can level up in it, and you won’t start out with every skill (though can use most). For players who don’t care about PvP, this is ideal. It’s also a bit confusing to get to World vs World: you have to travel to the Mists, then through a portal after queuing.