Guild Wars 2 PvP Ranks and Guide - Learn About Conquest and WvW in GW2!

GW2 PvP Ranks and Guide

While Guild Wars 2 is not particularly known for its PvP aspect, it still provides some great options and game modes for players who enjoy facing other gamers in battle. GW2 offers plenty of possibilities for players to tweak their builds. It allows for interesting and diverse gameplay in these PVP modes. Not only do you have nine professions to choose from, but you also can play each one of them in multiple ways.

Table of contents

Introduction

Structured PvP

   Arenas

   Tournaments

   Conquest Roles

   PvP Rank

World versus World

   WvW Roles

PvP Achievements

PvP in Guild Wars 2

All PvP in Guild Wars 2 is divided into two major categories. Structured PvP (or sPvP) provides some organized competitions with an equal number of players on each side. Meanwhile, World versus World (WvW) is a mass PvP mode where three factions face against each other in a long, complex, and objective-focused war.

Structured PvP

Structured PvP consists of three arena-based game modes. Teams can face each other in a deathmatch, where the only way of scoring points is killing the opponents. There’s also a mode called Stronghold that borrows a bit from the MOBA genre and Guild Wars 1 GvG matches – players have to break into the opponents’ base, using NPCs to their advantage. Then, they have to kill the Lord, who is the final objective of the match.

Most importantly, though, there’s the game mode called Conquest. It’s by far the most popular sPvP activity in Guild Wars 2. It’s a hybrid mode that allows players to score points in two ways. A team can be rewarded for a strong objective control and holding onto the strategic points of the map. But at the same time, killing enemies also get reflected on the scoreboard. Each conquest map has three capture points that can be used to generate points. The maps also have some unique features. Some of them can directly increase your score. Others provide other advantages.

Currently, there are six conquest arenas: Battle of Kyhlo, Forest of Niflhel, Legacy of the Foefire, Skyhammer, Spirit Watch, and Temple of the Silent Storm. The teams have to adjust their strategy accordingly to the map that they end up playing on.

Custom, Unranked and Ranked Arenas

Players can enter the most casual Custom Arenas, but they provide significantly smaller rewards (both gold and rank-wise). For more serious matches, you can queue up for Unranked Arena and play for a bit more valuable rewards.

Then, there are Ranked Arenas – they are a part of ranked PvP seasons, where players can advance to higher divisions that provide additional rewards during the season, as well as at the end of it. There are five divisions: Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum, and Legendary. The ranked seasons are only eight weeks long, and they have short breaks between each other. Each season starts with a soft reset of the players’ ratings. You can fall to lower divisions by losing matches, or simply not playing the ranked mode.

Tournaments

Finally, players can partake in automated tournaments. They can register in premade teams of 5. These events are really competitive and they're exclusive to organized groups. Registration starts 15 minutes before the beginning of the tournament. Daily tournaments are open to all parties. Doing well in them rewards you with Qualifying Points that later determine whether you can enter a monthly tournament. A new daily tournament starts every three hours each day. The games are 5v5 Conquest matches on one of the standard arenas.

The tournaments are played as a single-elimination bracket, with the rewards becoming more valuable, the further you manage to get. One daily tournament can give you up to 50 Qualifying Points. 100 of them are necessary to take part in the highest level of monthly competition. It’s called Kormir’s Clash, and it takes place on the fourth Saturday of every month. 

Conquest Roles

All the Conquest matches revolve mainly around controlling the three objectives and making it difficult for the enemy team to retake control of them. Killing opponents also adds to your team’s score, but it should never be prioritized over capturing points. Each team has a base, where its members will respawn after they’re killed. One of the three objectives is located in the middle of the map. The two remaining points are placed relatively close to the bases. It creates a situation where the red team has a tactical advantage over one spot, the blue team has it over another one, and the third objective is in the neutral position. It is often the most contested one where a lot of team fights happen.

Since the matches are often won by objective control and not a full-on brawl, players usually have to fill specific roles inside their teams. The core team fighting unit consists of two or three bruisers and single support. Bruisers are the main DPS characters in the team. They provide a lot of CC and substantial burst damage, often with powerful AoE. Supports focus mostly on sustain, boons, and the ability to revive teammates quickly. Their healing and defensive skills allow for staying alive in numbers disadvantage and buying time. In most matches, these two roles spend the majority of their time fighting over the middle point.  

The other part of the match is focused on side points. They need a slightly different skill set than other characters. The first role is called bunker, and these character’s job is to hold onto a spot without any instant help from their team. It requires being a strong 1v1 dueler and a person who can survive a 1v2, even if it means giving up the point. These builds frequently involve less upfront damage, but more mobility and better sustain.

The other, even more, the mobility-focused role is also focused on solo plays. As a roamer, you will sneak behind enemy lines and recapture their points. This way, you can sometimes pull some enemies away from the team fight in the middle and create a numbers advantage for your side. You can also assist your bunker by turning 1v1s into 2v1s and making sure that you don’t lose control of your objectives. It’s one of the riskiest roles, so knowing your limits and running away at the right times is a crucial skill. Overall, your job is to be a nuisance and sometimes join a critical fight.  

Guild wars 2 PvP Rank

PvP rank is an account-wide metric that indicates the player’s experience in structured PvP. Taking part in World versus World combat does not affect one’s rank. There are nine steps on the ladder, and they’re symbolized by different animals and beasts (you can use your rank symbol as an emote with /rank command). You can advance into the higher ones, by playing the Arena modes and receiving PvP Rank points. They also provide access to more finishers in PvP.  

It’s not at all like the league divisions since you can’t lose your points and your progress even with Custom Arenas and Unranked Arenas. Losses can provide rank points too (although smaller amounts than wins. Custom Arena rewards the winner with 500 points and loser with 200. Ranked and Unranked Arenas give the victor 1500 points, while the defeated receive 500. You can get some additional points for good personal performance.

World versus World

If you’re not that interested in the small-scale, organized 5v5 matches, you might want to check out the mass PvP war that is the World versus World mode. The fight takes place in The Mists. The map is full of different objectives that each side can capture. Three worlds take part in every match.

The method of determining which side is the winner is quite complex. Every match lasts a whole week (and we’re talking about the real-world time). These matches are divided into 2-hour phases, called Skirmishes. At the end of each Skirmish, the game calculates which side finished first, second, and third. The first place gets 5 Victory Points, the second receives 4, and the third has to manage with 3 of them.

These placements are determined by the Skirmish’s War Score. A side can increase its War Score by taking control of the objectives, killing enemy players, and hostile dolyaks (supply caravans) as well as safely escorting their own dolyaks. There are four types of GW2 WvW objectives: camp, tower, keep, and castle. Every 5 minutes, there’s a tick that increases the earned War Score on the leaderboard, according to the objectives controlled by each side.

There’s a particular mechanic called supply that allows the players for building siege weapons, repairing fortifications, setting up traps, stopping enemy advances with Siege Disablers, and more. They’re delivered by supply caravans that can be intercepted – this adds another interesting thing to keep in mind. Sneaking up to cut off enemy supply is a viable, but risky strategy.

Since the mode is designed for large numbers of players, the map big, and there’s a lot of movement around warzones. Players can unlock gliding, but it’s only allowed on the territories controlled by their own side of the conflict. Additionally, there’s a special type of mount designed for WvW. It’s called Warclaw, and it can help you move around the map quicker as well as provide extra assistance when capturing objectives. World versus World features a reward track that can provide you with special boxes. Their contents can be multiple specific equipment skins and other awesome prizes that can be retrieved. Other bous rewards include Skirmish Chest and Chest of the Mists.  

WvW Roles

The mass PvP character also allows for some interesting distribution of roles. Most players will form a zerg – a large group dedicated to forcing out the enemy and taking significant objectives. Some others can create smaller groups of roamers to create tactical advantages. Finally, you can also role-play as a scout and provide intel about the enemy’s actions.

Zerg is the main force of your army. It's just a ton of power based on a high number of people involved. They are often led by a Commander. They’re usually composed of all kinds of players. From the veterans who enjoy the thrill of mass PvP to newbies, who just followed the commander, because they didn’t know what else they should do. You can pretty much play any build as a member of the zerg, but there’s a big emphasis on combat effectiveness. Most people go either as a tank, support, or DPS. Zergs are mainly used in large-scale open-field combat and sieging significant objectives. 

If you’re looking for something more tactically intensive than just following the leader into combat, you might want to take some friends and create a roaming group. These squads need slightly better mobility since they won’t be able to overpower a vast mass of enemies. Their goals are killing stragglers as well as cutting off the enemy reinforcements and supplies. They can also capture camps and create chaos in enemy lines, providing diversion. Mobility might be necessary to get away when they gather too much attention.

Finally, you can play as a scout. You will mostly travel around the map, looking for any signs of enemy activity. Good scouting can allow your army to get a tactical advantage and counter the strategy of your opponents. You can also place traps and use siege disablers if you can do it without getting killed.   

PvP Achievements

Your PvP-related progress from all the game modes can be displayed in the PvP Conqueror achievement category. Some of these titles are specific to a certain match type, but most of them can be advanced in every mode. Similarly to the first Guild Wars, maxing out all the PvP titles takes a lot of time and played matches.

It is the list of all the maxed out PvP achievements:

Slayer – kill 2,000 players in PvP

Conqueror – win 10,000 PvP matches

Professional Assassin – kill 200 players in Ranked Arena matches

Champion Brawler – win 10,000 Ranked Arena games

Legendary Champion – earn 1,093,500 PvP rank points

Indomitable Legend – reach the Legendary division in current PvP season

Best of the Best – win a monthly tournament

God/Goddess of the Arena – finish a ranked season as the highest-ranked player

There are also multiple transitional titles for smaller achievements. Moreover, you can get extra ones for playing and winning a lot of sPvP matches with a single profession. It should go without saying that unlocking all these titles is extremely difficult and requires both a ton of skill and a lot of time spent on the long days of PvP in GW2. 

Guild Wars 2

Guild Wars 2 is a fantastic MMORPG created by ArenaNet. Just like its predecessor, it features multiple complex PvP modes. There is a ton of room for strategy and skill expression in these objective-focused matches.

Besides, GW2 offers nine playable professions, a fascinating continuous story, and a lot of challenging PvE content. The game was released in 2012, and it already received two expansions: Heart of Thorns and Path of Fire. Guild Wars 2 quickly became an essential title in the MMO genre and created a vast community of players - both completely new fans and the veterans of the series.