When getting involved with WvW in Guild Wars 2, it is important tomake the most of what’s available to you. This includes things likeunderstanding your class and siege weapons, but it goes a little further thanthat as well. With the introduction of WvW skills, things have changed a littlebit. Luckily for you, that’s exactly what we are going to cover!
Ranks
When out in the various Battlegrounds, there is a leveling systemcalled “ranks.” These are WvW-specific and you level them up by taking part in,you guessed it, WvW! At the very top of your screen, above the current scoring,time until the next score and your supply count, you will see a blue bar. Thisis your WvW rank bar, and it tells how much more experience you need to finishup the current rank.
With each rank you earn, two things happen: you get a new WorldAbility Point and you can get a new title .
Earning World Experience
At this point you’re probably wondering how you are going to earnmore ranks. It’s actually very easy. Basically, anything you do in WvW willcount. This means that while you’re out and about, you should:
· Help kill enemy players
· Assist with taking down enemysiege
· Help repair your structures
· Help build your team’s siege
· Help take enemy structures
Even if you are just jumping in to a Battleground for a shortperiod, you should have no problems with finding a way to knock out some fastWorld Experience. If you have longer to play and you end up in a group or“zerg,” you’re even better off.
Abilities
Through the WvW menu (default key “B”) you can see a tab for Rankand Abilities. This is where you will find the various abilities you can putpoints in to. The ones available are as follows:
· Guard Killer – Increases damageto enemy guards
· Defense Against Guards –Reduces the damage you take from enemy guards
· Mercenary’s Bane – Increasesdamage to and reduces damage from mercenaries
· Siege Bunker – Reduces thesiege damage you take
· Siege Might – Increases damagedone with siege-engine attacks
· Supply Capacity – Increases theamount of supply you can carry
· Cannon Mastery – Improve cannonuse
· Ballista Mastery – Improveballista skills
· Arrow Cart Mastery – Improvearrow cart skills
· Burning Oil Mastery – Improvesall Burning Oil skills and unlocks new abilities
· Mortar Mastery – Improve mortarskills
· Build Master – Improves yourbuilding capabilities
· Repair Master – Improves yourrepairing capabilities
· Catapult Mastery – Improvecatapult skills
· Supply Master – Improve yourability in gathering, spending and running supply
· Trebuchet Mastery – Improvetrebuchet skills
· Flame Ram Mastery – Improveflame ram skills
As for the costs, they do not require just a single point. Theyrange from one point to 20 per level, and they have varying numbers of levelsas well. Along with this, the costs for each level increase (for example: 5,15, 30, 50, 75). As such, planning out which skills you’re going to get andwhen is important in order to maximize your efficiency out on the field. That’swhat we’re going to look at now!
Optimal AbilityLearning Order
What I want to cover here is the most important abilities. These arethe ones that will help you out while you’re out in the field. While all ofthem will help at some point or another, it is hard to argue against the factthat some are more useful than others. The listing below shows the mostimportant ones (in order), as well as why.
Supply Capacity – this is byfar the most important skill you can learn. Whether you are helping defend ortake structures, this helps by giving you more supply to use at once
Siege Bunker – this reduces thedamage you take from siege weapons, which is where a bulk of your incomingdamage comes from
Mercenary’s Bane – this reducesthe damage you take from enemy players, the second highest incoming damageyou’ll receive
Guard Killer – this increasesyour damage against guards, which helps kill them faster
Defense Against Guards – thisdecreases the damage you take from guards
Once these are learned, you are ready to see what else fits yourplay style. If you find that you man the flame rams a lot, go for the mastery.If you jump from one siege weapon to another, go with Siege Might. Basically atthis point you have already covered the main bases, so you are ready to findfillers to use up the rest of your points as you earn them. You can also,should you choose, throw Defense Against Guards (the last skill on the listabove) in to this area as well, depending on how often you get hit by the enemyguards.
Conclusion
The World Experience side of Guild Wars 2 can be a little confusingat first. There’s a lot going on with it, and following a great path isimportant to ensure you are contributing as much as you can. Along with this,just by following the path I have laid out, you even increase the speed atwhich you gain future ranks (and therefore also learn the other skills faster).The big thing here is to understand that the entire system is a supplement toyour normal game play. As such, you do not want to spend your time harping onranking up as fast as possible. Enjoy the game, and rank up as you play forfun. You will level up a lot faster that way, and you will gain much moreenjoyment from it!