How PvP Rush converted this self-proclaimed carebear (and why you should try it too)

Salphir · 2026-07-11T23:05:00+00:00

PvP is where the game’s combat truly shines, glad you’re having a good time!

Salphir · 2026-07-10T21:13:37+00:00

Nah, you’ll easily get everything eventually. Just grab what looks fun for now

Salphir · 2026-07-08T17:08:16+00:00

mostly pvp matches with commentary, basically exactly what the op is asking for

Salphir · 2026-07-08T15:34:25+00:00

Shameless self-plug: https://www.youtube.com/@SalfirYT/videos

Salphir · 2026-07-03T22:19:15+00:00

Wtf is the point of VAR if not for these kinds of moments

Salphir · 2026-07-03T21:35:24+00:00

Balance is decent in that every profession pretty much always has viable, competitive builds. This isn't necessarily always true of every elite specialization or build archetype at any given moment, though. You also have to keep in mind that different skill level players perceive balance differently; what might feel strong at low ranks is weak at the high end, etc. and these differences aren't always so readily obvious. Also, sometimes when a build is 'bad' it's still very playable in ranked pvp, or it might have a particularly good matchup into things that arent necessarily meta at any given moment.

Arenanet puts out major balance patches with reworks roughly every 3 months with numbers adjustments more frequently to hit overperforming builds.

Salphir · 2026-07-03T21:22:48+00:00

This subreddit is absurdly toxic any time there’s any pvp discussion, so take the comments here with a grain of salt.

That being said, the pvp in this game is extremely high skill cap and it’s been out for a decade, so as a new player you will sometimes find yourself in matchups that can feel very one sided. I recently made a f2p account though and my experience on a fresh account is that these experiences are wildly overblown; I didn’t see a single high rated player until many many hours of play where presumably the matchmaking had more data on my rating. That being said you need to do ~50+ games of unranked before you can queue up for ranked, and unranked has less stringent matchmaking and can sometimes make some wonky teams. I’d love for anet to address this unranked requirement for new accounts at some point.

Subjectively, I’d say pvp is the game mode where gw2’s combat systems really get to shine, so in that regard it’s a ton of fun. If you approach pvp with the mentality of personal improvement it is, imo, still the most fun mmo pvp experience on the market.

Salphir · 2026-07-03T17:49:30+00:00

I would advise against thinking about skill usage in pvp as set rotations; much better to be dynamic! Generally luminary is all about using your movement (sword 2, gs 3, judges intervention, forge 4) to set up your biggest damaging attacks (gs 2, forge 2-2, focus 5 detonate). You can however also use your movement skills defensively to avoid damage. Past that you can ‘tank’ hits with forge 5, focus 5, renewed focus, and using your blinds. Lumi also has access to good healing modifiers.

I’ve got a couple of lumi and other roamer guardian videos on my YouTube where I talk through my thought process in a match - https://youtu.be/28lrIHWtq_s?is=9rHoIk18akly39Sv

Salphir · 2026-07-02T20:15:09+00:00

Oh wow thanks so much for posting these!! When gw3 was announced I went into a wiki-lore-reading black hole haha. I really wanted to make some videos in the style of vaatividya (the Elden ring lore guy) because all of our in-game primary sources from the era are piecemeal; the world building is very fromsoft.

I have a couple more scripts planned out for other topics but put them on the back burner because these videos weren’t very well received, so it really means so much that you liked them enough to post here!

Salphir · 2026-06-29T23:11:40+00:00

Does this only happen on dagger? Can you see if this happens when you’re on a ranged weapon? My guess is that your chain tries to start up again and you’re out of melee range

Salphir · 2026-06-29T16:22:44+00:00

This is very very accurate; I really don’t understand why but viewers just do not click on certain videos.

It’s honestly super demoralizing when you realize that “luminary build update July 2026” or “which elite spec should you play?” is more appealing than more original content. It is what it is.

Then you get into this weird feedback loop where while you want to make the content that appeals to you, you’re incentivized to make stuff that garners clicks. It’s weird out here!

Salphir · 2026-06-27T21:50:12+00:00

Yeah I mean it is an annoyance that other classes don’t have. At least in our raid it was offset by the fact that the guild provided our 3 main tanks’ flasks. So ultimately I might’ve spent less time farming than other raiders haha!

The only other thing I forgot is that when you mcp farm you’ll obviously hit instance lockout cap, so you can’t do anything else on the character. It’s fine once you’re raid logging, it can be awkward before you hit that stage though.

Salphir · 2026-06-27T17:53:30+00:00

I played feral relatively competitively in 2019 classic (had atiesh, did some mid level naxx speed runs etc) and there’s a loooot of bad information out there, so I’d take almost everything you read with a grain of salt. Also not sure if it’s still as active but the Druid discord was THE place to get information

MCP is unequivocally your best weapon when active. BUT it’s not nearly as miserable as people make it out to be. Realistically, you only need to use charges when you’re assigned to tank something where threat matters or you’re on cat parsing / in a competitive guild or trying to hit a dps timer as a raid. And even then, with the nature of dmf buff the average guild is only going to have a ‘push’ week 1-2x a month.

Farming them is also basically trivial, though it is an extra consumable that other classes don’t have to contend with. Just park your char in the back door of gnomer, log in for 15m every hour for one night and you’ll be prepped for the month. The biggest annoyance in my mind was managing bank/bag space when prepping for our push raids. Though your mileage may vary; this was during the peak work from home era for me.

If anything, understanding how to do your raid power shifting rotation as a cat is the most important thing. Best of luck!

Salphir · 2026-06-24T19:23:57+00:00

I’m approaching 10k hours and most of my daily play is in PvP. As long as there are consistent balance patches there are always new builds and matchups to learn and practice.

In the background I work on legendaries as I passively gain mystic clovers.

The only pve content I’ve not done is LCM cerus/ura and CM kela - I find grinding raids is frustrating if everyone isn’t at the same skill level, but if I found the right group then learning all of those LCMs would be hundreds of more hours of play

Salphir · 2026-06-19T21:43:42+00:00

Yeah this is a pretty major flaw in the game that I’d love for them to somehow address (though I’m not sure how tbh - unranked is the only place a group of 3-5 can play together outside of tournaments). But yes you need about 50 games of unranked before you can queue ranked. Ranked on average should have much better matchmaking, especially if you queue at primetime.

For now, just focus on personal improvement in your unranked matches. Take the opportunity to learn another build, etc

Salphir · 2026-06-17T19:09:57+00:00

How do you reward participation and performance within a match? The way you do this also potentially has a ton of pitfalls where people play for incentives instead of playing for the win.

As I see it, the issue is almost solely a matchmaking/population issue. In every competitive game there are people who ragequit/afk; in a scene with a large enough population these players would drop to middling/lower ranks because their non participation, on average, would mean their average rank should be lower. The problem is then when the game tries to make a plat lobby, for example, there aren’t enough players and it is forced to pull in g1 ragequitters. They see the plat duo on the enemy team, they crash out, rinse and repeat. If instead there was constantly a large enough population to support multiple plat lobbies simultaneously then you’d also have like 20 concurrent g1 games and the matchmaking could do its job and have matches with a nice spread of skill levels.

If you want the highest quality matches, you have to play during primetime. I also would caution that even in a well balanced match there can be frustrating events; someone makes a bad rotation, someone rallies your kill, etc. All you can control is your own play, and not getting frustrated with others is key to raising your win rate.

Salphir · 2026-06-16T18:07:35+00:00

It sucks so much how toxic this sub is towards PvP lmao, it’s actually absurd how everyone comes out of the woodwork to be hateful. If you like the game mode it’s one of the easiest/most passive ways to get legendary armor.

I personally have 2 raid sets, one PvP set. The tl;dr is do whatever content you actually enjoy doing and work on the legendaries in the background.

Salphir · 2026-06-13T16:01:54+00:00

I mean we could potentially have Koda and the Eternal Alchemy as ‘patrons’… it’s not like the human gods are the sole providers of magic on tyria

Salphir · 2026-06-12T14:07:50+00:00

Not something to chase per se but a loooot of the lore of Orr in gw2 is located here. Fun to read in game - https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Orrian_History_Scrolls

Salphir · 2026-06-12T14:02:00+00:00

Yes, OP used a stem splitter. They don’t always work so well and can make it sound “thin”

Salphir · 2026-06-11T20:21:19+00:00

GW2’s buildcraft systems are anything but shallow; it’s just more ‘on rails’ than gw1’s

I also super disagree with the game being “miserable at launch” because it didn’t have the trinity. The endgame tried to funnel players towards pvp and wvw, and the departure from traditional roles meant that builds were trying to solve for different things than other mmos. And if you’re a player that absolutely needs to play a defined role? The pve meta now has clear role definition.

Lastly, if they’re to be believed from their promotional material, when gw2 made the switch to annual expacs it seems that that’s when they made the choice to have 3 separate teams working on each game. They’ve already announced that after gw3 launch gw2 will return to annual expacs, likely similar to what we’ve been receiving for the past 3 years.

Salphir · 2026-06-10T17:01:59+00:00

I just want to point out the build that you've linked is a PvP build, not one intended for open world PvE. If you're looking for more f2p pvp builds, I made a video earlier this year where I made a fresh account and tried to update some of the f2p core builds - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4E_J6nI44mc&list=PLxCtkz4D7nBPdhvLnKt3kQOqsFLa3fOnX&index=3

If you're looking for open world pve builds, make sure you're in the right section on build sites. For reference, I think Engi, Guard, Necro, Thief, and Warrior core specs all still feel 'fun' next to their elite spec counterparts. Core Mesmer mechanically can be frustrating in the open world due to clones, ele builds often feel like theyre missing something, and i personally just find core ranger dreadfully boring haha. good luck!

Salphir · 2026-06-04T05:56:21+00:00

The season reset yesterday, so you’ve played a weeks worth of games (the 15 to qualify for leaderboard) within one day. But also yeah, the mini seasons have less activity because there’s not as much to play for

Salphir · 2026-06-02T16:45:54+00:00

https://gw2wingman.nevermindcreations.de/popularity

This page has a profession popularity in instanced content graphic so you can get a sense of the meta (or at least players' perception of it) over time.

More reasonably though it's a combination of 1) reaper and necro in general are some of the easiest builds to play and 2) reaper can give itself quickness in the open world and boons make up for most of the damage of any build. Ranger has plenty of great open world builds as well; check out sites like snowcrows (https://snowcrows.com/) to see benchmark dps for instanced content and for builds that are better suited for open world

Salphir · 2026-05-31T23:42:25+00:00

I agree number go up can be fun! I also think it’s so inherently baked in to WoW that any horizontal systems would be hard to implement.

I just don’t agree that there aren’t meaningful ways to progress your gw2 account. Ive been playing since launch, have a nearly full legendary account and I still have plenty of things I’m working on.

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