User:Endaris/WvW Check List

A primer for PvE players dipping their toes into WvW.

Picking a reward track

WvW has two ways to reward you for playing the game: WvW Reward Tracks and Skirmish Reward Tracks.

In simple terms, both advance every 5 minutes as long as you actively participate on the map and give you rewards on reaching checkpoints on the track.

The WvW Reward Track has to be selected in the second tab of your WvW menu and yields specific rewards. If you are unsure what to pick I would recommend picking either

• Gift of Battle Item Reward Track, awards Gift of Battle to craft legendary weapons and accessories
• WvW Exclusives Reward Track, awards unique skins

Both of these award items exclusive to WvW. Everything from the other reward tracks (besides the Warclaw Reward Track) can also be obtained in PvE.

If you are happy to get more involved with reward track selection, many other reward tracks reward bonus clovers on their first completion only. See here for an overview.

The Skirmish Reward Track always awards the same things - WvW Skirmish Claim Tickets and other mostly WvW exclusive rewards. So you don't truly have to worry about this one.

Preparing your character

There are a lot of things to do to maximize gains from your WvW session. This section goes over things to prepare on your character in advance so you have everything you need when it's time.

WvW is the place to use most kinds of boosters as they significantly accelerate WvW Rank and WvW Reward Track progress.

You can find a comprehensive list of the possible boosters here.

As a shorter and realistic checklist, prepare the following items on the character you intend to step into WvW with:

• 4 Experience Booster, buy from Laurel vendors OR if you have the Candy Corn Gobbler, make sure to have a full stack of Candy Corn in your Material Storage
• 2 Celebration Boosters, rewarded from weekly Wizard's Vault chest; alternatively a Birthday Booster
• 1 WvW Reward Track Enrichment OR WxP Enrichment, already slotted into your ascended amulet; buy from the Laurel vendor in the Obsidian Sanctum WvW map

If you have a guild, enter the Guild Hall and look for the tavern person. Pick either Guild WvW Reward Track Boost or Guild WXP Gain.

If you have all Janthir Wilds homestead masteries unlocked, log out your character in your homestead on the day before so you have 4h of  Incredibly Well Rested in a Comfy Home.

Picking your first WvW abilities

Each WvW rank gives you a point to spend in your WvW abilities. You can find them in the fourth tab of your WvW menu.

There is a lot of reading involved to make your own decisions so I will tell you how to spend your first 22 points:

First point goes into the first level of War Gliding, second goes into the first level of Warclaw Mastery.

Put the next 20 points into Provisions Master to unlock autoloot in WvW and do your best to pick up loot manually until then.

Getting the most out of your playtime

Playing around tick timers

Participation rewards in WvW are handed out every 5 minutes according to the tick timer you see in the top center of the screen.

You only receive rewards if you have been on a WvW map for the full duration of the tick. You used to be able to get it from just switching to another map but anet stealthnerfed this interaction in the 24th Feb 2026 patch.

The main thing to look out for is that you don't get rewards if you are switching maps while rewards are handed out. Make sure to check the tick timer before you switch maps and wait a short moment if you think your loading screen will take too long.

Wizard's Vault Dailies

The Wizard's Vault Daily Completion Chest awards players with 250 points of reward track progress for every WvW Daily you finished.

WvW Dailies are fairly simple to complete so whenever you intend to head into WvW anyway, they are always worth activating.

Since the 3rd February 2026 you can switch your daily category at will as long as you have not finished any Daily besides the Login daily yet.

When picking full WvW Dailies it often makes sense to not immediately accept the daily completion chest as it typically pops up after completing only 3 out of 4 WvW Dailies.

If you accept the chest right away you potentially deny yourself 250 points of reward track progress that you would get if you wait with accepting it until you finished the fourth daily too.

I know that it takes a lot of willpower to ignore that red marker on the icon but I believe in you. Do it for the reward track!

Ending your session

Your eligibility for rewards depends on your participation level. As long as you actively participate in the game mode you don't have to worry about this but it can be good to consider when logging off. You can see your participation by hovering your mouse at the top of your minimap. This includes a timer how long your participation level will remain high without decaying.

I generally try to log off with a remaining participation timer of at least 4 minutes so I don't have to feel stressed about finding content quickly to reset my timer the next time I log in. To do that, if my timer is low when I want to log off, I often try to capture one last camp as that is one of the objectives that resets the timer to 10min instead of 5.

If the tick timer is below 2:30 I usually also wait out the final tick rewards before leaving WvW.

It is good practice to end your session by grabbing supply from an objective full of supplies. Supplies always carry over and it's nice to always start your session with supply.

Editing game options

WvW has some unique needs compared to PvE so you may want to adjust some settings. There are a ton of guides for sensible options so I will only mention the ones I consider specific to or especially important for WvW rather than lining up with everyone else that tells you to not use Normal Ground Targeting and other fluff.

General Options

This is the first option tab, each section refers to the section headings on the left side of the ingame options tab.

User Interface

If you don't use an addon like Yolomouse for a more visible cursor, consider using Cursor Contrast High to not lose your cursor as easily. This is relevant in PvE too but in WvW losing your cursor will often kill you.

Enable Thick Party Health Bars and Always Show Party Health Bars. This makes it easy to keep track where and how your party is at all times.

Dynamic HUD

Set Rewards to Show Only out of Combat.

Unlike in PvE where the bouncy chests usually appear at the end of combat, in WvW they will appear during combat all the time. They can be very distracting and this hides them.

Competitive

I'm not sure what the defaults are here, so I will make recommendations for all of them just to be sure.

Team Colors

I recommend Everyone but Enemies Only is also fine

Standard Enemy Models

Always enable this. It turns every enemy into a generic human. That is good because it makes animations more recognizable. Having to remember 5 different tells for enemy skills makes any kind of PvP a lot more difficult. If you don't enable this, you might drop FPS because your game is busy with loading and displaying everyone's fashion.

Standard Friendly Models

Enable if you get low FPS, otherwise however you prefer it. I have them enabled.

WvW Simple Nameplates

Use enemies only. The team-colored symbols are easier to see and make counting enemy numbers a lot easier.

Graphics Options

Advanced Settings

Enable Effect LOD.

Set Character Model Limit to Highest.

Set Character Model Quality to Low or Lowest.

Seeing the enemy generally helps with killing them, maximum model limit and effect LOD achieve that. A low model quality setting helps to keep up good FPS.

Getting further into the game mode

Raising your WvW rank

A higher WvW rank is desirable to unlock more abilities and to advance your Skirmish Reward Track faster.

Your initial goal should be rank 150. At rank 150 you get 1 more pip every single tick which lets you reach the checkpoints on the Skirmish Reward Track a little faster. Every checkpoint on the Skirmish Reward Track also awards Instant Reward Track Progress. Which does exactly what the name says. All of this is as good as it sounds, if not better.

Besides the already mentioned boosters to WXP there are a handful of ways to increase your WvW rank without actually playing WvW:

• Buy Box of WvW Supplies from gobblers. On average, 3 of these award close to one WvW rank.
• Unseal and open Mist-Hardened Lockbox. They may drop items that give WvW experience. Keys and boxes are acquired through the weekly WvW achievements. Extra boxes can be acquired from the trading post, extra keys bought for WvW currencies from Dugan. Badges of Honor are the most favorable trade and can be obtained in greater quantities through Skirmish Chests. Lockboxes can also drop Corrupted Hero Weapon Locker which are WvW exclusive skins that you won't have to buy through WvW currencies if you get them this way. They are also unlockable through guaranteed Wardrobe unlocks though.
• Buy Taste of Instant World Experience from Dugan. In exchange for Emblem of the Avenger, WvW Skirmish Claim Ticket and Memory of Battle you can buy up to 6 WvW ranks per week.

These are unattractive for players that aim to use skirmish tickets primarily for WvW exclusive rewards but if you are pushing towards the second (rank 620) or third threshold (rank 1395) and already earned the related account-bound in respectable quantities this can accelerate the process.

All of these also award progress to a running WvW Rank (Guild mission).

Picking further WvW abilities

Getting enough WvW rank to unlock all of them takes forever so you want to make some educated decisions based on how much you actually like WvW and how you play WvW.

I will try to categorize the abilities to give a bit of an orientation what to pick.

Essential

Most of these are soft powers, meaning they are not necessarily very fun despite being strong. They have the advantage that they are assuredly not wasted and either benefit you in a big number of situations or make themselves very noticeable in situations when you don't have them. If you don't want to think about it, they are safe options.

Gliding

Until this is maxed, you can run out of endurance and fall to your untimely death. It's not important very often but on the occasion it is, not having it is very noticeable. You either die or you're suddenly isolated from your group.

Defense Against Guards

Near universally useful. Get it to rank 4 so it applies against supervisors and lords.

Siege Bunker

It's unavoidable to stand in Arrow Cart or Mortar fire at some point. Stop at rank 3 if you want to save points and max it out later.

Supply Capacity

Very useful when maxed out but also very expensive. Only get the first rank at first and try to make a compromise with more fun options to decide when to fully unlock it. For solo roaming this is strong when maxed out because you can build most siege weapons with just a single trip back to a camp instead of two. Or if you are running with a friend and you both have it maxed, you can always build siege without any trips back to camp. So generally much less running. For group play, commanders never hate having more supply.

Situational

Guard Killer

If you want to roam on your own, this is a must-have as it helps tremendously with flipping camps. If you are always in a group, it's not as essential (but still good).

Build Master

Building faster can be relevant when trying to get siege up under Arrow Cart fire as unfinished build sites take increased damage. For most purposes, just a single point in this is everything you need for most of the time.

Repair Master

Very situational. If you want to be the repair guy that repairs the T3 keep for an hour after it was sieged from all sides then this is very useful. But for most purposes, a single point in this is plenty.

Supply Master

Rank 4 of this is another soft power mostly useful in bigger groups as you just get a bit of free extra supply to build more siege with. If you are roaming on your own or in small groups the impact will be very small. Rank 5 can still be occasionally useful for the same reasons as Build Master. Given the low point cost, it's not too bad to pick up.

Mercenary's Bane

This bonus only applies to the three PvE factions in Eternal Battlegrounds (Ogres, Hylek, Dredge). That makes it very niche and only useful if you often play on that map and roam on your own so that you will occasionally have to capture a camp that is defended by these mercenaries.

Warclaw Mastery

Rank 2 is good. Rank 4 is only really needed if you are roaming on your own. The other ranks are only interesting from an achievement farming perspective but they're not very useful as building another ram or cata is better than having Warclaws deal damage and whenever you can attack downed players with the Warclaw dismount you are already winning so hard that it does not matter.

Provisions Master

Rank 5 increases Badge of Honor drops. These are used on WvW vendors, nice to have. Rank 6 is generally unnecessary: WvW abilities are per character so if you need any HoT goods, you can level this on a mule you don't intend to take into WvW and purchase the desired items on that character.

Siege

Using siege is one of the potentially fun things you can do. Siege is used to open enemy objectives, to destroy enemy siege, to kill other players or to defend against enemy siege.

Each type of siege has 5 associated WvW abilities that improve its skills or even add new ones.

Unfortunately you will be fairly ineffective at using siege if you haven't put any points into the respective WvW abilities.

Siege masteries

Siege Might

This is the foundation for all siege to be more effective. I recommend to max this before you start to level your second type of siege abilities.

Flame Ram Mastery

These are the primary way to open gates. Every siege weapon not a ram only deals half damage to gates. Rank 3 is enough to maximize the damage on gates. Rank 5 can be useful in very specific scenarios but is rarely called for. Characters operating rams are often vulnerable to arrow cart fire and cleave damage from skills that can go through gates so they rely on heals and stability to stay on the ram in many situations. That means that support oriented characters should ideally avoid operating rams if defenders are present. This might be an argument to level them later on such characters.

Catapult Mastery

This one you want to max out. Siege projectiles can only be blocked by projectile block from siege skills so the last rank is strong and most of the others are good too.

Trebuchet Mastery

You can take only the first rank to maximize the damage for offensive scenarios. Rank 2 is strong in defensive scenarios; without supplies they cannot break in and the persistent poison reduces healing in fights. Rank 3 can help with making trickier shots and generally hit mid to long range shots more consistently.

Shield Generator Mastery

Shield Generators are primarily used in siege wars. The Force Dome ability is a big projectile bubble that blocks siege. Defenders can use this to prevent damage to walls whereas attackers can use this to prevent their siege being destroyed by defensive Trebuchets, Catapults or Mortars. Rank 4 is the critical rank as it grants extra duration to the bubble. Two people with shield generators can keep up a permanent projectile block on an objective, making this ability a must-have when operating Shield Generators in a siege war. Rank 5 is typically not necessary.

Arrow Cart Mastery

These lay down some damage pressure on groups of enemies. They are not effective for destroying enemy siege but in bigger quantities they can test the sustain of enemy groups. They are only very rarely being used offensively and most often used in defensive scenarios when the enemy has already made it to your lord room. Contrary to the ability descriptions, rank 4 not only increases the radius but also nearly double the damage. Outside of the lord room scenario, they are rarely ever the ideal solution so I recommend leveling them later than most other options.

Ballista Mastery

Ballistas are intended to be used to destroy enemy siege. In practice this is often not possible because line of sight to enemy siege is frequently blocked by your own walls. Rank 1 can be useful to shoot down gliding targets in some specific scenarios: The northeast tower on Alpine Borderlands can be glided into from spawn, making enemies come back very quickly after they die. The red team's spawn turret on Eternal Battlegrounds can also be glided into from the keep. Rank 4 is needed to match catapult range with the special siege destroying shot. I would not recommend getting more than one rank in this until you have leveled most other things.

Siege Golem Mastery

Golems are mobile siege engines that can damage both gates and walls. They need a lot of supply to build and move fairly slowly. Their ranged attack allows them to reach some defensive siege location with Action Cam that are otherwise difficult to target with ranged skills. Due to the slow movement speed they are mostly utilized by bigger groups as smaller groups are unable to defend them well. They can also be a niche option for solo players as you can build them in a camp on your own and then move to attack a tower.

Burning Oil Mastery

Burning Oil only exists above gates on Towers, Keeps and Stonemist Castle after they have upgraded once. That makes it niche in use. While using the Oil you are quite vulnerable to ranged damage and getting pulled down the wall. The combination of rank 3 and 5 allows you to use it with relative safety, even if there are 30 players below. Burning Oil deals a lot of damage and can destroy Flame Rams very quickly so you may be able to foil some siege attempts even while heavily outnumbered. I would not recommend placing any points in this unless you intend to max it next.

Cannon Mastery

Cannons only exist in Towers, Keeps and Stonemist Castle after they have upgraded once. Cannons provide good offensive pressure against sieging groups and can destroy enemy siege reasonably quickly. Unfortunately they are also fairly exposed so utilizing them often leads to enemies killing you or pulling you down the wall. The first two ranks are most relevant for pressure on enemies. Rank 4 can be nice to hit catas attacking from max range more easily, but generally this is one of the masteries I recommend getting towards the very end as even an unleveled Cannon is strong enough to drive off smaller groups.

Mortar Mastery

Mortars only exist in Towers, Keeps and Stonemist Castle after they have upgraded once. Mortars are long ranged defensive siege and difficult to use. The first rank can make shots easier to hit. The last rank unlocks an arrow cart like ability to aim at enemies in closer proximity. Mortars are primarily used to provide counter fire on siege attacking from range. The long range means that you can sometimes even attack siege that attacks a different objective than you fire from. Giving their clunkyness and difficulty to use them, I would give them a low priority.

Which siege to level first?

The most commonly deployed siege weapons are Catapults, Trebuchets and Rams. That does not mean these are the most important or fun to use but you are most likely to get usage out of the abilities if you level them. Destroying gates and walls with siege weapons also awards WXP and counts as participation.

The most important question to ask yourself is what kind of WvW player you are.

If you only run with your guild group and don't go around on your own, you want to level these most popular sieges as well as Shield generators to contribute in siege wars.

If you enjoy roaming around on your own, or defending objectives, you might benefit from leveling Trebuchets and/or Siege Golems so that you can use a camp you captured as a basis to attack a nearby tower. Leveling Burning Oil abilities early might allow you to devastate some attempts to break through a gate with rams.

Improving at PvP

PvP is a lot about three things:

• Knowledge - if you know what abilities an enemy has, you can play around them
• Having a good build - good is relative but many skills and traits that look "useless" in PvE get to shine brightly here
• Muscle memory - being able to react to bad things without thinking and generally being able to execute "combos" smoothly is very advantageous

The knowledge portion is something that will happen slowly over time if you stick with the game mode. Let's ignore it for now.

Having a good build

A build has two parts, the parts that are easy to change (the traits and skills) and the parts that are difficult to change (the gear).

WvW builds for roaming and smallscale fights often use different stat sets than found in PvE, simply because they are slightly more stat efficient and give a mix of valuable stats. Don't worry too much about this part. Stats certainly matter but you can already become a lot more effective with just changing the easy things.

I would recommend to search on YT for "GW2 WvW Roaming" and then the elite spec you want to play plus the stat set you want to play. So for example "GW2 WvW Roaming Power Scrapper" or "GW2 Roaming Condi Harbinger". The videos will usually mention their build in the description, in the comments or show it off in the video. You can also look at Metabattle's WvW Roaming section for inspiration.

But having a build itself is not enough, you need to know how to play it, right?

Building muscle memory

Roaming builds are amazing things that optimize for a sweetspot between offensive pressure and durability to come out ahead in the competition. Coincidently that also makes them very suitable for solo play in PvE. Copy the traits and utilities, grab the according weapons and start smashing in PvE.

Although some abilities have different numbers or boons and boon access is generally a lot more generous in PvE, you can develop a great feel for a build by playing it in PvE.

One thing that pretty much every build includes is a stunbreak. Whether you already run one in PvE or not, you can get used to press it quickly as you get stunned or as you anticipate to get stunned. Some classes rely on combo fields and finishers to produce certain effects which is something you can already practice.

Some skills combo naturally with each other and you can figure out the flow of skill use to deal the most damage in a short time. What kills a PvE mob quickly often kills a WvW enemy just as quickly.

The greatest thing is probably that you don't have to deal with any pressure and in some cases it will give you new appreciation for a class, for example by adopting a weapon you don't usually play or skill categories you previously overlooked. From this basis you can bring the build into WvW without getting demolished because you don't know your buttons.