WvW for newcomers: three teams, five maps, one common mistake

World versus World is a separate game inside the game. No story, no timetable: three teams carve up territory across large maps, around the clock.

You can walk in whenever you like, at any level. One thing is worth knowing first, though, or the first evening hurts.

The common mistake

Everybody repeats that “WvW scales you to level 80”. True, and only about the level.

Your gear’s stats stay as they are. A level 30 character in greenish rags gets level 80 and the attributes of those rags. Standing next to them is a real 80 in full exotic, and the gap is enormous.

So the order is: a decent gear set first (what and why), WvW second. This is not PvP, where stats get equalised for you.

Three teams, not three servers

Since June 2024 the teams are blue, green and red, assembled monthly from guilds and individual players rather than tied to servers forever. Your team will change, and that is normal.

Five maps

• Eternal Battlegrounds, the central and busiest one
• Blue Alpine Borderlands
• Green Alpine Borderlands
• Red Desert Borderlands
• Edge of the Mists, the overflow map when the others are full

What gets captured

Four kinds of objective, in rising order of difficulty:

1. Camps, barely defended, taken by a small group
2. Towers, with walls, gates and a lord inside
3. Keeps, the same but larger, with inner gates
4. Stonemist Castle, the most fortified structure, sitting in the middle of Eternal Battlegrounds and functioning as the main prize

Every objective you hold pays your team points every five minutes, known as PPT, points per tick. Which means WvW is won by holding ground rather than by winning fights.

Where the rewards come from

The system has two halves, passive and active.

Passive runs the whole time you are on the map:

• the skirmish reward track pays WvW Skirmish Claim Tickets, which feed legendary equipment
• your selected reward tracks pay materials, gear and karma

Active is what drops in the fighting: loot bags from players you defeat, Badges of Honor, World Experience, and karma from objective events.

Ranks and World Ability Points

World Experience raises your world rank, and ranks pay World Ability Points. Those buy lines that matter here: gliding in WvW, siege abilities, and Warclaw Mastery, the mount that now costs a single point (details).

How to start

Take the Warclaw first. One point, and travel stops being a chore. Distances here are long, and walking them is grim.

Follow the commander tag. A marker on the map means an assembled squad. Do not try to fight alone: WvW is almost entirely a group activity.

Do not fear dying. It costs nothing, and the only way to learn the format is by being in it.

Join captures. Everyone who contributed gets paid, the same as in open-world events.

Who it suits

If large battles, sieges and the sense that your presence on a map counts appeal to you, WvW holds people for years. Nothing needs planning: log in, join up, fight.

If you prefer precise mechanics and tight control, fractals are more likely your thing.