Guild Wars 2: BWE#3

My guild mates and I wasted no time in diving straight into the tournament play for the third beta event of Guild Wars 2. Unfortunately, the tournament servers weren't quite up to scratch, and a plethora of bugs and miscellaneous technical issues would either prevent us from joining a queue, or stop us from being able to reach that first place prize we had already earned. Hopefully this will be heavily addressed before release, or there'll be a very large number of angry Europeans. Still, when we did manage to get into matches, we forgot about all of the problems, simply because of the PvP is so good. Balance is mostly there; although not quite, but it rarely is in any game. A third map was added to the list called the 'Legacy of the Foefire,' which features semi-hilly terrain in an almost lane-based format, and also has two keep lords that each team must attack or defend, lest they give the enemy team a huge burst of points.

I diversified a lot this beta. In-between playing the Warrior, I played the Ranger, the Necromancer and the Thief. I found myself enjoying the Thief. I never thought that would happen. They don't have the staying-power in combat that most of the other classes do, but they have unrivalled utility. I would often pretend to run away from a point with Shadowstep, which earned me a few chasing players, and then activate it again to return to the original position; neutralising the enemy team's capture-point.

Although the server mostly prevented the tournaments we played from finishing, we did manage to get a single gold chest for first place. It was an eventful second round in the 'Battle of Khylo':

1. We take the Mansion, they take the Windmill. I begin running towards the Windmill for a sneaky neutralisation, and I notice all five of their team heading for the middle point, the Clocktower.
2. I hurriedly yell this down the mic to my team mates, and immediately head for our trebuchet.
3. After smashing the roof off of the tower, I continually blast the capture point, inflicting near 10k damage to multiple targets per shot. This also knocks the enemy away, allowing for my team mates to capture the point with no difficulty.
4. I then ask my team to spot targets for me, and hit their windmill defenders once or twice. After deciding they'd had quite enough, two of them push for my precious trebuchet.
5. We manage to hold it, and they retreat towards our Mansion, which I continue to mercilessly bombard. I'm still not used to the trebuchet, so I miss a few shots, which allows the point to get neutralised. However, they don't manage to capture the point and one of our Elementalists manages to re-capture it. 
6. Now, three of their team push for the trebuchet, and our other Elementalist takes this opportunity to destroy theirs. Unfortunately, ours gets broken into splinters, but we were put so far ahead in points that the game was comfortably ours. 

It may be a traditional Capture & Hold map, but the trebuchet spices it up, so you can never truly be safe while capturing points, and mastering its use can really help you out

(My Thief: Wearing her new shoulder armour with pride.)

Without the server issues, the PvP system is easy to access, addictive, and highly competitive without being elitist. Sure, you'll get groups of people asking only for players with a certain experience level, but you can very easily join up in a group and fight for aesthetic prizes yourself, without being restricted by any of the old notions of gear requirements or match making rating (MMR).

Only a month to go now...