GW2: "Did you just see that? Please tell me you saw that!"

Do be do be dooo~♫ The name refers to cat anatomy, I'm not gonna use that in the live version

I don't always pvp in GW2. But when I do, I'm the top scorer in every category

Right. Just got back from the most recent stress test. They're handing the pre-order bonus items to every new character now and there's a whole lotta new animations, emotes and fun little speech features. So yeah, my character brags about crits now and they also complain about injuries and debuffs and the like.

Guardian is a definite yes for my main class now. Turns out I do get ranged attacks by putting a sceptre in my main hand. Looks insanely ugly, does crappy damage by shooting glowy little orbs at baddies and cannot possibly compete with dual pistols or rifles, but in a massive 50vs50 situation or when defending a fort all the way up on the walls, it'll come in handy. Not even gonna put points into that, though. I'll let Mr. Greatsword do all the talking whenever I get the chance. Greatsword life drain, 20% faster two-handed cooldowns, swinging a serious, ridiculously oversized weapon instead of wiggling a gay little stick... yeah, I'll go with that, thank you very much.

I love the way GW2 rewards player commitment in PVP. I capture a base, I get points. I resurrect a fallen team mate, I get points. I kill a whole bunch of enemy players without dying, I get a rampage bonus. At the end of a match, the guy on top of the board generally isn't that one prick who dished out the biggest amount of damage, like in a certain other MMO. Heh.
The one thing that worries me a bit is a possible hit to the face with the nerf bat. The moment I get close to an enemy player and start hacking them to bits, they're simply fucked. They can fight back, but my aegis will just block their first attack, heal me and set them on fire. Every swing of my sword heals me. One of my passives heals me. My healing spell heals me.

Sounds pretty powerful all in itself, but on top of that I get to abuse the pet system like there's no tomorrow. I get to summon three ethereal weapons at the same time. They fly around, attack my target and do decent damage, they cannot be destroyed and they do special attacks, which fuck enemy defenses or just knock them flat on their ass for a few seconds. Sure, they only last for 30-40 seconds with the appropriate skill set and then take just as long until they can be resummoned, but how many seconds do you need to kill a guy in pvp when you hit like a truck, your three pets rape and CC your enemy and you get a whole ton of selfheals?
To be fair, I had equally nice results as both a ranged and melee warrior and I suppose the bottom line is that all classes feel very powerful and satisfying.

What I really enjoy is the fact that I can take on every other class. There's no "Fighting a blood DK is a waste of time", "That frost mage will just kite me around a pillar for the next two hours", "That discipline priest has a holy pally healing him". I attack a guy and if I don't act like a complete moron, the other guy dies. Sometimes I die, but it never feels like I didn't stand a chance, it's usually very close and it doesn't feel frustrating, either. Sure, things will get a lot tougher once people master their classes and figure out their builds some more, but as they get better and more experienced, so will I. Right now it's mostly, "Am I really that good, is everybody else shit or is my class just OP?" A bit like Space Marine. :P

Stress test is still going for another two hours, but everything I do on there now feels like wasted effort. I know what I wanna play, I know how I'm gonna play it, we've even agreed on a server and guild name, so we're all just waiting for Saturday now. Oh and there was a special offer at Tesco today: 24 cans of our favourite energy drink for only six Quid. I'm sure you can imagine what the inside of our fridge looks like. ;)

-Cat