Go! Go! Go! : GW2

First post since Thursday.
Reason: GW2 World vs World Season Three.

Match #1 Yaks Bend vs Crystal Desert vs Dragonbrand

The match began at reset Friday. 2 am local. My contribution? Fast asleep in bed. Probably some snoring.

Saturday morning I woke up, made breakfast, logged into MOSMillennium on my iPOD Touch, hoping ANet hadn't pulled any last minute surprises but no, everything was fine. There we were, safe in Silver. Phew!

Back from work, too many hours later, I was able to log in at last and head straight for our Borderlands. Six hours later I looked up...where did the evening go?

Sunday was much the same only more so.

The traditional approach

It's been fast, frenetic and fun. Tactics have completely changed, from last season and from YB's normal pattern. We don't seem to be bedding down, sieging up and holding stuff the way we usually do. Huge zergs tear around like over-sized havoc groups, assaulting everything. There are  pitched battles everywhere.

Moar Trebs!

We still have golem rushes but now we have crash-builds too. Eight guild catapults up in seconds on a  wall. Five superior rams on a gate. And that's just for a tower. We had ten trebs hitting Bay from south-west camp at one point. Ten!

The Hair Bear Bunch: Extreme Close-Up

Some of this is down to changes in the mechanics. The new siege traps that render siege unuseable for 45 seconds have already dictated a new approach to placement. Many siege engines strung out in a line instead of a few clustered together. If traps catch much of the siege we pound on the door until the rams start up again or we just abandon it and charge on to somewhere else.

If you're sure you can manage without me,
I'll be off

Mechanics aside, most of the new approach is, I think, down to personalities. Our new, dominant WvW guild is fast and organized, burning with energy. They complement our steady, established order perfectly. While they wreck around Eternal Battlegrounds and the enemy Borderlands our familiar Commanders fortify the homelands or arrange to hold what's been taken.

We haven't entirely given up our old ways. On our home Borderlands yesterday we were at siege cap most of the day . People had to be told to let some of the trebs decay. Fears that the drastically reduced achievement requirements for Season Three (they can be completed in a matter of minutes and you can do them all in Edge of the Mists if you want)  would lead to a complete non-appearance of the PvE militias seems unfounded. We had queues, often, across the weekend.

That's one excuse...

Spies and saboteurs are up to the usual tricks, draining supply and strolling golems off of cliffs. If we get Stormbluff Isle next week, as seems likely if I understand the revised Swiss system correctly, things could get ugly. With the short format and freedom to transfer there will be carpetbagging too. Yak's Bend, unexpectedly successful runners-up in two longer, harder seasons before this, look a fair bet for first place this time, although the entire Silver League looks drum-tight. We may yet be bandwaggoned if we look like winning. I hope not but I already see a lot of unfamiliar names and guild tags.

Following the ranger revisions in Tuesday's patch and on hearing that the supposedly broken class I've happily played since beta was now uber I took a long look at my spec. It did not stand up to scrutiny. Not because there was anything inherently wrong with it. I'd wanted a condition damage ranger and I'd made a condition damage ranger. Thing is, I never play as though I'm playing a condition damage ranger.

Can't we use that boat? I hate getting my fur wet.

I re-traited and re-geared for burst damage and survivability and so far its a major improvement, just as it was when I finally cracked and rebuilt my Elementalist as a pure zerker. Sometimes it just doesn't pay to fight the meta. Now if I can just stop barrel-rolling into enemy zergs I should be fine.

ArcheAge opens for F2P scrubs tomorrow and I'm keen to get started but it may have to wait. Although if the Season carries on at this pace I might need to head there for a while just to catch my breath.