With Celeste under the weather and there still a lot to talk about on the PvP front, Ultra joins Allona this week for the whole show to give his impressions and advice for your listening enjoyment!
Audio Version

What We Did This Week
 

Ultra

PvP x Fiddy
1 hour of raiding
some fractals with Mock
Got a Bifrost!

Allona

Guild missions with MoCK on Sunday
Guild missions with Maven on Monday
Fractalled on Monday with MoCK
Flax Farming all day, e’ry day
PvPed for tourney. It went either really really badly or really really well (HINT: mostly badly) (NOTE: I hate Dragon Hunter traps)
Took more alts to the Flax Farm
Made Mugs and Kegs and Kegs and Mugs, oh and Kegs and maybe a few Mugs for the guild hall
Generous Spirit from Relics helped a few of us get some cheevos in Spirit Vale

 

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Report from Lion’s Arch
 
Wintersday Items in teh gem store
https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/snowflake-glider-exalted-mail-carrier-and-wintersday-wreath-backpack-in-the-gem-store/

Wintersday Wreath Backpack – 500 gems
Snowflake Glider – 500 gems
Exalted Mail Carrier – 500 gems
Wintersday Earmuffs – 25 gems
Stag Helm – 500 gems
Plush Griffon – 350 gems
Princess Doll – 350 gems
Toy Golem – 350 gems
Toy Soldier – 350 gems
Toy Ventari – 350 gems
Wintersday Mini 3 Pack – 500 gems
Arctic Explorer Outfit – 700 gems
Fancy Winter Outfit – 700 gems

 
Surviving the Mists

PvP Aplenty
This only gonna be about PvP today. WvWers, prepare to be ignored. Oh Wait. ha… haha..

3 major points to talk about: The implementation of Leagues, The ESL pro series, and the Meta:

First, the Leagues

We’re probably all generally familiar with what has been added to pvp but just a rough summary: Divisions have been added and players can climb up through different divisions to receive various awards. Divisions have different tiers within them and pips within Tiers.

EVERYBODY starts in Amber division, in which you cannot lose pips or tiers.
Emerald and Sapphire Divisions you can lose pips but not Tiers
Once you get to Ruby you can lose pips and Tiers but you will never lose your division during a season.

Various small awards are given for crossing tiers, such as unidentified dyes and gold, divisions yield higher rewards such as PvP claim tickets which are used for getting different tiers of the components required for the legendary back piece, The Ascension.

Pros

There are some good aspects about this system:

A Divisions System and the rewards that come with it, allow players to set personal goals and see where they compare to other players.
Encourages players to play more competitively, often seeking team coordination. (This was kind of already present, but with the absence of solo queue, this is much more appealing).

Cons

There are some issues with the implementation of this though that I think are worth mentioning.

There is no solo queue. This is a debatable topic but for now, it seems like it is causing a lot of strife within the community.

Teams stomping PUGS

personal reaction

Amber Division is meaningless. Pips should be subtracted for losing matches.
There are no placement matches. Which leads to a total imbalance when you have very talented players starting in the same place as beginners.

Rewards are tied to climbing from the bottom.
MMR Tanking
High tier players partying with low/bottom tier.

ESL Pro Series

GW2 now has a weekly pro series. Every Monday night, pro teams compete as part of the ESL.