Guild Wars: The Fearsome Sniper!

I knew it was going to be a bad night when the Wammo announced he was a “Decapitate tank”.

You know the deal by now. Me. Arena. Shield Bashing for fun and profit. Some random goofball on my team. Winds piling up. And all I could think of was “Oh no, not another sniper.”

To explain, let me set the dial on the way back machine to one weekend. Years ago now, it feels like so long ago. But while the day was memorable for many things it was mostly because it was because yet another BWE had rolled around. And I was getting yet another chance to play with all the friends who were on the wrong side of the alpha test wall. Along with some of the standbys from within the test. I mean, I could drop some names here but this was a pretty select group of people - some of whom are still around to this day, and some who've faded along the way (Hi! How ya doing?) but who were, at the time, a group united by our common passion for the game. A group, I'd like to think, of friends. Doing what we did best around that time – kicking ass in the Tombs. The day's nascent GvGing fever had cooled as the light outside - my window anyway - had faded. And guild rosters had dwindled down to those remaining diehards who were determined to squeeze as many gamehours out of the preview weekend as possible. So, like we'd done before we gathered together the All-Star team.

It wasn't so much a matter of if we'd get to the Hall as it was just how long we could hold it. Forget what the record was at the time or who held it but we were pretty sure we were going to shatter it. I was, as I usually was back then, Monking it up. And, sure enough, it was Hall hold after Hall hold. The only thing that could bring us down was the dread disconnect. The weekend was a buggy one, for whatever reason, and it seemed we couldn't go more than a few matches without someone dropping. And then hanging around vent while we'd plug on – a little thing like losing a player wasn't going to stop us, you know? Depending on who it was you could count on some good snarking. Or some liberal cursing. Either way, we were entertained. But we could only win so many games down a player or two especially if it was one of the Monks who's connection went tits up. As the list shrunk, we'd head back to the lobby to pick up anyone who'd been tossed out of the party. We didn't even bother to try and sync up with the Hall when we'd head back in – we just wanted to play. It wasn't about the Hall. It wasn't about the fame – I made rank 5 that weekend (From scratch.) , I'm just saying, and I didn't even care (Gone the next wipe.). It was about those people who'd been counting down all month long.

You know, showing them that all that waiting was worth it. That we were taking good care of things and the game was getting better and better – and release wasn't that far away. Reminding ourselves, maybe, that all the pain and heartache of the test was worth it, too. Or maybe that was just me.

But as these things go, we eventually lost one of the crew. Couldn't stay up any longer. No amount of sugar and caffeine would help them stay awake. Had to get to sleep, important things to do the next day and all that. Whatever excuse it took to get off the crazy train. You know, the usual. Which left the other seven of us standing around wondering what to do. No one else we knew and trusted enough was on. And we still had matches left in us.

Rather than let our evening end we decided that, well, any warm body would do. So we grabbed some random Ranger from the lobby. Didn't bother to get him on vent or anything. Didn't ask him what he was running – I mean, back then it's not like anyone had a real clue about such things. We were just happy he spoke English and seemed to follow the called target.

We were doing alright in our first few matches. The PvE swarm that used to start things off where we slaughtered the Rifts with abandon. Those early annihilation maps where a good team like ours just devastates the unprepared. But there were more maps in the Tombs back then and more teams. Getting to the Hall was a long road. A few rounds in, though, in one of those multi-team maps where there was bridge or some kind of overhang, and our random Ranger spoke up. “Guys,” he said despite the fact that there was at least one female in the group and more than a few people crossing gender lines, “I'm going up to snipe.”

Which, fine, right. Let me concentrate on my work, thanks. Red bars going down and need picking up. I didn't think much more of it. But after the match was over and we were comparing our fame totals again he piped up again. “Yes! Pwned them. I am the sniper! gj all!”

Total silence on vent. We were stunned. And then we burst into laughter. I mean, here was this Ranger guy running the jankiest build (I was a Monk, remember. I spent a lot of time watching his skill bar.) and here he was passing out gjs and ggs like his awesome bow damage was the reason we won. Instead of, you know, his being floated by the rest of the team.

We had fun with it, of course. He immediately became “teh sniper!”. Egged him on. Encouraged him. Complimented him. Picked over his responses in vent. Mocked him. The usual. He was everything we thought we weren't. Dumb, stupid, and lucky. We weren't just as he said, a “nice team.” We were hardcore. We knew what we were doing. And there wasn't any luck involved.

And so, we laughed our way through another run. A short one, by the standards of the rest of the night but still better than most. Because we were that good even thought there was more than a bit of good luck involved – if nothing else in the tumbling of the die that had brought us together at that moment in time as I, for one, was too blind to realize at the time. All the while we were having fun with the poor, hapless newb who'd accepted our invite. Couldn't hear anything on vent – his only line of communication was the rare in-game chat trying to draw the next ludicrous statement out of him. I imagine he was beaming. He was, after all, the sniper. And by some dint of fate and fortune he'd finally found a team worthy of his skills. The skills that were, after all, driving him and his team deep into the Tombs, to the Halls and beyond. He was earning his spot.

No one ever corrected him, as far as I know. So from his point of view he had no reason to doubt he wasn't responsible for our wins. At least in part. When he was just lucky enough to find good teammates. And just unfortunate enough not to realize it.