Guild Wars: Costume Brawl Tips and Tricks

A few hints and tricks from a vaunted Costume Brawl pro. In that I've played a few matches and won more than I've lost so I feel all cocky now.

First, which character to use? Well, it's really up to you. Most of the builds aren't awful and it comes down to personal preference for how you like to play and what you're comfortable with. Each of them can be effective in the right hands and none of them are completely wretched. The only one I'd steer you clear of would be the Monk - it's a fiddly Smite-Healer and you can use it to be an annoying little SOB but not easily. I personally think the Ranger is the greatest and the best if you're getting your feet wet to boot - decent damage, lots of interrupts, hard to kill - but that's just me.

When playing, you want to keep in mind that the Costume Arena is all about mobility and movement. You'll learn to love your speed buffs (If you have them) as you are constantly going to be moving from one place to another or chasing down or running from the enemy. You don't want to get tied up in a set piece battle. Stick and move. Cap those shrines. Killing stuff is actually quicker but capturing shrines puts the pressure on your opponent to respond and turns the match into a fluid, flexible situation that you can swing to your advantage.

Stick together. You are part of a team. Your team is a lot better if you stay together and focus your fire. Don't run off all by yourself because that just makes you an easy target and gives the other side a free point. Try and follow your teammates. Unless you're syncing or you know what you're doing in which case, cheerfully ignore that bit of advise. The advanced strat here is to split off the beginning, generally you want to go 3/2 or 2/1/2, depending on the map, and collapse down the road. If your opponent overloads on one side or the other, great, that means you can avoid them and get an easy cap or three while they stand around with their thumbs up their butts. If they don't, you'll have at least one fight on your hand but you'll still be better put to get an early lead on the shrines.

Cap first, defend second. Head to the shrines to start, make sure you're in range and the counter is ticking down even if there's an opponent or two standing nearby. Once you have the shrines wrapped up, that's when it's time to ward off those foes. Not before. After you have the morale advantage, that's when you want to fight to maintain it. If you head to a shrine and find it covered with enemies, don't engage (unless it's the last shrine in which case, go right ahead) because that just means there's another shrine somewhere that they've left undefended. Go find it and cap that, then worry about taking that shrine.

Look for where the enemy isn't. Be there.. There are gaps in their line. Weaknesses where you can take advantage. Shrines they've left alone. Rambos going out for a pleasant stroll all by their lonesomes. Points you're closer to that will take them a while to get around to. Those are the places you want to concentrate on instead of trying to attack them where they're stronger.

When you're defending (ie if you're up on points or have a significant shrine or morale advantage), if you can fight the enemy to a stalemate you've achieved a strategic victory. If you and her are fighting around a shrine then it's not going to change hands any time soon. But if you're on the defensive that means you're ahead. And that means time is on your side. Maybe you get into a duel and you just can't kill the other person, that's okay, as long as you can keep them from killing you.

Also, when you're defending, if you can tie up two or three opponents for 30~40 seconds, you've given your team an advantage elsewhere. If you're leading half their team on a merry chase becaues you're on your own and you're not awesome enough to make them pee their pants just by looking at them, that's okay. Because if half their team is with you and you're alone, that means the rest of your team has numbers on the rest of the field. They'll be wiping someone out at a shrine or running around and capping multiple points, it doesn't matter. If you're up against multiple opponents, that's a good thing. As long as you can stall, distract, and divet them long enough for the rest of your team to make a difference.

When you're on the offense (ie when you're behind on the points), killing stuff is the quickest way to make points. You get a point when your morale meter fills - each shrine contributes some juice to that meter - or for every time you kill one of the opposing team. Even with all the shrines capped, it takes a while for the morale meter to get full. You can spike your opponents down, on the other hand, in a few seconds. And killing them off makes it easier to cap the shrines. When you're trailing, concentrate on downing a few enemies and going on the power play, then worry about the shrines and securing them. The notable exception is when the other team is really close to winning and they have a morale meter just ticking over, you have to stop that and you don't want to give them free points from combat.

Death can be energy management. If you die, you rez on the half minute with full health and full energy. If you're low on en and it's near the autorez point, feel free to take a nose dive (As long as your opponent isn't a few points away from winning, of course) to pop right back up a lot faster than you will if you rely on regeneration. In general, just try and die close to those :30 and :00 marks instead of :29 or :59.

Kite!. Don't stand there and get pounded on. Move out of line of sight. Run circles around melee characters. Whatever, if you can do it you'll already be better than half the players in the Costume Arena.

Call targets. Ping your target. You'll be surprised how well this works at times. And how seldom other people will do it.

Know the maps. There are four, they're pretty similar. One has only three shrines and it's really small and intimate. The others feature more shrines and more running around. But once you play them a few times you should get a feel for them. Know twhere the shrines are and, especially, the best routes between them. Know how to get from one point on the map to any other as quickly as you can because chances are, at some point, you'll have to.

As for inventory, I have no idea. There's something weird going on. You can use your inventory, bring in weapons besides the default ones you're handed. But I'm not sure they actually do anything, at the moment. I'll have to test this with candycane weapons or something but from my observations it seems mainly cosmetic. You can change the skin of the weapon you're holding, in other words, but I'm not sure if you can change the functionality. Things like Fortitude mods don't work, for one - so pack the +AL stuff instead - and neither do Vamp and Zealous. The other stuff is a little harder to tell but I'd swear, for example, that bows don't change range no matter what kind you're using. But, at the very least, you can take a bow or a wand for your melee character so take advantage. Not sure about armor yet, either. Attribute runes don't work but stuff like Absorption or Purity? No clue.