The Stompcast: The PvP Podcast

Nord from Guild Wars Insider leads a new podcast for the PvP community of Guild Wars 2.  It runs just over an hour, and is really quite brilliant.

All of the hosts are extremely knowledgeable of the state of PvP in the game as well as having substantial backgrounds in other notable e-sports. Although it should be noted, if you are looking for a casual, WvW podcast, this is not it. These are all guys who know their way around the structured PvP, and are members of some very notable guilds.

That being said, they can be a little shortsighted. For example, they mentioned quite a bit about Guild Wars 2 not being ready by launch because of balance, lack of testing, etc. It was only when one of them pointed out that they were in the minority of the player-base and then suggested that ArenaNet does not necessarily need to have GW2 as a glorified e-sport day one, that they sort of re-balanced themselves and took a step back.

Or the one guy saying "2" on the shortbow is useless. He obviously has not heard of 'shotgunning', and alas no one corrected him. (My true opinion is that it is a nice niche move for single target, burst damage on a shortbow, and fails when trying to use it as an effective AOE in PvP. It may not be working as originally designed, but it's far from useless, and I'm surprised at his comment.) Most admitted to not having tried the thief first-hand, and yet are very quick to jump on that it is weak. ArenaNet may have had a point a couple of weeks ago in one of their interviews stating that we do not know what is strong yet...That being said, I still believe thieves are a little under balanced and may be in need of a rework, but that is from my own fifty hours of experience. I think it's a little premature to judge something you haven't even taken the time to play. But I'll be the first to admit that even with fifty hours, I still have no idea what the profession is capable of. Consequentially, my own opinions are still clouded with my own inexperience.

To be fair, while I blathered on about some of my complaints a little too long, they really provided some excellent discussion on RNG, meta, thief balance, and downed state mechanics. I value their opinions fairly highly in the community, even if they have just started. I encourage you to take a look and listen to them for a while. The podcast is quite informative and entertaining.

Favorite moment " Guy 1: "Crit bullets....take that out of the podcast"

Guy 2: "Done."