Snowball Arena!

I think it's like this:

Everyone has:
Snowball, Mega Snowball, Hidden Rock, Ice Fort, and Mmmm Snowcone.

Depending on team:
Yellow Snow (when in Grenth's team) or Avalache (when in Dwayna's team, which is waaaay better imo).

And then everyone has two skill of it's own.
Warrior: 'Let's Get Em!' (5 seconds running)
Monk: Ice Breaker (+5 regenaration to an ally for ? seconds), <forgot the name> (Hex that makes the targeted area get interupted when hit by Snowball)
Necro: Wintersday Cry (suicide, explode for 50 dmg, make a weel with -? degeneration)
Ele: Flurry of Ice (75 dmg to targeted foe and all adjacent foes), Icecicles (slows foes for 66%)
Mesmer: ?
Ranger: ? (they do have a pet, maybe it's just Charm Animal..)

It's a pitty Avalache is way better then Yellow Snow. Yellow Snow is pretty useless, though Avalache can mess up Present runners badly.

That hex isnt monk specific - I have it everytime I go in, its called snow down the shirt. It isnt class or team specific - you always have it. Theres only 2 skills different. 1 selected by team (ava or yellow) and 1 by class.

Also Flurry of Ice (Ice Flurry ingame) ISNT ele skill, its Ranger's Skill.

(BTW, yellow snow isnt for conditioning your snowball, its basic use is to cure the cirppling cuased by ava).

The Necro one ain't called Wintersday Cry, I just found out, it's:

Holiday Blues - Sacrifice 100% max health. You bring the Holiday Blues to the area. All foes in the area take 50 damage and for 45 seconds, any foe within the area suffers -15 health degeneration.

Yellow snow Is that...uhm...what I think it cán be

Mesmers get blinding snow which interuppts the targets action and blinds them for 10 seconds. Recharges in 10 seconds too, it looks to be pretty useful.

Yellow snow isn't too bad- it can remove the avalanche cripple as well as daze caused by hidden rock. Since it is a glyph, even when you are dazed, you can use it normally.

The snowball arena is great fun. However, the cynic in me is just waiting to see the PvE players who are scared to PvP complain about how they are missing out.

The only problem I have with the game currently is with rangers and the use of pets..Its gay getting stuck on a pet.

This had to be the funnest time ive had in arena's in a long time!! Well done Anet! Snowball fights were fun as shit and running present around while everybody was trying to kill eachother was a blast!! Spent 4 hours in there last night had the time of my life, althoung we only won like 6 times, it was so fun we didnt even care about faction or present!!

Its got to be the holiday spirit!! Merry X-mas GW World!! Lets see what happens for New Years!!! LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLO

i got 12 consecutive wins before i got bored and this meant 12 christmas presents ^^

ele's skill #6 is by far the best, mix that with avalanche and thats a useless runner.
and a strategy that everyone uses is running up to runner melee range and knocking them down causing runner to drop present and you grabbing it up

wars get 2 damage reduction which isnt that much, you just take 48 instead of 50 (cmon no big deal)

last piece of info which i found out, even if you are the one holding present, often there is only 1 person trying to stop you, STAND YOUR GROUND, they will be too busy trying to set up a knockdown, run up in their faces and put snow up their shirt and start snowballing away, if there is more then one, cast fortress and call for help from teammates, they will be too busy attacking you to pay attention to your teammates attacking them

[SARCASM]The thing I like the most is the fantastic cooperation![/SARCASM]

All my teams are like that too... No wonder I can do well in the comp arenas cuz Im assuming these are the people I'm playing...

How to overload with damage & defense:
W/R; knights armor [sup absorb but I donno if the 'Spells' count as attacks, but throw some on anyway,

have charm animal on your bar,

equip the HP +45, Damage -2 when hexed shield,

use a sword or axe with Enchantments last XX% longer [untested, but>> Snow fort, enchantment, so it should last 12 seconds with a 20%]

I haven't tested anything regarding skill recharge time, if recharge does work use the fiery flame spitter axe from south of serenity w/ 45/-2 hex shield.

I'm not sure what the Warriors were using I was attacking but I've dealt alot of 48 Damage shots against Warriors, so it does work. Not too sure about Skill Recharge, but if it does work use +10% Skill recharge items (Firespitter/Wand) + 20/20 Rockmolder and you'll own.

Snowball arena is so fun and everyone is having a good time! Although, there were some people that I've met who got angry when they lose and cursed =/ Snowball arena is meant to be fun and to have a fun time with the community. Thanks to ActionJack for coming up with the idea and thanks to Anet for making it come true.

Well it was great when I used my necro's Holiday Blues move for the first time before the match started.

Hehehe 9 con. wins

Actually, after playing around as a mesmer more, I realized that the blinding effect of their skill is useless as the snowballs are spells, not attacks.
I think it would make a lot more sense if they were attacks, as well as making the mesmer's blinding snow a lot more effective. Oh well, its still great fun.

Well, I took in my new lvl 8 ele....and at the start one of the warriors dropped out. The other team members scattered like the wind and I was the only one to return a present a present to Grenth (the other I found in time exploded). It's frustrating when the warrior says "cover me and I'll run the presents", you do your best and then he scampers here and there doing nothing but yelling "help" (he was in no danger -- he also had nothing in his hands). Needless to say, we were soundly whooped but I may go in again just for the fun of it .

(I've never done PvP or any arena fighting even though I have several lvl 20+, so this is a little taste of that, I suppose)

This is a pretty fun map.

I'm glad this thread does not contain the word "nerf" yet.

I'm a sweet ass team of 4 warriors, we're all chaining our charges together and pretty good at stealing presents!

Warriors and Dwayna have significant advantages on this map. Monk isn't bad too but the other class special skills aren't as good.

I'm wearing Knight's Armor + sup absorption and I'm getting -2 per hit (48 dmg instead of 50). It may not seem like much, but at least it means it takes 11 hits and not 10 to kill you off.