Costume Brawl



Costume Brawl is a PvP minigame introduced during Halloween 2007. Players fight in the guise of famous characters from the Guild Wars story, using that character's special equipment and custom set of skills.

To enter, speak with NPC—Bobby [Costume Brawl]—in the towns of Lion's Arch, Kamadan, Droknar's Forge, and the Great Temple of Balthazar. You will enter the Costume Brawl outpost already dressed in your disguise, with your skills selected and your weapons equipped. Each gender and profession has corresponding characters. From there, you will join the combat in one of several brawl arenas.

Game mechanics
Two randomly-grouped teams of 5 take on the guises of henchmen, heroes, and villains of their respective professions and compete to be the first to reach 20 points. At the end of a match, every player on the winning team will receive a prize.


 * You score one point for each kill you achieve.
 * Any non-Morale shrine adds 1 pip to the morale bar's progress rate, while a Morale shrine adds two pips.
 * Health shrines raise your party members' health by 120 each.
 * Energy shrines lower cost of your party's skills by 20%.
 * Battle Cry shrines raise movement speed by 25%, attack speed by 15%, and skills recharge 15% faster.
 * Fighting at the Resurrection Shrines grants benefits to the team that resurrects at the shrine: deal 50% more damage and take 50% less damage.
 * If neither team has scored 20 points within 10 minutes, the team with the highest score wins.
 * If the teams are tied at the end of 10 minutes, the first team to score a kill wins.
 * There is no Death Penalty.
 * Disguises are assigned randomly each round.
 * Winning teams' members are sent back into the queue for entering battle.

Disguises

 * Disguises use different skills every year. You can view the disguises from the previous years on this page.

Weapons
While the skills are fixed in the disguise, the inventory and the equipped weapons stay with the character. For every character a related weapon will drop on the ground when you enter the arena. So either bring appropriate weapons along or pick up the dropped weapon. Any weapon not picked up by the start of the battle will disappear.

Arenas

 * Kysten Shore
 * One Center Shrine (Morale Shrine)
 * One Battle Cry Shrine
 * One Energy Shrine
 * Whitefury Rapids
 * Two Morale Shrines
 * Two Health Shrines
 * One Battle Cry Shrine
 * Plikkup Works
 * One Center Shrine (Morale Shrine)
 * Two Health Shrines
 * One Battle Cry Shrine
 * One Energy Shrine
 * Deepway Ruins
 * Two Morale Shrines
 * One Battle Cry Shrine

Rewards
Each team member receives:
 * 40 Balthazar faction per unique kill
 * 20 Balthazar faction per point scored
 * 5 Balthazar faction for each point on final scoreboard, 15 Gamer points, and 5 Trick-or-Treat Bags in a team win. For example, if the opposing team resigns while the scoreboard shows 18 points, the victors receive 90 Balthazar faction.

Tips
There are two ways to victory:
 * 1) Kill enemy players
 * 2) Keep shrines to gain morale

There are no tactics that ensure a win every time. Winning depends on your players' skill, profession composition and enemy team behavior.


 * As a general rule, don't fight when severely outnumbered and especially when the opponent has the Battle Cry shrine. Chances are you will give the opposing team a point with your death before you can finish off one of them. Run away and regroup. If you are lucky, only one or two of the opposing players will chase you, and your team will have the numeric advantage in the skirmish. Draw enemies to your Resurrection Shrine if possible because your damage is boosted and the enemy's is reduced. Conversely, avoid fighting in the opposing team's resurrection shrine.
 * In Whitefury Rapids, there are many different tactics. One is to split 2-1-2: two players get the Battle Cry Shrine, two get the Health Shrine and one stays to get the Morale Shrine. The one at the Morale Shrine moves on to the Health Shrine split or directly over the bridge to the other Morale Shrine. Try to encounter the enemy splits in even numbers or, if you know you can handle them, take on the enemy so that you can still win. Once your team has all shrines, repeatedly kill the enemy players at or in their base.
 * Be ready at the gate(s) or portal at the start of the game.
 * Work out which shrine(s) to capture at the start.
 * Coordinate battles and communicate. Call targets instead of letting damage spread out over several opponents. Direct teammates to control points or away from opponents.

Trivia

 * Before 2008, this game awarded 7 Gamer points per win. From 2008 to 2009, this game awarded 9+(number of consecutive victories up to 41).
 * Before 2010, each profession and sex had only one disguise available.
 * It is possible to go behind the waterfalls in the Costume Brawl. A video on how to get in can be seen here.
 * It used to be possible to get stuck in the Costume Brawl with no way to map out.