A showcase of the legendary PvP wings.

Guild Wars 2's PvP scene hasn't been in a good place for quite a while after launch but it turns out extensive patching can indeed fix what what is broken as the PvP mode is now more popular than ever.

And it would appear now that Guild Wars 2 is going to chase the esports dream with their first PvP League. Here's how it all works:

First and foremost you will need to be at least level 20 in the PvP mode (rank level rather than character level) which for those not familiar with GW2 is fairly easy to do and anyone even remotely interested in PvP will be able to get it fairly quickly. Once you have enough rank levels you will be able to queue in to league matches which have their own ranking and reward system.

Rewards come in a couple of varieties. You will get gold as well as various crafting materials for moving up within your division while crossing from a lower division to a higher one will net you a league ticket. These can be traded at PvP vendors for unique cosmetics, miniatures, gold or even components for the new legendary backpack.

The legendary "backpack" in this case refers to a pair of rather fancy cosmetic wings called The Ascension which is also the intro image for this article. Now, if you want these fancy wings you are going to have to put your rear in to gear because legendaries in Guild Wars 2 do not come easily (which also means they are highly prestigious).

First of all you will need the Wings of Legend which is a precursor item that is created by upgrading the Wings of Glory, one of the unique items being introduce with this patch. As you might imagine this task is not going to be an easy one and it will most likely take you a couple of seasons to finish unless you are an extremely skilled player.

Besides the precursor you will also need three "Gifts", special items that are rather difficult to craft. The gift of fortune is perhaps the easiest one, that one will simply cost you a fortune. Bad puns aside the other two can be earned either by doing special PvP achievements and through items you gain by playing ranked league missions. Unless the item requirements on these are absolutely ridiculous the PvP legendary seems like it will be the easiest to gain through simple playing rather than gaming the auction house.

Shiny items aside there is also a new Guild Challenger League where you can team up with your guildies and test your battle prowess against other organized teams. Besides simply gaining in game rewards and trophies the Guild Challenger League will also function as a gateway for the Guild Wars 2 ESL league so if you play well enough you might even get a crack at some pretty sizeable real money prizes.

While I am excited about this whole league system I do wonder if the game is ready to become an esport just yet. I'm not an avid PvP player but I occasionally dabble and from my observation the classes aren't really balanced and many ranked matches are filled with the same couple of builds repeated over and over again. Hopefull, with Arenanet goning heavily in to organized PvP, they'll also adopt a faster patching cycle in order to curb any imbalance that might ruin their tournaments.

My worries aside I'm still probably going to play it mostly because its a fun thing to do and being rewarded with shiny new toys for doing something fun is always welcome.