I promised dwarven weaponry in my last post. I've already discussed two of these and hinted at a third.
These are the 4 group types in PK warband strategy.
Hammer - The single target assist train. (Viable scenario group on it's own.)
Bomb - PBAoE group (Also a viable scenario group on it's own.)
Anvil - Tank/healer heavy group used to hold points and draw enemy fire/morales. (Not good on it's own normally. Not enough damage output unless all the tanks are suicide or at least DPS spec. With all the tanks putting out damage, this becomes the 3T group.)
Cannon - Ranged group used to deal damage from afar, outside the range of Challenge, Crippling Strikes, and other damage debuffs. (Not good on it's own. Too vulnerable to melee. Needs an anvil group to protect them. Very effective if you can double queue with an anvil.)
In the old city, PK always used 2 hammers and 2 anvils and held two of the three points that way. 1 anvil parked at apex. 1 anvil parked at temple. The 2 hammers moved to help whichever anvil the enemy was hitting.
Guards, Challenges, and Distracting Bellows are all used to reduce incoming damage. We're more reliant on Challenge and Distracting Bellow than Guard since those two abilities protect all our allies. We can have most groups with only one tank with an anvil group in warband because of this. Single target knockbacks are used against enemy tanks in the front line to move them out of Guard range.
Typically, the anvil groups will always engage first, followed a few seconds later by the other groups. This way we can get damage spread going to further protect our less sturdy groups. Usually only a hammer group will ever wander off on its own to work the flanks. Sometimes I'll send a bomb to do that, but it's rare. A cannon group needs to be with an anvil group to protect it, but it can deal damage only worrying about Guard and Bellow/ID reducing their damage. Tanks in the front line should be punting enemy tanks away to handle Guard anyway.
We'll talk how this works in practice next time using the new city as an example.
Is the hammer group single tank with the tank picking targets? A second tank does not seam nessary. Would a hammer group be the easyest to teach players?
ReplyDeleteBlackfeet
It could also be with two tanks and one healer. When running with only one tank in a scenario party, I don't like putting the additional burden of target calling on the tank since he'll have enough to do rotating guard, timing challenge, and timing CC.
ReplyDeleteI usually like to have a melee DPS call targets in scenarios.
In warband size engagements, typically anvil groups' challenges and bellows can cover the entire warband. The lack of tanks and healers in the hammer group is not as much of an issue in a large fight MOST of the time since the anvil groups should be in first causing damage spread (difficulty targeting your truly dangerous targets) before the hammer strikes the enemy.
Where you need tanks and healing in a big way in a hammer group is if you have lost the initiative and the enemy is pushing you in a heavily coordinated manner. Fighting against an enemy that coordinated is rare however.