Buffhead2 is an amazing add-on that a guildmate of mine recently got me to use. Man, that thing is awesome. I don't have to look at the target frame to determine what effects my opponents and group members have. I've set it up so that I see all the major buffs that a character can have on him. This includes detaunts, Guard, Challenge, Distracting Bellow, Immaculate Defense, Absolute Preservation, CC immunites, LotD pocket items, and more.
I've uploaded the file so that all can use it. It only works for Order. The detaunt names would have to be changed to their Order equivalents to work for Destro. You'll need to place it in your WAR directory under user > settings > server name > character name > character name > Buffhead. So for me, it's under user > settings > Volkmar > Tarelther > Tarelther > Buffhead.
SavedVariables.lua file for Buffhead2
This is actually the version I use on my Knight. My SM uses one that filters out most of the Nature's Blade buffs because I really don't need to see those. I like to see when I've taken initiative though so I know when I can go for the hard spike.
SavedVariables.lua file for Buffhead2 for SMs
It's made a huge difference for me. It makes the information I need to make decisions more easily available.
Props to Ze WAR for his 6v6 guide. Go read it. It's good stuff. I saw his mention of Buffhead2 and knowing how long it took me to setup mine, I figured others would appreciate the shortcut.
Update: Destro version of Buffhead2 settings
Saturday, August 28, 2010
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
@ The Person Asking Me My Opinion About Healers
First off, sorry about the cut short answers followed by the /ignore. I had too many other things going on. I was hoping you'd take the hint that I was busy. I will give you my full answer here now that I have more time to answer it.
I'm only going to cover Order healers because that's what I know better and that's what the question was about.
I'll start with this. Healing burden is not determined by your group. It's determined by your enemy. You want to build your healing core around what you will be facing if possible.
Again, this is all simply my opinion and is greatly simplified.
The Warrior Priest is an anti-physical, anti-AoE healer. He cleanses Hexes and Curses and is the only healer in game that can cleanse his entire group at once without blowing a morale. He simply does not have the ability to do large single target spike healing unless he puts himself in danger. Choppas hate seeing this healer because he can completely neutralize almost everything he does in a group setting. A Sorceress that relies on Curses like Word of Pain to kill is also annoyed by the WP. The best chance at killing a WP is to use a Witch Elf. Witch Elves can ignore armor. A lot of WPs have tank level armor. She uses Ailments which the WP cannot cleanse. She also does large, single target spike damage which the WP is not well equipped to handle. Other physical damage dealers are not much of a concern to the WP due the ease at which he can stack armor.
The Archmage is an anti-magic, spike healer. Arguably the Archmage has the best single target raw healing in the game. AP is generally not a concern to the healing AM due do all the ways they have to conserve and restore AP. They can cleanse Hexes and Ailments. Due to their light armor and inability to cleanse Curses, Choppas love seeing these on the field. Squig Herders can eat AMs for lunch too with their silence, heal debuff, and heavy physical damage. The AM also cannot cleanse anything a Sorceress does. The AM shares a common issue most players have with High Elves in general. The AM is a very self centered class. It's got a lot of raw healing going for it and a ton of self preservation tools, but as far as offering their group much more than a lot of heals, they don't have much utility.
The Rune Priest is the jack of all trades, buffing healer. He can buff your stats. He can buff your armor. He can buff your resists. He can give you AP. He can buff all incoming healing. He can heal on the run. He can stand still and focus heal. He can AoE heal. And if he had a tube sock, a cardboard tube, a hanger and paper clips, he could probably find a way to heal you with them. He can stack armor to the heavens like the WP or he can have lower armor in favor of better heals. Now obviously, he can't do all this at once. He has to choose what he's going to be good at. He cleanses Curses and Ailments, so he's weak to major debuffing ability of the Blackguard.
So as far as your question, would I rather have an AM or RP? It depends on the situation. I'll take the class with the better player behind it all else being equal. I know it's not what you wanted, but it's the way I see it.
I'm only going to cover Order healers because that's what I know better and that's what the question was about.
I'll start with this. Healing burden is not determined by your group. It's determined by your enemy. You want to build your healing core around what you will be facing if possible.
Again, this is all simply my opinion and is greatly simplified.
The Warrior Priest is an anti-physical, anti-AoE healer. He cleanses Hexes and Curses and is the only healer in game that can cleanse his entire group at once without blowing a morale. He simply does not have the ability to do large single target spike healing unless he puts himself in danger. Choppas hate seeing this healer because he can completely neutralize almost everything he does in a group setting. A Sorceress that relies on Curses like Word of Pain to kill is also annoyed by the WP. The best chance at killing a WP is to use a Witch Elf. Witch Elves can ignore armor. A lot of WPs have tank level armor. She uses Ailments which the WP cannot cleanse. She also does large, single target spike damage which the WP is not well equipped to handle. Other physical damage dealers are not much of a concern to the WP due the ease at which he can stack armor.
The Archmage is an anti-magic, spike healer. Arguably the Archmage has the best single target raw healing in the game. AP is generally not a concern to the healing AM due do all the ways they have to conserve and restore AP. They can cleanse Hexes and Ailments. Due to their light armor and inability to cleanse Curses, Choppas love seeing these on the field. Squig Herders can eat AMs for lunch too with their silence, heal debuff, and heavy physical damage. The AM also cannot cleanse anything a Sorceress does. The AM shares a common issue most players have with High Elves in general. The AM is a very self centered class. It's got a lot of raw healing going for it and a ton of self preservation tools, but as far as offering their group much more than a lot of heals, they don't have much utility.
The Rune Priest is the jack of all trades, buffing healer. He can buff your stats. He can buff your armor. He can buff your resists. He can give you AP. He can buff all incoming healing. He can heal on the run. He can stand still and focus heal. He can AoE heal. And if he had a tube sock, a cardboard tube, a hanger and paper clips, he could probably find a way to heal you with them. He can stack armor to the heavens like the WP or he can have lower armor in favor of better heals. Now obviously, he can't do all this at once. He has to choose what he's going to be good at. He cleanses Curses and Ailments, so he's weak to major debuffing ability of the Blackguard.
So as far as your question, would I rather have an AM or RP? It depends on the situation. I'll take the class with the better player behind it all else being equal. I know it's not what you wanted, but it's the way I see it.
Saturday, August 21, 2010
A Knight's Tale or My 4th Rank 40 Character
Ok really. This isn't fair. The Knight of the Blazing Sun is simply far too easy to play for how strong it is.
For example, the Swordmaster mechanic is built around AP management. Every Perfect Balance attack is free. That's cool. Arguably the best tank channel in the game costs the tank no AP to use. On my Knight, I don't run out of AP...ever. Bellow Commands is just crazy. I can't spam abilities quick enough to drain myself.
The Swordmaster's main form of hard CC is the knockback. Yeah, Banish Darkness just isn't fair. I need a rank 4 morale to knock someone back like that on my SM. Arguably a good single target knockback is better than an AoE knockback for cleaning Guard off a target. I have to slot a tactic on my SM just to get a single target knockback as good as the Knight's without Banish Darkness. The Knight's other hard CC is located 9 points up their Mastery trees. The SM's hard CC is located 13 up their Mastery. And AoE stagger. 'Nuff said.
One the signature things the SM can do is drain stats from an enemy group, and lots of them, including Initiative. On most targets, this will grant your group an extra 10-20% crit rate, but it's random. My Knight can run two tactics and achieve the same thing all the time...
Can my Knight do the damage of my SM? Not even close. Don't get me wrong, damage is important, but it isn't everything. My SM has some nasty burst that my Knight just won't be able to match. (Especially not at RR30.)
The only real downside to the Knight is I'm dependent on my group because all I can really do is make my group more effective and stay alive. That may change down the road as the Knight picks up more gear and renown. On my SM, since it's a more self centered class, I can more easily take the burden of the group upon myself. I'm never in a situation where I can say that I blew all my cooldowns and tell my group to pick up the slack.
In my opinion, a well played SM can outdo a well played Knight, especially in damage and debuffs. A mediocre Knight will beat a mediocre SM any day of the week. In my mind, this makes me want to play harder at my SM.
Or maybe I'm just full of crap and completely off-base. Feel free to tell me either way.
For example, the Swordmaster mechanic is built around AP management. Every Perfect Balance attack is free. That's cool. Arguably the best tank channel in the game costs the tank no AP to use. On my Knight, I don't run out of AP...ever. Bellow Commands is just crazy. I can't spam abilities quick enough to drain myself.
The Swordmaster's main form of hard CC is the knockback. Yeah, Banish Darkness just isn't fair. I need a rank 4 morale to knock someone back like that on my SM. Arguably a good single target knockback is better than an AoE knockback for cleaning Guard off a target. I have to slot a tactic on my SM just to get a single target knockback as good as the Knight's without Banish Darkness. The Knight's other hard CC is located 9 points up their Mastery trees. The SM's hard CC is located 13 up their Mastery. And AoE stagger. 'Nuff said.
One the signature things the SM can do is drain stats from an enemy group, and lots of them, including Initiative. On most targets, this will grant your group an extra 10-20% crit rate, but it's random. My Knight can run two tactics and achieve the same thing all the time...
Can my Knight do the damage of my SM? Not even close. Don't get me wrong, damage is important, but it isn't everything. My SM has some nasty burst that my Knight just won't be able to match. (Especially not at RR30.)
The only real downside to the Knight is I'm dependent on my group because all I can really do is make my group more effective and stay alive. That may change down the road as the Knight picks up more gear and renown. On my SM, since it's a more self centered class, I can more easily take the burden of the group upon myself. I'm never in a situation where I can say that I blew all my cooldowns and tell my group to pick up the slack.
In my opinion, a well played SM can outdo a well played Knight, especially in damage and debuffs. A mediocre Knight will beat a mediocre SM any day of the week. In my mind, this makes me want to play harder at my SM.
Or maybe I'm just full of crap and completely off-base. Feel free to tell me either way.
Friday, August 20, 2010
Tarelther's Take on Against All Odds on Live
So yeah, it's definitely spread out the zerg. Any temptation my alliance to follow the zerg was eliminated. I've been finding more smaller fights recently. This is one of the things that the devs were trying to accomplish, and so far it's worked. The real test of this will be how it's doing next week.
The bonus might be a little too big. Basically, you get at least double renown/xp/inf if outnumbered 20% or more in a lake. I've gotten quite a few 1.2k renown ticks from BOs because of that.
There's more coming out of Gamescom. They aren't done with ORvR yet. I'm pretty sure a lot of that info is coming out tomorrow at Baltimore Games Day, but I don't know for sure.
Although it is double renown weekend. Time to log in and get some stuff done.
The bonus might be a little too big. Basically, you get at least double renown/xp/inf if outnumbered 20% or more in a lake. I've gotten quite a few 1.2k renown ticks from BOs because of that.
There's more coming out of Gamescom. They aren't done with ORvR yet. I'm pretty sure a lot of that info is coming out tomorrow at Baltimore Games Day, but I don't know for sure.
Although it is double renown weekend. Time to log in and get some stuff done.
Monday, August 9, 2010
The Elite Mindset - You Never Rise to the Occasion
Rather you fall back on your level of training. A great example of this happened on the PTS test last Friday. For one part of the test, each side alternated defending Chillwind Manor in Eataine. With friendly collision turned off, defending was much more difficult. I don't think either side really knew how to efficiently defend the BO without it.
In PK, we'd let the attackers in the BO a little bit and kill them as they come in. The attacker's advance would be slowed as they got caught on each other and they would die to our damage as they came in. Sure they might outnumber us 4 to 1, but when we have a warband and we only engage half a warband at a time as they push in, it's quite easy to win.
Defense of the BO failed hard on both sides. Even the outnumbered side managed to grab the BO eventually.
Assaulting the defended position did not change at all. I instantly knew how to beat that from my past experience. I told my side we should hold to morale 3, have a couple tanks go in and drop Challenge and Distracting Bellow, followed by everyone else to mop up. With incoming damage dropped to 35% of normal, it was nothing to get everyone in quickly and safely. The enemy front line disintegrated within seconds on the morale dump.
I'm not yet sure how to defend such a position without friendly collision. It will likely involve having to be much more aggressive though. Once I figure out something, I'll test it and, if it works, train the rest of my alliance on it.
I'm starting to think tanks in WAR are a lot like the offensive/defensive lines in American football at least in oRvR. If your big guys beat up their big guys, chances are pretty good you're going to win.
In PK, we'd let the attackers in the BO a little bit and kill them as they come in. The attacker's advance would be slowed as they got caught on each other and they would die to our damage as they came in. Sure they might outnumber us 4 to 1, but when we have a warband and we only engage half a warband at a time as they push in, it's quite easy to win.
Defense of the BO failed hard on both sides. Even the outnumbered side managed to grab the BO eventually.
Assaulting the defended position did not change at all. I instantly knew how to beat that from my past experience. I told my side we should hold to morale 3, have a couple tanks go in and drop Challenge and Distracting Bellow, followed by everyone else to mop up. With incoming damage dropped to 35% of normal, it was nothing to get everyone in quickly and safely. The enemy front line disintegrated within seconds on the morale dump.
I'm not yet sure how to defend such a position without friendly collision. It will likely involve having to be much more aggressive though. Once I figure out something, I'll test it and, if it works, train the rest of my alliance on it.
I'm starting to think tanks in WAR are a lot like the offensive/defensive lines in American football at least in oRvR. If your big guys beat up their big guys, chances are pretty good you're going to win.
Monday, August 2, 2010
Team Play and The Elite Mindset - A Video Example
I found this little gem (ok 1GB isn't little, but still) on the RDPS forums and it fits perfectly with two of the topics, so I had to share this. They're speaking French, but it's not hard to tell what they're saying even if you don't know the language.
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=B2UDT95P
Everything I've talked about in both those series is contained in this video in some form.
Note: avast! says it's clean, and my system is fine so far, but still use your own due diligence before downloading and watching the video. I didn't make it, so I'm not gonna vouch for it.
Original forum post
Nice job gentlemen. I hope to see more ass-kicking in the future.
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=B2UDT95P
Everything I've talked about in both those series is contained in this video in some form.
Note: avast! says it's clean, and my system is fine so far, but still use your own due diligence before downloading and watching the video. I didn't make it, so I'm not gonna vouch for it.
Original forum post
Nice job gentlemen. I hope to see more ass-kicking in the future.
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