One of my very first posts dealt with the coordination of CC. I did not mention in that post with what CC was coordinated. CC is coordinated with spike damage.
There are two types of CC in this game. You have offensive CC which disables an opponent while allowing you to attack him. These are knockdowns, silences, and disarms. These are typically 3 or 4 seconds long. Then you have defensive CC, stagger, which disables the opponent, but breaks if you attack him. This is typically 9 seconds long. A group heal from a WP or DoK takes 1s to cast. This gives you a 5s window to attack with offensive CC and a 10s window to attack with stagger. You'll know which spike to use by the type of CC being called.
I'll use my SM as an example.
For my 5s spike, I will try to use Ensorcelled Blow, Quick Incision, Sudden Shift, Wrath of Hoeth, Taunt, Ether Dance. If I am doing the CC with Whispering Wind, this becomes Sudden Shift, Quick Incision/Wrath of Hoeth, Taunt, Ether Dance.
For my 10s spike, I go Ensorcelled Blow, Quick Incision, Blurring Shock, Ensorcelled Blow, Wrath of Hoeth, Taunt, Ether Dance.
I also have a WL, so I can give those too.
For 5s spike, I use Pounce + Force Opportunity, Blindside/Shattering Blow, Pack Assault, Cull the Weak/Coordinated Strike/Lion's Fury.
For 10s spike, I use Pounce + FO, Blindside, LF, SB, PA, CS, CtW/LF. My tanks should be snaring the target for me. The highest spike occurs when Coordinated Strike is activated. Blindside + Shattering Blow + Pack Assault + 4 hits from Coordinated Strike + autoattack + procs all hit at once. Pack Assault helps put more damage at once if everyone is coordinating spike correctly.
The basic idea is that you need to put as much damage into a single second as possible to make damage more difficult to heal. Should you disable all healing that your opponent has, you can remove all the DoTs and just hit them with everything you have.
Sunday, October 31, 2010
Friday, October 29, 2010
Spike Damage - Tank Damage in Perspective
There's been a bit of talk lately about DPS tanks being able to put out the damage of a real DPS class. I'd like to put those concerns to rest by talking about spike damage. Spike damage is the ability to cause a massive amount of damage to hit at one specific time stamp. While creating spike damage results in less overall damage than going for sustained damage, the idea to overload damage on a target so that he cannot possibly be healed through it. You cannot rely on a healer running out of resources eventually in WAR. AP regenerates very quickly.
Night before last I was running some scenarios with my guild. The setup was the 3T group. Specifically it was Knight, 2 Swordmasters, Shadow Warrior, Wrath Warrior Priest, Salvation Warrior Priest. The pops were kinda slow, so the Knight decided since scenarios weren't popping, he'd get things popping with the wife. I can't say I blame the guy. A couple minutes after he left, we got a Highpass Cemetery. The scenario had 4 Sorcs in it. Ever been blasted by Sorcs without a resist buff? Let me show you some of my combat log.
Don't get me wrong, I can put up some sick numbers when all the stars align. I did get a 1233 Ether Dance and 1638 Dazzling Strike earlier today. They don't count because they were on a solo, berserk, 35 choppa.
Those two sorcs have a very effective 5 second spike. They had a Chosen with them to stagger healers if needed, but they didn't need it without our Knight around. They would have likely used a 10 second spike if they needed the stagger to get kills.
Had we had the Knight with us, his Gather Your Resolve would have been good for 378 resists, or 21.8% damage reduction. (He's full Glory with Solar Flare.) Without the Knight, I had a deficit of 6390 health. (The remaining damage to kill me was removed by the Black Orc.) With the Knight, the 9248 damage drops to 7231 damage, leaving a new deficit of 4373 health. Gather Your Resolve would have reduced the effective damage output by 31.6%. Most importantly, I would have lived long enough to get the next set of heals. This is where they would have needed a 10 second spike with a stagger.
We did end up rallying back and getting a total for 46 kills to their 61 kills. We had 15 deaths as a team. 3 to 1 team kill/death on a lost scenario isn't bad at all. We got beat, but we didn't go down without a fight. We ended up splitting their forces up between the two objective points and taking them down that way.
The time frame of 5 second spike and 10 second spike are no accident. I'll explain it next time.
Night before last I was running some scenarios with my guild. The setup was the 3T group. Specifically it was Knight, 2 Swordmasters, Shadow Warrior, Wrath Warrior Priest, Salvation Warrior Priest. The pops were kinda slow, so the Knight decided since scenarios weren't popping, he'd get things popping with the wife. I can't say I blame the guy. A couple minutes after he left, we got a Highpass Cemetery. The scenario had 4 Sorcs in it. Ever been blasted by Sorcs without a resist buff? Let me show you some of my combat log.
[10/10/28][22:59:45] Rhiell's Doombolt critically hits you for 2266 damage. (1431 mitigated)
[10/10/28][22:59:45] Rhiell's Frozen Touch hits you for 109 damage. (43 mitigated)
[10/10/28][22:59:45] Moidah's Right in Da Jibblies hits you for 201 damage. (300 mitigated)
[10/10/28][22:59:45] Moidah's You Got Nuffin' heals Moidah for 70 points.
[10/10/28][22:59:45] Moidah's You Got Nuffin' heals Astpios for 0 points. (70 overhealed)
[10/10/28][22:59:45] Moidah's You Got Nuffin' heals Rhiell for 70 points.
[10/10/28][22:59:46] Moidah's attack hits you for 147 damage. (226 mitigated)
[10/10/28][22:59:46] Overdeth's Blessing of Isha heals Selan for 273 points. (1203 overhealed)
[10/10/28][22:59:46] Overdeth's Blessing of Isha heals Overdeth for 1476 points.
[10/10/28][22:59:46] Overdeth's Blessing of Isha heals Yaguara for 0 points. (1476 overhealed)
[10/10/28][22:59:46] Overdeth's Blessing of Isha heals Chillbill for 0 points. (1623 overhealed)
[10/10/28][22:59:46] Overdeth's Blessing of Isha heals you for 1476 points.
[10/10/28][22:59:46] Maxximillian's Chillwind critically hits you for 542 damage. (301 mitigated)
[10/10/28][22:59:46] Your Ensorcelled Agony hits Rhiell for 76 damage. (92 mitigated)
[10/10/28][22:59:46] Rosarius's Touch of the Divine critically heals Lolife for 0 points. (1776 overhealed)
[10/10/28][22:59:46] Rosarius's Touch of the Divine heals Cerealkilla for 0 points. (1357 overhealed)
[10/10/28][22:59:46] Rosarius's Touch of the Divine heals Arayu for 63 points. (1294 overhealed)
[10/10/28][22:59:46] Rosarius's Touch of the Divine heals Rosarius for 0 points. (1357 overhealed)
[10/10/28][22:59:46] Rosarius's Touch of the Divine heals Eldemari for 0 points. (1357 overhealed)
[10/10/28][22:59:46] Not enough Action Points
[10/10/28][22:59:46] Not enough Action Points
[10/10/28][22:59:46] Your attack hits Rhiell for 301 damage. (361 mitigated)
[10/10/28][22:59:46] Selan's Touch of the Divine heals Selan for 91 points. (1291 overhealed)
[10/10/28][22:59:46] Selan's Touch of the Divine heals Overdeth for 1382 points.
[10/10/28][22:59:46] Selan's Touch of the Divine critically heals Yaguara for 0 points. (1948 overhealed)
[10/10/28][22:59:46] Selan's Touch of the Divine heals Chillbill for 0 points. (1520 overhealed)
[10/10/28][22:59:46] Selan's Touch of the Divine heals you for 1382 points.
[10/10/28][22:59:46] Rhiell's Doombolt hits you for 965 damage. (597 mitigated)In 3 seconds, The 2 sorcs managed to put 9248 damage on me. I only received 2858 in healing. You can see I could return 746 damage in that amount of time. I did not have a resist buff because it was shattered before this occurred. This wasn't a one off thing. They did this consistently.
[10/10/28][22:59:46] Maxximillian's Vision of Torment critically hits you for 1459 damage. (426 mitigated)
[10/10/28][22:59:46] Your Blurring Shock hits Rhiell for 293 damage. (338 mitigated)
[10/10/28][22:59:47] Moidah's T'ree Hit Combo hits you for 226 damage. (273 mitigated)
[10/10/28][22:59:47] Your Ensorcelled Agony hits Rhiell for 76 damage. (92 mitigated)
[10/10/28][22:59:47] Flamer's attack hits you for 60 damage. (140 mitigated)
[10/10/28][22:59:47] Durid's Flash of Chaos heals Cheesus for 588 points.
[10/10/28][22:59:47] Maxximillian's Gloomburst hits you for 686 damage. (177 mitigated)
[10/10/28][22:59:47] Maxximillian's Frozen Touch hits you for 179 damage. (71 mitigated)
[10/10/28][22:59:48] Maxximillian's Swell of Gloom hits you for 686 damage. (177 mitigated)
[10/10/28][22:59:48] Moidah's You Got Nuffin' heals Moidah for 70 points.
[10/10/28][22:59:48] Moidah's You Got Nuffin' heals Astpios for 70 points.
[10/10/28][22:59:48] Moidah's You Got Nuffin' heals Rhiell for 70 points.
[10/10/28][22:59:48] Moidah's T'ree Hit Combo critically hits you for 339 damage. (408 mitigated)
[10/10/28][22:59:48] Rhiell parried your Ensorcelled Blow.
[10/10/28][22:59:48] Durid's Tzeentch's Cordial heals Rhiell for 255 points.
[10/10/28][22:59:48] Maxximillian's Word of Pain critically hits you for 2356 damage. (505 mitigated)
[10/10/28][22:59:48] Tarelther has been annihilated by Maxximillian's Word of Pain in High Pass Cemetary. Maxximillian is on a Rampage!
Don't get me wrong, I can put up some sick numbers when all the stars align. I did get a 1233 Ether Dance and 1638 Dazzling Strike earlier today. They don't count because they were on a solo, berserk, 35 choppa.
Those two sorcs have a very effective 5 second spike. They had a Chosen with them to stagger healers if needed, but they didn't need it without our Knight around. They would have likely used a 10 second spike if they needed the stagger to get kills.
Had we had the Knight with us, his Gather Your Resolve would have been good for 378 resists, or 21.8% damage reduction. (He's full Glory with Solar Flare.) Without the Knight, I had a deficit of 6390 health. (The remaining damage to kill me was removed by the Black Orc.) With the Knight, the 9248 damage drops to 7231 damage, leaving a new deficit of 4373 health. Gather Your Resolve would have reduced the effective damage output by 31.6%. Most importantly, I would have lived long enough to get the next set of heals. This is where they would have needed a 10 second spike with a stagger.
We did end up rallying back and getting a total for 46 kills to their 61 kills. We had 15 deaths as a team. 3 to 1 team kill/death on a lost scenario isn't bad at all. We got beat, but we didn't go down without a fight. We ended up splitting their forces up between the two objective points and taking them down that way.
The time frame of 5 second spike and 10 second spike are no accident. I'll explain it next time.
Thursday, October 28, 2010
The Skaven Impact
They are the ultimate in support and they deal almost no damage themselves. They have more hit points than normal, but can only be healed by a Packmaster. The Rat Ogre boasts 34k health for example.
The Rat Ogre is the tank's tank. Takes it like a man and hits like a girl. He boasts incredible amounts of CC. He's got everything from the AoE stagger, a massive punt that ignores immunities and the ability to hurl a group/warband member out of (or into) harm's way. Put this guy in your anvil group for the ultimate in controlling the flow of the battlefield.
The Packmaster, in addition to being the only thing capable of healing Skaven players, also boasts a nasty plague rat swarm. At one point I had a 50% debuff to outgoing damage and healing from that thing. He can also Pounce to the nearest Rat Ogre who can then toss him further out of trouble if needed. He also has a curious group buff...
The Gutter Runner's signature move in the open is his snare + movement barb. Got a bomb group? Can't have those poor saps getting out of range of your bombers can you? He can also leap out of (or into) trouble. He can also sabotage a siege engine, making it useless until it's cleansed.
The Warlock Engineer is the energizer bunny. He make your group keep going and going and going. He can put an AoE healing/magic power buff or an AoE AP regen buff. He also can cleanse a war engine that a Gutter Runner sabotages. He also has a flamethrower.
None of these classes are very good on their own. Put them with a coordinated warband, and they are deadly. Hopefully the complete lack of damage output discourages the uncoordinated from even wanting to play them. It would be a shame to waste their awesome potential with people afk in the keep.
The Rat Ogre is the tank's tank. Takes it like a man and hits like a girl. He boasts incredible amounts of CC. He's got everything from the AoE stagger, a massive punt that ignores immunities and the ability to hurl a group/warband member out of (or into) harm's way. Put this guy in your anvil group for the ultimate in controlling the flow of the battlefield.
The Packmaster, in addition to being the only thing capable of healing Skaven players, also boasts a nasty plague rat swarm. At one point I had a 50% debuff to outgoing damage and healing from that thing. He can also Pounce to the nearest Rat Ogre who can then toss him further out of trouble if needed. He also has a curious group buff...
The Gutter Runner's signature move in the open is his snare + movement barb. Got a bomb group? Can't have those poor saps getting out of range of your bombers can you? He can also leap out of (or into) trouble. He can also sabotage a siege engine, making it useless until it's cleansed.
The Warlock Engineer is the energizer bunny. He make your group keep going and going and going. He can put an AoE healing/magic power buff or an AoE AP regen buff. He also can cleanse a war engine that a Gutter Runner sabotages. He also has a flamethrower.
None of these classes are very good on their own. Put them with a coordinated warband, and they are deadly. Hopefully the complete lack of damage output discourages the uncoordinated from even wanting to play them. It would be a shame to waste their awesome potential with people afk in the keep.
Sunday, October 24, 2010
Dev for a Day - Guard requires Shield
Someone asked me in my last post how I would solve the Guard requires Shield dilemma for the SM. Here's my take.
I'll start with a couple Mythic quotes and I'll build from there.
For example Andy stated in this thread:
The Khaine Swordmaster uses his Elven Greatsword and the Winds of Magic to tear apart the defenses of his foes. He is fully capable of dealing swift death to his enemy once he fully exposes the enemy's weaknesses. The true DPS class will always be able to take better advantage of the Khaine SM's openings though.
Blurring Shock/Forceful Shock - Either Blurring Shock has it's proc damage doubled or Forceful Shock doubles the proc damage of Blurring Shock. Blurring Shock is offensive utility so changing it to a knockback doesn't make much sense. It makes up for the loss of Guard by helping your group kill the enemy faster.
Sapping Strike - 50% incoming heal debuff for 10s. The SM is the only tank on Order side without a heal debuff. (The BO is in the same boat for Destruction.) This makes the tanks more on even ground. It also has synergy with the 2 piece Doomflayer and Warpforged offensive tank sets.
Phoenix's Wing - Moved to 13+1 Vaul with a different effect.
Crashing Wave moves to 9+1 in Khaine and is now a 4s knockdown. This puts it on even ground with the IB knockdown Cave-In. (4s KD with added effect.) It should likely have a 2h requirement since it's clearly offensive utility.
Whirling Geyser - 3s AoE knockdown instead of a knockback. Knockbacks seem more defensive than offensive, so it doesn't seem to fit to have a knockback in the offensive tree.
The Vaul Swordmaster puts aside the classic Elven Greatsword in favor of the shield. Using his shield and the Winds of Magic, he creates magical absorb shields to protect his group. He will determine where the battle lines are drawn. The Vaul Swordmaster highly values his own personal survival. For the longer he stands, the longer he can use the Winds to protect his brethren.
Dampening Talon - Shield required - Dragon's Talon will now affect 3 (or 9) targets within 20 feet (30 feet), but it's damage is reduced by 10% (20%). It doesn't make sense to have offensive utility like defense strikethrough on a defensive ability. Same reasoning as Forceful Shock and it'd be a decent enough "mirror" to Crippling Strikes.
Redirected Force - Requires Block. Single target 9s stagger. 10s (or 20s if that's deemed too powerful) recast. I originally wanted this to be a knockdown like the IB shield knockdown, but a stagger fits the defensive tank better. It might need to switch places with Crushing Advance in the Vaul tree.
Vaul's Buffer - Grants your group an absorb shield whenever you defend against an attack. This is a pseudo mirror to the DoK group absorb shield tactic. It helps balance the realms since Order has no equivalent to that tactic on the DoK.
Phoenix's Wing - 13+1 Vaul. Flames of the Phoenix engulf your group's armor causing X Spirit damage whenever attacked. 15s duration, 30s recast. Basically a mirror to the Chosen's Bane Shield with the tactic.
The Hoeth Swordmaster uses the Winds of Magic to neutralize other magic and refresh his allies. He is the bane of any spell caster. He combines a mix of offense and defense to turn the tide of battle.
Calming Winds - Gusting Wind will now knockback a single target a long distance. A good single target knockback is required to deal with Guard effectively, and the SM/BO just don't have access to one good enough. All tanks should have access to a good single target punt to put them on even ground.
Whispering Wind - Moved to 9+1 Hoeth with same effect. Other tanks get their CC at 9+1, so it brings the tanks more on even ground. Also the Choppa can buy their cooldown buff for 9+1.
Protection of Hoeth - Moved to 13+1 Hoeth. Group magical absorb shield for 10s. 60s recast. Sudden Shift has made the current version much less useful, so increasing the investment required and the return seemed like a good idea. It definitely has to be changed to be worth 13+1. I would make the absorb about 2k if magical only. The healer one that absorbs all damage types absorbs is about 1k. Alternately, it could just be an exact copy of the healer one.
Let me know what you think either way.
I'll start with a couple Mythic quotes and I'll build from there.
For example Andy stated in this thread:
The fact that we're going to do a deeper evaluation has the potential to increase the likelihood that we will be restricting Guard to shield only sometime in the future. Before we make a move like that, we need to make sure that all tanks using a 2 handed weapon are on even ground, hence the decision to delay and focus on the issue at a more appropriate time.Also Nate said in his 1.3.2. Developer Diary about Crowd Control changes:
Secondly, another aspect of allocation that we're working towards as a long-term goal is to slowly shift the general distribution of Crowd Control to be more common on defensive careers—such as the tank archetypes—and away from DPS-focused careers.I would continue down the path that was started back in 1.3.2 by Mythic. That path is the clear and obvious delineation between offensive and defensive support. This can also be clearly seen by the new armor sets. The next logical step to rebalance the classes for this. The general idea is to split up the abilities so that the offensive support abilities are in the offensive tree and the defensive support abilities are in the defensive tree.
We determined that there needs to be a clear and obvious line drawn between which effects we intend to be used offensively and which we intend to be used defensively, and that lead to the final change that you'll see in this patch.
We're introducing a new effect called "Stagger". When you Stagger an enemy, they'll be briefly disabled and unable to move or take any actions, just like a Stun or a Knockdown, but with the critical difference that the Stagger will immediately break if they suffer any damage. We've gone through every player ability that's a Knockdown or Stun, and have done one of two things to it: either it becomes a Knockdown (a clearly offensive tool which allows you to knock an enemy tail-over-teakettle and then beat them down) or a Stagger (which is now a clearly defensive tool to remove an enemy that you're not attacking).
The Khaine Swordmaster uses his Elven Greatsword and the Winds of Magic to tear apart the defenses of his foes. He is fully capable of dealing swift death to his enemy once he fully exposes the enemy's weaknesses. The true DPS class will always be able to take better advantage of the Khaine SM's openings though.
Blurring Shock/Forceful Shock - Either Blurring Shock has it's proc damage doubled or Forceful Shock doubles the proc damage of Blurring Shock. Blurring Shock is offensive utility so changing it to a knockback doesn't make much sense. It makes up for the loss of Guard by helping your group kill the enemy faster.
Sapping Strike - 50% incoming heal debuff for 10s. The SM is the only tank on Order side without a heal debuff. (The BO is in the same boat for Destruction.) This makes the tanks more on even ground. It also has synergy with the 2 piece Doomflayer and Warpforged offensive tank sets.
Phoenix's Wing - Moved to 13+1 Vaul with a different effect.
Crashing Wave moves to 9+1 in Khaine and is now a 4s knockdown. This puts it on even ground with the IB knockdown Cave-In. (4s KD with added effect.) It should likely have a 2h requirement since it's clearly offensive utility.
Whirling Geyser - 3s AoE knockdown instead of a knockback. Knockbacks seem more defensive than offensive, so it doesn't seem to fit to have a knockback in the offensive tree.
The Vaul Swordmaster puts aside the classic Elven Greatsword in favor of the shield. Using his shield and the Winds of Magic, he creates magical absorb shields to protect his group. He will determine where the battle lines are drawn. The Vaul Swordmaster highly values his own personal survival. For the longer he stands, the longer he can use the Winds to protect his brethren.
Dampening Talon - Shield required - Dragon's Talon will now affect 3 (or 9) targets within 20 feet (30 feet), but it's damage is reduced by 10% (20%). It doesn't make sense to have offensive utility like defense strikethrough on a defensive ability. Same reasoning as Forceful Shock and it'd be a decent enough "mirror" to Crippling Strikes.
Redirected Force - Requires Block. Single target 9s stagger. 10s (or 20s if that's deemed too powerful) recast. I originally wanted this to be a knockdown like the IB shield knockdown, but a stagger fits the defensive tank better. It might need to switch places with Crushing Advance in the Vaul tree.
Vaul's Buffer - Grants your group an absorb shield whenever you defend against an attack. This is a pseudo mirror to the DoK group absorb shield tactic. It helps balance the realms since Order has no equivalent to that tactic on the DoK.
Phoenix's Wing - 13+1 Vaul. Flames of the Phoenix engulf your group's armor causing X Spirit damage whenever attacked. 15s duration, 30s recast. Basically a mirror to the Chosen's Bane Shield with the tactic.
The Hoeth Swordmaster uses the Winds of Magic to neutralize other magic and refresh his allies. He is the bane of any spell caster. He combines a mix of offense and defense to turn the tide of battle.
Calming Winds - Gusting Wind will now knockback a single target a long distance. A good single target knockback is required to deal with Guard effectively, and the SM/BO just don't have access to one good enough. All tanks should have access to a good single target punt to put them on even ground.
Whispering Wind - Moved to 9+1 Hoeth with same effect. Other tanks get their CC at 9+1, so it brings the tanks more on even ground. Also the Choppa can buy their cooldown buff for 9+1.
Protection of Hoeth - Moved to 13+1 Hoeth. Group magical absorb shield for 10s. 60s recast. Sudden Shift has made the current version much less useful, so increasing the investment required and the return seemed like a good idea. It definitely has to be changed to be worth 13+1. I would make the absorb about 2k if magical only. The healer one that absorbs all damage types absorbs is about 1k. Alternately, it could just be an exact copy of the healer one.
Let me know what you think either way.
Saturday, October 23, 2010
Confessions of a 2H DPS Tank
Hi. My name is Tarelther, and I'm addicted to Focused Offense.
The big Ether Dance and Blurring Shock crits give me a rush. There's nothing quite like being able to take the big hits, shrug them off, and give back as good as you take. There's just something about watching that sword and board tank hitting on my healers run like a girl when my blade rips through his armor like it isn't even there. Yes, it cuts into my survivability, but I'm no more difficult to heal that a typical MDPS at that point. If the healer can keep a MDPS alive, he can keep me alive no problem.
It's even better with my pocket DPS class next to me assisting me. Then not only am I ripping through noobs like butter, I give him 65% damage mitigation so they can't even kill him easily. It's true that only works if I'm allowed to stay within 30 feet of him and they ignore me completely and only on enemies in Challenge range when I fire it. The enemy could very easily negate all that by hitting me a couple times before punting me away instead of wasting their time doing 35% damage to my guarded friend. Alternately, they could simply just do 100% of normal damage to me instead. So what if I take advantage of the social programming embedded into the player base? "ZOMG noobs! Quit beating on tanks!" If you don't deal with me, you'll never kill my group. Most will simply choose to ignore me and then wonder why my group rolled them.
Yeah, I take extra damage from using Guard since I can't block, but if I have a WP group healing anyway, I might as well make use of that healing and not let it go to waste.
The real question is it overpowering to take advantage of the natural tendency of the enemy? Or it is simply smart play?
Can I quit using Focused Offense whenever I want? Probably. But why would I want to? If my group can keep a melee DPS up under focus fire, they can keep me up. Why not go for the extra damage? After all, a dead enemy deals no damage. Death is the ultimate debuff.
Hi. My name is Tarelther, and I'm addicted to Focused Offense.
The big Ether Dance and Blurring Shock crits give me a rush. There's nothing quite like being able to take the big hits, shrug them off, and give back as good as you take. There's just something about watching that sword and board tank hitting on my healers run like a girl when my blade rips through his armor like it isn't even there. Yes, it cuts into my survivability, but I'm no more difficult to heal that a typical MDPS at that point. If the healer can keep a MDPS alive, he can keep me alive no problem.
It's even better with my pocket DPS class next to me assisting me. Then not only am I ripping through noobs like butter, I give him 65% damage mitigation so they can't even kill him easily. It's true that only works if I'm allowed to stay within 30 feet of him and they ignore me completely and only on enemies in Challenge range when I fire it. The enemy could very easily negate all that by hitting me a couple times before punting me away instead of wasting their time doing 35% damage to my guarded friend. Alternately, they could simply just do 100% of normal damage to me instead. So what if I take advantage of the social programming embedded into the player base? "ZOMG noobs! Quit beating on tanks!" If you don't deal with me, you'll never kill my group. Most will simply choose to ignore me and then wonder why my group rolled them.
Yeah, I take extra damage from using Guard since I can't block, but if I have a WP group healing anyway, I might as well make use of that healing and not let it go to waste.
The real question is it overpowering to take advantage of the natural tendency of the enemy? Or it is simply smart play?
Can I quit using Focused Offense whenever I want? Probably. But why would I want to? If my group can keep a melee DPS up under focus fire, they can keep me up. Why not go for the extra damage? After all, a dead enemy deals no damage. Death is the ultimate debuff.
Hi. My name is Tarelther, and I'm addicted to Focused Offense.
Thursday, October 21, 2010
The RvR Dungeon - Thanqoul's Incursion
While I did not get to play the dungeon myself, I did watch it on the internet thanks to Hadrune, so I think I'm qualified to comment on it.
Ok, maybe not, but I'm going to do so anyway.
The instance has several levels, but the boss fights seem to be concentrated in a single area. It is very possible to park ranged classes above the main area and rain death from above upon the boss and enemy players. You'll definitely have to pay attention to your surroundings. Respawn locations are random and you never know if that group you just wiped got respawned at your back when you were trying to damage the boss.
I saw a new repairable weapon drop in there. It looked like a purple 80.7 DPS 2h weapon with a balance of offensive and defensive stats requiring rank 38. It seemed to be off a player kill. No word on if those will only drop in the instance, drop anywhere, or even exist come Live.
A balanced warband is required. The main area is an open area with lots of ledges for ranged and healers to stand, but the access to those ledges is through tunnels favoring melee. I almost think I'll have to have my hammer group just running around the dungeon tunnels killing ranged and healers so the rest can safely be in the boss area. I'm not sure where I can put my cannon group. If I put them on the ledges, I risk them getting ganked by respawns or roaming melee assist groups. If I put them by the boss, I'm forfeiting the high ground.
I probably want my anvil group holding the middle ground protecting my bomb group. But if there's melee trains running around, an anvil group is best way to shut that down. I need to damage the boss, but I need to kill players and not have my team die too. When a side wipes, the other has to focus on the boss allowing the wiped side to regroup at a random location giving the wiped side the element of surprise.
This looks like it's going to be a tactical nightmare with two good armchair generals facing each other with balanced warbands.
I, for one, welcome the challenge.
Ok, maybe not, but I'm going to do so anyway.
The instance has several levels, but the boss fights seem to be concentrated in a single area. It is very possible to park ranged classes above the main area and rain death from above upon the boss and enemy players. You'll definitely have to pay attention to your surroundings. Respawn locations are random and you never know if that group you just wiped got respawned at your back when you were trying to damage the boss.
I saw a new repairable weapon drop in there. It looked like a purple 80.7 DPS 2h weapon with a balance of offensive and defensive stats requiring rank 38. It seemed to be off a player kill. No word on if those will only drop in the instance, drop anywhere, or even exist come Live.
A balanced warband is required. The main area is an open area with lots of ledges for ranged and healers to stand, but the access to those ledges is through tunnels favoring melee. I almost think I'll have to have my hammer group just running around the dungeon tunnels killing ranged and healers so the rest can safely be in the boss area. I'm not sure where I can put my cannon group. If I put them on the ledges, I risk them getting ganked by respawns or roaming melee assist groups. If I put them by the boss, I'm forfeiting the high ground.
I probably want my anvil group holding the middle ground protecting my bomb group. But if there's melee trains running around, an anvil group is best way to shut that down. I need to damage the boss, but I need to kill players and not have my team die too. When a side wipes, the other has to focus on the boss allowing the wiped side to regroup at a random location giving the wiped side the element of surprise.
This looks like it's going to be a tactical nightmare with two good armchair generals facing each other with balanced warbands.
I, for one, welcome the challenge.
Monday, October 18, 2010
Dynamic Assist
The main assist function is a great addition to the game. (If it would only get used in PuG situations it'd be awesome.) I love the versatility of the Assist addon. The biggest problem with these functions is the difficulty in switching target callers should your primary caller go down. I call this static assist. The other problem with this is the enemy finds out who the main caller is and takes him down first, you are going to lose quickly unless you can adapt.
My solution to this problem is what I call Dynamic Assist. I can assist any player in my party simply by pressing a hotkey. No, I don't put 5 buttons on my hotbar to do this. That would be wasteful. This is what I do instead.
Under your key mapping options under the WAR Main Menu (the WAR icon in the top middle of your screen by default), you'll see the default options for assisting your party members. By default, these are set to Shift + F2-F6. By default Shift 1-5 rotates your main hotbar. How many people actually make use of that? (My guess is about zero.) So I made Shift 2-6 assist group member.
With my Razer Naga, it's very easy for me to move, target, and fire off abilities all at the same time. Now I can also assist any party member I want easily. I don't get to use this feature as much as I'd like since I usually end up being the target caller in my parties, but when I'm not, I can assist anyone in the blink of an eye without missing a beat. If you don't have one, you should get one. For $80, it's one of the best things I've done to improve my game.
My solution to this problem is what I call Dynamic Assist. I can assist any player in my party simply by pressing a hotkey. No, I don't put 5 buttons on my hotbar to do this. That would be wasteful. This is what I do instead.
Under your key mapping options under the WAR Main Menu (the WAR icon in the top middle of your screen by default), you'll see the default options for assisting your party members. By default, these are set to Shift + F2-F6. By default Shift 1-5 rotates your main hotbar. How many people actually make use of that? (My guess is about zero.) So I made Shift 2-6 assist group member.
With my Razer Naga, it's very easy for me to move, target, and fire off abilities all at the same time. Now I can also assist any party member I want easily. I don't get to use this feature as much as I'd like since I usually end up being the target caller in my parties, but when I'm not, I can assist anyone in the blink of an eye without missing a beat. If you don't have one, you should get one. For $80, it's one of the best things I've done to improve my game.
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
An Apology, a Rant, and a Lesson Learned
First off, sorry about being late to my own PTS event on Tuesday. My cable modem went dead on me, so I had to drop by my ISP on the way home to pick up a new one. I took off work 2 hours early so that I could make it back in time. For those of you also in Nashvegas, the traffic on the loop around the city was just horrible. There were accidents left and right. I got home at 8:00PM EDT, 30 minutes later than I wanted.
There weren't enough people online for a warband as organized as I liked anyway. It was disappointing. At the first test there were plenty of people who showed up. I think many of them just wanted to see what it looked like and not actually test stuff. Well, that's flawed in my opinion. I spent the night in a warband with Mike Wyatt, James Casey, and Carrie running around and having fun testing stuff. It was the perfect opportunity to chat with the developers about what they were making and tell them directly what I thought and felt in the moment it was happening. I don't know any other development team that would let the general public have that kind of access to them. It's really an opportunity you shouldn't miss if you like WAR and want to see it thrive.
The lesson learned from this is that most people really don't want to go through the trouble of being hyper-organized for a game. The core culture of this game is more about just going out to the lakes/scenarios, smashing some faces for a little bit, and then log out and do something else. My fear is that the system may become so favorable to the highly organized squads (like the crew I run with) that the core audience may be alienated. I hope that doesn't happen. I think this is the main reason there's 2 months of testing for this. Mythic has to get the balance right on this. They can only do so with our help.
There weren't enough people online for a warband as organized as I liked anyway. It was disappointing. At the first test there were plenty of people who showed up. I think many of them just wanted to see what it looked like and not actually test stuff. Well, that's flawed in my opinion. I spent the night in a warband with Mike Wyatt, James Casey, and Carrie running around and having fun testing stuff. It was the perfect opportunity to chat with the developers about what they were making and tell them directly what I thought and felt in the moment it was happening. I don't know any other development team that would let the general public have that kind of access to them. It's really an opportunity you shouldn't miss if you like WAR and want to see it thrive.
The lesson learned from this is that most people really don't want to go through the trouble of being hyper-organized for a game. The core culture of this game is more about just going out to the lakes/scenarios, smashing some faces for a little bit, and then log out and do something else. My fear is that the system may become so favorable to the highly organized squads (like the crew I run with) that the core audience may be alienated. I hope that doesn't happen. I think this is the main reason there's 2 months of testing for this. Mythic has to get the balance right on this. They can only do so with our help.
Monday, October 11, 2010
What is a Core Tester?
If you're looking for info about the warband I'll be running on PTS on 10/12/2010, you can find it here.
There seems to be a bit of confusion on the boards about what a Core Tester is and what he or she does. I hope to clarify it a bit.
1. We're just regular players. We don't work for Bioware/Mythic. We get no reimbursement whatsoever for our contribution. The only reason we do this is because we like the game and want to see it succeed. I pay my subscription fee just like you do.
2. We don't design anything. If you have an issue with a design decision, leave your feedback on the forums, just like we do. That's what they're there for. If we bring up a valid concern, Mythic will often make changes something before implementing. They do the exact same thing with the public feedback. See the Sovereign redesign for a perfect example.
3. We aren't yes men. We are often critical of Mythic. We leave feedback in a constructive manner so that Mythic has something else to consider before making a change. (No calling anyone's mother a bad name.) For example, I was completely against the removal of Guard from 2h tanks. My reason was that I would not be wanted in a scenario group without Guard. Melee DPS would have similar utility with more damage. (Warband play is another animal completely. I think most tanks would have been fine in warband play 2h without Guard.) If the 2h trees are redesigned to give a group another reason to want me besides Guard, then I have no issue with Guard being restricted to shield only.
4. We do give input on things before the general public sees it. As such, we are held to a NDA. We don't talk about anything publicly until someone at Mythic does so first or patches it to the PTS for all to see.
5. We test content that can be tested with smaller numbers of people. You don't need 50 bazillion people to make sure a redesign of a ToVL boss works. We do that so you don't have to. You do need 50 bazillion people to test a complete redesign of the ORvR battle and to test the stability of a new version, so that's what PTS events are for.
6. We don't represent anyone but ourselves. We don't represent classes. We don't represent our guilds/alliances. We don't represent our servers. We don't represent Order or Destruction. We don't represent the community as a whole to the developers. (That's Andy's job.) We are Core Testers for our own opinions and contributions, and nothing else.
I hope this clears things up.
There seems to be a bit of confusion on the boards about what a Core Tester is and what he or she does. I hope to clarify it a bit.
1. We're just regular players. We don't work for Bioware/Mythic. We get no reimbursement whatsoever for our contribution. The only reason we do this is because we like the game and want to see it succeed. I pay my subscription fee just like you do.
2. We don't design anything. If you have an issue with a design decision, leave your feedback on the forums, just like we do. That's what they're there for. If we bring up a valid concern, Mythic will often make changes something before implementing. They do the exact same thing with the public feedback. See the Sovereign redesign for a perfect example.
3. We aren't yes men. We are often critical of Mythic. We leave feedback in a constructive manner so that Mythic has something else to consider before making a change. (No calling anyone's mother a bad name.) For example, I was completely against the removal of Guard from 2h tanks. My reason was that I would not be wanted in a scenario group without Guard. Melee DPS would have similar utility with more damage. (Warband play is another animal completely. I think most tanks would have been fine in warband play 2h without Guard.) If the 2h trees are redesigned to give a group another reason to want me besides Guard, then I have no issue with Guard being restricted to shield only.
4. We do give input on things before the general public sees it. As such, we are held to a NDA. We don't talk about anything publicly until someone at Mythic does so first or patches it to the PTS for all to see.
5. We test content that can be tested with smaller numbers of people. You don't need 50 bazillion people to make sure a redesign of a ToVL boss works. We do that so you don't have to. You do need 50 bazillion people to test a complete redesign of the ORvR battle and to test the stability of a new version, so that's what PTS events are for.
6. We don't represent anyone but ourselves. We don't represent classes. We don't represent our guilds/alliances. We don't represent our servers. We don't represent Order or Destruction. We don't represent the community as a whole to the developers. (That's Andy's job.) We are Core Testers for our own opinions and contributions, and nothing else.
I hope this clears things up.
Friday, October 8, 2010
Team Play - Warband Play - Live on the PTS Tuesday!
I'm going to be running a tightly organized warband for the PTS event on Tuesday, October 12th 2010 at 8:00 PM EDT/02.00 CET. Rather than just ramble on my blog about it, I thought I would just show you how my warband strategy works.
The original post is here.
I will have one of each type of warband group I talked about here, and I need you to fill the spots. I need you to leave a comment on my blog giving me the character name, class, and group type you want. Players in the PK alliance get priority. These are first come, first served after that. If you are late, I reserve the right to give your spot to someone else. I'll form the warband at about 7:30 PM EDT/01:30 AM CET.
If you impress me I might just have other opportunities for you. ;)
All tanks will be using Distracting Bellow as their morale. No exceptions.
Anvil group - The tanks in this group will be responsible for using Challenge and Hold the Line to protect the rest of the warband. This group will draw the battle lines for the fight.
Glory Knight - Auras are Gather Your Resolve, Now's Our Chance, and Stay Focused. Take Heaven's Fury, Now's Our Chance, and Focused Mending. Tactics are Rugged, Focused Mending, and Emperor's Ward. This will be played by me on Tarelsun. It's not that I don't trust anyone else with the stagger...Ok actually, yeah, that's why I'm doing it. I am also going to be rotating Challenge and Distracting Bellow.
Stone Ironbreaker - Take Oathbound and Oathstone. You'll mainly be Guarding and Oathfriending a Slayer that will be our bait. You'll need to make him tough as nails to kill. You will also rotate Challenge and Bellow. Tactics are Rugged and 2 others .
Khaine Swordmaster - Take Phoenix Wing and one other with 13 points in Khaine. Run Nature's Blade. Get those debuffs on the enemy as quick as you can. Tactics are Rugged and 2 others. Stay alive as best you can. I will likely be cross-guarding you.
Skavenslayer Slayer - Take Shatter Limbs and Inevitable Doom. Tactics will be Brute Force, Ancestral Inheritance and Riposte. You're mainly around for Shatter Limbs and to be a distraction.
Salvation Warrior Priest - Take Martyr's Blessing and Cleansing Power. Tactics are Cleansing Power, Discipline, and Emperor's Ward.
Grimnir Rune Priest - Take Ancestor's Echo and Master Rune of Adamant. Tactics are Discipline, Ancestor's Echo, and a wild card.
Hammer group - The melee assist train. This group will make their way to the back line and rip them apart one by one. Everyone will assist one person in this group.
Conquest/Vigilance Knight - Auras are Press the Attack, To Glory, To Victory. Take Encouraged Aim, To Glory and To Victory. Encouraged Aim affects everyone in the warband, so that is why it's used over Dirty Tricks. Tactics are Encouraged Aim and 2 others. Mainly try to stay alive.
Judgment Witch Hunter - Burn Away Lies and Fanatical Cleaning. Not like there's any other spec for a Witch Hunter at 30 anyway. ;) Brute Force, Fanatical Cleansing, Flanking.
Troll/Giant Slayer - Just kill single targets dead fast. Don't care how you do it.
Hunter White Lion - Pounce, Force Opportunity. Tactics: Brute Force, Flanking, Pack Synergy. Take as much advantage of the crit from the Nature's Blade debuff and Encouraged Aim as you can.
Warrior Priest - Don't care as long as you can heal the group well.
Isha Archmage - Take Mistress of the Marsh and whatever else you want from Isha. You make sure you can keep healing.
Bomb Group - This group will apply AoE pressure damage to negate group heals.
Brotherhood IB - The important thing is Earthshatter. Don't want those enemies getting away from the bomb do we? You will also buff the slayer in the group.
Conflag BW - AoE, AoE and more AoE. Don't really care how you do it.
Skaven Slayer - Shatter Limbs and Inevitable Doom. Go full out AoE DPS.
Engineer - As much AoE damage as you can dish out, be that Tinkerer or Napalm or w/e.
Warrior Priest - Again, just keep these guys alive.
Rune Priest - See Warrior Priest above.
Cannon group - Single target ranged DPS group. Blows up the front lines good. You'll all assist the same person.
Hoeth SM - Whispering Wind and one other thing from Hoeth. WW is used to help the DPS get their spike moves down.
Engineer - Single target - whatever you gotta do, but remember you'll be at range.
Bright Wizard - Immolation can take more advantage of WW, especially with Boiling Blood and the tactic to increase it's damage and drop it's delay to 5s. Withering Heat is nice for it too. Ignite, Boiling Blood, Withering Heat, rinse/repeat.
Shadow Warrior - Festerbomb away. WW removes the recast on Festering Arrow, so bomb to your heart's content.
Archmage and Rune Priest - Keep these guys alive. Add dps when you can, but heals first.
The original post is here.
I will have one of each type of warband group I talked about here, and I need you to fill the spots. I need you to leave a comment on my blog giving me the character name, class, and group type you want. Players in the PK alliance get priority. These are first come, first served after that. If you are late, I reserve the right to give your spot to someone else. I'll form the warband at about 7:30 PM EDT/01:30 AM CET.
If you impress me I might just have other opportunities for you. ;)
All tanks will be using Distracting Bellow as their morale. No exceptions.
Anvil group - The tanks in this group will be responsible for using Challenge and Hold the Line to protect the rest of the warband. This group will draw the battle lines for the fight.
Glory Knight - Auras are Gather Your Resolve, Now's Our Chance, and Stay Focused. Take Heaven's Fury, Now's Our Chance, and Focused Mending. Tactics are Rugged, Focused Mending, and Emperor's Ward. This will be played by me on Tarelsun. It's not that I don't trust anyone else with the stagger...Ok actually, yeah, that's why I'm doing it. I am also going to be rotating Challenge and Distracting Bellow.
Stone Ironbreaker - Take Oathbound and Oathstone. You'll mainly be Guarding and Oathfriending a Slayer that will be our bait. You'll need to make him tough as nails to kill. You will also rotate Challenge and Bellow. Tactics are Rugged and 2 others .
Khaine Swordmaster - Take Phoenix Wing and one other with 13 points in Khaine. Run Nature's Blade. Get those debuffs on the enemy as quick as you can. Tactics are Rugged and 2 others. Stay alive as best you can. I will likely be cross-guarding you.
Skavenslayer Slayer - Take Shatter Limbs and Inevitable Doom. Tactics will be Brute Force, Ancestral Inheritance and Riposte. You're mainly around for Shatter Limbs and to be a distraction.
Salvation Warrior Priest - Take Martyr's Blessing and Cleansing Power. Tactics are Cleansing Power, Discipline, and Emperor's Ward.
Grimnir Rune Priest - Take Ancestor's Echo and Master Rune of Adamant. Tactics are Discipline, Ancestor's Echo, and a wild card.
Hammer group - The melee assist train. This group will make their way to the back line and rip them apart one by one. Everyone will assist one person in this group.
Conquest/Vigilance Knight - Auras are Press the Attack, To Glory, To Victory. Take Encouraged Aim, To Glory and To Victory. Encouraged Aim affects everyone in the warband, so that is why it's used over Dirty Tricks. Tactics are Encouraged Aim and 2 others. Mainly try to stay alive.
Judgment Witch Hunter - Burn Away Lies and Fanatical Cleaning. Not like there's any other spec for a Witch Hunter at 30 anyway. ;) Brute Force, Fanatical Cleansing, Flanking.
Troll/Giant Slayer - Just kill single targets dead fast. Don't care how you do it.
Hunter White Lion - Pounce, Force Opportunity. Tactics: Brute Force, Flanking, Pack Synergy. Take as much advantage of the crit from the Nature's Blade debuff and Encouraged Aim as you can.
Warrior Priest - Don't care as long as you can heal the group well.
Isha Archmage - Take Mistress of the Marsh and whatever else you want from Isha. You make sure you can keep healing.
Bomb Group - This group will apply AoE pressure damage to negate group heals.
Brotherhood IB - The important thing is Earthshatter. Don't want those enemies getting away from the bomb do we? You will also buff the slayer in the group.
Conflag BW - AoE, AoE and more AoE. Don't really care how you do it.
Skaven Slayer - Shatter Limbs and Inevitable Doom. Go full out AoE DPS.
Engineer - As much AoE damage as you can dish out, be that Tinkerer or Napalm or w/e.
Warrior Priest - Again, just keep these guys alive.
Rune Priest - See Warrior Priest above.
Cannon group - Single target ranged DPS group. Blows up the front lines good. You'll all assist the same person.
Hoeth SM - Whispering Wind and one other thing from Hoeth. WW is used to help the DPS get their spike moves down.
Engineer - Single target - whatever you gotta do, but remember you'll be at range.
Bright Wizard - Immolation can take more advantage of WW, especially with Boiling Blood and the tactic to increase it's damage and drop it's delay to 5s. Withering Heat is nice for it too. Ignite, Boiling Blood, Withering Heat, rinse/repeat.
Shadow Warrior - Festerbomb away. WW removes the recast on Festering Arrow, so bomb to your heart's content.
Archmage and Rune Priest - Keep these guys alive. Add dps when you can, but heals first.
Thursday, October 7, 2010
Sudden Shift fixed for 1.4
I was on the PTS on Tuesday and Whispering Wind will no longer affect the cooldown of Sudden Shift in 1.4.
No more Ether Dance spam. It was kinda cheesy anyway.
I'm planning on doing a little something for the PTS event next Tuesday, but I'm still making some decisions on stuff. Check back for updates.
No more Ether Dance spam. It was kinda cheesy anyway.
I'm planning on doing a little something for the PTS event next Tuesday, but I'm still making some decisions on stuff. Check back for updates.
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