Where I've Been Lately

Frankly, I've been getting bored with WAR lately. I've played for 2 years, which is my boredom point in just about anything I do. So I'm taking a little break. I've been having some real life stuff cutting into my gaming time anyway. A lot of my guild has been getting bored as well making it difficult to form groups. The recent WP/DoK change drove away a lot of our healers. For the record, I think the change is fine, but that's easy to say when you don't play one all the time.

I've played in the two Rift betas since picking up a VIP key some time ago. While I cannot go into much detail since NDA still applies, I'm impressed at how polished it is. The biggest thing about the game, as stated in the most recent video on the game's site, is that it works. I hope it becomes my PvE fix that I can't really get from WAR. My entrance into the MMO scene was Final Fantasy XI, which was heavily story driven with virtually non-existant PvP. That epic story just doesn't come through in WAR at all.

I've been spending way too much gaming anyway, and my body is letting me know that recently. I've been exhausted lately, so I'm taking some time to rest myself. I'll still keep my WAR sub up though, I just won't be playing anywhere near as much as before. I need to take better care of myself anyway.

I still want to do more with WAR. I enjoy the epic battles that erupt from time to time. I like the game. I want it to succeed. It's tough with a guild that's been losing players. I've got my eye on Rift. Rift is still a wait and see thing for me, but I like what I've seen so far.

The Eternal Citadel 1.4.0

I played defensively on the SM just to show it can be done and be somewhat effective. I'm not a big fan of most modern music, so I set this to the 1812 Overture performed by the New York Philharmonic. I'm by no means perfect, but this is what I mean by basic tanking skills. Enjoy!

The video looks best in 1080p since it was recorded in it.

The Rise of the Single Healer Groups

1.4.0 brought dramatic increases to personal survivability. While playing the Eternal Citadel, I found that most players could survive a 4 player spike for 10 seconds without a healer. However, most players could not survive a 5 player spike for 10 seconds. So my group started playing with only one healer, and it worked exceptionally well. Having 2 healers in party with one being a dps healer is much safer since the dps healer can rez without costing the group healing, but using only one healer worked out ok for us. I expect to see a lot more DPS Shamans and Archmages in groups.

Also I found that I could not get away with my typical glass cannon spec as a SM in EC after a few scenarios. A lot of players seem to have learned how to focus fire squishy tanks. I ended up switching my renown to Cleansing Wind 3, Reflexes 4 and Futile Strikes 3 and moving to 5 Defensive/4 Offensive Sovereign gear. I will play around with Trivial Blows 3 with a Liniment of Immutable Defiance and see how that works too. Glass cannon tanks will likely be viable in warband play only.

Mythic wanted to tone down the DPS tank. I think they did so with the scenario matchmaking system and the renown revamp. I just get wrecked way too fast to be useful to my group glass cannon in scenarios now. I still have my 2h and my Khaine spec since Nature's Blade is just awesome. Going from glass cannon to survivable cut my damage by one third. It does allow me to now take focus fire and Guard damage at the same time, which I just couldn't survive even with 2 healers on me glass cannon.

Spike Damage - Recognizing and Countering

So you notice the enemy is attempting to spike to one of your group members. You have 5 to 10 seconds to react before the enemy kills your teammates. Here's how to counter a spike attempt.

1. If you can detaunt your attacker, do so. You might be knocked down or silenced and unable to do so. Call it out in vent ASAP if you get hard CC'd. Do not attack until you can get a Guard. If you are Guarded, detaunt is not needed.

2. If you are a tank, get a Guard on the spiked target if you can get in range, even if that's another tank.

3. If you see backloaded DoTs like Burn Away Lies or Word of Pain, cleanse them if possible. Cleansing Wind is big help, especially if you have it maxed.

4. If you are a healer, get heals on the spiked target. Absorb -> HoTs -> Hard healing.

5. If you have a melee train on you, either an AoE stagger or knockback can handle the train.

6. Use your potions and morales if needed. You can fire absorb + crafted heal + RvR heal potions all at once.

7. Kite if you notice before it starts. Try to kite towards your DPS if you are not already with them.

This game is about spike and counter spike. Master managing incoming and outgoing spike damage and you will be nearly unstoppable.

Patch 1.4.0 - Raising the Bar, Busting Excuses

And I'm not talking about the renown rank cap increase.

You won't be able to just zerg it up in Open RvR and expect to win quickly. You won't be able to jump in your elite premade and just roll the uncoordinated in scenarios all day long. You won't be able to complain that you got rolled by an elite premade when you just entered Tier 4.

1.4.0 is officially called "The Verminous Horde." I call it "The Excuse Buster."

A lot of the excuses players make about why they lose in scenarios suddenly disappear when you put players of equal skill/gear/organization together. No, the only reason you lose when you are against opponents roughly equal to you is you got outplayed.

For Open RvR, every once in awhile, the RR65+ disappear into the Skaven dungeon leaving the lower ranked players to duke it out up above. You might get outnumbered. So what? Just means you get to milk the sweet, sweet, Against All Odds buff for extra renown. Heck, you might even win if you outplay your opponents. So what if you end up losing the campaign? You get a chance at the new gear by defending your city. Since the city is considered a scenario, you end up with players similar in skill to you there too (unconfirmed and pure speculation, but would be awesome.)

WAR is going to be better than ever I think. So what's your excuse for not playing?

Spike Damage - 5s and 10s Spike

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.

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.

[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)
[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!

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.

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.