Ahdeas fer Everyone

1 Blue Circle repeatable quests in war camps

Ah now realize that most of these quests ah complete anyways automatically

during scenarios and zone defense. Some of the blue circle quests rotate

around to a reward of 3 Officer Medals which adds up quickly. They always

drop coins that adds up and at least can help pay for flights and some pots

here and there. On the surface it may not seem worth the extra effort, but in

the long run it can make the difference between a dwindling bank account

and prosperity.

2 Ask what others in your class are doing and read up on it

Swordmasters, for example, can be awesome once they master their class,

but doing so can take a lot of learnin'. The result is a broad range of sms that

range from "I hate my class we are so nerfed" to everyone is rockin to get a

particular proven swordmaster as one of their tanks. You will have a lot more

trouble learning the tricks of yer class if yeh don't ask fer help. You will find

there's often a lot more to yer class than immediately meets the eye.

3 Get yer groove on and use your environment

Situational awareness and positioning are critical to survival and imo enjoyment!

Learn to move and position yourself relative to your enemies and environment

for maximum advantage. Using trees to cut-off the view of you to 1/2 the enemy

in front of you, having your back to a wall when useful, making quick movements

to disengage with the enemy but not take time traveling too much unless AOE

is the primary threat, moving to stay in range of healers or those you are guarding,

turning and backing out to avoid rear and side envelopment are all good examples.

4 Stay within healer/rez range and los

If yer not within line-of-sight or too far from healers, you are not going to be as

effective usually. There are times when doing without healing makes strategic

sense like making surgical strike against backline support or control of a flag

during a pivotal moment in a scenario. Often it is to everyone's advantage to

advance with heal support.

As a healer in scenarios with situational defensive skills I do try to venture out

and keep our allies within enemy lines healthy or at least alive longer with

hot (heal over time) stacking, but I may prioritize another heal target if I see that

if going far in to cover someone will deny the same to four people in need at the

time perhaps due to low healer count.

To be honest, though, if ah see 1-2 people going after healers way back there

and we are fine for healers overall, ah often may go to support them primarily,

especially if we are far from enemy spawn point and so it's gunna severely hurt

our healer killing capability for sometime if they are killed. Ah like the commando

aspect of it, too. Can't always do that depending on what mah group is doing.

Yet ah often see folks 1-2 at a time rushing lines of HEAVY enemy forces without

healer support. Not WH's stealthfully making tactical advances encircling the

enemy, but classes that need healing and/or tank guard for team effectiveness

whenever possible. Such charging of the light brigade would be brave, but if not

for strategic value, tactically silly. Empire and Elven life insurance will not cover

you in these circumstances, and if Dwarves could get insurance I bet it would

be the same.

5 Plan on the best place to fall down

If you are certain it's curtains for you, try to get to a spot where you stand

any chance to get rezzed. Battles otherwise fairly well-balanced are often

won by the better battle rezzin'.

Some examples:

If you are about to die on their Howling Gorge ramp you might run back up to

mid. If you charged too far ahead in Caledor Woods and suddenly see masses

of new enemy previously unknown heading your way, hightail it back to as close

to the flag as possible or you are just enemy reknown on legs.

Try to collapse near your own keep wall but not so close to the wall that

healers can't get a bead on you. If yeh coming to the front, come to the door

from an angle so yeh don't die under a ram where healers can't see yeh.

If on inner door of an enemy keep and harasser teams come out to lure you

around a corner out of los of healers, don't fall into the trap.

6 If yeh collapse in a strange place, note yer location to healers

This is especially important in keep battles. Yeh don't want yer healers

runnin' around like crazy people tryin' to find you instead of healing and

rezzin' those easy to find. Be brief and specific like "down around corner

from inner, west postern," "down just right of outer gate, only mah staff

shows", you get the idea. If yer critical, like the only healer going outside

keep with ram attackers, or the guy at oil, or the healer keeping the guy

at oil alive :), let folks know quickly, "rez at oil please".

7 Group make-up flexibility

Ever lost a team member during a big instance evening and thought, well,

we can't do this with one healer, or a particular tank type, etc. You might

be surprised what you can do while you are looking for a replacement.

Ah have been in LV teams of only 5 and still advanced through many of

the early bosses. Ah have seen many cases where you can give up 1 tank

fer a dps without issue, as long as you have one good tank. Of course,

sometimes you really must have 1 offtank in addition to the mt (main tank)

due to the mechanics of a boss event.

This is for good reason, it's not always a matter of luck. For example, in the

above example, yer enemies die faster with more great dps so there is less

stress on tankage and healin'.

Probably the most prevalent form of this is demanding a particular tank

class. Ah have seen top bosses tanked by every tank class, ah assure

you that with knowledge, equipment, proper specs/tactics, and skill, all

tanks can rock much.

8 With PvE Encounters (LV, crypts, etc.), Experience Rules

Group members familiar with tactics for a particular instance can make up

for group make-up imperfections and greatly benefit any team. This is

especially important for the spidie in LV, the final boss in crypts, all the

top ToVL ecounters, etc.

9 Use your scenario spawn point exit alternatives

It is sad to see entire scenario populations pinned down at their spawn

when perfectly good back doors are available to harass the enemy and

score game points. There are exceptions such as Serpent's Passage

where it is pretty easy to trap the enemy if you can dominate them.

Win or lose, it's a lot more fun and interestin' than total enemy spawn

point domination. "Come out back door to mid, only one squiggie there!"

10 You probably don't know as much as you think you do

Examples..

Ah was once crushed in a battle with the LV spidie, leaving a single

healer to cover everyone. And she did it! Now spidie encounter is up

in the air even if yeh know lots of tricks, the idea that one healer could

do this is, well, unexpected. The trick was that the main tank knew

every trick in the book to reduce crit hits, plus we knew every other

LV spidie trick there was, and finally Selessca rocked and probably

got an unusual number of crit heals out since she is a crit machine.

A common refrain is "get the healers, ignore the freaking tank!" or

something to that effect. Nevermind that their healers outnumber

yours 4:1, nevermind that they are 95% level 40, and you are 70%

level 40, nevermind they are a phenominally coherant, perfectly

balanced, tactically thoughtful premade ... you know better cause

you are a genius and everyone else just doesn't get it. If yeh must

yell this out Napoleon, look carefully around you and determine if this

is really the situation before yeh embarass yerself further.

Ah healer once angrily yelled at mah bw patron in scenario chat for

running from a WE when he's takin' damage from a "if yeh run yeh

get damaged" type spell. The bw then said he didn't know about

that spell and the healer went ballistic, saying that he must be a

bought character cause "everyone" knows about it. It took about

5 mins of follow-on tell chat to work it out to a good place. The

healer's farmhouse in Barak Varr mysteriously burned down the

following week.

Ah once met a guild leader who didn't know that healers could rez

out of group (oops), and as a wb leader he made an ass outta

himself bah accident, armed to the teeth with misinformation. To

this day ah associate him with that incident, perhaps cause he

doesn't seem like a nice person in general.

Ah once met a guy who thought wps were all masters of dps! Ah

was surprised when ah was invited to a party with him as the 2nd

dps he needed. "Uhh, I thought we needed another dps" "No, lol,

Dwooid's not dps." "Heh, no, I'm not dps :)".

Ah myself once made healing a particular archmage a priority for

chain rezzing only to find out bah her that she built herself as an

elven bw essentially, and thus the real healers should probably

come first.

Ah once got to thinkin' that most female characters are probably

male, and now through vent ah now realize that there are lots and

lots more women playin' than ah realized.

So drop those assumptions about other classes, tactics, strategy,

etc., and ask the why's and the how's and yeh just might learn

somethin' ... and have fun!! Whatever the reason you are getting the

bleep kicked out of you this time, acquit yerself with honor in combat,

do yer best, and next time maybe you'll be on the dealing end.

11 Everyone should be a scout!

In scenarios

In lieu of uber-premades, some kind of gentle scenario leadership by

means of skilled scoutmanship can make or break.

"GET TO THE FREAKING FLAG!!" rarely works.

"KILL THE HEALERS YOU MORONS!!" though perhaps correct,

rarely works.

"INC! Suggest fighting on flag!" (and going there), often works. It's

a suggestion and it is simple. You brought value and news on the

disposition of enemy forces.

"mid!" (and heading there as folks often watchin' the your map dots),

that can work, too, sometimes, as folks will assume you've scouted

the disposition of enemy forces on the final leg of the salvage run in

Serpent's Passage, for example, and know it's a lost cause.

"This group way too powerful to pin at spawn, suggest fighting on mid

flag before we wipe and lose it," may be quite wordy but just may work.

Hope yeh can type/talk fast. This is good tactical thinking in Battle of

Praag for this circumstance.

Scenarios aren't like warbands on the prowl, people rarely thinking in

terms of taking orders for the good of all. Perhaps there should be

scenario leaders someday, like wb leaders. You might consider going

to scenarios with yer own premade full or partial group, too, which

often simplifies the whole command structure issues for at least

one group team.

Dwooid's suggestions for scenario leadership:

- Everyone should be a scout. If you are too new to translate to

suggested action, share enemy dispostion. "2 WE at spawn".

- Be very brief, everyone's in combat. If important, repeat to overcome

chat scroll.

- Explain why whenever reasonable, with the least # words possible.

In RvR

Zone locks are especially scout dependent. Knowing the disposition

of the enemy allows your optimal force positioning.

In one case ah spotted the enemy trying to sneak behind us in tm

heading to headwall ... okay so they ran me over ... ah announced

it and forces from Palik made it in time. In another case a fellow

named Graz sat on a tm PvE land bridge and spotted enemy forces

otw doomstriker, called it, and again we had forces there in a nick of

time.

When choosing next wb goal, realm and zone scouts can be critical

to making the right choices as tools like State of the Realm (SoR)

have their limitations. Nothing beats boots on the ground.

Be sure to thank yer scouts, purposeful or accidental. They can make

the difference between success and failure and they deserve private or

public credit for their efforts and often sacrifice. But remember, everyone

should be a scout :).

If yeh got any more ahdeas fer everyone, or have

any comments on the ahdeas above, contact me

anytime! Ah can be found via the "Contact Dwooid"

link in the sidebar.

- Dwooid of Caledor