Hands of Justice
What we have played => Warhammer Online => Topic started by: Mangala on September 24, 2008, 09:19:44 PM
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So after tonights fun what have we learned, what can we learn and anything else people feel we need to know to keep on enjoying these?
Personally I learned to lower my graphics to fastest framerate setting for the evening, still a little laggy, but thats a combination of zone load on the server and playing over wireless ;)
Oh and that IB's using HtL really do rock when the group largely stays behind them. That is until the otherside primary you until dead!
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Take more siege weapons I reckon. My biggest issue was all the guys on the battlements either being just out of range or being out of line of sight when I was in range. Made working as an engineer a bit hard. Mostly ended up killing the spawns that kept appearing outside. Maybe if I got my grubby mits on a cannon or too I'd be sorted. :)
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The 2 real bottlenecks are the doorway and the stairs- when these are broken the keep falls. Organising the charge through these points is the hard part.
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if you are in control of a siege engine dont be afraid to exit firing mode to repair if damaged it does make you a target then but makes your equipment last longer.
we have siege abilities, RPs increase toughness of siege engines by 10% if i recall correctly , use them.
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Never had one myself just noticed we seemed to lose both after a while and they werent replaced.
Just think though these are the "easy" keeps with just the one gate, later on dunno if it's tier 3 they get an outer wall as well that you have to get past first.
Still good fun and some thing I was keen to see in game.
I never PvP'd much in the other MMO's I played but in this game it just seems so natural and fun. Almost to the point of being more addictive than doing quests. Maybe it's the bolster thing and the fact you can do it from day one has helped.
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Keep in range of your Standard Bearer.
Bring siege engines appropriate to the task at hand: Cannon for Offence, Rams for the Doors, Oil for Defence;
For the actual Lord assault:
What worked for us in this small groups is to run to the balcony. Tanks first healer after them. No heals at this point. Try to loose them or die. Then everyone rez so you can start out on the balcony without the reset border on the stairway. Pull champs (single warriorpriest same level should be able to tank/kill it). Then go for the hero.
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Spent most of yesterday defending a keep in the Shadowlands - mostly against small groups that weren't too hard to deal with for a handful of players.
We had 2 large groups of around 20-40 blood sucking destruction scum attack first in the morning then again later in the evening.
We had plenty of siege eq to defend with and a decent engineer on hand to man the cannons. We kept the oil flowing until the idea penetrated their thick skills to attack the cauldron above the gate - with only a handful of people defending it was hard to keep things repaired until reinforcements arrived. Messengers were dispatched while we kept them at bay and help arrived before the main gate was taken. A handful stayed on the ground floor, elven archers on the stairwell raining blows from above before most retreated to the first floor to take up positions on and around the stairwells.
We found it handy to keep the oil falling even when the gate had been breached - a few retreating to heal were spirited back to their camps swiftly - others were damaged enough to delay an attack giving us a brief respite.
Gunners placed their cannons on ledges above the lower-stairwell which helped a lot in keeping the healers and ranged support at bay - making it hard for their tanks to break through without support. Those that did ran for the outer wall allowing them to pick off small groups that ran after them. Keeping a few small groups at both entrances to the outer wall allowed them to pin the tank between them and take them out in quick time. We kept people on the guns - so any incoming support they had either met a swift death or were dealt enough dmg to approach with caution. After 15 mins or so the keep door reset and those inside were trapped. Again the oil helped keep those attempting to take the door again from the outside. The number of attackers inside the keep dwindled and they attempted to break the keep door from the inside to allow reinforcements to assist. Their focus now shifted we were able to slip down the stairwell and smear the inside of the door with their bile.
Use the npc's if you're in a small group - lure the hostiles out and then assist them - you'll survive, they won't and you'll be around to stop the keep falling.
If somebody makes it to the outer wall- it's better to defend the stairwell if you don't have enough support. You can take out the hovering hostile when they come into view. Small groups pinning them from both side is more effective than a couple of solos chasing. If they die you have less defenders against the mob.
You can hover at the top of the stairwell down and deal dmg pretty effectively and it stops the entrance to the stairwell down from getting congested - allowing your tank to work more effectively.
Don't let your guns go unmanned if you can help it and let people know how to repair them. If the defending eq is under atk it's going to take more than 1 person to repair them. Don't be afraid to ask for help or to let people know.
If you like playing with keeps - keep siege eq handy - I always have 2 items of all 3 types in my inv - something's always gonna break and having a spare can save the day.
One last tip - if you pop your clogs and rush back to help - keep your ear against the back-door before entering. If the lower lvl is swarming with vermin - you won't last long on entering - better to wait or ask for a diversion. Getting yourself killed won't help and it saves the long run back.
We managed to maintain control of the keep both times and in each case we were out-numbered and out-leveled! :)
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We need to find ways to practice attacks with little or no destro interference, or at least keep working together as a unit for these things. After all this game is about open warfare and sieges all meaning something - in all tiers as they all help the stability of your T4 keeps and such - not repeated TA over and over again.
For example lastnight we seemed to work together most of the night, but still had a near headless quality at times. Probably down to the the odd pug and lack of all of us on voice - we dont bite honest!!! Defence using the npcs as an aid (fair play I know, its the lords keep and he doesnt want to loose it either!) on the ramp is a morale breaker for some, that feeling of stalemate and such, but we have to keep pushing when at that stage. We gave it a great attempt lastnight in Thuckmuck keep down in the badlands, but that didnt last as not everyone in the WB followed us right into the fray despite it being screamed in /wa before we did it.
Either way whatever we can learn from continued keep sieges can only make us better, more so as more people pass into t3 and those of us there level higher in it too.
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IMO we did fairly well yesterday, the last attempt to push up the stairs in Badlands keep was quite organised. Few things i'd say may help:
1) Initial momentum
If we're going to capture objectives in the rvr zone, let's split WB into 2 groups and cap them simultaneously. Leave one party to guard each objective and the rest move on to the keep (if enough ppl).
2) Blocking reinforcements
Depending on the keep, it may be near impossible to guart the outer wall. Break the outer door as quickly as possible. Once in the inner yard, split wb to guard back/side entrance to the and man the ram. Put 2 ppl on the top of the outer walls to warn about incoming.
3) Re-group at the ground level
Once you're inside, it's not necessary to hurry up. Just get all ppl inside and block doors to cut all reinforcements. I was thinking about group setup which maximised grp healing, e.g. 3 tanks and 3 (different) healers in a grp. With 2 such groups, you have realistic chance to charge up in an organised way and survive, with healers spamming group heals. Start with knockbacks and aoe debuffs.
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We need experience at working together, and we need more people on TS (me included), if not speaking then at least listening. Also, at least I need still more experience, I still for example revert to mouse-clicking when I am tired and in a hectic sitation (I use key-bindings normally and use mouse for targetting and turning, but for some damn reason I forget all that when I have to focus on staying awake...).
One thing to consider for the future might be to play around a bit more with the party compositions. Last night we had pretty much all parties with a tank, a DPS class, a melee healer and a ranged healers. Meaning the group was all spread out, some not even in the same floor.
Now the problem with that is the nature of group healing in WAR, ie the most efficient healing (at least from the WP point of view :) ). You heal *party* members around you, and those outside circle (or not in the party) need to be healed individually.
Could it be possible in the future to stack the tanks plus melee DPS + 1-2 warrior priest to the group going upstairs, and likewise stack tanks plus WP in the group staying in the stairs to fend off, and have the ranged DPS + ranged healers stacked together (so the ranged healers can use their AoE heals to heal people around them)? As it was I was trying to run around like mad, trying to stand as close as possible to as many of my party to get maximal effort of ToD, while also trying to hit as many nasties as possible with Smite, while also trying to give the strength-buff to as many tanks as possible. When destro made the rush in, it took a long time for me to comprehend what the heck was going on (lots of more red text on my screen :P).
In case you are interested of my confused rushing back and forth, I slapped together a short video of the last phase of the final attempt (when we actually got upstairs in force and nearly got the lord down before destro reinforcements arrived). It's about 44 megs big, so it's not a small file to download, but I wanted to keep the resolution decently good.
http://www.yopost.com/downloadfile.php?download=svGpgXXgAJDpzwZ
An interesting thing I found out yesterday: At the keep door you can use Smite right through the door. At the last door I was standing in front of the door and Smiting while keeping heals up all the time. Sadly I was a bit too slow a couple times when I got boiling oil on my neck exactly at the same time when the guards rushed out, really need to move quicker outtaheck from there then...
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I found out last night that a WH is unbelievably squishy when it comes to the stair fight - it is nigh on impossible for me to make any contribution to that. The best I can do is try and run in build up accusations by hit and run and then try and pop a DOT on. Anything else and I am frozen on the spot and killed in seconds. Our pick lock skill is apparently broken, but when it is fixed I could imagine trying to co-ordinate the door rush with a postern door rush by the WHs to kill healers. Apart from that it feels very much like a spare wheel atm being a WH in a seige with our little potato guns firing snap-shot and no way to flank.
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The main thing we'll need to decide is what the best place to fight is on the top level. It will need to be somewhere where the boss won't run because of his short leash, but which will hopefully allow our ranged guys to fire into enemy lines and build enough pressure to take down enemy players.
I can think of two locations:
- On the balcony, we've had some limited success doing that before
- On the floor ABOVE the keep lord, I think he won't follow there, yet it is possible to fire down into the keep lord room from the top level. Also there are some vendor npcs there so destro may be unwilling to allow them to be killed off.
Imho fighting inside the keep lord room like we did yesterday is rather suicidal. Everyone will be bunched up, meaning, from a healer perspective:
- That you'll be waaaay too close to their WEs, marauders and other scary high-spike damage dealers, in order to retain a LOS on the tanks and your other melee buddies
- That it'll be such a mess of bunched up people that friendly tanks and "defensive dps" will not be able to identify the occasions where you are being singled out by enemy melee in time.
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Hmmm.. Bloody hell, I could have been ready to swear Touch of the Divine have 30 feet range. At least I am pretty sure Khaine's Embrace had 30 feet range in beta.
Now when I look at the tooltips, I notice the say 150 feet :o In essence, I have been running around like mad for no reason what so ever :-[
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I can think of two locations:
- On the balcony, we've had some limited success doing that before
- On the floor ABOVE the keep lord, I think he won't follow there, yet it is possible to fire down into the keep lord room from the top level. Also there are some vendor npcs there so destro may be unwilling to allow them to be killed off.
Your right, we should be trying those locations out.
However, firstly if we're playing against any clued in destro team then their healers won't move and inch from the NPCs and they’ll send in the tanks to start KBing us back down quickly splitting us up. Secondly, we still have to get everyone up through the worst bottleneck of the keep. With IBs on the front line spamming knockbacks we probably could get the best part of a force through, however it's still going to be impossible to move into one of those positions without losing a great deal of people.
The only way to beat that bottleneck as far as I'm concerned is to kill off and block off as many as possible as soon as the door goes down. That means having everyone at the door ready to charge in en mass moving straight to the stairway, ensuring that no one on the ground floor and from the postern door make it up those stairs. Then as quickly as possible we need to organize while we're still strong and push up into their remaining forces and play our asses off.
If we let an entire WB set up at the top of those stairs we have little to no chance of breaking through. It may even be better to set up on the ground floor and play a game of attrition should that happen, catching their tanks with KBs and taking them down while blocking any reinforcements from the back door.
tldr? sal about the initial push.
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Personally it would be helpful to define a few things:
1) Addins people should use for assist, chat windows, etc - if we're using the same things then it's easier for everybody to be coordinated. I know I don't have an optimum setup and with the body of knowledge we have for this - it would be handy for something to be added to the forums.
2) Who should be assisted in the party - with lots of bodies rushing about it's sometimes hard to see the wood for the trees.
3) It's not often I see people calling targets or defining a strategy - direction and strategy will win the objective. In larger parties it'll make the difference. It might be good if the healer called the shots - it could easier for them to have a clearer overview. The guy in in front usually has other things on his mind.
I'm not sure we're using Warbands/Parties well. Shouldn't the leader of the warband define the direction and hand objectives down to the parties for them to execute?
I don't know that much about how abilities span warbands/parties/groups - are we using them effectively?
I've spent more time defending keeps than attacking - mostly the attackers spearhead the first level with a tank and ranged support. It always fails if the defenders have ranged people at the top opening (opposite the entrance to the stairwell) and a tank (or a few who can take dmg) blocking the entrance. The attackers almost always diffuse their dps with multiple targets; they always rush around, rarely taking their time to get an overview of the situation and their targets. The only time that it's come close are when they have taken a breath and worked together.
If you take out the people covering the top of the stairwell first - you reduce their dmg output. If you assign one group this task - and then have 2 spearhead groups with the aim of getting to the outer ring of the first level and then taking up positions on the defending siege points. Pick one as a rally point and drop the guild flag. They can then defend against any following and then come around to attack from the side openings. Attacking from the side openings allows support to climb the stairwell and attack - effectively spliting the focus of the defenders 3 ways.
The stairwell is a bottleneck (as it should be :)) - so things would need to be coordinated to stop people blocking each other.
Scenarios are the best place to practice - when the same mistakes are made it ends up being a blood bath. It ends up being just about brawn rather than a team.
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1) Addons
There's 2 addons for MA'ing on curse atm: SG Assist (http://war.curse.com/downloads/war-addons/details/sgassist.aspx) and Choff Assist (http://war.curse.com/downloads/war-addons/details/choffassist.aspx). Of these two, Choff assist seems to be simplest (I'm a big fan of simplicity!) but SG Assist seems to have more options - the ability to set a secondary assist among others.
2) Who should be assisted?
I'm going with ranged dps-classes, for best overview.
- Tanks will have to target enemy targets that shouldn't be focused on quite often - think of punting that black orc out of the squishy team.
- Healers are already juggling two targeting systems, and watching up to 24 healthbars at the same time. They'll likely be slower at switching targets
- Melee DPS can do it, but can easily have their overview blocked by big orc shields et cetera.
- Ranged DPS often have a bit of a quieter time choosing targets (unless they get chased by melee of course - but that goes for all dps classes basically.
- We could have an excess tank call the shots here. Just slap a big twohander on him and let him lead the dps.
3) Having "da plan"
should definitely work, as will simply training keep captures more often. Once everyone knows what's expected of him we'll have a good shot at steamrolling unorganised enemy groups. At the moment I think we're still in the learning phase - or actually, in a try-out phase. :)
Buffs
seem to be mostly party-based. With my RP I can only buff these in my party. The AM buff works the same, and so does the BW buff. I haven't so far seen buff-auras like paladin auras/totems etc. have in WoW, but I could simply have missed it.
So far, when I've lost a keep to destruction, it's unfortunately mostly been a matter of superior numbers muscling their way in. It seems unlikely that we'll be able to get that going reliably on Order side by chance. :( SO, we'll need to organize it. From what I've seen so far, I'm reasonably sure that with 2 war bands, you're almost guaranteed to cap keeps, if:
- The keep is assaulted by surprise, so no large group of Destro is already inside
- The assault is executed swiftly and the outer wall has falled before opposing players arrive
- The attackers make sure to focus on keeping reinforcements outside and unfortified
- While doing this, there is still enough attention to the assault on (mostly) NPC-guards to have it progress steadily.
I realize the below scenario is pretty much an ideal situation, but I do think it's somewhat realistic if everyone moves fast enough. I'm still puzzling over defended scenarios. ;)
With two warbands at my disposal, I'd probably have all ~50 players focus on bringing down the main entrance first. Once in the courtyard, I'd assign most ranged dps to bringing down the inner door, while about one warband worth of people (many tanks, some healers and most melee dps) would simply watch both side-doors and the main gate for enemy reinforcements. Make sure there's healing for the people manning the ram, most of all when there's a few defenders with oil in the keep already. Man the ram with people that can't put out a lot of dps on the keep door by themselves (excess healers, tanks).
Once the inner door breaks down, have one balanced warband charge up to the keeplord room, while the second warband pulls in closer to the castle (either just outside or inside the bottom room should work - keeping people from charging up the ramp to the first floor should be doable even for half a warband) The charging warband should dispatch the few enemy players inside first, but the npcs should be picked up by one tank each and there should be a few healers dedicated to keeping them up (one healer for the tank on the lord, one healer per 2-3 tanks for the champs. With better gear, this could possibly be done by one healer, with one healer standing by.
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I think we may be considerably overestimating the average WBs organizational skills. Splitting groups, differing positions are all well and good but until we've practiced the standard charge together... we aren’t going anywhere.
I’ll be honest, I'm a terribly irritating armchair general. I feel someone’s got to do it however or nothing’s going to get done. While I couldn't stay the whole night tonight (so I'm not sure how the it turned out in the end), my heart sank at the start when we should have had that keep taken if only for the ability to run up a ramp together. 4-5 destro 15 Order and we just couldn't do it.
So my sieging tip. Breaking that line of Destro and NPCs, when you see the start of the charge follow up, all the way up, right up the ramp to the other side of the room, do your job, play your ass off and either you or the keep will fall. Standing at the bottom watching everyone move up first, tentatively poking your head up and watching people die, running back down when you start to take damage... Just... NO stop blocking the ramp/stairs and bugger off! Everyone goes up; everyone fights everyone wins or everyone dies! ;D
I'm all for a good bit of tactics, focus fire and all the add-ons in the world but if we can't advance "da plan" past 5 defenders and some stairs then we've no chance of trying something even a little complicated.
My apologies if this sounds a little ranty but I often see some awesome teamwork occuring in scenarios that dosn't seem to follow order out onto the feild, gets my goat a little.
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Well, we got up in the end, we higher than originally planned :D Sadly we didn't get the keep, but I think tonight provided very good practise runs. We actually nearly took the keep on the last attempt with just 9? players present, and that was because we actually were organised. Too bad the lord did reset. Still, some very good lessons learned I think :)
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my heart sank at the start when we should have had that keep taken if only for the ability to run up a ramp together. 4-5 destro 15 Order and we just couldn't do it.
I think we were nixed by master rune of adamant. Well, I know I was and I couldn't relog to fix it before we went up (perpetually in combat). It's hard to heal people when it takes 5 seconds to actually select anyone, so I was ok stood in a corner facing away from where it was laid, but as soon as I turned to run up the ramp my client just fell to a juddering halt. I know I wasn't the only one having troubles with it.
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I agree with the idea that we all burst into the chamber together to execute Da Plan and the more practise the better. Ultimately I hope we can have ready made task forces who know their job, and (more importantly) know that others know theirs. The keep lord takedown is basically a PvE excercise - my experience in Wow (especially on the Vashj and Kaelthas fights) tells me that focus on a single task whilst completely relying on others to focus on theirs is the way to get the job done. So, as DPS when I was engaged in a boss fight I just did DPS and ignored my health bar trusting completely the healers to do their job. An example of this in a keep siege is - if you are assigned to the ram just stay on it even if you start taking hits.
So, perhaps if we draw up DA PLAN - starting with arrival in theatre and ending with keep lord death then we start practising it - the aim being that an unopposed takedown by a single warband should take less time than it takes the dest zerg to find out where we are and get over there. If we can do that we can lead the destro in a merry dance - they cant be everywhere with the zerg. We can also boil it down to a limited number of activities which the WB leader can call and everyone know what they have to do.
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Regarding the ram.
I think it would be a good thing if members from one party only took the ram. That way the party healer would be able to spam the group heal through oil and whatnot.
Speaking of oil, it is important the oil-cauldron is nuked down fast. All ranged classes and all cannons in range should focus on the cauldron until it is down. Unless there are four desto-players repairing the cauldron it will be destroyed quickly, and if there are four destro players repairing it it means the cauldron is not boiling (and those players are not doing something else that is nasty for us).
I still believe it would be best to slap all tanks to one party together with two healers (a WP and RP, or a WP and AM). It would get maximal effect from the WP's party heals (all the tanks are taking damage, right?), which are by far the most efficient heals in the arsenal, and also have access to the life-saver heals that AM and especially RP have. While it is nice to have the BW buffs on tanks and healers, it would be more efficient to have them affecting the DPS classes that actually pump out the damage needed to take down stuff.
Also, we need the WP's to agree before hand who buffs who with the STR buff. For example last night I can not be sure if I buffed somebody in vain, as I simply didn't have time to check if the melee guys already had the buff or not -> most likely I buffed people who already had the STR buff while others never recieved it.
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IMO breaking down doors isnt the real problem. Getting up the stairs is.
Wasnt there yesterday, but so far what I've seen is that the following tactic is advocated: CHARGE UP
Ok, let's take a look at that from my perspective:
- Tanks go first, healers next, ranged dps last, right? Ok. Especially with quite some destro upstairs the following thing happens: Tanks are blocked on top of stairs , charge jutters to a halt, everyone is stuck at upper ramp or lower platform (between the 2 ramps). Being on upper ramp, squishies are the perfect target for ranged dps. I've died quite a lot from those guys and to be honest, for the healers it is very hard to do their work effectively from there, including ressing. You cant see doodoo, cause camera gets very close to the toon, so I have to rely on the warband overview and you cant imagine how often I have had the following on my screen:
You can't see your target
- Other tactic: just run through to balcony and see where you go from there. What I have seen is that a few ppl make it there, run all around the balcony, with any luck in groups of 2 or 3. From healer perspective:
You can't see your target
Being better in pointing out problems than thinking out the solutions this will prolly not be the best solution, but I'll give it a try.
- IMO first tactic just doesnt work, because of the different lvls (in height), healers cant see their targets and thus are nearly worthless. So 2nd tactic may be way to go, but only if the instructions go beyond 'running to the balcony'. So mebbe: take first exit and turn left (or right, but choose ONE) and stick at first corner.
Hopefully 5-8 ppl of the warband make it through and the next phase will have to start: a slow process of ressing ppl to the balcony. Tanks go in a bit to keep ppl at bay. Healer stands in door opening (they have to be able to look around the corner).
An AM res takes 10 secs (sometimes less), so this is slow going. Ppl have to patiently wait their turns. (and tanks will have to take quite some punishment, holding off destro for about 15 secs). What also may help is for ppl who are on 2nd floor say that they are there, so healer knows who to heal. (you can't see..., remember?)
Ppl on stairs should say they are on stairs, so healers below can res them (maybe keep a party in reserve below?)
It also might be an idea to coordinate the ressing through TS (we need more ppl on TS!) so the ressing upstairs can go in sync with ressing downstairs. With the party(s) below giving a divertion. Once the majority of ppl is up and running give a go for a two fronts attack.
Ok, this is my 2 cents, maybe a bit too much details, maybe off here and there. 'd Like to hear what you think.
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nice movie prae ;)
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Excellent post Warcold. However, you are aware that AoE heals don't need line of sight, right? As long as you are within 150 feet, be it upstairs, downstairs or same level, behind a wall or in plain sight, you are healed. Which is the reason I am trying to advocate for smacking the tanks together with WP + another healer. The WP can pump out his AoE heals every 3 seconds practically indefinitely when there are many targets to Smite, if just staying alive himself (the problem is that the AoE heals generate aggro like nothing, both amongst PvE targets and especially PvP targets...), and the WP has the armour sustain the damage. Things go to hell when one of the tanks croak (most likely because his healer lost LOS to the tank) and the WP is next to go down (and after that the other healers) and there is no way to keep the other tanks up.
For example last night Vacuum was not in my group and he was tanking the hero. Vacuum was not in my group, but as I saw him lose health fast (again, most likely because his healers simply didn't have LOS to him), I tried to heal him, which saw me lose all RF fast (the other heals are not even close as RF efficient as ToD, and there I was without RF watching all the tanks (and a second later myself) croak.
Now if the tanks were in same party with the WP spamming ToD, it would basically mean a steady stream of healing to all tanks. It would allow the tanks to focus on holding aggro on targets (hopefully moving them away from the stairs (both up and down!) so that people are not colliding with their own tanks), which would allow more people run up the stairs so that the other healers would be able to add with their healing and especially so that DPS people would be able to actually do their thing. Because no matter how you look at it, healing and tanking are not good enough, you *need* the DPS people to actually take down the bad guys.
EDIT: The acronyms I used:
LOS = Line of Sight
RF = Righteos Fury (the "mana" WP uses to cast heals, shields, decurses and resurrections)
ToD = [spell]Touch of the Divine[/spell]
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However, you are aware that AoE heals don't need line of sight, right? As long as you are within 150 feet, be it upstairs, downstairs or same level, behind a wall or in plain sight, you are healed.
Hmm ... you sure? Bcs in that case, put together 2 groups with healers and tanks, let tanks and WPs charge up and have all ranged healers stand on the ground floor spamming group heals...
@Warcold: balcony vs charge up
Well, balcony is a good idea if you don't have destro around, only NPCs. Otherwise, you first need to fight your way through the destro group blocking the top of stairs. That is the main problem. Even if few ppl manage to get to the balcony, destro will take care of them swiftly, before any rezzing can take place. With destro blocking top of stairs, you need somehow to blast a hole into their wall so that as many as possible ppl get to the upper floor, with tanks and heavy dps getting priority. Destro will, most probably, try to run back to close the gap immediately. Use aoe to bring da pain to the overcrowded area at the top of stairs. This could work in theory...
I believe keeps are made on purpose so that a relatively small group (lets say one warbad) can defend the keep practically against any number of attackers. Just keep the bottleneck blocked.
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However, you are aware that AoE heals don't need line of sight, right? As long as you are within 150 feet, be it upstairs, downstairs or same level, behind a wall or in plain sight, you are healed.
Hmm ... you sure? Bcs in that case, put together 2 groups with healers and tanks, let tanks and WPs charge up and have all ranged healers stand on the ground floor spamming group heals...
Yes I am sure :)
I noticed earlier that my ToD did heal people downstairs when I was using it upstairs in the keep-lord room.
Yesterday Beosvir and Daethoron got (by a Magus) sucked through the door inside the keep, me and Torgal rushed to the door and spammed AoE heal (and I did hit Smite (which also goes through obstacles) as fast as possible to regenerate RF). Eventually I too was sucked in through the door (gotta love those Maguses :p) and continued to heal inside, while Torgal continued healing from the outside.
Eventually the Destruction noticed the two tanks had a healer with them, and Torgal was not able to keep me up when they focused me to death, and after that Beosvir and Daethoron were toast pretty fast.
Later, in the keep, I did hide behind the wall and spammed ToD and Smite, and according to the logs I was healing people and damaging the baddies, even though I didn't have LOS to anybody.
Even later I fell through the stairs from the balcony above the lord, was stuck and couldn't move or even see anything. Yet again I was able to spam ToD and Smite from there.
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I'm not so sure about LOS and AoE heal either. We should try that out sometime. And besides, I dont really use groupheal that much, as most of the time, there is a far bigger need of spikehealing. AM groupheal also does about 540 healing (3s cast, no cooldown), but that is at lvl 40. At my lvl, healing is 250-ish (so 80 HPS). That's just not enough to keep the tanks up I think.
The things I use most are HoT spells [spell]Lambent Aura[/spell] and [spell]Healing Energy[/spell], of which the first is instant cast, so i can spam it on different players fast.
For spikehealing i use [spell]Boon of Hysh[/spell] (SLOW) and, if available, Morale: [spell]Divine Favor[/spell].
If you are right, and 4 out of 6 ppl would be upstairs taking damage, and I can heal them from a distance I would do 320 HPS, which would be worthwhile, but I truely doubt it.
But back to tactics: If going to the balcony doesnt work the only option I see would be to knock destro towards middle of room. Dont have paint handy, but ill try to draw it in ASCI:
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| ^ ^
| | | _______
|__2___1_|_|_|_|___
So tanks charge up, then hugging the wall and facing the room, Tank 1 knocks first load of destro towards middle of room (1), next, 2nd tank, also hugging the wall, KBs a bit farther, towards middle of room (2).
Dont know if this will work, or if this is doable, but this way you will have a nice spot for ppl to advance and knockbacks will only fling you in the wall and not down the stairs again.
Utopia??
[edit]hmm, you sure, eh? I never saw it happen, but will try it out again...
anyway, if so, i dont see reason for healers to go up, they should say downstairs and DPS should follow the tanks[/edit]
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I'm not so sure about LOS and AoE heal either.
It is absolutely the case, and the keep door example above illustrates it perfectly and certainly also amusingly. Group heals check only range, not LOS. I've hidden behind many a rock in scenarios and spammed the group heal to keep people up.
Your point about the lower HPS is valid though, it is fairly inefficient to keep single targets up with group targeted heals. It's not so bad though, just tends to lead to a bit of AP starvation if you're constantly casting. It's a shame that you can't use the old favourite cast/cancel healing method if you want to regen AP.
Many archmage and rune priest spells are entirely analagous (I have all those spell you listed, just with different names - it's curious how healers in this game are so homogenous given how diverse dps classes can be. Lack of imagination, or conscious balancing decision?), and so far as my experience extends warrior priests also share some analogues. I tend to lean heavily on the instant cast HoT to keep up HPS aswell, I find the 1s cast spell to be fairly inefficient due to it's high AP cost, and the 3s direct heal is just painful to cast in all but the most tranquil situations. Besides the instant HoT, my favourite spells are the AOE ones.
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The 1 sec spell has the advantage that it heals a nice ammount right at the beginning. When someone is below 25% and still taking damage, I use it to give him a relative quick little boost up and it just can be a lifesaver.
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I usually try to stack both hots myself, though the 1s cast one is rather painful.
If someone is taking heavy damage I often use the third hot as well (the one that jumps after having healed) though it heals for negligible amounts :(
Back to topic:
I'm doubtful whether only group heals will be enough to keep people up vs a hero level character, 4 champions plus whatever destruction is inside. It's worth a shot though!
An alternative may be to have the healers charge up the second flight of stairs (with a tank or a few dps leading the way to chase off the destro ranged dps) and hole up above the destruction zerg, with a 1-2 tanks at the bottom off the ramp to the second floor to keep out destro melee.
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Rune of serenity is basically my favourite RP spell! I keep it on cd as much as is humanly possible, but I am Grimnir spec, it accounts for a non-negligible chunk of healing since it's amazingly efficient assuming it hits all it's targets, but you could also say the same for BoValaya.
Every now and again I'll use it as a third HoT on top of a focussed target, sure. I also use rune of mending plenty but I wince every time I have to cast it due to the high AP cost.
True that group heals from a single healer would be unlikely to keep up a single tank with a hero mob + 1 or more champions, but considering a group with 2 healers and 4 tanks - each of whom are tanking an individual mob, group heals and HoTs probably on the hero tank are certainly the most efficient way of getting the job done.
The only caveat to all this is that a keep siege is still a pvp situation, the unexpected should be expected and our theoretical group healing / tank party would be poorly placed to react to such occurrences.
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Your point about the lower HPS is valid though, it is fairly inefficient to keep single targets up with group targeted heals. It's not so bad though, just tends to lead to a bit of AP starvation if you're constantly casting. It's a shame that you can't use the old favourite cast/cancel healing method if you want to regen AP.
I was speaking about 3+ targets taking damage ... and 2-3 healers in the group not a single one ... lets say you mix 3 tanks + 1 WP + 2 AM / RP and you have 4 targets probably taking some damage with 3 healers who can group heal. Plus WP can use single target heals if one target takes significantly more damage than others. IMO the most important point is that healers are not interrupted downstairs. Those 3secs single target heals are nice but take 6+ secs to get off when the healer is taking damage, plus the hero has aoe knockback which interrupts casting completely.
Efficiency / healing throughput:
AM group heal: 1125 / 3sec / 45 AP -> 375 HPS / 25 HPAP
AM single target heal: 540 / 3sec / 65 AP
2 targets -> 360 HPS / 17 HPAP
3 targets -> 540 HPS / 25 HPAP
4 targets -> 720 HPS / 33 HPAP
HPS = healing per second
HPAP = healing per action point
Morale: i would prefer lvl3 morale grp shield instead of single target heal. And i would try to pre-cast it just before the "pull".
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Pyth, the part you quoted me on was originally directed towards Warcold who stated that group heals may not be sufficient to keep tanks up vs hero level mobs. I think you and I are in agreement as regards the potency of group heals in this situation.
I think we're still sort of on target, but I'm sorry to sort of derail the thread with healing minutiae! Even if I am enjoying myself ;)
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An alternative may be to have the healers charge up the second flight of stairs
Isnt this even a longer route through the melee than to the balcony?
Morale: i would prefer lvl3 morale grp shield instead of single target heal. And i would try to pre-cast it just before the "pull".
You mean this one right? [spell]Divine Protection[/spell]. I use it now and then, but wonder about how much it actually blocks. Only have the spell for a day or two and havent had time to check how long this buff stays. Anyway, I have saved quite some lives with the lvl 1 morale.
lets say you mix 3 tanks + 1 WP + 2 AM / RP
I like this idea, but lets not forget about the DPS ppl out there ;)
But to do the calculations: 2 healers healing ~250 HP3S (lets not use the lvl 40 540, eh?) ~ 180 HPS/per target. This should be quite ok. Maybe if the tanks brought (and used!) some healthpotions, this would help some too.
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There are a couple fundamental differences between Warrior Priest and RP/AM
1) Righteous Fury. It is the fuel used for heals. It is only filled up out of combat, the spell supplication (10 second cooler and is horribly inefficient) and smacking people. Smite is the primary smacking tool, because with each [spell]Smite[/spell] (vs many opponents) it is possible to practically fill the whole RF bar.
2) Buffs. Warrior Priests have an excellent melee-buff [spell]Sigmar's Fist[/spell]. However, it requires us to smack people.
3) [spell]Touch of the Divine[/spell] has a 1 second cast. Yes, the group heal has just a 1 second cast.
4) WP's don't have any lifesaver spells. ToD is the only direct heal we have, everything else are HoT heals.
All this means a WP is intended to keep the on casting ToD for ever, and the WP actually *can* do that. But it requires him to be up front with the melee dudes. For a WP AP's are not an issue, and RF is not an issue as long as the cycle of ToD-Smite-ToD-SigmarsFist can be repeated over and over. And if you look at the cooldowns, it is pretty obvious this is in fact the "intended" cycle for WP's.
So, please, do *not* assume a WP goes up front to be able to cast a lifesaver. There are no such lifesavers in the arsenal. The WP is intended to be the source of a steady and infinite basic healing. When RP and AM have been AP dry for an hour, the WP just keeps going on like the Duracell rabbit. Every three seconds a 400 heal to everybody in the group. It is not enough to keep a tank alive in front of a hero, but it is enough to keep tanks facing champions and players alive, and it is a solid basis of healing for the one tanking the hero which provides the RP or AM time to cast their life-saving heals.
It is important that a RP or AM is available to provide direct healing to the tank facing the hero. Throw in a group heal if needed, but to really supplement each other, the WP needs the RP/AM to take care of the "oh shit" heals. The WP's only "oh shit" button is the group shield, and it has a 60 second cooler, and IMO it is best to be used when the charge upstairs start (there will be a few seconds of chaos and mayhem when the tanks grab their targets, and if somebody throws a heal before the tanks have got aggro, everything will go pear-shaped) to provide that extra little time to get everybody in position. RP/AM need to be sure they don't run AP dry, because they are the ones who will be saving lives.
So, to iterate, by all means do stay downstairs and cast group heals for those upstairs, but the problem is then there is no life-savers available then. WP is *not* a lifesaver class like RP or AM. WP cant save you from the brink of death, because there simply are no such heals available.
Thus the WP needs to be up there with the melee, and to get maximal efficiency of the WP heals, he needs to be in the group being whacked hardest (one additional benefit is the armour bonus from the [spell]Prayer of Absolution[/spell], but I suppose everybody has by now figured that out :) ). But there *has to* be a RP or AM with a LOS to the tank facing the hero.