Mythic didn't waste any time with the DoK/WP nerf/change going live. Forums are going to assplode right about... well... they have been for days.
It will be very interesting to see what the reality of this change is. My money is on the decent guilds and players adapting very quickly and not a great deal changing in the grand scheme of things, other than perhaps cloth healers getting a bit more popular. I suspect that those suggesting that the rampant AoE of doom will melt things quicker have a point, but meh, it's not like it was particularly slow before.
Any time that people get nerfed the forums go ape-shit, more often than not it proves to be players crying purely out of self interest, sometimes not of course, but until this gets played with on live we won't know how justified all the QQ has been. I'll be most intrigued to see on Karak Norn what impact (if any) it has on warband composition for the big name guilds.
Hotfix details below:
+++
Greetings!
The following Hot Fixes were implemented during today's maintenance:
General Changes and Bug Fixes
General
•The Keg’s End Live Event has begun and lasts until January 4th, 2011!
Combat and Careers
Disciple of Khaine
•Khaine’s Embrace: The base healing value of this ability has been reduced and its cooldown has been removed.
•Khaine’s Vigor: The base healing value of this ability has been increased and its duration has been reduced.
Magus
•Chaotic Attunement: Fixed an issue which prevented this Tactic ability from reducing the Action Point cost of summoning abilities.
Warrior Priest
•Pious Restoration: The base healing value of this ability has been increased and its duration has been reduced.
•Touch of the Divine: The base healing value of this ability has been reduced and its cooldown has been removed.
Realm vs. Realm
Open RvR
•Rate Ogre: This unit’s survivability has been increased.
•Gutter Run: This Gutter Runner ability will no longer stack with other run speed buffs.
+++
Showing posts with label AoE. Show all posts
Showing posts with label AoE. Show all posts
Tuesday, 14 December 2010
Wednesday, 14 July 2010
More class changes posted, close quarters changed
Very interesting post by Mythic, I wonder how much of an impact this is going to have on AoE?
"Ranged Archetype
Close Quarters has been redesigned. It will now cause your abilities to build up 50% faster when your enemy target is within feet 20 of you, and no longer has a penalty.
Expert Skirmisher has been redesigned. It will now cause your abilities to build up 50% faster when your enemy target is within 20 feet of you, and no longer has a penalty."
Still like to see PBAoE stacking removed/limited mind you, but will this mean Sorcs/BWs now spam single target abilities instead of the constant AoE?
Oh and Shadow Warriors, gratz guys, about time.
Looking like a good patch for Magus with this and the other changes too.
"Ranged Archetype
Close Quarters has been redesigned. It will now cause your abilities to build up 50% faster when your enemy target is within feet 20 of you, and no longer has a penalty.
Expert Skirmisher has been redesigned. It will now cause your abilities to build up 50% faster when your enemy target is within 20 feet of you, and no longer has a penalty."
Still like to see PBAoE stacking removed/limited mind you, but will this mean Sorcs/BWs now spam single target abilities instead of the constant AoE?
Oh and Shadow Warriors, gratz guys, about time.
Looking like a good patch for Magus with this and the other changes too.
Saturday, 10 July 2010
Saturday, 15 May 2010
Nerfage - Apparently this was one of the key moments...
This scoreboard is from a screenshot doing the rounds from the EU city testing that led to a sudden wave of Mythic's nerf bat. Though Mythic claim they had it planned long before, which is of course quite possible, but I would be surprised if this utter spanking didn't make a bit of an impression :P
The names look like a warband from the Norn guild VII, one of Order's best on our server. Not sure who took the screenie, full credit to them, whoever it was.
Click the image to enlarge.
The names look like a warband from the Norn guild VII, one of Order's best on our server. Not sure who took the screenie, full credit to them, whoever it was.
Click the image to enlarge.
Not much to say, since this tells it's own story really...
Friday, 14 May 2010
Wizards and Sorcs to become ranged DPS?
I started writing a reply to the comments on my previous post, but it got too long, so I figured I might as well post it properly...
The more PBAoE gets nerfed the better as far as I'm concerned. It's just a shame it took Mythic visiting the EU PTS to actually see for themselves what can really be done with it. From what I've read around the net so far, it seems like the US servers just don't have bombing in the same way. I don’t mean that as an insult regarding US player’s skills, it just appears they’ve not had the dubious motivation to try and perfect bombing as much as a lot of European guilds. They're all talking about how you can beat the organised bomb groups or warbands, which is totally true, but it’s also totally not the point. You have to scale it up, a lot. It's not the small groups that are the problem, it's all about reaching critical mass where game-play goes out of the window and mathematics takes over.
On Karak Norn we get full on uber blobs with a core made up of multiple tightly organised and skilled bomb warbands. These aren't random puggies, though the puggies follow these guys around ofc, these are seriously hardcore guild warbands that are well practiced and often optimised for bombing. People that have not witnessed this will be quick to yell L2P and other crap, but it is not a L2P issue, it is simple maths. If one warband has 8 Bright Wizards (or Sorcs) that PBAoE together, the damage is so high that everyone in range will instant die regardless of healing or mitigation. Now multiply that by 4+ warbands, add in the puggie warband followers and then mix in WAR’s funnelling of players into small RvR lakes… That “in range” is now unavoiadable. The end result is something you can't out manoeuvre, can’t fight with single target and delivers a massive area of instant death. They can only be beaten by equal number of bombers that detonate first. Seriously, when good bombing guilds like Red Guard, Crimson, VII, etc, etc hit you at the same time, how can you deal with that?
You can’t, unless you do the same thing, have equal numbers or more and detonate your PBAoE first. Now I have no problem losing fights against these guys, they are well organised, have excellent players and if we’re outnumbered, I quite rightly expect to die fast. However getting killed in under 2 seconds when I’m playing a well geared and defensive specced Chosen is ridiculous, I should at least have the option of a fight. Dying quicker than players can load on my screen is stupid. It is in no way fun and there is absolutely nothing we can do about it, other than blob up and bomb back. And then if we did actually win, where is the fun in instant killing people? Where’s the fighting? That’s the key here, the complete lack of any fun in this style of game play. In small scale (group to warband) fights PBAoE is still too dominant and we still might lose, but we at least get a chance to put up a fight and feel like we were beaten by players, not a calculator. It is this horrible PBAoE reaching Critical Mass that some people have either not seen, or are denying because of bias perception of their own class.
Our warband went round a corner of the zig-zag road in Dragonwake recently straight into a bomb warband (or two), we died in two seconds. I'm not exaggerating either. No room or time to move. It's a small area, so it emphasised the AoE of course. Oh and I counted 12 bright Wizards... If that PBAoE wasn't so ridiculous we would at least have had a time to put up a last stand and perhaps, you know, felt like we were playing a game.. Not too much to expect eh?
I know some people reading this will think I’m just another QQer who got killed in RvR, but you’re wrong. I’ve bombed the crap out of people, I’ve had the same done back, so from both sides of it I’ve seen how it is spoiling the game. There is no need for this PBAoE dominance. Oh and btw the “it’s the only way a small group can beat a PuG warband” argument only applies if all you fight is PUGs. Anyone that doesn’t think that PBAoE is an issue needs to consider they may not have seen the full potency of PBAoE damage. If they spent a night on Karak Norn Tier 4, then they would see, exactly like Mythic has, the genuine problem here. It's not often you see Mythic react with a nerf like this so quickly, so don’t assume they did this for the sake of it.
Bright Wizards and Sorcerers are central to this problem. It is unfortunate they keep getting nerfed, but it’s only because they've never been nerfed hard enough. From what I’ve read today, it might not be enough again. Both classes are meant to be ranged DPS, which they are actually great at, but currently they are almost exclusively played as melee DPS which they are exceptional at. This maybe a nerf to Sorcs and Wizards AoE, but it’s a buff to every other DPS in the game. And strangely enough the single target Sorcs I've been speaking to don't seem to have any complaints...
The dominance of AoE, Wizards and Sorcs has been one of the main contributors to people quitting WAR since launch. This is why the other week when I was talking to people in DAoC they we’re laughing about AoEhammer.
AoEhammer. So true it's tragic. Excellent move Mythic.
The more PBAoE gets nerfed the better as far as I'm concerned. It's just a shame it took Mythic visiting the EU PTS to actually see for themselves what can really be done with it. From what I've read around the net so far, it seems like the US servers just don't have bombing in the same way. I don’t mean that as an insult regarding US player’s skills, it just appears they’ve not had the dubious motivation to try and perfect bombing as much as a lot of European guilds. They're all talking about how you can beat the organised bomb groups or warbands, which is totally true, but it’s also totally not the point. You have to scale it up, a lot. It's not the small groups that are the problem, it's all about reaching critical mass where game-play goes out of the window and mathematics takes over.
On Karak Norn we get full on uber blobs with a core made up of multiple tightly organised and skilled bomb warbands. These aren't random puggies, though the puggies follow these guys around ofc, these are seriously hardcore guild warbands that are well practiced and often optimised for bombing. People that have not witnessed this will be quick to yell L2P and other crap, but it is not a L2P issue, it is simple maths. If one warband has 8 Bright Wizards (or Sorcs) that PBAoE together, the damage is so high that everyone in range will instant die regardless of healing or mitigation. Now multiply that by 4+ warbands, add in the puggie warband followers and then mix in WAR’s funnelling of players into small RvR lakes… That “in range” is now unavoiadable. The end result is something you can't out manoeuvre, can’t fight with single target and delivers a massive area of instant death. They can only be beaten by equal number of bombers that detonate first. Seriously, when good bombing guilds like Red Guard, Crimson, VII, etc, etc hit you at the same time, how can you deal with that?
You can’t, unless you do the same thing, have equal numbers or more and detonate your PBAoE first. Now I have no problem losing fights against these guys, they are well organised, have excellent players and if we’re outnumbered, I quite rightly expect to die fast. However getting killed in under 2 seconds when I’m playing a well geared and defensive specced Chosen is ridiculous, I should at least have the option of a fight. Dying quicker than players can load on my screen is stupid. It is in no way fun and there is absolutely nothing we can do about it, other than blob up and bomb back. And then if we did actually win, where is the fun in instant killing people? Where’s the fighting? That’s the key here, the complete lack of any fun in this style of game play. In small scale (group to warband) fights PBAoE is still too dominant and we still might lose, but we at least get a chance to put up a fight and feel like we were beaten by players, not a calculator. It is this horrible PBAoE reaching Critical Mass that some people have either not seen, or are denying because of bias perception of their own class.
Our warband went round a corner of the zig-zag road in Dragonwake recently straight into a bomb warband (or two), we died in two seconds. I'm not exaggerating either. No room or time to move. It's a small area, so it emphasised the AoE of course. Oh and I counted 12 bright Wizards... If that PBAoE wasn't so ridiculous we would at least have had a time to put up a last stand and perhaps, you know, felt like we were playing a game.. Not too much to expect eh?
I know some people reading this will think I’m just another QQer who got killed in RvR, but you’re wrong. I’ve bombed the crap out of people, I’ve had the same done back, so from both sides of it I’ve seen how it is spoiling the game. There is no need for this PBAoE dominance. Oh and btw the “it’s the only way a small group can beat a PuG warband” argument only applies if all you fight is PUGs. Anyone that doesn’t think that PBAoE is an issue needs to consider they may not have seen the full potency of PBAoE damage. If they spent a night on Karak Norn Tier 4, then they would see, exactly like Mythic has, the genuine problem here. It's not often you see Mythic react with a nerf like this so quickly, so don’t assume they did this for the sake of it.
Bright Wizards and Sorcerers are central to this problem. It is unfortunate they keep getting nerfed, but it’s only because they've never been nerfed hard enough. From what I’ve read today, it might not be enough again. Both classes are meant to be ranged DPS, which they are actually great at, but currently they are almost exclusively played as melee DPS which they are exceptional at. This maybe a nerf to Sorcs and Wizards AoE, but it’s a buff to every other DPS in the game. And strangely enough the single target Sorcs I've been speaking to don't seem to have any complaints...
The dominance of AoE, Wizards and Sorcs has been one of the main contributors to people quitting WAR since launch. This is why the other week when I was talking to people in DAoC they we’re laughing about AoEhammer.
AoEhammer. So true it's tragic. Excellent move Mythic.
Thursday, 13 May 2010
Sorcs & Bright Wizards get a big AoE nerf
Confirmation by Mythic here.
I'm not perfectly versed with the details of playing a Sorc or BW, but I'm reliably informed that this is a major nerf, in particular to Bombing.
Excellent news for all other WAR players if so, especially so if you play a class not in the holy trinity of bombing.
I'm not perfectly versed with the details of playing a Sorc or BW, but I'm reliably informed that this is a major nerf, in particular to Bombing.
Excellent news for all other WAR players if so, especially so if you play a class not in the holy trinity of bombing.
Friday, 18 December 2009
Bombtarding
Tonight we went out for some RvR action with a two and a half group Kill Frenzy warband. Without really intending too we ended up with an almost entirely melée based warband, other than a few healers and one single target spec sorc. All told it was a frustrating experience.
Obviously against the Order puggies we cleaned house, including us delivering some brutal maiming in a busy Altdorf instance... This was despite the Destro puggies (supposedly on our side) best efforts to constantly guard pull...
It was against the Order premade guild warbands that our unintentional melée theme became annoying. Every single Order warband was bombing, and credit to them they did so effectively, but it was frustrating because there wasn't a great deal we could do. Partly our fault because not only did we lack range and bombers, but also our warband was cobbled together and didn't really have any synergy with the class balance in it. Other than just having lots of melee, there was no proper theme to givr it direction. You can make effective melée groups, in fact earlier today some of the guys were doing a 2 Chosen 4 DoK group that was brutally effective in scenarios. However tonights warband just wasnt right for facing bombers. I guess the thing is just like the best bomb groups you have to start excluding people because of the choice they made when they very first logged into WAR. Can't take more than 1 of class X... Go re-roll bitch.
A few weeks back we ran a 3 group bomb warband. Obvious results against decent opponents really, same as in the earlier days of bombing when we bombed regularly like everyone else. If we outnumbered the enemy we won, if they outnumbered us they won, if it was roughly even numbers then it's 50/50. Just depends who's bombs & CC go off first, with better gear adding an edge occasionally. Had some damn tight fights against one of my fave enemy guilds "Crimson" that night, /salute to them, but even so it was still boring as hell. I so hate bombing.
Amusingly, or perhaps it was just tragic, on that night we went up against a full Order warband that had a few tanks, a good collection of healers and ONLY Bright Wizards for DPS. Not a single other class. Got burnt by them, shock horror. 8+ Bright Wizards turning on their AoE at once has predictible results no matter what they're fighting...
Anyway not really sure where I'm going with this other than to say... Bombing is still ruining the game and for Gods sake Mythic will you please address it. I dont want to have to bomb, but it seems that all anyone does these days. Putting aside tonights lack of synergy in our set up, because I put my hands up, that was our stupid mistake, but it is bloody annoying to know we can be as effective as pretty much anyone, if we decide to play in the most boring way and bomb bomb BOMB!
PS: I don't blame bombers for bombing. It is the most effective way to win in WAR. I won't stop using Ravage because it hits hard. Which I imagine is why even when I'm solo, if I encounter Bright Wizards they bomb me :p
Obviously against the Order puggies we cleaned house, including us delivering some brutal maiming in a busy Altdorf instance... This was despite the Destro puggies (supposedly on our side) best efforts to constantly guard pull...
It was against the Order premade guild warbands that our unintentional melée theme became annoying. Every single Order warband was bombing, and credit to them they did so effectively, but it was frustrating because there wasn't a great deal we could do. Partly our fault because not only did we lack range and bombers, but also our warband was cobbled together and didn't really have any synergy with the class balance in it. Other than just having lots of melee, there was no proper theme to givr it direction. You can make effective melée groups, in fact earlier today some of the guys were doing a 2 Chosen 4 DoK group that was brutally effective in scenarios. However tonights warband just wasnt right for facing bombers. I guess the thing is just like the best bomb groups you have to start excluding people because of the choice they made when they very first logged into WAR. Can't take more than 1 of class X... Go re-roll bitch.
A few weeks back we ran a 3 group bomb warband. Obvious results against decent opponents really, same as in the earlier days of bombing when we bombed regularly like everyone else. If we outnumbered the enemy we won, if they outnumbered us they won, if it was roughly even numbers then it's 50/50. Just depends who's bombs & CC go off first, with better gear adding an edge occasionally. Had some damn tight fights against one of my fave enemy guilds "Crimson" that night, /salute to them, but even so it was still boring as hell. I so hate bombing.
Amusingly, or perhaps it was just tragic, on that night we went up against a full Order warband that had a few tanks, a good collection of healers and ONLY Bright Wizards for DPS. Not a single other class. Got burnt by them, shock horror. 8+ Bright Wizards turning on their AoE at once has predictible results no matter what they're fighting...
Anyway not really sure where I'm going with this other than to say... Bombing is still ruining the game and for Gods sake Mythic will you please address it. I dont want to have to bomb, but it seems that all anyone does these days. Putting aside tonights lack of synergy in our set up, because I put my hands up, that was our stupid mistake, but it is bloody annoying to know we can be as effective as pretty much anyone, if we decide to play in the most boring way and bomb bomb BOMB!
PS: I don't blame bombers for bombing. It is the most effective way to win in WAR. I won't stop using Ravage because it hits hard. Which I imagine is why even when I'm solo, if I encounter Bright Wizards they bomb me :p
Tuesday, 1 December 2009
Close Quarters is....
...still in the game. Why?
The biggest problem in class balance and overall RvR is the insane power of AoE. Charges are still led by Wizards and Sorcs instead of melee. Why has the latest patch once again ignored this?
I can live with the patch notes being a bit meh and uninspiring, but this apparent ignorance of WAR's longest running and most annoying balance issue is seriously doing my head in.
For God's sake Mythic sort it out. Not just tooltips :P
PS: I hear that one of the BW changes will impact on bombing. Unfortunately most of the posts I've read are by infamous trolls, so I guess we'll have to wait and see if that's true or not. Let's hope. If so I will happily eat these words.
PSS: Ravage nerfed, fine with me I'll live. AP aura buffed, great as long as it's also fixed...
The biggest problem in class balance and overall RvR is the insane power of AoE. Charges are still led by Wizards and Sorcs instead of melee. Why has the latest patch once again ignored this?
I can live with the patch notes being a bit meh and uninspiring, but this apparent ignorance of WAR's longest running and most annoying balance issue is seriously doing my head in.
For God's sake Mythic sort it out. Not just tooltips :P
PS: I hear that one of the BW changes will impact on bombing. Unfortunately most of the posts I've read are by infamous trolls, so I guess we'll have to wait and see if that's true or not. Let's hope. If so I will happily eat these words.
PSS: Ravage nerfed, fine with me I'll live. AP aura buffed, great as long as it's also fixed...
Monday, 21 September 2009
ZERG!
ZERG! ZERG! ZERG! ZERG! ZERG! ZERG! ZERG! ZERG! ZERG! ZERG! ZERG! ZERG! ZERG! ZERG! ZERG! ZERG! ZERG! ZERG! ZERG! ZERG! ZERG! ZERG! ZERG! ZERG! ZERG! ZERG! ZERG! ZERG! ZERG! ZERG! ZERG! ZERG! ZERG! ZERG! ZERG! ZERG! ZERG! ZERG! ZERG! ZERG! ZERG! ZERG! ZERG! ZERG! ZERG! ZERG! ZERG! ZERG! ZERG! ZERG! ZERG! ZERG! ZERG! ZERG! ZERG! ZERG! ZERG! ZERG! ZERG! ZERG! ZERG! ZERG! ZERG! ZERG! ZERG! ZERG! ZERG! ZERG! ZERG! ZERG! ZERG! ZERG! ZERG! ZERG! ZERG! ZERG! ZERG! ZERG! ZERG! ZERG! ZERG! ZERG! ZERG! ZERG! ZERG! ZERG! ZERG! ZERG! ZERG! ZERG! ZERG! ZERG! ZERG! ZERG! ZERG! ZERG! ZERG! ZERG! ZERG! ZERG! ZERG! ZERG! ZERG! ZERG! ZERG! ZERG! ZERG! ZERG! ZERG! ZERG! ZERG! ZERG! ZERG! ZERG! ZERG! ZERG! ZERG!
*sigh*
Welcome to the new "improved" Karak Norn.
It's both factions and it's everywhere. For me this is not good in any way or form. Hard to stay positive right now :(
/sad panda
I'm still not in panic mode, the next patch may sort things out, but I'm not liking the new direction the server has taken. Over the last year I've already done my time being zerged or following a zerg, I've paid my dues thank you. For a long time I have tried to avoid being involved in the bloody things. If the consolidation of servers reduces WAR to nothing but zergs and all the AoE bullshit that this entails, then I'd prefer smaller server populations.
The complete death of small scale PvP has shaken my belief in WAR... From discussions I've had with a range of WAR players over the last few days, I can safely say I'm not alone in this.
Fix it Mythic pls. Quickly.
*sigh*
Welcome to the new "improved" Karak Norn.
It's both factions and it's everywhere. For me this is not good in any way or form. Hard to stay positive right now :(
/sad panda
I'm still not in panic mode, the next patch may sort things out, but I'm not liking the new direction the server has taken. Over the last year I've already done my time being zerged or following a zerg, I've paid my dues thank you. For a long time I have tried to avoid being involved in the bloody things. If the consolidation of servers reduces WAR to nothing but zergs and all the AoE bullshit that this entails, then I'd prefer smaller server populations.
The complete death of small scale PvP has shaken my belief in WAR... From discussions I've had with a range of WAR players over the last few days, I can safely say I'm not alone in this.
Fix it Mythic pls. Quickly.
Saturday, 19 September 2009
Tick Tick BOOM!
Since the transfer of players from Karak Eight Peaks, my home server of Norn has seen a massive resurgence of AoE bomb tactics. That’s not to say it wasn’t there before, undoubtedly it was, but nothing like to the same extent. With the monstrous zergs now present from both factions, at least in these early days it has become rare to see a fight not based around AoE bombing. I’ve personally been on the business end of a zerg where I counted 9 Bright Wizards at the FRONT of the charge. Amongst them were a very large number of Slayers (I didn’t manage to count them) and as a result it was literally instant death for us. Likewise I’ve seen Destruction doing exactly the same thing with Sorcerers and Choppas. There are always angry debates on forums about which side has it easiest with bombing, but I’m not going to touch that with a barge pole, as most comments I’ve read were a load of biased bollocks. Let’s just say both sides are perfectly able of running very nasty bomb groups.
I’m not a fan of bombing, particularly in large-scale zergs. The lag problems when 10 warbands collide and the sheer destructive power of overlapping AoE make tactics and skill defunct. If your healers are lagging and your 9k+ hit points get removed in under a second (even with 750+ toughness and capped resists), there’s not a lot you can do. Who lags least and bombs first, wins.
To add to my distaste for zerg bombing, Kill Frenzy is not a zerg guild. When possible our groups/warband are normally found away from the zergs and doing our own thing. We of course use the Destruction command channel and work with the other guilds, but where possible we try to avoid taking part in following the zerg. As such we often have to fight larger numbers of Order, which is cool, but becomes fairly ridiculous when outnumbered by multiple good bomb groups. In that respect with the incredibly high population on Norn right now, it looks like our way of playing the game is under threat, but that’s a different subject and it’s still early days (no need to panic yet), so back on topic I go…
In small group play bombs are not so horrific and are easier to counter, but against unprepared enemies they can still be devastating. I’ve talked before about when Kill Frenzy ran rift-bomb groups for a week or so. It was insane, we were killing literally 3 times our number in oRvR and we were pretty much unbeatable in scenarios, even utterly destroying many of Order’s best. However, we stopped running those groups. Partly because of the nerf death of Magus, but far more because most of us just don’t like bombing much. In KF we are nearly all using single target specs. Yes bombing is very effective, but it isn’t exactly challenging and most importantly it’s boring.
That doesn’t mean the people doing it are in the wrong. For sure some people do it purely because it’s easy and stupidly powerful, but others started doing it because they had no choice. Bombing is a very effective tactic against an uncontrolled zerg, so for organised guilds struggling to deal with an enemy faction that hugely outnumbers them… you could perhaps argue they were forced into bombing. As we’ve seen so many times with the 2 factions, there’s normally one of them outnumbering the other. Combine that with the small RvR zones funnelling people into enclosed areas and the whole system promoting zergs. Well, it’s an obvious choice. And from there it's not a big leap for it to become the norm for many players.
How to beat the bomb?
I’ve limited experience on countering large scale bomb zergs, so I can’t give any advice there and would welcome any suggestions on the subject. However here are a few brief (and probably obvious) tips for fighting bombers in smaller scale fights. Which as I’ve got to get my own guild back on track with dealing with bombers (it has been a while since we had to do so regularly), I figured I’d post it in case anyone finds it helpful.
Ok this is assuming you’re not too outnumbered…. If you are I hear praying is good.
Coordination.
Organised and controlled voice communication is a must.
Assisting on 1 target is not always ideal. If there’s 3 wizards/sorcs bombing and EVERYONE attacks one of them, then the remaining 2 unmolested wizards/sorcs will kill you all. There’s no reason why you can’t have most of your DPS assist target, but have your tanks hitting different targets to shut down every bomber.
Interrupts
To prevent a bomb detonating you simply need to interrupt its cast. There are lots of abilities that can be used, taunts, stuns, knockbacks, knockdowns and good old fashioned interrupt spells. Just don’t have everyone use them all at once, or you end up with everyone on cooldowns. And don’t use them too early or the enemy gets immunity timers on them before they even started casting! Timing is important.
Just as a reminder… TANKS! REMEMBER YOUR SINGLE TARGET TAUNT INTERRUPTS! It’s amazing how many don’t seem to know that.
How to kill the Invincible Nuker
You don’t! If your DPS is trying to kill a bomber and they just won’t die due to heals and guards, then keep them shutdown and hit something else, or take apart the things keeping them alive. For example the guard ability alone does not make a bombing wizard invulnerable, but guard and 3 healers will do. The guard is harder to prevent than the healing, so… you work it out ;) Flexibility and focus is the key.
I’m sure to many people I just stated the obvious and others may disagree or have better ideas. If so please feel free to share! Also I'd welcome some tips on dealing with Slayer bombs, it's something I've very rarely seen before. Since the transfer I've encountered a large enemy guild that appears to be entirely based around Slayer bombs in scenarios. Harsh...
I’ve one final big tip for coping with bombing… Sometimes you’ll be in a PUG, or for whatever reason a less organised/experienced group, and then other times you'll be outnumbered or just plain outplayed. There’s no way to avoid it, sometimes these things mean you will get bombed to crap. I know plenty of Order has seen me die to their bombs of late. Shit happens. Just try not to get too stressed, it’s not done me any favours :P
I’m not a fan of bombing, particularly in large-scale zergs. The lag problems when 10 warbands collide and the sheer destructive power of overlapping AoE make tactics and skill defunct. If your healers are lagging and your 9k+ hit points get removed in under a second (even with 750+ toughness and capped resists), there’s not a lot you can do. Who lags least and bombs first, wins.
To add to my distaste for zerg bombing, Kill Frenzy is not a zerg guild. When possible our groups/warband are normally found away from the zergs and doing our own thing. We of course use the Destruction command channel and work with the other guilds, but where possible we try to avoid taking part in following the zerg. As such we often have to fight larger numbers of Order, which is cool, but becomes fairly ridiculous when outnumbered by multiple good bomb groups. In that respect with the incredibly high population on Norn right now, it looks like our way of playing the game is under threat, but that’s a different subject and it’s still early days (no need to panic yet), so back on topic I go…
In small group play bombs are not so horrific and are easier to counter, but against unprepared enemies they can still be devastating. I’ve talked before about when Kill Frenzy ran rift-bomb groups for a week or so. It was insane, we were killing literally 3 times our number in oRvR and we were pretty much unbeatable in scenarios, even utterly destroying many of Order’s best. However, we stopped running those groups. Partly because of the nerf death of Magus, but far more because most of us just don’t like bombing much. In KF we are nearly all using single target specs. Yes bombing is very effective, but it isn’t exactly challenging and most importantly it’s boring.
That doesn’t mean the people doing it are in the wrong. For sure some people do it purely because it’s easy and stupidly powerful, but others started doing it because they had no choice. Bombing is a very effective tactic against an uncontrolled zerg, so for organised guilds struggling to deal with an enemy faction that hugely outnumbers them… you could perhaps argue they were forced into bombing. As we’ve seen so many times with the 2 factions, there’s normally one of them outnumbering the other. Combine that with the small RvR zones funnelling people into enclosed areas and the whole system promoting zergs. Well, it’s an obvious choice. And from there it's not a big leap for it to become the norm for many players.
How to beat the bomb?
I’ve limited experience on countering large scale bomb zergs, so I can’t give any advice there and would welcome any suggestions on the subject. However here are a few brief (and probably obvious) tips for fighting bombers in smaller scale fights. Which as I’ve got to get my own guild back on track with dealing with bombers (it has been a while since we had to do so regularly), I figured I’d post it in case anyone finds it helpful.
Ok this is assuming you’re not too outnumbered…. If you are I hear praying is good.
Coordination.
Organised and controlled voice communication is a must.
Assisting on 1 target is not always ideal. If there’s 3 wizards/sorcs bombing and EVERYONE attacks one of them, then the remaining 2 unmolested wizards/sorcs will kill you all. There’s no reason why you can’t have most of your DPS assist target, but have your tanks hitting different targets to shut down every bomber.
Interrupts
To prevent a bomb detonating you simply need to interrupt its cast. There are lots of abilities that can be used, taunts, stuns, knockbacks, knockdowns and good old fashioned interrupt spells. Just don’t have everyone use them all at once, or you end up with everyone on cooldowns. And don’t use them too early or the enemy gets immunity timers on them before they even started casting! Timing is important.
Just as a reminder… TANKS! REMEMBER YOUR SINGLE TARGET TAUNT INTERRUPTS! It’s amazing how many don’t seem to know that.
How to kill the Invincible Nuker
You don’t! If your DPS is trying to kill a bomber and they just won’t die due to heals and guards, then keep them shutdown and hit something else, or take apart the things keeping them alive. For example the guard ability alone does not make a bombing wizard invulnerable, but guard and 3 healers will do. The guard is harder to prevent than the healing, so… you work it out ;) Flexibility and focus is the key.
I’m sure to many people I just stated the obvious and others may disagree or have better ideas. If so please feel free to share! Also I'd welcome some tips on dealing with Slayer bombs, it's something I've very rarely seen before. Since the transfer I've encountered a large enemy guild that appears to be entirely based around Slayer bombs in scenarios. Harsh...
I’ve one final big tip for coping with bombing… Sometimes you’ll be in a PUG, or for whatever reason a less organised/experienced group, and then other times you'll be outnumbered or just plain outplayed. There’s no way to avoid it, sometimes these things mean you will get bombed to crap. I know plenty of Order has seen me die to their bombs of late. Shit happens. Just try not to get too stressed, it’s not done me any favours :P
Monday, 20 July 2009
AoE nerfage
The latest WAR patch is up on the PTS at the moment, which as everyone's probably seen includes an across the board nerf to AoE.
People are already crying, most of which is a load of old cock, but is a bit more valid for others. Whilst all AoE being nerfed sorts out the Bright Wizard/Sorc/Engineer/Choppa/Slayer AoE of Doom, it also makes the weak classes even weaker. For example Magus are hit hard by this nerf, a class which is already desperately struggling for popularity. I know Marauders are extremely unhappy, not so much that their AoE got nerfed, more that their class is in need of fixing not nerfs.
However, Mythic doing this across the board AoE nerf is actually sensible. In theory it instantly sorts out the AoE mania buggering up RvR now and it gives them the ability to balance up abilities and classes that need it. They key though is for Mythic to be very clear with their player base about what's going on. Otherwise you'll continue to see people quitting because there seems to be no light at the end of the tunnel for their gimped class. Mythic probably think they're posting and commenting more than enough, but seriously guys the player base needs reassurance right now.
My guild is large enough to regularly have full guild only warbands, but is now down to 1 active Marauder and Magus. That says it all.
People are already crying, most of which is a load of old cock, but is a bit more valid for others. Whilst all AoE being nerfed sorts out the Bright Wizard/Sorc/Engineer/Choppa/Slayer AoE of Doom, it also makes the weak classes even weaker. For example Magus are hit hard by this nerf, a class which is already desperately struggling for popularity. I know Marauders are extremely unhappy, not so much that their AoE got nerfed, more that their class is in need of fixing not nerfs.
However, Mythic doing this across the board AoE nerf is actually sensible. In theory it instantly sorts out the AoE mania buggering up RvR now and it gives them the ability to balance up abilities and classes that need it. They key though is for Mythic to be very clear with their player base about what's going on. Otherwise you'll continue to see people quitting because there seems to be no light at the end of the tunnel for their gimped class. Mythic probably think they're posting and commenting more than enough, but seriously guys the player base needs reassurance right now.
My guild is large enough to regularly have full guild only warbands, but is now down to 1 active Marauder and Magus. That says it all.
Thursday, 14 May 2009
AoE IS being nerfed, single target damage improved
Mythic have started posting up their previews of class changes in 1.3, the first one I looked at included this all important bit if information:
Patch 1.3's major balance changes focus on the balancing of direct damage vs. area-of-effect abilities. All careers should expect to see AoE effectiveness reduced across the board. This reduction can come in a change to damage/healing, AP cost, or effect radius, and will vary from ability to ability.
Bloody great news! I had heard rumours of course, but I'm really pleased to see it confirmed by Mythic. Hopefully if we get some single target damage again it could mean playing a Chosen will make us enough of a threat that we're more than just a glorified buff bot for DPS classes.
Not all the posts are up so I can't link them all yet, but here are some examples of the sort of changes we're getting for Marauders and Bright Wizards. Also there's nerfs to AoE healing which we can see for example with the Warrior Priest changes.
To me this all sounds very promising. Everyone knows the game has become too AoE dependent and it needs to be addressed. For me, the sooner these changes go live the better. However I expect to read plenty of rage quit and general mewing threads soon :D Awesome ;)
Update: I forgot to mention is ninja Keep takes are being removed for upgraded keeps.
Patch 1.3's major balance changes focus on the balancing of direct damage vs. area-of-effect abilities. All careers should expect to see AoE effectiveness reduced across the board. This reduction can come in a change to damage/healing, AP cost, or effect radius, and will vary from ability to ability.
Bloody great news! I had heard rumours of course, but I'm really pleased to see it confirmed by Mythic. Hopefully if we get some single target damage again it could mean playing a Chosen will make us enough of a threat that we're more than just a glorified buff bot for DPS classes.
Not all the posts are up so I can't link them all yet, but here are some examples of the sort of changes we're getting for Marauders and Bright Wizards. Also there's nerfs to AoE healing which we can see for example with the Warrior Priest changes.
To me this all sounds very promising. Everyone knows the game has become too AoE dependent and it needs to be addressed. For me, the sooner these changes go live the better. However I expect to read plenty of rage quit and general mewing threads soon :D Awesome ;)
Update: I forgot to mention is ninja Keep takes are being removed for upgraded keeps.
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About Me
- Bootae
- Half man half pixel. Music obsessive, likes a drink, occasional bastard.