WAR: Zealot OPVP compilation now on youtube!

Some time ago, I made a Zealot PVP movie using all the footage I have collected. I finally got around to splitting it into youtube-sized chunks and fixing it so that youtube didn't eat my audio. So here it is, the last days of my Zealot before his death.

Part 1 : Early exploration (solo)

• BW + BW + SM
• WP → Engi
• SM
• BW
• Engi

Part 2 : Getting comfy (solo/duo)

• WH duel
• (Zealot + Sorc) WH + Engi
• (Zealot + Sorc) Engi + WH + SM
• (Zealot + Sorc) WP + Engi + WH
• evading SM + WL
• stalking the zerg
• WH + IB
• IB

Part 3 : Learning to pick fights (solo)

• Engi
• BW
• scouting, stalking the zerg, hunting stragglers

Part 4 : Waterfall battle (solo)

• IB + WL + AM + IB + rezzes

Part 5 : Double trouble (solo/duo)

• (Zealot + Sorc) Engi + WH
• (Zealot + Sorc) KoTBS + Engi
• Slayer + AM
• ninja stealth hiding in tree
• (Zealot + Sorc) SW + KotBS + Engi + AM + WH + SM + SW + WH
• SM

Part 6 : Baiting for fights before zone lock, getting a little more than we asked for & sweet victory (duo)

• fishing WL + WL + KotBS
• fishing WL + WL (2nd attempt)
• (Zealot + Sorc) BW → BW → BW + WH → SM + SW → BW + WL + WH + RP + Slayer

Part 7 : We just want to PVP, not PVE (duo/trio)

• (Zealot + Chosen) WP + AM + SW + BW → KotBS + RP
• (Zealot + Chosen + Sorc) SW + RP + SM + WP + KotBS

Part 8 : Against the odds (solo)

• BW + IB + WP → + WL + WP + WH
• WH → BW + WL + WP → WH
• AM + BW

Part 9 : Gear, spec & outtakes

Challenge to WAR designers: can you incentivize ORVR such that it encourages fights like the ones I found in these videos?

Duoing Spiritmaster & Gladiator

A guildie went rifting to Heiron and I went to join him. I haven't really duelled Gladiators so I didn't know much about how they worked. I imagine it was the same for the Gladiator with Spiritmasters as well, so it was a good learning experience for us. A video with snippets of the trip is below. I edited out the fights where we only ran into 1 opponent, so each encounter should show at least 2 people on the screen. Looking back at it, our synergy was raw. There were many missed opportunities and a couple of deaths that could have been wins. I need to tighten down my CCs on multiple targets and interleave more damage assists with the CCs. We also need to get comfortable with maneuvering an enemy mob around as a duo. There were a couple of stutters and miscommunications that got us rubberbanding between each other, resulting in one of us getting CC'd and killed. But as time goes by, I expect that we'd understand the strengths and limitations of each other's class better, and get a good feel for our individual playstyles. As for duo potential, Gladiator-Spiritmaster seems pretty solid and something I would run again. The Gladiator brings the damage the SM lacks, and the SM fills in all the CC holes in the Gladiator arsenal.

Comments: at the end of the video, the Gladiator received the debuff that reveals his location to every Elyos in the zone. We were eventually chased by a mob of Elyos, which we tried to evade by slipping into an elite area. The idea is that the elite NPCs would weed out or discourage lower-level players from following us. This worked, and the Elyos mob thinned out to 2 people. We killed the Chanter, but I was a little lax on the CCs and the Templar managed to escape back to his camp, which my Gladiator guildie bloodlusted into :)

Fishing for fights in Tier 4 and twin gobbo power in Tier 2

I raged again yesterday and swore never to do another Scenario (I got tired of: being a 'support class' to the PUG, being a helpless boring healbot, and The Cheese™). So, since Scenarios are the only thing Lylia finds fun in T4 now, she logged on her Shaman today instead of her Sorceress while I went around fishing for fights for a little bit:





But Tier 4 is not something that sits well when taken in anything other than very small doses. I went to detox by watching some TV and caught the sweet finale of Out of the Wild on Discovery. Then, having had enough of Tier 4 for the day, I joined Lylia on her Shaman (Tum) on my Shaman (Bzzt) for some Tier 2 double gobbo action:



Lylia's Shaman got her Wolf mount and last name today!



Of all the things I will leave behind in WAR, the thing that makes me sad is not being able to see our Shamans grow up :( But then again, considering how fowl the endgame is, maybe that's for the best. They get to spend forever in the best levels of their lives!

Dragonwake locks

There's always a flurry of activity around the time a zone locks. Here, Lylia and I look for some trouble a few minutes before Dragonwake locks.



Update: we might have finally figured out what has been lagging Lylia's game out --- the combat log! She used to have the combat log open and detached from the chat window. Since she turned it off, the game is no longer stupid choppy.

Black Crag pre-Fortress duo roaming

Order was working to lock Black Crag to advance to the Destruction Fortress. There was a sizable force camping the Destro warcamp, and groups of Order were posted to guard each Battlefield Objective.

The video starts out with me harassing the north BO nearest to their warcamp (Squiggly Pens). Two White Lions refuse to play, and before long they start gathering their entire defensive force to hunt me.

Lylia shows up, and we decide to move to the east BO (Madcap Pickins) to see if Order is more alive over there. We run into some Order along the way, and arrive at the BO to find a decent force defending here as well. We evaluate the situation, count the numbers and identify our key targets. At this point the people we killed on the way here respawn, try to get back and we kill them again. Meanwhile, some roamers find us and we bait them away for the kill as well.

After a few sets of kills, it started to feel dangerous. We knew we would get overwhelmed soon. We tried to make our escape to a more advantageous position, but we get intercepted by a large Order force. After some slipping and evading, we end up heading toward some friendly NPCs (not expecting to get out of this alive) --- and that is where the last section of the fight happens.

Two's company

Incidentally, I'm not the only one bored with WAR's zzzzzzz "RVR" endgame. Introducing my partner in crime (in real life and in-game), Lylia the Sorceress. She came along for the hunt one day. It starts as a little project to familiarize with the zones, get used to prowling and finding kills.

Cutting teeth --- low-risk stalking for strays at the perimeter of Praag's RVR lake:


Aqua battle, with Lylia throwing in a disarm with the CCs to save me:


Dragging a 2v3 fight (that reduced to 2v2) away for the kill. Started rolling the camera after evading the WH. Lylia lagged out in this one, running into the trees near the end and leaving me to fend for myself :)


Destro was getting spawn camped in a scenario, so we decided to take a break from the cheese and hunt the weak. The game only allows at most a 6-man to queue together. This means that while the 6-man is strong enough to dominate the entire Destro PUG, there will be weak Order PUGs in the game who aren't well supported by the 6-man. In this fight, we bait rezzers away and Lylia draws aggro one way while I stay sneaky outside their field of view.

Hopefully more to come in the future!