Tier 4 BG Woes

zebedee

zebedee

Member
Hello Guildees,

I just wanted to officially bring up some issues that many of us are having with tier 4 scenarios right now and asking for us to share any info they have to help us enjoy the end game levels more.

If you've played tier 4 scenarios in the last month, you will know that it can be quite unenjoyable. So much that many of us are taking breaks, questioning our ability to play the game and causing increased episodes of alt-itis. I thank God for people like Mushroom and Omlette who have encouraged me in vent to just go with the flow and have hope that things will turn around eventually.

I'd like to list some problems and see what discussion comes about. I am hoping that we can solve some of these problems and perhaps prevent a few people from giving up on this difficult game! We have a great bunch and I hope that if anyone were to take time off from the game, that it wouldn't be primarily due to game disastisfaction.

Issues:

1. Destro is ahead significantly in 40s. Hitting 40 is a big deal because chars get very advantageous abilities, allow players to focus on end game events like fortress/capital city assaults, and further their advantages by obtaining/wearing more powerful equipment.

2. Not enough *active* tier 4 healers, overall. This also applies to our guild...Besides schmee, I rarely see tier 4 healers on.

3. destros early love for tanks is really hurting us right now. A defensively specd black orc can almost never be brought down. Omlette experienced a 12 vs 1 black orc yesterday and they couldnt bring it down as it ran back to spawn point. Although possible, I haven't seen an IB exhibit this type of invulnerability thus far. KotBS should help that but we have to wait for them to catch up.

4. strategy discussion. I think we need more tactical discussions to help us with the tough tier 4 problems that order faces such as the magus/marauder 'vacuums', how to deal with witch elves (such as Kutluch's squishee vs WE post), and how to deal with defensively specd black orcs.

5. more active tier 4 toons in our guild means we can do more end-game instances together and be more successful. There's so few active 40s in our guild right now that it makes it harder for the 40s to progress and hinders the non-40s to catch up. Of course, real life > war but if people are close to tier 4, it would really help if they leveled a few.

I could write a full chapter more but I wanted to start a discussion. ;)

Zeb
 
Well I for one can't wait to get to teir 4 healing. I have a 27 rune priest(Safry) that hasn't seen any action for a month or more. I should be able to get back in to things after Christmas when work slows down a bit. I find it frustrating the lack of dps when questing so the only time I can do serious xp grind is during peak hour scenario's. This gives me more determination to stick with the Rune priest though. Can't wait. See ya'll soon.
 
I know that Ambry just changed her main from a Bright Wizard to Arch Mage, and I'm leveling one with her... so there will be two more healers in the mix before long. We're sitting in the mid-20s, but leveling up as fast as we can (together).

I've still got my WP at 32, but to be honest, he's hard to play. I play a lot during the day, which means solo grinding PQs, questing, etc.... and then scenarios later in the day when I'm expected to heal. So I have to play gimped 50% of the time (specing for damage or healing)....or, gimp myself to 50% all of the time (split-spec)

I'm open for info from other WPs that have broken into T4, because I'm not enjoying it one bit. I know that when we get all together and I can spec/gear for it, I'll have fun with him... so I keep pressing on.
 
You hit a big part of the game for me. At T4 it really became Scenariohammer: Age of Rinse and Repeat. I was feeling like it was WoW Battlegrounds all over, where Horde just straight owned Alliance constantly. This got me a little bit discouraged with the game to be honest. Plus the Engineer was a bit gimped at first and most Scenarios are close combat ones.

Sam and Shebaely put together some great ORvR events it seemed like. Most of the time I am usually grouped with them when ORvR is in action. One thing that has hurt us the WoW: WoTLK. Several people have left WAR for WoW. Just look at our Vent Server. WoW players outnumber WAR player by quite a wide margin.

Some people have had real life events come up and have limited playtime. Plus it is Christmas. I have always seen numbers dip with ever guild I have ever been with about this time. We have several players that are on a break: Icthus, Fjorboug and Mirakle to name a few. I am just coming back from a week break.

1.1 has made a lot of really good changes though and the game feels like it is improving. The addition of the KotBS was a big addition. In T1 I ahve had 6+ people beating on me with a WP as a healer. We owned several before they took down my healer. Then i stood and fought for a bit (Level 7 at that time).

Order T4 is lacking in healers and tanks. I have a level 27 WP which is fun to play and am trying out a Knight. Due to the immense amount of RDPS and MDPS, I may change my main to one of these. I am not too sure yet. Even though Abram is the highest level Engi, we have enough BW's to make up for the RDPS.

God Bless and I will see you all in game.
 
Just look at our Vent Server. WoW players outnumber WAR player by quite a wide margin.
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Not really a fair comparison. Redeemed-WoW is a pretty well established guild in the biggest MMO in history. WAR is still in it's infancy, but we're still growing. Give it time, as we all continue to level up, we'll have a stout number of 40s that can do keep takes, scenarios, etc. I look forward to when we have enough people geared to start doing some of the instances. (of course, that means I have to pick a main, too *grin*)
 
A few gripes I have with T4 content:
  • With Open RvR, my biggest gripe is people still cannot take a capitol city due to server crashes. Seriously.
  • Taking an opposing cities king requires PvE gear, aka the ward system. Blech.
  • Scenarios are OK, but they get repetitive after a while. You get tired of the same old game.
  • The bugs in this game get to me.
  • As for Destruction owning Order, I notice 50% honestly. We win as often as we loose.



A little history of myself here (trust me, it will tie in).
I played WoW a LOT! So much that shortly after I accepted Christ I SWORE I would never play that game again.
Basically I had 2 'successful' phases in the game.

Phase One:
I got together 4 devoted friends. We started 5 toons. We had scheduled nights we would play, 3 a week. We leveled from 1 to 60 together on a Open PvP server. It was the best time I think I have ever had in a game. Why? Because we did things together. We learned together, helped each other, and grew as a team.

Oh, and did I mention, I was a TOTAL TYRANT? No out leveling the group. If you did, 1 warning then you were out. No excuses for not showing up on the play nights, you were there or else! Needless to say people showed up :eek: And that was another thing that made it fun, RELIABILITY! It is light years more fun when not only you play and grow together as a team, but when you KNOW the other people will show up on time, every time.

Phase Two: another group, another story for another time...



So why that little story? Because our guild has neither of those things. We don't level together or grow together as a team, and strict attendance is just not possible with everyone having a real life and different schedule.

HOWEVER, I suggest we try to have an T4 RvR night once or dare I say even twice a week. Maybe you can only make one due to your crazy schedule, that is cool. The premise would be we run around taking Battle Objectives as a small group (6-20), and hoping to get some angry destruction players to roll in. OR queuing for scenarios in 6 man squads. OR both. It has the so much potential to be fun, and it would get the people in our guild out there doing something!

Another side note:
One trick I have found to ease the frustration of leveling alts, is I shrink the experience bar to its minimum size, move it to the far left of my screen, and set its opacity to 100%. Man, alts are SO much more fun that way! And I think this mentality could be carried over to RvR in the guild. It is not necessarily about winning or loosing, but getting together once/twice a week and having FUN! it is an MMORPG, not a 'SinglePlayerRPG'.



So lets wait until the new year is upon us, GET ORGANIZED, and do this thing!
WAAAGHHH!!!!
.
.
 
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I've only played T4 on my bright wizard, but when I did I felt totally ineffective. This goes double after the patch that nerfed the BW. I'm doing a lot less damage and my armor is paper thin. Plus I damage myself with my own spells! I spent more time on the ground than casting.

Healing a group started to make me feel effective...then the nerf bat hit that too. It may be more accurate to say other player's damage increased so it made it harder to keep up. I'm a little frustrated with this too, but I'm trying to adapt.

I'm having a hard time finding a character that really gels with me. The archmage is closest so far so I'm sticking with that one.

Besides, I logged on my bright wizard the other day and her hair had disappeared! I submitted a problem ticket with Mythic but I haven't heard back yet. Someone mentioned bugs disturbing them - this one took the cake for me!
 
I have to admit, there have not been that many instances where I have been in T4 RVR. Only The elf scenario a hand full of times and I have only helped take a BO once (with no resistance).
 
I have some relative good news. I had a somewhat more successful night tonight with the scenarios and there were very key differences to mention.

I did a BG or two with BuffKeo and he showed me how awesome an IB's oathfriend ability is. It was the equivalent, for me, of awesome healing. They tried to bring me down while Keo was mitigating so much of my dmg! I need to convince him that I'm the bestest oathfriend choice whenever he's doing scenarios, ha!

I had the honor of pairing up with 3.....yes 3! healers from our guild in scenarios. Obadiah and Schmee at one point and then Schmee and Nicodemus in another. I can tell you that it was huge when we went from 1 to 2 healers and we stuck together. We did chalk up a few wins even though we lost more than won.

I also received a gold body armor at a PQ and an annihilator shoulders. My int is now pushing 900 with a potion. Healing combined with a ton of int has greatly increased my dmg output and survivability.

I propose that we make two stickies? One as a goal checklist for toons as they reach tier 4. And two, a scenario Q&A stickie.

A goal checklist will give guidance to those people who think it's them so to speak or just think that destro is OP'd although they really aren't. They have beaten us in a lot of important areas and we need to catch up.

I've questioned my abilities as a DPs player over and over. But then I watched another BW today who stood still and seemed to just be hitting buttons while other destros beat them down. That other player still ended up with dmg comparable to mine. I got to thinking that they can't be a better player in terms of kiting and staying alive. It turns out that some of the big dmg dealers are wearing really good armor and can afford to stand around. Meanwhile, the gimped players fight their hearts out and come up short. It's frustrating!

I've survived more vacuums and WE attacks tonight than I thought possible. I'm sure people can benefit on how to prevent this single ability from wreaking utter havoc. Yes, I know the guild is primarily about fellowship as believers but people aren't gonna hang around long if they repeatedly get trounced by the same thing. A stickie Q&A could hopefully give current players more hope and forewarn the tier 3 toons.

ps. Ilya, have you played tier 4 scenarios recently? We keep encountering all/mostly 40's destro groups in the evening. Especially, when they are attemping to lock down a region for fortress captures. This is going to happen more and more since capitol cities can not be taken without a very large number of lvl 40 players. So much so that it will be important for non-40s to avoid Qing up for SCs of realms close to lock down.

Zeb
 
Durruck said:
I know that Ambry just changed her main from a Bright Wizard to Arch Mage, and I'm leveling one with her... so there will be two more healers in the mix before long. We're sitting in the mid-20s, but leveling up as fast as we can (together).

I've still got my WP at 32, but to be honest, he's hard to play. I play a lot during the day, which means solo grinding PQs, questing, etc.... and then scenarios later in the day when I'm expected to heal. So I have to play gimped 50% of the time (specing for damage or healing)....or, gimp myself to 50% all of the time (split-spec)

I'm open for info from other WPs that have broken into T4, because I'm not enjoying it one bit. I know that when we get all together and I can spec/gear for it, I'll have fun with him... so I keep pressing on.
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I'm definitely not t4, but speaking from my experience on my wp, currently lvl 17, try grace/wrath spec.

With grace, your prayer of devotion heals for more, mine currently heals group members for 170+ and use Divine strike as your main attack and get up in the front lines. I recently had a sc where I did 51k damage and 62k healing, and I only may have cast an actual heal spell 1 or 2 times. With Divine strike (heals everyone within 10 ft) and Divine Assault (you can change targets with this mid strike and heal your current target) you can keep the other tanks/dps classes your fighting with up and not feel like a healbot.

I generally group with a couple knights and wh and healer, and I'll stay on the front lines, then fall back when the healers are in trouble, they make me the main assist that way they are always within range of my DS. I've never had this much fun on a character and I'm leveling quickly because my damage isn't gimped outside of scenarios (I hit like a truck, since you can stack str gear because your healing is based on how much damage you do, not willpower)

Just a thought :)
 
zebedee said:
ps. Ilya, have you played tier 4 scenarios recently? We keep encountering all/mostly 40's destro groups in the evening. Especially, when they are attemping to lock down a region for fortress captures. This is going to happen more and more since capitol cities can not be taken without a very large number of lvl 40 players. So much so that it will be important for non-40s to avoid Qing up for SCs of realms close to lock down.
Zeb
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Aye, I have in the not so distant past. When you get in to the scenario, it is anywhere from 6 to 12 level 40's. That is hard to win against, I know.

My suggestions are more based on that ideas that we as a guild need to really start doing things once / twice a week from a RvR standpoint :cool:
 
Durruck said:
(of course, that means I have to pick a main, too *grin*)
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I have to do the same thing. WAR has made so many appealing classes. I have found that for the most part I enjoy being in the thick of the fray smacking Destro around. The Warrior Priest is a great solo toon and easy to play so far. That is at least in the first three teirs. Haven't gotten him to T4 yet.

The Knight is just a blast. Going Sword/Board with a decent healer is just fun. The melee classes that have been eating me for breakfast on my otehr toons are now my breakfast. Yummy! :D
 
I would much prefer get my level to 40 via PVE methods as scenerios don't get you much xp for loosing them. And because my RR rank = my level (thats I'm 34/34) I'm worth alot of xp\renown to the destro. I'd rather get my RR from spending some time in getting BO's.

I've never done any instances other then the sewers with Schmee while we were in our late 20s\early 30s. I wouldn't mind doing a slew of PQs and quests in a group of 6 people for an hour or so, then switching to BO's for an hour.
 
I think it's important to remember how new this game is. There will be nerfs/buffs for a while until the devs get things as they want them. This also includes scenario and orvr design, etc. T4 can be frustrating; I, too, have to remind myself to be patient.

I also agree that we need a regularly scheduled T4 rvr night. I'll try to set this up after Christmas. Expect it to be every Friday. Attendance will not be maditory, of course.
 
Like Sam said, after Christmas and New Years, look for T4 events and possibly PQ events being put on the Guild Calender. This time of year is hard for guilds. I have had numerous WoW guilds disband this time of year because people did not understand that raiding isn't the end all. (Not saying this guild will, because it won't.) :p

So look forward to the New Year. Also send me any ideas on events you would like to have. Some Live Guild Events could be fun. T4 chicken raid in a T1 zone and what not.

God Bless!
 
Thank you Zeb that was alot of fun running around protecting you (Oathfriend) while you blew up Distro :D We are haveing trouble in T4 scenarios in the peek hours and I belive you hit it on the head Zeb with Distro trying to control of a region. I don't think most players understand this. I know I didn't till I was part of ORVR and taking control of a region myself. We need to get the word out. Well I only have 5 bubbles to go till 40 so I better get out there and kill some more Distro :D see you guys out there hope to team up with each of you.

Disciple

The choice has been made. There is no looking back. I have stepped over the line. I won't let up, back up, give up or shut up. My focus is clear, my path is straight, my God reliable. I'm a disciple of Christ
 
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