Siege Warfare
By Kagato Dragonheart
Okay
now sit down, pay attention and no giggling at the back, class has begun
children.
This
is a brief guide to siege weapons and how to use them correctly, when to use
them and what for. It is not aimed at any particular type of players, but I will try to write it in a fashion that will help even the
newest RvR types to understand. My intention is to
help all players understand the dynamics and implications of your choices when
using siege weapons so you can have fun, help your
realm and avoid those horrible situations when people make innocent mistakes
that frustrate themselves and other players.
I don't believe anyone deliberately tries to harm a siege, but
siege weapons are powerful tools and can turn the tide of large scale warfare,
the wrong choice at the wrong time can quite easily make the difference between
success and failure for the whole realm. Innocent people may think they are
doing the right think trying to help and be involved in a defense,
but if they make a misguided decision they may do more harm then good. I’m hoping to lessen the chances of this happening,
encourage people to make use of the tools available to them and hopefully have
fun whilst doing it.
Feel
free to link, copy and paste this guide to all alliance and guild forums where
you may think it will be of use.
There
are 3 main sections to this guide, Siege
Weapons, Tricks & Tactics and How To Win.
The Basics:
Here
we will learn about the weapons themselves.
Ballista
Catapult
Trebuchet
Rams
Oil
Palintone
These
6 weapons are the tools of the trade, we will look at
each in detail in a moment, for now we will do a brief summary of how to make
them. There are 2 type of weapons mainly, Hookpoint and Portable.
First,
we will look at Hookpoints. Hookpoints can be found on any keep
or tower and can be used to make either a Trebuchet or a Palintone,
unless the Hookpoint is right above the door, in
which case it will make Oil. To show the Hook Points available hold Shift
and Right Click your mouse on the structure to bring up the structures Window
and click the Hookpoints icon. Find the Hook Point
you wish to use, which will be a Green circle for the Trebuchet or Palintone places, or a Yellow circle for the Oil, and right
click it. If the circle is Red then this is for NPC's
only and not siege weapons. Its often possible that
someone will be standing on it, or something else may obstruct the view to
click on it, just adjust your camera view if this is the case until you
succeed.
Once
you click the Hook Point a purchase menu will appear,
select the weapon you wish to use and click buy to create it. You can usually
choose to change the currency from gold to bounty points; personally, I prefer to spend BP's on siege, as there is little else to
use the points on.
Once
you have brought the weapon, the control window will appear automatically. We
will cover the window later on.
Portable
siege weapons are a little different in that you actually have to make them, to
what degree depends, but generally speaking the more effort you put into the
creation, the cheaper and easier to carry they will be. Alot
of people won’t bother to carry siege weapons because they are cumbersome and
believed to be difficult to make, but its not that complicated
at all now.
Anyone
at all can make a portable siege weapon, you only need 1 in siegecraft
(which everyone gets by default) to do it, and the siegecraft
'cap' is only 68 points which can be reached simply through making ammo.
All
that you need to do is put the siegecraft icon on your
quickbar and click on it to open the menu, from here
you will see the list of siege weapons available as well as the various
ammunition types. Select any of the weapons you wish and place that icon on
your quickbar, once you have brought the ingredients
you need only to click that button to make it.
But there’s
alot of icons available, so my recommendation is
this, create a siege dedicated quickbar right at the
back out of the way, open your siege menu and set out Siege Ram, Catapult,
Trebuchet, Ballista, Battle Ram and War Ram on this quickbar
in order top to bottom so you never have to worry about them again.
You
will also see the 'Deploy Diminutive - ....' options below in the menu, I will explain these in a moment. For now place these same icons below your normal siege icons for
easy creation.
You
now have your war ready siege quickbar, so where do
you get your weapons?
There
are 2 main Siege merchants, Calesta
in Castle Sauvage and Lenadariel
in Snowdonia, both next to the main gates, you can also buy the ingredients
from a Housing Siege Merchant, who will be cheaper then a normal NPC but will
obviously mean carrying the heavy ingredients in the housing zone.
The
individual ingredients can also be made by player characters,
this again is naturally cheaper then buying them though very few people bother
simply due to convenience.
Player
made ingredients are no more effective then brought ones, just the same as the
quality of your siege weapon will make no difference to its damage or
effectiveness.
To
view the ingredients needed simply click your icon for that weapon and it will
list what is needed for you, or right click the icon.
Once
you have all you need, simply click your icon to create the weapon, though you
may want to move away from the siege merchant first ;)
You
will need room to create it, you cannot hug a wall, you will need a reasonable
amount of space around you and should take range into
consideration.
Now
you will no doubt notice that your siege weapon is kinda heavy, this is where Diminutive siege weapons
come in.
Diminutive
siege weapons are basically a full blown weapon shrunk
down into 1 tiny light weight package via 'magical' ingredients for you to open
up and use wherever you want. All you need to make a Diminutive weapon is all
the ingredients you would normally use, plus 1 flask
of glacial essence and 1 frosted gem of condensation. These can be brought from
a normal siege merchant along with everything else, again cheaper in housing
zone and again they can be crafted cheaper too. Once you have all the ingredients
you can make the Diminutive weapon anywhere, you do NOT need a forge, alchemy
table or lathe, the 'package' will appear in inventory as normal and weigh alot less then normal (roughly 76 lbs). A tank can probably
carry 4-5 diminutive weapons with ease so they are worth making though they can
get costly if your addicted to siege weapons.
Any
of the crafting disciplines can make Diminutive weapons, however although they will
show up at around 800 craft skill, you can not actually make them until you are
900 skill, it will appear as 'grayed out' until then,
and your secondary skills must be at least 600 before you can make them. The
reasoning behind this is that Mythic wanted players to be able to use
diminutive weapons but never actually 'fail' to make one.
Deploying
Diminutive Siege Weapons:
Your
normal icons for making a siege weapon on the ground will not work for
Diminutive weapons, you will need to open up the 'Siege Craft' icon again and
look down the bottom and you will see a collection of icons for deploying all
kinds of Diminutive weapons. Drag these onto your siege quickbar
and simply click to build it.
So
now you know how to make siege weapons, how do you use them?
Whenever
you deploy a siege weapon the control box will
automatically pop up, so long as you do not run out of range when you make it.
If no box appears, you can click on the weapon at any time and type /control to
force the box to appear.
Although
the layout of your box will depend on which UI you use, the buttons will
typically be the same, with Aim, Move, Fire or Pour buttons depending on what
sort of siege your using.
Most
weapons will simply need you to target what you wish to attack, aim at it and
fire when able, but there are exceptions, such as the Catapult, which as well
as being able to target an object or player to fire at, you can still use old
style ground targets with your ground target button (F5 by default).
Range:
Towers
1 and 2 of a keep are a good guide line to judge range
by, a portable Trebuchet will usually reach from just behind a tower to the
keep wall, or from the front of a tower to the inner Keep. Whilst
a Catapult or Ballista will usually reach about 2/3 rds
of that distance.
How
to make Rams:
Making
a normal siege ram is just the same as any other siege weapon, but making
larger rams gets a little bit more complicated. Here is how it works, firstly
make sure you have either all the rams on you, or someone nearby to pass you
the rams as you make them. To make a War ram you will need 3
siege rams total, then when ready follow this order:
Stand in front of the door, just outside of oil range, do
not start building clear out of archery range of the keep, you will just end up
with a long and frustrating ride on the ram up to the door, just build as close
to the door as you dare or outside of oil range if the tower or keep is
defended.
Press
your Siege ram icon (or deploy diminutive, as applicable)
When
the ram is built, ignore the control box and press the Siege ram icon again (or
ask to be handed the next ram if you cannot carry them all)
You
should soon have 2 siege rams on the ground
Press
the Battle Ram icon if your quickbar is set up as
suggested in previous chapter.
You
will now have a Battle Ram on the ground, you need 1
more siege ram though to make a War Ram
Press
your siege ram icon again
Now
with a Battle Ram and a Siege Ram on the ground, press the War Ram icon.
Once
the War Ram has been built you may find the control box is not up, click the
ram and type /Control to make it appear, target the enemy door and then press
'move' to ride the ram to the door, don't forget to Aim the ram at the door
before trying to attack it.
Thats the basics of making and using
siege, lets get down to the fun stuff.
The Weapons:
Portable.
Ballista:
For enemy siege weapons/players
only.
1 Gimble, 2 tanned torsion cables, 1spring arm,
1 trigger, 100 ironwood.
The
Ballista is a portable version of the Palintone, its
range is quite short, typically trying to use one of
these will often put you within range of enemies who have a height advantage on
their range. This weapons main function is to destroy enemy siege weapons,
although it will do a little damage to enemy players as well. The damage it
does to enemy siege weapons is quite poor compared to the Palintone
but the arming rate is much faster as well. To destroy enemy siege weapons with
Ballista's it is best to work at least in a pair, 1 Ballista alone would take
to long and be to easy to destroy. These generally do not get used very often.
Catapult
For enemy players only.
1 Catapult ammo bucket, 1 arm cushion, 1 winding crank, 1 counterweight,
1 pivot, 100 ironwood.
The
Catapult has 1 function only, to damage enemy players,
you can target enemy doors and structures but the damage you will do will be
negligible, the one and only use for a catapult is for enemy players and this
is the only siege weapon designed for the task. The range is roughly the same
as a Ballista and you will often be within enemy fire range when trying to use
one, the Catapult also has very few hit points, it will only take a few hits
from a palintone to destroy one. So, what’s the point
in using one ? Well to be fair the radius and level of
damage on a Catapult is reasonable, and its the only
weapon where you get a choice of ammo, you can buy ammo from various merchants
such as Sall Fadri within
Castle Sauvage keep or use Convoker summoned ammo.
The various ammo types have different advantages but all are good for something
and better then the default ammo. For interrupting or simply leeching rps the catapult is quite handy, and best of all you do not
need Line Of Sight (LOS) on the enemy once you have targeted them, and can use
your F5 default Ground Targets instead(GT). To use a GT instead of targeting an
enemy simply click the Aim button without having anything currently selected.
Types
of Ammo for the Catapult:
Ball
of Ice - Cold damage, more damage then standard balls
Ball
of Fire - Heat damage, more damage then standard balls
Stoneshot - Less damage
then normal, much greater radius of attack.
Trebuchet
For enemy structures only
1 Trebuchet ammo bucket, 1 arm cushion, 1 winding crank, 1 counterweight,
1 pivot, 300 ironwood.
The trebuchet is arguably the most dangerous siege weapon available
in terms of risk, damage and the amount of problems it can cause for you or the
enemy, if left unchecked a trebuchet will cause at the very least a huge repair
bill and a big headache for the enemy but more often then not will ultimate
cause the fall of a keep or tower entirely, if used correctly. This is designed for attacking wall
sections only, nothing more nothing less, it is NOT meant for hitting doors,
hitting enemy siege weapons or hitting enemies. It will hit all those things
but the amount of damage cause will be irrelevant in comparison to the harm it
could be doing to any enemy structures. For the purpose of
targeting this works exactly like a catapult but has the longest range of any
siege weapon available.
Note-
Only 3 siege weapons can attack any same structure section at the same time.
Siege
Ram
For enemy doors only.
1Ram
cladding, 2 swing harnesses, 1 Siege Ram beak, 300 ironwood
Self-explanatory,
the ram is to be used only for hitting tower and keep doors,
there is a 'Small Ram' availible as well, but it is a
complete waste of time in comparison, the Siege Ram is the lowest version that
should be used. This ram is mostly just for towers, you can use it on main
keeps but it will take a long time and die easily, it offers some protection
against oil.
Salvaging
a Siege ram takes 5 minutes and returns 300 ironwood
Battle
Ram
For enemy doors only.
2 Siege Rams
The
second highest ram, best for higher level towers or
low level keeps, can carry more people and better oil protection.
Salvaging
a Battle Ram takes 10 minutes and returns 600 ironwood.
War
Ram
For enemy doors only.
1
Battle Ram 1 Siege Ram
The
highest ram availible, can carry many players and
greater oil protection, best option for level 10 towers and keeps.
Salvaging
a War Ram takes 15 minutes and returns 900 ironwood.
Hookpoints:
The hookpoint siege weapons are much the same as their portable
counterparts with the following exceptions.
Hookpoint weapons cannot be repaired or salvaged, and will be available
again 5 minutes after being destroyed so long as the structure they are on has
not been destroyed.
Ballista's
from Hookpoints are not on top of the towers like the
normal Trebuchet and Palintone but instead are at
regular intervals along the keep wall, depending on keep level. However the
range is still very short and won’t be able to reach
the top of the nearest towers should they be taken.
Oil
For enemy players and rams only.
You
cannot aim oil or do anything but pour it, but it does more damage then any
other siege weapon to enemy players and will usually instant kill pets and
weaker enemies. Naturally most people realise this and
keep out of the way, so the oil is more of a deterrent then anything else now.
After patch 1.81 Oil and all other siege weapons will only do half the normal
damage towards heavy tank classes.
Important
Notes:
Only
3 Siege weapons can attack a structure at any one time,
this means individual wall sections only. You can have as many attacking a keep
as you like but only 3 can hit the same wall section
at any time.
Only
1 Ram can attack a door at the same time, the highest
level Ram will take priority over the smaller ram.
Please
do not take Siege Weapons like Trebuchets and Palintones
and use them to attack enemy players, the damage they will do will barely
scratch the enemy and these weapons are essential for doing the job they are
meant for. Only use Catapults for attacking other
players, those are actually designed for the job.
So
now that you know the basics about siege weapons and how to use them, lets look at some of the tricks of the trade that will make
you more effective at using them.
Targeting:
Its not uncommon for the enemy to attempt to put their rams at awkward
angles in an effort to make them harder to select with a palintone
to destroy. So how do you get around this?
Camera
angles,
In
most circumstances simply expanding your camera view and turning
it will help you select a corner of the ram
F11
An often over looked feature, simply walk directly forward
to the edge of the tower and look down so you can see the ram clearly, now
press F11 so your camera is frozen in place and walk backwards, press your
'select nearest object' button, F7 by default, and you should select your palintone, type /control to bring up the control box as
normal and then select and target the ram which you should still see on the
frozen camera view. Once its aimed and your firing you can tap F11
twice more to return your camera view to normal.
Pre-select
If
you know a tower is under siege select the Ram before
you make the palintone, you do not need to select the
tower or keep to make one, you just right click on the structure, the ram
should still be selected in your target window. Its
always much easier to select the target first before you make your weapon
whenever possible. Obviously this is not an option if
someone else has already made a weapon and given up before you.
Tower
hiding
Often
enemies will hide trebuchets behind towers, however unless they are placed very
carefully you can often still target the trebuchets when they fire and the arm
is at the highest point but you may still need to adjust camera angles to see.
Assist
/Assist
and /groundassist still work in NF and still work
with objects, just make sure your assist target is close enough to you to work.
Repairing:
It
is possible to still repair a portable Trebuchet even though its
being attacked, under certain conditions. It takes 10 seconds to repair a treb, the 'in-combat' timer is about 3 seconds and then you
have your reaction time, the rearming timer on a palintone
is 15 seconds plus the travel time of the bolt. Timing is critical but you can
do it. The best way to do this is to wait until your treb
has just been struck, count to 4 then start pressing 'repair' but do not hammer
the button or you will end up starting then cancelling your own repair, just
press it calmly every other second until it begins to repair. It should finish
repairing just before the next bolt arrives, if you miss your timing and fail,
wait for the next bolt and try again. You will soon learn to time the repair.
Note
- If a Warlord with the Siegemaster ability is the
one attacking you, or if there’s more then 1 person
attacking at different time intervals, then repairing will be impossible.
Triple-Trebbing:
More
of an advanced trick but not as difficult as you may expect, using 3 Trebs at once to attack a wall
is quite possible by the same person. Here’s how to
make it a little easier for yourself.
Firstly you will need the following macros:
/macro
Control /Control
/macro
CRel /Control release
Make
sure they are next to each other and convenient to press. If you wish you can also make a macro to 'Fire' but I don't bother
with it personally.
Now
build your first treb and aim it at the structure you
wish to attack, making sure there’s plenty of room around you, then release the
treb once its aiming.
Strafe
a few spaces to the right and build the second treb,
aim at the same structure section and release it again.
Move
a few more spaces to the right and build the last treb and aim again at that structure section.
You
should now have 3 trebs all
aimed and spaced out in a fairly neat close line.
Now
move back to the middle treb, still with the control
box for the last treb showing on screen and expand
your camera angle out so you have a nice clear view of all the trebs and follow this sequence:
(for the purpose of this we shall call the trebs "treb 1", "treb 2", "treb 3",
in the order that they were built from left to right)
Fire
treb 3
CRel macro
Select
treb 2
Control
macro
Fire
treb2
CRel macro
Select
treb 1
Control
macro
Fire
treb1
CRel macro
Select
treb 3
Control
macro
Repeat
again.
After
the second sequence you find you have a nice rhythm going and its rather easy so long as your not trying to chat at the
same time and nobody walks behind your trebs to block
your view (it happens).
Note-
A Warlord with Siegemaster ability doing this can be
devastating for a keep, all 3 trebs
will benefit from the 30% faster siege operation times and you will still be
able to keep up with the trebs with good macro usage.
You should be able to drop 25% of a level 10 keep wall every 5 minutes if not
interrupted.
You
can see a brief example of this at work in my last Armsman movie.
Clustering:
Unless
your attempting to triple-treb (see above) do not
pack all your trebs, catapults or whatever close
together, Palintones do AOE damage, if you have
several trebs all in the same spot they will all take
damage and make it far easier for the enemy to destroy your siege.
Oil
use:
When
holding the oil spot you'll often find yourself under
heavy fire, you can make things a little easier for yourself though, firstly,
don't stand up. You only need to stand to pour the oil, whilst your waiting to rearm, sit down, you'll be much harder to
target. Secondly, keep back, test the limit of how far
back you can stand whilst holding control of the oil and stay there so the
enemy will have the least LOS of you.
Finally,
if the enemy is keep away from the oil, try spinning your camera around and
expanding it out so you are looking back on yourself from above the door facing
the tower, you should be able to see when the enemy is beneath you or not and
can wait to catch them out.
When
at a major keep siege, if your holding the oil, ask the local scouts (there’s
always some in a tower) to pull the keeps guards to the tower, you can kill
them fast with the oil, farm some cash and take the pressure of the rest of
your realm by getting rid of guard patrols for them.
Its important to note that EVERY situation is different, no two battles
will always be the same and you have to judge the situation individually to
know what the best action to take is. However, the tactics written here are the
result of long term personal experience, are generally
agreed upon by like minded people and will usually be a safe bet in most situations
similar to the ones described.
Following
will be examples of fights, from an Albion’s perspective and
why certain siege weapon choices are the best options in those situations.
Most of this will be written from the point of view of defending a structure,
this is because defense has more limited siege
options, you can always bring more siege to an attack,
but for defense most of the time your limited to the available
hook points.
Keep Defense:
There
is one simply rule of thumb that can be followed here if you do not wish to get
into complicated tactics : "The only good
tower is a flat tower". Remember that.
Towers
are bad, they serve very little purpose and in most cases are more of a threat
to the realm then a bonus, if I had a button that could flatten every tower in
the realm, i'd press it. All
that towers do is put your keep at risk. Let me show
you why.
Lets take Sursbrook for an example, no portal
access, towers 3 and 4 are spread wide apart and tend to spend more time in
enemy hands then ours and then we have towers 1 and 2. The keep itself is
largely unimportant to us but for the enemy they can get instant portal into
our realm from there so along with eras and berkstead
it does get attacked frequently.
But
that large scale attack takes a long time to arrive,
the actual danger usually starts with 1 fg or less,
and it starts with a tower. Lets assume the keep and towers
are all level 10, 1 fg of Mids
attack tower 1, it takes them maybe 15 minutes to get inside the tower, by this
time a dozen or so albs will of arrived but the chances are non got in, most will
have gone inside the keep or will be taking pop-shots at the mids from the gate. The mids
get in and take the tower, its level 1 now, some clever sod sets up a palintone and starts using it on the enemy door ? (no idea why but some plonker always does). More albs arrive but by now the mids will have a treb up, a couple behind the tower and start bombing the
door. Eventually some 'organised' albs arrive and the tower gets zerged, mids farm lots of rps on the roof before being over whelmed. The keep wall
will be down to 70% by now, the tower gets reclaimed
and albs leave.
So
what happens next?
10
minutes later the mids come back, the tower is still
only level 1 it takes them less then 1 single minute to melee the door down
now, no albs arrive for 10 minutes, the keep wall is reduced to 40% long before
albs do get there and if lucky zerg the tower. Mids farm albs on the roof again, and by the time they have
kicked the mids out the wall is probably on 20%.
So
what happens next?
You
guessed it, mids come back, tower down in 1 minute, wall utterly destroyed 5 minutes later, and now the real
siege begins and that 1fg of mids is now 3 fg as they smell instant port coming their way.
Now let’s change tactics a little.
Mids take a level 10 tower 1, what happens if those first Albs on the scene
set up a Trebuchet on the keep tower? It takes only 5 minutes or so to reduce a
level 1 tower to rubble with 2 Trebuchets it takes
barely 2 minutes, and that’s assuming no one is a Warlord. The tower falls, mids barely scratch the
keep and promptly get zerged by the albs on flat
ground or run away.
If they come back ten minutes later? Nothing, they
either have to start again on tower 2 and meet the same fate or they
take the rubble, which is worthless or risk setting up trebs
on open ground with no cover.
The
keep stays safe, The only good tower is a flat tower,
towers are your enemy.
Its
a sad fact that players will not hang around to defend a tower they take back
till it upgrades, people naturally think of themselves, its human nature, they
will get bored they will move on, if the tower is flat theres
no danger though.
There
are only 2 keeps were I would hesitate to flatten a tower, and that is Beno or Boldiam, and even then i'd still rather see the towers flattened then watch 3 fg of albs get farmed for rps on
the roof. The only reason those keeps are different is due to keeping portals
open, but even then 9 times out of 10 flattening a tower is less risky,
specially at bold which sees less traffic.
Its no fun having to go back to retake the same level 1 tower every 10
minutes all night because some people couldn't wait to see the tower flattened
or simply did not understand the implications of leaving a standing tower
vulnerable that is within trebbing distance of a
keep.
But war is not simple, there are some fundamental facts about keeps you
need to be aware of when it comes to defending a keep from an enemy holding
towers 1 or 2.
Firstly,
Trebuchets have a longer range then Palintones.
A Palintone will rip a Trebuchet apart in barely a couple of
minutes. Specially in the hands of a Warlord.
Every
keep is positioned to limit the amount of hookpoints
that can reach towers 1 or 2.
Some
towers will be vulnerable to 3 Hookpoints, some to
only 1, think about that when you decide upon a target for a siege or before
you decide what weapon to put up to defend.
So
how does this effect things? You need to be
reactionary, most of the time now that 'New Frontiers' is getting old the enemy
will go straight for trebs to try and break a hole in
the wall.
You
main goals should be a) To flatten the tower b) damage limitation, cause you know full well few people will hang around to
repair, the less damage to the keep the better.
In
an ideal would you will have 2 hook points available,
the nearest 1 for a palintone to destroy the enemy treb on top of the tower or the palintone
if they put one up, and your own Treb to start
flattening the tower.
If theres only 1 hook point available, then you need to start
making Judgement calls, can you flatten the tower before your treb is destroyed? Is there enough
albs to zerg the trebs behind
the tower if you succeed? Can you get LOS on the trebs behind the tower with a palintone,
and will it reach?
These
are what you need to consider, but if your unsure,
remember, the only good tower is a flat tower, minimise the risk.
Things
that will help you:
Siege
Wreckers, they are
a nightmare if used correctly, and in a future patch will be on their own reuse
timer. Infiltrators can be finicky and not always seen to be siege friendly,
but if more are willing to show up they can be a big help, whilst I
traditionally hate Vanish users, an infil that can
Siege Wreck a load of trebs behind the tower and
escape is a fine thing when its on your side.
Warlords:
Undisputed Siege champions, Siegemaster is arguably
one of the greatest low level ML abilities around, 30%
faster arming, loading, aiming timers means 30% more damage over time. A palintone or trebuchet in the hands of a Warlord is 30%
more devastating and when you have a Warlord controlling a Ram you can easily
reach the 3.5 Second re-arming timer cap with only a few people on board even
in a War Ram. If there’s a Warlord nearby that knows what they are doing, let
them control the Siege Weapon or hand them the ram, its
for the greater good.
NPC's, there’s not many things you can spend BP's on but NPC's
in a keep can be a big help and do not cost many BP's. If your on a siege tower
and have 3 hook points available I’d strongy advise
buying 1 Infiltrator NPC set to poison and stand guard, 1 Cleric set to heal
more and 1 other damage type of your choice. Reason is simple, the clerics only
usually heal when your below 50% health regardless of more or less healing, and
the enemy will often have a few SB's or NS's stalking around looking to kill
the siege user, the infil will spot them and
hopefully stop you getting PA'd.
Tower
Defense:
Tower
defense differs greatly from Keep defense
in that you have far far less options, and again theres a simple rule of thumb to remember that will help
you. "Never, ever ever make a trebuchet on a
tower".
Its
simple as that, you should only ever use a Palintone
on top of a tower regardless, the moment you make a Treb
up there, you have probably doomed the tower to fall. The Trebuchet will NOT
hit any enemies right next to the tower because they are to close and it wont do a thing against an enemy ram.
The
moment the enemy see a treb on the tower they will be
laughing because they know you have 0 defense against the ram they put up. Palintones
will rip a ram apart, Trebs
have sod all use in defense of a tower.
Note-
that this is for Towers only, entirely different tactic to Keep
defense where trebs are
important.
Here
are the things you should keep in mind when defending a tower:
Roof
Camping:
Great
tactic when defending a level 1 tower, utterly stupid when defending a high level tower.
Why?
When
you camp the roof of a low level tower, it will not
downgrade when the enemy kill the lord, you stay safely on the roof whether the
tower is yours or not.
So
what happens if your on the roof of a level 10 tower
and are 3 levels above the normal height of a level 1 tower when the enemy kill
the lord? You fall, you take falling damage and suddenly find your nice little zerg smack bang in the middle of warlock pbaoe and its instant wipe out.
Do
NOT camp the roof of an upgraded tower, camp the lord and buff him up, kill on
the stairs instead or you'll be in for a fall, literally.
Oil
Camping:
Despite
the fact that very few people are now stupid enough to stand under oil, and
those that do always tend to be in your own realm, people still insist on
camping the oil spot even though its not near as rewarding as it used to be
when NF was still new.
Don't do it, do not make oil when there is no signs of enemy near by, wait
until the tower is actually attacked, why? If you make the Oil on the
assumption that enemy will attack in the next 15 minutes and they don't, you now find that the 30 minute life span of the oil
only has 15 minutes left and no enemies still. By the time any enemies do come you'll find your oil disappears before they are even on
the door and they now have 5 free minutes to melee the door down safely.
Treat
the oil sensibly, its a good deterrent but that is
all, its very rare you'll earn great rps from it
still these days.
Mines:
Mines
are lovely, convokers and stealthers, do not forget
that you have them, they work on enemies above and below you quite nicely so if
your at the lord or on the roof watch your timers and keep them up, its even
better if you work together and lay them over each other. If there’s
crystal titans at the stairs, put your mines near them too.
Attacking:
So now you know how to defend effectively, what about taking
the offensive? Well this is a much broader subject and alot
more variables are involved such as enemy response time, the nearest portals, your numbers vs theres. It takes less people to defend successfully then it
does to attack a defended structure successfully and team
work is much more vital.
It
would be impossible to write a guide to every attack, to much depends upon the RvR situation and attitude at the time so instead I'll write the key points you need to consider.
Wall or Door? :
You
need to decide if your best attacking through the wall
or through the door, if the keep is low level or the amount of defenders low or
if your launching a surprise attack then the Door will often be best option so
long as its not a relic keep (which has 3 doors to get through).
If your going through the wall then its likely to be a high
level keep that’s heavily defended, which brings up new questions which are
often left unconsidered. Namely, how many enemy siege hookpoints
can reach us? To few people take this into
consideration when attacking a keep via towers 1 or 2.
You'll
usually find from one tower 3 hook points will be able to reach you, (like at Blendrake 1 for example) where as from tower 2 you might be
vulnerable to only 2 enemy hook points (like at Sursbrook
2 which faces the door).
This
can have a huge impact on the success of your attack when your
trying to keep your tower up and your rams or trebs
alive, so don't just attack the nearest tower, choose your angle of approach
carefully.
Inner
Keep:
Patience,
it is a virtue, I admit it’s not one of my qualities
either but it does pay off. People are far to quick to
charge soon as a hole appears in the wall, BG leaders should try and restrain
the zerg and instead let the Trebuchets take down the
inner keep first.
Why?
Because
by destroying the inner keep you will of got rid of
not only 2 oil spots which you know full well some dumb casters will walk
under, but also the Palintone spot which is their
only defense against your ram. It would take a good
warlord with 3 trebs only
15-20 minutes to destroy a level 10 inner tower. If its
not level 10 it will take alot less. Use the zerg to push the enemy inside but keep away from the hole
till the inner tower is down unless your absolutely positive you have a big
enough number advantage to win without.
So you get inside the inner keep, what now? you have 5
fg of mids at the lord
consisting mostly of warlocks and sm's as usual. By
some miracle you have managed to hold back the zerg from charging in and losses have been reduced. Your holed up at the bottom of the stairs. There’s no easy way to win, but here’s some tips to help.
Mine bombs:
Guaranteed to reduce your convokers to an orgasmic fit of
laughter. Most
of the warlocks and other easymoders will be at the
top of the stairs, get all the convokers and infils
to meet directly underneath on that part of the landing opposite where your zerg is holding up. Its directly
beneath the corridor the enemy will be nuking from. It takes some coordinating
but have all convokers drop their dissonance traps at the same time, keeping in
mind it takes about 20 seconds to cast depending on buffs. If you have any
infiltrators in the zerg have them
lay their poison spikes about 10 seconds into the casting, if there’s more then
1 have them stagger the spikes for max poison duration.
20
seconds later laugh yourself silly at the death spam.
If
you have good control of the BG, this is an ideal time to push forward, if the
response was not as good as you hoped, lay down the power-traps instead then
wait for timers to come back up.
Heretics:
Sadly albion is awfully short of heretics, and even
shorter of good heretics, and some don't even bother with monster rezz's anymore. But if you have
them they are a great tactic IF used correctly.
Monster
Rezzing:
If
you have the power to spare don't just give the
monster rezz but give them the buff shear reactionary
proc as well, why? because there will be a dozen or so tanks hitting the
monster like hell upstairs and every little helps. Same
goes for wizards with good damage shields.
Being
a good Monster:
All to often someone will take a monster rezz,
run around for 45 seconds and die facing the lord and be useless for the rest
of the siege. Think about what your doing, you have 45 seconds of monster, you
can see when the icon is flashing to disappear, consider where you will die,
can you be rezzed again easily without endangering
the heretics? Soon as your monster rezz'd run up and do your damage for 30 seconds, no more, count if you must,
but then run back down to the stairs and make sure your realm mates have
good LOS on you before you die. If your being heavily damaged despite the
monster ability pull out early, your no good to anyone
if you die out of LOS.
Oil
level:
So you killed the lord your mines and monsters won the day,
what next? Don't
assume they are all dead you will often find DI bots and healer classes hiding
on the oil level ledges, soon as the lord is dead make sure you have cleared
them out or they will Egg Of Youth rezz the zerg at the lord.
Leading:
An authoritative
voice with clear and concise instructions amidst the chaos of a siege going bad
will get a far better reaction then cursing, swearing and telling everyone how
crap the realm is. If you can speak up with clear, regular instructions, you'll soon find yourself leading without meaning to and
find yourself doing it easily. But you must:
Keep
talking regular, if there’s no need for new
instructions then just say something positive and encouraging to keep moral up
and indicate there’s a plan at work.
Avoid
swearing or passing blame, it looks like your losing your cool and you'll lose respect at the same time as a leader.
Try
to avoid giving direct orders to people you do not know well, instead try to
tell the BG what needs to be done and what type of person you need to do it,
people feel better if they think they are volunteering rather then being
ordered.
You
will get pissed off, and you will get hassle, but try to learn to shrug it off,
take a 5 minute break, and come back with an open
mind, people will remember how you deal with a situation as much as whether you
won or lost.
Following:
It
only takes one person to lead, but it takes a whole army to win. Everyone is
important even if your not in the lime light or one of the realms
'celebrities', they can't win without you, and you can help the victory better
by keeping a few things in mind.
If someone is trying to keep the army focused, listen to them,
whether you agree or disagree with the tactics being used, an army following 1
instruction is far more dangerous then an army that’s divided between several
goals, even if that instruction is wrong, misguided or not as easy as it could
be, that united army still has better chance to win then the divided one.
Don't
hassle the BG leader more then necessary, there’s a good chance he or she might
be getting alot of messages, reading other channels,
trying to get information or simply cybering on the
side, either way they wont be able to give
instructions easily if answering alot of pm's.
Try
not to second-guess the BG leaders instructions, even if you disagree, you will
only cause doubt, upset the BG and slow down the siege, if you think you know
something the BG leader has not taken into consideration that is vitally
important, tell them in private, not in the BG.
Horses:
With
the new DR expansion we now have horses, this is an
ideal chance to keep yourself stocked up on diminutive siege weapons you'd
normally not be able to carry without encumbering yourself. A horse can carry 2 Diminutive rams or trebuchets and still have plenty of
room for a healthy stock of bounty wood.
Tower
Repairs:
In
future patch towers will be able to be repaired from rubble, this does not
change the tactic of flattening them, it simply means there’s
less consequences to doing so, still flatten a tower first.
Bounty
Point Wood:
There
is still alot of people that do not realise they do
not need to spend a single gold coin on wood, if you look on the second page of
any Siege Merchant you will see Bounty Point wood for sale up to Heartwood. There’s no excuses for not helping to repair walls now, you
can spend bounty points, save your gold and help repair walls much quicker. You
can even load it onto your horse if you cannot carry much.
Fools
Bows:
Every
scout should have one, specially with the easy ToA patch coming, I cannot stress how much quicker these
help to take down enemy doors on keeps.
Crystal
Titans:
These
are devastating, even more so when ML9 convokers use them, but they can be even
more so, never forget that they can be buffed, hasted and eb'd.
If you’re a theurgist and you make a ML9 titan on the
roof, why not give it a haste buff and eb?
Storms:
Stormlords are becoming more popular; especially as in future patches the
Brittle Guards being nerfed so that only one can be
cast at a time. Yet many people do not use the Storms to their fullest
potential. There are a number of different storms available but it is usually
most fun (and helpful) to use a damage storm this will break any crowd control
but will also keep enemies interrupted while they are stood in its radius. A cruicial part of using storms effectively is being able to
move your storm to the optimal position – this is achieved by using the ML2
ability ‘Vacuum Vortex’ the same ability will also let you remove the
storms cast by enemies. This ability is used by setting a ground target next to
the storm and casting Vacuum Vortex – the storm is then blown a short distance
(the direction will be as if the ground target were pushing the storm.
How
can this be useful?
Simple, Storms have a long life span in many cases, if you
set a Storm out in front of your tower to discourage the enemy from attacking
and your realm manages to break a hole in the enemy keep wall, you can use your
ML ability and a ground target to nudge your storm up towards that hole in the
wall and damage all the enemies there and help force them back inside. Storms are also stackable so that
if two or three stormlords push a DD storm into a
hole it can clear out a shroom field planted by an
Animist very quickly.
But what if the enemy do this to you? Well again you can use your ML
abilities and GT's to force
the enemy storms away from you, its an often over looked but very useful
ability to learn. If your unsure how to do it, just go
somewhere quiet in the frontier or PvE side, make a
storm on the floor, press F5 to make your ground target nearby and practise for
5 minutes.
Thank
you for listening, if you have anything else to add feel free to pm me and I’ll update this guide as the game develops and tactics
change. Please feel free to copy this guide to any forums where you think it
may help.
Kagato Dragonheart
Excalibur
Cluster patch 1.80