2005: The Healer's Guide to World Domination

[HereComesThePain]

i didnt wrote all this just found it from VN boards and some ppl may wanna read..not all but some of the things said here... so here we go...


Chapter One: The Birth of the Healer

So you're going to be a Healer, and you want to dominate the world...Well World Domination begins with the character creation screen.

There are very few things up for debate when creating your Healer: you should be Norse, you should be short, your facial hair must be minimized, you must do research before picking your name, you put your points into Constitution and Dexterity.

**Why should I be Norse?

Because Norse are the best Healers, hands down. They're head and shoulders above Dwarves and Alves, and I'm not just making a short joke. Norsemen can be just about any class in the game, so being Norse you tend to blend in much better. Dwarves are usually assumed to be Healers by our enemies, and there are fewer Dwarves to blend in with. Frostalves are THE WORST race if you're going to be a Healer. Everyone knows they're either going to be casters or seers, which means they have big 'kill me' signs floating in red over their heads. The only thing a Frostalf is good at is getting cybor, and if you're in this business for cybor, then you need to get the hell out! Bards can work and cybor, HEALERS CAN'T!

**Stupid numbers, what do I do with them?

Throw your 30 starting points into Constitution and Dex. Con means more hit points, Dexterity means you cast faster. You can drop some points in Strength and you won't be throwing them away. Trust me, there are times when you'll have to be a mobile siege platform, points in Strength are not wasted. Points in Piety, however, ARE. Piety does nothing for Healers, Piety is still for sissies!

Your statline is where being Norse really shines. Dwarves have a little more Constitution, but Norse are stronger. Frostalves are just fooked. Their high piety (sissies) and marginally higher Dex mean you start in a deep hole for Constitution and Strength. Honestly, I'm shocked and amazed these weaklings don't die of starvation and a particularly vicious strain of the sniffles.

Norse rise like golden gods above the Dwarves and Elves when it comes to your racial resists, as well. Oh, yes, I know Mythic doesn't really mention it any where, but every race has 10% natural resists. Norse have 5% resist to Cold (a common damage type), 2% resist to crush, and 3% resist to Slash. I will repeat that and start a new paragraph:

3% resist to Slash. Now, on the face of it, that doesn't seem so amazing, I'm sure you're wondering why I'm making a big deal about it. Slash is the most common damage type in the game, you see, it's also the damage type that Norse chain (which you will be wearing) is resistant to...so you see, when you cap your resists to melee at level 50, and put on your chain mail, you will be 39% resistant to the most common damage type in the game. Dwarves and Alves come in at a measly 38%. We mock them.

**Be Short

Yes I told you not to be a Dwarf, but you want to be the shortest Norse possible. You'll blend in with the Norse, you'll disappear into Trolls, and you can be mistaken for Saracens and Celts because of your slighter stature.

**You Facial Hair Should be Minimized

Part of blending in is not having tentacles dripping off your face. A normal goatee or beard is acceptable, girly freaky-ass braids are not.

**So now I have made my Healer, and I will name him Healie McHealsalot!

No you will goddamn not! People with names that describe their profession are dumb. People who play support classes, should NEVER broadcast that fact to anyone.

Guess what, when you click on your opponent their name comes up in a little box, which helpfully reminds you that they're an enemy of your realm, in case you had forgotten. Now if your enemy sees you're named 'Rezzorio' well it might just clue them in, eh?

You want to go to the Herald, look on your server, in your realm, for the top 25 Skalds, Thanes, and Warriors, some class in chain and non-threatening, basically. You want a name that is still active, but not blazingly active. Someone in the 20s should be good. Now name yourself a derivation of their name. If there's a Skald named Senjak, then you might be able to get away with Zenjak, or Sejnak or such.

The idea is to be mistaken for someone who is NOT a Healer. Get it?

Make sure they're not loathed and hated, though, and heck, you might get lucky, and be mistaken for their alt, and get in with their friends because of it.

Another naming method is to use lots of J's. They were a popular letter in Vikinglish, and yet, no one remembers any famous Vikings with J's in their names. Probably because J's have a strange, almost hallucinogenic effect, causing most people to have trouble with comprehension and retention. So a name like 'Hjrgjr' would probably be a very good, low profile among the enemy, name.

Now you're ready to begin your training! Make sure you start in Aegirhamn, because the old world is an empty ghetto where Kobolds have painted Bloo Party propoganda on the walls. Aegirhamn allows easy killtasks, or if you're /level 20, then you can grab some silver fast and get free gear. Soon, you'll have to go back to Mularn for starting, so START YOUR HEALER TODAY!

 

[HereComesThePain]

Chapter 2: Your Skills, and What Makes a Dominator Tick

A Healer has three lines of specialization: Mending, Augmentation, and Pacification.

All specializations are not created equally, however. It's important to take a hard look at our lines of spells so you can understand what will gimp you and how to squeeze the most out of yourself.

Mending.

You'd think with a class title like 'Healer', Mending would be where it's at. Well, Mending IS the most important spell line in the game, it's also the most in need of an enema. You will use maybe 8 spells out of the entire junky line, maybe...

The major problem with Mend is Spreadheal. See, this spell is TOO good. It can pretty much replace all the healing spells in Mending. I'm not saying I wish it would go away, there is some lazy appeal in qbinding it to your spacebar and just mashing the button with your entire hand, and it allows any moron to be an effective Healer, not a good Healer, just an effective one.

So until the Mend line is fixed (and it's a horrible line desperately in need of fixing) your spec in Mend should be based around the levels of Spreadheal. Honestly Mend 30 is enough. It gets you the first Spreadheal, and that's all you need really. At 39 there's another Spreadheal, but if you're going to dump that many points into better spreadheals, you might as well go to 40 and get the 100% rezz.

100% rezz is a reward, and you do not reward people for having the temerity to die, at least not unless they're dying on command. Second Spreadheal is even more power intensive than first spreadheal, and there's all the wasted points you had to spend just to get to that point, so think long and hard about whether or not you want to spec that high.

Don't misunderstand me, Mend is essential to successful RvRing and being a successful Healer, but I hate the line with a passion. It's unimaginative, poorly conceived, and outmoded. Who needs single target cure disease when Perfector 1 gives you group cure disease with no LOS? Why singletarget heal your entire group when one spreadheal fixes all boo-boos. The Powers that Be finally realized maybe they've neglected the Mend line and have made the speccable single target heals cost less power to 'reward' Healy-types, however, what they fail to realize is that Spreadheal is STILL better, because of numerous issues, first being no Line of Sight needed. You would not believe the obnoxious places fight-starved tanks will run in the age of New Frontiers. The recurring thought in most tank's little heads seems to be: "Patience my ass, I'm gonna kill something!" and off they run. So it's nice to nose up to a wall, and safely pound spreadheal until the tank keels over dead, rather than try to keep up with the poor suicidal bastard. The other thing is...speccable single target heals are in wierd speccing places...one point higher than spreadheal, generally speaking, 31 Mend and 41 Mend, which screws up the 44m 4a 36p spec, and means you don't get a single resists with the 30 23 38 spec. Very strange spec-line sequence, in my opinion.

Augmentation.

Aug is a slightly better than Mending...slightly, very slightly. Basically Aug helps your survivability, which is a good thing in my opinion. Problem is there are a lot of useless spells in the Aug line, or spells useful only in a limited circumstances. Let's face it, the most crucial parts of the Augmentation line are baseline.

You get all your major buffs baseline, so it's not like you have to spec for that. Haste is okay, but not a game winner, a mid-level haste hurts no one's feelings, and Savages, one of the nastier damage dealing tanks of Midgard, supply their own haste. You're left with a group speed, which is the worst speed in Midgard. Course, bad speed is better than Shadowblade speed. Also in the Aug line is a personal damage add and it takes concentration...whuppity doo. When soloing it's essential, but in big boy RvR it's inconsequential and a waste of your very very few concentration slots.

The timed buffs are what makes Aug tick. The Str/con self buff is huge for your survivability, it adds an entire rear positional hit from a polearm to your life expectancy. It also allows you to carry a decent amount of siege. Between your strength buff and str/con buff you can become a mobile siege platform. The timer resist buffs are nice, but unless you cripple yourself by going high Aug you won't see much of these. And yes, I do mean cripple.

High Aug is one of those diminishing returns things. The higher you go, the less and less you get. I would rather you go high Mend than piss away your points going high Wuss... I mean Aug.

Why, you might ask, is Aug so bad? Well, it comes down to utility. You SHOULD NOT use your damage shield unless you're soloing. Nothing hurts worse than seeing your Shammie root a tank off you, only to have the tank reach out and break his own root on your damage shield. Damage add? HA! Speed? If it's not Skald speed, it's too damn slow. Celerity? Come on, celerity is the spell you cast on three occasions: 1) You're totally in control of the battle, and your enemies are bungling idiots. 2) You're one of three Healers, which means: 3) YOU'RE NOT DOING YOUR DAMN JOB.

By going high Aug you neglect your duties: CC and Mend. There isn't a damn thing essential in the Aug line, and you basically relegate yourself to being a back-up Healer. World Dominators are not back-ups. They must be considered essential.

Pacification.

The god of specialization lines. Let me tell you a little known story of early Midgard. You see When Midgard was still being developed, we had eleven classes, just like Hibernia. Yes, a fabled eleventh class. Unfortunately, Healers were the tenth class to be designed and carefully crafted by the Mythic design team. On the final day of creating the Healer, they made the Pacification spec-line...and it was good. Very good. So perfect was this line, that the design team stepped back from their kruellers, and bagels, and computers and had a moment of silence. When the silence was done, a soft voice asked, 'well, I suppose we should start on that eleventh class...' But the team shook their head...they had achieved perfection, 'No, man...I think Midgard is complete.'
And thusly did the eleventh class get misfiled and forgotten. You didn't think those Trolls with bows were just a silly mistake, did you?
Healers make Midgard great. Pacification makes Healers great. It is power regen. It is Crowd Control. Your minimum Pacification should be 35, for yellow purity. I heartily recommend going to 36 for the Area Effect insta-Mez. At 38 is AE insta-Stun. 38 is the sweet spot, after 38 you run into diminishing returns. Healing is a total power hog, so having a high purity makes sure you don't have to throw away points on the Serenity RA. You actively use more CC spells than Mending or Augmentation spells put together. Yes that's right. AE Stun, AE Mez, instas of all sorts, single target CC, AE Amnesia, compared to Celerity, Spreadheal, single target Heal, and some insta-Heals.
**The Magic Numbers
So, to repeat:
Mending: 30 or 40, no in between.
Pacification: 35, 36, or 38
Augmentation: Whatever is left.
Some acceptable Specs (all specs are related MAP, Mending/Augmentation/Pacification):
Healing Domination: 40/4/36. Huge Heals, good purity, AE insta-mezz, heavily reliant on others for damage absorption, though. You'll always need a str/con from your lackeys.
Balanced Domination: 30/23/38. My personal favorite. This spec has celerity, insta-cc, self buffs, and decent heals. You can solo, you can group, you get everything.
Solo Spec: 23/30/38. Notice the complete and total lack of Spreadheal. This spec is not group friendly, but damn is it fun if you want to solo. High Pacification is essential to soloing. You're a Healer, so choosing your fights is essential, and insta mezzes are good for getting away, or getting a chance to heal up some more.
Unacceptable Spec: 50/20/4. 50 in ANYTHING as a Healer is dumb. The class rewards balanced skill lines, we're not button mashers like tanks or casters, Healers are the backbone of Midgard. You screw up and people die. You spec wrong, and you gimp not only yourself, but every person you ever group with, and that means YOUR ENTIRE REALM. So, no 50 Aug, no 50 Pac...
Healers are not Druids, they're not Clerics. Those other main healing classes double as their realm's main buffers. OOOOOoooooh! Buffing! High pressure job there! They'd fold like origami if they had to be main healer, main CC'r and main buffer, and don't let Shammies give you any crap about THEM being main buffer. Let's face it, because of the pathetic state of Midgard's End Regen, YOU're going to end up buffing the Shaman half the time. So who's the main buffing class now, eh?

Ahem, but back on track, Druids and Clerics can afford to fart away their points on 50 whatever, because no one expects anything from them but healing once they leave the borderkeep. Healers don't have that luxury.

 

[HereComesThePain]

Chapter 3: Camouflage

Healers wear chain, the finest armor type in Midgard, highest absorb, highest ArmorFactor, we even have AF buffs. However, when those mean bastards have really set their sights on killing you, chances are you're done.

At the Border Keeps of Albion and Hibernia, they pass out little shopping lists at the gates, except, these aren't notes to remind them to bring home depilatory for the Firbolgs or various treatments for social diseases for the Highlanders. These are kill lists, casters and seers are right up their at the top of the list.

So the best armor is to not look like a Healer. Attract no attention, blend in.

Your camouflage began with character creation, when you made yourself Norse. Nothing more neutral than the Norse race, you could be anything, anything at all, whereas Frostalf means you're a seer or caster, both of which are at the top of the 'to be killed today' list. And the everyone expects a Healer to be a Dwarf, hell, even our Healer guards are Dwarves. But that's good, reinforce the stereotype so that the enemy don't think YOU are a Healer.

Next is color. Let's face it, Snot Green, or whatever that new green is called, tends to grab attention. So does yellow, orange, bright red, or shiny metallics. RvR is a lot like an N'Sync concert, lots of jumping around, effects going off all over the place, people waving their hands in the air and screaming like girls, and people are trying to kill you. With all that movement, lights, explosions, who are you going to focus on first? Well probably that Nimnod wearing his undyed epic robes that are all flashy and white, or the big Firby banana running by in all yellow. Attention focuses on movement and bright colors, so go dark.

Go predominantly black, and ESPECIALLY dye your hauberk black because your hauberk is the largest piece of armor on your body, don't make it any easier to identify. Midgard is wonderful, because so many of our classes with a little obfuscation can pass for each other, especially since our casters have discovered the magic of pants. Do not help your enemy identify your class, the hand pump in the air and flashy sparkles do too much already. Dull colors are perfect, Rust Red is the World Dominator endorsed red for RvR.

Also remember, night in the Frontiers is like swimming through mud for most people. Full on black might stand out too much in those murky nights, so even a dark grey or flat blue would be perfect for being a Healer Ninja.

Atlantis, much as I hate it, has also done wonders for Healer camouflage. Very few classes carry shields, so a shield stands out, and a little tiny round shield on your arm marks you as someone who can't carry a medium or better shield. Which is to say, a small shield means you're a Seer. So having a shield that doesn't look like a small shield is perfect, and Atlantis provides with many wonderful shields, both artifact and otherwise that are over-ornamented and oddly shaped, camouflaging the shield size. The best shield for hiding, however, is the Griffon's Impervious Pelt, a horrible shield rewarded to Skalds for a level 30ish quest. It looks exactly like a medium shield though. Even better than not looking like a small shield, is looking like a LARGER shield. Now contrary to the advice given regarding colors for your armor, dye that shield BRIGHT. A shield like the Griffon's Impervious Pelt should stand out, bright green, or red, or if your guild colors are white, then go guild! The idea is to draw attention to the fact that you are NOT a Healer.

Another method of disguise is to get a hammer that doesn't look like a hammer. New Atlantis hammers look like axes, coat racks, cactii, anything but something you bludgeon people with. So as one-handed hammers they make useful show-pieces for throwing off your enemy. Even better are artifact weapons. Tanks spend so much time, face pressed to the monitor drooling over artifact weaponry, that they can generally identify one by sight. What better way to look different than to have Battler or Malice at your hip? Personally I prefer Malice since it's an easy encounter. Don't use two handed versions, since they just disappear under your cloak. You want your weapon to protect you by shouting out: "Look! Look at me, I'm a Thane!!" I mean, who cares about Thanes, anyway?

Now, I know some bright-boy is gonna say, 'but won't the spreadheal motions give it away?' Sure, all the Healer things you do will give it up that you're not a Thane or Warrior. But we're not trying to fool all the people. Good players will recognize your motions, the tactics, even your name, it's hard fooling them. We just want to fool the dumb people, you know, about 50% of the folks trying to kill you. Camouflage is not invulnerability by any means.

Survival is tough, we just want to stack the deck and a good disguise is another ace in your favor.

 

[HereComesThePain]

Chapter 4: Caring and Feeding the Dominated, or Buffing Made Easy.

Ahhh, such an easy concept, yet one so many Healers don't seem to comprende.

Well, as botters prove, buffs increase the potential of your average unwashed Viking, so it's important to buff correctly.

The easy way to buff is to use a buffbot, mash your fist against the keyboard until your screen is aglow with neon pink. Now, I don't like buffbots for a number of reasons, so I'm going to council against this method of buffing. Most botters don't know much about their buffs beyond 'pink is good'. Botting also cheapens you. Not in some judgemental 'botters are pooty' way, it cheapens YOU, the potential world dominator. If some kid has a row of red buffs provided by Bottany, the vegetable Shammie in the PK, and he sees his Healer about to die, well...it's not exactly the catastrophic loss of buffs, and if the fight is almost over anyway...well, he's not gonna rush that shield to your side. Also, you can't punish a person by witholding buffs or buff removal if you're not in charge of his buffs!

Now, you have an Aug of 23, so let's talk about how to maximize your buffs. Remember, Augmentation is the only specline that sees improvement if you get +skill items. You should have your buffstick, +7 to Aug, and Mythic has very thoughtfully provided +buff% items in ToA. So pick up those items, until you have +25% stat increase all together. The stick, the gear with all the buff% bonuses on it, these are your buffing gear. Color them brightly so you remember to remove them when you're done buffing, and THEY SHOULD BE REMOVABLE. Why clog up your gear with junk that only helps you when you're in the PK, BK, or whatever, totally safe?

Now, let's talk about the first person you should buff:YOU

When solo, you get everything, every sweet, sweet buff. You should glow with radioactive light (that needs to be refreshed every 20 minutes). A Healer is his own buffbot, which is yet another reason we dislike buffbots...without buffs you might as well be wearing a bathrobe and swinging a soggy towel. With your buffs, well, you're wearing a kevlar bathrobe and swinging a soggy towel with vigor.

When running a group, though, buffs are at a premium. So you need to stretch your buffs. Which means no haste, damage add, or strength for you. You get purity, con, dex, and af. THESE FOUR ARE YOURS. There are many other like them, but yours are yours, and I don't give a good crap if some guy is passing out red purity. Red purity means the guy has crap for aug, and his buffs are UNRELIABLE because he's going to die a lot. Gold purity is better than NO purity when that 44Pac Healer realizes that SoS beats red con ae mezz.

Constitution is essential because more hit points and higher Con, means harder to kill. Armor Factor reduces the damage you take when being hit in the face, which you will be...constantly. Dex speeds up your casting time, faster casting means slower dying for your group. And if I have to explain why you should have purity on yourself at all times, then you should quit right now. Go play something easy like an Armsman.

Get one of those AE realm wide dex/qui buffs from your shammy, too. You know, the ones that don't drop when the Shammie does. Let's face it, Shammies are a huge target for the other realms, and making a fine blue mist out of a Kobold is what every Shar dreams of. Do not place your faith in the buffs of others. That is the lesson of buffing yourself.

Now, you have buffed yourself, it's time to attend to your peons.

If you are running with another Healer you should have conferred with him about his Aug level, and figured out who is supplying purities and who is supplying haste.

Now, when buffing, everyone should get two buffs. Three if you have another Healer.

Skalds, Thanes, Warriors, Shadowblades, and Berserkers get Haste, Strength, and Con.

Savages get Strength, Con, and Dex...why dex you ask? Because hand to hand Weaponskill is based off str/dex, not just pure strength. A two handed Savage you might give Armor Factor to increase their survivability. They'll supply their own haste, however.

Bonedancers, Spiritmasters, and Runemasters get Purity numero uno. Dex, and then Con. Really you give them Con buffs to try and make them feel better. But let's face it, they're wearing pajamas in a war zone, not like a few more hit points are really gonna help. They never need Armor Factor from you, because they supply their own, and they don't need Haste or Strength. You can't make a tank out of a toothpick.

Hunters get Haste, Dex and Con, with Strength being something you toss in later. They also have their own AF buff which now stacks with YOUR Af buff. So if you're buff-rich, they could use AF.

Shammies are special. They get purity first and foremost. So to try and help out the 'primary' buffer <snickers> you should give the Shammie Dex and Con, maybe Armor Factor if you have spare buffage. This will allow them to throw more specialized buffs on the group.

Remember! Buffs are a PRIVILEGE. If someone is naughty, they don't get buffs. If someone is suicidal, they don't get buffs. If someone is trying to solo in your group, THEY DON'T GET BUFFS. Buffs are for people who are trying to maximize YOUR ABILITY TO STAY ALIVE. Anyone not doing so, GETS JACK SQUAT.

Now, there are some exceptions, if you have a Thane or Warrior and you have declared them your personal blockbot, you should help them remember their number one task, by giving them Haste, DEX, and Con, no Strength buff for them, they need all that juicy dexterity for blocking bad guys. If some well-trained Warrior or Thane decides to take it upon themselves to insure your survival, then reward them by giving them Haste, Strength, Con, AND Dex. Good behavior is rewarded, remember. If they just can't get it through their skull, though, remove all their buffs, and tell them in group you need them for yourself, since you're gonna have to melee your way through these fights.

Thanes might eventually be moving more toward caster buffs, though, as more and more Mythic seems to think that the way to make them viable tanks is to make them better casters. Go figure that logic.

Let the other Healer, if you have that luxury, fill in the other buffs, dex, AF, etc. The primary buffs should come from you, after all, you have the buffing equipment, right? And if you die, those sweet sweet buffs go away, so they better not let you die.

 

[HereComesThePain]

Chapter 5: Realm Abilities

New Frontiers brought about many changes, most of them ass, but one of the better ones was the new RA system. Sure, there's still a bunch of overpowered broken abilites, and most battles are now about who can dump more RAs...but let's pretend.

First up, the absolute crap: Most of these RAs don't need an explanation, they're just wastes of points. You're a Healer, until you're RR11 your RA points are spoken for, you can't afford to blow them on this junk.

Augmented Strength
Augmented Quickness
Augmented Acuity
Toughness
Veil Recovery
Mastery of Pain
Adrenaline Rush
Second Wind

Wild Power: Better chance of critting with spells that do damage...the only spells that do damage that Healers have are DD procs and charges, what moron included this on the Healer RA chart? Leaving this on our chart is like dangling bones in front of starving children, WHAT CRUEL ANIMAL AT MYTHIC TORTURES ME SO?!

Mastery of Magery: Better damage on our damage spells...those sadistic sons of bitches...

Mastery of Focus: raises the effective level of our spells, which will help with CC, but after buying DI, MCL, MOC, Aug Dex, Mastery of Healing, etc etc who can afford it?


First Aid: A Heal usable out of combat...for Healers...who do healy-type things...brilliant!


As you can see, of 29 RA's available to healers, 12 are total poop. Now for the not exactly poop, but still pretty poopy:

Augmented Constitution: Gives you more Con, and more hit points as a result, but, honestly, it's not the 18 points of damage that kills you, it's the 180 points from an adze some Celt is knocking holes in your skull with. Not useless, but not useful under most circumstances.

Longwind: Helps you sprint longer, and most living Shammies in Midgard have pretty poopy Endurance Regeneration, and get all huffy when they want you to perma-sprint, and you tell them you can't because you don't have longwind 1, like YOU should be investing YOUR Realm Ability points to make THEIR crummy end regen work better. What's with that?!

Serenity: Between your own yellow purity and Fonts of Power from the MLs, not a very good investment, but a decent placeholder point or two. Placeholder meaning, "I need 5 points to buy my next serious RA, but that's like 500k RPs away, and these points are just going to waste anyway, so...." or "Oh my god...my character hasn't changed in two months, I'm about to go insane and dye myself bright purple and run around Svasud Faste singing the Barney song unless I do SOMETHING...ANYTHING...to make me seem like I'm changing and dynamic and not stuck in the rut I'm actually in." In those two situations, Serenity is a decent buy. You can look at your power regen and fool yourself into thinking it is actually coming back faster. Yeah.

Ethereal Bond: You get more power. Yup, by like 15, or 40 points at the low end. Yup...nevermind the lowest level Spreadheal is 79 points. You will have spent 10 points, an entire realm rank, before Ethereal Bond pays for one spell.

Avoidance of Magic: This is a great RA, except against disease, and debuffs...oh and DoTs...oh yeah, Crowd Control too...So basically this is a great RA against straight direct damage...except it's a second tier resist, meaning it doesn't stack exactly with your normal resists, but is factored in differently, meaning the percentiles you see on the RA list 2%/5%/15% are not exact, but bloated fake numbers...so this RA really doesn't do as much as it says it does, even after not doing anything against disease, debuffs, DoTs and CC...fantastic...

The Empty Mind: You have to press the button, and it's temporary. Suck.


So, I've talked about the the Bad, the Ugly, now it's time for the Good:

Augmented Dexterity: Well, this helps our casting speed. You're going to be overcapping your Dex, getting even more Dex through RAs isn't a bad idea. It's not a pressingly urgent buy, but it's the only form of RA spell haste anymore.

Wild Healing: Still a fabulous 1 point purchase. JUST 1 point. No more. Remember, Heals have NO chance of critting without buying this RA. SO BUY LEVEL ONE. Don't buy beyond level one, because you still want to be able to control your heals. Imagine doing some ML encounter, and you're spamming small heals to avoid aggro, then one crits for 99% and suddenly your 300 point heal hits for 599...super aggro. Control. Healing is about control. Having a chance to make a huge heal is nice, but not too big a heal.

Mastery of Healing: Bonuses to healing, it's nice, it'll stack with ToA healing bonuses and relic bonuses...so there's a potential that someday you can have 50%+ bonus to healing. Not something you want to invest major points in early on, but later, it's something.

Mastery of Concentration: Like many of the three tier RAs, this RA is minimally useful at level 1, majorly useful at tier three, and a waste of points at tier two. Buy level 1 for 5 points, and spam amnesia and celerity. You better make sure you have someone actually healing in your group, though. Level 3 is nice, especially if you've capped your ToA healing bonuses and have some mastery of healing. Make sure you watch your power bar, though.

Mystic Crystal Lore: Your groupmates are huge black holes of healing. They take and take and take, and need need need. Mystic Crystal Lore helps you keep up just a little bit. The reuse timer is low, wonderfully low. This is an RA that is useful at all three tiers. I wouldn't try to get level 3 until very high realm rank, but consider having level 2 by RealmRank 5 or 6.

Raging Power: This used to be so wonderful. Now the timer is so high compared to everything else that it's usefulness is limited. I wouldn't buy beyond level 1, and personally, I'd ditch it for MCL2 in a heart beat.

Purge: Level 1 seems to be about all you need, the way combat seems to work, most times you get hit by CC you're either dead anyway, or some moron spamming AE dots trying to powerlevel himself on RvR will break you out.

Barrier of Fortitude: I'm very mixed on this RA. At the high end it cuts melee damage in half. I don't think the two lower levels are worth anything. So, level 3 is where it's at, but....how many fights have I seen in NF where melee was the majority of damage....? Don't buy this RA unless you're high RR or soloing.

Perfect Recovery: I love this RA, but not at the lower levels. PR3 is wonderful for getting people out of wierd situations, and really combos with Sputin's Legacy well. Every three minutes means your mixed spec will still be able to give some good rezzes very regularly. And of course, it's the RA that gives back. Rezzes are worth Rps, and the better the rezz, the more you get. A good PR is worth 150 realm points.

Divine Intervention: This RA used to be Battery of Healing, so if you ever hear anyone refer to Battery, this is what they mean. It used to be suck. It is now our overpowered RA. This RA is a good buy at any level, and is worth running all the way up to 3. DI makes a pool of hit points that will be insta-healed once the people in your group fall below 75% (to avoid wasting heals on people rebuffing). It will not heal you, but it also means you're not waving your arms around like a Healer at the beginning of a fight, allowing you to get some good position to cast from, hopefully saving you from needing healing anyway. DI is also on a ten minute timer, which seems like a lot, except the timer starts from the moment you trigger the RA. So, you log in, trigger DI. The DI buff lasts 20 minutes, which means DI will be up again before the first one has even run out. Unfortunately DI does NOT stack. So you need to communicate with other DI Healers in your group when yours goes down.


Now for our unique RA available at Realm Rank 5:

Sputin's Legacy.

This is an RA that I would never have bought if it had a price tag attached. It's a joke RA, the joke being that in Old Frontiers, when the Healer unique RA was Perfect Recovery, the explanation read as if the Healer would be able to rezz himself. So Druids and Clerics flipped out complaining about how they got screwed since they only had Group Purge and Bunker of Faith.

So now, Mythic gives us a little 'ha ha' with the ability to rezz ourselves.

Ha.

Now, a Druid's RA stuns them then converts all damage done to them to healing. A Cleric's RA stuns anyone hitting them. Our RA is the only one that doesn't prevent us from dying, but in fact, REQUIRES us to die.

Sputin's Legacy is a nod to Rasputin the insane Russian fellow who was poisoned, shot, beaten, thrown in an icy river, and only then finally decided to die. The fact remains, though, that while all that was happening, Rasputin was NOT healing his group, and was just dying for a long long time. It's a 30 second buff that allows you, when you die, to /resurrect yourself at 10% life, with nothing for power or endurance. Your only bonus is that for the first 5 seconds or so you're transitioning and thus immune to Player damage, but not CC.

So this is a nice RA for recovering from PvE wipes, but I certainly wouldn't want to try and self-rezz after getting hit by a gank squad or anything of the sort. Even in mass battles it's bad since chances are you'll catch the edge of a DoT or an oppurtunistic arrow in the back.

The few ways I've been able to make it work is in keep/tower defense and running solo.

 

[HereComesThePain]

Chapter 6: Hell.

Atlantis. Grown men have been known to cry at the mere mention of the place. Bubbly, happy people are reduced to morose, quivering depressives.

Atlantis is Hell. It is a nightmare realm of temptations of greater power paid for by sweat, frustration, anxiety and time. Boring time, horribly grinding time. Atlantis was conceived by the same cruel sonsuvbitches that gave Healers access to RAs that increase the damage of our spells. Which should give you an idea of just what kind of bastards we're dealing with.

Unfortunately, you can't dominate the world without hitting up Atlantis.

There are two forms of torture in Atlantis: Master Levels and Artifacts.

We begin with Master Levels. A Healer has the option of two different ML tracks, Sojourner and Perfector. A sojourner is travel based. A perfector is healing based. Both lines have their beautiful abilities, both have their crap abilities.

Perfector is more for the large scale RvRing World Dominator. It helps the most people and is very nice for long protracted battles.

Level 1: Purging Wave: group cure disease. Except for the high power cost, this pretty much replaces your normal cure disease spell, since it ignores LOS and cures everyone. It's nice, but not really a selling point, since the other two realms don't have a lot of disease-ridden classes like our Shaman. Though, you'd think a Lurikeen being just a hairless rat would be a real bringer of the plague.

Level 2: Purify Vision: cures nearsight. I've started to see more and more Nearsight out there in NF, so this ability is starting to be kind of nice. HOWEVER, there's a trick to using it. When you cure Nearsight on someone, the icon doesn't go away, so they want to be cured again. If you cure them again the icon is removed and they wander off happy. DON'T CURE THEM A SECOND TIME. After that first cure, the icon that remains is the IMMUNITY TIMER. Now, why immunity timers look like the actual timers is beyond me, and I can't figure out why I can remove NS immunity but can't remove my own MoC buff, but...now you know. Don't cure twice.

Level 3: Sphere of Rejuvenation: Makes a little font that heals for 100 points and change every few seconds. It's nice. Not gonna keep up with boiling oil, or a peeved Avalonian, but it's okay.

Level 4: Greatness: increases cocentration pool by 20%. What a misleading name. With a name like greatness I expect to be able to chop down mountains with the edge of my hand dammit. Basically Greatness doesn't do anything. At all. You will hit the 20 buff cap before you run out of concentration. If they someday remove the 20 buff cap, as THEY SHOULD, then it'll be nice. Until then, Perfector 4 sucks.

Level 5: Font of Power: Creates a power regeneration field. If you're not going to go high in MLs, cause you can't stand it, and would rather have 'sucker' tatooed on your ass with a rusty needle, then Perfector is the way to go, and level 5 is the place to stop. The FoP is the ONLY reason to go Perfector. This Font pulses a power regen that causes power pool users to cluster around it like moths to flame. The FoP should look like a row of teats, with Seers and Mystics crowding together to suck excitedly at the nipple. As a Healer, you will be conditioned to feel happiness when you see one of these fonts, it will be a Pavlovian response, like drooling at the dinner bell, you will feel warm and giddy when the golden glow of this Font is seen.

Level 6: Determination Ward: Anything after Font of Power is just a let down...

Level 7: Leaping Health: Shout buff that will heal two others. Kind of a nice thing to do for other people when using your single target insta-heal. Hit leaping health and watch some other folks get healed depending on proximity to the target. Only works for single target heals and doesn't discriminate, my leaping health has tried to heal a Font of Power...but then again, I don't blame it. I love FoP too.

Level 8: Soul Restoration: cures rezz sickness. Yeah...whatever.

Level 9: Dissonating Ward: Power cost penalty field. Kind of like the FoP, except not. It's nice to put down where you think their healing and casting classes are going to have to stand.

Level 10: Rampant Healing: self buff that makes next group heal have a radius. Another buff that is best used with an insta heal. This buff doesn't work with Spreadheal, so when you pop Group Insta, use this too.

Like I said, everything after Font of Power is a let down. To make things even more disappointing, four of your MLs are on the same timer (3,5,6,9) So once you put down that FoP, you're pretty much done. It means you have got to communicate with other Perfectors about who is putting down what. Nothing is more wasteful than seeing three FoPs in one tight radius, since they don't stack. So when placing your Font, yell it out! You might even get hugged.

Sojourner is an ML line that pays off at the high end. If you're going to do the entire ML track, keep Sojourner in mind, and if you're going to focus on open field fights, this is the track for you. Also not a great track for someone used to leading large groups of Mids or running with the Horde of Mids.

Level 1: Unburdened Warrior: bonus encumbrance. Not bad, especially with the Lifter nerf. Helps you carry more siege around.

Level 2: Unending Breath: waterbreathing and speed. Nice and bad at the same time. On the one hand it saves on water breathing potions. On the other hand, if you're leading a horde of Mids through water, you're going to be moving faster than they are, since this buff makes you swim faster.

Level 3: Reveal Crystalseed: sweep for mines. Whatever that means.

Level 4: Unmake Crystalseed: disable mines. Now, maybe the creators of this ability, imagined players creeping down hallways, checking for traps and disabling them like in D&D...which would have been just silly of them, since even in D&D, it's still better to send the meatshield barreling down the corridor tripping everything off. I mean, really, what are Berserkers for, but that?

Level 5: Ancient Transmuter: summons a vendor. Hey we've all been there, middle of no where, and boy can I use a soda... Craptacular ML ability.

Level 6: Gateway: teleport to caster's bindpoint. Convenient now and then.

Level 7: Resistance of the Ancients: resists for ML stuff. Kind of nice. Goes of insta, reuse timer of 5 minutes, last 30 seconds, use it when you're holed up in a Lord Room and here comes the bad guys or in open field to shave off a little damage from TWF.

Level 8: Forceful Zephyr: Now we're cooking. With this ability, set a GT, using a groundset macro, the zephyr will drag one person helplessly and agonizingly slowly to the GT. You can't purge out, you can get out of it, you can't cast, and you count as sitting while being zephyr'd. Great way to break up an assist train, drag people through door and into a tower for execution. The ultimate CC. This ML ability is so spicy that people have been waiting for it to get nerfed...again. Awesome ML ability, and pretty much the one that makes Sojourner. 15 minute reuse timer is painful, though.

Level 9: Phase Shift: immunity to damage for 10 seconds. All blows against you miss, all spells cast against you are resisted. Sometimes arrows will still hurt you, something to do with the way arrow flight is calculated I suspect, and guards and monsters will still whup you, but not bad for tight spots. The catch is you need about 50% endurance to set it off, though, so check your endurance before doing anything so insane you need this ability to survive.

Level 10: Mass Gateway: your group returns to their bind points. Better than clicking your heels together.

Sojourner is great for 'gank' tactics. Obviously you need to work yourself higher in MLs to be effective, but if you're that kind of nutcase, and don't plan on spending time with large groups of people, go for it!

 

[HereComesThePain]

Chapter 7: Masochism

So, now is the time to discuss artifacts.

As a World Dominator, one of the most important things is survivability. Squeaking and keeling over dead may work for Kobolds, but since Healer's are the backbone of Midgard, it's important that we remain standing.

Towards this end, you need to maximize your ability to take damage, and artifacts are an easy way to get new powers, abilities and tricks that will help out with that.

Remember, though, that the more artifacts you have the longer you'll be spending attaining and levelling them, and honestly, a lot of artifacts have extremely poopy stats. The longer you spend levelling and camping artifacts, the more you become known for it. DON'T BE THAT GUY! Once you become PvE guy, people remember that. You're supposed to be a leader of men, fearless and all-conquering. Not the guy to call when someone needs to kill Linus, the Merman. Also, artifacts are chains, shackles designed to keep you from having fun at this game. The more artifacts you foist on yourself, the more you lower your chances of having fun.

So, let's talk about what artifacts we should get.

Egg of Youth: Has some nice stats, but more importantly, the level 10 ability allows you to rezz up to 8 people instantly in a large radius. No LOS. So some Savage decided he needed to charge the Enchanter on the roof? Bring him back to heel with an Egg rezz. Your side was flattened by Enchanter bomb? Egg rezz and give the bad guys targets other than yourself to shoot at. Egg is, in my opinion, almost a must have for Healers. Because it's a jewel, though, it means no cat form for you from the Dream Sphere.

Ceremonial Bracer: Not very good stats. You'll want the Dex version, since it allows you to overcap Dex and means faster spell casting. Most importantly, it gives you a buff against either mezz or stun, that will absorb, and potentially bounce back, the first mezz or stun that hits you. A free pass on a mezz or stun is very nice, almost makes up for the fact that the bracer doesn't have much else on it. It's an easy and fast levelling artifact as well, kind of like an artifact with training wheels. Gets you used to artis before really enslaving you with something like Egg of Youth or Malice Axe.

Malice Axe?: Yeah, I said Malice Axe. Malice Axe gives decent stats, and protects your ass in two different ways: 1) It looks like an axe, get the one-hander and it's very obviously an axe. Confuses the heck out of people. 2) Arrogance, the only time being arrogant is good. Let's face it, the world wants to kill you. Arrogance is a charge that you can use, and it absorbs half the damage of every hit done to you while the buff is up. You can't go two feet in the New Frontier without tripping over a Scout, and they hit for ridiculous amounts of damage, so the ability to use Arrogance is kind of nice. Half of ridiculous damage isn't as bad, after all. Arrogance works exactly like the absorption on ablative procs, and will even stack. Arrogance takes half, ablative proc takes the next half, very nice when it happens. The downside is that when your arrogance fades you get debuffed and the enemy will now do extra damage to you. So use this ability when you're getting away or running for the tower door, usually.

Healer's Embrace Cloak: Now that we can dye artifact cloaks, this cloak isn't nearly the glowing target it used to be. Dye it black and have a ball. This cloak has insta heals on it, and you can never have too many insta heals.

Maddening Scalars: I don't know what a Scalar is, but the second ability of these gloves is to make you look like a wolf. Not looking like a Healer, not even making the traditional Healer hand jive motions is pretty nifty.

Crocodile Tear Ring: Real nice stats on this ring, but more importantly it constantly absorbs damage done to you and turns it into power and endurance. Since everyone wants to do as much damage to you as possible, turning 5% of that into heals and end regen is fantastic! The other bonus of this artifact is you don't have to level it up to 10! You can stop levelling it at 8 since the chant aura doesn't work on your run speed.

And that's it.

What you say? What about the millions of other artifacts out there, the shinies, the pretties, the preciouses?

You don't need em. Sure some of them are nice, but they're just toys. There's artifacts like the Crown of Zahur, that will turn your power into life if you start dying. Couple that with the power regeneration of the Croc ring and you have a fantastic suppy of life. But you're going to be going through power like it's going out of style anyway, so lumping another power drain in there might not be a good idea.

All the artifact gems pale in comparison to the Egg of Youth. Armor artifacts should usually be avoided since they take up spellcrafting slots. The great thing about being a Healer is that spellcrafting for your class is easy, why clog that up with stupid space hogs like Scorpion Tail Ring. The less money and time you spend on artifacts, the better, really. Most of the encounters are pains in the butt, and levelling them is just a silly waste of time, time that you could spend doing something else, like having FUN.

So remember, you don't have to OD on artifacts. A few will help, too many will hinder. Play it safe.

 

[HereComesThePain]

Chapter 8: What all the cool World Dominators are wearing

So, you want to be a World Dominator, and that's all well and good, but have you even thought about what you're going to wear? You can't just walk around in Oceanus quest armor, you know. Nothing looks so cheap as those Nautilus shells on your nipples and the crab on your belly. A World Dominator looks the part, they dress for success. That means you need to be wearing nothing but the finest, and the finest is player crafted.

Sure there are some pieces of armor out there with good utility, but remember, all your armor customization takes places in your armor slots, so leaving those free allows you to take the low utility, high Atlantis bonus items in your jewelry and cloak slots. Try to keep your armor player made and spellcraftable.

Personally, I say nothing but MasterPiece armor, as well, since it allows for a lot more to be squeezed in and will survive a lot longer. Your armor is going to take a beating, people will chew on it, hit it with anchors, claws, swizzle sticks, and pretty much anything that can be co-opted into a weapon. I've been hit with a letter. Yes, but it looked like a bag!

However, 99% armor can get you started in the World Dominator business if you really must skimp...if you don't love yourself enough to get the very best. If you're filled with hatred and self-loathing, but unable to actuate your anger towards your own person, and therefore must throw yourself into perilous situations thereby allowing other people to inflict the harm you so wish to inflict upon yourself. But come on...you're a Healer, you're Norse, you're WORTH the extra coin, ever damn copper of it! Don't short yourself, big guy! MP, baby, MP!

Ahem.

So, good armor...no, GREAT armor is essential for the World Dominator.

When putting together this suit, you start with the jewelry, there's lots of slots, and you'll fill some of those with artifacts, the master you served for ten levels will now serve you. Then it's time to fill in the slots. You'll ideally want jewelry with high resists, there's so many resists and they're so expensive to spellcraft for, that it's just easier to try and address your resists in the jewelry slots. You'll also be wanting to get Atlantis bonuses in the jewelry slots, since you can't spellcraft those.

The Atlantis bonuses you care about are casting speed %, healing bonus %, power pool %, and spell duration %. You'll want stat bonus% on items you can swap in and out, since the bonus doesn't help you in the slightest except when buffing. Those items can be as low quality as you like, just make sure they've got high buffing bonus and they're dyed an odd color so you remember to take them off before running out to fight. Nothing so embarassing as to be wearing cloth sleeves with +16% buff bonus when a Blademaster decides to chop your arms off! Boy would YOUR face be red.

So, casting speed, heal bonus, power pool, all pretty self explanatory, but spell duration, ah, there's something special. See spell duration works on spells with timers, stuff like self buffs, group resists, oh and Crowd Control. Imagine 25% Duration bonus, and yes, they left duration % at 25%, and dropping a 14 second stun on some poor slob. That's your baseline stun with 25% bonus. Your AE stun and mesmerize all have the same duration as if you had run your Pac up into the high 40s. See, I told you the sweet spot for Pacification was 38.

Casting bonus cap is 10%, heal bonus and power pool bonus are 25%. Personally, power pool is the one I'd drop the first, but it seems to be everywhere. There are promotional copies of DAoC that get handed out with free 6% bonus to power pool. It's silly.

So, jewelry slots for bonuses and resists and CAP INCREASES. Yes, another black hole of spell crafting from ToA, you can increase the cap of your stat bonuses. Keep in mind, that doesn't mean you GET those points, you just get to find some way to FILL those points. Hit cap bonuses are nice, but not essential. A Sorceror is going to hit you for seventeen thousand million points of damage with their baseline lifetap anyway. Which is stupid, I know, hitting so hard with baseline spells, but Albion needs to have some sort of FotM class that doesn't stealth, after all. Anyway, +80 hits isn't such a big deal compared to that, or howabout the fifteen 130 point laser blasts you just got hit with from the stack of shrooms that's been lagging your computer out since you were across the zone. No, you're better off trying to get your Dex overcapped. Con is nice, too, but Dex first. Remember Dex is casting speed.

Try casting a heal spell without any sort of Dex buff or bonuses to dex. Now go get a drink while that resolves. Play some solitaire. Change your CD. Okay, the spell finally landed. Now, see you can't win mezz battles or keep your group alive like that. So the goal is to break 300 Dex. It's hard, I know, and I grind my teeth every time I hear some damn Cleric saying they have 340 Dex, and they're disappointed they couldn't make it to 400. But that's neither here nor there.

Now, here's a dirty little secret. Your jewelry doesn't have to be MP. Sure it would be nice if it were, but, it doesn't have to be. That's not the dirty little secret, though. See we usually get MP gear so that it'll last a long time, through repair after repair. Dirty secret incoming: You don't need to repair your jewelry. That's right, jewelry will fall to 70% condition...and then stop.

Let's talk condition, durability and quality real quick. Quality: how good your item is, if it's 100% it's also known as MasterPiece, and MP items have a longer lifespan than 98% and below. Durability is what sort of shape it's in. Imagine your favorite t-shirt from the Motley Crue Doctor Feelgood concert way back when. You've worn it and worn it, and you love it so. Well, it may have 100% quality, but it's been repaired and washed so many times the Durability is now 25%, there's holes in it, and places where the evil doctor's face has worn off, but it still does its job and shows that YOU WERE THERE!. That worn out faded look is an item with a low durability, see? Condition will degrade the more you use the item. Normally when an item gets to about mid-90% condition it means it needs to be repaired. Condition will drop steadily with use. Quality never changes. Durability changes when you repair your items. Which brings us back to the dirty little secret.

When Conditions get low, the performance of the item drops. That means you get less Armor Factor out of low condition armor, lower DPS out of low condition weapons. So weapons and armor need to be maintained and repaired and eventually after a million or so RPs, replaced. Not true of jewelry, though. Jewelry that provides you with resists and bonuses will CONTINUE to provide you with resists and bonuses even after reaching 70% condition. The only thing they stop providing are bonuses to your Skills, but then, we're not putting +Mend or +Pac, or +Aug into our suits. Healers don't need them. So jewelry will effectively last forever, and thank goodness.

Anyway, you can get low quality jewelry because it's just as good as high quality jewelry. All that matters are bonuses and utility.

So now you have jewelry and you're ready to spellcraft your suit up.

Remember when spellcrafting you can overcharge your equipment by five points. So MP AF102 armor can squeeze 37 points of spellcrafting love into them. That's a nice chunk of spellcrafting. I know that there's a chance that overcharging your MP armor will cause it and the spellcrafter to explode, but that's why you get a legendary spellcrafter, anyone with 1000 SCing will be able to overcharge those pieces of armor with 99% quality gems with no risk. 99% gems, legendary Spellcrafter. Don't settle for less.

You'll be capping stats and hits, and finishing off your resists with your armor. You should cap your Constitution, Dexterity, Piety, maybe Strength, Hits definitely, and all your resists. You don't need to put any +skill gems in there.

Healers, being a superior class, don't require +skill bonuses. +Aug squeezes a few points more out of your buffs, it's not like it makes your celerity better or your group resist larger, so that's why I recommend the buffstick, a staff with +7 Aug that you just equip when buffing then remove. No need to clutter up your war gear with +Aug. +Mend stabilizes your baseline heal spells. Try this out, throw your specline heals, the ones you get by specializing in Mending. You'll notice the specline heals don't vary at all, same number, all the time. Now try throwing your baseline heals, the ones you get for free just for being a Healer. You'll notive they jump around wildly. Now, if you put +Mend on your suit those numbers wouldn't jump vary much at all. But really, your specline heals are the ones you'll be using 99% of the time, so who needs +Mend?

And +Pac....There's a reason they removed +Pac items from the drop tables. +Pac DOES NOTHING. It doesn't decrease your resist rates, since the chances of landing a Pac spell are based off the level of the spell, and NOT the level of spec-line or the level of the caster. +Pac is useless, they maintained the gems in the game in case, someday, they decide to overhaul CC. Anyone who tells you otherwise about +Pac is wrong.

So now you understand why Mastery of Focus is such a horrible RA for Healers.

You'll notice I haven't really mentioned shields and weapons as far as spellcrafting. That's because Healers are so easy to Spellcraft for that you can usually create what I call a 'hands free' suit. That leaves your hammer and shield slot free. You can then use those slots to put on camoflauge shields, or wear Malice Axes. You can also use those slots to swap in and out certain bonuses. You're leading your group around and will be dropping the mezz on folks? Good thing you have a twohanded hammer strapped to your back and equipped that increases the duration of your spells. You're trapped in a tower and need to pump out some big heals? Good thing you have a little shield with +2% casting speed and +10% healing, eh?

See a Healer's suit is not static, you trade gear in and out according to need and the situation. There's a reason the Healer class is the best and hardest class in the game to play. Sorcerors may protest that we're just insta-ccing monkeys, but they don't have to heal do they? There are times when you'll be doing three things at once, but really, you should be doing four. You're the Healer for goodness' sake. You control other people's enjoyment of the game, you step on Superman's cape and he apologizes for getting it under your foot, you bring the dead back to life! Miracles are your job!

The basic spellcrafting caps:
Stats: Stats: levelx1.5; at 50 your stat cap will be 75 (+75 con, +75 piety, +75 dex)
Hits: levelx4; at 50 your hit cap will be 200
Resists: level/2+1; at 50 your resist cap will be 26 (26% cold 26% slash)

 

[HereComesThePain]

Chapter 9: A Healer has seven pets

Healer's are a pet class, we have seven pets. It's important to understand the function of your pets and how they perform on the field. Remember, as a World Dominator, you'll be telling people what to do for the most part, and that means you need to know WHAT they can do. Just because Healers are the best class in the game doesn't excuse you from understanding and doing research on the other classes.

Midgard's classes are divided up into 4 basic professions: Seer, Mystic, Rogue, and Viking

Seers-

-Shaman: The only other Seer out there is the Shaman. The Shaman is a necessary class, since he provides some of the basic buffs for optimal performance, stuff like End Regen, and Dex/Qui buffs. It's always nice to get a Dex/Qui buff from a Shaman, though not required. Now, the Shaman class has three lines, but their Mending line is pretty cruddy, I mean cruddier even than the Healer Mending line. They have a good Augmentation line, though, and a good Shaman might even have Focus Shell, which reduces the damage being done to the person they target by 70%, so if you can get good communication with your Shaman going, a Shaman can be a huge boon to your own survivability. They also have the Cave line which is DoTs and Disease mostly. DoTs, eh. Disease though...mmmmmmm. If you don't have a good rapport with your Shaman, you can put them on root and disease duty. Disease is a pain in the neck since it snares, debuffs, and has no immunity timer. So if you have a Cave Shaman, you command them to lay off the DoTs, and make with the AE disease. It should let you run circles around your enemy. More than one Shammie is kind of a pain in the butt, though. And they tend to be very fussy. Like doing everything I tell them to do is so much work. Please just stop thinking and follow my orders! It's so simple!

Little known disease fact: If someone is diseased, the amount of damage they're healed for is halved. However, because Spreadheal is calculated based on group size, the points are then put into a pool of healing, and then redistributed, Spreadheal is NOT affected by disease, UNLESS you disease the Spreadhealer himself. Disease a Druid or Cleric, and their Spreadheals are HALVED. So turn your disease casting Shammies loose on the main Healers of the enemy.

Mystics- Whew this category has ballooned since our early days.

-Runemaster: Runies are speed providers and big damage dealers, they come Dark, Suppression, or Runecarving. Darkness does lots of damage fast. Suppression blows group bladeturn bubbles and their DDs have snares. Runecarvers do damage. Now the Runemaster is fairly easy to deal with, make sure they know who the Main Assist is, and then let them kill. Supp Runies you can ask to occasionally Snare-DD for you, which will allow you to run away from the assist train easier. Practically an essential class with the New Frontiers relying so heavily on ranged damage and sieges.

Little known Runemaster fact: Suppression Runemasters are lazy. It's true. Most people who set out to be Suppression Runemasters want to play, but not actually be there while playing. The excuse is that their pulsing group bladeturn takes up so much power that they can't cast any spells without the PBT dropping. But really, they want to go afk a lot and look at porn while eating Chocodiles. I played a Suppression Spiritmaster, I should know.

-Spiritmasters: There are three types of Spiritmasters, but really, there's only one. Spiritmasters can go full Summoning, which means they can buff up their pet and put focus shell on it, which is fantastic for farming hard encounters, but not so good in the Frontier, since players are smart enough to run AROUND the pet and kill the caster. Darkness Spiritmasters do direct damage spells and have some mezz, but really if you invite a Spiritmaster into your group, and find out he's Darkness, you say, "Oh, sorry, you wanted to SOLO." Then boot him. If you want a caster than can blaze down one person at a time, get a Runemaster. Suppression Spiritmasters are where it's at, though. PBAE damage with a bodyguarding pet. Suppression Spiritmasters are like little Irish people doused in kerosene running with matches while yelling obscenities about the Queen into the middle of a full scrum between two English rugby teams...while naked. They're going to get their asses kicked, but at the same time they might just light some people on fire. PBAE is way of doing damage you can build a group around. AE stun and bomb. Lord Room faceoffs. Kamikaze wall jumps into the crowd of support classes suckling at the power font. Suppression spiritmasters do a lot of damage, to a lot of people, and fast. Which is what NF is all about.

Little known Spirit fact: Spreadheals won't heal a pet, while groupheals will, which can be very helpful when the spirit gets sent through the wall after some doofus, and you need to heal the pet without line of sight.

-Bonedancers: This class has only one spec, Suppression. The others are hardly worth talking about, so we won't. Suppression means healing pets, insta lifetaps, and what most BDs forget, castable DDs. A Bonedancer can lay out a lot of damage fast, and has decent survivability. The problem is most BDs, because of the healing skeletons have an inflated sense of their own immortality. So they do dumb things like run off solo, or stand on the walls of a keep mooning the enemy as if there weren't ten Scouts aiming shots up his rectum. Bonedancers are solid in a group, a good BD is amazing. For the most part, just make sure they assist. BD's also have the ML line Banelord. Accept no substitutes. A BD is a perfect compliment to a Spiritmaster bomb squad, with Agony Transmission and TWF. Banelord is love.

Rather well known RA fact: Bonedancers are the only Mid class that gets Thornweed Field. Now, I don't know what kind of nasty garden the designers grew up with, but TWF pulses damage, while at the same time snaring people inside the radius. All BDs should have this. It goes through walls, it disrupts lord rooms, it clears off areas of land, it slows and hurts your opponents. All BDs should have this, I say again.

-Warlock: Ah, one of the new classes from Catacombs. This class turned out pretty well. Hell, I'd run with one just because Albs cry so much about them. They're another class whose spec you really need to know, though. Right now, there are just too many Warlocks gimping themselves trying to be fresh and unique. There's a reason there's cookie cutter specs, darn it, BECAUSE THEY WORK. The Warlock works by storing up spells, and then unleashing them in short order upon one unlucky enemy. The Warlock is a gear intensive class, though, and I wouldn't want to run around in the open field with one unless they were tooled out with the finest spellcrafting meats and cheeses. In a tower though, they're not nearly so bad since they can pop their heads out, kill someone, then slide back into the lord room for rebuffing. Overall, I'd rather have some other classes, but a Warlock can be made to work. You just have to accomodate then with frequent chamber breaks. The Warlock is another Banelord class, it's kind of frustrating having so much of our Banelords be cloth wearers, but, it's just too good an ML line not to have and have in abundance. Warlocks are kind of nice to have in groups, simply for the humor factor. The amount of jokes you can make about going to the 'chamber' and the balls on the Warlock's head are limitless.

Little known by Warlocks, Warlock fact: Warlocks specced decently in Hexing (which they should be) will have a powerless spreadheal. The problem is most Warlocks forget it. I mean, you'd think in the little drop down menu of spells that Spreadheal was printed in itsy bitsy text, while LIFETAP was done in big bold letters. You'd think. Just keep reminding them about it, and tell them when they need to be spamming powerless Spreadheal, such as in lord room fights and the like. Or when taking the CY of an enemy held keep. Tell them, because they're going to be too busy looking around for the next guy to blow away after they rechamber.

Rogues- It's hard grouping with Rogues, mostly because they tend to wander off to solo, but also because when a fight happens their first instinct is to go invisible. Which tends to leave you standing out their with your ass in hand. My biggest pet peeve about these classes, are the guys who stealth up when the group dies. For the sake of heaven DIE WITH THE GROUP. Stealthers who do that, just tell them to suicide out and rejoin with the group. If they don't want to explain that they're weakening the group by not being with it, and then boot them. You're trying to save the group and make it better. There's no room in a group for someone who isn't trying to do the same thing.

-Shadowblades: So, uhm...yeah. Hard to talk about SBs without feeling more than a little sorry for the poor folks. SBs require a lot of coddling and encouragement. They're still an integral part of Midgard, but not in the assassin kind of way. It's great to have SBs be your eyes inside enemy keeps, and a well buffed SB with good healing can distract a guy on the oil long enough to give your rammers a break. With all the porting into and out of keeps, SBs allow you to keep a close eye on traffic, so they're worth keeping around, just gotta compliment them a lot. SBs and women have a lot in common, they require lots of compliments, even if you have to lie. Go out of your way to tell a Shadowblade he's doing a good job, and you appreciate him, and no that tight leather doesn't make him look fat at all.

Little known Shadowblade fact: Shadowblades cry a lot. Making fun of them is like kicking a puppy. So be nice.

-Hunters: Well, Hunters came back in droves when New Frontiers came out. They're a good class to have when fighting in keeps. I mean, don't get me wrong, I'd trade them for Scouts in a heartbeat, but we're making lemonade here. They're an archer class with a pet. Most are strip-mining their pet line because it sucks.

Little known Hunter fact: I'm friends with 5 Hunters who know me in real life. While I could take one or two of them at a time, since Hunters are kinda wussy, they would probably team up and beat me up. So I won't say anything bad about them.

Vikings-

-Berserkers: The best Banelord class in Midgard. Berserkers are great for bombing lord rooms, complimenting SM bombs, suiciding on caster clusters with Zone of Unmana, etc. Encourage all Berserkers you know to do their MLs all the way up. If you find out they're low ML, ask them what they're going to do to help out the group. They'll say something like 'kill the enemy' and you laugh, long and loud, then reply, "No, seriously..."

Little known Berserk fact: Berserk used to at least look kinda cool. Not it looks really bad, which is even more reason not to bother Berserking. It's sad when a class has so little going for it. I mean, it used to be that when you're rallying up a large force, and it's taking forever, you could tell your Berserkers to go Bear form and dance. So sad that they had to nerf even the Beardance...

-Savages: Savages can hit hard. They need decent equipment, but they're one of the higher damage dealing classes among Midgard's Vikings. Savages just have the same problem every other tank does. They spend most of the fight looking at these huge honking walls wishing they could be anywhere else except under the oil. And really, they should put a game like Tetris or maybe pictures of shiny weapons, just to entertain the tanks as they deal with the monotony that is siege.

Little known Savage fact: When Savages were created for Shrouded Isles they actually had another name, but shortly before release the designers realized they already had a class named Berserker, and even though it fit the Shrouded Isles class better, they decided not to make waves and just called them Savages.

-Warriors: Warriors have shields. And, uhm...so... Just tell them to throw shield protection on you or the Spiritmaster, then it's alright if they want to go AFK or something.

Little known Warrior RA fact: The Warrior Realm Rank 5 ability is called Testudo, and is actually pretty decent. Too bad unless you were a Warrior and RR5 before New Frontiers you won't be able to find out how nifty it is. Basically, it turns the Warrior into a little slow moving tank capable of absorning tons of damage, which makes them ideal for being the first into a lord room with lots of Enchanters and Shrooms.

-Thanes: Few classes have seen as many peaks and valleys of usefulness as the Thane. They were supermen before spellcrafting. Then they became superwimps. Now they're decently useful. Not because they're capable of doing tons of damage or anything, they still hit like small girls armed with feather dusters. They tend to have shields, though, which is nice to keep off the arrows that fall like rain. They're also not as prone to deep depressions like most tanks in New Frontiers. I think it's because they have ranged lightning and aren't relegated to pack mule status by default.

Commonly known Thane RA fact: Thanes are the only class in Midgard that gets Static Tempest as an RA. Now, Static Tempest is retardedly broken. A long time ago, CC had no immunity timer, and everyone hated it. So they put in immunity timers and people hated it slightly less. So it boggles my mind that they brought back CC with no immunity timer. ST pulses a 3 second stun every 5 seconds in a radius. Which means for the most part, you spend your two seconds desperately trying to get out of the radius. Of course, 3 seconds is enough for most Enchanters or Sorcerors to kill you, so really you're just making a token effort, because sitting down and pouting is beneath the dignity of a World Dominator. Ahem, anyway, ST is stupidly broken, which means you want it. Thanes are the only ones who have it, so we have to let Thanes tag along. Make sure your Thane gets ST3, though.

-Skald: Well, we still need Skalds. There's lot of running to be done, so keep telling them how special they are, how well they're handling their chants, and so on. Skalds tend to be divas of the worst sort, so I guess it fits that they're a singing class. So high maintenance it's depressing. If we ever get another Speed 5 class, I might just wash my hands of Skalds. Until that wonderous day, though, we must hold their hands and tell them they look pretty and act interested while they go on and on and on about whether or not they should respec to 47 Battlesongs from 50 Battlesongs, as if it had some sort of life altering potential. Even worse is the weapon collecting. Good god, get two Skalds together, and if one of them starts talking about weapons, it's just all over. They'll yammer on and on about which sword is glowier, and then drool and talk about other people's weapons, "He got that sword from ML5, and it's so pretty, that bitch. I'd make that sword look SO much better. I could just claw his eyes out!"

How to use Skalds fact: Skalds get SoS, they need to be awake to use this ability, and it's most effectively used at the opening of an engagement to prevent CC lockdown by your opponent. So make sure your Skald isn't watching TV, or playing Fable, watching a dvd, or composing suicidal poetry.

-Valkyrie: I'm not sure if the plural of Vakyrie is Vakyries or Valkyrie, either way, Valks are the new tank on the block for Midgard. Which means shortly they'll all be complaining about being gimped, and not enjoying themselves and being useless most of the time, but for now they're shiny and new. Valks have no overwhelmingly useful ML line, so I don't frankly care if they do their ML tracks. They're RAs are so uninspiring I wouldn't even notice if a Valk had spent her RA points or not. They are, however, good at breaking up a Lord Room farm session. Send in the Valk with their cone DDs, buffshears, and you won't always have to send a Berserker up to die, like sacrificing a chicken to appease voodoo gods.

Little known style facts: The Valk doesn't have any new weapon lines, just has Sword, Spear, and Shield. However, just to make the other tank classes, and especially hunters, feel impotent and powerless, they gave the Valk new and fresh styles. Like PBAE Spear styles, or a root Sword style, or ablative Shield styles. I really wish they'd throw the old tank classes a bone, because making up compliments is getting more and more difficult. I mean, try complimenting a Skald on spam he hasn't gotten just to make him feel better, when you've been sieging a keep for the last half hour, and he's been dead for ten minutes of that because he got an arrow enema. "Way to go on that kill you got!" "I've been dead for 14 minutes..." "I was talking about that last kill you got...you know...the one in Old Frontiers..."


So much of a World Dominator's job is making the folks around him feel like they're special and unique and useful, and as you can see from this rogue's gallery of gimpy and handicapped classes, making them feel 'useful' is quite the task. So, really I recommend two methods of lying.

1) Inflate their accomplishments and their roles. If you have a tank in your group, and really he's just their to carry siege, when you hand him the three diminutive rams, you say something like, "These are MP rams, that I crafted with my own hands, designed specifically for today's task to make taking a relic possible. I entrust them into your capable hands as I would entrust no one else." Even if you're taking a lame tower to be annoying, "These rams could very well make a relic take possible, guard them with your life. Don't let me down."
2) Pay attention to what they're wearing. Be able to compliment them on changes in colors or weaponry choices. Practice saying things like, "Gee, that shield makes you look so much fiercer!" or "The lilac tint of the blade's flame really goes with your eyes." It makes them feel like you appreciate and notice them. heck even if you're not paying attention: "Hey, have you done something different with your dyes? No? Well, something's different because you look really great today!"

 

[HereComesThePain]

Chapter 10: There are bad people who want to touch you in bad ways

World Dominators can not be universally loved and respected. There must always be those who hate and fear you, people whom you make examples out of. For every World Dominator's boot, there must be a people upon which it rests. Luckily, we have Albion and Hibernia, or as I fondly refer to them: Left Boot and Right Boot.

But of course, you don't start out dominating the world. It's a long hard road, a road filled with trials, tribulations, and tests. To walk this path you must know your enemy, just like you must know your own troops. You must know their strengths, you must know their weaknesses, and you must be able to identify them on the fly.

So we begin with Hibernia, the realm which, it seems, New Frontiers was created for. They excel in siege situations with an abundance of casters and ranged damage types, as well as ideal classes for holding a confined area forever. Then if they really need to go out in the open field, they also have some of the best RAs and and MLs and some even in combination.

-Druids: Hibernia's Primary Healing class, they're usually the people with little grey con bears or dogs attached to their butts. It's rather annoying when they set their pets on you, since for some odd reason the grey pet is able to hit and do enough annoyance damage to keep you from casting. Normal grey cons you'd three shot and go back to work, but no, not these super beings. Someday they'll be discharged from their master's service and go home to create a furry kingdom of their own, but not today, today they'll be biting you on the ass and holding on.

Little known Druidic fact: Most Druids participate in naked pagan rituals in which they sacrifice virgins to bloodthirsty stargods, because they're too shy to ask girls out on dates. Except for the female Druids who participate in naked pagan rituals in which virgins are sacrificed to bloodthirsty stargods, simply because they like that sort of thing. Female Druids, truly one of HIbernia's most terrifying creatures.

-Bards: Easily spotted by the little instrument they're playing in the middle of combat, or because they're throwing their hands out to the side and falling to one knee which means you're about to become AE mezzed. Bards provide endurance regen, speed, and crowd control for Hibernia, they also can heal. They're a critical part of every Hibernian class and should be a priority target for execution.

Little known Bardic fact: Most Bards don't really know the words to any songs, they just hum and mumble, and pretend they're singing in ancient Gaelic. Sadly, most Hibernians actually believe them.

-Enchanters: Enchanters are often Elves or Lurikeens in robes with Underhill companion/compatriots following behind them. They debuff their own damage, DD, PBAE, Stun, have speed, focus damage shields, and pretty much do anything else you can think of, I hear they can fly, too. You can't throw a rock in Hibernia without striking an Enchanter, something I encourage all Hibernians to do, actually. Enchanters are one of Hibernia's main damage dealers and a class you'd really like to see dead.

Little known Lurikeen fact: Most Lurikeen Enchanters always play drunk. They slap their hands against their keyboards, pressing buttons spastically, because, after all, they're Enchanters, and they're probably doing SOMETHING bad to the enemy.

-Champions: A high utility tank nightmare. See, in Midgard we have to group two gimpy classes if we want Static Tempest and Banelord. HIbernia only needs to group ONE gimpy class. And, even though Champions are tanks, which pretty much makes them gimps, they're not total gimps, since they can debuff and hit hard and DD you. But they get really dangerous when they reach realm rank 5, and get the super damage increase ability for 20 seconds. Champions seem to usually be Elves and running around with large clubs.

Little known Champion fact: Champions like the man booty. Yes, they're always trying to get around behind you, always trying to get a good angle on your tuckus. Don't let em do it!

-Blademasters: So, yet another tank class for Hibernia that gets Banelord. Banelord is a kamikaze ML line, so having tanks be the Banelorders is huge for increasing their effectiveness and their survivability. Let's face it, a guy wearing studded armor with a couple thousand hit points is going to get a little futher into the midst of your enemies than, say, some shmoe wearing the sweater his Aunt Fyglja knit him. Blademasters are bad news. They used to be a joke, but when Berserkers got kicked in the nads Blademasters got loved up. So now they're the most common Hibernian tank. Which isn't saying much, but still.

Little known Blademaster fact: I once killed a Blademaster who used their triple wield ability just before he died, so the little blade danced over his head while he lay dead. It was kind of cute.

-Mentalists: These casters heal, like just about every class from Hibernia, they also have Static Tempest. Yes, that most broken and ridiculous of RAs. Hibernia has two instances of it. Mentalists will usually be throwing DoTs at you or setting their charmed pet on you while you're trapped inside the ST field.

Little known Mentalist fact: Mentalists can be the Stormlord ML line. In fact, seven out of Hibernia's 15 classes can be Stormlords. Now compare that to Midgard's 4 Stormlord classes. Fully half of Hibernia can be Stormlords, and twice as many as Midgard. Count on any keep or tower fight being a complete and total nightmare of DD and other such storms.

-Nightshades: Nightshades are Hibernia's assassin class. They, uhm, squeak when you hit them.

Little known Nightshade fact: I think they phased out this class actually.

-Rangers: Ahh, Hibernia's archers. They hit hard, they tend to be so small that they barely even need stealth, and there's a current trend towards the 'melee Ranger' who is even better at fighting you in hand to hand, than he is at shooting you. They'll usually try to use a speedburst to get away if you get the upperhand, simply knock them out of it with an insta attack or CC.

Little known Ranger fact: Most Rangers are Elves and have names like: Legolass, Legolaz, Leggolis, and so on.

-Eldritch: Some other kind of HIbernian caster class. Compared to the Enchanter and Animist though, they're small potatoes.

Little known Eldritch fact: This class is so much a lame duck they don't even get a little known fact.

-Animist: The stupidest class ever created. If a friend of yours comes up to you and says, "Hey, I want to play a class that's ridiculous and makes a hash of the game with no real consideration for the enjoyment of anyone else and, in fact, requires as little effort as possible from me." Then you can recommend the Animist to him. The Animist is, on the surface, an interesting caster class, that fires off missiles that follow their enemy, which means the damage is delayed, and you can actually be dead before the missile lands. They'll even go around corners. Now, hey, that's not too bad, kind of an interesting way of doing spells. But that's not what's dumb about Animists. Animists also create mushroom turrents that will snare, or DD (depending on the shroom) enemy coming within their radius. So, basically, an Animist is 16 people (they have a cap of 15 mushrooms deployed). The shrooms will them nuke you all at the same time for 100+ damage, which, if you do the math, means you just died before the second volley is complete. Of course, shrooms, not being players, don't obey the same LOS rules as us, so you'll often be nuked through doors and walls by them. Then of course shrooms tend to pop up in the darndest places, like through windows, and on top of roofs, and oil platforms, or in rams, basically every place you wouldn't want someone who is trying to kill you to be. Then there's the lag. One Animist generates a horrific amount of lag with his little screeching, overlapped, groin-nibblers. Get more than one, and they'll kill anyone without an optimal computer just through sheer lag.

Little known Animist fact: HIbernia is one of the least popular realms in the game, which is understandable, since they don't have Healers. To make up for this, Animists were created to inflate the population of Hibernian realms. Mushrooms will even be starting their own guilds soon, and I've heard of a mushroom hitting realm rank 10, his IRS score was in the toilet, but congrats to him!

-Vampiir: HIbernia's OTHER tank Banelord. Vampiirs are rather recognizable. I haven't really seen one, but that's what I hear anyway. And they fly. And they're stealther hunters and have lots of survivability and are tough. I'm just guessing, really, they could be bright pink with polka dots, honestly and I wouldn't know. Maybe in a year Hibernia Percival will discover Vampiirs, but until then all I have to go on is the rumor that they're tearing up Mordred and doing really well in the BGs...so, yeah...

Little known Vampiir fact: Vampiir's can climb walls, which really, if you think about it, is ingenious. I mean, really, a tank that can use handholds and pull himself up over these darn obstacles. Someday when other tanks figure out how to utilize hand holds and maybe ladders, or even a primitive human pyramid, they're going to slap themselves in the forehead over how obvious it was.

-Valewalker: The Valewalker is a cloth wearing caster tank. They hit hard, they do all kinds of funky things when they do hit you, like proc disease or stun, and that's if they just don't decide to cast at you. Valewalkers are bad news, but not nearly as popular as Blademasters. Their RAs are so-so and they're yet another Stormlord for HIbernia, so really besides being decent damage dealers, they don't bring much to Hib groups.

Little known Valewalker fact: Valewalkers can't read.

-Bainshee: Okay, Bainshee's are sort of whispy, armless people, which on the surface, makes you want to feel sorry for them. Or at least embarassed for the tank that has to go beat on the cripple. I mean, not exactly something you brag about back at the bar. Well, okay, maybe I would. But I wouldn't recommend it until later in your career, when you have an established reputation as a World Dominator. Otherwise you'll become known as the guy who kicks crutches out from under the handicapped. I mean a reputation for cruelty is nice and all, but it's like pepperoni on a World Dominator pizza, good flavor, but not the foundation. So anyway, the Bainshee seemed to do a lot of damage and didn't die much. So take that for what it's worth. They're a high priority target, if only because they displease me by pretending to have no arms. The most popular spec I've seen, Spectral Guard also allows them to pulse a super magic ablative, 300 points for every member of their group. Which is kinda dumb, it should have been a simple pool, like maybe 500, and everyone has to share.

Little known Bainshee fact: Bainshee are Elven woman who have committed suicide because all Elven men are gay.

I feel like I'm forgetting a class, maybe two...but if I am, they must not be very important or exciting, anyway, probably lame ducks. Ah well.


So that concludes Hibernia. Of the three realms, Hibernia is best adapted to the New Frontier, and if they have decent numbers they tend to excel if not dominate. Thank goodness most HIbs are only interested in poetry, renaissance fairs and cybor, eh?

 

[HereComesThePain]

Chapter 11: Molds, Spores and Albs

So, we've discussed Hibernia, now it's time to talk about the foes you'll fight the most, simply because there's so many of them, no matter where you go.

-Armsmen: Perhaps the most downtrodden and pathetic of all classes. Armsmen used to be feared and respected, then people really started RvRing with good gear and such, and the Armsman was recognized for the dated, one-dimensional class it truly is. Now I'm not saying let them get a rear positional off on you, a big polearm up the bum isn't comfortable at all. Just saying, some guy with a polearm in platemail running at you isn't nearly the threat of, say, a Friar or Reaver.

Little known Armsman fact: Armsmen grovel a lot. Grovel to get in groups, grovel to be allowed to have artifacts, whimper and beg to be allowed to come along on MLs. Poor Armsmen.

-Friars: Commonly mistaken for casters, since they wear robes and carry staves. It becomes rather obvious their true profession, though, when they bust out ninja-style and start clubbing you about the head. Just remember, is the caster is charging YOU, chances are he's not gonna give you a hug. Friars are a great utility class, since they don't need high staff to do lots of damage, so they bring resists, healing and damage to their groups. As if that wasn't enough, they also get Static Tempest and Vehement Renewal. That's right, AE stun, and a group insta heal. Friars, by the way, the ONLY Alb class to have ST. Which is kind of sad when you consider Hibernia with less classes has two instances of ST.

Little known Friar fact: Friars are not very popular among most Albs when forming groups. Which goes to show, Albs are dumb.

-Mercenaries: Ahh, yes another dual wielder that got slipped steroids when Berserkers were bitch-slapped. Mercenaries are a fast, hard hitting tank, in Old Frontier they were just finally coming into their own as solidly groupable. Now, it's just a good thing they have Banelord or they'd never be allowed to come out and play.

Little known Dictionary fact: The word 'mercenary' is actually from the French. Which is kind of fitting, and no, I'm not making it up. You can go look it up, mercenaire, which is French for 'politician'.

-Paladins: There are probably more Paladins in the game than any other class, since pretty much anyone picking up Dark Age of Camelot wants to be a knight, and lacking a class entitled 'Knight' they gravitate towards being a Paladin, since everyone knows a Paladin is just another form of knight. Eventually they wise up and realize they don't get to summon a Warhorse, or have a +5 Holy Avenger. Paladins are another plate-wearing Albion class. Really, you can just assume if they wear plate in Albion they're boring. Paladins provide endurance regen for Albion, and a good Paladin can actually twist their magic chants and give healing, endurance and some other fun bits to their group. Most don't really care to try though. I suppose it's kind of along the same reasons that Skalds don't want to be able to twist their songs. I mean ask most Skalds if they'd like to be able to twist their songs together, allowing them to run a few group benefitting effects at one time, and they reply, "Hell no, I'd have to pay attention!"

Little known Paladin fact: Paladin's are being phased out of Albion, the shift now is toward all cloth groups, which only need endurance to kite enemy, and really don't need to kite if they kill everything. So I imagine you'll see plenty of out of work Paladins in the not-too-far future.

-Cabalist: One of the many Alb casters, they usually have some little fat golem following them around. They lifetap really fast, but then again, Sorcerors Lifetap really fast. So I really don't know why you'd bother with a Cabalist. Those simulacrums are their only friends, and they are always very perturbed, when they get groups, and are told to spam pets. When they mention that they're not Theurgists, there's usually a long pause. Then the group starts blaming each other for inviting the Cabalist.

Little known Cabalist fact: Actually, Cabalists have really nasty AE DoTs that benefit from their Acuity, which means bad news in siege situations, and I believe DoT damage STILL isn't modified by rezz sickness, meaning AE DoT, die, rezz, AE DoT, die, rezz, rinse, wash, repeat. Matter Cabbys are a bit more of a finesse class than most people are able to handle, though, since the kill spam isn't always yours. One good Matter Cabby can wear out a sieging force, though, draining their power with constant, annoying, high damage DoT ticks.

-Theurgist: Theurgists are a pet spamming class. Now, unlike Animists, Theurgists are a decent implementation of the idea, since they latch on to one target and die relatively fast. Not that they're not annoying, air elementals can chain stun you, after all, and do, a lot. They adjusted the rate of stun procs, and they STILL proc stun all the time. I mean, you get 5 air elementals on you and just go get a soda, fella, because you're not doing anything until the damn creatures die. Theurgists are a solid class, but just not sexy enough for most Albs. The ability to spam pets and interrupt support or spam pets and tear down a door from range is huge, but it's too complex a concept for most trend hoppers. Which is too bad for Albion, but good for us.

Little known Theurgist fact: Theurgists are slobs. Camelot is hip-deep in elemental corpses, not that Theurgists care. They just like creating insta-armies of elementals to rush about for their short life span and get them Cheetos and Code Red soda. I told you Theurgists were slobs.

-Sorceror: Ah, yet another Alb casting class. Sorcerors are sexy. They can charm yellow pets of any sort, their baseline lifetap nukes hit harder than most people's spec-line nukes (which don't lifetap) and they have CC at bolt-range. All very straight forward tools that pretty much any moron can understand, which is why the Sorceror trainers in Albion are going nuts trying to keep up with the demand. Sorcerors being Albion's primary CC'r are easily groupable, and annoyingly popular. Sorcerors are target numero uno in most Alb groups, since they're big damage dealers and annoyingly proficient CC'ers. I mean, really, just give them insta AE-mezz and take away their ability to quick cast already. Imagine getting the drop on an Alb group, the Sorceror can still QC an AE mezz. Not the 30 second insta AE-mezz a Healer or Bard would toss out, and really only lasts about 10 seconds at most because of resists, but a real red-con AE Mezz that lasts forever. Then there's the problem of Sorcerors being effective CC'ers even when rezz sick. So learn your Sorceror and destroy them. Because Sorcs tend to blend in with other casters, many MAs will overlook them in favor of nearer cloth targets. It becomes your job as the Healer to keep the Sorceror sidelined using CC and amnesia, and hell, hit him with your hammer if you have to.

Little known Sorceror fact: There is a vast conspiracy of Sorcerors that try to maintain the lie that Sorcerors are the worst main CC'er of the three realms. They spread propaganda and misinformation trying to maintain the illusion that the Sorceror is a difficult and complex class to play. Really it's just a class that requires a lot of patience, since they die a lot, since most people from the other realms hate them.

-Cleric: The main healing class of Albion. Ah, how these mighty and worthy priests of war have fallen! So long ago they used to be the standard bearers of the killer healer. But, no, Albion, that fickle and selfish bitch-realm could not stand to see so mighty, so favored, a profession, and they pulled down these noble preachers of wrath. A long long time ago, the Smite Cleric was a thing to be feared. Now, so many old and feared names stand in corners of the frontier keeps, eyes staring vacant. I hope they have dreams of their past glories to warm them. Clerics are exactly why Healers should never have a blatant and obvious damage line. The envy and hatred of our fellows would be too much.

Little known Cleric fact: Clerics are mostly just around to pump out heals and buff people. They'll heal well, they'll have good buffs and be hard to defeat, but, in the end, they're no where near as good as Healers.

-Heretic: This is a nasty 'wedge' class. They have heals, buffs, damage, and even rezzes. Heretics are usually recognizable by the little darts of flame flying from them. Those darts are bad news. Heretics will become infamous for two things, their focus DoTs which ramp up in damage, and their monster rezzes. I doubt you'll see any Heretic too melee-oriented, since they have a lot to specialize in, but bad enough that they're capable of doing magical damage. If you are targetted by a Heretic, break LOS to them and if the DoT continues get out of range. Heretics are only truly devastating when you're not paying attention. Monster rezzes though, are bad news, and are another Lord Room rush tool for Albion. They pulse an ae DoT, that, I believe hits friend and foe alike, and also have 70% absorb, though I've heard that it's closer to 90%. So monsters are annoying to say the least.

Little known Albion fact: I predict there'll be drama in Albion and people cursing at each other as more Heretics hit the frontier, and fights break out because, "You over wrote my monster rezz!" Someone tell me how many RPs they get for monster rezzing, too.

-Infiltrator: The king of the assassins. Infiltrators are just about the only truly viable assassin class anymore, thanks in part to their Thrust stun style. Infiltrators hit hard, smell unpleasant, and are generally annoying ego-maniacs. All the good Infiltrators retired or re-rolled. Infiltrators are usually played by the guys who love Counterstrike, but only if they can use head-shot hacks.

Little known Infiltrator fact: Beating down Infiltrators used to be a hell of a lot more simple before stupid artifact items like 'Traitor's Dagger'. TD procs a vampiric mist that lifetaps you and keeps you interrupted, which really means they Vampiric Mist beats you, not the Infiltrator, since you can CC and walk circles around most Infools, but the VM is completely un-CCable. Oh it's possible to proc multiples of them by the way, and it happens all the time. I've died with like 5 in the air on me, and that's with a bunch already having died. TD almost singlehandedly gimped soloing Healers. By the way, there's this annoying tire-screech sound that goes off occasionally, I heard that's caused by the death of the VM. Is that true? If so, what an obnoxious sound.

-Scout: Stealthers are the problem with Albion. If the realm is really 'underpowered' as the Prime Minster of Albion Affairs would have us believe, then it's due to their stealth classes being too efficient. I mean, really, the top stealther classes in the game are ALL Alb. If you'd rolled a Paladin in the hopes of having a warhorse and Holy Avenger, and were then disappointed, well, you'd probably sulk and roll up a solo class, as well. Which is basically what's happened to Albion. I mean, imagine if you took all those Alb stealthers camping the docks, CY port spots, Passage of Conflict zone-ins, and roaming the grey areas of DF, and made them all have to play visible classes. Why, suddenly, you'd have three times the Albs running in the Alb army as you had before! Albion's overpopulation would TRULY show then! I know a lot of people wonder why Albion tends to not fair well in RvR. Most folks blame it on newbs, or say that Albion has more PvE people, when really it's just that Albion is mostly stealthed. Oh, and Scouts are archers, strongest archer class in the game currently, with the best range and damage, and speccable shield for annoying CC. Toss in their ability to go Sojourner and a Scout can be damned annoying.

Little known Scout fact: Most Scouts don't, in fact, scout at all. They tend to just stand in one place and wait for someone to come along so they can shoot them.

Necromancers: PvE bots. Usually used to powerlevel alts. Necromancers are self-sustaining farmers. Necromancers are the little shade form invulnerable fellow next to the blue con pet. A trick some Necros are using now, though, is to change into an animal form using artifacts, which means they look like a cat or dog, and not like a shade. In a swirling melee they can usually fool most people into targetting them. While a shade, even in cat form, the Necromancer is immune to damage or CC. You need to kill the undead pet to get to the juicy little necromancer. Don't bother with botted Necromancers, just not worth the hassle. There's Necromancers exploiting certain pet irregularities, by super buffing their pet with Cleric bots, and then using group based powers which hit the pet no matter how far away, such as group resists and group heals. The pet then becomes almost completely invincible.

Little known Necromancer fact: If you see a Necro in the frontier, it's usually because he's super-botted, or because he's trying to earn a few RA points for some realm skill that will allow him to better farm ToA encounters.

-Wizard: The vanilla caster of Albion. Wizards solo are a piece of cake to kill. It's just when they start teaming up that they become annoying. Wizards are pure damage dealers.

Little known RA fact: Those annoying rings of fire you occasionally see in the frontier are Wizard RR5 abilities. They pulse 400 points of damage for 15 seconds, which isn't half bad if you consider that's 2000 points of damage. Who ever thought the math on that was hunkey dorey was probably playing a Wizard.

-Minstrel: A lot of Albs complain that there aren't enough Minstrels for their realm to reliably go speed 5. Well, that's because all the Minstrels are stealthed. It's not that they're not out there. They just choose not to help out, mostly. Minstrels don't suffer from the same problems Skalds do, which is a lack of utility and/or engaging skills that require attention and make the classes fun to play. Minstrels stealth, climb walls, have CC, twistable chants, can charm pets far above their level, and are just over all, a ridiculously good class. You'll grow to hate that kazoo-like sound they make while mezzing. Minstrels are not super damage dealers, but, like Healers they have control. Control is what is required for victory.

Little known Stun fact: Minstrels have insta-stun reusable every 10 seconds. We should petition to have our insta-stun put on a 10 second timer. I mean, healers can't even spec damage, where would the harm be?

-Reaver: Reavers are one of Albion's best tank classes. Their Leviathan DD style for flex weapon is nice. Being able to shield spec is huge. PBAE pulsing damage is fantastic for incidental interrupts, and most importantly, they're Banelords. Reavers make good Banelord bombers with their interrupts and stuns. A good Reaver leading a charge can be back-breaking. You'll learn the names of the RR5 Reavers quickly, since it's very possible for a high realm rank Reaver to Banelord bomb, drop Agony Transmission, then Soulquench. SQ is the Reaver RR5 ability that PBAEs a lifetap, giving them back the life they just sacrificed to Agony Transmission. They can drain a DI battery in a flash.

Little known RA fact: Reavers also get Thornweed Field, which is also PBAE damage. When a Reaver has all his timers up, he can tenderize a whole lot of Mids.

 

[HereComesThePain]

Chapter 12: Better living through not dying

Healers are primary targets in most engagements, and dying looks bad when you're trying to take over the world. So it's time to discuss tactics, and ideas for survival and excellance in the frontiers.

Remember, World Domination is about iron-fisted control. So let's begin with:

MIND CONTROL

Controlling the minds and hearts of those around you is a solid foundation for World Domination.

a) Debts. Generosity is a velvet shackle. People will always want favors from you. Healers are Midgard's skeleton, without which the entire realm would be a quivering puddle of goo. As a Healer yourself, you have the power to make people's simple little dreams come true, and each favor you do, each person you help, is one more brick in the pedestal you will build upon which to stand when you dictate the laws of your new world order! So be nice, be helpful. People ask for money let them borrow it. People ask for time, give it. People need your help during an encounter, be there for them. Then ruthlessly never allow them to pay you back. Yes, by never allowing people to discharge their debt to you, they remain in your thrall, always paying back the interest on that favor, and in the long run, you get back way more than you ever invested. A system of debts and favors isn't like money lending though. Jerk too hard on that leash you've wound about their neck and it's liable to break. Always remind them of their debts in the most subtle and polite of ways. You helped them get the Malice Axe? Inquire as to how it's levelling up. It hit 10, ask how that axe you helped him get is doing in RvR. By reminding them that they only have that axe because of you, they forever associate their beloved artifact with you and your generosity.

b) Be in charge. Healers have a unique power over groups, basically, most groups can't accomplish anything without you. And since you're not mindlessly chopping away at monsters or freeloading like most Shaman, you should be in charge. Simply asert your opinions, and slowly take control of the group. If you do this while levelling up, by the time you hit 50, people will be used to you being in charge. The idea is to slowly choke off people's ability to think for themselves. We all know groups operate better when they're all on the same page, and what better page than YOUR page? So run raids, run MLs or artifact encounters. Do the research beforehand and be well prepared for the event, that way, people can simply turn their brains off and do like you tell them to. The more that happens, the more they get used to it. Eventually you'll be able to tell them to charge that room full of Enchanters and they'll do it with no questions asked. Which is exactly what we want.

c) Rezz and buffs. Rezzing is something everyone is grateful for. The more impossible the rezz the more grateful and impressed they are. A great way to create the impression of magnanimity and make people feel indebted to you is to simply rezz them. It earns you realm points but they don't see that! All they see is some amazingly wonderful guy go out of his way for them! I love PR3 especially for this. It comes up every 3 minutes, and it's insta, I barely even notice the event, but that guy remembers! Unfortunately everyone gets PR now, so it's not nearly as valuable as it was before, you won't be offered blow jobs for it or anything, but it's still a valuable tool in enslaving the populace. Buffs are another fancy way of gaining a hold of people's gratitude and heart. Sadly because of the preponderance of buffbots, buffs have become cheapened and debased. Still we can dispense purity and haste to people in need or soloing and it's at least a kind gesture they'll remember and associate with you.

d) Fear and love. Most folks recall Machiavelli's quote: "It's better to be feared than loved." Sadly most people don't remember that there was no period at the end of that sentence and is more correctly quoted as: "It's better to be feared than loved if you can't have everything...EVERYTHING." Fear AND love. The mortar in the pedestal from which you rule the world. Duel your friends, don't be afraid to beat the ever-loving piss out of them occasionally, they'll remember and respect you for it. A Healer using all his tricks can beat pretty much any Midgardian class with the exception of a couple of the newer classes. Now I'm not saying fight them in a fair up and up fight, hell no. I'm saying use every trick they won't know about. Healing potions, endurance potions, charged items. Get a good crafted celerity charged item and drop a yellow haste on yourself before the fight, or use an AF charged item to increase your ability to take damage. Then whup the tar out of them. Fear and love, ya see.

e) Shields. If you get someone with a shield in your group, you tell them, command them, whatever, to make sure to place the protection of their shield upon you. And you'll know if they're lying because the icons come up nowadays on your screen and tell you who is watching out for you. Reward that fellow with a few extra buffs, and you might even try setting up a macro for him where he'll be able to tell you to hold still if he has you bodyguarded. Nothing discourages a shieldtank from going out of his way to protect you, than when you run away and ruin it all. Sometimes, as a Healer, you simply have to grit your teeth and stand still as people try to smash your teeth out. It's hard trusting people to do their jobs, but when you get a good shield tank, it's all worth it. If you have a bad shield tank, one that doesn't watch out for you, doesn't come running when you need help, well, then by Odin's third nipple you strip that yahoo of his buffs because YOU need them more! We're not talking tanks that stay stuck to you through a fight, we're talking a shield tank with the presence of mind to see when you're being hurt and come help out. They're very rare, and if you come across one who is even TRYING, encourage him, groom him. Don't let him hate New Frontiers and roll an alt.


ILLUSION

If you control what people see, you control their actions.

f) I love running with Trolls, big, wonderful, gigantic targets that they are. At the beginning of any engagement, it only takes a moment to back up through the Troll in your group. Because Trolls are such a huge target the enemy will almost always latch on to them, leaving you free to do your job. Midgard has the biggest race in the game, take advantage of that!

g) We've already discussed your disguise. Looking like anything but a Healer is immensely helpful in increasing your survivability and effectiveness in battle. Sissy Bards have a realm rank 5 ability that allows them to look like anything but a Bard, but Healers don't get pampered and coddled like that. Which is why HEALER's can rule the world, and not Bards. Rely on yourself and your own ingenuity, it builds character!

h) Hiding. I know, it's not glamorous, but sometimes you help the group most by making sure you aren't visible. Generally that means taking cover behind a fluffy tree or inside a tower and healing from there. It's not something you tell in tales of glory afterwards, but World Domination isn't about pride. So swallow that junk and do whatever you can to do your job best!


INFALLIBILITY

i) Prepare.

j) Prepare.

k) Prepare. They key to looking infallible and all knowing is preparation. You should never need to ask for directions, you should never need to have someone tell you what to do. If it's an encounter, read and understand the encounter beforehand. If nothing else, take a drink break and go look for maps or summaries of the encounter online. If you're running a relic raid, don't ask the BG what keeps open the relic gates, go find out before hand. A few minutes of preperation make you look like a genius and veteran.

l) Explore. Start running through the frontiers at a very young age, hell, level up out there if you can. In the age of /realmwar maps and the /map function, most people are content to clog their screens up with these gigantic pages and just run in a straight line from point A to point B. Then they're shocked and amazed when they run through aggro, or get ganked by the three groups of Alb stealthers guarding the bridge. You should KNOW the terrain because you've run it before. Know where the Great Drakes are, know where the Liches wander. It saves a lot of grief if you can avoid those areas. By knowing the things not presented on the map, like terrain and spawns, it also allows you to get an edge on your enemy. You can kill people out there farming to level artifacts, or can trap your enemy in terrain that's too steep to climb.

m) Gentle turns. You're probably aware of this, but if you ever do get headed the wrong way, maybe because you just weren't paying attention or something, try and make a long gentle turn to avoid clueing in your group that you were almost lost.

n) Keep a broad view. Keep your camera panned back all the way, all the time. Remember to use /setcamera to set it back there permanently. But that's only part of the broad view. You need to watch the entire fight. Unlike most other classes, Healer's can't afford to focus in on one person or region of a fight. We need to watch and control the entire thing, if possible anticipating damage done to group members or interrupting untouched casters or main healers. Also, a heal tossed on someone not in your group is always welcomed by folks and adds to your legend as a super Healer. Keep your eye open, keep targetting.

o) Three timers. See, you're the Healer, and not just the healing Healer, you're the World Dominating Healer, which means you're like a medieval traffic cop. Clerics and Druids have one form of CC, so no one expects them to CC, really, they're told to shut up and stick to healing. Bards and Sorcerors have limited CC as well, and when their CC goes down, they fall back on DDs (Sorceror) or running around in circles screaming (Bard and Sorceror). We heal, but we also have three forms of CC. Which means three different immunity timers, which means we can viably CC throughout a fight. Yes we'd prefer to have the Shaman rooting through a fight, but your finger isn't broken, you can root too, ya know.

p) Know your enemy! The majority of complaints about this or that class being overpowered come from ignorance. Ignorance of the class, it's restrictions, and it's abilities. For example, Healers can instantly heal their entire group for 50% of their life total and don't even have to spec past 21 Mend for that! Omigosh! Overpowered! Nerf! How could Mythic have allowed that?! Well, of course, just said like that, it does sound pretty outrageous. But we've neglected to mention the twenty minute recast timer and the fact that every main healing class gets it. See, by understanding the class and the restrictions, it seems a lot less out of control and more balanced. Now, I'm not saying there aren't classes that are in need of a painkillerless neutering, I'm just saying: breathe deep, and don't stress. Understand the class before complaining, and when you do complain, do it in an informed manner. Don't be that hysterical twit. Knowing your enemy will also allow you to identify problem classes in engagements. But that's almost secondary to not looking like a twit.

DANCE!

Certain moves and tricks of movement can help you out in the war.

q) Strafing. When a tank gets on you, a good trick is to /stick to him, and then use the strafe keys to move side to side. Most tanks, such as Champions and Valewalkers, will be trying to move through you, /face, and then whomp you with a positional. A good way to avoid this is by moving sideways against them, preventing them from getting a clear shot at your back or side. It can mean the difference between a measly anytime style, and a huge positional style with a 9 second stun on it. It's also a good idea in duels for the same reason, throws off positional attacks, and can occasionally increase your opponent's miss rate. Not by huge percentage, but hey, a little is a good start.

r) /Face. When you need to come to an absolute stop, use /face. It'll bring you to an immediate halt, and allow instant spell casting. The only draw back is there's about a half second delay for LOS. So when you /face, if you're facing something behind you, give it half a beat to catch up before going for the ae mezz.

s) Trees and stumps. Terrain is your friend. Most tanks will /stick to you to free up their hands to start styling and such. That means you now control how and where they move. You can use their dependence on you to draw them under boiling oil, or up into a Spiritmaster-laden Lord Room. You can also peel them off on a tree by backing up into the tree, then strafing around the tree, catching them on the other side of it. This can give you a half second lead on getting away, or at least give you a few more moments of time before the cavalry arrives. Use your terrain.

t) Ambush. It's much harder in New Frontiers to pull off a good ambush, but it's still possible, and should still be attempted. Because you've explored the frontier, you'll understand the natural routes of movement more than most other folks. There's not as many in Hibernia, but definitely in Midgard and Albion, there are funnels in the terrain which force you in certain paths. Know them, and use them. When attacking a tower or keep, you will be able to know where the enemy are coming from and can even lay in wait for them. Everyone, from Brehons to Emerald Ridere's, panics when they're surprised, Brehons just panic a few seconds longer.

u) Amnesia. Amnesia is one of the most potent weapons in your arsenal, and one of the least understood. Amnesia in RvR interrupts. You get, baseline, AE Amnesia, with a range of 2300 units, that's immense! The radius is 325, so if some dumb Paladin is standing towards the front of the lines, you can catch people behind him at 2625 units! Amnesia will interrupt casting and archer fire, perhaps giving your own range time to move in and unleash a little hell. Amnesia casts fast, though, and you can go through a power bar amazingly quickly, so try to stand near a power ward. You'll become target number one, too, so try to have a shield tank handy. Also remember, when Amnesia lands successfully, it does NOT trigger a combat timer, so you need to spam cast it to keep it effective. One cast will not do, they just fire off a spell directly afterwards. Watch out for quickcast nearsight, though.

v) Don't buff where you've died. This is war, inevitably people die, and you see, not only do the bad guys speak with each other, but little colored cross swords pop up on the map where the fight was. So NEVER rebuff where you've fought. Always pick yourself up and rezz sick or not, move along to somewhere nearby and safe, Underwater is a great place to rebuff. Either move and rebuff, or you'll be releasing and rebuffing.

 

[HereComesThePain]

Chapter 13: Dirty Tricks

World Dominators aren't squeaky clean guys, one of the things that seperates us from your average seen-but-not-heard Healer, is that WDs squeeze out every advantage they can. This is a game of inches, fractions of seconds, and 100 units. So it's time to get dirty and desperate.

a) Charged items. Midgard has no spec-line AF, which means you can use charged items with AF to increase you survivability. Need something to make sure that Minstrel doesn't get away? Use an item with a DoT charge to nail him. Got a rough duel coming up? Haste charges will help your swing time. All it takes is a little gold to keep the items recharged, and it's well worth the investment to get that narrow edge.

b) Power. Three minutes for the MCL timer is WAY TOO LONG. Which is why you should invest in an alchemist who can keep you supplied with power potions. I regularly go through 10 in one night of siege, and if I carried more, I'd probably go through those too. Your power is the lifeblood of your group, so some power in the bar is essential. Another trick for getting more power is to use a bracer called Mordom's Mind. It has 10 MCL charges, it's also on a seperate timer from your potions, so you can use them back to back. Just swap the bracer in, pop off a charge, and then swap it right back out. It's like stackable potions.

c) Female. Let's face it, most folks playing this game are young men. They're liable to go a little easier on a female toon. It's dirty and underhanded, but they'll be more likely to go easy on you if you /surrender or /hug them. And a few moments of hesitation is all you need sometimes. I don't recommend taking it too far, though. I mean, come on. You still need to have people's respect.

d) Lagdar. Radar programs and hacks are for losers, you can't dominate the world if you're reviled and ridiculed as a radar user. Lagdar, though, is fair game. You should always be on your toes in the frontier, anyway, but the moments of lag just before enemy come on to your screen can give you just a few more moments of warning. Turning around quickly can help you determine which direction the incoming enemies might be coming from, and the length and intensity of the lag spike can help you figure a rough count. I've also noticed that certain groups generate more lag than usual, almost disproportional to their size. Not going to speculate why that might be, but generally it involves a gank group of some sort. Anyway, lagdar can help you avoid or track them down by the generous amount of lag they create. If your machine is too top-end and high performance and you don't really get lag, well, bully for you. If you want to use lagdar, install Kazaa, and download a ton of porn. The amount of viruses and spyware you pick up along with it should lag your machine out nicely.

e) Kill greys. Nothing so rewarding in the world as the satisfying squishing of little greys. I love touring hunting spots for that very reason. A good way to give your tanks a good confidence boost is to let them solo kill a grey or two. Nothing like the capped damage of disemboweling a little fellow out for a hunt to give a tank dreams of glory! Also, if you run with people who refuse to kill greys for whatever wimpy reason, a good way around that is running up on them really really fast, and let their reflexes take over. Don't give your sissy time to think about it! Eventually, they'll grow into the blood lust.

f) Experience deaths. These are a lot harder to deliver nowadays. The terrain is so darn flat it's hard to sneak up on people, but when possible, rendering your enemies helpless and letting monsters gnaw off their face is funny! Remember, mezz the support first, assist the monsters and stun for them! No AE!

g) The Healer Gank. Another trick that's a little more difficult nowadays, but still doable. When you're fighting someone solo, you mezz them. Then move to long range. When the mezz breaks they come running for you, you root them. Then move to long range. Repeat for as long as they let you. If they purge out of the first mezz, stun and root them. Then let the cycle commence! It's a very fun way to frustrate people. I especially love doing it to Infiltrators who really really want to kill you. You can usually get off the first cycle of the Healer Gank before they stealth and start /ruding you.

h) Sputin's Tower Take. Also known as the Sputin's Snatch. At rr5 you get the underimpressive RA called Sputin's Legacy which allows you to resurect yourself once every 15 minutes at crap health. Simply hit Sputin's when it becomes obvious that you're about to be overwhelmed inside a tower. Tell your group not to release and then go get a coke. Wait for timers to come up and defenders to leave and then /resurrect yourself. You can raise the rest of your group and take the tower or keep from the inside. With a few other RAs or Artifacts (most notably Egg of Youth) thrown in, you can bring yourself and your group back to effectiveness very quickly. All that's needed is patience and really dumb enemies. A nice benefit of being rezzed or rezzing yourself is the transitioning timer immunity that allows you to trip any DD traps left behind safely and to absorb the first 10 seconds or so of damage without problem, while you rezz your group via instas. A solo WD is also a valid threat to a low level tower captain. So if you're done for the night, you can even lay their solo and tab out to peruse the boards, while your enemy have to watch your body to prevent you from retaking the tower from the inside. If they actually leave, hey, so much the better, take that tower!

i) The whiparound. When hitting an enemy group at close range, a good way of increasing your survivability is to hit them with an ae insta on the way through if you can, and actually run through the enemy group, coming out the other side. This helps break visual contact between yourself and the enemy, and allows you to cast from their 'blindspot', right behind them. This, of course, requires that you use /face to come to an immediate halt, and then, preferrably follow up with a good ae mezz.

j) Zephyr. Zephyr is nice for peeling annoying tanks off you, but there's also some darker tricks. For one thing, set up a macro to groundset for 1000 units. When you go to tower of keep takes, sometimes there's that guy inside who wants to shoot you through the windows of a low level keep, or who will fire through the slots bracketing the inner door. Set your ground target somewhere you can see, and away from the door, belly up to the wall where he's casting, and zephyr. You see Zephyr projects a few units ahead of you, which means it will actually go through the wall and grab someone who is foolishly pressed to the stones. You can also drag people through doors. For grabbing people inside low level keeps, they're usually on a raised area, so make sure you jump when you zephyr. You can also use zephyr to drag people INSIDE the keep. You've seen all that support clustered around the power font pressed to the walls of the keep. Just nose up to the wall where they're hiding, and bring them in for a good old fashioned ass whupping.

k) Band of Stars. BoS has a Dex cap increase, and not much else, but it can also turn your enemies into a Spraggon. Which is kind of fun. Another good bracer is the Bracer of Zo'Arkat, which at the high end fires off a cloud of winged minions which last for 30 seconds. Very nice for screwing over your enemy's support. The encounter is a pain in the ass for Midgard since we have no pet-spamming class, but it can be zerged, or you can do it using the super secret method, which I'm not going to tell you about here.

l) Breathe deeply, cultivate one loudmouth. There's lots of really frustrating things in this game, like how a main healing class can be taken out of a fight by a grey pet, so what you need to be sure and do is breathe deeply. Don't curse and vent at your realm mates. Don't post nasty notes on the boards. Breathe deep, grind your teeth, and be cool. Your friends and allies should think you're the coolest cat around, and your enemies should never make up nicknames for you like QQ-kachu or the like. People love nothing more than singling out the annoying whiners for execution. Which is why it's okay and almost encouraged to run with one guy, preferrably a main tank of some sort, who is a rabid complainer and frothing at the mouth asshole. People being people, your enemies will identify and take great pleasure in destroying him. It's a wonderful thing to have a tank class get kill priority over you.

 

[HereComesThePain]

Chapter 14: Dominating the World

Well, it wouldn't be a guide to dominating the world if we didn't discuss how to lead large masses of people.

Leading a Horde of Vikings is hard work. You're warrior, diplomat, strategist, oh and let's not forget you're supposed to heal too. Just remember, the World Dominator's motto is: Miracles are my job.

Part of leading is assigning people roles to fulfill. Most people are content to wander around until something bumps them in the noggin. The more people you have with you, the faster people will lose interest and go afk, or get bored, or get lost. So you need people to fulfull certain roles.

a) The Parrot. The more people in BG, the harder it becomes to convey a message, and if you're always trying to tell people where to rally, how are you going to do the other million things you need to do? So you nominate a parrot. Preferrably someone else in your group and someone not prone to going afk like Skalds. I like Berserkers for it mostly, they don't usually have much else to do. The Parrot's job is to repeat the things you say, so you /bg leader your parrot, so he has the color text as well. They don't need to make any decisions, just repeat. You say where the rally is, they repeat, they answer the question, they repeat. When asked where the Horde is, the parrot tells people.

b) One of the jobs that the Parrot also has is to transmit to the BG where the Horde is at all times. You're busy steering and talking to people, so it really helps. Folks in BG and just coming out to RvR are worse than obsessive girlfriends about wanting to know where you are at all times. The Parrot should be letting everyone know, "We're passing Glen3...We're running West through the Liches...We're running south along the coast past Blend4....We're passing the GG...No, we're pantsing the GG."

c) Another role is that of Siege God. You have a lot to do, a lot of decisions to make. It really helps to have someone coordinating siege for you. This can be the Parrot, but doesn't always have to be. I generally prefer a Warlord or someone capable of making dimi siege. Their job is to find out how much siege is in the BG, get more if necessary, and coordinate who drops it. The Siege God generally takes over the yelling when you come up on a tower or keep. They should have decided who is dropping rams and who is running them BEFORE arriving at the keep. It shaves a lot of time off deployment to know these things. The Siege God also tells the entire BG who is dropping rams and running it, since if you don't chances are someone will try to help out, and waste a ram.

d) The Spymaster. Another coordinater, the spymaster generally tries to get stealthers to work together and relay information to YOU. The Horde doesn't really need to know, in fact, it'll probably confuse them. Easiest for all involved if decisions are made by you, based off information only you have. Generally a Spymaster harnesses multiple stealthers. You can't always have a spy network, just try to make do with what you have.

e) The Strikeforce. This is a difficult job. The Strikeforce is a disposable group with a motivated leader and siege capability. Ideally the Strikeforce will retake towers and put holes in low level keeps while the Horde engages and defeats the enemy. The idea being that the Horde keeps the enemy in one spot, while the Strikeforce takes advantage and breaks ports and retakes lost territory. The reality is that more often than not the Strikeforce is a suicide team sent out to help thin the enemy forces out between multiple locations, allowing the Horde to make gains and defeat the enemy piecemeal. Folks in the Strikeforce should be patient and thick-skinned. It's glorious, but not particularly rewarding. Almost the opposite of a gank group, since you're trying to strike where the enemy is weakest and avoid fights. A good Strikeforce can be the difference between being locked on the defensive and actually going on offense, though.

f) Repeat everything you say. With a large number of people in BG, and lots of people logging in and out, you need to repeat everything you say. Now, I'm not saying you spam the BG, I mean rephrase, reiterate, and repeat. Spamming irritates people. I'm not sure why, but it does.

g) Don't always use caps. People consider all caps to be 'yelling', so don't do it all the time, it takes away from the impact. Use caps when imparting important information, like, "MOVING". That's information gold right there. People need to know when you're moving. Use caps, just don't constantly use caps.

h) Don't get mad. You're not allowed to get mad or frustrated. It's like the old commercial, never let them see you sweat. The Horde is held together by confidence in YOU. If you're bitching about how Animists need to be nerfed, people aren't going to feel very confident. So try to stay positive, don't dwell on defeats, 'we'll get them this time!' should just roll off the tongue. Now, you're allowed to be angry with the enemy, mock them lightly, but don't dwell on it. Negativity is another way to demoralize a Horde. NEVER, get mad at your Horde, either. Yell at them when they need to form up, yell at them to charge, but never yell AT them. A lot of people are putting themselves in your hands, and they deserve only the best.

i) Tell a joke. I like to have a few simple viking jokes handy for lightening the mood in BG. A lot of times, especially on really big raids, there's a lot of waiting going on, waiting to start, waiting to rally, and so on. So tell a joke, it makes everyone smile and feel better. I like to keep them In Character, as well, this is a game about Vikings after all. Some of my favorites:
"Two little old Dwarf women were sitting on a bench outside Haggerfel, a Troll pervert walked up and flashed them. One little old Dwarf woman had a stroke, the other couldn't reach."
"A Frostalf, a Kobold, and a Dwarf walk into a bar and each orders a mug of mead. A fly falls into each of their mugs. The Frostalf turns his nose up and demands another mug of mead. The Kobold shrugs and flicks the fly from his mead, then drinks it down. The Dwarf grabs the fly and starts shaking him, yelling, 'Spit it out! Spit it out!'"

j) Charging, like it or not, YOU have to lead the charge. Yeah, I know it's usually a death sentence, but when you get a lot of people together, they tend to hate moving unless they see other people moving as well. So you have to lead the charge. Basically, I like to lead what I call a 'stutter charge'. You take a run forward, yelling 'charge', stop, while other people realize you're charging and start to charge. Then finish the charge. It's a little slower, and gives people a chance to realize what you're saying.

k) Explain what you're doing. You don't have to go into depth, but give at least one line telling people where you're going and what your plan is roughly. It's easier for them to follow if they understand what they're doing and where they're going. So when moving, remember to tell people where the destination will be.

l) Be positive. Things are only as dire as you let them get. Stay upbeat and optimistic. It's easier to get people to do what you say if they're winning, or if they 'think' they're winning. Even when being wiped at every turn, you have to look at the bright side. So make sure you have a pile of candy near by so you can be on a constan sugar high.

m) Lie. One of your jobs as the leader is to lie to people. Mostly it's lying about when you're moving out. I like to tell people we're moving out in 10 seconds. Then give them a minute before we move out. The idea is to light a fire under people's asses, get the moving like they've got somewhere to be. Hanging around Glenlock waiting for that one group with a bajillion buffbots and every shade of buff to apply is no fun, it's especially not fun for the thirty people who want to retake their homeland. So lie, 'moving in 10 seconds, with or without you.' Use it as a motivator, not to keep your army in the dark.

n) Leaving men behind. Sometimes people have to be left behind, to die, unrezzed, whatever. The circumstances vary, but the impetus of the raid is most important. Remember most people use a wipeout as an opportunity to log, especially if they've been getting their heads kicked in non-stop. So it becomes important to keep the army going without a wipeout as long as possible, sometimes you need to retreat and leave behind the people who were too slow, too distracted, too dumb, whatever. Alb towers are a perfect example of this. There are little clouds over every occupied Alb tower that rain Lifetaps and arrows, so unless you're really determined to crack that sumbitch open, you don't want to touch it. Unfortunately, one Alb running towards the tower is enough to draw in half your BG like light being sucked into a blackhole. Those folks then die at the foot of the tower, and you're left with half your force. Time to retreat, and tell those people to pack it up and boat back out.

o) Gank Groups. Honestly, gank groups ass up the majority of RvR. However, much like nukes, they're out there and they're not going away. So it behooves you not to shun or alienate them. They're your realm mates as well, and if you can turn their brand of fun into a positive for the Horde's efforts, so much the better. That means knowing who to talk to, making basic requests, keeping them in the loop. For now, just understand they're not the enemy, and are, in fact, your ally. Like the people you're leading, they're looking for a good time, the trick is to make your good time and their good time intersect. So don't act like they're stealing information from the BG, after all, what are they going to do, kill your enemies? Oh no! It's not like there won't be more. This isn't OF where it takes 20 minutes for most groups to get back into the fight. A gank group is a group that doesn't require you to hold their hand, thank goodness for that. And don't be so prideful you don't ask for help. When relic raiding, a good gank group covering the approaches can be huge.

p) Planning. Knowing ahead of time what you're planning to do and sticking to it is usually key to an venture. Spur of the moment decisions in RvR are generally prone to errors and misunderstandings. Leading the Horde is like driving a Mack Truck with a 70 ton trailer behind it. You're steering, you're accelerating, but you're in deep crap if you have to stop or suddenly change directions. Someday they'll give us a way to draw diagrams that are transmitted to every player, but for now, we repeat, reiterate, we try to move in straight lines.

q) Siege. You really need to be able to make your own siege, I can't stand the idea of relying on other people as the only source of siege. Become a siegemaster, an army without siege is a bunch of dorks running in circle.

r) Make your own damn group! The most irritating thing I encounter time and again are the groupless wonders. I'm not talking soloers, we've all been there, wanting to help but because of equipment or inclination, unwilling to group. Not referring to that. I'm referring to the people who check into the BG, say LFG with whatever brief descriptor of themselves they see fit to add, maybe even exert themselves and say it two or three times, then, "Fine, looks like no one wants me in group, I'm leaving!" I wouldn't say that I hate those people, but they do make me want to reach out and shake them until their tonsils fall out. If all groups are full take your own life into your hands and make a damn group! It doesn't have to be perfect, it doesn't even have to be full, just get out there and contribute and don't be the groupless wonder. Be assertive, be helpful, be a part of the game. Good crap.

s) Act like you've been there before. Sometimes you achieve big, and you wanna jump up, do a pagan victory dance and smear strawberry jelly all over your chest. You can do that in the privacy of your own home, but as far as everyone else goes, you should act like you've been there before. Confident and gracious. No one likes a braggart. So simply nod, smile and give fair credit where it's due.

t) Let em know they did good. You're just a chump with big plans if no one listens to you. So tell all those people when they do a good job. I know, it doesn't seem like it, but listening, paying attention, doing as you're told, they're really really hard. If they weren't hard we wouldn't have ever needed pillories or prisons. So when you get a bunch of people to follow directions, and do it INTELLIGENTLY, well, damn, you make sure you thank them and show some gratitude. Cause most people only think about what's fun for 'me' and might know what's fun for 'us' but have a hard time actualizing it. So don't let good behavior go unremarked. How ever far you get, what ever you accomplish, you're going to be carried by a lot of people to get there. Remind them they're appreciated. That way they'll carry you a little further down the road to World Domination!

 

[vavires]

Couldnt ya just post a link?
and no offence but cba to read that

 

[HereComesThePain]

yea its too big lemme find link~

 

[HereComesThePain]

heres the link


http://vnboards.ign.com/midgard_seer_professions/b20913/82289990/p1/?187

 

[Golena]

yea its too big lemme find link~

It's very old but good none the less..

Link it instead tho so you at least give credit to the author for the work!
edit: nerf you posting before me

 

[HereComesThePain]

i said i didnt wrote all this link is up

 

[old.Whoodoo]

Doesnt all that kinda take the fun out of the game, if that was the manual to being a healer, mid would be fucked for seer classes.





Good read tho.

 

[Golena]

Doesnt all that kinda take the fun out of the game, if that was the manual to being a healer, mid would be fucked for seer classes.

I believe it was written as a joke rather than a serious guide to playing a healer.

 

[old.Whoodoo]

I believe it was written as a joke rather than a serious guide to playing a healer.

So was my post

 

[Bluesky]

proper oldskool this guide - still love it tho after all this time

 

[Takhasis]

i actually read most of it - good stuff, and a good laugh too

 

[devaline]

:worthy:

 

[illu]

I'm up to chapter 4 and there seems to be quite a lot of useful stuff in there :>

Oli - Illu

 

[kaionda]

I'm up to chapter 4 and there seems to be quite a lot of useful stuff in there :>

Oli - Illu

Didn't read it all, but tbh much of it is outdated

More a fun read than a useful one imo