Help! Casual Player in RvR :)

[Sandariel]

Hello there everyone.

Before I start asking a lot of quite newbieish Questions I'll quickly sum up "where I come from".

I've been playing DaoC since open beta and moved to Prydwen right after release. I rolled a Wizard there and had a lot of fun. I had several breaks from the game and got several chars to 50 (had only SI back then). Yet I always came back to play some more, since I really enjoyed the RvR in this game.

Well, the last time I came back, which was last week when catacombs was released, I tried to RvR again. "Tried" is the important word there. I ended up face down more than in just one occasion. Getting killed within seconds on my Reaver (He was lvl 48 before I came back and quickly leveled him to 50 in Catacombs Instance Dungeons. He has a non-toa SC capped set). I guess it's got to do with all those ToA and New Frontiers changes (last time I RvRed was back in SI times), right?

Well, I don't want to start whining here, instead I want some nice tips what I'll need to enjoy RvR again. I just want to have some fun out there, I don't need to win all the time. I'm happy if I can occasionaly manage to kill something.

My questions are now:

1) What will I need to do to have at least a small chance to compete? I do have a second account with a lvl 45 buffbot, but I'd actually prefer not to use it... After the last few days of RvR I realized that without one I might as well just quit again, though.
But what about ToA items? Are there any easy to obtain items or ROGs you can farm to get a better SC set? All those artifacts seem to be very hard to get, especially since I'm currently guildless and don't know anyone on the server anymore. Which kind of stats should I be looking for for my reaver? (Melee speed I guess?)

2) Server Population on Prydwen seems to be very very low. Is it worth putting any effort in my chars there or should I instead just start over on excal? RvR actually didn't seem to be that bad when I went out there, though.

3) MLs, will I need them? All those X-Men like superpowers kinda scared me when I first saw a few of them. Most of them seem to be group abilities though, so could I just not do them at all? Seems as if MLs are just like those artifacts hard to get.

With that in mind, I'm a very casual player nowadays and am usually able to play for max. 3 hours in the evening. Guess those ML raids take longer than that?

Mmmkay, to finally end this long posting just one last comment:
I'm not looking for answers by RvR-gank-group-people. I'd like to know what the average Joe Casualplayer did to make the RvR-side of this game more enjoyable and what kind of stuff you can do/get to get at least a little bit more competitive without consuming all my free time

Thanks in advance for any answers and sorry for that long post.

I did read quite a lot about ToA, Catacombs and New Frontiers, but to be honest, all this info is quite overwhelming when the last time you were seriously playing was during SI times

 

[Funkybunny]

well.. if you choose to play yer reaver in rvr .. i would say you need to get those ml's done.. theres a lil thing called reaverbomb who got nerfed but is still kinda hefty but you need ml8 and rr5 to get that...

you need a few artifacts unfortunatly, but ofc you can choose to cut down on artifacts aswell ... but remember..

effort = power

but there is a few "semieasy" artifacts to get for your reaver

you should get ceremonial bracer, guard of valour, shades of mist, battler (for the charge if you solo), and winged helmet.. you can also see if you want dreamsphere (kitty!!!), mad tales, ++++ .. when it comes to weapon, i would go with a cold legendary weapon for the debuff working both on procs and stuff on a reaver.. theres alot of good templates that you can start gathering both on FH and on VN boards... so just start searching and see what template you wanna go with, but you can already start pve with killing Guard of valour, and shades of mist.. 99,999% chance youll be using those


as a reaver, i would suggest you just run solo around bridges (beno bridge and towards docs) trying to camouflage yourself as a gimpy armsman, mincer or some other tank.. alot of stealthers dont jump reavers

wich means.. dont run pulses and have a sword in yer sidebar .. while carrying the whip in the 2h slot on yer back

when it comes to a shield, i would reccomend the ml7 shield..

Large Shield, MP
Shield: 5 pts
Dexterity: 15 pts
ALL melee weapon skills: 3 pts
Heat: 6%
Bonus to armor factor (AF): 10
Reactive 80 value heal proc * this changed with 1.68 patch
Has an *awesome* unique graphic Dec 26

i dont play a reaver, only reaver ive played was a m8s who i borrowed to farm some cash on excal ^^

so alot of this information has a good chance of being crap and totally utter bullsheit ^^

some of the info is stolen from http://daoc.catacombs.com/forum.cfm?ThreadKey=27709&DefMessage=893380&forum=53

 

[Thegreatest]

This is EXACTLY! the question I would like to ask. Thanks for summing it up greatly Sandariel, seems like you and me are in the same situation. I have been playing since the open beta too, but in the last 1-1,5 years I've been playing for a month, taking a break for a month, then playing agan etc. Mostly I've been playing thidranki in the last 1-1,5 years because I just couldnt put the time and effort together to do Trials of Atlantis on my sorcerer or armsman. So lastly I've started on hib/excal, got a lvl 41 enchanter and a lvl 40 druid bot there now. I've already bought ToA for my bot and is delivered today. So when I get 50 with my enchanter, I want to do some ToA to at least have a chance to compete with all the people RvR'ing out there.

Back before, when ToA wasnt released, SC'ed suits were the uber. Most people couldnt get a sc'ed set, but could still compete with rogs...But now it seems like SC'ed suits without toa bonuses or artifact abbilities/ML abbilities are worthless. Please hand out tips to people like me and Sandriel who dont have much time for playing the game but still want to enjoy RvR like we did before

Also want to say, I really don't know much about the New Frontiers thing...Cause I've been away for 5 months before NF got released, and just returned 3 days ago. Any tips on reading websites explaining it all? Like what towers do, what different towers there are and all the new things added...

 

[Sandariel]

Fluffybunny: Thanks a lot for taking your time to post this Very nice info, even though I hoped I could avoid getting all those artis. Well, guess I'll start farming Guards of Valor and Shades of Mist scrolls soonish then.

Another question about the legendary weapon: I just did a search on the CM for "Legendary" and didn't find one... Aren't they called "Legendary something"? Or are they just rare and no one had one for sale?

And about that ML 7 shield. Is that a non-tradeable quest reward or can it be bought? Guess farming money would be easier for me than getting all the way to ML7.

Oooh, and about camouflaging as another class... worked great for me in Thidranki. I had a very unusual spec (16 crush, 18 flex, 22 soulrending, 8 shield). It was awesome, people thought I was a cleric running around with a mace, and when they attacked me... Bludgeon, contusions (5 second stun), switch to whip, indigo snake, indigo snake, indigo snake, target deaded.

Anyway, back to the topic.
Thanks for summing all this up and cheers for the nice FAQ-Link.

Thegreatest: Nice to see some other people around with similar problems. Too bad you're playing on excal currently. Would be nice to have some people in a similar situation to hunt artis etc with SC sets just aren't good enough anymore... When I went out last night I got 2-shot by a runie within 2 seconds. 10 Minutes later I was standing next to my Trainer training in avoidance of magic. Won't help a lot, but maybe I'll survive three nukes next time (well, next time I'm going to be botted too, so make that 4 nukes, yay) =)

Then I later went to a keeptake at Hlijdskalf(spelling?) when some hibs jumped me outside of one of the towers and then fought the albs there. Thousands of weird spell effects I've never seen before... And I still have no clue what most of them did... Very confusing... but I won't give up... Under no circumstances I'm going to touch WoW or any other MMORPG again...

Anyway, more input is always highly appreciated. =)

 

[Ballard]

You can actually get to the stage when you can compete in the zerg situation relatively easily. It is however very hard to get to the level of competing in the full group scene. Without putting in alot of time you will never be uber but can still do okay in zerg situations and solo (when you get the jump on an opponent). Probably the easiest character at the moment would be a caster from one of the three realms. Then look to get the following in no particular order

- Cast speed. Aim to get close to 10% cast speed from toa bonuses and overcap dex. Cast speed is offered by artifacts, special drops and some quest items. A good quest item would be the sun scorched helm ( +2% cast speed and dex cap ), this can be retrieved form the seed pouch quest. Krojers dex ring is another good one.
- Damage. Over Cap your casting stat ( i.e. Int in hibernia) and maybe try and get some %damage items if you can. The % damage items are reasonably hard to get as most are arties.
- Range - Very hard to get. Mainly arties. If you wanna get okay range and damage I would suggest trying for gem of lost memories and Naliahs robes together as these are probably the two easiest to get. GOLM is solo and Nailahs can be done okay with 3-4 people. With both of thse you will have +6% range and +6% damage. Not enough to own but enough to compete.
-Resists - try and get close to cap. Once again there are good quest items to help you here. Ebon bracer from homecoming for a hero quest in stygia is a must have for many people.

To start of I would suggest hugging close to the zerg and practicing stun then DD killing (if you have stun). Always try and hit and run never stay in one spot too long. Make sure your blade turn is up as this helps your survivability against the massive numbers of archers around now. As you grow in confidence you could start trying to roam in the enmy realms xp areas etc to get the feel for it but this is difficult at the best of times.

All of this is only for casters really I dont have any melee steather experience sorry.

EDIT: also get used to dieing. Dont get disheartened by it as it happens alot and generally very fast (lots of assisting archers and nukers will kill you near instantly lol )

 

[Thegreatest]

Thanks Ballad, good info there. I think the biggest problem for me would be finding people to hunt for artifacts where you need 1fg+. I'm actually in a great guild, Draconis Alumni, but most of the people moved to WoW so the guild is kinda empty now (6-7 people online in peek times). Dunno about joining another guild atm, I'll have to see. I've got another quesetion about artifacts, is it basically just kill the mobs and he drops the artifact or more like a quest where you need to visit an NPC to trigger it before you kill the mob? Cause I've been reading the visions of ages ToA site but still not sure wether you need to visit an NPC before killing the mob or not. And another question, are the artifacts really camped that much and is the respawn timer really that bad as stated on the Visions of Ages site (sometimes 12+ real life hours!!) or is this improved in one of the patches recently?

 

[Ballard]

It really depends what artifact you are going after and what realm you are on. Some artifacts do have very long spawn times (more than a day) while some have very short ones. For exmaple on Hib excalibur the camping is really only an issue on Cloudsong , GOV and gem of lost memories . I would recommend against camping artifacts in general, there are some where you will have to, the others its better to just pop around every now and again and see if its up. Most artifacts do not have quests associated with them but rare exceptions like cloudsong do.

If you are still in your 40's i would suggest join in a few master level raids. Some of them are very good for XP and also lottos at the end offer the chance at getting good template items. Also its a good chance of making friends who can possibly help you get the arties you need. If your time really is limited its not always essential to stay for the while raid. ML1 and 4 normally are fast raids.

The other way to at least get credit for arty encounters is to advertise for a group to do an encounter on FH. In general the arty will be lottoed at the end but at least you get credit and a chance on the arty.

EDIT: 6-7 people should be enough to do alot of arties esp if you have an animist or two in the guild.

 

[DocWolfe]

OMG SAND WELCOME BACK :wub:

 

[Funkybunny]

well.. legendary weapons isnt called "legendary whip of doom" unfortunatly

http://www.visionofsages.net/toa/Legendary.html <- theres the info on what weapons is called and how to make em... easiest if youre not rr5 is to just go on your CM and search for arcanium benthic

wich gives cold weapons.. ill explain one more tieme why cold weapons are uber for reavers..

first off all.. all armourtypes are either neutral, resistant or weak to every type of damage..

(leather is weak to heat, but resistant to cold)
but chain and studded is weak to cold..

wich gives you + or - damage on types... f.i on my hunter i have a template wich i use either a cold or heat weapon... wich i can change when i meet a leatheruser or another armouruser.. but for reavers its different...

the lege weapons have procs that decrease resists.. it removes 35% resists when it procs... wich means.. if you have 26% cold resists.. if you proc the weapon on em.. they have 0% cold resist left.. wich means that both your weapon AND your procs (like leviathan) will hurt ALOT more.

 

[Sandariel]

OMG! Heya Doc, long time no see Good to know there are still some of the people around Î know

Anyway, Funkybunny, thanks a ton about the legendary weapon info, will go shopping tonight and will see if I can find a cold debuff legendary whip.

Just been out in RvR again and had a lot more fun than the last few days...

...since this time I ran buffed, hehe. Still had to eat a lot of dirt but at least I didn't die as fast as before. The Spiritmaster who killed me this time needed a whopping 5 nukes to take me down. Yay \o/

And nice arti info there Ballard. With this approach I think it should actually be possible to get most artifacts I want. Farming for scrolls is solo doable from what I've heard and getting credit shouldn't be too hard tagging along with some people trying to get the arti. Getting the arti itself... Should be able to buy it off an CM if I don't find the people to do it (I think, at least on alb/pryd there are some people farming them and selling them for a reasonable price(Thanks to those people btw!) )

Oh, and as I start to end this post another question arises

What's the best way to farm money nowadays? Farming drops and selling them? DF? Maybe even Catacombs aurulite? Salvaging? Or even task dungeons? Seems to be a nice way to get some decent cash.

Thanks again =)

 

[Funkybunny]

scrolls.. its all in the scrolls these days..... a few scrolls you can solofarm and earn good cash off:

Scholars notes 3of3 (easiest with a castertoon since its nukingmobs)
arbiters paper 3of3 (take shark to melos and where the shark drops you off... theres some blade warriors there, pure melee, bluecon/yellowcon mobs)
love story scrolls, (you can go kill cyclopses, but these are red to purple con)
df farming is still good though... if you have the patience to farm dias... you rarely will have problems selling it.. one tip though.. .buy a house!

you said you were on alb rpdywen.so i did a lil checkup for ya

338 and 372 is apparently vacant lots.. so go over and check if they are free and @ minimum price. (300g)... you can see for lots for yourself btw... @ the daoc webpage, roll of honour, register and hide occupied lots.. happy hunting

 

[Thegreatest]

Thanks for all the info guys

by the way, is there any place where I can find info on how much a scroll is worth? Especially on hib/excal, artifacts and scrolls seems to sell for very high prices...Saw GoV on a CM for 200plat

 

[Overdriven]

Thanks for all the info guys

by the way, is there any place where I can find info on how much a scroll is worth? Especially on hib/excal, artifacts and scrolls seems to sell for very high prices...Saw GoV on a CM for 200plat

People base prices on drop rates and CM prices =/ GoV goes for about 20-30p

 

[Gear]

Thanks for all the info guys

by the way, is there any place where I can find info on how much a scroll is worth? Especially on hib/excal, artifacts and scrolls seems to sell for very high prices...Saw GoV on a CM for 200plat

GoV will be going for around 30-40p max. As those prices are player driven, it all depends from server to server and from day to day, so your most reliable source it's the market explorer itself. My advice would be to go for scrolls that drop from easy mobs but are considered a rarity.

 

[Elitestoner]

u dont NEED artis to compete, just helps

for a reaver i would just get shades of mist, snakecharmers whip (if u cba to level it ) and some quest jewellry. cold lw's are ok but u are pretty screwed when u meet someone with resist buffs, i stick with my snakecharmers.

if u are slam spec, melee dmg etc isnt really that important, just make sure u get that 10% speed in there (5% from som, 3% from snakecharmers) and various items have 2% haste on them, so i would use that combination. (i started off with just shades of mist, snakecharmers and eirenes haub (eirenes was just for looks so ) and i got to rr7 in a template made of 99% sc and quest stuff.

however if you plan on rvr'ing with a soul/flex spec, then melee damage is a lil more important (however i would say shield spec is better, but thats my style of play) but remmeber how bloody long artifacts take to get, and how much they cost. if u are a casual gamer i wouldnt get gov, since the nerf this patch its much harder to do, without a large guild u arent gonna get it done.
(btw i was trying to organise this info but im writing stuff as it comes into my head so sorry if i seem to jump from one topic to the next ) also for shield, the ml7 shield drops in the ml7 dungeon (obv) but can be bought for 6-7p. its 3.8 speed i think so its pretty fast too. personally i use sinovias block, a 3.0 speed large shield, which rocks for slam levi

as for mls, for a reaver they are very nice to have, but NOT essential. took me a bloody long time to get mine so just attend a raid when it happens, get ml10 over time (a year in toa and im still only ml9 - but im lazy) the reaver bomb, which involves:

ml2 (10% hp off all enemies in teh radius)
ml8 (33% (i think) off all enemies in the radius, costs 90% hp from the user
rr5 ability (300-400 damage aoe lifetap - regains hp lost from ml8)
thornweed field 3 (ground target spell which does 250 damage/tick with snare over 30 seconds and affects all enemies in teh radius) pulses every 4s or so, cba to check but its something like that

u can wipe zergs solo with this combination, but it was nerfed so ml abils only affect 16 ppl max and rr5 abil does spirit damage so u face high resist a lot of the time. despite the hype, imo, its WAY overrated. too many people know the best way to get out of one, and fire DI as im walking into their zerg, fingers hovering over instas etc. i find sometimes ill pull off a successful bomb in 3fg of people, and oonly kill a couple. fun to use, but not as good as people say.

fuck me that was a long post, need sleep

btw if u need any advice just /send me ingame

 

[Litmus]

heh nice fight yesterday sevvy at beno bridge vs my vamp

lasted 2/3mins

 

[Sandariel]

heh nice fight yesterday sevvy at beno bridge vs my vamp

lasted 2/3mins

/wave

Yeah, it was definitely my RvR-highlight that day. I'm glad no one added there, was a very nice fight. Was almost as long as a Pally/Pally duel. Looking forward to meet you again, hope untill then I manage to get my Slam/Levi combo off, currently I tend to mess it up 90% of the time. Ah well, a few more days of training... Still a bit rusty =)

And big thanks to Elitestoner for this nice sum-up, this is exactly what I wanted to hear. Getting those 2 artifacts should definitely be doable and getting quest jewelry shouldn't be that much of a problem either as a casual gamer.

The Reaver bomb thingie sounds nice, but it sounds faaar away, too. That's a lot of MLs and RAs you need to get it off. So I guess I'll just stick to "regular RvRing techniques" for now. Oh and yes, I'm pretty much cookie cutter specced. Think giving up Slam/Levi for higher SR is just not worth it... Even though in some of the keep fights I'd like a bit more ranged dmg.

I actually even thought about getting a medium shield for the higher speed to squeeze out one more levi during the slam stun. But if there are large shields out there with 3.0 speed I think I'll drop that idea
Anyway, cheers Elitestoner for taking the time to write all this. \o/

On a sidenote: Last night I was the victim of Force Zephyr for the first time...
...damn, Mythic introduced some nasty stuff there

Bah, my break is already over, back to work =(

/wave

 

[Crookshanks]

Sandariel! Welcome back! I still have happy memoris when you dinged 50 in Order of Kalinha (however it was written...) and were giggling manically about "the most powerful nuke in the world!" (I was playing the silly ice wizard bluelion at the time iirc).

Back on topic - if you work out how to defeat people let me know. I went and did the bb thing, and I still loose 99% of all 1 on 1 fights (I did beat one hibby hero once, he was yellow con when he died but I'm pretty sure he wasn't 50). I got slapped left right and centre by Dwera at the weekend - I thought it was supposed to be tanks > stealthers > casters > tanks but nevermind Over three years playing now and still not got a char past 2L8

We've been having some fun anyway of late in the traditional alb "zerg". Just /who BG, join the one appropriate for the area and join in. How 1 group of hibs or mids manages repeatedly to successfully hold out (or defeat) our 30+ group is beyond me - but we still have fun regardless.

In my opinion the prices of items on CM is just not worth paying - why pay 20-30p for GoV (how on earth does anyone have that sort of cash to spend anyway?). You gotta do the encounter anyway to get credit to use the thing, and at the end of the day the items are good - but as Elitestoner says not absolutely "required".

"Just for fun" we collected a group of 8 together from our alliance to go into DF the other night. With hardly an opted group (2 s/s pallies (one lvl 49), 1 s/s armsman (me), 1 minstral, 2 bb, 1 ice wiz and a very patient rejuv cleric with power font) it was laughably easy We got comfortably to the Legion, and lasted out for a good 20 mins against him and his minions before going down. Money wasn't that great though - we made about 1p each (for the 6 played chars) in 2 hours.

ps. give me a yell if you need any crafting - inc. SC'ing and Legendary Weapons.

 

[Crookshanks]

as a reaver, i would suggest you just run solo around bridges (beno bridge and towards docs) trying to camouflage yourself as a gimpy armsman, mincer or some other tank.. alot of stealthers dont jump reavers

We're not gimpy armsmen - we're loyal defendors of the land who throw our lives on the line to protect the likes of you while the pallies run off with their tails between their legs, the yellow bellied church goers!

 

[Funkybunny]

We're not gimpy armsmen - we're loyal defendors of the land who throw our lives on the line to protect the likes of you while the pallies run off with their tails between their legs, the yellow bellied church goers!

thanks for protecting us poor middys givf more albmeatshields to stop nasty hibnukes!

 

[Kais]

roll an archer, get a bb with di, stand in towers and shoot everything you see

 

[Sandariel]

Wee, Bluelion Nice to see some of my old guildies are still around, hehe. Kalina Ohtari (and later Order of Kalina) is still the guild I liked the most. Too bad it split up due too many people leaving.

Oh, and the trick to surviving, well... there is none, you just have to live with death I guess

Last night I got killed by Dwera, Luon and Sticky several times, but I don't really mind since they're high RR, got prolly all artifacts there are and got a 50 BB... I just release and come back. And I actually enjoyed it, since about 50% of the time I was rezz sick and they didn't get any RPs anyway (Mwahahaha >:] ).

Guess it just depends on what you expect to be able to achieve. I just run out there trying to have some fun. Last night I actually won two 1 vs 1s which is okay I think (on a sidenote: I lost a LOT more =) ). What really annoyed me though, was, that whenever I took a boat to blendrake a FG of hibs was waiting for me... no matter where I /disembarked, they always got me. And when I finally arrived at Blendrake the keep wasn't ours anymore, bah. =)

And thanks for the crafting offer. I won't need a SCer (got my own... yes, I craft-grinded another SCer after I deleted my old one ) but I might throw a PM your way if I decide to get a Legendary weapon (Would ruin my current SC set though, so I'm not sure if I should just try to get snakecharmers whip and SoM first and then redo my whole template)

roll an archer, get a bb with di, stand in towers and shoot everything you see

Nah, that's boring =)
Especially since there are already more than enough people doing this... Which is quite fun, since it happened more than once that I stood at an enemy tower next to some other albs and those archers picked the reaver with this big heavy shield as their main target wasting one arrow after another on my shield