Looking for keep attack/defense advice

[old.Lianuchta]

I was involved in the Crauchon take and loss last night, and I discovered that now (lvl38 Void/Light eldritch) i can do some serious damage to Huscarls and Archers (200+ a DD). I understand the dynamics of the (undefended) keep assault, where you pull the guards in groups with a tank and a bard back towards the main mob where the tanks will try and keep the guards agro while the nukers blast them to smithereens. Keep doors seem fairly straightforward as well, though there's little to nothing to do for us casters (am i right when I think that a future patch will allow casters to target the keep door?). Clear the walls and get your lvl35+ tanks to smack the keep lord around.

Now defending a keep...

What i noticed last night was that we could only target the mids standing in places where they could target us. Now personally I'd like to see the ones holding the higher ground (ie walls) to be able to hit the ones on the lower ground easier than vice versa, but i suppose that is Mythic's decision...

So someone jumps on the wall, and starts casting/shooting their bow. Mids see it, target the guy, unleash 6-7 AEs and half the wall dies. Is there a better way of doing this? Is using nearsight a valid tactic against those Thanes?

I also noticed that we're missing some classes (wardens,nightshades and mentalists spring to mind), which are going to make things harder for us as Shadowblades seem to be able to kill people fairly easily on the wall, we had few groups with pulsating BTs and once the casters died there were few ments around to give us crack. Tanks seemed to have little or nothing to do, would it be better if tanks were assigned to protect high-lvl casters and intercept arrows?

That's it for now, but any ideas would be welcome.

 

[old.Nacholay]

...well...

How to hit them without being target for Area spells ? Well that wont work. What should be done is though that NOBODY who cant help you (the caster) while standing on that wall, should not stand near to you (unless they want to give free RP's to the enemy). Then, if enough healers are with you (out of the dmg area but near enough to heal you) you just stand there and do your thing. It mainly fails because too many people want to look down from the walls and healers usually dont concentrate on casters as much as they do on tanks .

As for the lack of classes. We lack numbers and therefore some classes are almost none existent. We have but on Nightshade above lvl 40 (Hail Zanzara) and none above 30 that I have met apart from her. Mentalists and Wardens are low but ok I guess. Our lack of stealth really kills us at this time...

Ohh well it will work out eventually... I still have a faint hope

 

[old.Lianuchta]

Sleeth in my guild (FoPW) is lvl35 now. Enjoys ganking blue/green con healers in exp groups so definite promise there.

As for the other points, I guessed as much. Shame I am not high enough level yet to do the same damage with my AEs as a tank (Thane)...

As for healers, we didn't have all our people with us so no main healers in our group, but i saw Morrobain eating castle wall quite a few times as well.

Main thing i suppose was that no Hibs con purple (afaik) to me anymore while a third of the mid force last night did.

 

[Danya]

Get a bunch of mana eldritches, stand them behind the keep door and when it gets attacked have them chain cast their PBAE. I guarantee after a few of them the attackers will back off

 

[svar]

Why do you think it took them so long Dannyn? We had some enchanters behind doors, only 2 or 3 and even those not full mana spec, but they stalled mids for over an hour. If only we had Usp, Popje and Vannelle there they would never break through.

 

[cleeve]

hi all

I was there - it was hard for me to do anything that night - Frame rate was awful and I had a hard time keeping up with the eldritches

Popje was there for a while - I think some of us had to log around 11pm tho - which as I suicde left seemed to be when the main middy force was gathering.

Most of the people who died were also to high a level for me to revive - so I spent as long as poss yelling for rezzes when I saw someone go down that I couldnt rez

It was a little frustrating not being able to get into the action. I am not sure that a healer is the right choice for me for RVR, I will however continue to work to try and get my druid up to level 40 odd =)

Cheers

Revor

 

[svar]

Dont worry Revor, you will see that people will increasingly love you when you increase in levels . Druids are backbone of our army and a key part for succesefull ofense/defense. I just hope that being a support class suits your way of playing the game.

 

[Danya]

Ahh good stuff Svarun, I don't tend to RvR with my eldritch (who is full mana spec ) - I prefer to use my minstrel, stealth in RvR is just too nice

 

[old.Nacholay]

btw...

I was there... very few red con Mids left in that force... many oranges... but... 1st time they got me off that wall i dropped into the wall with no resser able to reach me... not a nice end to a great sieg

 

[Morrobainn]

Yep, it's true, I had an overly familiar time with the flagstones on that raid. Had fun detecting stealthers on the wall tho... but would have liked a squad of tanks and healers with me to avoid dieing quite so often.. still, with more NS this will be less of a problem.

There were a lot of people clustered around the walls, who didn't need to be there and so I got caught up in a lot of AE attacks and having few hit points was never going to last long even when not directed at me.

The next time will be better, basically we did the right thing.. and made the best of what we had, maybe a few people were in the wrong places, but with a bit more organising and practice, we'll get everyone's role sorted out... i.e. those helping on walls and those at the doors, etc.

Still, mainly, a good job was done by all and I thank you for it.

Yrs,
Morrobainn

 

[FlameGecko]

Was a good evening, but there were a few people (including me) that ended up dead inside the keep walls which meant we could not be rezzed

Putting that aside this was one of the best battles I have been in since the beta

 

[old.willowywicca]

Yep I was there too, good job, also nice to see we can now take the keeps far quicker than the last time I was on a keep raid. The whole falling through our own walls thing got a bit ridiculous, most of our force was lost to those grasping walls hehe.

As regards nacholay saying we have no lvl3x nightshades, as far as I know we have three:

Sleeth (followers of primodial wind)
Matilda (marsh horde)
Pineapple(marsh horde)

also I suggest peeps help lvl these guys (and any other ns you know) up as we are sorely lacking some good assassin support in all of our rvr encountes (same for mentalists wardens and some other classes, altho they tend to get parties easier)

 

[old.Mug]

tactics

With few high lvl healers and shadowblades around on the walls a couple of tactics I think should be useful.

1.Healing/rezzing
One of The best positions for healers to be I have found are at the top of the first landing of the stairs on each side from there you can heal/rezz the front and side wall without getting hit from AE or archers.(also I find my firbolg is crap at running up and down stairs to try and reach pple ) You also obviously need healers in the courtyard far enuff behind door casters

2.damage shield
Druids have a buuff in the Pricklesprout line very rarely used as it interferes with mezzes,roots and enchanter buff however can be usefully used in Keep defence as it will unstealth any shadowblade who hits a buffed person EVEN if that person dies in one!

3.grouping
I find If im not careful too much time running around trying to find pple in my group to heal/rez and deal with calls for rezs who are out of range ie one on rigght wall one on left one by door..where tf is xxx ok y wants a rez where is he? etc )
. It would be far more effective if we could group people who will be assigned the same area eg front right wall,front left,door etc whio stay together
We obviously need to think about who is best for each group given their position and apply roles. Even if these are smaller groups.I could then concentrate on just healing that group without wasting time running from one target to another

 

[matax]

I managed to sneak along on that keep raid even though I am but a lowly 18th level shield hero.

Enjoyed it a lot and even managed to hit the keep door a few times for an immense 4 damage

However once inside I was a bit of a spare part.
Is there anything that shield heros can do to help defend the keep?
My level may be against me here at the mo, but once I get higher does 'protect' or 'guard' help protect the casters/archers at all? EDIT: or intercept?
For Keep raids is my bard and/or ranger going to be more useful - keep the hero for RvR melee?

 

[razorboy]

a tanks main target in rvr is to get the keep doors down, kill the guards and take out the lord of the keep.

I don't know for a hero, but my armsman can shoot with xbow and I killed some with it from the top of the keep walls.

 

[VidX]

Originally posted by Svarun
Why do you think it took them so long Dannyn? We had some enchanters behind doors, only 2 or 3 and even those not full mana spec, but they stalled mids for over an hour. If only we had Usp, Popje and Vannelle there they would never break through.

Yip, I think my 245 base damage pbAoE could come in effective, only another 5.7 levels and it'll be 300

Am hitting lvl 50's with it for 300+, so with a few of us at the doors, taking turns, with a bard playing mana song, or Menyy with their crack, all we really need is someone to repair the door, and a nice Shade (/bow to Zanzara) and a few tanks about to take out any SB's cheeky enough to try to kill us.

And boy do I love the RP spam at those keep doors

 

[VidX]

I do agree totally with the point to this thread.

There does sem to be alot of people not familiar with keep defence (understandable due to it hardly happenning, but will happen alot in the future, I like defending keeps ).

More importantly, there seems to be alot of people who don't listen to those in charge

Few pointers:

1) Mana Specced mages on the door. Can AoE the area around the door, reduce the amount of attackers bashing the door by ALOT (also a good RP machine lol)

2) Nightshades. Essential for uncovering other assassin classes. There are 8 places on a keep where it is possible to climb into the keep, so 8+ lvl 40+ 'Shades would be handy. Lets get these guys levelled.

3) Peoples curiosity. Why must everyone insist on standing on the wall looking over the side? It just makes it more confusing and alot easier for the attackers to kick off AoE spells, doing alot of damage.

4) Stuns. We have stuns, use them. If the attackers insist on pulling the guards, let them. We'll just stun the puller when they are close to the keep, let the guards whack them, and let the attackers lose a puller for a little bit.

5) Healers. As Mug has said, good positions for healers is on the side walls, they have a good field of view for rezzing.

6) Buffs and damage shields. Very nice this, buff the guards as much as possible. Makes them that little bit tougher to kill.

7) Spam of the comms channels. Guys, the /b and main channels are generally used for passing out defense related info, please don't spam it. Use /g, /gu or /send to chat.

8) Repair the doors. Very handy this too. the higher the level of the doors, the harder they are to knock down. We can also repair them too. So, when going on raids, if you plan on sticking around to defend the keep, load everyone up with wood, and designate 2 people to repair/upgrade the doors (1 Primary person and 1 Secondary). And Woodcrafting skill has an effect on the repair, so higher the skill, the better

9) Mez and AoE when attackers are at the gates. Nice one this. Mezzers AoE mez, Ments and Druids DoT, and casters Nuke the attackers, is annoying, so do it

10) Making targets visible while on the walls. It is possible to jump up onto the walls to get into visable range of the attackers. Do this, cast once, then immediately move to the very back of the keep so that you might be out of range of any attackers who have targetted you and are ready to unleash their AoE spells or arrows. Repeat. And it's good for only casters and rangers to be on the walls ('Shades too, at the 8 points) as it reduces the possible damage if an AoE is cast by the attackers

11) It's a game, enjoy it, as I'm sure alot of you have

 

[old.Maleg]

On the Shade side, a guild friend of mine (Xetius) is now a level 35 Shade (almost 36 I think). Has some trouble getting into groups at times but isn't too bad for a backstabber - give him a shout if you need to fill out a group - he's always happy to hunt.

My Druid has hit 36 and the rest of WoL ain't to far behind, we're not in the main alliance so tend to miss out, however I think a number of our members could be useful in set piece raids.

Maleg

 

[old.xetius]

Nightshade for hire

Im always struggling to get into groups as Maleg said. However, once I hit 40+, I will be all for every raid.

Can we get WoL into the alliance, and if anyone wants to help me level, it would be greatfully received

Xetius, Nightshade, Dirty little backstabber