Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning (PC)

This is mainly for Zealot/Runepriest (my mains) but the basics can be applied to all the healing classes to some extent.

Typically I am in the top 2 for healers in each scenario and I frequently get tells from other healers asking what I do, so...here goes.
(of course every battle is different - and my healing is entirely dependent on my team being able to keep me alive so that I CAN heal)

My Stats - willpower and wounds
(yes...it takes me a LONG time to solo pve stuff....I suggest for those that pve solo a lot - have two armor sets or choose a different healer type - one that is designed to do a bit more damage)

First off - whether in a /sc or warband..make sure you can see all the groups.
Second - remember you are there to heal. Without heals - everyone will die. Damage only when 1. there is no one to heal or 2. self defense
(yes...you might sacrifice some immediate rp/xp points by doing less damage - but you more than make it up by taking the win)

Ok now to run down the heal progression:

Anything getting hit at all: cast your insta HoT - this is mnt healing. Keep anyone gettin hit, even if just a little covered because it could change at any moment

Someone getting hit a bit harder: cast your Heal n HoT to stack on your Insta HoT. Cast your leaping heal if time permits

Anyone in desperate need of heals: cast your insta heal until you have enough hps built up to start stacking the HoT's on as well. Typically someone low on health or going down fast does not have time to wait on the "BIG" cast heal By the time you cast it - they are dead.

The Big Heal - typically I use this for the artifact/bauble holder but will occasionally cast this on the regular crew too - time depending. Remember by the time you cast that, you could insta'd and HoT'd a slew of other people. Sometimes....the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the one. That's what Rez is for.

The Group Heal: Extremely handy but only effects your group members in range. It is important here to not get caught up with your group and remember to watch the other groups too. I use this as more of a top off when all in the group has damage but there is no one in dire need of aid. Like the big / fragile heal spell - you need to judge your time vs damage ratio. Yes...it might be more efficient to heal everyone at once...but if by the time you cast it half your group has died....you failed.

Don't get caught up on one person - make sure everyone is getting heals.

Basically - don't stop casting ever. If NO one needs a heal of any sort - go ahead and do some damage and help out. Remember to buff when you can but don't not heal to buff - staying alive is more important than a little extra stats.

Some things to remember:
1. You have more time to heal tanks - if there is a question on who to heal first aim for the other healers (keeping them alive helps keep everyone alive), cloth DPS (caster types - they DO the damage but can't take it), and any squishy classes (mellee and archer classes not considered tanks-they do awesome damage but can usually take a little more damage than the cloth dps) Tanks go down slower so you have a bit more time before they fall into the desperate need catagory - they are designed to endure!
2. Stick with your group if you can - solo you are likely just fodder for the enemy. Typically I find a tank or two (preferably one that has learned how to use /guard and likes to step between me and the dude hittin me for a good body wall)
3. Ill say it again - you are the healer. Heal!

Things for others to remember:
1. If your healer dies - so will you
2. Don't over extend - pay attention to where the "back of the field is" and give us a chance to advance before you do.
3. /Guard us and you garuntee yourself a dedicated healer ;D
4. If you complain about healing - you will find yourself on the bottom of the list for heals. If you ask nicely or toss out a compliment you will prob find yourself swimming in hitpoints!

To start - I have thus far played a pretty equal amount of time on both Destruction and Order, and have heard both side's constant complaints about pretty much every class.

The new tank types are now available on the server and I must say, I am pretty excited for their live release.

Here is just a quick intro to each:
KotBS: Empire Tank that can weild both sword/board or 2H greatweapons. They use Group Commands like auras that can both bolster your nearby groupmates and debuff your enemies.
BG: Dark Elf Tank that can weild both sword/board and 2H Great weapons. They use combat built up hatred to fuel additional attacks and provide buffs for themselves.

In just the few hours I have played both - I've heard constant complaints about imbalance between the two classes. First off... YES they are imbalanced...by design. KotBS is Order's answer to the Chosen where BG is Destruction's answer to the Iron Breaker. They should not be compared side to side.

Currently many KotBS are complaining about beeing "owned" in the t1 /sc. Same thing would happen to Chosen against a /sc full of Iron Breakers. The IB and BG are just flat tough and designed to withstand. Also...it's still t1! KotBS will shine when the groups balance out and the /sc are not just full of new class tanks. Like the Chosen, they will be able to turn the tide of battle with effective use of their commands/auras.

To kill the BG? Just like Iron Breaker - the faster the better. As you get further into battle they get tougher and tougher to kill and their attacks get harder to survive. For the extended battle make good use of those debuffs!

My Side by Side:

KotBS - Chosen: Use of Commands/Auras to bolster team and debuff enemies. Commands/Auras=PVE aggro magnet!

IB-BG: Pure tank toughness. (primary difference is IB's have the grudge system, effectively using that to fuel attacks (imo should be able to put on entire group) and BG's build by hitting stuff!)

Swordmaster-BO: Building attack sequences for greater damage. (People often think the BO is harder to kill, imo that is only because they usually have the shield up, where many SM's carry the Greatweapon. Swordmasters are equally as difficult to kill, if they run sword/board)

Welp...thats my 2 cents for what it's worth!

Please tell us why you left Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning

"The war still rages but your departure has left a hole in the frontline defenses. Please take a few minutes to complete our exit poll and tell us why you left. We value your feedback as it will allow us to continue to improve the game experience for all players. "

Well you know I can go on and on and on about this, in fact there is so much to dislike even this letter has a big flaw. What is it? well it came after I've unsubscribe for 5 days, this is a new experience for me.

Usually I'll get an email immediately after I've unsubscribe to a game. It happens when I un-sub from LOTRO, WOW, Tabula Rasa, and even when my subscription lapse from AoC.

This time when I unsubscribed, I've a million of things to tell the developers, but to my surprise, the email did not materialize.

Well it eventually did, a week later.
Let me digest this game a little further and report back in a weeks time on my perspective of Warhammer.

Please tell us why you left Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning

"The war still rages but your departure has left a hole in the frontline defenses. Please take a few minutes to complete our exit poll and tell us why you left. We value your feedback as it will allow us to continue to improve the game experience for all players. "

Well you know I can go on and on and on about this, in fact there is so much to dislike even this letter has a big flaw. What is it? well it came after I've unsubscribe for 5 days, this is a new experience for me.

Usually I'll get an email immediately after I've unsubscribe to a game. It happens when I un-sub from LOTRO, WOW, Tabula Rasa, and even when my subscription lapse from AoC.

This time when I unsubscribed, I've a million of things to tell the developers, but to my surprise, the email did not materialize.

Well it eventually did, a week later.
Let me digest this game a little further and report back in a weeks time on my perspective of Warhammer.

Screen shot chronicles of events of Aggression-Bechafen 11/18/2008.

http://s421.photobucket.com/albums/pp291/siliconsmiley/WAR%20ORVR%2011%2018%202008/

A small guild run on a keep results in a massive ORVR event. There were many other groups involved on both Order and Destruction sides. Aggression grouped with others and took the undefended keep in Saphery after Avelorn had been taken.

Destruction forces rally and eventual take the keep with vastly superior numbers.

I had a hell of a good time. Saw lots of XP and RP trickling in. Saw first hand a pretty massive ORVR. Bechafen rocks. Everybody should play here.

Meanwhile I am still playing my Witch Elf Marra who is now rank 18. She is a furious hunter and does well in groups and solo. She is just not so hot in the RvR play unfortunately since I don't seem to be able to work with the stealth-mode appropriately.

She is fun to play though and a great character for role-playing. She and Severia are sisters which makes it interesting.

Playing a Disciple of Khaine is quite fulfilling on two fronts. One, I get to do pretty well in RvR which is what frustrated me so much with my Witch Elf Marra. Two, Severia seems to do well against CHAMPIONS even solo as long as she keeps her swords flying and healing herself.

I am quite pleased with playing this kick-ass character.

Yes, I am renewing again. 1.0.5 breathes new life into the game. Though it doesn't completely fix everything wrong, it does fix the four weakest classes, provide an effective nerf to Bright Wizards (don't bitch about how they aren't getting nerfed enough until you play on the PTS and watch Squig/Engi/Magus/SW deal 400k in a Serps, while the BW are at the same level or less than they were), and overall make some great sweeping changes that were needed.

Melee DPS still needs a fix. It needs a big huge fix. I've set my Marauder aside because he simply dies too fast. I've played and quit, and played, and quit, and played my White Lion but I keep losing hope. Though, I have high hopes for 1.1 and any melee fixes they want to do. They've changed the stupid Int skills for melee characters to Str instead, and that will rocket damage up a lot of abilities. I know I'll be testing them.

Overall I feel like this is a good patch, though there are many naysayers. We'll see how it turns out.

Well it has been almost 2 months since I've first stepped onto the world of Warhammer online. Yes I've WAAAAGH-ed like a crazy orc and blasted many with fireballs. I've loved the game when the it launched, and everyone seems to be racing for XP.
So much happened on the first week of the game, we've raided keeps, captured objectives, owned scenarios and even hunted enemy players across the map. It was then that I had to stop playing for a while to get some work done in real life. I knew this was too good to be true, well reality hits and it hits hard. the game just went downhill from there on out.

All the friends I've been playing with had out-leveled me and proceed to the next tier, I guess its normal since they did continue and progress through the game. I, on the other hand had to play catch up, the scenarios are hard without my core group of friends to support. It was then that I realized how much of a social game this is, it is so tied to team work that any casual or solo players will never be able to enjoy this game, period !.

Well then there are PQ's (public quest) yes there are, but its a grind fest of killing mobs in one location to get better gear or loot. Again, let me emphasize, ONE location.
I do feel that the developers had added PvE's as something that they need to add in last minute, it wasn't thought out as well as compared to many MMO's out there, many of these PVE contents are so simplistic that I do not feel engulf in the world. I've fealt bored doing the quest that I've often wished I'm in the RvR ring.
And when I'm in the RvR ring, I've notice our team has no healers, you see, the game has a system called scenarios, where anyone can take part in a PvP lake with certain objective points. The thing the developers failed to do is, to balance out the players based on their class and rank.
A team will often fail if they lack a balance team to accomplished all the objectives. This really frustrate me, since you are stuck in the game with no way to accomplished your objectives.
And being an MMO, there will be some jerks running around, I've been able to ignore these annoying people in most games but in this game, you have to tolerate their presence since you need to depend on them to get ahead in the scenario or RvR lakes.
All in all, the game will be great if they manage to fix things for casual players. Although I highly doubt this will happen anytime soon, since the game has always been marketed to groups and guilds.
I've never thought I'll leave a game because of the social aspects, but hey there will always be a first right?.

Its time to say adios to a very nicely thought out game, unfortunately there is not much to keep me to continue to stay subscribed.

Agtor lvl 21 with 5250 health (non buffed) had my heal buff on that has 25% to heal me by 600 each hit.

Was in the t2 Mo temple scenario went in the middle of enemy group to get there flag carrier. Got the guy and one of my team grabbed the artifact and ran. I stood ground pounding away at enemy tring to buy him some time expecting to die. Our Flag carrier got away and was surrounded by our side so I finally bailed and ran. 2 lvl 21 chars followed me thinking cause I was down to 25% health they would win. lvl 21 WH and a lvl 21IB both on me and i was badly wounded. I started in on the WH cause there massive dps had to cause him to run or die if i was to have a chance. I poped my pot(2000 health in 18secs) and started whackin away. Low and behold the guy did not run even when he realized he would die hopin to give his ally enough dmg to me so he could win. So now WH down and i move on to the IB took him out in short order a lot faster then the WH and went on to flag carrier to save him from 3 others that happened to get by the others. All in all one of my best scenario's to date.