Introduction

There is not a single good group on Uthgard. The constant whining about uber high RR set groups on Uthgard makes me sick. There aren't even any set groups here, let alone any that are unbeatable. If you do not realize this there is no need for you to read further. Reading further might make you part of that uber group everyone whines about, tho.

Getting a group running

First things first: This has nothing to do with playing 24/7. A lot of good groups in DAoC didn't play very much at all. 3 nights a week for 3 hours is more then enough.

This is the single most hardest part about this. Playing DAoC is rather easy compared to Starcraft or something, but actually getting eight people up and running together is tough. Remember this. It is getting a group and maintaining it that will require most of the effort from your side. There are several ways to do so, whether you start a new char or are 50 already doesn't matter.

Joining an existing guild.

This sounds easy, eh? It often isn't. AE invite guilds are (mostly) useless to forming a RvR group for various reasons. Already established rvr guilds have no reason to invite you, unless the lack someone at the moment. So getting into an existing guild that actually runs RvR groups will require luck or a lot of sucking it up. Still you can make an effort to find a good guild. Effort is the key word here. RvR guilds don't usually run around looking for YOU. Esp. not if you are in your uber 1 man guild called "Knights of teh DOOM".

Forming a new group

It's often easier to form a new group. According to this forum there are a lot of players here that want to do RvR, but can't because their random groups get wtfpwnd by the evil elitist gankers. Ask around for people interested in running a regular RvR group, make a post on this very forum to find people, get on irc, whatever. But sitting on your arse waiting for a group to come to you will get you nowhere.

Set group vs pool group

Getting an actual set group (that is the very same players every time it runs) up is a very hard thing to do. A pool group is often easier to maintain. That usually means having a few core players and a pool of about 15 or so players to group with. Therefore it is usually a good idea to make friends with any competent players you like playing with. I'm not going into too much detail, as that is a rather chaotic form of organization, and therefore can hardly be described.

Actual set groups

There are two important points about them.

1. They require organization and leadership. Organization mainly means fixed times at which they run and leadership means having an asshole that kicks people that do not put up to the groups standards, whether that is for social, playtime, playing ability or any other reason.

2. Everything for the group. All for one, one for all. Communism (for those who actually know what that means) if you will. This is obviously easiest to do if every char of the group is on its own separate account. This also means giving your drops to those who need them the most and helping each other farm the stuff that is needed. Usually you will want to level a new group for this, because it makes things easier. ALL OF THOSE ACCOUNTS AND EVERYTHING ON THEM WILL BELONG TO THE GROUP. Make that clear. It will make your life way easier later on, because when you lose a player you will just need a new player and not someone with char xyz. And you will lose players, lots of them, for various reasons. Leveling a new group is a good way to see who is not willing to put in the effort required to run a set group. Remember when i said actually getting a group running is the hard part? I meant it.

Communication

This is the second hardest part. It has two things worth mentioning again.

1. Voicechat. Let me put it bluntly. This is not optional. You have to coordinate within seconds which is simply not possible by typing stuff. There is no way a group can be decent without all eight players being on voicechat. If you don't have a voicechat server of your own use the one provided by Uthgard.

2. Now that you are on voicechat: USE IT. DAoC is a group tactics game, while pressing a button fast will help, fights are won by communicating and lost by lack of doing so. I can not possibly stress enough how important this is. Call everything that requires other people to act upon, which is pretty much everything.

Want to mezz a bunch of people? Tell your group mates so they wont immediately break a mezz. Get trained? Tell your healers so they can heal you and your def tank to get guard. Got mezzed and a caster is free? Tell your group so they can demezz you and rupt the caster.

You should get it by now. Communicate everything. If you die without saying something it is usually your fault and there is no use in blaming your healer. He has more important things to do than watching the group window.

Most important things that have to be communicated: tactics (see below), CC, heals and curing, shears, dealing damage, use of RAs, rupts, being rupted, pet clear and and and ...

general tips on playing

DAoC is hardly a mechanically hard game to play. Unlikely in Starcraft you don't need 400 actions per minute to succeed. Still there are a few things to consider.

Knowing the game

This seems obvious, but I'm going to include it anyway. To play well you have to know the game. This includes classes, RAs, mechanics, etc and Uthgard specific bugs/custom "features". That would take a book so I'm not going to include any of this here.

Using the keyboard

I'm by no means one of "/qbind EVERYTHING" ******, but if you click everything you simply can not play to your full potential. In my opinion there is little harm in clicking long timered abilities that you will be very sentient about using anyway like purge, bof and especially mcl. You should be thinking twice about using these anyways, so there is more than enough time to click them. Abilities you will use all the time or that have to be used as fast as possible have to be mapped to the keyboard, thought. Instant heals and CC are good examples of things that have to be used immediately. The extra time it takes to click them will cost you fights. Abilities that are used all the time, like styles or nukes, on the other hand will occupy your mouse too much if you click them which is bad because you will need it for other things.

Using the mouse

It's used to target enemies, doh. I guess you already knew that. It is also used to turn the char and the camera. There is no excuse for keyboard turning. It is simply horrible play. Want to rupt a healer behind you with an instant while styling on your target? That is absolutely impossible with keyboard turning and clicking every single skill. So is turning the camera to keep the situational awareness you need for decent play. Remember that tank dieing overextended? Ye, he did not turn the camera to look for his healers.

It will take some time to get used to this, but it will make you a better player.

Situational awareness

Nothing in DAoC is quite as important as being aware of what happens around you. You will have to react upon what your group and your enemies do. That obviously requires you to know what is going on and (can't be stressed enough) communicate it to your group members. If you do not watch your surroundings you will get overextend, fail to guard someone needing it or break a mezz, so pan the camera around as much as possible and try to always know where everyone is and what they are doing.

This also includes panning the camera at all times while roaming and splitting up on inc to not get inc mezz owned. That is not hard to do but everyone on Uthgard seems to be asleep while running through emain. It is a good idea to run unstuck.

Not boxing up is also very important during fights. There is nothing inviting mezzes and rootspam like two healers standing within 350 locs of each other. I've seen so many groups die to this it's not even funny anymore. Keep your distance from your group mates.

Do not break mezz

This is the one golden rule of DAoC. For a very good reason: it wins fights. Sounds simple but this is done wrong even by experienced players quite often. Sometimes it's flawed communication, sometimes it's brain lag, every time it's bad. There has to be a very good reason to break a mezz but there hardly ever is.
(The same is true for not breaking roots)

Do not dump

Know when to use your long timered abilities. It's sad how many people waste their long timers when they do not possibly have an effect on the outcome of the fight. These abilities could win the next fight. Only use your abilities when you think they will affect the outcome of the fight. Using your druid rr5 when there are only 2 people left alive in your group is a horrible idea.

Do not hold back

Know when to use your long timered abilities. It's sad how many people don't use their long timers when they could have an effect on the outcome of the fight. These abilities could win the fight. Always use your abilities when you think they will affect the outcome of the fight. Letting someone die while your single insta heal is up and the fight is not decided yet is a horrible idea.

group tactics

The most important thing about group tactics is actually having one. Everyone should know what to do. At any time. In any situation. Against any enemy setup. There is no definite answer on what to do here, so discuss this with the other members of your group. However here is a brief overview of different types of groups and usual tactics.

In which category a group belongs is mostly dictated by who does the killing.

group setups

Every group setup should have at least two primary healers, one primary CC and a def tank. Plus a shaman for mid, a theurg for alb. Other things that are pretty much must have: NS, PBT, two demezzers.

tank group

Will have anywhere between two and five off tanks. Casters in tank groups are mainly for CC and utility. A lot of tank groups on Uthgard go for casters. That is stupid. A tank group should go for damage dealers, whether they are casters or not. A tank group usually does not have a lot of casters themself, so their healers are more prone to being rupted. Therefore a tank group has to minimize the damage it takes. Also it is better to kill a damage dealer because he will suffer more from being rezzed than a utility class.

While tank groups are rather easy to play due to being pretty durable, they are generally pretty weak setups because they can be countered easily by controlling the tanks with CC, guard, disease, etc or simply killing them.

typical setups include:

mid: pac healer, aug healer, shaman, dark or supp rm, war, skald, bers, bers
alb: cleric, cleric, sorc, theurg, pala, mins, merc, merc
hib: druid, druid, bard, warden, eld, hero, bm, bm

caster groups

Can have three to six casters. Unlike tank groups they will generally try to kite their enemies and kill any overextenders. Due to the very high damage output any target is fine for them and they will usually try to kill tanks getting close. They are harder to play than tank groups on Uthgard and can suffer from being rushed with sos/charge. Also casters tend to have severe power problems. I advice to stay away from them due to Uthgards setting, even thought they surely can decimate people rather quickly in the right circumstances and carelessness can get you killed fast against a well played caster group.

typical setups include:

mid: pac healer, aug healer, shaman, rc rm, dark rm, dark sm, bd, war
alb: cleric, cleric, sorc, sorc, cab, theurg, pala, mins
hib: druid, druid, bard, eld, ench, menta, hero, bm

hybrid groups

Definitively the strongest possible setups. Will in pretty much every case have two damage casters and two offensive tanks. They are good at both pushing and kiteing, which makes them outstanding at adopting to the situation. They will often try to split the fight into two separate fights with casters hanging out back trying to kill tanks while their tanks rupt/kill the enemy casters. So it's important to keep their casters and tanks under control. It is very important to keep your position in such a group. Tanks are likely to overextend and casters are likely to kite back too far. As I've already said: not easy too play, but strong when played well.

typical setups include:

mid: pac healer, aug healer, shaman, rc rm, dark rm, war, bers, bers
alb: cleric, cleric, sorc, cab, theurg, pala, merc, merc
hib: druid, druid, bard, eld, ench, hero, bm, bm

group tactics

As mentioned above usual group tactics involve kiting and pushing. There also are ranged standoffs and infights when both groups are completely within each other. Everyone in your group should know which of these your group tries to employ at the moment and be aware of what his job is in that situation. This should not be a democratic process. Have someone make the tactical calls and stick with them. It's better to have a few bad calls every now and then, than everyone trying to decide whether to push or kite and thereby ****** up the fight. When to employ which tactic is something that has to be decided in every individual situation, although there obviously are guidelines. Usually tactics are called upon inc depending on the setups involved and the tactical situation (i.e. you might want to pull an alb group away from amg when you know there are stealthers around) and during the fight when the situation changes (add group, good mezz, CC on your supps, killed a tank, etc).

Choosing the right thing to do is not always easy and failing to do so will get you killed.

Obvious guidelines:

push caster groups
push all alb groups
push when you got a good mezz
kite if you ****** something up
kite as a caster group
kite zergs
kite tank groups if you are not a tank group
don't fight albs in a stand off unless they suck
don't kite/push out of range of your group members
kite/push out of range of enemy group members

It is not true that every tank group should always push and never kite (and vice versa for caster groups). This is a very common mistake on Uthgard. People get a great mezz and start to kite just cause they're a caster group essentially wasting the mezz. Use the situation and not just your setup.

pushing

This is straight forward. You want to get into the enemy group. Do so. Use SoS if needed. CC and kill off any stragglers while moving forward. It's important that everyone pushes and no one stays behind, so if your supporters get rooted stop pushing (or SoS) and don't get overextended and killed. It's generally a good idea to not assist during a push but to break off the push once you have separated someone from his group and spike him down.
This uses your usual tanks upfront, supporters in the middle, casters in the back positioning.

kiting

Most often confused with running away. The idea is pretty simple move away from the enemy and kill targets off opportunity. This will not work without CC on the enemy supporters so mezz, root, NS them. Don't just randomly nuke people and run when a tank is on you. Run before a tank can reach you and spike down targets when the opportunity arises. This means stunning them and all damage dealers assisting. Break off kiting when someone in your group can't follow.
This uses your usual tanks upfront, supporters in the middle, casters in the back positioning.

standoffs

Use your range. Don't present yourself as a target and CC, nuke, etc targets of opportunity. Transit to pushing on good CC. Transit to kiting on ****** up. Again try to spike down targets presenting themselves in a coordinated way.
Your group should form a crescent with >350 spacing. Tanks can try to draw "aggro" but have to be careful not to get stunned and nuked down.

infights

Don't let yourself get confused. Stick to your tactics and keep awareness of what is going on. Not boxing up is very important here as a good mezz/rupt will get you killed otherwise. Try to keep all enemies busy and spike damage when the opportunity arises.
Positioning is more flexible here, especially for casters its important to stay out of enemy casters range when you do not have the initiative and to assist your tanks when you are free.

Reserved for tips on the role of the different archetypes in group play

Reserved for an example of a mid setup that does not suck and the roles of each group member

Reserved for an example of a alb setup that does not suck and the roles of each group member

Reserved for an example of a hib setup that does not suck and the roles of each group member.

JK

hib group that sucks as little as possible ofc

reserved for summary

You trying to get more ppl in setgrps so the pool players can gtfo for good or roll a stealther?

Good read. Co-created a pool group like you talked about. Can only say it's hella hard finding the right people to fit your group. There's enough decent players probably but gotta be lucky bumping into them.

Zarkor wrote:You trying to get more ppl in setgrps so the pool players can gtfo for good or roll a stealther?

No I'm trying to get people to not suck.

I should have made it more clear, but a good pool group or even a pug of good players can definitely compete with set groups.

Sure playing in a set group helps, but it's a pretty small advantage.

Good players will generally see their group setup and know their job.

I'm describing basics here and not specific tactics for specific set groups.

Edit: I'll write the rest tomorrow night.

"A tank group should go for damage dealers, whether they are casters or not."



Quoted for truth and also because it seems no MAs on uthgard except a very few actually follow this rule. The main interrupter of the other group is a good target too if they're available.

Very nice Jarysa. Thanks for your efforts.

Force wrote:"A tank group should go for damage dealers, whether they are casters or not."



Quoted for truth and also because it seems no MAs on uthgard except a very few actually follow this rule. The main interrupter of the other group is a good target too if they're available.

I'll discuss target selection in the archetypes section. It's rather situational anyways.

postponed for a week or so, due to rl and wanting to rewrite stuff so it's more clear this is not only meant for set groups