Randomize the Scenarios

Here's the problem, everyone is playing the same scenario map for each tier because said scenario is the 'most fun' or the 'most rewarding' or both. Mythic took a step in the right direction by allowing players to queue for all tier related scenarios in one button press. Unfortunately it still doesn't solve the problem of a particular scenario getting more attention than the others.

My solution is simple: there is one button. You click it and it enters you into the scenario queue. When enough people are in the queue on both sides, a scenario map is automatically picked at random. If you don't like the map, you are allowed to leave, but doing so gives you one 'rage point'. If you get three 'rage points' you have to wait ten minutes before you are allowed to queue for scenarios again. Rage points disappear after 30 mins or so. Kind of like Guild Wars Random Arenas.

This ensures that all scenarios get an even rotation and there isn't a huge problem with rage quitters.

Don't contribute, get a lollie...

As you may have guessed from my previous posts, I'm a little bewildered as to how WAR measures contribution in scenarios. This caught my eye last night while playing Mourkain Temple (click to enlarge):

A player that contributed nothing to the scenario (i.e. no damage or healing), gained more XP than myself (Bloodfire), who contributed considerably. Try working that one out???

I really hope Mythic know what they are doing, because it's these kind of bugs that invite botting. You would only need a macro that auto enters you into a scenario and another to make subtle movements on the keyboard to prevent the game from logging you out. You could go to bed and when you wake up your char would be 15 ranks higher... Mythic needs to get the devs onto this one asap, because it will really be bad for business.

Archmages are leet

After reading a couple of articles about the Archmage class (Awesomeness of the Archmage, So you think you can Heal), I decided to give one a go for myself. I rolled a female High Elf named 'Bloodfire' (feel free to laugh at my lame name choices, Melf does), and leveled her to Tier 2 almost entirely via Scenarios. The Scenario queue time is minimal on a Saturday for people playing Order, so I leveled her extremely fast.

One thing that amazed me was how easy it is for a healer to gain renown. I was almost always at max renown rank, as you cannot take it higher than your level rank. After a while, I started to notice a bit of a pattern. DPS type classes tend to finish with a high amount of XP, while healers finish with a high amount of renown. Here is a screen shot I took after playing Mourkain Temple (click to enlarge):


Another interesting point was that I can gain 2500+ RP for less than 10 minutes work in a Scenario, so why would I want to spend over an hour doing RvR and gain less than 500 RP? I also thought it was odd that Order lost the match, yet I gained over twice the renown of the best Destruction player?? I have no idea how the contribution system works, but I think Mythic need to re-visit it and make RvR more appealing in the process.

I definately enjoyed playing the Archmage a lot more than my Warrior Priest. They can heal close to that of a Rune Priest and still deal a large amount of damage in the process. At rank 14 I was able to heal 70K+ in a Scenario and still get 2 kills to my name. The coolest part about being a healer is getting +8 RP every time a HoT triggers. All I had to do was keep Lambent Aura up constantly on all nine other team mates and then cash in on the renown. The game rewards you for playing like a robot: tab, cast, tab, cast, tab, cast... seems a bit broken in my books. For now the Archmage seems like the most efficient class for gaining renown whilst still holding their own in combat. I recommend it to all the hardcore PvPers out there, especially if you want to gain large amounts of renown for your guild.

Secret to getting fast Renown

Last night Melf told me about a neat little trick he discovered on the forums for gaining Renown in WAR scenarios extremely quickly. All you have to do is change teams in the scenario so that you are alone or with the mates you want, and you will gain a stack more renown (the less in your team the better). The trick sounded very simple, so naturally Melf and I tried it for ourselves. Sure enough... it worked...


I used my Warrior Priest (Starmantle) and Melf used his Iron Breaker (Drogan) in the Troll Crossing scenario. We created our own little team in slot 10 and played as we normally do.

To change teams in a scenario you right click your character portrait and select 'Leave scenario team'. There will then be an option to join any other team you like. Just click the 'join' link at the bottom of a team slot in the team window.

Here are the results of the first match. Yup, Starmantle and Drogan top scored for Renown. Not bad for rank 17 and 18. The XP gained was nice as well:


Similar results in the second match (click images to enlarge):

This neat neat little trick isn't an exploit. The reason you get more renown than everyone else is that you don't split it with your team mates. In other words, you don't have slackers sapping the rewards for your hard work. The other advantage is that you always get the rewards from corpse looting (he he, no need to roll). The downside is that you miss out on all the buffs associated with being in a group.

Although it is great to finally get the renown I have worked for, I really hope Mythic fix this problem because it promotes solo play in scenarios, which can only lead to disaster.