Strategies as a bm for NW?

Jaabg - Sanctuary

How did you guys like the new NW? Any helpful thoughts, hints that you guys want to share?

1) I went from one war to the next.

2) I refined my axes to +7 for next nw.

3) I will focus solely on dding, aoeing. This is harder because i had no support. I had to use pots, diamond sutra, IG's, def charms.

4) I will not be taking def charms next time. If i am going to die, i will die.

5) Players have to be tabbed, no names appear, so hard to tell who is who. You can click on players icon and whisper them. I said hi to every person that killed me, just to see who the player was. Quite a few were friends b:laugh, shameless friends.

6) This instance can make you money or help for your gear, it just frees up your times, especially in 2x away from vana.

I had awesome fun, slowly moving towards getting r9 3rd cast for bm. My goal in pwi is to have fun with friends in instance, bh, tw, pvp. I don't mind the farming. Only thing i am not looking forward is doing warsong runs again. I need to do approximately 200~300 runs to get the badges and stats on gear to be good.

Sakubatou - Sanctuary

I skipped it.

Nothing kills your interest in a game like having all the things you worked hard for 4 years suddenly become a fraction of the value. The endgame I planned and was working towards is now next to pointless. The stuff I've worked so hard for people will now get in a weekend or two.

I'm setting up a shop. Back in a few weeks if I find the motivation... maybe.

Jaabg - Sanctuary

Sakubatou - Sanctuary wrote: »

I skipped it.

Nothing kills your interest in a game like having all the things you worked hard for 4 years suddenly become a fraction of the value. The endgame I planned and was working towards is now next to pointless. The stuff I've worked so hard for people will now get in a weekend or two.

I'm setting up a shop. Back in a few weeks if I find the motivation... maybe.

Sorry you feel that way Sakubatou, hope you find joy again. It is a blow i know, no easy way to take it. I spent a year farming money to make my g15 claws last year, and got them in dec. This NW, a friend made them from the rewards and had spare raps to roll it 10 times. It is painful to see, but i am happy with my gear.

I ditched the idea of my aps gear, maybe refine the armours to +10, so i can solo bosses. Mostly going to focus on r9 3rd cast now. The joys of endless warsong runs will begin again b:cry.

I wonder if rather than having raps and canny there, they had the duty badges, would people have complained a similar amount? I do not look forward to warsong runs again, they become tedious like vana after some time.

Maelael - Heavens Tear

There's lots of mixed feelings over this, but tbh, this is the new gooning. Don't be silly, and take advantage of it.

And yea, I logged on for 15 minutes to check **** out after I got home, and had 6 warsong invites...

Luckily all I need is badges at this point and to do about (Redid the math with Sundays averages, 4 months)

So far the prices seem to semi stabilize at 400k a Rap, so Im expecting them to either finish at 200-300k or hit 500k and stay that way after 3 months. They were at 500-600k Sunday night.

I looked at R8r mats and went wow, I spent way too much for -int that I never used yet, but double or triple int here I come!

If PWI is smart for once, they'll up canny and trial mat return in those instances, up the NW token requirements, or lower rewards.

But PWI is not smart. So most likely this is it.

SashaGray - Heavens Tear

PWI realized they have already so the majority of the r9 they are going to sell. and the people that bought it have already refined and sharded, so the best way to get money out of them again is to make them spend a ton of money to transfer or re-refine and reshard what they have already, and making s3 that much more accessable is the best way to do that.

in addition they have added a much needed real coin sink (1st making the mats from the war coins, then the re-casting/re-rolling costs)

they will sell more packs, now that shard demand will jump way up, charm demand will jump way up.

the NW instance and set up is also tons of fun and well implimented, which believe it or not, should be the most important part of a game, not mindless and repetitive grinding for coin.

more money for PWI, more fun for players, less time spent grinding money, all i see is win-win.

TheDan - Sanctuary

Sadly the rewards from Nation Wars shocked me as much as 11* and 12* orb sales they pulled over a year ago.

I'm trying to make the best out of a bad situation, so I'm trying to take advantage of it and get ahead of people than sit idle and fall behind.

Whatever the case, the game's life probably just got shortened from 2-3 years to 3-6 months before everyone reaches R9S3.

There's a few guides on my faction's forums, but it is still lacking screenshots to help guide people, maybe I'll get them to post it somewhere after this Sunday's NW and more info can be compiled.

Jaabg - Sanctuary

I finally got to use flame tsunami in a pvp setting. There were two people, a cleric, wizzy. I one shot both of them with flame tsunami b:victory. My weak bm can one shot people.

Some bms just charge at you straight, i find that odd. I use smack, by the time they reach me, i stun. DD away and die or if no one around, i kill the other bm. A sizeable portion of bm are switching to claws, i wonder why? If game is based on damage output. I would think that range+aoe = better choice over claws, killing someone? Unless killing someone gives more points than simple aoe dd.

Next update, roar of pride needs to deal 1k damage b:victory. Every time i get close to people to stun, i stun them, but die, because some range character killed me.

Jaabg - Sanctuary

I think the reason the light nation lost (sanctuary) was because of sudden land loss in the start. The people in green took over lots of land in the start. That resulted in them gaining a high score. It was a bit sad, the first 5 wars it was 3 vs 20, 5 vs 20 in favour of light nation, but we lost the battles very quickly. At one point we were so far pushed back that we had 180 people waiting in base.

I am guessing a sudden land rush is far more beneficial in winning than beating up people. The ideal situation is to have a sudden land rush, keep it for as long as possible, 10~30 minutes. After that have fun with the pk, because everyone will rush over to that part.

I still wonder why classes with no running skills pick up the flag?

Maelael - Heavens Tear

Jaabg - Sanctuary wrote: »

I still wonder why classes with no running skills pick up the flag?

Greed? Ignorance?

There was some discussion at the end of last night between some of us in say about how Venos, Barbs, and BMs should only pick up the flag.

I know some sins grabbed em, but they were one shot so hard it wasn't funny.

I'm still discussing with factionmates and friends about the best way to procure scores. So far it seems like you get good credit for carrying flags, being on the winning side of a battle, taking damage, and dealing damage.

I had a barb friend rank nearly as high as I did, and he did next to no damage...but took a ton of it. He only carried a few flags. I carried one, took a TON of damage, and dealt a TON of damage (Omg the one shots...I dropped a whole group of 7 with fissure once).

BUT, I wasted a ton of time waiting on flags and in empty maps. So we'll see.

Star skills:

Drake Ray (one shotting AAs)
Highland and Fissure (again more one shotting)
HF (one shotting)
Blade Hurl (Screwed...everyone. Blade Hurl, close in, Roar, murder)
Fisting down barbs - I couldnt believe I did that so often...but there it is. I encountered too many barbs where it went on forever, and I was like F it and just fisted them down.

OCEANS EDGE AND WHIRLWIND. Amazing here compared to TW's usage.

I used reel in a few times to murder a few people, however I think I need to utilize reckless rush more.

But, the true star of the night? Bramble and defense levels. I think that killed more sins and BMs than anything else.


Overall it's fun as hell, but I like grinding instances too. I really like Nirvana. I'll miss it but this is an exciting replacement. I just expect non weekends to be more ghost-towny now. But yea omg, I had a blast and I don't really like PvP (Im more of a PvE fan).

Zarkin_Baxil - Raging Tide

Welcome to the PK dark side Maelael. We hope you enjoy your stay, and the murder, and the mayhem....

Saethos - Raging Tide

Maelael - Heavens Tear wrote: »

Greed? Ignorance?

There was some discussion at the end of last night between some of us in say about how Venos, Barbs, and BMs should only pick up the flag.

I know some sins grabbed em, but they were one shot so hard it wasn't funny.

I'm still discussing with factionmates and friends about the best way to procure scores. So far it seems like you get good credit for carrying flags, being on the winning side of a battle, taking damage, and dealing damage.

I had a barb friend rank nearly as high as I did, and he did next to no damage...but took a ton of it. He only carried a few flags. I carried one, took a TON of damage, and dealt a TON of damage (Omg the one shots...I dropped a whole group of 7 with fissure once).

BUT, I wasted a ton of time waiting on flags and in empty maps. So we'll see.

Star skills:

Drake Ray (one shotting AAs)
Highland and Fissure (again more one shotting)
HF (one shotting)
Blade Hurl (Screwed...everyone. Blade Hurl, close in, Roar, murder)
Fisting down barbs - I couldnt believe I did that so often...but there it is. I encountered too many barbs where it went on forever, and I was like F it and just fisted them down.

OCEANS EDGE AND WHIRLWIND. Amazing here compared to TW's usage.

I used reel in a few times to murder a few people, however I think I need to utilize reckless rush more.

But, the true star of the night? Bramble and defense levels. I think that killed more sins and BMs than anything else.


Overall it's fun as hell, but I like grinding instances too. I really like Nirvana. I'll miss it but this is an exciting replacement. I just expect non weekends to be more ghost-towny now. But yea omg, I had a blast and I don't really like PvP (Im more of a PvE fan).

Two words.

Charger. Orbs.

OP as hell pots to use in NW. I could find myself 1 vs 20, pop an anti stun, use the charget=r orb, and just like that, I was OUT OF THERE and home free! I got so many flag scores just on account of me getting the hell away from everyone with those pots. You still end up at 15 m/s with those sexy little things!

Maelael - Heavens Tear

Saethos - Raging Tide wrote: »

Two words.

Charger. Orbs.

OP as hell pots to use in NW. I could find myself 1 vs 20, pop an anti stun, use the charget=r orb, and just like that, I was OUT OF THERE and home free! I got so many flag scores just on account of me getting the hell away from everyone with those pots. You still end up at 15 m/s with those sexy little things!

I was abusing the **** outta shadowchasers most of the time. I had used like maybe 2 in the last 3 months, but now I gotta buy more...

Saethos - Raging Tide

Maelael - Heavens Tear wrote: »

I was abusing the **** outta shadowchasers most of the time. I had used like maybe 2 in the last 3 months, but now I gotta buy more...

I wouldn't be surprised if chargers and shadowchasers were nerfed in NW When you have the flag sometime soon

T_i_m - Dreamweaver

Smack 100% accuracy makes me happy. I swear it had -50% accuracy before. BOA-be-gone!

Sprint skills, vacuities and teas are all nice, leaps too.

The star performer however is blade tornado. Talk about bodies hitting the floor, especially non-HA. Even many barbs can't stand up to it.

Maelael - Heavens Tear

T_i_m - Dreamweaver wrote: »

Smack 100% accuracy makes me happy. I swear it had -50% accuracy before. BOA-be-gone!

The star performer however is blade tornado. Talk about bodies hitting the floor, especially non-HA. Even many barbs can't stand up to it.

I've been making use of smack, it just wasn't as much of an OMG as the other skills. I did pretty much the same stuff with it.

Blade Tornado totally slipped my mind. Gonna give it a go friday - you're right, this should drop scrubs left and right. Although I did kill some BM in Blade Tornado/Sword Cyclone last night, which is prolly why I didn't really think to use it.

CapnK - Sanctuary

Yeah, I dropped Blade Tornado on an archer that went stealth to try to avoid me. Killed him and two sins that were coming to assist him.

BoomBastic - Lothranis

Smacked a few ppl.. Stun locked some nasty r9 archers.. but most of the time i was backing up the cleric that was focused on healing or flag carrying barb, while my sin friend was backing me up, taking all ranged target trying to mess with me or cleric..
So in other words.. I played support b:victory
Seemed like a nice strategy that worked well for us.

Zanryu - Lothranis

BoomBastic - Lothranis wrote: »

Smacked a few ppl.. Stun locked some nasty r9 archers.. but most of the time i was backing up the cleric that was focused on healing or flag carrying barb, while my sin friend was backing me up, taking all ranged target trying to mess with me or cleric..
So in other words.. I played support b:victory
Seemed like a nice strategy that worked well for us.

Noob's way. Go in and tank an entire squad like a badass, then when you die you go down a hero. A HERO.

BoomBastic - Lothranis

Zanryu - Lothranis wrote: »

Noob's way. Go in and tank an entire squad like a badass, then when you die you go down a hero. A HERO.

LoL.. ofc its the noobs way, i never claimed to be pro and never will b:victory

(also i think he believes that "tank a entire squad" is running out in just underpants and getting gangraped by 20+ ppl without landing 1 hit ) b:chuckle

Zanryu - Lothranis

BoomBastic - Lothranis wrote: »

LoL.. ofc its the noobs way, i never claimed to be pro and never will b:victory

(also i think he believes that "tank a entire squad" is running out in just underpants and getting gangraped by 20+ ppl without landing 1 hit ) b:chuckle

You're just jealous of my boxers with hearts on them.

BoomBastic - Lothranis

Zanryu - Lothranis wrote: »

You're just jealous of my boxers with hearts on them.

fo sure.. b:dirty

Maelael - Heavens Tear

BoomBastic - Lothranis wrote: »

LoL.. ofc its the noobs way, i never claimed to be pro and never will b:victory

(also i think he believes that "tank a entire squad" is running out in just underpants and getting gangraped by 20+ ppl without landing 1 hit ) b:chuckle

My underpants are antistun+IG followed up by AD until I kill them or they kill me.

XCableX - Archosaur

Organize a 8 bm, 1 barb + cleric squad and go in. One grabs the flag and move your shiny bald head in first b:victory

Just kill. Stun what you can and HF with your team against crowds, drop some AoEs.

Or just grab the flag and move.

Jaabg - Sanctuary

Killed my first barb today b:victory. Barb was buffed, but must have had bad gear to get killed by me. I was waiting at the flag spawn. There was no one else, i phy marrowed. Barb moved in, i sealed. By the time barb got here, seal was about to wear off, so i roared. Switched to claws, had my fun. Switched to Drake bash. Had fun again. Stunned one last time, and barb was dead. No charm, no pots, no genie use. I am not good at pvp, half the time i can't find the buttons i want to click. I just think the barb was badly geared b:surrender.

Something i noticed though. One battle i got 1.1k points. Things i did in that battle, light aoe, nothing major from my usual runs, i am one shot, so i don't see much action. I carried the flag once. We lost the battle. The battle how ever was 20 vs 10, we were 10. I think the worse odds you have, the more points you get. Later on battles were 20 vs 20, and i got 100~400 per battle.

A very annoying thing i noticed. Quite a few wars, we had 20 people, other side had 5~10 people. Our side just stood in the middle waiting around or pking one two people. No one chased down the flag bearing person. We lost four lands like that, i was surprised people did that. Happy when it happens to me, but people need to realise, have your pvp fun, but also kill the flag bearer, especially if you have more people.

I suspect there are a few factions who understand how NW works. In the beginning of the game, they do a mad land rush. Usually results in 1~2 nations being boxed in. 130~200 players in the base, who can't exit. This lasts for 10~40 minutes. In that time, the nation that did land rush will always have the highest score. Even if in the end they have the least amount of land. The number of lands and the duration your nation holds them, seems to be a very big factor in deciding which nation has the upper hand. Since people are happy to stroll around, can't really force them to see this point.

I have made peace with tokens. I get 5k contribution and i will get 70~80 tokens. People with half my contribution get 50~60 tokens. People with 8k~10 contribution, get 3 times my tokens. The game does not want me to have tokens.

On a person note, i decided to finish my pve set now. -Int on boots and -Int on chest(x2 if possible).

Archer speed buff that they can put on others, it works here to btw. I had an archer put that on me. That basically ensures a bm is running for full 1 minute to 90 seconds. I go solo in my NW, so no co-ordination on my part, i see the harm in it. I often see BM charge into a group, the group focuses on the bm, the archers, wizzy, psy lay the hurt as the bm dies for the attacking group, resulting in massive loss for the party being attacked.

I still haven't decided what to do about marrows. I might simply put on element neck+belt, and high refined coa rings or other magic rings for mdef and just go with bell. That should boost mdef quite a bit. I believe the buffs are lvl 10 for barb, cleric that we get in NW.

CapnK - Sanctuary

The share of points on the battlefield is determined by class, like Tiger event. If you were the best (or only) BM your points would have been higher.

Number one BM enemy in NW: all the rocks and trees in the way.

Number two BM enemy in NW: Venos. Purge is evil in NW, as you don't always have the rest of your squad in the same instance to rebuff you.

Runemine - Dreamweaver

One think i have not seen anyone say here yet is that smack is AMAZING since the upgrade i 1 shot R8s and a lil better because of the OPness. Also flame tsnami hits fricking hard and never misses. Best about them both is it never misses and are ranged so you can stay in the air and wait to get the flag which with charger orbs gets caped in around 40 seconds. Another thing is if going for straight kills go for the assassins they may hit you for 2k cause there wep but i usually 1 shot them or just plain out hit em insane amount because assassins almost never refine armor. Least how it is in my server.

Jaabg - Sanctuary

Not to sound rude Runemine, but did you read other people's posts?

T_i_m - Dreamweaver wrote: »

Smack 100% accuracy makes me happy. I swear it had -50% accuracy before. BOA-be-gone!

Maelael - Heavens Tear wrote: »

I've been making use of smack, it just wasn't as much of an OMG as the other skills. I did pretty much the same stuff with it.

BoomBastic - Lothranis wrote: »

Smacked a few ppl..

Not sure BoomBastic is referring to the skill or just smacking people,

Jaabg - Sanctuary wrote: »

I finally got to use flame tsunami in a pvp setting. There were two people, a cleric, wizzy. I one shot both of them with flame tsunami b:victory. My weak bm can one shot people.

Some bms just charge at you straight, i find that odd. I use smack, by the time they reach me, i stun. DD away and die or if no one around, i kill the other bm.

Saethos - Raging Tide

Smack was incredible, but now it's just crazy. It hits just as hard as level 11 Drake Bash but can't miss and is ranged.

Reel in is great too and really saved a whole war once. The barb carrying the flag was almost in but I used Reel In last minute and stunned him just before he made it and used HF, He started to run a little bit and almost made it again but then the wiz did a crit, and it was all over after that. Later we won the battle, but had I not used Reel in they would have won and we'd have failed to gain the territory, which was great.

Jaabg - Sanctuary

Wooohooooo. Btw guys see what the odds are in the fights that you get high scores and see what you do.

I have unlocked 1 secret to nation war. If you carry the flag, doesn't matter if you win or lose. The point is to take as much damage as possible, live or die. Complete the quest or not. In one fight i captured one flag, we were 14 against 20. I took it about half way and I came under heavy fire. I managed to live through it. But when i checked my damage log, i sustained about 40k damage, i had heals and support this time. That was the only thing i did in that battle. I got 935 personal score. We won the fight

There was another 14 vs 20 (14 our side, same people). This time i came under fire, took about 25k damage total. We won the fight. My personal score was 250.

I forget what the battle score was, but the numbers were similar. My guess is that if you carry the flag and take damage, there is a multiplier, or additional score involved for you. The more unfair things are for the side with fewer people, the more points you get.

There have been other fights where i did not touch the flag, got 900~1.1k score, lost those battles as a nation. Those fights were usually 10 vs 20 (us being 10).

Saethos - Raging Tide

Jaabg - Sanctuary wrote: »

Wooohooooo. Btw guys see what the odds are in the fights that you get high scores and see what you do.

I have unlocked 1 secret to nation war. If you carry the flag, doesn't matter if you win or lose. The point is to take as much damage as possible, live or die. Complete the quest or not. In one fight i captured one flag, we were 14 against 20. I took it about half way and I came under heavy fire. I managed to live through it. But when i checked my damage log, i sustained about 40k damage, i had heals and support this time. That was the only thing i did in that battle. I got 935 personal score. We won the fight

There was another 14 vs 20 (14 our side, same people). This time i came under fire, took about 25k damage total. We won the fight. My personal score was 250.

I forget what the battle score was, but the numbers were similar. My guess is that if you carry the flag and take damage, there is a multiplier, or additional score involved for you. The more unfair things are for the side with fewer people, the more points you get.

There have been other fights where i did not touch the flag, got 900~1.1k score, lost those battles as a nation. Those fights were usually 10 vs 20 (us being 10).

I've noticed that when I kill people all NW I get near nothing in terms of personal reward unless I sustain a ton of damage in the process (we have a few squads dedicated to ganking in NW, so this happens a lot). The big thing is, when all I do in NW is support in kills instead of take the liberty to strangle the enemies myself, I get way less then when I am dying all the time but taking people out with me. It seems as though it's more based on the amount of damage you have dealt AND sustained instead of your kill count or flag capture count (though flag capture count seems to play a large role).

So I wonder if you were being all uber tank and had the flag, took a ton of damage, but also dished out some serious punishment, how much contribution you would get? brb rolling r9t3+12 vit stone pure vit build demon arma barb with massive tree of protection buff!

Maelael - Heavens Tear

CapnK - Sanctuary wrote: »

The share of points on the battlefield is determined by class, like Tiger event. If you were the best (or only) BM your points would have been higher.

Number one BM enemy in NW: all the rocks and trees in the way.

Number two BM enemy in NW: Venos. Purge is evil in NW, as you don't always have the rest of your squad in the same instance to rebuff you.

Rocks and trees are annoying, but TBH Im so used to that from TW it really hasn't crossed my mind too much. If anything it makes it interesting and makes it easier for AAs to do better. Balance in PvP and all.

Twards venos...theres a reason I murder the hell outta them regularly. Thankfully it seems most of my servers venos are one shots.

I enjoy pvping on my BM, but Im debating bringing my barb as well to soak damage. There were 2 barbs I could not put down quickly (and about 7 that were easy one round of axe spam). All of my points came from soaking damage mostly (since there was little to no assistance in 75% of the instances I was in), and I still technically got the same points as the last 3 NWs for the hour I was able to be in instances (spent an hour trying to get into places to no avail).

I definitely murdered more people on Friday, but I took way more damage on Sunday (used twice the amount of charms). So yea, I think dealing and taking damage is valued about equally.

Also either something is broken, or I dunno with the carrying flag points. I got just as much contribution (and ranked 1) wether I carried a flag or not. I actually ranked 1 in an empty instance where I did not carry a flag. I'm wondering if soulforce has anything to do with it.