What is a Warband?
A warband is a big party of 24 people.. which consists of 4 full parties of 6 member isn each. To form a warband you need to first make a group with one more person then create the warband. There are two types of warband formations Public and Private. If you want to find a public warband you need to press the letter L and see availible warbands in the game for your faction. For a private warband you need to be invited by the warband leader or assistant.
In this post we will talk about guild organised warbands. A guild organised warband is a warband that consists of guild member and occusionaly frineds or random people to fill empty spaces when needed. Here we will see a 100% guild warband.
This is a warbandthat has by default voice communications. In this warband there will be group sorting, by group sorting we mean that the leader is checking the best possible 2-2-2 composition (2 tanks – 2 DPS – 2 Healers). In this format you should expect that people will be kicked from the warband if too many dps, if afk, or not follwoing. This sorting happening when we are looking at a competitive warband.
Some guilds will not conform to the 2-2-2 formation since they play with the guild members and friends and its not nice to exclude those people. The fact there is voice communication is good and improves overall performance and efectiveness of the warband. This means that the performance will be high depedent upon the idividuals. Since they play every day together and practice movement, targeting and or other tactics the response time of the commands given will be on spot.
This is a major difference between pug and guild warbnads, the experinces of everyday combat with the same people and style. This type of warband has he best results on the maps and pushing campaigns, especialy when they co-oridinate with other organised guild warbnads.
Composition of a Warband
A warband usualy has a 2-2-2 composition (2 tanks – 2 DPS – 2 Healers) with most DPS in a AOE build. Depending on the type of warband the composition may vary in composition and quantity. Organised guild warbands tend to have only levle 40 character with the best possible gear availible to them. Most warbands will go fro a 4 party aoe spec for the classes that are in it. However we have seen other guilds in the past run different formation and compositions. Some are the following
The warbands can be either melee focused AOE OR Ranged AOE focused or mixed.
4-0 Parties: This is the typical 4 AOE parties in a warband.
3-1 Parties: This formation follows the 2-2-2 formation for the parties how ever 3 parties are speced for AOE and the 4th party is speced for single target damage. In this format the 4th party acts on its own with a different leader. This party usualy has one goal hit the back lines (healers / casters) fast and hard while the other 3 parties are keeping busy the front lines and the rest of the enemy warband.
4-0 Utility or 3-1 Utilty: In this setup you have either the 4 aoe parties or the 3 aoe parties and the 1 single target party and you add 1 -2 utility engineers. the utility enginner is a tank build with almsot zero damage. The idea is that with a tank and little heal the engineer will be able to control the healers and caster thus minimizing heallign and spell aoe damage to allow to the rest of the warband to psuh with less pressure.
The engineer will use punts, aoe punts, pull, aoe interupts, knockdowns, incresing casting times, debuff on melee and more to control. This format is effective until the enemy picks up on the engineer and focus then its game over. This build was used with great success for 1-2 months before enemy warbnds picked up.. Maybe it should be in some sort fo rotation every now and then.
Note: the healers in the warband usualy have 1 Archmage or Shaman for the instant ressurection and aoe slow.
Leading a Warband
Leading a warband is not as easy as people may think or want to think. The hardest part is to control all the people in the warband.
While leading a warband you need to know / be aware of the following:
Do readiness checks:
- Ask the warband to type ready or 123 on /wb to see how many are ready to go!
- Move randomly left and right and see how many are following.
Do Buff / Potion Chekcs:
You can’t go out there to fight and missing auras / commands, armour pots etc. Just because its a pug warband dont mean you have to suck when clicking potions is easy enough to do.
10 thing you need to understand when leading warbands:
- You can not please everyone
- You will be the bad guy in this!!!
- You will be blamed for loosing
- Its your fault people die when in other parts of the map and not following
- It’s your strategics that don’t work.. they know better!
- You have to find all the members
- You have to balance / fix the groups
- You have all the answers
- You are to blame for the game having no fights or boring keep takes
- Its your fault you end up fighting against 2-3 enemy warbands! – Its all YOUR fault!
Movement of a Warband
A warband is only strong when its all together. If you have 2 parties startigng to fight and then 20 sec later the other 2 arrive then you are all dead, espcialy versus an enemy warband. The movement of the warband needs to be tight formation, the so called blob. You need to move as one, fight as one or perish. Grouping up, making stops to regoup is imperative in controling a warband and increasing the win / loose ratio. Be carefull this may sound as a simple thing, but trust me, this might be the hardest part in a warband, some times!!!
In addition try and keep the classes are they need to be while moving.. this is the harder thing to do in any warband for many reasons. The tanks need to be in the front with melee followed by the ranged and last the healers.
Always check behind you so that you are never outflanked. You need to have a very good space awareness. Checking behind you can be done easily. Autorun and use left click (hold) and rotate to check. Get in the habit of chekcing. It might even give you the opportunity to surprise some attackers that might be following you. As a guild warband fins a willing memvber to assist you in runing the warband. Find a perosn to handle invites, communications, chat posts, group sorting etc. This way you can focus in the tactics, the map and the fights.
Addons to help you
There are two places to find useful addons for Return of Reckoning.
For warband leading the best addons to get are:
Just those should be enough to assit you in leading a warband a bit easier.
Controlling a warband in combat
When the fighting starts, thats when a true Warband Commander shines. During the fight you need to do the follwoing depending on the warband you are running, player skill, character levels and of course your personal skill in leading. If you are a new player trying to learn how to lead and play in warbands, you need to understand that this takes time.
Now depending in what type of warband you will be leading you need to know all or some of the things listed below.
Thing you need to know to lead a warband in combat:
- The limits of your warband | How many low levels you have and how many will dive in instead of waitting then fight!
- What classes you have and what they can do.
- The ratio between ranged to melee | indicating different gameplay
- All the skills of the classes in your warband
- All the skills of the classes in the enemy faction
- Ability to recognise enemy character – thus the eneny composition
- Know when your warband and enemy has morals ready | Either when you start he fight together or if they were in combat befroe the engage your warband
- Space aware | Where you are, where they are, and hwo you cna maneuver your warband.
- Map aware | Know the map and shortcuts, ambuse points, choke points.
- Defence tactics | When to defend Bottom floors in keeps or top floors and how !
- Control warband movement | Spread to avoid moral bombs and re-group to push.
Things you need to do as a warband leader in combat:
- Give direction to the warband | attack straight or move left and hit the back line, move right and hit middle section etc.
- Call movement to avoid oil, moral bombs, aoe attacks
- Inspire to keep moral up , We are winning this! keep it up! .. they are dying push NOW! etc
- Call targets while in combat | Attack the zealot my target…All ranged focus oil…etc | Using assits, swft assit or enemy targeting addon might help. Game comes with swift assit so no excuses there.
- Call for spesifc skill usuage such as Challenge, punts, aoe knockdowns, moral usuage( offensive and defensive)
- Remind people to do their jobs | Get the resurrection up.. dont slack..
- Tell them what to resurrect first… You need tanks to hold the funel or healers to sustain and resurrect even more? You know what needs to be done first.. Tell them.
Note: The above bullet points apply to organised play as well. I belive that most of the above points will not be used in any of the Pug like warbands. However i felt the need to mention them. Take your pick on what to use – if applicable to your pug warbands.
Win / Loose Ratio
The win to loosing ratio is what will make you a loved warband leader or a not so loved one or popular. You can not win them all. Most people will undestand this and the circumstances at which victory or defeat was achieved. So don’t go into all the fights with no thinking.
Don’t go and fight 3 Warbands with 1 or don’t go against a fully geared guild warband with your guild warband if you are undergeared or you have filled some spots with randoms or friends. Play accordingly. Co-ordinate with other faction guilds in regions chat or private messages for more security. This is where he assitant comes very handly too. Dont forget destro cna be on a stream or region chat. Private messages is the best way to do it!! Thsi will increase the win / loose ration. Remeber no one likes to loose.
Final Thoughts
Been a warband leader is not easy. You need to control all aspects of the warband, every detail. the people, the skills, the morals, the moral of the people, the movement, call targets, sort groups and many more. There will be good days and bad days. So don’t get disappointed with the bad ones, focus on the good ones and push forward.
Since you are in a guild ask for a day to lead a warband and learn in safety. Ask for feedback, learn and grow. Both factions need new and good warband leaders. Most people don’t won’t to lead warbnds due to the effort it requires, however its the most needed thing in this game. Numbers, gear and organasition is the key to victory. I hope this post will help you to get on this important but hard tast in this game and make you and your guild to shine and gain the credits you all deserve!