No UI Addons
Enemy Castbars. CC Watch. Target of Target of Target of Target of Target. Convenient? Yes. Necessary? No.
When I first stumbled into Warhammer Online and played around with the UI, I noticed there wasn’t a visible section for third-party UI modifications. I later found out that it wasn’t me getting lost in lots of pretty menus, but that Mythic doesn’t want this to be a part of their game. After my initial semi-shock that they were actually taking this route, it occurred to me that this way will probably help separate players into their respective skill brackets. Naturally, UI Add-Ons only give players so much of an advantage and while it probably isn’t game-breaking, it’s another thing that you have to leave up to human control.
“There really ISN’T anything we can say that WON’T trigger panic from someone. There’s nothing functionally that you can add via a mod that isn’t available in the standard, out of the box UI.” - Josh Drescher on third party user add-ons.
No UI Add-Ons? Isn’t that a step backwards? At first I found myself panicking when trying to switch my Guard-Target from healer to healer, trying to pick the one that was getting focus fired. Where’s my goddamn Target of Target?! Maybe some things the player just isn’t supposed to know. In fact, it seems that this thinking is also widely supported by the WoW competitive community. All the major tournaments have banned UI Add-Ons because they gave players too much of an easy ride, and some tournaments still don’t allow macros.
There’s still plenty of modification to be done to the UI with the ingame options. Every part of the UI is moveable and resizable, and since it’s not a third-party add-on, there’s no need to update after every patch to make sure it’s compatible… or wait for the newest release if it’s not.
The thing I’m going to miss most is target-of-target. I can agree that the add-ons to keep track of all the enemy CC, cooldowns, castimes, alert you to specific casts, and notify you of trinket use, were a little over the top. That being said, this game probably won’t have as much of a need for these add-ons. The CC is so few and far between that you really don’t need to keep track of it all; even if you do get hit, it’s not the end of the world, you’ll be free to move in 5 seconds.
Crowd Control and RvR
Speaking of Crowd Control, I’m having a blast RvRing in Warhammer Online because of it’s noticeable absence. I was weary at first, playing a priest in WoW for a number of years, and a rogue before that, I was well aware of the importance of stuns, fears, roots, etc in WoW PvP. WoW CC is there to make sure that players can survive burst/spike damage and to be able to get a kill through intense healing. Imagine if there was nothing to prevent a rogue/warrior from beating on your clothy, you will die. It seems Mythic has taken the smarter route, and instead of granting abilities that cause players to lose control of their characters to control burst potential, they just increased the survivability of every class in RvR. Even the squishiest of squishies can live quite a while if played properly.
I’ve mentioned this before, but it’s very encouraging to know that Mythic actually has a term for the average length a player will live in any given RvR encounter; Time To Kill, or TTK. During the course of the closed beta, this was a focal point in the RvR testing. Warhammer Online’s release date had been pushed back a number of times, and the primary reason for that was to ensure a balanced RvR environment, mainly through tweaking TTK with new class changes.
Naturally, the classes with the most crowd control potential are the tank classes, it’s what they’re supposed to do, control the flow of battle and defend their groups. Aside from the tanks, no other classes really have any significant forms of CC. Snares and Roots do exist, and they play a vital role in the survivability of certain classes, but it’s nothing that will determine the outcome of a fight.
Detaunt
As far as I can tell, every class aside from tanks get some kind of detaunt ability. All detaunts differ slightly from class archetype to class archetype, but the one thing they share is the main function of the ability; a 50% damage reduction from your target, which lasts until you hit them. Detaunt is a great mechanic, and it’s an in my opinion is an excellent way to reduce the incoming damage to player for a limited time so you can get that one clutch heal off, escape with the last bits of your health bar remaining, or just ease off some of the incoming damage when getting focus fired.
Detaunting at the right moment has saved me countless times already, but the 50% damage reduction doesn’t come without a price. As soon as you hit your detaunted target, the detaunt effect is removed. Sure you’re preventing your enemy from killing you, but you’re also indirectly saving their hide. If you look at it from a logical standpoint, it’s a 50% damage reduction for you, but a 100% damage reduction for them. There’s definitely ways to make offensive use of your detaunt; it has great synergy with long-cast-time abilities. As a sorceress, I often don’t have the time to cast a 3-second-cast doombolt with a melee class in my face, but if I detaunt, it gives me a chance to apply Obsessive Focus (10% damage increase for 20 second on that target) and charge up my Doombolt. For those 4-5 seconds that I’m casting I’m taking only 50% of their damage.
Detaunt is great to use in combination with Flee as well. If you absolutely need to run away from a fight, make sure to detaunt the nearest target attacking you before you flee. Even melee classes have a ranged attack to finish off runners, and a quick detaunt before fleeing will give you a good chance to survive it if they’re quick enough to pull it off.