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  • Nestabarr's Guide to Grouping v 1.0
    By: Nestabarr, Posted at: Wed, Jun 4th 6:47 PM 2003
    Rated 3.22 by 9 people

    This was originally posted in the SWG beta forums.

    Here�s a guide I wrote for our members at BHSS. I share it with you now in the spirit of community building and crass self promotion.

    This is required reading. Come release if you group with me and don't know this stuff, expect to be ridiculed, to be called a n00b stain and to have Jonus craft you a handicapped sign that will adorn your sig on all of your future posts. Forever.

    The Basics

    1) Mask Scent - threaten shot - is the holy trinity of tactics and the basis of all ranged combat in SWG (IMO). You must know how this works to group effectively. Read my guide to soloing for an in depth discussion of the tactic.

    Note: Mask Scent is NOT broken. I�ve seen ppl complaining about this. The Devs have changed the radius at which your use of mask scent is checked against. Now if the mob wanders outside of a 45 meter radius your scent mask is checked against and may fail.

    The solution: Get to around 40 meters before engaging a creature and make sure you have a rifle with a sweet spot in that range.

    {Editorial} Make the radius 50 meters, Devs. I know you are trying to balance, but 40 meters is just too close. {/editorial}

    Group Composition

    Anyone with a gun can help, but those with warning shot (Top Ranged Support box in Marksman) can help even more. Right now brawlers serve little purpose except as insurance when the mob breaks the mask scent - threaten shot (MS - TS) mez and charges the group.

    The thing is this problem can be easily dealt with by warning shot-ing the creature or NPC away. Hopefully future mobs will need to be stunned and blinded to become vulnerable to ranged attacks, or some such tactic so that brawlers will be indispensable.

    You'll also need someone with scout skills for camps, a medic for wounds and for dealing with incaps (if you stim an incaped person they will wake up immediately), and now it seems a crafter to repair weapons since the #1 damage dealing special, overcharge shot, now degrades your weapons condition. Entertainers are nice, but unless all your rifleman are seriously wounded in their mind pool, not really necessary.

    And you'll need me, a smart Squad Leader to guide you through the battle

    Warning shot

    Don�t go grouping seriously on Dathomir, Lok, Endor et all without it. The single pull tactics mentioned in my Guide to Soloing still work for pick up groups of low skill, but to make any headway on the new planets you need crowd controllers, which means you need /warning shot.

    A quick recap on warning shot: It sends the animal fleeing the other way. Pulling with it is dangerous (since Bring-a-friend ((BAF)) is very common on the new planets) but a good puller, or one with help from others in the group with warning shot, can disperse the mobs around a lair very effectively. I even use this tactic soloing, but I don't recommend it. You will probably die quite a bit. Stick to the safer methods of breaking up lairs in my Guide to soloing.

    {Editorial} Devs: Don't Nerf Warning shot! {/Editorial}

    Hot Keys - What to have at hand for easy access

    You have 9 or 10 (I forget) rows of 24 hot keys. Make use of them. Establish one row as your grouping row and add these hotkeys to it along with your postures and your special skills. You don�t need sit in this row or forage or heal wound (possibly heal damage depending on your role in the group) or survey or dance etc.

    Make sure you have Peace hot keyed.
    --------------------------------------------
    This is so very important. When a mob is being /warning shot away and YOU SHOOT IT, it WILL COME BACK, much to the dismay of the puller, and the group. This is my #1 pet peeve and you will draw my ire if you do this. You will forever be branded "special" and will be given a handicapped sign to prove it.
    See below for more discussion.

    Make sure you have overcharge shot (if you are ranged) hot keyed
    -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Normal attacks hit for crap now, and overcharge shot takes little to no health action and mind points to use. Therefore, MASH/SPAM overcharge shot to dispatch most mobs in the shortest amount of time (I know, I know it depends on the HAM bars, Ill get to that).

    The new drawback will be that overcharge shot damages your weapon.

    The solution: Looks like someone is going to have to make a crafting/combat hybrid for us to eradicate the all force sensitive witches on Dathomir in one raid.

    {Editorial} Don't go overboard with the damage done with overcharge shot to our guns devs! It is the main reason we can kill greens and feel like we are actually progressing in this game since you scaled back the damage modifier last week {/editorial}

    Pulling from a lair/POI/Stronghold

    On the new planets certain things are true that are not true on the starting ones. Dathomir and Endor for instance are so dense with mobs and foliage that picking off solo mobs is very difficult.

    When you warning shot a beast or NPC you think is far enough away from the group to bring it solo, just expect a couple more to aggro and be ready to warning shot them away. Having a couple crowd controllers helping the main puller is very helpful, and often times required.

    The important thing is that the group understands that they MUST NOT shoot at any other mob than the one that should be chasing its tail 45 meters away. This is the one the main puller shot with mask scent on and opened with threaten shot. This is the safe mob and it should be your target.

    The ones that charge the group ARE NONE OF THE GROUPS CONCERN. They will be warning shot away. If it is on you, simply wait until a crowd controller gets it off of you. DO NOT ENGAGE THE CHARGING MOBS.

    There is a bug in warning shot right now where the mob who is warning shot may not flee, but may just stand there, basically rooted. If this is the case, simply back away from the mob and keep shooting at the original target. The crowd controllers will take care of the stunned mob.

    Killing Mobs quickly

    Most of this is just theory right now until we can get up high enough in the specialized tiers to target specific pools with numbers but here is how I see it playing out.

    Open with Overcharge shots every time to soften the Mob up.

    If there is a HAM bar that is clearly smaller than the rest, or one that by chance was randomly targeted during the opening softening, have the proper ranged professionals Damage Over Time (DOT) it with say Mindshot 2, then proceed to, in this example Headshot it. All the others in the group can continue with overcharge shots until dead.

    We haven�t seen any boss mobs yet and most of the higher level mobs I�ve encountered will fall to simple zerg tactics once they have been pulled solo and engaged while masked and threatened.

    Soon boss mobs will be in, and Strongholds as well so hopefully more tactics will be needed.

    Nestabarr
    Admin Officer
    www.blackhandss.com

    SWG: Combat: Nestabarr's Guide to Grouping v 1.0, by Nestabarr
    [Post] Forum Preferences: Logged in as: Anonymous [Login]
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    11 threads, 1 page(s) long 
       Outdated Reply...
      Posted @ Wed, Jul 9th 3:13 PM 2003
      By: Anonymous
      Score: Default [2.00]

      These tactics no longer work like they did.. This article needs a rewrite.                                                                

       
      0 Replies
       Warning Shot Reply...
      Posted @ Tue, Jul 8th 9:16 AM 2003
      By: Anonymous
      Score: Default [2.00]

      Warning shot is not the top tiered ranged ability. It is the 3rd.                                                                

       
      0 Replies
       flat combat model Reply...
      Posted @ Tue, Jul 1st 5:22 PM 2003
      By: Anonymous
      Score: Default [2.00]

      Of course he knows what he's talking about .... after months and months of beta testing ...


      And the combat model is not that difficult to understand ...  when group is too strong, pull one away and let plenty of players shoot that one. I think thats understandable even to the lower educated ones :-)

                  

       
      0 Replies
       shut up Reply...
      Posted @ Tue, Jul 1st 3:17 PM 2003
      By: Anonymous
      Score: Default [2.00]

      H e might know what he is talking about but I still think he is a ****head.                                                                

       
      0 Replies
       No talent a$$clowns Reply...
      Posted @ Sun, Jun 29th 2:33 PM 2003
      By: Anonymous
      Score: Default [2.00]

      This guy obviously knows what he's doing. All of your guys knocking him most likely are nothing more than zerg groupers. Taking down big mobs will now take skill and tactics. Learn some.                                                   

       
      0 Replies
       n00bilicious Reply...
      Posted @ Sat, Jun 28th 8:10 PM 2003
      By: Anonymous
      Score: Default [2.00]

      stfu guys he looks like he knows what he's talking about. I haven't got the game yet but I will hopefuly very soon, by then my server will be up and most of the game-breaking bugs will be ironed out :) Anyways i've been busy reading as much as I can in the meantime.

      Anyways, Nestebarr... one question, would all the shooters be prone or crouched during this encounter? Is mobility important? Or is it generally the standard thing to hit the dirt when using a blaster for the "to hit" bonouses and everything?

       
      0 Replies
       ****head Reply...
      Posted @ Fri, Jun 27th 8:04 AM 2003
      By: Anonymous
      Score: Default [2.00]

      I will never group with you ****head, you make it so serious, as others have said not everyone was in beta                                                                

       
      0 Replies
       a$$hole Reply...
      Posted @ Fri, Jun 27th 6:45 AM 2003
      By: Anonymous
      Score: Default [2.00]

      He's the kind of guy that i would want to get killed in a group. I hope i never meet this guy. I remember people like this in everquest would get a reputation for being a$$holes and then wouldn't be able to get groups themselves.                                      

       
      0 Replies
       WTF? Reply...
      Posted @ Wed, Jun 25th 4:34 PM 2003
      By: Banja
      1 posts
      Score: Decent [3.00]

      Why the hell would you make fun of someone for screwing up in game? Not everyone is in beta you know, and while it's fun (and informative) to sit here and read these guides we don't have the foggiest idea what you're talking about until we get in game-at which point we will be so happy and excited/nervous we'll promptly forget everything you warned us away from doing in the first place!            

       
      0 Replies
       Manual Reply...
      Posted @ Sun, Jun 22nd 4:46 AM 2003
      By: PerKristiansen
      2 posts
      Score: Default [2.00]

      Lets hope they MAKE a proper manual and not another PRIMA strategy book                                                                

       
      ----------------------------
      Per
      0 Replies
       NO SIGN!! Reply...
      Posted @ Thu, Jun 19th 9:52 PM 2003
      By: flabajaba
      84 posts
      Score: Default [1.85]

      Please, don't put a sign on me!  We have to patient with the people who havn't been in beta asking A LOT of questions. Lets just hope theyread the manual...


      ALL YOUR A_WOMP_RAT ARE BELONG TO US!! GOOD VIBRATIONS!!                                      

       
      0 Replies
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