We can all agree that the AP system is flawed for a measurement of success. My calculations for AP earnings spreadsheet has been updated
here: https://goo.gl/Ea7Qe3 for those who would like to see real numbers. The most AP goes to the player(s) who get the most damage on opposing players who are killed, regardless of who does the killing. Some AP goes to players who heal other players who make AP when the damage that they took was during combat and from an opposing player.
For example:
- If you throw a caltrops on an opposing group as other people kill them, you'll get a tiny amount of AP.
- If you spam healing HoTs on a friendly group while they kill opponents, provided that they've taken damage that you've healed you'll get a small amount of AP.
- If you throw out inevitable detonations and other large AoE on opponents while other people kill them, you'll get a medium amount of AP.
- If you put down siege and hit opponents while other people kill them, you'll get a medium about of AP.
- If you do 50% of the damage to an opponent and said opponent dies, you'll get 50% of the AP from the kill.
If your goal is to make AP, get high on the leader boards for gold rewards, and/or get emperor, then there are strategies for making the most AP in the least amount of time. I expect that we'll see a lot of AP farming in the first few days of the patch by people who want the new reward mail sets (Vicious Death anyone?). We'll also see quite a few people vying for top 2% of their faction, in the hopes of getting some gold jewellery at the end of the month in reward mails. I myself am hoping to get top 2% on two different toons for even more chance, though we'll see if my work schedule allows me to do so.
To me overall, the leader board is irrelevant as a measure of success. The top of the leader board are the players with the most time, or the most efficient AP farming methods. AP farming is a skill, separate from ganking, solo, duo, small group, or large group play skills. It's nice to see your name on the board, but ultimately it's the top 2% (somewhere between 40 and 90 players) who get gold rewards so the difference between #2 and #50 after the campaign ends is absolutely nothing. My subjective evaluation of success is based on the below, and keep in mind that since achieving AR50 I am much less AP focused.
- While farming AP solo or duo, I keep track of both number of kills and AP gained per time period. If my/our performance is within 20% of my historical average, then I consider it a successful session.
- When in a solid guild group, I look at fights versus similarly skilled opponents and count the wins vs losses. If we lost 10 out of our 12 members then that's a loss - even if the opponents move off and we rez up to try again. I also look at AP made per hour, though that's of lesser significance unless our goal is AP farming.
- When in a large social group (drunk raid nights), the kills / AP of the group is irrelevant as it's the social fun that makes the night a success.
There are many different ways to look at success. What's yours?