BXR_Lonestar wrote: »This is coming from someone who was dead set against the concept of the Vengeance campaign since it was first announced (and we did not get to play the first one because I'm on console), from someone who plays regularly with a coordinated ballgroup, and someone who is used to playing PVP at somewhat of a high level:
The Vengeance campaign is a breath of fresh air and was a BLAST to play last night. I'm an admitted skeptic and came to it with a very pessimistic view, but I wanted to be able to talk about it from a well informed position, and so I sat down determined to figure out how to play it. I skilled up my warden healer with those abilities that I thought would be helpful. And at first, I was miserable. I wasn't able to spam heals like I'm used to, I wasn't able to heal as many targets as I used to, and I wasn't as unkillable as I used to feel while playing on my healer. But if you are only comparing your experience to what the game was like just a few days ago, then I think you are missing the forest through the trees.
Yes, to enjoy Vengeance, you are going to have to make adjustments to how you play, tactics you use, etc.. But if you work through the learning curve and stick around long enough, then you are going to get into some truly epic large scale battles the likes of which we haven't experienced since the start of the game and since players could run in groups of 24. There are so many people everywhere that there is no shortage of fights. During those fights, you don't have to worry about getting pulled and blown up by a bomb or a ball group. You don't have to worry about chasing around a speedy healbot kite tank that can still suddenly turn around and burst you down. There aren't massive waves of groups all running 40k+ health that seem unkillable, even when you hit them with seige. It was like playing the game fresh and new and without a lot of the crap that can really make the game a miserable experience, even for a veteran player.
And on the topic of seige. My faction is not known for being good seigers. But this campaign is forcing them to learn how to do it. Because even though MOST battles are going to be dictated by numbers because of the way things are balanced out, knowing when and how to siege is just as critical, and those siege battles are absolutely amazing! At one point, I had a Trebuchet down and was coordinating fire with another guildmate, also using a Treb to simply annihilate groups of people because we timed our launches almost perfectly. Dumping oils is a little boring since you don't feel like you are in the thick of the fight and your oils often miss, but when they hit, they have a HUGE impact on the fight. And players are quickly learning combined arms tactics (how to fight on foot and with siege).
And the healing? I thought I would hate it because I was feeling like I wasn't having a large impact on the game because I was limited in how many I could throw out, how few people were hit by them, and my HOTS were weak and didn't hit many people. But we got into a Tri-fight at Alessia in which they swiss cheesed the outer walls, but we held the inner keep against greater numbers and were eventually able to push them back and fight on the outer wall breaches, and being able to toss my heals into a concentrated area still felt very effective in spite of the limitations.
Overall, I came to Vengeance a HUGE skeptic and dead set on just gritting and bearing it to get through the test. But I was actually pleasantly surprised at how much I actually enjoyed it.