New player, Fresh level 40 Order

[grimskuldar]

I am really excited to get into this game, after only being able to play the official servers a few weeks before they shutdown. I loved the massive fort sieges and seeing all role viability in player vs player. After spending a week dabbling around with different characters, I decided to push my Order characters first, starting with the knight. I enjoyed leveling through solo scenario queues, while learning the game (tossing guard up on enemy focus targets, taunts, knockdowns, punts, interrupts, dispels, debuffs, peels, etc.) Yesterday morning I reached level 40 on my knight and jumped into some rank 40 scenario solo queues, and I am quite puzzled. Before sinking time in my character, I looked to see that Order needed more players to bring pop balance, and was desired to have tanks and melee over healers and ranged, while Destro needed the other way around. So far though, it seems to be the inverse of that. I often get queued with maybe one to two healers if I am lucky, or blatantly, none. I do see that tanks are still a scarce commodity, but also see a lot of flack thrown at anyone playing tank with some quip about guard not being up, even though it is. Or an occasional complaint about someone not getting healed enough from an otherwise overworked solo healer.

So far my new player experience has been more enjoyable on the Destro side, with most players being communicative, friendly, and ready to work together. I even had a few people trade me gear as I leveled on Destro side. While on Order, I have mostly had people be rude and tell me off, while everyone else is doing their own thing. So far, I have sunk time into 14 scenarios at rank 40, and won four of them. Three of them being phoenix gate, with me running the otherwise ignored flag with my team fighting in the middle. One was temple of Isha, where my team seemed to work together and had ample healers, and was enjoyable. I am wondering if there is something I can do, to improve my character or my overall experience as an Order player? Should I consider cutting my losses on my knight and go deep into Destro? I understand that solo queue isn't going to run the perfect composition majority of the time, and that I may have the same issues I am currently having should I play Destro, but so far, it seems like grass is greener on the other side.

[Earthcake]

Soloqueue is definitly more enjoyable destro side,
but in a "premade" (this word seems to have magical powers, u immediatly become unbeatable if in one) it's the same on both sides.

[Sofong]

[rejndjer]

when i play my kotbs in pug scenarios i can often get a lot of tanks on order side as well. however when im on my dps there can be 0 tanks very often. my advice for you would be to decide which kind of content do you like more: scenarios or rvr? if you like scenarios more, then you should really consider looking for premade, since even if there are a lot of tanks in pug sc queueing right now, there's a big chance some t4 premade will need tank. they might turn you down if your gear is low however....

personally, i like rvr a lot more. while i was leveling my kotbs i leveled it mainly through rvr. why? because the ratio of experience-to-renown you get is much higher in scenarios than rvr. this means that when you hit r40, if you were doing scenarios you would've been lower renown rank than if you had played rvr. during leveling to 40 i was either in pug wb or solo roaming. you CAN actually roam with low-level kotbs if you know rvr maps, and know basics about other classes (mainly witch elves, since they'll think you're ez meat). also you get more crests than via scenarios from my experience. final note: roaming when you're outnumbered can be very profitable, if you get +100% or even more renown on kill, that means that you are heavily outnumbered, and in these situations one can often find afk players around BOs. it may not be honorable, but in these outnumbered situations this is by far the most profitable thing to do. i remember i used to get like 10k-20k renown for one solo-kill while i was low level + AAO. also you would get a lot of renown even for killing <40 lvl enemies, and while i was leveling up every time witch elf <40lvl tryed to kill me she failed and got killed instead.

[Cyrylius]

there was a thread about SC statistics a few months ago, for anyone interested. And it showed pretty decent equality of order and destro wins. I can link it, its a good read. it also shows that youll be getting loss/win streaks no matter what side you play on.

About SCs, lets say something inventive: play what you find fun. Also, dont mind anyone but you, your friends and sometimes your party, specifically not other unrelated players. Playing objectives gets lots of flack when youre losing the fights, cause its considered a bit of a throwing move (1. "We could have maybe won if YOU didnt just do PvE" and 2. "you cant win fights so you go play objectives, how pathethic" are the two general mindsets) but it can get you win even when getting outkilled - not everyone considers that a win however. About playing itself: play as well as you can. As a tank you are the one who decides on what to swap guard to next, and as long as youre generally in guardrange any heal/dps/tank/dead weight getting angry at you for not guarding them just before they died can be assumed to be subjective in their judgment and ignored - and even if they are right, you can just do better next time, the game does not assume you start with all the skills, experience and mechanics needed and learning is not a bad thing. ive heard some people be very negative about general order playerbase, and i do admit my experiences from playing soloq on order are a bit worse, expecially in terms of general atmosphere, but as most players play both sides the difference isnt particularly big.

Finishing words: none, really. If you enjoy playing tank play tank as well as you can. If you dont enjoy chat ignore whoever is crashing your experience. Thats it.

viewtopic.php?p=516471

[grimskuldar]

Okay, so until I get geared, I need to kill afk players and join zergs. Then later join premades when I am geared to queue against solo or do premades have better matchups? I assume dungeons are also locked behind expected gear tiers?

[shoelessHN]

Okay, so until I get geared, I need to kill afk players and join zergs. Then later join premades when I am geared to queue against solo or do premades have better matchups? I assume dungeons are also locked behind expected gear tiers?

Nah dungeons are more fun when you wear no gear.

[Cyrylius]

On tank it kind of does work like you just said. On the other hand, kotbs is probably the single most needed class in every kind of content, so you might find spots in groups even when undergeared cause every group has to have at least one kotbs.

[Ashoris]

Okay, so until I get geared, I need to kill afk players and join zergs. Then later join premades when I am geared to queue against solo or do premades have better matchups? I assume dungeons are also locked behind expected gear tiers?

Nah, its not - as a KotBS you are pretty much effective from the beginning on - even in RUIN only gear.
The problem is to find people who are actually play as a grp and thats actually incredibly rare on Order PuG. Pretty much all of the people who know how to play as a Grp avoid queuing PuG on Order side because its a mess.
Order PuG is most of the time people who dont know how to play as a grp and this is especially frustrating if you play a tank or Healer because yur Job is to support someone.
On the other hand you see some of the better Players on destru regulary queue'ing PuG.

If you want to play with some people and also get some help just send a PM iam always happy to help a KotBS in the making - we miss good tanks on Order side

[poojaviewed]

Well, I like playing both scenarios. In my opinion, the devs need to make sides more balanced and improve the AI because even at higher levels, I feel like AI is making stupid decisions, and, most of the time, it is not possible to trick the AI and win the scenario.