Hello Bombling here with a mini written guide, This time about Keep sieges.
This is a little gathering of some of the core mechanics of RoR's keep siege mechanics, a little dive into the surface of how these determine when the timing is right for placing an oil. What the difference is between a "good or bad" time to place oil. When to push maingate + postern and the like.
I will not claim these are the only ways to perform duing a keep siege, but the most accurate play and the reasoning I will try to cover below. Remember for each meta, there is an alternative though.
I will not claim these are the only ways to perform duing a keep siege, but the most accurate play and the reasoning I will try to cover below. Remember for each meta, there is an alternative though.
One. - Siege equipment from NPC vendor at outeroil house.
- Ram. Requires two stars. A second ram is available at four stars. Can be towed by mounted players. Four players can be actively inside the Ram when its placed on the door. Dont click on the ram while you are mounted if you wish you join the ram.
- Singletarget canons have limited ammunition and are most often used to deal faster damage on outer oil, which is harder to reach for ranged attackers on the ground.
- Aoe canons scale their dmg up, the more players they hit. Can be used in coordination of several players spawning an aoe canon each and trying to apply combined burst by shooting at the same area, at the same time.
- Oil has a 3minut cooldown after it has been destroyed. It is the most important realm advantage tool for defending keeps. Dont waste it for a few kills which doesnt give you renownpoint from damage dealt anyways, it will be a big loss for your realms ability to defend if you do so!
Two. - The ebb & flow of sieges.
In rough terms a siege will likely contain the following phases
- Ram is spawned and the defenders leave the zone and rush to their keep trying to man the walls to defend. Some organized attackers may ahead of time try to block the keep with killing squads at postern doors and maingate preventing players getting inside ahead of the siege and before the ram is even spawned or arrives.
- Ram reaches the keep. Depends on AAO, playstyles of the players and alot of other factors this phase is harder to predict as its player driven.
- Oil is spawned. Attacking tanks can use their "Deflect oil" ability to try and mitigate the very bursty oil pressure on anyone under the oil/on the ram. Attackers may drop from the walls during "Oil-cover" or use the gate if it is above 50%. Below half, the gates cant be clicked by the defenders. Oil has a 3min respawn time from exactly when it was destroyed.
- Gate is down. If the outer gate at a T3 or T4 keep breaks, the attackers can now click and use the outer postern doors to get inside the courtyard. Defenders who die fighting on the walls or between outer walls and inner keep, can respawn in the lordroom as long as the inner gate hasnt been hit yet!
- Inner keep. When the inner gate has been hit with a Singletarget canonshoot or from a swing by the ram. The defenders cant respawn inside the lord's room. Now they need to be in Line of Sight from a Healer to ressurect them back into the keep.
- Inner oil. Oil on inner keep is placed at a lower range so most ranged damagedealers from the ground can hit the oil with the shorter range aoe abilities. So being near inner oil can be dangerous as ranged aoe will likely cleave around the oil creating a killzone. Tanks and MPDS can sometimes also throw daggers at the oil for some extra damage.
- Inner postern. Inner postern can be used when the inner door is destoyed UNLESS the defenders have a three-star keep. Where as only attacking MPDS can use their "bypass" ability to be granted acces for themselves to enter for a brief moment. Be warned your tanks and healers can not follow you.
Three. - The more indepth interactions between the mechanics.
The oil + ram + gate interactions.
Let's imagine an outerdoor siege situation where the defenders are Funneling the main entrance and the gate is down. The first mechanic we need to pay attention to is that now the outer postern doors are free to use by the attackers. They can flank the defenders from one or several sides while also pushing the maingate. Or the attackers can get onto the walls and get oilhouse control. These are all player options and will determine how likely an outer funnel will be based on the actions from both sides. Because of the mechanic with Inner gate needs to be hit to stop the defenders from ressurection inside the lord's room in case they would die trying to defend outer, this is what I would call "a free attempt to defend" as long as you dont die, and click respawn after inner door has been hit.
If the call in region or warband chat is that your ream wants to defend outer gate. Then the defenders should not spawn a new oil, even if its available, when the gate is below 50%. As the defenders can no longer click on the gate going in/out to apply pressure on the ram. Instead if the defenders save the available oil and have a couple guys holding the ouil house to threaten applying it at any correct moment when the door is down. That is much more effective and scarry for the attackers. Rule of thumb. A fully manned ram team, will roughly take 40-50% of a gate down within 3minuts. Which is the oil respawn timer. So that is why below 50% gates, players shouldnt pop a new oil.
In a perfect situation where ram and oil is used correctly on outer gate. The attackers will notised that oil is "available" as it hasnt been spawned in the past 3 mins. Gate is down and attackers can use the postern.
A common mistake will be that the attackers dont coordinate between postern pushers and maingate pushers. So both postern warbands + main will push at once, while the oil is available. This will lead to oil being spawned, killing or preventing the maingate from committing and thus allowing the defenders to fully turn and kill the postern push which is often outnumbered as the attacking force have split in two. The correct play is to establish oilroom control and make sure postern push is not committing to a funnel flank on the defenders, without the defenders oil have been controled. For the defenders the win condition is reversed, where you want oil to be available and a threat for the attackers. And if they make the mistake of pushing main + postern. Then apply the oil on main, and turn the full counter push towards the postern flank attack and wipe them without maingate can help them. Remember ,this attempt is "free" as long as you can respawn inside lordroom and the innergate hasnt been hit.
The same winconditons and interactions apply for Inner keep. With the addition of inner-postern cant be used if the keep is three stars from the defenders. Then only Melee damagedealers can enter, and this is often a suicide attempt as there is limited Line of Sight to get ressurected back to life if you do attempt the postern as a MDPS. Then maingate healers can try to ress you up.
The big interaction between a strong inner funnel at maingate on a three star keep. Is that Tanks will need to build up to their lvl40 Morale 4 ability which gives 75% damage mitigation from player abilities, to the whole group. This by default takes 3 minuts without morale pumping abilities. So if you have paid attention so far to this guide, you will notice that Oil respawn timer is the same as it takes for a tank to rebuild M4 for his group if he got killed by oil, which is then destroyed right after.
This makes the timing and difficulty of taking correctly defended three star inner keeps, very hard!
Baiting oil is done by understanding these mechanics all combined. It is an attempt where the attackers will fake a push and not step foot inside, but only place a bunch of tanks under an available oil. The trick for the defenders is to not fall for the bait and instead hold onto the threat of oil. As the attackers are not comming inside, there is no need to use the oil for the defenders so it becomes a game of cat & mouse.
The fully indepth version of Oil vs three star inner defence on paper should always go to the defenders holding if they play it correctly IMHO.
Oil shouldnt be used by anyone but a person who understands the difference between when the enemy actually commits, and when its a bait. A trick can be to target an Attacking Tank and see when they activate their M4 ability (Buffhead addon is good for this) The attackers are on a time limit and if you stall the oil and dont get baited with it, the attacking side might eventually have to full send it commit a push while oil is available and it will be devastating for their attempt as they get mass-oiled, tanks will die and their groups will not have M4 coverage.
As I mentioned in the beginning, for each meta there is an offmeta. In the past I have build a suicide MPDS + Healers warband only to send the melees in through a Threestar inner postern and getting groupheals from healers outside, as it doesnt require Line of Sight. This is rarely done, but it leans into the enemy not expecting the postern being a real threat because of the mechanics of Three star keep.
I hope some of this helped players understanding the sieging interactions for both defenders and attackers.
