Return of Reckoning

I am no expert but thought i would make a guide to help new players to ORVR understand how to start and run with new ORVR open warbands in the hope both sides can have more leaders and therefore more ORVR action.

Creation of a warband (ORVR)
First things first, find the active ORVR zone, this will be on your RVR messages, and if you can’t find that, go to each zone contested on the map and see where the supplies are generating.

1. Now you use /invite “name here” to invite one person to your group
- If you can’t see anyone or know anyone, ask in /guild or /T4 “send me a message to start a warband”

2. Once you have a party of 2, now right click on your party and go party options
- In this window make sure you’re on the management page, click “form warband”
- Now go the nearby page in the same window and click the tick box “make party open”

3. Now you have an open warband, type in /T4 “open warband on me

4. Now go join in existing fun or go and take battle objectives and run supplies and tell your warband what you are all going to do and when. (most open warbands start by running supplies in groups and taking BO's, they grow quickly)

People who logon for at least an hour, will usually have a level 40 character, and most would rather play this character in ORVR rather than T1 alt's or SC’s, crafting or PVE, so don’t worry people will ways join, even if you loose battles, people will leave then others come back.
So long as you are the open warband in ORVR you will always have people joining. People will also have different expectations of an ORVR warband, if you just want to roam the zone and have some fights, control some battle objectives, that’s fine and some people will stay to join in, some will leave.
If you want to take the keep, and a lot of people will expect this, go for it, but don’t give up if you loose, keep going and people will keep joining, and eventually even if you have to re-take all the bo’s and they repair the keep door, your warband will grow back again to full numbers, some kind soul will start an overflow warband and you will get there.

Guild/Alliance Warbands

There are 2 ways for guilds and alliances to start warbands

1. When they have a good 6 man group going, or 2 within the guild or alliance, then group up together into warband. Then ask in /alliance if anyone wants to join alliance warband, when you have a few spaces left, open the warband up and let others join to fill the ranks. This works very well in the NA timezone on Order.

2. Anyone within the alliance/guild say in /alliance anyone want to join an alliance warband, when people say yes, invite them and build a good solid foundation for warband with players you know, then open it up and lets others fill the spaces left. The advantage of alliance warbands is usually they are on voice and when over half the players are on voice and less than half are new people, then new people follow the majority and it works really well.


Management of a warband
3 areas to this, group setup, communication and a plan.

Group setup
Right click your party and go to the manage tab, in here you can click and drag players from group to another. Basically make sure you have the below and keep watching it as people leave and join over time:

Each party needs:
- Healers – 1/2
- Tanks - 1/2
- DPS – 1/2

If you have more of one type and less of another type spread them out
More technical approach can be below:
- 1 Warrior Priest, 2 melee dps, and 3 tanks in one party (front line party, lot of armour/guards)
- 2 healers, 3 ranged dps and 1 tank in one party (back line party, less armour needed, more resists)
- 2 tanks and 3 different healer classes in 1 party = Keep lord tank party

You can explore all kind of setups here based on what you have available at the time.

Communication
Ideally voice, but open warbands don’t tend to be from alliances and guilds and the game doesn’t have built in voice, or good ways to communicate private voice channels. So go join a guild with voice.

1. However usually no voice, so make sure you state what battle objective you are going for in /wb and /R4 and your movements and plans, doesn’t have to be an essay, just “go Kuvlov’s BO follow me".

2. Make sure you remind people to stick together, the skills of all classes benefit a “Blob” of players sticking together, so guards, aoe heals, buffs, morales etc, the success of a warband will be based on how well they can move together and position together. This positioning includes tanks engaging the enemy on the front, healers/ranged position to the back away from this engaged line and melee dps choosing their targets and moments.

3. Also make sure you communicate with other warbands, and by saying in /T4 where you are going, other 6 man groups, and there are some great ones out there doing ORVR/SC’s will help you.

Warband goals (have a plan)
Usually your plan is either going to be to have some fun, this is having fights in open terrain, defending/attacking keeps and taking BO’s.

1. Take a look at the map, decide what BO’s you can take/hold, try to predict the enemy’s movement so you can plan where you will be able to have a good fight a terrain advantage.

2. Then if you have a full warband, why not try the keep, the worst that happens is you respawn back at the warcamp, loose a few players from the warband and start taking BO’s and go back to having fun other ways, open terrain battles etc, more players will come to join and if you keep going and don’t give up, you’ll win.


To take a keep see brief notes in this Spoiler on the whole process Some basic strategies are in this spoiler which can you help you lead your warband to some good fights
Buffs Positioning Targetting Morales Timing Terrain Map Control

Good initiative.

That's the easy part. The hard part, having people listen to you and managing a WB and working with what you're given despite the fact that people aren't listening to you, is something that requires a treatise of Silmarillion proportions.

Good start tho

Fractus wrote:If you want to take the keep, and a lot of people will expect this, go for it, but don’t give up if you loose, keep going and people will keep joining, and eventually even if you have to re-take all the bo’s and they repair the keep door, your warband will grow back again to full numbers, some kind soul will start an overflow warband and you will get there.

Order's PUG perspective:
If you plan to go keep with PUG warband, get ready for losing 1/4 people after 1st wipe and another 1/2 of warband after 2nd wipe. In that case make a proclamation that your warband is focusing on BO fights/skirmishes only in order to regain people.
If you lose several fights in a row, get ready for being hit with Hammer of Xrealming and prepare for intense skirmishing and/or keep defense. Warriors desert and your rag-tag company is facing real challenges now, it is normal.

I've edited to include guild/alliance warbands and added a few bits on basic warband ORVR strategies.

Thanks Roadkillrobin, and yes Blaqwar, little tricks like stopping every now and then on the way somewhere and saying keep close to me often helps, clear direction of course will always help, things can help over time.

Also OldPlayer is right go in with right expectations and you won't be dissapointed, expect a few good fights, anything else is a bonus!

Cool.

One other thing that, but you need to be somewhat more confident in it, is to gradually kick the people that don't follow you or don't listen to orders.

Eventually you'll be left - if the campaign goes decent enough - with a group that actually follows you. Then close the WB, and only invite in those archetypes that the WB needs so you get a good balance across all parties.