Hunting Witches At Keeps... Boring!

Posted on Tuesday, February 10, 2009
Filed under Class Mechanics, Keep Siege, ORvR, Warhammer Online, Witch Hunter

I love playing my Witch Hunter. Ryonin has treated me well and has really shaped up to be a power house in both PvE and Scenarios, but I just feel a tad left out when it comes to Keep fights. When we're defending or attacking, I don't feel very involved in the action. After talking with a few guild mates the other night, it doesn't seem like many people have a clue what to due with us either.

We have a cute ability where we can attach a bomb to siege equipment while stealthed so that the next user of that equipment gets damaged, but there's a few problems with this ability. It's a fantastic idea, just not well executed. First, we can only stealth for a short time. 30 seconds is about the cap, and that's assuming we have a full AP bar and don't use any abilities while stealthed. Second (but ties into the first) is the lag of a Keep Siege. The lag slows us down, practically guaranteeing either not getting back inside the Keep before your Stealth fades or being caught by the enemy faction. Third, it's just not that powerful an ability to risk being laid out on your back outside rez range while the Postern is completely blocked.

So we're left grabbing cannons and such for Defense and Offense. While they are important to the overall task, they are kind of boring. The alternative is to go on Postern Guarding duty, but again, kind of boring. I suppose hacking at a door for 5 minutes isn't the epitome of excitement either, but at least there's something going on there. On defense, we can look forward to the rush of Enemy players after the first door is down, picking off the healers and casters as they come, which is nice, but on offense this still leaves us useless. If we're guarding Postern or manning a cannon, we're going to be at the back of the line when we get upstairs and to the Keep Lord. That means we'll be with the ranged crew, and also means it'll be highly unlikely we can squeeze past everyone to get into melee range for the Keep Lord fight… which leads back to us being useless in Keep fights.

I'm not saying we Witch Hunters don't have our role in Keep Fights, both Defense and Offense. What I am saying is that it might be worth looking at from a development stand point. And that I get really bored in Keep fights, which means, according to my Rule of Fun, I end up quitting and going to do some PvE or Scenarios.