This article discusses AoE Damage pros/cons, target priority, utiltiy abilies in combat, and inventive ability use.

AoE Is King
As is well known by this point, AoE is the most used ability style in instances.
It burns down mobs and makes dps drool over topping their last known top dps.
We’re mostly over geared now so this works great most of the time.

The Problem With AoE
There are a couple problems that come from this style of play.
The first thing that happened when people started gearing up in Northrend and AoE burning their instances was that they stopped CCing.
You’ll notice CC is pretty much not necessary any more and no one does it.
This, in and of itself, isn’t a problem.
The problem is that people are neglecting their utility abilities more or the more ‘inventive’ use of their abilities.
They don’t want to interrupt their dps rotations, thus lowering their scores on dps meters, to make life a little easier for the party on a whole.

People are no longer thinking about their full ability range, just their DPS rotations.

Targeting:
With AoE’s you don’t really have to specify a target and that’s nice.
Unfortunately, you kill each mob slower than if everyone targeted one at a time.
Remember, each mob is just as (or more so with enrages) effective at 1% health as it is at 100% so dropping a mob sooner is going to lower damage taken by the party.

The main problem here is that people see bigger total damage with their AoE’s so they stick to them.
The next problem is if people do single target mobs they often don’t focus on the same mob.
Raid Icons and the /assist function come in handy here.

Just switching from AoE style to a single target style and hitting the right mobs can turn say Halls of Reflection from nearly impossible at times to a quite manageable instance.

Utility Abilities Useful In Combat:

This is where I expect people to start speaking up and saying things like ‘But I keep Faerie Fire up!’ or ‘I always Mark my targets!’. Some people will keep these kinds of buffs up as they increase dps in longer fights.

The kinds of abilities I’m talking about are things like Distracting Shot, Kick, Counter Spell, Typhoon, Sacred Shield, etc.
They fall into several categories (leaving CC out):
Interrupts – Stopping an enemy spell cast can spell the difference between a clean kill versus fighting the mobs involved several times or having your party haemorrhage large amounts of hit points at once.
Stuns – Useful as the poor man’s Interrupt as well as putting mobs out of combat but still leaving them ‘ok’ to attack with all those lovely AoE’s.
Knock Back – Also often useful as an Interrupt, knock back abilities are frowned on for spreading out mobs and lowing AoE damage. On the flip side of this, as long as the tank has good threat on the mobs, this lowers the mob’s outgoing damage for a few seconds allowing heals to catch up some.
Damage Decreasers – Decreasing mob damage output or reducing the damage a player is taking can ease a tough fight. Tanks usually have a cool down or two to handle some of this but other classes can help with with things like Sacred Shield or Demoralizing Shout
Roots or Slows – Stopping or slowing the movement of mobs, even for a second or two, can be a life saver (especially to clothies). Frost Nova or Entangling Roots with root your target while things like Chains of Ice or a Frost Trap will slow them.
Taunts – Be careful with these because they can kill you really quickly but maybe it’s better you die than say your healer?

Inventive Use of Abilities:
Using abilities in ways they’re not necessarily meant for can really save your party. This is

extremely

class specific.
As my primary DPS character is a Hunter that’s who my example is for but be inventive. (Sorry, I’ve rolled heals and tanks the most.)

Distracting Shot is normally used to pull into a Freezing Trap for CC.
You can use it to peel a mob off your healer and to you. It taunts for 6 seconds so you’ll want distance between yourself and your healer so the taunt has time to wear off before the mob really gets to you. When it wears off, the mob will head to its highest threat. This gives your tank time to pick it back up without your healer dying and minimal damage going to you (if done well).

Let’s add some safety to this tactic. Place a Frost trap so the mob you’re Distracting will trigger it and take longer to get to you.
This takes a little more preparation time and doesn’t work well against things like ranged mobs or casters but adds survivability into the tactic.

Here’s my favorite version:
Distract the Boss. When the boss gets into range hit Deterrence. Bam, you’re a 5 second tank!
If you’re Marksman, you can pop Readiness and repeat this Distract + Deterrence combo for 10s of tanking fun.
The purpose of this combo is when your tank is about to drop and some time is needed to get them healed back up.
This is, obviously, extremely dangerous so use it carefully.

Summary
In summary, we have a lot of options on how to handle situations besides AoE and careful application of these options can turn a hard situation into an easy one.
Be aware of the fight and what you have at your disposal, not just your dps output.

The person I am speaking of in particular, though, is William (Bill) Platt.
Bill was my grandpa, not by blood but by acceptance.
The details of how a marriage changes family ties elude me. Someone is part of my family or they are not, blood has little to do with that.
Bill was part of my family and I was happy to have him in it.
We didn’t visit as often as we should have, a problem many families have, so I didn’t know Bill as well as I should have.
What I do know about Bill is that he was a good man. He was always quite lively, ready to meet just about anyone with his hand outstretched for a handshake and a joke on his lips.

Thursday we went to the hospital to see him. We already knew at that point that he was pretty much beyond recovery.
Waiting at the entrance to ICU, we saw other families waiting for the chance to see their loved ones during the limited visitation window.
Everyone talked quietly amongst themselves with a few stepping outside their own groups to talk with others about their loved ones and pass on well wishes.

Just before the doors opened to let those families in, a nurse pushed out a woman in a wheelchair.
This woman looked like she had gone through hell. She looked tired and had the darkest of circles under her eyes to show for it.
Her face lit up like she had never been more alive when her family rushed to her and huddled around her.
I remember hearing one of them say “I’m so glad to see you without all those tubes in you.”
She was wheeled to a recovery room somewhere with her family in tow.

Oh how I wish that could have been Bill being wheeled out.
I can envision him jokingly saying something like “Thought you got rid of me? Back in Jersey we wouldn’t have called that a …”
From there he’d go on, telling a bit of story and adopting his old New Jersey accent.
But that didn’t happen.
I can truly say I’m happy for the family that had their love one wheeled out, I don’t begrudge them their happiness.

Bill died the next day.
You know, I could remember Bill as I last saw him, near the end of all of that, but I won’t.
That’s what happened to him, not who he was.
I’m going to remember Bill as a vibrant individual with hand extended to shake mine in greeting when I managed to visit.

You will be missed.
Rest in peace, Bill.

For those looking for screen shots, take a peek at the links to the side and visit Gamespot’s gallery.

As someone who’s played several of the previous Battlefield titles, it feels quite familiar.  Select a class and spawn location and you’re in.

Classes:

The classes fall into 3 categories: Infantry, Rifleman, and Scout.

Those of you that know me, I immediately rolled out as a Scout for my first try.
The Scout is primarily equipped with a sniper rifle with a pistol and melee weapon for backup. Manually activated satchels fill out the load out for some anti-vehicle action.

We don’t need no friggin’ headshots!
The sniper rifle promptly dropped opponents in two shots if I didn’t get a headshot.
The rifles unzoom between shots as the shell from the last shot is ejected, adding some time between shots and making sure you need to line your shots back up so aim for those headshots if you can get them.

I wouldn’t exactly say that headshots are hard to get. As the somewhat renowned Blind Sniper, I have a tendency to damage opponents with the first shot, causing them to scurry around for new cover, and unnecessarily headshot them as they become a harder target. Maybe that’s just me, I can’t say for certain.

Things I noticed as a Scout:

• There are lots of spots that give good, long distance overview of the map. There are not always targets scurrying around in this area but you won’t be lacking some decent sniping spots.
• Vehicle usage is pretty heavy so that all you might see are planes and tanks at time. The usage of vehicles is fairly dependent on how well you and your allies blow them up, thus removing a few tanks or planes from your area for a few moments.
• That tank you want to blow up is usually going to rip you to pieces long before you can get close enough to use your satchel charges on it but you can catch them looking elsewhere sometimes.

When I was lucky enough to be grouped with my friend Danny, I gave the Infantry class a try because he lives in the thick of things and nothing is quite so painfully slow as trying to pull up a scope on a target 10 yards away.
Infantry are equipped with a submachine gun, a bazooka for antivehicle operation, a trusty wrench, and some nifty hand grenades.
These guys are best equipped to take down vehicles or keep your own up.

Things I noticed as Infantry:

• Accuracy is still important as ‘spray and pray’ tactics will find you with an empty clip when you need a few more rounds.
• Infantry requires almost no set up to be effective. Get in there!
• Remember your rockets will arc downwards quickly. Take it into account and you will be a bane to tanks in no time.

I have a brief moment as a Rifleman.
They get a semiautomatic rifle with no scope, some nifty grenades, and a grenade launcher attachment for antivehicle use.
These guys are there to fill the mid range fighting and deal best with infantry rather than vehicles.

Sadly, I only rolled a Rifleman for about 4 seconds and switched shortly after spawning and subsequently being exploded by a tank.
I don’t have much to say about them except for two things:

• Iron sighting with their rifles doesn’t look as bad as I’ve seen before, they may well.
• There’s no scope. Did I mention I’m the Blind Sniper? Seriously, I need that scope.

Apologies to those looking for more depth out of this class description.

Vehicles:

Vehicles play a core role in the game and also fall into a handful of categories: Planes, Jeeps, Tanks, and Boats.

Planes are quite fun but most people suck at flying them. It takes some practice and you will crater into all sorts of things: trees, the water, the ground, or that AA Gun you were trying to bomb.

I did a little testing of the planes in the Tutorial level. After finally getting the flying part mostly down, I couldn’t get a straight run for a decent bombing run on the target tanks. Instead I landed the plane and put my satchel charges on them to destroy them faster. My plane evidently didn’t like staying on the aircraft carrier my targets were on as it exploded on its own accord about 30 seconds after I landed it.

Lesson learned: Don’t let Joe fly. My friends know better already. This also includes driving but to a somewhat lesser extent.

The Jeep is quite fun. Jeeps are fast and have a mounted gun on the back. They’ll get you around but you are still visible in your seats or at your gun so can be dropped fairly easily. Use these to get to your next base faster.

The Tank is your heavy hitter, of course. As the driver is inside and well armored, you’ll need specialty weapons to take them out. If you’re good enough with your tank and have a good gunner you can keep rolling around until the map ends, wreaking havoc wherever you go. Tanks are pretty slow so if you’re after easy flag captures, don’t use them.

The Boats are armored and have two turrets on them. If both your turrets aren’t manned, don’t use them except as transports. Someone wants to kill you and there’s no cover in the water.

Things I learned about vehicles:

• Planes have strange controls but some people are good with them. Keep moving if you’re in a vehicle to avoid bombing. Same goes if you’re on foot but you don’t have to move quite a much as you’re a smaller target.
• Any mounted weapon works well on Planes but AA Guns work best, obviously.
• Jeeps are great for quick flag captures and dropping small groups of defenders if you have a gunner. They normally stop within range to start capturing a point so that’s when to take them out easier.
• Tanks are a menace but can be destroyed. Clear everything as you move forward rather than rolling right into a camp with enemies all around. Tanks are vulnerable to bombing and infantry hits from the side or rear with their anti vehicle gear.
• Attacking a tank that’s aimed at you, even with a rocket launcher, is going to get you killed. If you’re driving a tank and get killed by a frontal assault like that, shame on you!
• Boats are usually necessary early on but are death traps. Get out of them as soon as it’s safe to do so or when you crash into the beach.

Maps:

There are only a handful of maps at this point, each of which is quite similar to the others so it’s not hard to pick up any given map.
Each side has a base that cannot be captured so they can keep spawning.
Commonly this is an aircraft carrier with boats on the side an a couple of planes.

This is where boats being deathtraps come into play. If you’re pushed back to being forced to spawn at your aircraft carrier your boats will often be gunned down by planes. I believe this stems from a ‘Your Team probably sucks at using AA Guns’ phenomena. This is usually because the better players usually want OFF THE BOAT and everyone else wants to try to jack a plane (usually so they can crater is shortly afterward), leaving stray people to decide the AA Guns are needed.

Maps are roughly balanced but teams are becoming stacked seems pretty common so getting ‘trapped’ at your default base can happen a lot but usually won’t last over 2 or 3 minutes but is usually longer if that base is an aircraft carrier rather than a normal base.

Otherwise the maps are balanced fairly well with lots of places for you to scurry off to and capture or just blow up according to your whim.

Squads:

The game allows you to spawn where your squad members are at if you so desire.
Squads are 3 people with linked voice chat (if you’re not in a Party already) that are easy to track on the minimap.

Not too much to say about squads except for:

• Squads work pretty well unless your squad mates aren’t actually playing. Having a squad mate sitting at the spawn AFK isn’t helping anyone, least of all you.
• Parties are supposed to be pushed into the same squads when possible. This happens sometimes but not always. Same concept is also accurate for teams.

Overall, I’ve enjoyed my experience with BF1943 and it’s worth the price. It’s a little more simple than the other battlefield games due to lack of customization and less classes but it still works out well for easy to get into action that’s a blast with friends.

My final note:
If you’re unlucky enough to end up getting repeatedly put on the opposing team from your Party, run. Run a lot.
Your friends will kill you. As often as they can find you. They want to hear you scream, gurgle, or otherwise curse them out.
They’re evil like that

Alliance:

Tesandra:
Armory: [Here]
Level: 80
Main: Holy sub Discipline
Alternate: Discipline

Tes is my healer character.
There is a lot of debate over what is the hardest role to play in WoW (and other MMO’s as well).
I place that role squarely on the Healer, especially in WoW.
All other roles in WoW allow you to do your job even with subpar party members while a Healer’s job is directly related to the performance of the other party members.
Now that’s not saying if you have a subpar party that your job doesn’t get harder but the class that has the most challenge due to a subpar party is a Healer.
If your party doesn’t follow normal procedure, please slap them into a semblance of order as ‘subpar’ performance is not ‘willfully causing problems’.

Tes is generally a calm character even while I’m seething in the background. She is always professional and will stick through an event until the end except under the most extreme circumstances. Just don’t expect her to run anything else after a raid.

Eleth:
Armory: [Here]
Level: 67
Main: Unholy DPS
Alternate: Blood Tank

Eleth is my beloved melee dps.
First of all she is a gnome and, as all my friends know, my gnomes all must speak in the third person. I find it to be quite amusing.
I enjoy the micromanagement of death knight mechanics that allow me to push my dps as hard as I can.
I’ve got her alternate speced for Tanking focusing on longevity via Blood. Not much tank gear yet.

Eleth is generally happy to help out if you ask her nicely and don’t make get mad at her for her speaking habbits.

Alindreia:
Armory: [here]
Level: 66+
Main: Beastmaster
Alternate: Survival

Ali is my ranged dps. She’s leveling for some PvP and maybe some money making for my characters in general.
I enjoy playing her as, even at a low level, I can pass through content easily and still have a lot of control over the situation via traps.

I’ve tried out survival as my alternate spec and just can’t push DPS as much as my beast master spec.

So far in outlands when I’m PuG’ing dungeons, I’m topping DPS every time as Beast Master even on the several occasions where I have my pet MT’ing as well.

Her pets are named after friend’s characters. Tank pet is a bear, DPS is a cat. Dual stealthing for pvp should be quite fun.

Ali follows my theme of being helpful. She is much closer to my old rogue characters in personality, however.
She is a little cold of a personality and will try to do things as efficiently as possible. If you’re asking for help, be specific and be ready to roll on out immediately.

She also inherits my old rogue’s need to push beyond normal boundaries. For her, it’s having her pet be able to actually act as a tank. With the 3.2 incoming resilience factoring over to pets, I’m hoping to see this increase as I move to Northrend and get PvP gear.

Kaeleh:
Armory: [here]
Level: 37+
Main: Moonkin (Balance)
Alternate: None

Kaeleh is my druid. I’m leveling one for a few reasons.

First, one of my friends thinks I should roll a Druid with him. Second, I want to get a feel for the Druid healing style differences from Priest healing. I haven’t tried it since shortly after the BC launch. Third, I’m psyched on the 3.2 feral form models.

I’m planning to roll Feral once my RaF caps out at 60.

Horde:

Maurek:
Armory: [here]
Level: 62
Main: Moonkin (Balance)
Alternate: None

Leveled Maurek to roll Balance / Restoration dual specs eventually.

Primarily did so because a friend got tired of healing on her priest so I thought I’d roll Horde there and help out. She got back into healing before I got too far in.

Haven’t played Maurek much after my RaF capped at 60. Just burn out from pushing so hard on two characters at once.
RaF is awesome leveling but is rough as you close on the cap as your gear is normally awful by then.

Aterproc:
Armory: [here]
Level: 60
Main: Unholy DPS
Alternate: None

Rolled Aterproc to try to keep interest in playing on Velen.

I find it really hard to keep interest in Outlands so it didn’t work out too well.

Current (as of posting) thoughts:

I’m running way too many alts.
Haven’t touched my priest for end game play for awhile.
Had some harsh raids, burned 36 or so Heroics to gear my Hunter alt with BoA’s (and still didn’t get the trinket for her), so I’m a bit burnt at end game.

Leveling my hunter and druid at the moment.
Looking forward to the hunter at end game. I’m thinking I might be able to run some crazy stuff with just my pet and I (Northrend instances, maybe even the easier heroics if I get some astounding gear).

Druid is doing alright but I may have her idle at some level for awhile as I haven’t figured out what I want to do with her at level cap.
I’d just like her close enough that if I get inspired or if my friend wants to run around with me abit, I’m close enough to burn most of the way there quickly.

Got several friends I’d like to run something with some time but I need proper level characters on their servers to do so.
Will & Jayme are on Velen (thus those Hordies), just can’t seem to get the focus to burn up levels on my characters there.
Roguekitty and Sdwrage are on Spinebreaker (Pretty sure they both play) but I have nothing there yet.

Wish I could build a character on a server where I have some established characters to help get leveled, then move the character to the appropriate server. Sadly, my main server is all Alliance and my friends elsewhere play Horde devotedly.
Faction swapping may help this but it’ll probably cost me $50 to faction swap and then server swap and they may restrict server swapping directly after swapping factions. That would be 3 months wait to play with some friends.

Really, Bliz, how about letting us effectively level up/down to play with friends?
I know you want us to level all quick to 80 and such but it’s still a frustrating amount of time!

.. err.. well those are my thoughts for now.

Feel free to drop me a line if you’re on my server.
~makkura

Warning: This is a large file so downloading may be preferable to streaming. You have been warned.
Movie after the break.

Warning: This is a large file so downloading may be preferable to streaming. You have been warned.
Movie after the break.

Enjoy.

Even the air under the open sky was full of noise. Alisa walked across the compound, almost strolling, and hummed quietly to the music playing in her head. It had been a long time since she could see the sky without the edges of buildings included in her vision. Red text, bold and angular, flashed across her vision “Alisa, listen to your COM!” Refocusing her hearing to ignore the radio waves she had been listening to Alisa caught yells trying to get her attention.

“Damn it, Cat, pay attention!” Lucien’s voice roared across their COM signal. “Yeah, yeah… I’m almost there. Everything is going smoothly, relax,” Alisa responded stifling a yawn.

“That worked. Thanks, ‘Wise,” Lucien thanked the hacker for getting Alisa’s attention. “Nothing to it,” BitWise’s voice floated across the COM.

“Cat, where are you now? You should report in more often.” Lucien always had to be up to date. Normally BitWise could watch via the installations cameras but not this time so Lucien was on edge.

“Last door,” Alias responded, “stop worrying so much.”

“You sure you can get this one?”

“Yeah, sure. I’m not great with elec’ locks but I’m no pushover. And I’m chipped too,” Alisa waved away such concerns, “I haven’t slipped up yet and I’m not gonna start.”

“You can’t always land on your feet, Cat,” Lucien grumbled at Alisa’s happy go lucky attitude. “There’s nothing to protect you out there. ‘Almost wish there was more metal in you.”

Alisa looked over the lock to the outer door and found it to be a fairly simple electronic lock. Opening her right hand revealed a small tool to override the lock. It might not work and she might have to use less subtle means to open it but she couldn’t carry anything better. Running around in nothing but your skin to be mostly-invisible had its downsides. Chameleon skin didn’t let you carry a bag of tools because a floating bag would be pretty suspicious. So she had to make do with things small enough to palm. Mentally crossing her fingers, Alisa activated the tool and sighed in relief when the lock clicked open.

“I’m through and I’ll be done in a minute,” she reported once she had slipped inside and closed the door. Quickly searching a couple rooms revealed exactly what they had expected, several computer workstations. Alisa opened her left hand to reveal a tiny wireless transmitter which she attached to one of the computers to connect it, and the rest of the network, to the ‘net.

“’Wise, you’re up,” Alisa informed him as she turned and began to make her way out of the complex.

“I’m already in the system,” Bitwise said distractedly, “Basic security is already off.”

Alisa worked her way steadily across the compound.

“What the… ,” Bitwise’s confusion was apparent even before he finished the sentence, “the data is a fake.”

Lucien’s shouts across the COM were mingled with the sudden blaring of alarms, “We’ve been set up! Get out of there, Cat!”

Alisa was already near the outer wall surrounding the compound. About to pass the corner of one of the buildings, she stopped and flowed into a backflip before she even noticed the EMP grenade flying through the air. Her foot kicked it away and she was already tumbling to the side when it detonated. She found herself caught in the edge of its effects and her senses shut down with a flash of white silence. When her vision snapped back in again she realized she was already running headlong for the compound’s outer wall. Sound came crashing in around her along with an intense headache. The sound of guns being fired and bullets embedding in the ground all around her let her know her chameleon skin had shorted and she was quite visible.

Extending her cyberclaws, she leaped at the wall. Capable of cutting at a molecular level, each claw bit into the wall. Ignoring the electric shocks from the compounds security system, Alisa continued to scramble up the wall.

“Some help here!?,” she yelled through her teeth into her COM.

“It’s already there,” Lucien informed her, almost smugly.

He had switched to an xray vision mode and tossed several flash and stun grenades over the wall and across the compound. The gun fire turned erratic after they went off. Most of the compounds guards and mercs’ were either blinded or confused as to where other enemies might be coming from.

Lucien watched as Alisa reached the top of the wall about to drop safely down the other side. He saw the look on her face with his magnified vision when several shots ripped through her left side and arm, a look of shock. He knew she was unconscious before she even hit the ground.

She had only been there a moment when Lucien reached her, one of the benefits of cyberlegs were that they were fast, really fast. He picked her up with his left arm and glared angrily through the wall at the coalescing group of guards. His right arm was up, and leveled at the guards, bold red text flashing across his vision along with distance estimates and velocities “Executing program CAINE_CN. . .”, before he realized he what he was doing. He braced himself as his arm converted into the powerful weapon it was designed to be. An audible whirring sound began, rising in pitch to into a shriek of bottled power, caged electricity.

“Die, you bastards,” Lucien growled and sent the trigger signal.

Strained energy poured into a single shot that tore through the wall, the group of guards, and the building behind them breaking apart the molecules of everything it touched. The guards couldn’t even scream. The sound of air rushing to fill the void left by the shot’s path dimly reached Lucien. He turned and rushed back to the van where he had been waiting, ignoring the red, flashing ‘low battery’ floating in his vision.

Lucien carefully set Alisa down in the van and grabbed a rocket launcher from the nearby rack of weapons. Checking that the rocket was guided, he scanned through vision modes looking for something to take care of the complex. Hitting a light spectrum Alisa normally used to mark strategic points for their team, he noticed a tank on the far end of the compound painted so brightly it screamed for attention. An easy target since it was shining so brightly in his altered vision.

“Priest, get us to a medic,” Lucien ordered the driver over the sound of the ensuing explosions.

“Got it, boss,” Priest calmly tossed his cigarette out the window and started the van, happy enough to leave a scene without bullets rattling off the armor plated van. They were in motion before it even hit the ground. The harsh lights from the compound’s burning buildings quickly faded into the faded gray of concrete and shadow.

“ ‘Wise? ‘Wise? You there?” Lucien’s voice echoed across the COM for several moments.

“Yeah… I’m here,” Bitwise’s voice across the COM was more real than anyone had ever heard it.

“Find out why we were set up and everyone involved,” Lucien’s tone left no room for questions.

“Right after I get a new ‘deck,” Bitwise sounded almost sad, “There was some pretty nasty black ICE. It was either me or it.”

This day I happened across an empty home.  It was so small it could be considered a shack instead. It had been abandoned for quite some time as the windows were covered in dust and vines grew tall along the walls.

Inside I found little of use besides this journal. It appears as worn as the home and has had all of its previous entries torn out.  All that remains is the first page and a number of blank pages.

The first page is a poem, listed below with its author:

HAD I the heavens’ embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half-light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet,
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams

-W. B. Yeats

I have decided to respectfully leave it as it is.  Perhaps my dreams will lie beneath your feet as well.

-Tai Serin

A.E. 704  – Autumn