Edit: let’s see what happens if we add in enemies that do the same, some of which may mirror heroes.

Engineer class turret/sentry:

• Borderlands, Crimson Lance Engineer
• Brink
• City of Heroes, Malta Operations Engineer
• Guild Wars 2
• Hellgate: London
• Mass Effect 2
• Quake Team Fortress
• Star Trek Online
• Team Fortress Classic
• Team Fortress 2
• Warhammer Online
• World of Warcraft (trade skill)

Engineer class without turret/sentry:

• Anarchy Online (or are those robots turrets? haven’t played)
• Battlefield FPS series
• Bloodline Champions
• Eden Eternal
• Hellgate: Global (mobile robots)
• Mass Effect
• Torchlight 2

Non-Engineer class that builds a turret/sentry (“close-enough” names starred):

• **Asheron’s Call 2, Lugian Tactician
• Borderlands, Roland the Soldier, although he is canonically a former Crimson Lance Engineer
• **Champions Online, Inventor
• City of Heroes, Blasters and Corruptors with Devices (was Auto-Turret, now Gun Drone)
• DC Universe Online, Gadgets
• **Dungeon Fighter Online, Mechanic
• **Global Agenda, Robotics
• **League of Legends, Heimerdinger the Revered Inventor

Obvious turret analogue, but not “built”:

• Dark Age of Camelot, Hibernian Animist
• Guild Wars, Ritualist
• Warhammer Online, Chaos Magus
• World of Warcraft, Shaman

“Deploys” turrets s/he did not build:

• Diablo 2, Assassin
• StarCraft, Raven
• TitanQuest, Rogue
• Torchlight, Vanquisher (Arbiter tree)

Rejected, pending argument: engineer units from RTS/turn-based strategy games like Civilization.
Heard of but unknown to Zubon: Alpha Protocol, Return to Castle Wolfenstein.

Engi Census is a post from: Kill Ten Rats

: Zubon

Engineers Have Turrets Syndrome is a post from: Kill Ten Rats

Since we are going this way now, let’s get Asheron’s Call and heck even Asheron’s Call 2 running on the same model.

The return of AC2 is an appealing notion. If that happens, I need a way to reclaim an old account with just the associated e-mail address (not the log-in name). I never made that Lugian Tactician. I also have an old AC1 account in storage; I might remember the account name on that one.

: Zubon

Comment Spotlight is a post from: Kill Ten Rats

: Zubon

AC2 Fan Sites is a post from: Kill Ten Rats

The first one is of my Feral Intendant fighting a Squall Tyrant out in what we called the Tyrant Bowl. You can see my shreth pet off to the left. The boxes below my health bar are all my buffs and debuffs.

This next one is of my FI about to finish off a Storm Tyrant and a Squall Tyrant has noticed me. He is moving in for what he thinks is an easy kill, but I did finish him off too. Yes it was fun to feel like a hero.

The third shot is me standing where you first arrive in Dereth after the training, just outside of Arwic down the hill.

This final shot I included because it shows me just outside of Arwic and it also shows the inventory management system.

Hope you enjoyed these little peeks back into Asheron’s Call 2.

- Ethic

Asheron’s Call 2 Screenshots is a post from: Kill Ten Rats

—————-

The following is a quest that a group of players (including me) in Turbine’s Vanguard program helped to create and which was put into the game. The Vanguard program was a developer selected group of players that were given early access to new content on the test server, as well as having a forum with direct developer contact for feedback.

They placed special Dillos in the game, which were named after the players that were involved in creating this quest. I was one of them, it was quite surreal to go see my NPC in the game.

—————-

Description: Cure Stubby’s recently-inherited Dillo herd.

Intended Level – 40
Minimum Level – 40
Time Limit – 2 Hours

Doing the Quest

First head to Gurokora on Linvak, and talk to Stubby (25.9S, 37.7W).

If you receive this quest then Stubby will say: “My cousin Thromer recently ran off to become the new Virindi Imperator. Hey, is that a good thing? Anyway, being the nice guy that he is, he left me his prized herd of Dillos. I just love Dillos — I used to help Thromer take care of them when I was little. They’re so cute! But i guess I’ve been too busy collecting wasp wings lately, and Dillos take a lot of attention… I’m afraid my new Dillos have gotten sick with some kind of disease that makes them crazy! There’s only one person who could help — my old buddy Moose Rickenson. DO whatever he says, and I’m sure my Dillos will be better in no time. Let me know as soon as you manage to cure them. Oh, yeah, they’re located at 17.9S, 18.6W. Please don’t hurt any of them! Especially Golas!”.

Now you have to go talk to Moose Rickenson located at 19.6S,31.2W in Ondekodo.

Moose Rickenson tells you, “So, you have some sick Dillos. Well, you came to the right place. It sounds like your herd has Crazy Dillo Fever. Any herder knows that if your dillos have a fever, the only prescription is more Dillobell. Bring me some Reaper Horns and I should be able to slap one together. And don’t fear the Reapers! They’re not all that tough. You can find a bunch of ‘em on Osteth.”

Now you have to go to Osteth and hunt Reapers for horns. Pain Reapers are known to drop the Horns you need with good frequency. If you go to Eastern Prosper Outpost and make your way toward the King Toad Idol (2.5N,17.9E), you should come across some Reapers.

Once you have the horn return back to Moose Rickenson.

Moose bends and flattens the horns with his bare hands, does something with a tiny gold clapper, and suddenly it’s a Dillobell!

Moose Rickenson tells you, “Nice — I see the Reapers didn’t scare you one bit! Here’s your Dillobell. Listen, I put my kilt on like the rest of you, one leg at a time. The difference is, once my kilt is on, I make gold Dillobells! Unfortunately, my bells don’t make much sound… they can be used to cure your sick dillos, though. Perhaps someone in Dereth knows how to make them sound great. Really explore the space, you know?”

Now you have a Dillobell to cure Stubbys Dillos. Head to the Olvidan Steading at (18S,18.1W). The Dillos will be in a fenced in area. Once you found the Dillos use the bell on whichever ones the quest panel says to.

After you cured the sick Dillos head back to Stubby.

Stubby tells you, “I can’t thank you enough for helping my sick Dillos. I hope Golas didn’t give you too hard of a time — he can get a little feisty. Thromer thanks you too, wherever he is. Hey, is that a Dillobell? Can I see it?”

You gave the Dillobell to Stubby. Stubby smacks the Dillobell against his head a few times.

Stubby tells you, “Hey, I remember these things! You just have to bend them the right way, and they sound great. There’s nothing like a good Dillobell solo to set yer feet to dancin’! Here, give it a try!”

Other Notes

This quest is based on a Saturday Night Live skit called “More Cowbell” featuring Christopher Walken, Will Ferrell and Blue Oyster Cult.

XP – 2% xp to level, capped at 50
Quest Points – 0
Treasure – Dillobell (Music Instrument)

- Ethic

Dairy Heir is a post from: Kill Ten Rats

Here it all is.

Zubon reminds me about the shirt: Front – Back – Back up close.

- Ethic

Asheron’s Call 2 Goods is a post from: Kill Ten Rats

General

Turbine describes the Feral Intendant (FI) as a resilient creature of the jungle. He is a hunter, a killer, an explorer of the deepest undergrowths. He claims some of the jungle creatures as his friends, and they have learned to work with him to achieve devastating results in combat.

The FI was designed to fill two roles: Damage Absorption (tank) or Damage-Dealing (DD) and this depends on your template. The FI’s claim to fame: extremely flexible pets can assist in whatever role the FI is filling at the moment.

Let’s define those two roles a bit.

Damage-Dealing (Pure Damage Capacity): A damage dealer is a player that is designed to do lots of damage to a monster, but can not really take much damage from that monster. Since you are doing a good chunk of damage, the monster will often want to turn it’s attention to you. A damage dealer works best in a fellow that has a healer and a tank. The healer to keep an eye on your health and a tank to keep the aggro off of you. Without a good fellow, you’ll need to focus on killing the monsters before they kill you. I would define the Damage-Dealing FI as a “secondary” Damage-Dealer since there are other classes better designed for the job.

Damage Absorption aka Tank (Damage-Sustaining, Healing Skills, Monster Taunts): A tank is a member of a fellowship whose job is to enter combat first, attracting and holding aggro from monsters. You have high health and high armor so you can take a beating for a long time. You are a living shield, sandwiched between the horrible beasts of Dereth and the rest of your hunting party. You take the hits, so they don’t have do. You allow the damage-dealers the chance to crank out some heavy damage, while you keep the beast thinking it is you that it must fear the most. You will die to protect your fellows if you must. Without a fellow, you can still do rather well solo, it just takes a while to kill anything tough.

To be a successful and desired member of the fellowships, you must consider several areas. Those areas are as follows: Base melee skills, base magic skills, FI skills, hero skills, other skills, equipment, monster aggression (aggro) management, pet management, fellowship management, and your template design.

Therefore, I have divided this guide up into the following topics:

Skills
Equipment
Aggression
Pets
Fellowship
Templates

Lets jump right into it.

SKILLS

Tumerok Base Melee Skills

There are a few base melee skills that will help you out on your path to becoming an FI. As you work your way up the Feral skill tree, you will find many of the base melee tree skills losing their value in your eyes.

Melee Master, Grandmaster and Paragon: Increases the chance to hit with and defend against all melee attacks (including those in the FI tree). Spending XP in these skills increases the chance to hit with and defend against. You will train these skills and raise them to the max. They are keepers. Generally people compare them to the three main continents; Master is for Osteth (1-15), Grandmaster is for Omishan (15-30) and Paragon is for Linvak (30+). I feel that is a good guidline for when you need to have the skills trained.

Here are the numbers behind the names:
1 pt Mastery: 2.4 points of offense, 2 points of defense
1 pt Grandmastery: 4.4 points of offense, 4 points of defense
1 pt Paragon: 6.4 points of offense, 6 points of defense
1 pt Adept: 2 points offense, 2 points defense (for applicable skills only)
1 character level (up to 50): 8 points of offense, 8 points of defense
1 character level (after 50): 16 points of offense, 16 points of defense

Lunge: Does additional damage against a vulnerable target (that is, an opponent surrounded by flashing yellow rays). As you gain in levels you will find that you *only* use this skill when the target is vulnerable and then you will see some very nice damage.

Claw Stance: This skill increases the damage inflicted while lowering your defense. It’s a 2/5 buff (active for two minutes, with a reset timer of five minutes). I recommend only raising this skill for the passup points into Victimize.

Victimize: This shield attack stuns your target. This is the bread and butter skill for Tumerok melee classes. The monster is pretty much immobile for 3 to 10 seconds while you (and your fellows) can continue to hack away. Use it in every battle, but keep in mind that monsters have a immunity period after a successful stun.

Growl: This skill does not do any damage; instead, it taunts the targeted monster into thinking you have done damage equivalent to 5% to 10% of the monster’s total health. This may help turn the target’s attention to you, away from a weaker fellowship member. Note: you really aren’t much of a tank until you become an FI, so don’t put more aggro onto yourself than you can handle. Only use for it solo is to try to keep the monster off your pet.

Avert Eyes (AE): This skill does the opposite of Growl. It make the targeted monster think you did less damage than you really did, making it possible for the monster to turn it’s aggro onto another fellow member or your pet. Can come in handy if you are running out of health (in a group) or are playing as a damage-dealer FI.

Lightning Strike (LS): This skill does damage as well as causing a vigor over time (VoT) drain. Not very useful for player vs. monster (PvM) but may be handy for player vs. player (PvP).

Stolen Youth (SY): This skill drains vigor from the monster and restores your vigor. Allows for you to replenish your vigor without stopping combat. This is a great skill to have while your FI is growing up. I personally do not train this skill in favor of getting into the FI tree ASAP. I include it because it is a nice skill to have if you want to hold off on becoming a Feral.

Hunger: This skill drains health from the monster and resores your health. Put this together with Stolen Youth and you now are a pretty powerful fighter. You can do damage to the monsters all the while restoring your health and vigor. Another great skill to have, it will eventually lose favor to the more superior Reap skill in the FI tree. I personally do not train this skill in favor of getting into the FI tree ASAP. I include it because it is a nice skill to have if you want to hold off on becoming a Feral.

Feral Intendant Skills

Adept: This increases your chances of landing (and defending against) FI specific attacks. Train it and raise it up to around 41. If you feel you need to get it to 50, I’d recommend getting one of the FI specific armor pieces with the Adept bonus rather than spending XP here. You may want to consider getting this skill when Melee Paragon starts getting expensive to raise around the 30′s. It is an affordable way to become more effective in battle.

Lumbering Might (LM): Increases your armor and health. At level 50 it increases your armor by 100 and your health by 600. This skill’s buffs do not stack with other armor (exception: Feral Rage) and health buffs. Note that using this skill turns off Leader of the Pack if it was enabled, and vice versa. This is the defining skill for being an FI tank.

Leader of the Pack (LotP): Increases your run and attack speed while decreasing your base damage. At level 50, it increases your attack speed by 50%, your run speed by 40% but reduces your damage by 25%. Note that using this skill turns off Lumbering Might if it was enabled, and vice versa. This is the skill that allows the FI to play the role of damage-dealer. It’s also helpful for running long distances. You may use Acumen to counter some of the damage reduction of this skill as it gives a 15% increase to base damage at level 50.

Reave: This is a double strike, area of effect (AoE) attack with a taunt equal to 100% of the total damage. A powerful attack, it is useful for those times when you need to taunt a monster off someone in your fellow while you are fighting another monster. Be careful, as with all AOEs, you can break a mezzed monster.

Soft Underbelly (SU): This skill damages the target, reduces their armor and taunts them. What more could you ask for? The best taunt you have as a tank, use it as often as you can even though the armor reduction only applies once every 30 seconds. For the DD Feral, you may only want to use this once per battle to try to avoid aggro. The taunt effect given by this skill is 5% (at level 1) to 20% (at level 50) of the monster’s maximum health.

Summon Beetle: Summons one of the 2 FI pets available, the beetle. The beetle gains 20 health, 30 vigor and 2 points of armor for each level you raise it. It also gains 4 points of maximum base damage potential for each level. The beetle has both ranged and melee attacking abilities so he will engage in battle sooner than the shreth (your other pet option). The maximum level of the Beetle is limited to 4 levels greater than your level and it is a good idea to try to keep it there. The beetle is the DD pet. It is a potent friend, but it’s body is weak. You must try to keep the monster’s aggro on you so the beetle doesn’t get squished too soon. Taunting skills are your beetle’s best friend! There are two skills you can get later on that improve the beetle. Those skills are: Bond of Compassion (BoC) and Brutal Strength (BS). If you use the beetle, you should have both skills as well.

Moon’s Madness (MM): This skill grants an immediately heal to you *and* it provides an in-combat health regeneration effect. Very nice heal, use this every battle if you can but wait until you need a heal first.

Wet Fur (WF): With this skill active, monsters that attack you may receive a combat slow effect upon each hit. Use this when fighting a group monster or when fighting PvP. Keep an eye on it’s cooldown and don’t be afraid to use it. It is also a 2/5 skill so use it wisely. I recommend using it every time it resets while hunting, or before engaging a boss monster.

Summon Shreth: Summons a shreth to fight alongside of you. The shreth gains 30 health, 30 vigor (it starts with a base of 200 vigor) and 4 points of armor for each level you raise it. It also gains 2 points of maximum base damage potential for each level. The shreth has melee attacks only, no ranged. The maximum level of the shreth is limited to 4 levels greater than your level and it is a good idea to try to keep it there. The shreth is a tanking pet. It can take a lot more damage than then beetle, but it does not do nearly the same amount of damage the beetle does. There are two skills that you can get that will improve the shreth. Those skills are: Tenderize and Wild Guard. If you use the shreth, you should have both skills as well.

Bond of Compassion (BoC): This applies a heal over time effect to your pet. You’ll want to cast this on your beetle before each battle. It only lasts for 2 minutes and the reset time is 1 minute. Fun to do the buffing dance every minute or so, right? (Note: this skill currently works on both the beetle and the shreth. Not sure if that is a bug or not.)

Rampage: A triple strike melee attack that also taunts the target at 100% of the total damage. Yes, another taunt. Use it and use it well if you are a tank. Triple damage is nice (when all three hit of course). Vigor cost is lower than Reave so if you are having vigor issues use this skill instead of Reave when trying to taunt.

Reap: This attack drains health from the target and gives health to you. This is the skill that makes Hunger obsolete. Very useful skill but save it for when you have taken some damage first otherwise it kind of defeats the purpose.

Tenderize: This skill increases the damage done by your shreth pet. It also causes the shreth to taunt the monster it is attacking, increasing their hate towards the shreth. If you use the shreth, you really must get and use this skill. Two tanks are better than one.

Brutal Strength (BS): This skill causes the beetle pet to do more damage with each attack, pushing it past it’s maximum base damage potential. Very nice skill, turns the beetle into a monster shredder. Cast this on the beetle before every battle, or at least every 2 minutes. And don’t forget to keep taunting the monsters away from your beetle!

Ravage: This attack does damage to targets surrounding the character. It does extra armor-ignoring damage when used as part of a combo with Reave or Rampage.

Wild Guard (WG): This skill grants your pet additional armor for a limited duration. Always helpful, another buff to cast on your pet before each battle or every 2 minutes. Even though this skill’s description seems to read as if it will work on either pet, currently this skill only works on the shreth. Not sure if it is a bug or not.

Feral Intendant Active Hero Skills

Feral Rage (FR): This first hero skill is granted when you become a hero. It increases your damage, combat speed, and armor for 1 minute. The armor buff stacks with LM. The combat speed buff does not stack with LotP. The reason for that is because the FR combat speed buff is superior to the LotP combat speed buff. The rest of the LotP effects remains active.

Primal Howl (PH): The second hero skill is granted at level 60. It does 100 to 1,200 points of damage to targets within a 20 meter radius of you. It also reduces your damage by 10 to 300 points for 60 seconds.

Feral Intendant Passive Hero Skills

Passive Hero Skills are “always on” not needing to be activated to be used. This alone makes them extremely useful to any class. Here is a look at the ones available to a Feral Intendant with a rating from 1 to 5 of most important (1) to least (5):

Major Maximum Health (1): Each point bought increases maximum health by 10 points. No matter if you are a tank or a DD, the more health the better.

Maximum Vigor (4): Each point bought increases the your maximum vigor by 3 points. You don’t really have vigor issues, but raise this up to stop any that you may come up against.

Maximum Focus (3): This skill increases the amount of Focus a hero can store. (+20 max Focus per skill level) The FI hero skills are very nice skills, so put some XP here so you can store greater quantities of focus which will let you activate those skills more often.

Arcane Lore (AL) (2): This skill grants the ability for heroes to use certain equipment with Lore requirements. An FI relies on good equipment, and the best equipment has AL requirements. One caveat here, only raise it when you find some equipment you really want to use. No need to spend the XP until that point.

Damage Bonus Boost (1): This skill increases the amount of damage done by skills. Hero active skills and specialty tree skills receive the full effect of this damage boost. Skills found in the base trees receive a smaller damage bonus. (+.33% damage to base and Hero skills, +.5% to spec skills per skill level). More damage means better aggro management which is good for tanks. More damage means more damage for a damage-dealer which is what a damage-dealer wants, more damage (that was a mouthful!).

Other Skills

Tumerok Base Magic

Harm: This skill is useless for the FI, but it is needed to get the skills above it.

Heal: This skill restores a portion of your health. It isn’t much, but it can sometimes be the only heal you have available when you need one the most. You should never “expect” a healer to do all of your healing. You should always look out for your own health and hopefully the Healer will keep you safe when you get in over your head. Using the skill temporarily stops you from doing damage to the monster you are fighting. Comes in handy between battles as well, gets you ready faster.

Revitalize: This skill restores a portion of your vigor. It is the only vigor heal you can have besides SY. Using the skill temporarily stops you from doing damage to the monster you are fighting. Eventually most FI’s drop SY so this will become all that much more important. Also comes in handy between battles to get you ready faster.

Esprit: Reduces the vigor cost of all skills. Makes a noticeable difference in combat, allowing you to use skills more often than without it.

Acumen: This skill increases your damage. It is useful if you have the skill credits but you’ll need to train two additional skills below it to get it.

Portal/lifestone spells: These spells are nice to have but not really essential. You may find yourself wanting to leave 2 credits free so you can train/untrain one of these based on the occasion. As you climb to level 50 you should be getting the continent recall spells so you will not find much need for these after that.

EQUIPMENT

Preparation is the key to success in many things and that is especially true for the Feral Intendant. No matter if you are a tank or a DD Feral, you will want the best equipment you can find or make to insure your success.

Armor

The tanks are going to want the best armor you can get as well as anything that has a maximum health bonus. The DD’s are going to want to consider the speed of the armor as well as trying to get a high armor rating.

Special Armors of Note

Armor of the Ancients: Three types: Knights (level 20+), Lords (level 30+) and Kings (level 45+). These are received by doing a series of quests and doing some crafting. Besides nice Armor Rating (AR) and Combat Delay (CD), each piece has a special bonus while equipped. The boots reflect a portion of damage back on attacker, the breastplate increases your resistance to damage received through fire attacks, the gloves increase your melee, magic, and missile defense, the greaves increase your resistance to damage received through poison attacks and the helm increases your resistance to damage received through lightning attacks. Avoid working on the Knights armor as you will outgrow it rather quickly. Focus on getting the Lords armor instead.

Kingdom Armor: I’m not going to cover this armor set much as it is an involved quest and there are so many variations as to how you can modify it that it would be in your best interest to look up the quest if you decide to choose a kingdom other than neutral. Suffice it to say, the leggings and to a lesser degree the BP have good AR and all the pieces are imbuable with strong defensive crystals. Unfortunately, they are expensive and very time consuming to make.

Tyrant Armor: Yet another involved set of quests, they will give you a set of armor that I feel is the best all around armor available for a Feral Intendant after level 45. All the pieces have nice high AR and low CD ratings, plus they give you increased hitpoints, vigor, and defensive abilities. All are very good benefits for the FI.

Class Specific Robe or Breastplate: These are found in general loot and grant an increase in the FI adept skill as well as a damage boost.

Weapons

The tanks will want to look for weapons that have additional affects on them such as combat debuffs and damage over time (DoT). The DD’s will want to find weapons with high max damage as well as combat debuffs and DoT effects if possible.

Special Weapons of Note

The Soulbound (SB) weapons are very useful as they are high damage for their level as well as the added bonus of increasing your melee master ratings. There are 3 levels for these weapons: 15+, 30+ and 45+.

Jewelry

Anything that will increase your health or armor is a good thing. There are several rings and necklaces available from loot or quests that can help you out in those areas. Some worthy of mention are listed below.

Life Balance: Converts some of your Vigor into Health.
Scales or Keeling Scales: Increases your armor rating.
Blue Radiant Crystal Ring: +90 Health
Defensive Mastery (melee is Guardianship): Increase to your melee defense rating
Essence Sprout: Increases your health or vigor regen rate in combat.

AGGRESION MANAGEMENT

Monsters have several factors that make up the level of aggression towards players. First there is the amount of damage that is done to them and second there is the taunt rating. These two values are added together into the monster’s aggression rating for each person. The higher the aggression rating, the more likely the monster is to attack that person. However, there is another factor involved as well and that is the hate tables. The hate tables can cause monsters to sometimes ignore how much damage was done to it and go for a specific target.

Various skills can modify your taunt rating. Skills that are designed to draw or divert a monster’s aggression add or subtract a huge value from your taunt rating. How much depends on the skill, but the value is based on the total health of the monster. For instance, if you use level 50 Soft Underbelly on a monster, you will add a value equivalent to 20% of the monster’s total health to your taunt rating. De-taunt skills work much in the same way, removing a percentage of the monster’s health from your taunt rating. It should be noted that although a your taunt rating can be a negative number, if the sum of the damage rating and taunt rating is less than 1, a default value of 1 will be assigned as that monster’s aggression rating towards you. (This means that if you’re the only person around, you won’t be able to de-taunt the monster so much that it will wander away.)

Other skills can add a value equal to a multiple of the skill’s damage. For example, let’s say you used Rampage on a monster and did 1,000 total damage. Since Rampage has an additional taunt effect on it equal to 100% of the damage, the monster would think you hit it for 2,000 points.

Something to consider in groups with a healer is that healing someone who is currently doing damage to a monster can increase the monster’s aggression towards the healer. The monster’s hatred of the healer will increase by a value equal to 50% of the amount healed. This is why you need to keep taunting, to keep the monster on you and off of the healer.

You also should understand how and when a monster decides to change its target. If a taunt or de-taunt skill is used on the monster, it immediately revaluates its target list and changes targets accordingly. Other skills, such as attacks or heals, do not cause the monster to revaluate targets, and the monster waits until its next “heartbeat” to decide if it wants to attack someone else.

It should also be noted that your taunt rating decays at a rate of 1% per second while your damage rating never decays for the duration of the battle.

This may sound confusing, so I’ll turn to Turbine for some examples of how the system works.

Example 1 – The Feral Intendant (tank) inflicts 100 points of damage on a monster, while the Zealot (damage-dealer) does 200 points of damage to the same monster. Neither has used a special skill, so the monster chooses to attack the Zealot.

Example 2 – The Feral Intendant and the Zealot have been fighting a monster for quite a while, and the FI has done a total of 750 points of damage, while the Zealot has done 1250. However the FI now uses level 50 Soft Underbelly, a taunting skill. This gives the FI a taunt rating of 2,000 since the monster has 10,000 maximum health. The monster now assigns a rating of 2,750 (2,000 + 750) to the FI, while the Zealot still has a rating of 1250. The monster immediately decides to attack the Feral Intendant.

Example 3 – The Feral Intendant and the Zealot are fighting a monster. The Zealot has edged out the FI, and has done 2,000 points of damage to the monster, while the FI has done 1,250. However, the Zealot doesn’t want the monster’s attention, so he uses Avert Eyes, a de-taunt. This skill subtracts 1,500 points from the Zealot’s taunt rating (since the monster again has 10,000 health). In evaluating the FI and the Zealot, the monster gives the Zealot a rating of 500 (2,000 – 1,500) while the FI has 1,250. The monster immediately decides to attack the Feral Intendant.

Example 4 – A Healer comes along and heals the Feral Intendant for 250 points. The monster takes notice of this, and assigns the Healer an aggression rating of 125. However, the FI and the Zealot still have higher damage ratings, so they still attract the monster’s attacks.

PET MANAGEMENT

Pets are highly mobile creatures. They’ll try to stay by your side for the duration of their existence. However, this doesn’t mean you shouldn’t take care where they wander. It may be easy enough for you to avoid monsters you don’t want to face; your pets, however, are creatures of the wild, and there’s no leash holding them in check. Pets might draw the attention of monsters, even if you’re laying low, so be cautious when you have one summoned.

Pet Commands

/pet name “name”

Names the selected pet. Pet names are subject to the same name-filtering as player names. Pet names cannot be longer than 25 characters.

/pet attack

Pet will attack selected target. Attacking a target different than the one assigned to your pets will override this command.

/pet return

Pet returns to you.

/pet die

Selected pet dies.

/pet alldie

All of your pets die, no selection needed. I use this one a lot. Even with only one pet, it is nice to not have to try to target it all the time. Placed on a shortcut bar makes it even easier.

Note: pets will not always respond to every command, for various reasons:

You cannot issue the attack command while mounted on an Ataur. You can use the name and return commands while mounted.

If the target of your attack command is more than 30 meters away from you, the pet will ignore your command.

If you attack a different target from the one you’ve assigned to your pet, the pet will switch to your target.

If you issue an attack command on someone in your fellowship, the pet will ignore the command.

FELLOWSHIP MANAGEMENT

Roles

It is important for every good fellowship to know what to expect from each other. Let them know what role you are going to fill and how you plan to fill it. I’ll mention a couple of the more important roles for you to understand.

The Healer (that is, any class in the role of healing others)

If your fellowship has a Healer in the group, you should be very thankful. Every fellowship with one of them is much better off for it. There are some things that are worth repeating in their regard. Never expect a Healer to do all of your healing. You should plan on healing yourself unless the Healer asks otherwise. They are there to save you when your own healing skills are not going to be enough to save you. This isn’t to say they won’t heal you until that point, but if you plan on doing what you can to help it will make everyone’s job that much easier.

The Damage-Dealer

The damage-dealer must stay out of the way in the beginning of each battle. They need to let you build up some aggro before they start slicing up the monsters. Try to become aware of their higher-damage attacks and follow them up with one of your strong taunt skills. Encourage them to de-taunt if they can.

Fellowship Mini Panel

If you look in the upper right corner of the fellowship panel, you will see a green arrow button. Click on this to show/hide the mini panel. The mini panel shows the names, health and vigor bars of the entire fellowship. This panel is helpful so you can be aware of other things going on in the fellow. For instance, if the Healer’s vigor bar is getting low, you should not be expecting the life-saving heal in the near future so try not to do anything stupid. Also, if you see someone’s health bar getting low, you should see if there is anything you can do to get the monster’s aggro off of that person and on to you.

Positioning

You should consider the positioning of each other in battle as well as where you plan to stop the monster’s progress towards the rest of the group. Stop a monster too far away and the ranged players (and turrets) may not be able to attack. Also, the Tacticians may be planning to put up walls and you will want to take those into consideration. Ideally you will have a ranged player pull the monster towards the group, then the tanks will approach the monster and the appropriate location and hit them with any taunts they can. At the same time, any character with a debuff should be attempting to land them on the monster. The damage-dealers will then approach and start the slaughter. The tanks should continue to taunt for the rest of the battle. The healers will keep an eye on everyone’s health/vigor and will try their best to keep everyone alive provided you all stay within range of their heals.

You should also be aware of obstructions which could prevent the other fellows from healing or attacking at range. Slopes, rocks, trees, doors, rubbish and buildings all can make them “miss”. Be aware of the land and keep a clear line of sight open to as many fellow members as you can at once.

TEMPLATES

Here I have a few different melee (and one missle) templates suitable for most people. Feel free to experiment with the skills and make changes for your own play style.

Tank Feral Intendant
Level: Skill to Train
2: Melee Master
3: Lunge
4: Harm
5: Heal
6: Claw Stance
8: Victimize, Revitalize
13: Esprit
15: Lumbering Might
17: Melee Grandmaster
20: Soft Underbelly
21: Reave
25: Summon Shreth, Moon’s Madness
30: Paragon
32: Wet Fur
35: Reap
38: Tenderize
41: Rampage
44: Wild Guard
46: Adept
47: Wing Foot
48: Thornskin
50: Acumen

You may also consider having Growl for an additional taunt skill if you wish to change things around some.

Alternative First 18 Levels
Level: Skill to Train
2 – Melee Master
3 – Harm
4 – Heal
5 – Lunge
6 – Claw Stance
8 – Revitalize, Victimize
13 – Esprit
15 – Melee GM
18 – Lumbering Might

This beginning template will get you Esprit early which is great if you are having vigor issues. This template also is based upon you crafting or finding the best armor you can, since you are putting off LM until 18.

Another Alternate Template:
Level: Skill to Train (or untrain)
2: Melee Master
3: Lunge
4: Harm
5: Heal
6: Claw Stance
8: Victimize and Revitalize
13: Esprit
15: Lumbering Might
17: Melee Grandmaster
22: Melee Paragon
24: Soft Underbelly
26: Summon Shreth
28: Wet Fur; Untrain Victimize and Claw Stance, Train Reave
30: Untrain Lunge, Train Reap
32: Moon’s Madness
34: Summon Beetle
37: Rampage
39: Feral Adept
42: Bond of Compassion
45: Brutal Strength
46: Lunge
47: Claw Stance
48: Victimize
50: Winged Feet

I include this template here because I think it has a creative way to come up with credits in the middle. Some of the skills untrained are good skills, but you should be fine without them until later on. Also of note is the plan to get Paragon rather early. While I am a big fan of Melee Paragon, I was able to do without it until around level 30. This just shows you that there are plenty of ways to become a Feral.

Damage-Dealer Feral Intendant
Level: Skill to Train (or untrain)
2: Melee Master
3: Lunge
4: Harm
5: Heal
6: Claw Stance
8: Victimize, Revitalize
13: Esprit
15: Lumbering Might
17: Melee Grandmaster
20: Soft Underbelly
21: Leader of the Pack
23: Reave
25: Summon Beetle
27: Moon’s Madness
32: Melee Paragon
35: Bond of Compassion
38: Brutal Strength
41: Rampage
42: Wing Foot
43: Thornskin
45: Acumen
47: Adept
49: Wet Fur

Pure Feral Intendant
Level: Skill to Train (or untrain)
2: Melee Master
3: Lunge
4: Harm
5: Heal
6: Claw Stance
8: Victimize and Revitalize
13: Esprit
15: Lumbering Might
17: Melee Grandmaster
22: Melee Paragon
24: Soft Underbelly
26: Summon Shreth
28: Wet Fur; Untrain Victimize and Claw Stance, Train Reave
30: Untrain Lunge, Train Reap
32: Moon’s Madness
34: Summon Beetle
37: Rampage
39: Leader of the Pack
42: Bond of Compassion
45: Brutal Strength
48: Tenderize; Untrain Esprit
50: Wild Guard

This template would allow you to play tank or DD, but you lose Esprit and there is no Adept. Tradeoffs will always be made, it is up to you to decide what is important for your playstyle.

Last but not least, something a little bit different:

Missle FI template:
lvl 2 : Missile Master
lvl 3 : Penetrate
lvl 5 : Harm / Heal
lvl 6 : Barbed Spear
lvl 8 : Gore / Revitalize
lvl 9 : Huck
lvl 10 : Pin
lvl 15 : Lumbering Might
lvl 18 : Missile Grandmaster
lvl 19 : Esprit
lvl 25 : Soft Underbilly / Summon Shreth
lvl 28 : Missile Paragon
lvl 29 : Double Thrust
lvl 30 : Visceral Malady
lvl 34 : untrained Summon Shreth, Soft Underbelly. Trained Reave,
Summon Beetle, Moon’s Madness and Leader of the Pack.
lvl 37 : Bound of Compassion
lvl 40 : Brutal Strengh
lvl 44 : Soft Underbelly/Summon Shreth
lvl 50 : Tenderize/Wild Guard

- Ethic

Feral Intendant Guide is a post from: Kill Ten Rats

To make this perfectly general (and have some fun Monday morning excitement), I hereby hate your game. Whatever you are playing, I hate it. Come, rage against me or agree and talk about how much your devs suck. They’re intentionally trying to ruin the game! Because context also sucks, please make up whatever you like about me and use it as an element of your comment.

No, I know what really drives our traffic: Asheron’s Call 2. This will shock some of you, but this post on Asheron’s Call 2 is the most popular thing on the site, rivaling the front page. When it hits 100 comments, I may bake it a cake or something. An AC2 reference in a Warhammer post got more comments than the content of the post itself. This is now the first post in two years in the Asheron’s Call 2 category, and I expect to reap the benefits. Mwah-ha-ha-ha-ha!

: Zubon

Our biggest traffic spikes were driven by sites like Reddit or StumbledUpon, so we added the plug-in you might have noticed.

Massive Traffic is a post from: Kill Ten Rats

Well, they sent out t-shirts to the Vanguard members at one point and while doing a clean up at home I found it. I snapped some pictures for posterity. Front – Back – Back up close.

This reminded me of the one other game that gave me a free t-shirt, during the beta of Earth & Beyond. Hmm, two free t-shirts and two dead MMOs. Note to devs: don’t send me a t-shirt if you want your MMO to survive. Now, lets see if I can dig up that E&B t-shirt so I can take some pics.

- Ethic

The T-Shirt Curse is a post from: Kill Ten Rats