Michaleo
Big Battles 101: Getting Started
Epic Battles, informally called by the earlier name Big Battles and shortened to BBs, are a different kind of instance with different skills, different trait trees, different rules, different success criteria, different level progression, and different rewards. That is a lot to figure out, and they can be frustrating. The purpose of this post is to help you get started. Thanks most to Makii, but also others, for helping me do BBs and learn how they work.
The rewards from BBs are primarily jewellery, dropped or received in reward boxes and bartered using Stars of Merit, which are earned doing BBs. The jewellery can be quite good, teal pieces are regularly received. There are even teal and gold essence rings that you can customize with an essence. FA 100 symbols and essences, including Greater and Supreme essences, also are dropped.
You have to have the Helm’s Deep Expansion to run BBs, but you do not have to be high level. BBs run at level 100, but lower-level players are scaled to 100. This means that level 25 players and level 100 players can be in the same BB. A high rank level 25 player can be more powerful than a low rank level 100 player. The rewards are keyed to your actual level, for example, a level 50 player will get level 50 jewellery rewards.
Some terms
Experience in BBs comes in the form of Promotion Points. When you complete and do better in BBs and side quests, you earn points that can be applied to your BB trait trees. For every 20 points you put in a trait tree, you go up a Rank, up to 6. Higher ranks have more and more powerful skills.
The skills in BB are organized in three Roles: Engineer, Officer, and Vanguard. Like your class trait trees, you can have more than one and are able to switch them when out of combat. Engineer skills apply to objects like barricades, catapults, and traps. Officer skills apply to the NPCs. Vanguard skills enhance traditional combat.
The flow of a BB is driven by time, events, and randomness. There is a Main Quest, which runs the duration of the BB. There are also Side Quests, which pop up at various times during the BB. Although you can run BBs multiple times a day, you can only receive credit for a quest (main or a particular side quest) once a day.
Most of the “fighting” in BBs is done by Soldiers, NPCs that operate mostly on their own. You can affect their behaviour by performing operations on Commanders, who control a group of Soldiers. Even in situations where you are fighting directly, soldiers will be helping you and you will be helping them.
If the main quest and side quests don’t fail, they complete with a Rating of bronze, silver, gold, or platinum. The better you do according to various metrics, the higher the rating and the better the rewards. When you complete a main or side quest the first time, you get promotion points for it: 1 for bronze, 2 for silver, 3 for gold, and 4 for platinum. If you do it later and get a higher rating, you get the additional points. Once you’ve done all the quests and side quests at platinum for a particular BB, you won’t get any more promotion points from it, but you will still get rewards.
Getting familiar with Big Battles
There is a brief tutorial instance available at the Boar Fountain in Bree. It shows some of the mechanics, but doesn’t convey the complexity of the BBs. Let’s take a look at BBs.
Open the BB window with the B key. The first tab shows the battles and is used to start them (You can use the instance finder if you prefer). There are 5 Helm’s Deep BBs, and 1 Pelargir BB as of this writing. You select the battle and whether you want the solo/duo or group (the valid group for a particular battle is enabled).
The second tab of the BB window shows your trait trees and they operate similar to your class trait trees. You can switch between them using the tabs on the upper right.
The third tab of the BB window shows which BBs and side quests you have done, and how well you have done on them. It’s complicated.
Let’s take a tour of Helm’s Dike. It is the first BB, and it is special in that it starts paused, so you can explore and set things up before you run it. Go back to the first tab of the BB window. Click on 1, the Helm’s Dike BB, and start the one/two version. You enter above the gate. To the east is Gamling. He may say a few things, then a quest ring will appear over him. Don’t click him.
A little past him, you will see three crates, a small ballista, a barricade, and a small catapult. Until you have higher rank, you won’t be able to use these. Go onto the platform to your left. You will see a small ballista, but it has not been built. Right click on it, then click on the hammer icon to build it. When it has been built, you will see more buttons you can click. Notice the button at the lower left. If you are low rank, it will be greyed out. At higher rank, this button will let you dismantle the object, turning it into a crate like the three we saw. That will allow you to pick up the object and place it somewhere else.
For now, click on the top left button to load the ballista, then click the next button to the right to crank it. Look down on the field below to see a circle. That’s the aiming spot. The second row of buttons move it left, up, down, and right. Hitting the escape key or clicking another button will stop the movement. Click the top right button to fire it. If the battle were running and your aim were good, you’d see how much damage you’d done.
At low rank, operations will seem slow. Promotion points in your trait tree will make things go faster, as well as give you options to upgrade the speed and damage done by the ballista. Shooting ballistas and catapults at distant mobs has some effect on the BB, but they are more useful when positioned to target mobs that you and the soldiers are fighting.
When you’re done playing with the ballista, go south off the platform and turn left. You will see a commander, some soldiers and some barricades. Right click on the large barricade. If you have low rank, everything will be greyed out. At higher ranks, you’ll be able to dismantle the barricades, pick them up, and move them to better locations. There are many barricades in the Helm’s Dike BB, almost all in useless positions!
Right click on the commander. The top row of icons allow you to tell him and his soldiers to heal, to attack faster, and to do more damage, providing buffs for a time. If you give a particular buff to one commander, there will be a cooldown before you can give the same buff to the same commander and a cooldown before you can give the same buff to a different commander. The trait trees allow you to reduce your cool downs, and to increase the amount of the buffs. In some situations, it will be important to buff your soldiers to keep them healed and increase their effectiveness.
When you have sufficient rank, the bottom left button will be important. It allows you to order the soldiers to attack certain mobs first. Some mobs are more critical than others in certain situations. The bottom middle button allows you to select a stance, trading off between defending and attacking.
Just to the east of the commander is a second commander controlling another group of soldiers. Apply a buff and see which soldiers it affects. Look north in front of the soldiers. This is where mobs will be approaching. Move down to the point where you see bodies on the ground. If you continue forward, you will quickly be defeated and retreat to the starting point. In this and some other battles, there are similar areas to avoid.
Go back to the commanders, then continue east. You will pass more poorly placed barricades. To the left you will see a statue of Helm Hammerhand with a commander and soldiers. One of the side quests will involve an attack on the statue, and those soldiers will help defend it. Past the statue is another approach point for mobs, with two more commanders, and more barricades. For the 6-man instance, there is another approach to the east, but the solo instance has only two on this side.
You can get on your standard horse (or goat, no warsteeds) and ride west past Gamling to the west side. The west has a similar platform, with some similar crated objects, and two similar approaches. As you ride around, you will see quite a few banners. In most BBs, protecting the banners and repairing them if they take damage will be important.
Head back toward Gamling and click on the rope. This will take you down below the gate. There is another commander and soldiers that will be used for a side quest. Farther south you’ll see stables and some horses, the site of another side quest.
The main Helm’s Dike BB quest is the mobs coming up the four approaches. It will start with two on one side, then switch to two on the other side, then switch to one on each side. During each of these 3 stages, a side quest will start, requiring you to go to a particular spot, for example the stable down here or the statue above. You will do more direct fighting during side quests, but even then, you’ll be giving orders to commanders and performing operations on objects.
You can exit the BB by right-clicking your portrait and doing a leave instance, or clicking on the table to the north-east of Gamling.
Helm’s Deep sequence
There are 5 Helm’s Deep BBs: Helm’s Dike, The Deeping Wall, The Deeping-coomb, The Glittering Caves, and The Hornburg. Your first time, you must unlock them in order, that is, you must have completed the earlier ones at least once (with any rating, as long as you don’t fail the main quest) before you can try the later ones. You don’t have to complete them all before redoing an unlocked one.
Some tips for getting started with BBs
When you start doing BBs, your rank is low and there are only a few things you can do. Without more promotion points, you can’t do much to succeed at BBs. But until you succeed at BBs, you can’t get more promotion points. This frustration kept me from doing BBs for a long time. Fortunately, there is a way to break this cycle.
Don’t start solo
BBs can be run solo/duo or with a group. Most BBs have additional group sizes: 3-man, 6-man, or 12-man. More important, the solo/duo version can be run with one or two people, and is the same with one or two people. Especially when you are starting, you’ll need help, so do it with an experienced, higher-rank player. This is how to solve the chicken and egg problem of needing rank to get rank. The higher-rank player can help you get the promotion points you need to get the rank so you can do more things, and have more fun and success with BBs.
Set the rewards
Before you run any BBs, I recommend setting your rewards to forward points to higher levels. Go to the BB window and select the first tab (that chooses the BB to run). At the bottom to the right of the bronze and the silver bars, is a pair of icons. Choosing the open chest icon will produce lower-level rewards when the bar is filled. Choosing the right arrow will forward points from lower level rewards to higher level ones, which is a better deal. Click the right arrows for the bronze and silver bars.
Make an Engineer trait tree and an Officer trait tree
You will spend most of your time in BBs as an Engineer, but Officer skills are also valuable. Your goal is to get to Rank 3. A Rank 3 Engineer can move barricades and place ballistas and catapults. A Rank 3 Officer can set the stance and target priority of the soldiers. Unfortunately, switching requires opening the BB trait tree and clicking on the desired tab on the right, but it is still useful to do during a BB.
Protect the banners
The main quest will often require you to keep banners from being destroyed. When they take damage, Engineers can repair them and healers can heal them. One way to reduce the damage they take is to set commanders to two-handed stance and target priority the sappers. Two-handed stance and targeting sappers is what you want in most situations.
Any class can succeed
In most cases, your role is more significant than your class. When it comes to moving barricades, laying traps, giving orders, etc., your class doesn’t matter. Except in those situations where direct fighting is necessary, your class won’t make a big difference. (However, see next tip.)
Healers can repair and heal!
Healing classes do have special abilities. Engineers can repair damaged objects, and Officers can heal soldiers. But healing classes can also “heal” objects with their class skills to repair them, and can heal NPCs. This can be more effective than using Engineer repairs and commander healing buffs.
Put down traps whenever possible
There are three types of traps: trip-wire that stun, caltrops that damage over time, and bear traps that damage. All traps also make mobs more susceptible to damage. Place traps where soldiers can attack mobs. Traps share a cooldown, so whenever it is available, you should be thinking where you can add some traps. Placing a caltrops over a trip-wire causes the stunned mob to take damage for more time.
Place barricades along the path of the mobs, not across
Barricades slow and damage mobs when they are within the area of effect. To increase the amount of time mobs are affected by barricades, place them along the path the mobs will take rather than across them. (Mobs, NPCs and players are able to move through barricades, despite the name and physical appearance.) Barricades are often set up it useless places. Dismantle and move them to places where the mobs will be walking and the soldiers will be attacking them. Upgrade barricade damage whenever you are able.
Hit them while they are under the influence of the barricade.
Aim a ballista or catapult to hit mobs at the barricade. It does no damage to the barricade, but the barricade will make the mobs more susceptible to damage. If you are fighting mobs, try to drag them into the barricade to increase the damage you and your soldiers do.
Side quests are somewhat predictable
Although they are somewhat randomly selected, the side quests are somewhat predictable. For example, in Helm’s Dike, if the attack starts on the east side, the first side quest will always be Protect the Horses, the second will always be Guarding the Watchtower. The third will be either Flames at the Gate or Powder at the Gate. There is a plugin called EpicBattlePlugin http://www.lotrointerface.com/downloads/info874-EpicBattlePlugin.html that is useful for showing what side quests are possible. (As of this writing, it does not know about the Pelargir BB.) Since the soldiers are doing most of the fighting for the main quest, you can leave them to prepare for a coming side quest.
Watch what happens
To get familiar with a particular BB, start it and just watch what happens. See how the mobs approach and the soldiers handle them. Notice where the side quest attacks come from. Get familiar with the layout. If you exit before the main quest completes or if it fails, you can still do it again and get credit for it that same day. As you get more familiar with the flow of the quests and the various ways you can affect the outcomes, and as you start accumulating some nice jewellery, you may find BBs to be more fun and rewarding.
by Michaleo on 2015-03-03 06:02:41