The Secret World Nightmare Group Guidelines

The Secret World Nightmare Group Guidelines by psyx0r

During the past few days I ve been in quite a few NM dungeon groups ranging from awesome to /tripplefacepalm and thought I would post a few observations that many people seem to not take into account.

1) Mindset

Don’t go into nightmares expecting the easy ride you had on Elite or Normal. The group needs to communicate and in most cases both you and your team mates will need to make changes to your build not only for the specific encounter but also to fine tune your build to work nicely with the rest of your team. All this will require a few wipes and leaving while everyone is trying to fix their setup / gear so that they complement each other will only make you look like a noob that just walked into nightmare for the first time.

2) Patience

Shit happens. People make mistakes. People need to learn a few things on each boss fight and not everyone is as awesome and amazing as you. Instead of shouting crying and raging throwing blame around, try to be constructive and friendly. If you wipe once, no biggie. If you wipe three times to the same mistake, try to figure out what it is and point out to the person that is causing the wipe in a nice manner what he is doing wrong. If you wipe 10 times on the same boss from mistakes of the same person, then maybe it is time to think about getting a replacement but in most cases everyone gets their act together long before that.

3) Flexibility

Be prepared to change your build, talis, strategy and style. Just because you beat this with another team, does not mean that your current team is doing something wrong. There are many different ways to tackle a problem and you will need to change your build to make up for an area that someone else is lacking and they will do the same for areas where you are lacking.

4) Communication

Talk to each other and try to figure out what is causing the problem and try to figure out a solution. Chances are someone in the group knows exactly what is causing the problem but either can’t be bothered to say it or are afraid of insulting someone leading to pointless drama. Be friendly, nice and helpful.

And now on to specific roles:

1) Tanking.

Tanking is not about having the most HP. It’s not even about being able to take a few hits without dropping. Tanking is the most important role in a group and thus carries the most responsibility. If the group wiped, chances are it’s probably your fault. As far as gear goes, your number 1 responsibility is keeping aggro at all times. No excuses for that. Make a build that allows you to keep and hold agg from all mobs. Your second responsibility after grabbing aggro is to allow your team mates to breathe. Find a nice spot to tank the boss. Face him away from the group. Expect adds, Interrupt the right attacks. etc etc.

Last but not least You have to be able to take a couple of hits.

Honestly I ve seen tanks with 13k hp going down in 3 hits. No healer can heal through that and they shouldn’t have to. In fact a healer will much prefer a tank with 8k hp that gets hit for 1k to a tank with 15k hp that gets hit for 3-4k at a time. It is much easier to heal 1k than 4k. If you can get 14k hp without sacrificing your survivability then it’s amazing but in most cases you can not so always remember that evade-defense-block > more hp with no defense.

Also… try to avoid obvious attacks. The UR-draug’s cleave for example… is easily avoidable by an experienced tank yet most people just sit there, take the hits and blame it on the healer.

2) Healer.

The first and most important thing for a healer is the following 2 words:

GET SUBTLETY!

Apart from that,

You will need several different builds for different situations.

You will also need different skills / healing styles for different tanks.

Some come with high hp and no mitigation so you will need big powerful heals to get them back up, some will have high mitigation and lower hp, so you can keep them up with a couple of barriers and hots. Either way try to maximize your healing and remember that your main role is to heal the tank.

Keep the tank up at all times and no1 will blame you for anything or if they do, you can be sure they are wrong.

Never heal or apply hots before the tank has control of the mob. The first tick of a hot will send the boss straight to you before the tank has had a chance to grab the attention of a mob. If the boss comes straight to you at the start of a fight, it’s your fault not theirs.

Always keep an eye on your tank and stay out of harms way.

Also, try to find the best way to stay hidden while maintaining a nice view of the tank, some times you might even ask them to tank at a specific spot that makes it easier for you to maintain cover.

Sometimes you will need to cleanse. If you dont have time to do so, ask someone else in the group to do it. Chances are someone will be able to.

If someone does not have it however, remember that cleansing is part of your own skill set and it is your responsibility to bring it to the group.

Adjust adjust adjust.

Work towards getting all 3 major healing weapon lines.

Sometimes you will need strong single heals, sometimes you will need strong aoe heals, sometimes you will need barriers and sometimes you can just keep the team going with a couple of hots. Stay flexible and change your heals for those that the encounter / tank requires.

3) DPS

RULE NO1: GET SUBTLETY

RULE NO2: GET SOME HP ON DUDE.

As a dps, strangely enough your role is not only to dish out the highest amount of damage you can. Damage meters are useful as a self evaluation tool but they mean absolutely nothing during the fight.

Your role is mainly support / dps. Find out what purges / impairs / weakens are and use them when they are needed.

If your tank is getting his ass kicked stack weaken effects till he can survive.

If there is one ability that wipes the whole group, try to impair it.

Learn and use your support tools.

As for HP, there is absolutely no problem with having 1.9k hp but… only if you manage to stay alive and take as little damage as possible during the fight.

If you find yourself dps ing from the well all the time, grab one or two hp items until you learn how to survive without them. Soon you will know the fights and will not need them anymore but while you are learning at least give your healer a chance to heal you when you make a mistake.

Also try to manage your aggro.

Unleashing hell on a mob before or as soon as the tank got close to it, does not make you look cool, it makes you a noob. It doesnt mean that the tank can’t keep aggro, it means that you are a noob. Hold your high powered attacks for when you are certain the tank has aggro. Also keep in mind that many bosses reset aggro at times. When you see this happen, again give the tank some time to regain agg and wait a while for him to build enough hate.

Also sometimes hindering a mob causes problems instead of helping. So try to keep an eye on what is going on and what the tank is trying to do before hindering.

And last but not least, weakens. Stack that shit up and make the mob useless. Both tank and healer will love you for it.

Thats all the information / advice I can think of (specific to NM dungeons) at the moment.

Feel free to reply if you have something to add or think something in there is not quite right. Keep in mind that I am in no way “elite” or experienced or anything but these things are my observation while still learning how to deal with one of the most challenging encounters of the game.

Finally remember to be nice and have fun. It’s a game not a life or a job. Enjoy it and allow others to enjoy it with you. : )

Good point added by Lexz:

– Don’t treat NM newbies like noobs. I’ve seen many PuGs fall apart because 1 or 2 group members feel it’s their privilige to yell at the newcomer for making a mistake. Everyone was a newbie once and everyone made mistakes. Suck it up and help them. The better they become, the easier it will become to find decent groups in the future. Who knows, maybe you can even end up expanding your friend list.