Advancement (WAR)
There's two main means of advancement: Experience and Renown. The game tracks your Rank (i.e. your level), splitting both into 10 'bubbles' that must be filled in order to 'rank up'.
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Experience
You gain experience by defeating players, killing mobs, completing quests, and capturing objectives.
There are 4 tiers for characters to rise through, each of which consists of 10 ranks; a total of 40 levels of advancement.
Tier 1 covers ranks 1 to 10, tier 2 covers ranks 11 to 20, tier 3 covers ranks 21 to 30, and the final tier covers ranks 31 to 40.
Renown
Renown is gained by defeating players, winning scenario and working toward RVR objectives. There's currently 80 Renown Rank in the game. Renown Rank grant titles (1st one at RR 4, then a new one at every 10 RR). Renown Rank are prerequisite to equip some gear.
Renown is the system which measures Realm vs. Realm (RvR) participation by a player. It functions as an experience system for RvR and players can "level up" to earn Renown ranks that show their proficiency at fighting the opposing Realm. Renown gain is also capped based on a character's level. In other words, the RR cannot be higher than character rank.
The Renown system dictates the rewards made available to a player (items, abilities, titles, or otherwise). Renown is gained through many actions in WAR - killing other players, taking or defending battlefield objectives or keeps, participating in scenarios, and zone control.
Earning Renown
At the simplest level, you get Renown from killing other players. Each player has a flat amount of Renown they are worth depending on their current Player Rank (level). When one player is killed by another player, the deceased's player rank and Renown rank are measured against those of the killer and the awarded Renown is adjusted upward or downward based on the parity of the two players. If the deceased player has been killed recently, they will be worth less Renown than normal, and sometimes none at all if they've come back into combat too quickly.
Renown for killing players is also awarded to members in groups. Group members must be active in RvR, and within a certain range of the nearly deceased individual to receive Renown. "Active in RvR" means that you must have performed an action against another player or benefited an ally who is also active. Renown is split amongst players on a percentage base.
For example: Bob, Joe and Mike are attacking Jack. Bob and Joe are grouped, but Mike is not. Bob and Joe do 70% of the damage it took to kill Jack and Mike did the remaining 30%. Let's say that Jack was worth 100 Renown. Bob and Joe will split 70 Renown evenly, and Mike will get 30 Renown.
Renown is also granted to healers from a separate pool for aiding their allies. This is designed to provide incentive to healers to keep their realm mates alive whether they're grouped with them or not. Every time you heal another player, whether they've been in combat recently or are currently in combat, you'll get a little bit of Renown.
Players can also earn Renown for capturing and defending battlefield objectives and keeps. Each of these locations has a set amount of Renown, as well as a building pool of Renown, that is distributed when the keep or battlefield objective is taken or successfully defended. The amount of Renown granted increases in each tier (i.e., Tier 3 keeps are worth more than Tier 2 keeps) and is dependent on the number of players killed in the area.
Both winners and loser of scenarios will be granted Renown as a reward for their participation. The amount of Renown a player receives is directly related to the amount of points their realm earned in a scenario. The winners will obviously get more, but both sides will earn additional Renown for having fought in the scenario beyond any they've received from player kills.
Lastly, taking over an enemy zone will give you a chunk of Renown worth roughly 5 times your base if you're actively fighting in RvR at the time of capture. Let's say your base Renown worth is 100 points, you'll be given roughly 500 points when a zone is captured! Upon zone capture, you also get bonus renown and XP for each Keep and Battlefield Objective you participated in.
Renown Rewards
As a reward for participating in RvR, characters will receive one Renown point per Renown rank reached. These Renown points can be used to purchase special character advancement rewards from your trainer. These rewards are primarily focused on improving your character's RvR capabilities, but many offer minor benefits to PvE performance as well.
RvR Tactics are special tactics that can only be purchased with Renown points. These tactics have their own unique slots in addition to the existing career tactic slots to further customize your character's abilities. A new Renown Tactic slot is unlocked every 10 renown ranks. Renown tactics have special effects that focus on RvR performance. In particular, they allow a player to become more effective against a particularly hated enemy. For example, if a player wanted to become the ultimate Greenskin killing machine, they would purchase many of the anti-Greenskin Renown tactics.
Examples:
- Stuntie Stompa - One slot tactic that increases your damage by 2% when fighting in Dwarf RvR areas & scenarios
- Emperor's Champion - Two slot tactic that gives you a 5% increase in morale generation if grouped with an Empire player.
- Malekith's Vengeance - Two slot tactic that lightly heals the player every time they kill a High Elf player.
- Bane of Kings - One slot tactic that gives you 5% more damage when fighting Realm lords & kings.
A player can also purchase additional defensive, offensive and stat bonus packages using Renown points (you get one point per renown rank). These bonuses have a global effect on the player's performance that will aid them in both PvE and RvR. Each stat package has multiple levels, with a greater bonus for each upgrade level purchased. However, each level costs an increasing amount of Renown points to purchase!
Examples:
- Hard as Nails I - Increases your Toughness by 3, costs 1 Renown point
- Hard as Nails V - Increases your Toughness by 42, costs 14 Renown points
- Blade Master III - Increases your Strength by 9 and Weapon Skill by 9, costs 10 Renown points
- Fireproof I - Increases your Elemental resistance by 20, costs 5 Renown points
- Improved Heavy Armor III - Increases your Armor by 900, costs 15 Renown points
Renown Items
When players hit certain Renown rank thresholds they earn the right to certain items. These items can only be bought from special vendors (called Renown Merchants). There is a Renown Merchant in every war camp and they function much like regular vendors. There are also Renown Merchants for every tier located in the capital cities. However, each item sold by a Renown vendor has a Renown rank requirement, which means that you can't use it unless you are above a certain Renown rank. These items reward players that keep their Renown rank and level close.
Once a player has reached level 40 and Renown rank 40+, Renown items becomes really interesting. While the Renown vendor is still a player's primary way of upgrading their RvR gear, players who participate in city captures also get access to really awesome RvR armor sets. A combination of keeping your renown-rank high and storming cities and killing kings will put players on the right track to get the best renown gear in the game. All the renown 40+ items are effectively level 40+ items. So, the higher your renown rank, the better the items are that you can get from the renown store.
Renown set gear can also be purchased from Renown Quartermasters using the Medallion system. Only select pieces of the highest level renown sets are available.
Actions
As your characters experience rank increases, actions will be gained according to milestones on your experience bar. These are irregularly spaced, and different careers will receive actions at different points during their career advancement. Actions are the fundamental progression of upgrades every character receives as they advance, and they will be geared towards the core abilities of each career archetype.
By the time they reach rank 40, a character will have learned every action available to their career.
To learn a new action, characters may have to visit a trainer, who will charge a fee to train them.
Tactics
There are three types of tactic: Career, Renown and Tome.
- Career tactics are general improvements that are useful in any fight.
- Renown tactics improve your RvR combat performance.
- Tome tactics improve your PvE combat performance.
Career tactics are gained by leveling up, Renown tactics are gained by earning renown points, and Tome tactics are gained by completing sections in the Tome of Knowledge.
Morale
Morale abilities are gained by leveling up. There are three different categories of morale ability:
- Career abilities are unique to a particular career.
- Archetype abilities are shared across career archetypes (tank, healer, range dps, melee dps).
- Racial abilities are shared across races.
Each morale ability can be used in one of the four slots on the morale bar, according to how powerful a particular ability is. Slot 1 abilities are the weakest and can be used the most often, while slot 4 abilities are more powerful but can only be used after spending a longer time in combat.
Masteries
As a character levels up, he gains Mastery options in his chosen career. The mastery is a specialization option that allows access to a specific subset of abilities and enhancements to abilities not available to anyone else.
Mastery is more of a way to further define your role. For example, a Sorceress' or Bright Wizard's role is to unleash the pain via magic from a distance. Therefore their mastery paths allow a player to drill down on how they want to do this. For example, they may have lines that represent the following:
- Direct Damage - Focuses on really high, single-target damage
- DoT/Debuffs - Focuses on dealing damage over time & reducing enemies resistance to attack
- Area Effect - Focuses on dealing lower damage over a larger area & number of enemies
Each of these choices offers the player a different type of game play specialization without changing their role as a primary nuker. Most of the Mastery lines fall in line with this general concept, although the exact functionality varies on a class by class basis.
Going into a Mastery path has two effects. First, with each point spent in a particular line, abilities associated with that line grow stronger. Secondly, as you advance deeper in the Mastery path, you gain the ability to spend Mastery Points on new abilities, tactics, and morales.
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