This section of the forum contains a lot of posts for specific classes and general tactics. This post is for those new to the ettens.

Freeps and Creeps
The Ettenmoors is about Player versus Player (PvP) or as Turbine calls it Player versus Monster Player (PvMP). The P of PvMP revers to the Free People characters, the avatars you have been levelling up from 1 to 50 in the shire and beyond. The common term for them is Freeps. Monster players are created differently and commonly referred to as Creeps. Playing a freep involves taking your Player versus Enviroment (PvE) character into the Ettenmoors via a 1 silver horse ride from Rivendell or any of the starter horse locations like South Bree and Thorin's Hall.

The unique thing about PvMP is that the Monster Players create their characters differently then the character you have been levelling from level 1 to level 50. Once you reach lvl 10, a button is enabled on the character selection screen that takes you to the MP part of the game. A MP character starts at level 50. You can create one MP character of every class but not two of one class on the same server. Once you created a new creep, you are in the Ettens, creeps can't enter the rest of the game world, a full level fifty, but rank 0.

A creep has far fewer skills then a lvl 50 freep, often as few as 3, but they are tailored for PvMP combat. For instance a new Warleader, a class similar to a captain, starts with a skill to heal others and resurrect up to 5 targets every 5 minutes. His only other skill is a single attack. Compared to a lvl 50 captain, 3 skills doesn't seem much, but when you compare rez skills, it is clear which class is better suites for PvMP action.

That two sides have different strengths. At first glance, some creep skills seem unbalanced, and with a good creep leader they can be put to deathly use, but a good freep raid can use their faster selection of skills to deathly effect and in general out DPS (Damage Per Second) and out heal creeps. On the whole, creep side is slightly easier to play because the roles are simpler. A captain is always confused as to what his role is, buffer, DPS, rezzer and hugely limitted in his role. A War-leader on the other hand has just three clear roles represented by 3 skills, heal, bubble (a protection) and rez. Those are his skills, that is his job.

Ranks
By fighting enemy players in the Ettens you can Renown/Infame (Freep/Creep) which is a kinda of XP that instead of building levels builds up your rank. Rank for Freeps is pretty meaningless, it gives you access to an armour set that for some classes is pretty decent for PvMP but on the whole the Rift set is better. At rank 9 you can also get a faction horse from the Ettens that is black with white feet. You don't want to know how many creeps you got to slaughter to get rank 9.

For creeps, rank is everything. Creeps start at rank 0. If you target one you see they got a green ring on their targetting display, the same as swarm creatures in PvE. An indication they are not very though. A green ring creep is in general not much of a challenge to a lvl 50 freep. They are still potent because their skills are fully designed to be of use in combat. Don't think a rank 0 WL is not a major threath, a rank 0 defiler not a very a good healer, a rank 0 reaver not a massive DPS machine, a rank 0 spider not a serious pain in the ass and a rank 0 warg... well okay, those are pretty easy. Remember to pack your rolled up newspaper.

Roughly speaking, if their ring is green, they are fairly easy to kill, especially if you are working in a team, most attacks will hit them and although their morale is high (4k) that drops pretty fast with freep DPS output. Once their ring turns blue, it means they gained a few ranks, have got more skills and in general are a lot thoughter, roughly equal to a lvl 50 freep. Beyond that, when they got red rings, you are in trouble alone. Some people love to spar, but if you want 1vs1 you really should be playing a different game as the classes/sides just weren't designed for this.

A red ring creep will be hard to take down, they will have high resists meaning a lot of your attacks just don't land. Their skills will also have developed often giving their class a lethal addition like the WL gaining the bubble skill.

When you are in a raid, you should know that you can probably solo kill a green ring, a blue you might be able to take down before he runs out and a red you are going to need help.

In the Ettens as it is now, you will find more red rings then green rings. This makes fighting in a raid essential. If you want a different style of figthing then you are in the wrong game. Age of Conan, Warhammer and Guild Wars provide drastically different experiences. Ettens is about zerging and ganking. Accept and love it or leave it.

Joining a raid
Etten combat is fluid, people enter and leave when they feel like it and battle happens when one side attacks another. This means that very few raids will form in the same way as say a Rift raid. No set time, no meeting point. The first place to look for an etten raid is in your social panel. First tab at the top, and second tab at the bottom, open fellowships. Typically a raid will be advertised with "Main raid" "Etten raid" or something similar. If you join it, a request window will be sent to raid leader for permission to join. Sometimes this gets cancelled, it might not be a rejection, in the heat of combat it might have been cancelled accidently. The reason to use this is because if the raid leader is dead, he can't invite.

The 2nd best way to find a raid is to use /ooc. Simply ask for a raid, it helps to list your class. If it gets ignored it might because the raid is full or because the raid leader and his assitents are to busy fighting.

If the main raid is full, consider joining in the 2nd raid AND staying in the 2nd raid. Often freep side looses a lot of players simply because everyone wants to be in the main raid when there could be two raids active if people just joined the 2nd raid. This is a terrible waste of players. A good 2nd raid can be an enormous asset.

If you are completely new, wait at GV (the point you start) until you see some people enter, then simply follow them. Stick to them like glue and learn the area.

What to do in a raid
First, go to your social panel and open the raid tab and at the bottom enable the Raid Assist Target window with the checkbox. RAT is an essential element of raids especially in the Ettens, you alone won't take down a red ring creep, you need to join others on the same target and the RAT is the guy who picks the targets.

Next is 'follow the leader'. Everyone else in your raid will be a green dot on your radar. You should be in the center of those dots. At all times. No exception. Ettens is NOT PvE, the raid is NOT going to wait until you answered the phone or are talking to your mates. The battle is often moving back and forth and if you are not with the raid you are either going to be on the wrong end of a charge or left behind to feed the wargs. Sticking with the raid is an essential skill. As a melee class, you need to stick with the RAT at all times. Attack what he is attacking, walk where is his walking, advance when he advances, retreat when he retreats. It sounds simple but it is NOT a skill PvE players have developed. In PvE battles often are fixed in place, in PvMP they are not.

Ranged, hunters, minstrels and lore-masters all suffer from induction skills that they can't use when moving. So they got to stand still, yet they also got to remain close to the raid. A good RAT will NOT charge to far from the raid, but a good raid will follow the RAT if he needs to charge. Think of the raid as a two headed beast, one head is the melee, the other the ranged. Both need each other, so they need to be on rubber band forever pulling each other together.

It is very tempting for melee to charge of on their own, to get that green ring with just 4 morale left. It is very tempting for ranged to pull of one more induction skill. What it leads to is you being pounced upon either by the creep raid OR a warg pack.

Alone == dead. Alone == no kills. You cannot kill a creep alone and you cannot survive alone. Learn this, accept it and live by it. We either stand together or will all be hanged seperately.

Know your class
Freep classes have their skills spread out over all the classes, Disease and wound cure on Lore-masters, Poison cure on hunters and Fear cure on captains. ALL these debuffs MUST be cured, they stack and have crippling effects. Remember that a freep under attack isn't just facing a single NPC but a whole creep raid piling on the attacks and debuffs. The armour debuff is bad enough in PvE but when a dozen reavers are piling on top of you it is lethal. Same with poison attacks, they stack. The fear bebuff of silence effectively stops a minstrel from healing, often when they need it most.

Knowing your class is therefor more then just doing DPS. It is about stopping the enemy from hurting your raid while causing maximum disruption to theirs.

You should know three things

• How to cause disruption. This is typically your Area of Effect skill and/or stuns/roots. Disruption is needed when someone is being ganked (attacked by a lot of enemies at once) typically by a warg pack. Lore-masters thunderclap is good, change of stunning a huge group, hunters hail of thorns, champions AoE. Any skill that gets the warg group to split up and stop attacking. No player like to die and few wargs stick around if they think they are going to be ganked next. Don't worry about killing anyone of them. Once they dispersed you slaughter the warg that wasn't quick enough to escape. A proper disruption can masacre a warg pack.
  
• Interruption. As any class with induction skills nows, you can't complete them if hit. There are more powerfull skills that disable a creep altogether, stuns or one but bards arrow of the hunter is another. Clobber and kicks are also good if they can be used. This is a skill used against the enemies healers, war-leaders and defilers. War-leaders love to rush in, rez their fallen comrades hoping that their high morale keeps them alive when the freeps respond. Ideally, WLers and defilers shouls never be allowed to just stand still in the back and do their stuf. Hunters can switch targets when they wish, to put in a bards arrow into any healer they see. A champ running to a new target might swing by a healer and clobber him, just for the hell of it. If there is nothing else to stun, healers are asking for it. Interrupt their heals and rezzes and the fight is won already.
  
• Slow them. Creeps are human beings and human beings don't like to loose. Most creeps will try to run away if attacked. Run speed is equal for both sides, so to catch up you need to slow him. Two ways to do this, stuns and debuffs. Most classes have some way of slowing an enemy, so get the slows in quickly and often. If you are chasing and see a fleeing enemy stunned however, then you need to hold of, surround him, form a circle around him, closing of escapes, then when enough have arrived, slaughter him. Nothing is more wasteful then getting a stun on a high ranking creep (they often resist) only to have a single freep free him. Captains of course can use their charge skill to give their fellowship a speed boost.
  

Things you shouldn't worry about

• DPS, as vital as it sounds, freeps got DPS coming out of their ears. We can sneeze and damage creeps. Say as a hunter you conctrate fully on DPS on your own target. You do super damage of 500. Good for you, however a war-leader can heal 700+ in the same time. The target is NEVER going down. Even if he is, the WL can bubble him, making him invulnerable. Meanwhile, if you had put that damage into the RAT's target and shot a bard's arrow into the warleader the enemy would be death and the WL cursing every hunter in existence. DPS does not kill creeps, teamwork kills creeps.
  
• Chasing. Renown is gained by killing creeps, but chasing rarely results in kills. Mass battles get you kills. As freeps we are best when fighting in a thight group, typically, at least on Laurelin we are slightly outnumbered but not outclassed. The numbers are often 1 freep raid vs 1 orc creep raid plus half a warg raid plus assorted campers. A whole freep raid can handle those combined but not if the raid is split up. Warg packs use the wolf pack strategy, tail the herd and pick of the stragglers. If you die outside the raid a rez is unlikely and coming back to the raid means facing the Graveyard campers and the warg pack.
  
• 2nd raid vs main raid. One of the most irritating things for me right now, especially when leading a raid, be it main or 2nd, is the focus a lot of players have on being in the main raid. I had people leave a 2nd raid of 20 to join the main raid of 12 that was disbanding because its leader had just wiped for the 5th time. It is better to have two raids of 18 then 1 raid of 24 and a lot of people leaving because they can't find a raid.
  
• Dying. Wipes will happen, sometimes the raid pushes to far. It is tempting to then try to escape. Make no mistake, if others in your raid notice this, they will despise you for it. While some raid leaders are a bit to fond of noble deaths, jumping out the moment the fight becomes a bit risky is NOT the best way to make friends in the Ettens. With the current warg pack, you most likely won't make it either. Only escape when the order is given.
  

Things you should NEVER EVER DO

• Go AFK when death, people might be risking their own lives to come to your aid, an entire raid coming to rez you only to find out afk is a good way never to get rezzed again. If you have to go AFK, retreat and map out. If you AFK lasts longer then a couple of minutes, give up your raid spot.
  
• Not play your class right. Minstrels are healers, lm'ers CC, guardians tanks. Do what your class has been designed for.
  
• Kill a lone creep if he is jumping up and down in front of a raid. Only attack if the RAT or raid leader says so. It might be a friendly creep, a roleplayer or someone coming to discuss a set battle.
  
• Pull NPC's you don't have to or are not instructed to pull. This is related to follow the leader. NPC's can be lethal especially ranged as they tend to focus on minstrels and the Ettens is short on guardians in tanking mode. Learn to look where you walk (follow the leader, he knows) and where you shoot. Keep your pets under control.
  
• LEAVE the room when a tyrant is being attacked. If the tyrant leaves a room he resets, regaining all his health. This again comes down to FOLLOW THE LEADER and DO NOT CHASE.
  
• Never EVER corpse jump or do it other disrespectful moves on a creep or fellow player. Most freeps and creeps know each other, while the fights are intense we are not true enemies. If you have a private feud, keep it private.
  

Chat channels
/ooc is the ettens general chat channel. Use it to report creep movements, status reports on creeps.

In general, if you report something, say WHAT you saw, WHERE you saw it, WHEN you saw it (if applicable) and WHAT it is doing. So don't say "wargs". But "wargs north of LC, clearing NPC's" or even "HELP, north" (meaning you need help north of the raid).

Remember that if you say something without location info I first need to spot you. That involves first looking at the raid display to target you, if you are not close enough to show the green arrow I need to look at the map, you could be any green dot and the mouseover takes time. By the time I found you, worked out your direction, informed the rest of the raid, you are deader then a doornail.

As for knowing your location, well "follow the leader" you should ALWAYS know where you are in relation to the the raid and be very ashamed the answer to "where are you" is not "in the middle of you guys".

Finally
Don't be discouraged, the Ettens takes some getting used to but can be a lot of fun. At first it might be overwhelming, where is LC, what is a CP, what is a ball up? But overtime you will learn, just stick with it. Follow the basic guidelines above and you will do fine. Stick with the raid, and do what your class does best while following the instructions of your raid leader. It has been the way green soldiers have survived their first combat for centuries.

Thank you very much for that

Great guid Enat.

A Nice Comprehensive guide to Ettenmoors Play, well done.