Open RvR Guide
Open RvR Guide
Open RvR, or Realm Versus Realm, allows for both small-scale and massive battles of hundreds of players as each Realm attempts to gather supply, control objectives, and ultimately either siege or defend Keeps and Fortresses.
By capturing enough Keeps, realms can eventually push to attack an enemy Fortress. The Realm which captures the most enemy Fortresses over a 3-day window will then launch an attack on their enemy's Capital City.
This guide includes all the basics of the Open RvR Campaign, so please use it as a reference if you're learning or want to understand more of how the system works!
Supply Line / Active Zones
Return of Reckoning features three "Pairings", which are sets of zones where battles take place. Those are:
- Empire VS Chaos
- Dwarfs VS Greenskins
- High Elves VS Dark Elves
Besides Tier 1 (more info below), only one zone in a pairing will be active, and sometimes entire Pairings may be temporarily locked. The first zone active in each pairing is tier 2, which will progress to Tier 3 once locked, and then into Tier 4 once that is locked.
In Tier 4, a "Tug-of-war" campaign begins, with each Realm pushing the fight closer to the enemy Fortress by capturing a Zone. The campaign cannot move back into Tier 3, but the Tug-of-War can result in the battle constantly shifting back and forth between Tier 4 zones. When one realm finally captures a Fortress, that realm will gain a point for their Campaign status, and the Pairing will either lock or fully reset back to Tier 2.
If there's a Tie on Fortress Captures, the game will lock Two Pairings and leave only one open, in an attempt to force all fighting there and encourage a tiebreaker.
RvR Tiers
Tier 1
Tier 1 has no keeps. Tier 1 is solely fought over Battlefield Objectives, with 50 supplies (each contributing 2%) and capture of all Battlefield Objectives required to lock a zone.
Tier 2
Tier 2 introduces keeps with a single door which attackers must breach with a ram. Defenders have access to place Boiling Oil at the inner door. Once the door is destroyed, attackers must defeat the enemy Keep Lord.
With the Lord defeated, the keep must be held by attackers while their realm also captures three out of four Battlefield Objectives, and holds them for a minute or two to lock the Zone and move the fight to the next Tier.
Tiers 3 and 4
Tiers 3 and 4 feature larger keeps with outer walls, and Defenders may place oil at both the Outer wall and the Inner here.
Attackers must breach both the Outer Door and the Inner Door with a ram before engaging the Lord. Like previous tiers, attackers must then maintain control of the captured keep while also sending a force to hold at least three Battlefield Objectives to lock the Zone.
Battlefield Objectives & Resources
Controlling Battlefield Objectives causes supplies to appear around these flags for your realm. Once your faction holds at least two Battlefield Objectives, supplies will spawn every 40 seconds at each. Higher ranked keeps require more than two Battlefield Objectives to be held, with Three Objectives needed for a 3-star Keep, and all Four for a Four-star keep.
Capturing
Battlefield Objectives will capture for your realm faster if more people are around the Objective. You'll see a timer counting down when on an objective, and once this timer finishes, the objective will be captured for your faction.
Supplies
Supplies will spawn randomly around your Objective flags roughly every 40 seconds. When carrying supplies, a character will have a large beam of light around their character, which is blue for Order and Red for Destruction.
Once you have supplies, bring them to either your Keep or your Warcamp and look for the Resource turn-in flag to contribute them to the fight. This will grant experience, Renown, and Influence for all members of your party who are nearby.
Supplies turned in at the Warcamp instead of a Keep result in only 50% contribution towards ranking up the Keep, but do still grant full Exp/Renown/Influence numbers. If you're trying to rank up your keep, it's fastest to turn them in directly at the Keep, as long as the route is safe.
The value of supplies depends upon the following factors:
- Rank of the keep.
- Number of players present in the area, to a limit which depends on the current keep rank. The more players are present, the more deliveries are worth.
- The internal population imbalance scaler (referred to as internal or delayed AAO.)
- Distance of the host Battlefield Objective from the target. Supplies from further away are worth more.
- Destination. Supplies returned via the warcamp have a 50% transportation penalty.
If you leave the RvR area while carrying supplies, you'll see a warning to return, and the supplies will decay if held for too long outside of the RvR lake.
Supplies can be dropped when a player is attacked. The base chance to drop supplies is 50%. This value is reduced by 25% if you are Guarded, and is further reduced by 5% for every group member within 100 feet of you. A 6 man group with a Guarded carrier will therefore not drop supplies when hit. A player may interact with dropped supplies to steal them, becoming the new carrier. If dropped supplies are not claimed quickly enough, they will decay.
Enemy Supplies
You can confiscate enemy supplies by interacting with them, which will destroy the supplies and prevent the enemy Realm from gathering them.
Additionally, all allies close to enemy supply will gain a small amount of Experience, Renown, and Influence for each. This is given to all allies, including those outside your party. The range is tiny, so make sure everyone is very close first before capturing them.
Keeps
Each Realm owns a keep in each contestable zone in Tiers 2, 3 and 4. Keeps form the focal point of the campaign in those zones, and a zone can be won (locked) by a realm when they capture the opposing realm's keep and lock three battlefield objectives while maintaining that captured keep.
Keep Rank
All Keeps begin at Rank 0, and can be leveled up via Supplies all the way to Rank 5. Each Rank grants benefits, which are listed below in more detail.
The yellow bar above a keep on your Zone Map will show you how close you are to the next Rank.
Progress to the next Keep Rank can be lost if a Realm does not maintain at least one Battlefield Objective on the map. Additionally, it is possible for 5-star Keeps to fall back to Rank 4, if that realm loses control of all four Battlefield Objectives.
Spawning any sort of Siege weapon will require you to be near your Realm's Keep. Once Siege, like a Ram or Cannon is spawned, you can mount up and click the siege to begin towing it, which will cause it to follow you. Dismount and right click to activate the Siege Weapon once it's in place.
Keep Upgrades (Star Ranks 0-5)
Zero Stars (Base Keep):
Fresh keeps begin at Rank 0 and have no deployable siege weapons or defensive bonuses.
During this period, focus on controlling Battlefield Objectives, winning skirmish fights with enemies, and running Supply to your Keep.
Strategic Advice: Even if you're outnumbered or numbers are even, it can still be helpful to run supplies and Rank up your keep, as later Ranks will also provide Defensive bonuses, listed below. Always notice which side of the map your keep is located and which Objectives and Supply Routes are most viable to defend and control. This will help your party with a defensive advantage, being able to retreat to the inside of the keep and revive Realm members who died near the walls in order to regroup and stabilize instead of totally wiping and being sent back to the War Camp, if numbers are even or your realm becomes outnumbered. Sometimes the Order keep will be located closer to the Destruction War Camp and vise versa, making it important to cut off reinforcements and control these areas to slow the enemies progression.
Note: That high ranking players can drop a Supply crate when they are killed. So defending delivery routes and winning skirmishes against enemies over these key Battlefield Objectives is also a good way to secure supplies for your Realm. It is important to focus on these factors and traverse the battlefield accordingly, not leaving Objectives un-defended and moving between each strategically to keep supplies generating while gaining progression, contribution, kills, and fights along the way. You should NOT need to sit at an objective idly and wait for supplies to spawn so long as population and teamwork is on your side, and so long as you keep your eyes open to where the enemy is or which Objectives are getting attacked the most. If you can solidly hold and defend the number of Objectives needed to generate supplies from enemies and stealth players, you should be able to run between and defend your supply lines while scouting for enemies as the Objectives generate supplies passively, making stops along your campaign to pick up the large amounts of supplies and drop them off to the proper location.
One Star Keep:
Siege Allowed:
- 2 Single Target Weapons (Cannons)
- 2 AOE Target Weapons (Artillery)
Two Star Keep:
Siege Allowed:
- 1 Ram (Requires Guild Rank 20 to Spawn)
- 3 Single Target Weapons (Cannons)
- 3 AOE Target Weapons (Artillery)
Three Star Keep:
Siege Allowed:
- 1 Ram (Requires Guild Rank 20 to Spawn)
- 5 Single Target Weapons (Cannons)
- 4 AOE Target Weapons (Artillery)
Defense Bonus:
- Inner Postern may not be used by Attackers. (Only enemy Melee DPS with "Bypass" can enter this door. Defenders may enter and exit freely.)
At Rank 3, your Keep Requires 3 or more battle objectives to be under your Realm's control in order to generate supplies.
Strategic Advice: Because the Postern is locked, blockading the Bottom Floor and forcing the enemy into a tiny chokepoint is recommended, as you can also place Oil here to quickly kill them.
Note: Organization with other players will be fully required at this point to progress and maintain your realm's progression in the zone. Either with defense, supplies, or an attack.
Four Star Keep:
Siege Allowed:
- 2 Rams (Requires Guild Rank 20 to Spawn)
- 5 Single Target Weapons (Cannons)
- 4 AOE Target Weapons (Artillery)
Defense Bonus:
- Both Outer AND Inner Postern may not be used by Attackers. (Only enemy Melee DPS with "Bypass" can enter these doors. Defenders may enter and exit both freely.)
Strategic Advice: As both Postern doors are locked on 4-star keeps, it is highly recommended to blockade and funnel the Main Gates to prevent the enemy from entering. Placing Oil during this strategy is highly effective, and will kill huge amounts of enemies if near the door.
Note: Once Rank 4, your Keep Requires all 4 battlefield objectives to be under control to open supply lines and generate supplies.
Five Star Keep:
The zone will automatically lock once the keep hits 5 stars and that realm holds all 4 Battle Objectives.
Keep Doors
The entrance to a keep is barred by doors, which can only be damaged by Siege Weaponry.
Once a door is damaged, the keep will enter an "attacked" state. When a Keep is under attack, any Supplies turned in will heal the Door, at a rate of 2% per Supply.
Once a Keep Door falls below 50% health, members of the owning Realm can no longer use it and must instead use the postern doors.
After 10 minutes without being damaged, a keep will return to a "Safe" state. If any Doors were destroyed during an attack, they will automatically be recovered at full health if a supply is turned in following this 10-minute period.
Siege Weapons
Siege weapons can be bought from your realm's Foreman, located in the gatehouse of the keeps outer wall. A siege weapon need only be bought once (with the exception of oil, which is consumable); using the item from your inventory constructs said siege weapon for you if the parameters for spawning it are correct.
In order to deploy a siege weapon, the following conditions must be satisfied:
- You are within a certain radius of an allied keep.
- The keep has a weapon of that type in reserve for you to use. The cap and rate of delivery for siege weapons varies with keep rank.
All siege weapons except oil are movable - either by towing (wheeled) or by carrying (tripod / static). To tow or carry a siege weapon, mount and then right-click it. To deploy it, dismount and then right-click it while on foot. While towing a siege weapon, you will move more slowly, but you cannot be dismounted.
The following siege weapons are available:
Cannons
Cannons inflict high damage to players and to other siege weapons. They inflict minor damage to doors. They come in two types: single target and line-attack. The Heavy Dwarf Cannon and Heavy Chaos Hellcannon are purely single target, but inflict double damage. The Heavy Empire Cannon, Heavy High Elf Ballista, Heavy Greenskin Supa-Chucka and Heavy Dark Elf Ballista all perform a line attack, striking all targets along the weapon's shot vector. The deployable versions of all of these siege weapons replenish ammunition on a set interval depending on the amount of battlefield objectives your realm holds (one shot per objective held per tick). Stationary versions of these weapons can be found atop towers of keeps, these have infinite ammunition, and the type is dependent on the pairing/zone.
To fire a cannon, right click on its model after it has been deployed (make sure you are unmounted and it is no longer being towed, or you will start towing it yourself). Once the cannon has been right clicked, select the crosshair icon to go into first person view. Cannon shots become more powerful as the crosshair becomes smaller, moving the mouse rapidly causes the crosshair to expand as opposed to aiming slowly which has minimal effect.
Artillery
Artillery inflicts high damage to groups players and low damage to other siege weapons. They inflict minimal damage to doors, and can fire right through them. The damage of an artillery weapon increases the more enemies are concentrated around the spot at which it is fired. Artillery weapons inflict a stacking snare (suppression/pin) if enough targets are in the area, and the effectiveness of this snare increases further if the density of players is exceptional. Artillery weapons consist of the: Heavy Empire Hellblaster, Heavy Dwarf Organ Gun, Heavy High Elf Repeating Ballista, Heavy Chaos Tri-Barrel, Heavy Greenskin Rock Lobba and Heavy Dark Elf Repeating Ballista. The deployable versions of all of these siege weapons replenish ammunition on a set interval depending on the amount of battlefield objectives your realm holds (one shot per objective held per tick). Stationary versions of these weapons can be found atop towers of keeps, these have infinite ammunition, and the type is dependent on the pairing/zone.
Artillery weapons cannot hit a target if there is no arc of effect to the target. You must be able to see the attack spot or have an arc of effect to it to fire. This results in the majority of stationary artillery pieces on keep towers to be unusable.
To fire an artillery piece, right click on its model after it has been deployed (make sure you are unmounted and it is no longer being towed, or you will start towing it yourself). Once the artillery piece has been right clicked, select the crosshair icon to go into first person view. Aiming artillery is different from aiming cannons, aiming is done through a red crosshair that appears on both the ground and your minimap, this crosshair can be extended outwards or drawn in towards you by using the scroll wheel. A windage meter will appear in the top right of the screen, the artillery shot will scatter away from your targeted location depending on the direction and length of the red arrow on this meter.
Rams
Rams are the only real means of destroying a door, dealing damage equal to 2.5% of the doors hit points per full swing. A ram must be towed to the enemy keep door, and will automatically align itself when deployed within range. The best method of ensuring this automatic alignment takes place is to run directly at the door from straight ahead at a 90 degree angle. Approaching from a wide angle can and does prevent proper placement of the ram. Physical melee attacks deal great damage to a deployed ram where as magical and physical ranged attacks are ineffective. Cannon fire is also ineffective to a deployed ram, although it is very effective against a ram being towed. If the ram is too far away from the player who originally spawned it, it will start taking severe damage over time until it is destroyed. To avoid this, keep a person on the ram even when it is not docked on the gate (if you know that the original spawner is no longer present).
Once the Battering Ram is docked onto the enemies keep door, up to four players can perform the ram swing minigame. The first player to engage with the deployed ram is designated as the "swing leader", the swing leader initiates the backswing of the ram. Once the swing has been started, the other players on the ram must time their mouse clicks to gain maximum damage inflicted upon the door. It is often better to aim for a percentage in the low nineties than it is to go for one hundred percent, as latency can cause the swing to roll over and become a fifty.
In order to deploy a ram, you must be in a guild. If in Tier 4, your guild must be at least Rank 20. A Battering Ram can be spawned from your realm's keep once it has been upgraded to two stars. Once your realm's keep has been upgraded to four stars, you can have two rams spawned simultaneously.
Oil
Boiling Oil is a defensive siege weapon that is used to prevent attackers from crossing through the keep gates. This consumable siege weapon costs 5 gold per deployment. Obtaining kills with oil pours rewards no renown or kill credit. To use Boiling Oil go to the top of the gatehouse and use the consumable oil in your inventory next to the deployment node. The Boiling Oil will spawn in the upright position and ready to pour, to do so, you must right click on it and press the crosshair icon. This is most effectively used when the ram is first placed on the door, and as soon after as possible as long as the door is still above 50%. The defenders may go out the gate and attack the ram while under the cover of oil. Boiling Oil below 50% should be saved for when the gate is going to go down and poured when the attackers pushing inside the gate to kill as many enemies as possible. After the oil has been destroyed it has a respawn of 3 minutes and can be spawned at any keep rank, and can only be spawned at keeps your faction owns.
Orcapults
Orcapults are a special variety of artillery, instead of firing a projectile that damages enemies, it fires you! To acquire an Orcapult, you must either complete a repeatable quest in Karaz-a-Karak (Doorstep to Home, from King Belegar Ironhammer at (28538, 26552)) or Karak Eight Peaks (Best Bashin' We'z Gunna Get, from Grumlok at (32655, 41410)), alternatively you can gain one from the final reward tier of the Weekly RvR Warfront. Orcapults decay over a 7 day period after they are redeemed.
Source
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Guide is written by Azarael ( Return of Reckoning Core Developer )
