The ORVR Chronicles: Time and Place.

ORVR leveling is almost entirely dependent on the fluctuations of the Order and Destruction populations, and therefore the best time to get some leveling done is during the prime time of your particular server (not that there won’t be some mad bastards on at all hours). XP gain is erratic at the best of times, as you run into fresh meat or some poor mage that’s been ground down into a single digits worth after a half hour keep siege.

Keeps and Battlefield Objectives (BO) are where most of the action is taking place, as the metronome conflict moves from one warcamp entrance to the other. If there’s any doubt as to where there is violence, the Empire/Chaos zonesare your best bet. Now, crushing the enemy is obviously the main thrust of what you are doing in the RVR zones, but sometimes it’s best to not fight. Turning the opposing faction’s entry point into a meatgrinder just becomes a pointless exercise after a while, and if they get on the cannons then it just turns into a shooting gallery as one side tries to pick away at stragglers before they retreat without getting beaten into the dirt by the NPC guards. If you find yourself in posession of all the keeps and BOs, look to jump to another tier; at the very least, back off and give the enemy some breathing room. If players can’t even get out of their Warcamp in significant numbers they aren’t going to come out and give you the fights you want. Let them regroup and make a move on one of the objectives, then descend upon them and kick them off it.

The ORVR Chronicles: Getting the party started.

EVE has died of for me over the holidays, and since I’ve been wanting to jump back over to WAR ever since the Blackguard was released, this seemed like the perfect time. I also wanted to try leveling up just through ORVR fighting and quests; no scenarios, no PQs, and no PVE outside of the npcs hanging out in the RVR lakes. With the increases to xp from RVR, and the new RVR influence system, things definitely looked like they were going to be a lot smoother than it would have been at launch. For anyone thinking of getting involved in ORVR leveling, here’s a few things to keep in mind:

Server Population-

Are you on a low population server? Well, pack your bags, because it’s time to make a move to one of the busier servers. My previous Destro characters were setup on Burlok, and my first Blackguard just wasn’t getting any action in tier one, so I re-rolled on Karak Norn, and saw more violence in one hour than I’d seen in the previous two days on Burlok. I wouldn’t class Burlok as a quiet server, but Karak Norn has at least one open RVR warband running about almost 24/7, which is exactly what I was looking for.

Grouping up-

WAR is not a game balanced around 1v1 combat, and although the xp gain is bigger when you are solo, you simply aren’t going to survive fights often enough to take advantage of it. That said, it is fucking epic when you take someone down and get 2000k+ xp for it. Really, though, you want to be in a party, or warband, especially if you want to start taking objectives/keeps for the renown and influence (and you will, since renown and influence rewards are going to be your main source of equipment if you are just doing RVR). Therefore, form groups and guilds for RVR is the best way to get consistent xp gain.

Quests-

Yes, quests. While you’re in the RVR zones, bashing some poor sod’s head in, you’d be a fool not to take all of the RVR quests you can get. There’s scouting quests for the objectives, and you should always have the repeatable “kill x enemy players” quest running. If your server’s capital city is leveled up high enough there’s also the keep taking quests as well, and that xp adds up.