Curse

JR · Feb 07, 2006, 06:03 AM // 06:03

CA/TA Map Guides -- Droknar Arena (Priest)

Also known as:
"The priest map"
"I hate this map"

The Maps

General Layout

The Droknar Arena is a team arena-only map, requiring some strategy and introducing some tactical options to the usual slaughterfest. It's the only indoor arena, which forces players to cope with obnoxious camera angles and dark paths. This map polarizes offense and defense - a team focusing on defense will survive longer due to the priest spamming heal area, but at the same time they have even less chance of winning than usual since without eliminating the attacker's priest they won't get anywhere. Inversely, an offensive team has a fifth character to kill, which requires them to be more aggressive to secure victory.

The map itself is a U-shaped river of ice between the two bases (A, B), lined on the outside by narrow raised walkways (E, F). These walkways lead to a raised semi-open center area (C), which connects to the ice river by two ramps again, but also connects to a small raised platform (D) on the inside of the ice river by two narrow ice bridges.

Terrain Quality

The terrain on this map is pretty smooth, with obstacles where you'd expect them to be - the walls surrounding the priests, the occasional pillars or rock outcropping. One exception is the pair of ice bridges in the center (leading to D), which are a lot more narrow than their model would lead one to believe. Few matches ever involve these two bridges, but if you're forced to use them, aim for their middle or risk getting stuck on their corners.

A terrain bug on this map can cause a character using knockdowns to get stuck on the priest pad (occurs only in base A), sinking into the ground just enough to become unable to leave the small circle. If this occurs, the character is stuck until repositioned (typically due to death/auto-res, but Rebirth, Consume Corpse etc. should also work). The chances of this occurring are thankfully very small, but if it does, the best course of action is to force your opponent to fight inside their own base so that the stuck character can still contribute to the battle.

Hazards

The ice on this map behaves as usual: every 3 seconds, anyone stationary on it will have his movement speed reduced by 70% until he or she spends 5 seconds moving or manages to move off the ice. Knockdown will force the effect, making Gale even more useful than normal here. Since both attacking and spellcasting triggers the Icy Ground effect, no character will strictly benefit from it under normal circumstances; one exception is kiting melee characters between spellcasting, leaving them frozen on the ice before you run back on dry land to cast. Despite that, any character who finds himself fighting on the ice should work towards getting back on solid ground, and needs to calculate a 5s mobility delay for any tactical movement.

Strategy

Due to the U-shape of this map, both teams are close enough at the start of the match to check eachother out, so before the starting timer runs out, scan your opponent for clues about their builds (spot which enchantments monks put up, point out maintainers using Blessed Signet, be wary for ranger spike when counting three rangers, etc.). When the gate opens, you have three possible strategies: camp your priest, go for a straight-up fight, or gank their priest.

Defensive strategy

A defensive strategy allows you to fight with half a player worth more against your opponent, and can stop your opponent from eliminating your priest at the start. Ideally, as your opponent wears himself down on your defenses, you can afford to send one or two players of your own team out to their base to eliminate the enemy priest while you hold out until they return.

The entrance to your base is a good chokepoint for traps and other area control tools such as wards. The base walls easily let you escape line-of-sight projectiles such as ranger attacks, and unless your opponent positions himself exactly in the entrance, you can keep moving behind the other side of the wall to break line-of-sight.

The priest will use Heal Area whenever he or anyone on your team that is in range is low on health, but he will not care if he heals any attackers in the process, making hugging the priest for heals a mixed blessing. Inside the walls, try to avoid hugging the sides too much unless you do not need any oversight on the battle - the corners can get you bodyblocked, and in general the camera will be forced to zoom in to the point where you won't be able to see much around you anymore.

The main concern of a defensive strategy is that without getting kills, you have no chance whatsoever of winning. Your priest's Heal Area may heal himself and you up, but at the same time will heal the attackers just the same. Because you rely on the base for your defense, an opponent can choose to pull out and retreat to safety, which puts you at a strategical disadvantage. When facing another defensive team, you're in for a long, boring waiting game which won't be concluded until either side gets too impatient. Basically playing defensively on this map is playing to not lose, but not losing is no guarantee for victory, and lets your opponent dictate the fight, making this strategy pretty weak.

Midway strategy

The midway strategy involves taking the long route to the open center, over the safe walkways (A->E->C, B->F->C). When reaching the center, three scenarios can occur:

Your opponent is playing defensively, and isn't leaving their base. Either you wait for them to come out and fight you straight-up in the center, or you switch to the Offensive strategy and move in.
Your opponent is playing offensively, and moves in on your priest. Waiting at the center would put you at a tactical disadvantage (since you'd lose your priest and they won't), so either switch to a Defensive strategy and save your priest, or switch to an Offensive strategy and counter-gank their priest (known as "trading priests"). There is a risky third option of a half-gank, where you split up to eliminate their priest while simultaneously sending people back to save your own, but this puts your defending sub-team against their full team for a while which usually results in unnecessary casualties.
Your opponent meets you in the middle, and a straight-up fight occurs.

If you're still reading here, a straight-up fight occured. On this map, you have a decently sized area to kite around in (C), as well as narrow, dark paths on the sides of the ice river (E, F). Teams that don't need inter-team mobility as much (such as trapper or spike teams) or benefit from obstructing their opponent's mobility (such as warrior-heavy teams) should attempt to draw the fight into the narrow paths on the side. The small inner platform across the ice river (D) has similar characteristics (limited access to constrained space), but has a terrible route back to your own base, which disqualifies it as a viable battleground for most approaches. The center area (C) gives you the best tactical options in general: you can kite warriors, there's little risk of losing line-of-sight - the only way to break it is for a character to move down the ramp onto the ice below, with all due consequences. Note however that against bows and projectiles with a flat firing arc, you can just barely break line-of-sight by standing at the divide between ice river and land, the slope of the ramps is just steep enough to stop the projectiles then, but you'll still retain some mobility while casting from safety.

The ice bridges serve one niche tactical purpose: incase you face a melee-heavy team (such as three or four warriors, or pet-heavy teams), you can position yourself just across the ice bridges on the small platform (D), and the opponent team will be forced to bunch up very uncomfortably to get to you. They constantly bodyblock eachother, making them ripe for the area-of-effect onslaught of your choice, since most of them will be unable to escape thanks to their teammates behind them. This sort of tactics is generally regarded as "abusing the stupidity of your enemy", and typically only speeds up matches you would've normally won anyway.

If the priests are still alive while you fight, keep in mind that without killing them any dead opponents will resurrect back at their base every two minutes, and the battle will generally not end any time soon. Monitor the battle for the first moment where you can get away with switching to an offensive strategy or splitting off one or two characters to eliminate their priest, for instance right after some kills, and always keep an eye on the timer - at each multiple of two minutes, all their dead players will respawn at their base (unless they're all at 60% death penalty, at which point you'll win the battle by default). A decent team should be able to take out the priest in about 10-15 seconds, and there is about 15 seconds of travel time between the center area (C) and either one of the bases (A, B), so with less than 30 seconds left before a two-minute multiple it might be wiser to stay in the middle until the timer resurrect, and attempt to overpower the opponent after that.

Offensive strategy

An offensive strategy runs straight onto the ice, following the ice river into the opponent's base (A->B, B->A). Against a defending team, ignore the priest and attack the players as normal, and the moment their defenses are down (typically those characters capable of keeping the priest alive, such as monks, or characters that mitigate your damage output, such as trappers) switch to the priest and take it down, then clean up whatever is left.

In a stalemate (their defense doesn't break, but their offense is not enough to do anything significant to your team), try to charge up and focus your offense on whichever target is most susceptible to the pressure. Pay attention to what is preventing you from killing them; watch for weak players and incase you can't spike out a target, try to power through their defenses by focusing damage on whichever target is weakest to it (a non-kiting caster, a monk using energy-efficient other-only healing, etc.). The only skill the Priest has is Heal Area - diverting or distracting it means the entire benefit of hugging the priest is gone, in fact any splash damage that touches the priest adds to the load their support has to deal with.

Beware of walking into a trap however: if they're fully prepared to punish you for moving into their base (e.g. trap bombs), don't be afraid to pull out to let your team recover. Again, analyze what is preventing you from killing them, and try a different approach to break their defenses, or wait for them to get impatient/confident enough to leave their base and try to capitalize on their move. When suffering casualties after exhausting your resurrection signets, fall back before the two minute mark to join up with the respawned players, unless you're in a position to secure or finish the match.

Against another offensive team, trade priests and choose a Midway strategy that fits your team.

Trading priests

As noted above, with two teams choosing (or switching to) an offensive strategy both priests will die at the start, and this map turns into a regular annihilation match (see Midway strategies, disregard priest notes). Most teams confident in their build will gladly trade priests in order to avoid the hassle of having to deal with them lateron, which usually drags the fight out unnecessarily; there's a certain nod of recognition between teams simply passing eachother by on the ice, getting the formalities over with in a sense.

While your offense eliminates the priest, have your support keep an eye on the setup the opponent uses to take out your own priest; this often reveals much of their offensive potential and characteristics.

-[iQ]Silmor