TSW tanking

The Secret World Blades, Chaos and Hammer Detailed Analysis

The Secret World Blades, Chaos and Hammer Detailed Analysis by mrbunnyban

Hammers, Blades and Chaos abilities each have abilities which boost or synergize with Block, Defence, and Evasion respectively. You can actually 'tank' without these skills using specific talismans to stockpile one of those three defensive traits with high HP, but only these three abilities trees (and the Misc Turbulence tree) have synergies which make you better at tanking.

In terms of damage mitigation, Evasion(100%)>Glancing (about 50%)>Blocking (about 25%, depends on heavily on hammer skill points spent).

In terms of chance of occurring, it appears to be the opposite: Block chance>Glance chance>Evade chance

Defense is reduced by enemy's Hit Rating (and causes Glance)
Block is reduced by the enemy's Penetrate rating.
Evasion is affected by "enemy evasion chance" according to the tooltip. Either this is a typo, or your evasion is reduced by the enemy's own ability to evade. I actually believe its a typo.

----
NOTE: Effects from abilities do NOT stack.
Effects of the same name generally don't stack, unless it says it does (I will call these the 'stack' abilities). Minor Ward from one source will not stack with Minor Ward from any other source. Evade Rating stack WILL stack with Evade Rating stack from different sources.... but only up to 5 times because its essentially the same effect. The point of this thread is to gather together all of the similar affects together so that the tanking potential of Hammer, Blades and Chaos can be analyzed and compared more easily.

Generally, you should be looking out for these effects when you look at each ability tree:

Minor Ward (7.4% damage mitigation)
Block/Evade/Defence/Protection rating stack (+30 rating per stack, can stack 5 times)
Minor Evade/Defence chance (+10% chance to evade/glance - another 1/10th of attacks will be evaded/glanced)
Major Block/Evade/Defence chance (high chance of block/evade/defence, +35-45%)
Weaken: Delibitate stack (Weaken-type effect that reduces damage output of enemy by 3%. Stacks 10 times.)

(Abilities are taken from Complete Skill Wheel vol 2 by SecretTroll for convenience)

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

BLADES

Highlights

-Builder 1: Matador grants Defence Rating stack.
-Builder 2: Blade Torrent with its passive causes affliction, which sets up Steel Palace (consumer) for minor ward.
-Consumer 1: Brandish (5s CD) has high hate generation, and resource based defense rating boost and 5-25% damage reduction.
-Consumer 2: Steel Palace can give Minor Ward with affliction synergy.
-Consumer 3: Crimson Theatre (10s CD) grants Minor Defence Chance with its passive and high hate generation.
-One Major Defence chance ability.
-A few minor heals.
-Editted: Consumers is where its at for Blades... But which one do you use? You're probably going to have to give SOMETHING up. Which limits what tanking effects you can get from Blades.

------------------------------

CHAOS

Highlights

-Builder 1: "Escalation" (weakens with expose, frenzy) grants Minor Ward with the passive ("Intensity"). With "Turbulence"(P), it also grants Evade Rating stack through frenzy synergy. With "Inevitability"(P), it also grants Minor Evade Chance through weakening synergy. It generates a lot of hate.
-Builder 2: "Run Rampant" (burst) grants Evade Rating stack. With "Burst of Energy" it grants Minor Ward if none of the hits miss. "Uneven ground" (10s CD) Can be used to weaken for 10s instead, and thus give Minor Evade Chance from "Inevitability".
-Yeah, most of the tanking effects can trigger off either of those two builders with support from Chaos passives.
-Consumer: "Karma" heals for 1 to 5% of your MAXIMUM health, based on amount of resources spent (4s CD). It seems to only occur once per "Karma", even though many enemies are effected.
-2 Major evade chance active abilities, but one has a very long CD.
-"Prodigal" (P) increases maximum health by 7.5% as per patch, not 25%.
-Immutable (Active, 120s CD) grants death immunity for 6 seconds and heals a bit.
-Most of the tanking abilities come from passives. So Chaos has heavy passive ability commitments, but this means many of the tanking benefits can gained using frenzy or burst abilities from other sets comboed with weakening. Thus this is also the most versatile tanking ability set.
-Compared to Hammers, Chaos grants Minor Evade Chance and Minor Ward constantly. But it has no Weaken: Delibitate stack effects, no Protection effect stack and fewer active abilities which give Major Evade/Block Chance. Escalation is the only builder in the game that generates more hate naturally AND has tanking benefits.

----------------------------

HAMMERS

Highlights

-Builder 1: "Grip Whip" gives Block Rating Stack.
-Builder 2: "Smash" with "Below the belt" gives Weaken: Delibitate stack.
-Consumer: "Aftershock" (4s CD) grants Minor Ward as long as the enemy stays put.
-Hammers have the only way Major Ward effect in the game, but you need to hit someone who's Impaired. Its an active ability ("Obsidian Aegis").
-There is no ability which gives Minor Block Chance effect, as opposed to Minor Evade chance and Minor Defence chance.
-THREE Major Block Chance[ active abilities (one of which, "Trucker", has CD of 25s) and one 100% block chance active abilities which also draws forces aggro ("Raging Volcano", 60s CD).
-Of the 3, the only ability set with Protection effect stack (shotgun has it too).
-of the 3, the only ability set with Weaken: Delibitate effect (shotgun has it too).
-"Forged in Fire" (P) is a truly ridiculous self heal, half max HP restored over 10s (30s CD) whenever you're knocked to half HP.
-Argueably the most consistent tanking ability set (but see Blade's Brandish and Chaos's Minor Evade Chance). The active ability commitments can be very heavy if optimised for tanking.

From here on, I'm listing all the abilities according to what tanking effects they grant.

----------------
BLADES In-depth

Highlights
-Builder 1: Matador grants Defence Rating stack.
-Builder 2: Blade Torrent with its passive causes affliction, which sets up Steel Palace (consumer) for minor ward.
-Consumer 1: Brandish (5s CD) has high hate generation, and resource based defense rating boost and 5-25% damage reduction.
-Consumer 2: Steel Palace can give Minor Ward with affliction synergy.
-Consumer 3: Crimson Theatre (10s CD) grants Minor Defence Chance with its passive and high hate generation.
-One Major Defence chance ability.
-A few minor heals.
-Editted: Consumers is where its at for Blades... But which one do you use? You're probably going to have to give SOMETHING up. Which limits what tanking effects you can get from Blades.

---
Defence/Glance

Skill points: Glances heal for small amount

Whenever (4)
12 AP (P) - Enervate: Whenever you are glanced, you cause the attacker to become Afflicted with a damage over time effect that deals 32 physical damage every second for 3 seconds.
16 AP (P) - Stave Off: Whenever you are glanced, there is a 10% chance that your attacker becomes Impaired and unable to act for 5 seconds.
21 AP (P) - Riposte: Whenever you are glanced, you hit the attacker, dealing 136 physical damage.
50 AP (P) - Sixth Sense: Whenever you are glanced, you build a Sixth Sense counter. When there are 5 counters, your next hit heals for 78.

5% less damage and 25% Defence rating boost per resource spent (1)
9 AP (A) - Brandish (10s CD): Channelled: Every 0,5 seconds for 2,5 seconds. Consumes all Blade resources. A channelling Focus attack that deals 106 physical damage per hit. While you channel, you take 5% less damage per resource spent. This ability generates additional hate.
12 AP (P) - Brandishing Support: "Brandish" also increases your Defence Rating by 25% per resource spent while you channel. Its recharge time is reduced by 5 seconds.

Defence Rating stack (1)
16 AP (A) - Matador: Builds 1 resource for each equipped weapon. A single target attack that deals 105 physical damage. Also gives you 1 stack of the Defence Rating effect, which increases your Defence Rating by 30 per stack for 8 seconds. This effect can stack up to 5 times.
27 AP (P) - On Guard: Whenever you apply Impaired, you also gain 1 stack of the Defence Rating effect, which increases Defence Rating by 30 per stack for 8 seconds. This effect can stack up to 10 times.

Minor Defence chance (1)
16 AP (A) - Crimson Theatre (10s CD): Consumes all Blade resources. Places an area at your feet that lasts 10 seconds. Every second it will hit up to 5 enemies in a 5 metre radius, dealing 13 physical damage. This ability generates additional hate.
34 AP (P) - Shadow Play: "Crimson Theatre" also grants you the Minor Defence effect, which increases the chance that attacks against you will glance by 10% for 8 seconds.
50 AP (A) - Silver Streak (45s CD): Gives you a beneficial effect that lasts 8 seconds. You receive a 100% resistance to Hindered and Impaired. Silver Streak increases movement speed by 10%. Whenever you hit, you heal for 38. Whenever you are hit, you gain the Minor Defence effect, which increases the chance that attacks against you will glance by 10% for 8 seconds.

Major Defence chance (1)
2 AP (A) - Martial Discipline (45s CD): You gain the Major Defence effect, which increases the chance that attacks against you will glance by 50% for 6 seconds.
3 AP (P) - Regeneration: "Martial Discipline" also gives you a heal over time effect, which heals for 48 every second while it is active.

Next two attacks glance (1)
50 AP (A) - The Art of War (30s CD): PBAoE: Affects up to 5 enemies in a 5 metre radius around you. A PBAoE attack that deals 190 physical damage and causes each target hit to be forced to attack you for 5 seconds. Targets hit also become Impaired and unable to act for 1 second. For each affected target, the next 2 attacks against you will glance.

---
Minor Ward (2)

7 AP (P) - Fluid Defence: Whenever you receive a glancing hit, you gain the Minor Ward effect, which reduces the damage you take by 7,5% for 6 seconds. Whenever you penetrate, you gain a beneficial effect that increases all damage dealt by 5% for 10 seconds.
27 AP (A) - Steel Palace: PBAoE: Affects up to 5 enemies in a 5 metre radius around you. Consumes all Blade Resources. A PBAoE attack that deals 163 physical damage. If any affected targets are Afflicted, you gain the Minor Ward effect, which reduces all damage received by 7,5% for 8 seconds.

---
Heal (2)
21 AP (A) - Point of Harmony (120s CD): Channelled: Every 0,5 seconds for 3 seconds. A channelled heal that heals you for 5% of your maximum health each hit.
50 AP (P) - Sixth Sense: Whenever you are glanced, you build a Sixth Sense counter. When there are 5 counters, your next hit heals for 78. 

CHAOS In-depth

Highlights
-Builder 1: "Escalation" (weakens with expose, frenzy) grants Minor Ward with the passive ("Intensity"). With "Turbulence"(P), it also grants Evade Rating stack through frenzy synergy. With "Inevitability"(P), it also grants Minor Evade Chance through weakening synergy. It generates a lot of hate.
-Builder 2: "Run Rampant" (burst) grants Evade Rating stack. With "Burst of Energy" it grants Minor Ward if none of the hits miss. "Uneven ground" (10s CD) Can be used to weaken for 10s instead, and thus give Minor Evade Chance from "Inevitability".
-Yeah, most of the tanking effects can trigger off either of those two builders with support from Chaos passives.
-Consumer: "Karma" heals for 1 to 5% of your MAXIMUM health, based on amount of resources spent (4s CD). It seems to only occur once per "Karma", even though many enemies are effected.
-2 Major evade chance active abilities, but one has a very long CD.
-"Prodigal" (P) increases maximum health by 7.5% as per patch, not 25%.
-Immutable (Active, 120s CD) grants death immunity for 6 seconds and heals a bit.
-Most of the tanking abilities come from passives. So Chaos has heavy passive ability commitments, but this means many of the tanking benefits can gained using frenzy or burst abilities from other sets comboed with weakening. Thus this is also the most versatile tanking ability set.
-Compared to Hammers, Chaos grants Minor Evade Chance and Minor Ward constantly. But it has no Weaken: Delibitate stack effects, no Protection effect stack and fewer active abilities which give Major Evade/Block Chance. Escalation is the only builder in the game that generates more hate naturally AND has tanking benefits.
---

Evade

Skill points: Evade reduces next hit's damage by moderate%

Whenever (2)
12 AP (P) - Backlash: Whenever you evade, you build a Backlash counter. When there are 7 counters, you deal 160 magical damage in an area around you and reset the count.
16 AP (P) - Contradiction: Whenever you evade, your attacker becomes Weakened by a single stack of the Exposed effect, which increases all damage received by 3% per stack for 10 seconds. This effect can stack up to 10 times.

Evade Rating stack (3)
9 AP (A) - Run Rampant: Builds 1 resource for each equipped weapon. A single target Burst attack that hits 3 times, dealing 44 magical damage. Gives you a single stack of the Evade Rating effect, which increases your Evade Rating by 30 per stack for 8 seconds. This effect can stack up to 5 times.
21 AP (A) - Uneven Ground (10s CD): PBAoE: Affects up to 5 enemies in a 5 metre radius around you. A PBAoE attack that deals 67 magical damage. Affected targets also become Weakened by 3 stacks of the Exposed effect, which increases all damage received by 3% per stack for 10 seconds. This effect can stack up to 10 times. For each target affected, you gain a single stack of the Evade Rating effect, which increases your Evade Rating by 30 per stack for 8 seconds. This effect can stack up to 5 times.
21 AP (P) - Turbulence: Whenever you activate a Frenzy ability, you gain a single stack of the Evade Rating effect, which increases your Evade Rating by 30 per stack for 8 seconds. This effect can stack up to 5 times.

Minor Evade Chance (1) Whenever, Weaken
12 AP (P) - Inevitability: Whenever a Weakened target attacks you, you have a chance to gain the Minor Evade Chance effect, which increases Evade Chance by 10% for 8 seconds.

Major Evade Chance/equivalents (2) 18 seconds
2 AP (A) - Illusion (45s CD): You gain the Major Evade Chance effect, which increases your Evade Chance by 35% for 6 seconds.
3 AP (P) - Master of Illusions: "Illusion" instead gives you a beneficial effect that increases your Evade Chance by 45% for 8 seconds.
34 AP (A) - Smoke and Mirrors (120s CD): Gives you a beneficial effect that increases Evade Chance by 40% for 10 seconds.
---

Minor Ward
1 AP (P) - Intensity: Whenever you hit a Weakened target with "Escalation", you gain the Minor Ward effect, which reduces all damage received by 7,5% for 8 seconds.
7 AP (P) - Probability: Whenever you evade, you gain the Minor Ward effect, which reduces all damage received by 7,5% for 8 seconds. Whenever you hit 3 times in a row, you gain a beneficial effect that increases all damage dealt by 5% for 10 seconds.
21 AP (P) - Burst of Energy: Burst abilities give you the Minor Ward effect if no hits glance, which reduces all damage received by 7,5% for 8 seconds.
---

Heal/health
50 AP (A) - Immutable (120s CD): Gives you a beneficial effect that causes you to be immune to death for 6 seconds. If you have less than 30% health remaining when this effect expires, you heal for 10% of your maximum health.
50 AP (P) - Prodigal: Increases maximum health by 7.5%. Base duration of crowd control effects applied to you is reduced by 12%.
16 AP (A) - Karma (4s CD): PBAoE: Affects up to 5 enemies in a 5 metre radius around you. Consumes all Chaos Resources. A PBAoE Frenzy attack that deals 190 magical damage. Also applies a detrimental effect to affected targets that causes them to heal the next target they hit for (2.5% or 5% of max HP).

Hammers In-depth

Highlights

-Builder 1: "Grip Whip" gives Block Rating Stack.
-Builder 2: "Smash" with "Below the belt" gives Weaken: Delibitate stack.
-Consumer: "Aftershock" (4s CD) grants Minor Ward as long as the enemy stays put.
-Hammers have the only way Major Ward effect in the game, but you need to hit someone who's Impaired. Its a resource consumer ability ("Obsidian Aegis", I checked in-game to confirm its a resource consumer).
-There is no ability which gives Minor Block Chance effect, as opposed to Minor Evade chance and Minor Defence chance.
-THREE Major Block Chance[ active abilities (one of which, "Trucker", has CD of 25s) and one 100% block chance active abilities which also draws forces aggro ("Raging Volcano", 60s CD).
-Of the 3, the only ability set with Protection effect stack (shotgun has it too).
-of the 3, the only ability set with Weaken: Delibitate effect (shotgun has it too).
-"Forged in Fire" (P) is a truly ridiculous self heal, half max HP restored over 10s (30s CD) whenever you're knocked to half HP.
-Argueably the most consistent tanking ability set (but see Blade's Brandish and Chaos's Minor Evade Chance). The active ability commitments can be very heavy if optimised for tanking.

---------------

Blocking

Skill points: Block further reduces damage by small%

Whenever (3)
7 AP (P) - Cool, Calm & Collected: Whenever you block an attack, your attacker generates additional hate towards you and you gain the Minor Ward effect, which reduces all damage Received by 7,5% for 8 seconds. Whenever you critically hit, you gain a beneficial effect that increases all damage dealt by 5% for 10 seconds.
12 AP (P) - You're Next: Whenever you block an attack, you gain a beneficial effect that increases all damage dealt by 5% and doubles all hate generated for 10 seconds.
12 AP (P) - Blindslide: Whenever you block an attack, you deal 71 physical damage back to your attacker.

Block Rating stack (1)
9 AP (A) - Grip Whip: Builds 1 resource for each equipped weapon. A single target attack that deals 87 physical damage. Grants you a single stack of the Block Rating effect, which increases Block Rating by 30 per stack for 8 seconds. This effect can stack up to 5 times.

Major block (3)
2 AP (A) - Stonewalled (45s CD): You gain the Major Block Chance effect, which increases your Block Chance by 40% for 6 seconds.
12 AP (A) - Trucker (25s CD): Charge: 15 metre charge to the target. You charge to the target and gain the Major Block Chance effect, which increases Block Chance by 40% for 6 seconds.
50 AP (A) - Unstoppable Force (45s CD): You grow in size by 25% and gain 15% more health for 6 seconds. While this buff is active, you are immune to all crowd control effects and have a movement speed of 80%. You Also receive the Major Block Chance effect, which increases your Block Chance by 40% for 6 seconds. You heal for 322.

100% block (1)
50 AP (A) - Raging Volcano (60s CD): Channelled: Every second for 6 seconds. PBAoE: Affects up to 5 enemies in a 10 metre radius around you. A channelled PBAoE attack that causes enemies within 10 metres to attack you and deals 190 physical damage per hit. While channelling this ability, you have a Block Chance of 100%.
---

Minor Ward (2)
7 AP (P) - Cool, Calm & Collected: Whenever you block an attack, your attacker generates additional hate towards you and you gain the Minor Ward effect, which reduces all damage Received by 7,5% for 8 seconds. Whenever you critically hit, you gain a beneficial effect that increases all damage dealt by 5% for 10 seconds.
16 AP (A) - Aftershock (4s CD): Consumes all Hammer Resources. A single target Strike attack that deals 210 physical damage. If the target is still within 5 metres of you after 3 seconds, this attack hits a second time dealing 95 physical damage and you gain the Minor Ward effect, which decreases all damage received by 7,5% for 8 seconds.

Major Ward (1)
27 AP (A) - Obsidian Aegis: Consumes all Hammer Resources. A single target attack that deals 234 physical damage. If you hit an Impaired target, you gain the Major Ward effect, which reduces all damage received by 25% for 6 seconds.
---

Heal/Health (5)
12 AP (P) - Sweetspot: You gain 27 health each time you critically hit.
27 AP (A) - Blowout (15s CD): PBAoE: Affects up to 5 enemies in a 5 metre radius around you, pulsing every second for 10 seconds. Consumes all Hammer Resources. A pulsing PBAoE attack that deals 32 physical damage per pulse. If you hit an Weakened target, you gain a stacking effect increasing your health by 5%. This effect stacks a maximum of 5 times.
27 AP (P) - No Pain No Gain: Whenever you hit an Impaired target, you heal for 43.
50 AP (A) - Unstoppable Force (45s CD): You grow in size by 25% and gain 15% more health for 6 seconds. While this buff is active, you are immune to all crowd control effects and have a movement speed of 80%. You Also receive the Major Block Chance effect, which increases your Block Chance by 40% for 6 seconds. You heal for 322.
50 AP (P) - Forged In Fire: Whenever you drop below 50% health, you regenerate 50% of your health over 10 seconds. This effect can only apply once every 30 seconds.
---

Weaken: Delibitate stack (6)
1 AP (A) - Smash: Builds 1 resource for each equipped weapon. A single target attack that deals 133 physical damage.
1 AP (P) - Below the Belt: Whenever you hit with "Smash", the target also becomes Weakened by a single stack of the Debilitated effect, which reduces all damage dealt by 3% per stack for 10 seconds. This effect can stack up to 10 times.
16 AP (P) - Insult to Injury: Whenever you critically hit, your target becomes Weakened by a single stack of the Debilitated effect, which reduces all damage dealt by 3% per stack for 10 seconds. Debilitated can stack up to 10 times.
21 AP (P) - Improved Blasts: Whenever you hit with a Blast ability, your target becomes Weakened by a single stack of the Debilitated effect, which reduces all damage dealt by 3% per stack for 10 seconds. This effect can stack up to 10 times.
21 AP (A) - Stone's Throw (5s CD): A single target ranged attack that deals 143 physical damage. If hit, your target becomes Weakened by 2 stacks of the Debilitated effect, which reduces all damage dealt by 3% per stack for 10 seconds. This effect can stack up to 10 times. Generates a large amount of hate.
34 AP (A) - Furnace (45s CD): PBAoE: Affects up to 5 enemies in a 5 metre radius around you. A PBAoE attack that deals 190 physical damage. Affected targets become Weakened by 3 stacks of the Debilitated effect, which reduces all damage dealt by 3% per stack for 10 seconds. This effect can stack up to 10 times. For each target affected, you gain a single stack of the Protection effect, which increases Physical and Magical Protection by 30 per stack for 8 seconds. Protection can stack up to 5 times.
---

Protection Effect stack (2)
34 AP (A) - Furnace (45s CD): PBAoE: Affects up to 5 enemies in a 5 metre radius around you. A PBAoE attack that deals 190 physical damage. Affected targets become Weakened by 3 stacks of the Debilitated effect, which reduces all damage dealt by 3% per stack for 10 seconds. This effect can stack up to 10 times. For each target affected, you gain a single stack of the Protection effect, which increases Physical and Magical Protection by 30 per stack for 8 seconds. Protection can stack up to 5 times.
21 AP (P) - Bullheaded: Whenever you hit with a Blast ability, you gain a single stack of the Protection effect, which increases your Physical and Magical Protection Rating by 30 per stack for 8 seconds. 

For your reference, here are the tanking type abilities from other ability trees. Of these, Shotgun's damage reduction turret, Delibitate-type weakening and Protection effect stacks as well as the Misc tree's (Turbulence) hate causing abilities are the worth noticing the most.

MISC 3 (Turbulence)
9 AP (A) - Provoke (40s CD): Taunts the target, causing it to gain enough hate towards you to start attacking you.
12 AP (P) - Agitator: Increases the amount of hate enemies will gain towards you, making them more likely to attack you instead of others. Enemies will gain hate towards you at a 300% rate.
16 AP (A) - Mass Provocation (50s CD): TAoE: Affects up to 3 enemies in a 5 metre radious around the target. A TAoE taunt that forces affected targets to attack you for 5 seconds.
21 AP (P) - Fuel to the Fire: Whenever you hit, the target generates 200 extra hate towards you.
27 AP (A) - Mockingbird (20s CD): You gain a beneficial effect, which causes all hits against you during the next 10 seconds to also heal you for 13 and cause the attacker to gain 5% extra hate towards you.
34 AP (P) - Resilient Defender: Whenever you evade or block or an attack glances you, you are healed for 31.
50 AP (A) - Stoicism (30s CD): You gain a beneficial effect that reduces the damage you take by 10% for 10 seconds, and another beneficial effect that causes enemies to gain hate against you at a 500% rate for 10 seconds.
---

Shotgun

Weaken: Delibitate
1 AP (A) - Pump Action: Cone: Affects up to 5 enemies in a 60 degree 7 metre cone in front of you. Builds 1 resource for each equipped weapon. A cone attack that deals 91 physical damage.
1 AP (P) - Sawed Off: "Pump Action" will also cause affected targets to become Weakened by a single stack of the Debilitated effect, which reduces all damage dealt by 3% per stack for 10 seconds. This effect can stack up to 10 times.
12 AP (P) - 12 Gouge: Whenever you penetrate, your target becomes Weakened by a single stack of the Debilitated effect, which reduces all damage dealt by 3% per stack for 10 seconds. This effect can stack up to 10 times.
21 AP (P) - Punisher: Strike attacks also cause the target to become Weakened by a single stack of the Debilitated effect, which reduces all damage dealt by 3% per stack for 10 seconds. This effect can stack up to 10 times.

Damage reduction 3-15%
Defensive Turret (4s) - Consumes all Shotgun Resources.
Places a turret at your feet, lasting 5 seconds. Friends staying within a 5 metre radius of the turret gain a beneficial effect that reduces all damage received by 3% per resource consumed.
Protection stack

34 AP (P) - Mitigation Factor: Whenever you penetrate, you gain a single stack of the Protection effect, which increases your Physical and Magical Protection by 30 per stack for 8 seconds. This effect can stack up to 5 times.
16 AP (P) - Hardcase: Whenever you apply Weakened, you gain a single stack of the Protection effect, which increases your Physical and Magical Protection by 30 per stack for 8 seconds. This effect can stack up to 5 times.

---
Blood
Protection effect stack
50 AP (P) - Clotting: Whenever you apply a barrier, you also give yourself a beneficial effect that increases the amount of damage your current barrier can absorb by 18 every second for 5 seconds, and 1 stack of the Protection effect, which increases Physical and Magical Protection by 30 for 8 seconds. The Protection effect can stack up to 10 times.

Healing
1 AP (A) - Blood Shield: Builds 1 Blood Resource. Heals 38 and places an absorb barrier on your defensive target. This barrier absorbs 100% of incoming damage and dissipates after absorbing 37 damage.
1 AP (P) - Rapid Shield: Increases the heal and barrier of "Blood Shield" by 7,5%.
2 AP (A) - Angelic Aegis (1,5s cast): Consumes 3 Blood Resources. Can be powered by your own health. Heals 155 and places an absorb barrier on your defensive target. This barrier absorbs 100% of incoming damage and dissipates after absorbing 155 damage.
3 AP (P) - Angel's Touch: "Angelic Aegis" heals for an additional 155 to friends below 50% health.
7 AP (P) - Coagulation: Increases the effectiveness of barrier effects by 15%.
34 AP (P) - Circulation: Whenever you apply Afflicted, you gain a heal over time effect that heals for 10 every second for 10 seconds. If the target is Impaired, the effect will also give you a barrier that absorbs 50% of incoming damage and dissipates after absorbing 21 damage.
50 AP (A) - Expulsion (60s CD): Places an absorb barrier on you that absorbs 100% of incoming damage and dissipates after absorbing 107 damage. This barrier scales with Attack Rating and not with Heal Rating. When the barrier either expires or is spent, it will deal 26 magical damage to all enemies near you.
9 AP (A) - Ruby Curtain: Builds 1 Blood Resource. A single target heal that heals for 15 and places an absorb barrier on your defensive target. This barrier absorbs 100% of incoming damage and dissipates after absorbing 60 damage.
12 AP (P) - Donor: Whenever you penetrate, you place a barrier on your defensive target. This barrier absorbs 100% of incoming damage and dissipates after absorbing 57 damage.
16 AP (A) - The Scarlet Arts: Channelling: Every 0,4 seconds for 2 seconds. Consumes 5 Blood Resources. Can be powered by your own health. The first channelling hit places an absorb barrier on your defensive target, which absorbs 100% of incoming damage and dissipates after absorbing 76. The next 3 channelling hits heal the defensive target for 77. The last channelling hit places the same barrier as the first hit.
21 AP (P) - Culmination: Whenever you finish channelling a Focus ability, you heal your defensive target for 13.
27 AP (A) - Exquisite Corpse: Consumes 2 Blood Resources. Can be powered by your own health. Places a reflect barrier on your defensive target, which reflects 50% of incoming damage back to the attacker and dissipates after reflecting 287 damage. Also heals the defensive target for 78.
34 AP (P) - Sanguineous: Whenever you place a barrier, you are healed for 16.
50 AP (A) - My Bloody Valentine (1s cast, 20s CD): Places an absorb barrier on yourself, which absorbs 100% of incoming damage and dissipates after absorbing 128 damage. While this barrier is active, you are healed for 32 every second. When the barrier is removed it deals 102 damage in an area around you. If any enemies are hit by this, you gain a barrier that absorbs 100% of incoming damage and dissipates after absorbing 75 damage.
9 AP (P) - Omen: Whenever you apply Impaired, you gain a beneficial effect that increases the amount of damage your next barrier can absorb by 85.
27 AP (P) - Ebb and Flow: Increases the power of your barriers by 20%, but reduces the power of your direct heals by 10%.
50 AP (P) - Clotting: Whenever you apply a barrier, you also give yourself a beneficial effect that increases the amount of damage your current barrier can absorb by 18 every second for 5 seconds, and 1 stack of the Protection effect, which increases Physical and Magical Protection by 30 for 8 seconds. The Protection effect can stack up to 10 times.
9 AP (A) - Hematic Rites: TAoE: Affects up to 5 friends within a 5 metre radius around the defensive target. Consumes 2 Blood Resources. Can be powered by your own health. Places an absorb barrier on all affected targets, which absorbs 100% of incoming damage and dissipates after absorbing 65331 damage.
16 AP (A) - Linked Veins: Chain: Jumps up to 5 metres 2 times, hitting up to 3 friends. Builds 1 Blood Resource. A Chain that heals for 25 and places a barrier that absorbs 100% of incoming damage and dissipates after absorbing 25 damage. This effect does not apply to self.
27 AP (A) - Blood Pact (30s CD): PBAoE: Affects up to 3 friends in a 5 metre radius around you. Consumes 5 Blood Resources. Can be powered by your own health. Places an absorb barrier on affected targets that absorbs 50% of incoming damage and dissipates after absorbing 356 damage. Affected targets are also given a beneficial effect that causes the first enemy to hit them to become Impaired and unable to act for 3 seconds.
34 AP (P) - Vessel Walls: Whenever you activate a Chain ability, you gain an absorb barrier that absorbs 50% of incoming damage and dissipates after absorbing 61 damage.
50 AP (A) - Cold Blooded (35s CD): Channelled: Every 0,5 seconds for 2 seconds. You deal 3% of your maximum health as magical damage to yourself. Each team member is healed for 15 and receives an absorb barrier. This barrier absorbs 100% of incoming damage and dissipates after absorbing 60 damage. While you channel, you take 40% less damage.

Fist

Healing
1 AP (P) - Lick Your Wounds: Whenever you attack, you gain a single stack of a heal over time effect that heals for 2 every second per stack for 3 seconds. This effect can stack up to 5 times.
1 AP (A) - Nurture: Builds 1 Fist Resource. Heals the defensive target for 45 and gives them a heal over time effect that heals for 6 every second for 5 seconds.
4 AP (A) - Wild at Heart: Consumes all Fist Resources. A single target attack that deals 248 physical damage. Gives you the Feral Regrowth effect, causing your next Fist resource consumer to heal you for 17.
7 AP (P) - Out of the Woods: Whenever you heal a target to above 80% of their maximum health, you gain a beneficial effect that increases all direct healing done by 7,5% for 8 seconds.
27 AP (A) - Tear 'Em Up: Consumes all Fist Resources. A single target ability that deals 206 physical damage. If the target is Afflicted, you also gain a beneficial effect that increases all damage dealt by 10% for 4 seconds. Tear 'Em Up gives you the Feral Regrowth effect, causing your next Fist resource consumer to heal you for 17.
16 AP (A) - Berserk: Consumes all Fist Resources. Each resource consumed will give you a counter. Your next hits will cause an additional PBAoE attack dealing 55 physical damage. Each additional attack will subtract one counter until you run out of counters. Berserk also gives you the Feral Regrowth effect, causing your next Fist resource consumer to heal you for 17.
27 AP (A) - Savage: Cone: Affects up to 5 enemies in a 5 metre long 60 degree cone in front of you. Consumes all Fist Resources. A cone attack that deals 143 physical damage. Gives you the Savage Sweep effect, causing the next Fist resource consumer you activate to deal 20 physical damage in an area around you. If any target is Impaired it also gives you the Feral Regrowth effect, causing your next Fist resource consumer to heal you for 17.
9 AP (A) - Surgical Steel: Consumes all Fist Resources. A Burst heal that heals the defensive target 3 times for 25 per application and gives a heal over time effect that heals for 12 every second for 5 seconds. Gives you the Savage Sweep effect, causing the next Fist resource consumer you activate to deal 20 physical damage in an area around you.
12 AP (P) - Hot Iron: Whenever you heal, you build a Hot Iron counter. When there are 7 counters, your next direct healing ability will heal for an additional 50%.
16 AP (A) - Cauterise: Builds 1 Fist Resource. Heals the defensive target for 56 and gives a heal over time effect that heals for 5 every second for 3 seconds. This effect can stack up to 3 times.
21 AP (P) - Healing Sparks: Whenever you activate a Burst ability, you give the defensive target a heal over time effect that heals for 13 every second for 10 seconds.
27 AP (A) - Creature Comfort: Consumes all Fist Resources. Your defensive target gains a heal over time effect that heals for 45 every second for 6 seconds. Gives you the Feral Regrowth effect, causing your next Fist resource consumer to heal you for 17.
34 AP (P) - Glimmer of Hope: Your heal over time effects have a 15% chance to heal you for 29 when they apply their effects.
50 AP (A) - Radiance (40s CD): For the next 6 seconds, all your heal over time effects are guaranteed to critically heal.
9 AP (P) - Renewal: Whenever you hit an Impaired target, you apply a detrimental effect on the target causing anyone attacking it to gain a heal over time effect that heals for 8 every second for 5 seconds.
12 AP (A) - Empathy (25s CD): Heals the defensive target for 179, or 205 if the target has a heal over time effect active.
21 AP (A) - Vigour (20s CD): Places a healing area at the targeted point that lasts 5 seconds. Every second it heals up to 5 friends in a 5 metre radius for 25.
27 AP (P) - Making Amends: Your heal over time effects are 10% more effective.
50 AP (P) - Empowerment: Whenever a heal over time effect critically hits, the target is healed for 56.
9 AP (A) - Shelter: PBAoE: Affects up to 5 friends in a 5 metre radius around you. Builds 1 Fist Resource. A PBAoE heal that heals for 25. Affected targets are also given a heal over time effect that heals for 9 every second for 3 seconds.
16 AP (A) - Blast of Light: Cone: Affects up to 5 friends in a 5 metre long 120 degree cone in front of you. Consumes all Fist Resources. A cone Blast heal that heals for 25. Affected targets also gain a heal over time effect that heals for 9 every second for 10 seconds. You gain a heal over time effect that heals for 6 every second for 10 seconds.
21 AP (P) - Positive Reaction: Whenever you hit or heal with a Blast ability, you gain a reactive heal effect that heals for 27 the next time you are attacked.
27 AP (A) - Inner Spark: Consumes all Fist Resources. You give your defensive target a reactive heal effect that heals for 8 whenever it is attacked. This effect has a duration of 10 seconds.
34 AP (P) - Kindle: "Inner Spark" instead heals for 10 whenever your defensive target is attacked.
50 AP (A) - Fired Up (25s CD): Heals all group members for 146. Also applies a heal over time effect that heals for 8 every second for 4 seconds.

Assault Rifles

Healing/leech
1 AP (P) – Anima Shot: Builds 1 Assault Rifle Resource. A single target attack that deals 51 physical damage. You heal your defensive target for 30 and 11.5% of the damage dealt.
1 AP (P) – Anima Boost: Increases the damage dealt, leach and heal of Anima Shot by 7.5%.
9 AP (A) - Shot of Anima (4s CD): Consumes all Assault Rifle Resources. A single target heal that heals for 135 and gives a 2,6% leech effect to the defensive target for 5 seconds.
12 AP (P) - Increased Dosage: Improves "Shot of Anima" to heal for 200, but no longer grant a leech effect.
16 AP (A) - Anima Burst (1s cast): Builds 1 Assault Rifle Resource. A Burst attack that hits 3 times, dealing 30 physical damage per hit. Heals the defensive target for 58 and 16,3% of the damage dealt.
27 AP (A) - Transfuse Anima (1s cast, 4s CD): Consumes all Assault Rifle Resources. A single target attack that deals 214 physical damage. Heals the defensive target for 11,4% of the damage dealt. If the target is Hindered, the defensive target also gains a 3,2% leech effect for 10 seconds.
34 AP (P) - Shadow Medic: All your direct healing abilities are 7,5% more effective.
50 AP (A) - Re-Animator (30s CD): Channelled: Every 0,3 seconds for 1,5 seconds. A channelled heal that heals for 91.
7 AP (P) – Experience: Increases the effectiveness of leach effects by 25%.
9 AP (P) - Leech Therapy: Your leech abilities also trigger a PBAoE heal if the target is Afflicted. This affects up to 5 friends in a 5 metre area around you, healing for 17.
12 AP (A) - Energise (60s CD): Increases the effectiveness of all leech abilities by 40% for 10 seconds.
16 AP (P) - Anticoagulant: Your leech abilities also cause your target to become Afflicted with a damage over time effect that deals 35 physical damage every second for 5 seconds.
21 AP (A) - Platoon (30s CD): Heals all group members for 117.
27 AP (P) - Post-op: All your leech effects also heal for 32 when they expire.
34 AP (A) - Mortar Support (2s cast, 20s CD): TAoE: Affects up to 5 friends in a 5 metre radius around the target. A TAoE heal that heals for 239.
50 AP (P) - Veteran: Whenever you use a leech ability, you gain a counter. When the counter reaches 7, all group members are healed for 91 and gain a 4,3% leech effect for 4 seconds.
9 AP (A) - Groundwork (1s cast): TAoE: Affects up to 5 enemies in a 5 metre radius around your target. Builds 1 Assault Rifle Resource. A TAoE attack that deals 69 physical damage. All friends in the target area receive a 0,6% leech effect for 10 seconds.
16 AP (A) - Anima Outbreak (4s CD): TAoE: Affects up to 5 enemies in a 5 metre radius around your target. Consumes all Assault Rifle Resources. A TAoE Frenzy ability that deals 131 physical damage. Friendly targets in the area are healed for 85.
21 AP (P) - Outbreak Alert: Friendly targets within the area of "Anima Outbreak," with more than 90% health remaining, will gain the Major Hit Chance effect, which reduces the likelihood of glancing hits by 50% for 10 seconds.
27 AP (A) - Anima Vessel (1s cast, 10s CD): Consumes all Assault Rifle Resources. A single target attack that deals 152 physical damage. An effect is placed on the target that returns health to everyone who attacks them. If the target is Afflicted, the amount of health gained is increased.
34 AP (P) - Leeching Frenzy: Frenzy Abilities also place a leech buff on yourself causing any attacks to heal for 3,3% of the damage dealt.
50 AP (A) - Reap and Sew (90s CD): Gives all group members a 24,5% leech effect that lasts 8 seconds.

The Secret World Player Strength Vs Difficulty Guide

http://blackrabbit2999.blogspot.com/2012/07/secret-world-player-strength-vs.html

The Secret World Player Strength Vs Difficulty Guide

The Secret World Player Strength Vs Difficulty Guide by Yokai

TSW has a level-less system, but as with MMO or solo RPG game, there is still a very important concept of "progression" where your character gets stonger over time, and certain zones and monsters are too difficult for you until you have acquired new stats and abilities that make your character stronger.

TSW has two types of progression: vertical and horizontal.

Vertical Progression

*Vertical progression* is your raw stats and weapon strength. This is determined specifically by the total set of talismans and weapons (aka, your "gear") that you have currently equipped. If you have an entire set of "quality level 3" (aka QL3) talismans and both of your weapons are also QL3, then you are effectively "level 3" or "rank 3" in your vertical progression (aka "player strength"). If you have mostly QL3 gear but still some QL2 gear pieces too, then you are somewhere between rank 2 and rank 3 in terms of strength. Note that when you *inspect* another player, you can view the quality level of all their equipped gear pieces and easily see their general strength.

Vertical progression is also controlled by your "Skills" page and the way you've allotted your skill points (SP). To equip a QL3 piece of gear, you must be at "Skill 2" in the respective skill. For example, to equip a level QL3 Head Talisman, you must have Skill 2 in the "Head Talismans" row of the Skills page. This means you must have invested 3 SP into that Head Talismans row of the Skills page (1 + 2). Weapon skills are more tricky because there are two rows for each weapon. If you invest *only* in the "Damage" skill for that weapon, you can achieve Skill 2 for the weapon with only 3 SP. But if you invest your SP in both rows for the weapon equally from the start (1 SP in Damage, then 1 SP in the second row, etc.), you would need to invest 4 points in that weapon before you will achive "Skill 2" in the weapon. This differential gets worse the higher the skill you are trying to achieve. For example, you can get to Skill 4 in a weapon with only 10 SP by investing all SP into only one line of the weapon (1 + 2 + 3 + 4). But if you try to evenly spread your points across both lines of the weapon, you'd need to invest 16 SP to achieve Skill 4.

Horizontal Progression

*Horizontal progression* is your overall flexibility and adaptability to deal with different types of enemy encounters. This is determined by the sheer number and variety of abilities that you've purchased from the Ability Wheel with your earned ability points (AP). The more abilities you've unlocked, the more different special-purpose "decks" (builds) you can create and store in the "Gear Manager" section of your "Character Sheet".

It's worth noting that there are many monsters in the game that have very specific defenses, strengths, weaknesses, and AI tactics. The most unusual thing about TSW regards monster special defenses. For example, some monsters become *stronger* if they are hit with a certain state like Impaired or Hindered or Weakened, etc, and they can essentially one-shot kill you when this happens. So the game is designed to encourage and *reward* you for broadening your horizontal progression and having a wide variety of deck types to choose from as needed for each encounter. To make this clear, if your first deck that you grow to love in Kingsmouth is focused around applying Weaken and synergizing with the Weaken state, you will eventually run into certain monsters (not just bosses) who your build will make much stronger when you hit them with that Weaken. So ultimately, you should develop a few different decks and playstyles rather than getting comfy with just one deck and one playstyle.

Progression Curve

*progression curve* in TSW mostly means the time it takes to develop in strength and therefore to be ready to move on to the next area of a map with tougher monsters or to move on to the next, tougher map within the zone. The progression curve is controlled by three things:

1. Your rate of SP investment to rank up your three talisman rows at the bottom of the Skills page. This is the "limiter" that controls when you'll be able to actually equip better gear. You might wonder why I stress the three talisman rows and not the weapon rows, but that will become more clear in a moment.

2. Your finding (or crafting) and equipping of higher-level gear items. Broadly speaking, your *talismans* are the primary factor in determining your overall strength. Your equipped weapon ranks are important too and should near or above your talisman ranks, but the game seems to determine your "monster conning" primarily based on the levels of your *equipped* talismans. For example, assume that you have all QL3 talismans equipped and both of your equipped weapons are also both QL3. Then assume you "con" a given monster and his "conning dot(s)" are white, which means they are roughly equal in strength to you. If you then equip QL1 weapons, the conning dots will stay white. But if you keep your QL3 weapons equipped and instead equip ALL QL1 talismans, the conning dots will probably change to yellow, which means the game now thinks the monsters are slightly stronger than you.

3. Your progression through the blue storyline quests. For example, you will not be able to move on from Kingsmouth to the next map in the game until you complete all 18 tiers of your first storyline quest that takes you to Kingsmouth.

One last point to understand about the overall progression curve of the game: By the time you are able to *enter* Transylvania for the first time, you will probably be at the maximum range of the *vertical* progression. In other words, by this point you will have earned enough SP that if youve invested it wisely and ensured that you are Skill 10 in all three of your talisman rows of the skill page, you should be able to equip maxQL talismans by this point. If instead, however, you've spent all your SP in various different weapon rows and are only Skill 5 in all three of your talisman rows, then everything in Translyvania will probably con red to you and you'll have a tough time there even if you're packing maxQL weapons.

In general, the steepest slope of the vertical progression occurs in the New England zone, so moving to the next maps in the zone will be tough for you if you're not prioritizing your SP investment in your three talisman rows of the Skills page. As a rule of thumb, you should plan to be equipping mostly QL3 talismans (and ideally also QL3 weapons) before you venture on from Kingsmouth to the next zone.

In case this sounds daunting, remember that you need only 35 base metals to create a QL3 weapon, because the QL3 weapon toolkit requires only "imperfect" metals. Same deal for talismans (a QL3 talisman toolkit requires only "imperfect" components), but the number of mats for talismans varies from 8-12 per talisman depending on the specific talisman slot. But talismans drop frequently enough that it should be easy to build all the QL3 talismans you don't actually find outright. Generally speaking, farming the mobs in the northern part of the Kingsmouth map will get you plenty of QL3 gear and toolkit drops. Just decompose every colored item you find (even the QL1 gear that you outgrow) and you should have plenty of materials to get yourself geared up to rank 3.

And finally to make things clear, the vertical progression is steep and short, but the horizontal progression goes on long after you've maxed out your vertical progression. So just because you're wearing all maxQL gear items by some point (probably by some point in the Egypt maps), don't think you're "done" growing your character. The game design strongly rewards and requires flexibility, so you need to keep growing your horizontal progression.

Monster difficulty conning indicators

TSW uses two conning indicators to show the relative strenght of any given monster versus yourself: the symbol at the left of the mobs name, and the *color* of that symbol. Note that the red or yellow text for the monster's *name* is NOT a difficulty indicator. A red name indicates a stronger/wider "aggro range" for such mobs.

Conning Symbol Colors: range in a spectrum from green > blue > white > yellow > orange > red. White means "roughly same strength as you are". Green and blue are weaker than you are, and yellow > orange > red are stronger than you are. If you pay attention while you progress in Kingsmouth, you'll notice that a lot of mobs that were formerly orange turn yellow eventually as you start equipping more QL1 and QL2 gear items, and certainly you'll see differences by the time you are wearing mostly QL3 gear. (What seems like yellow at first is actually orange; it's a subtle difference.)

Conning Symbol Shapes: three small dots, one large dot, one or more skulls, crown, flag.

Three small dots means a "weenie swarm". Pull one and it *will* bring friends.

One large dot means a single non-swarming "normal" monster. Social aggro does happen, so if you pull a single dot that is close to another single dot, chances are good that both of them will aggro you.

Skulls indicate what other games call "elites", "lieutenants", or "minibosses". The number of skulls indicates just how nasty they are.

Crown indicates a unique named mob, usually the target of at least one specific mission teir. These are usually also "elites" in terms of strength.

Flag is what happens to a Crowned mob when your current active quest has that unique named mob as an objective for the current teir of that quest.

Mission Difficulty Indicators

Mission difficulty is shown when you click on a quest starter "tablet" or "chiklet" to examine the details about the quest. You'll see indicators like "Hard", "Very Hard", "Daunting", etc.

This "mission conning" system works exactly the same way as the monster conning, except with suggestive text labels rather than color coding. For example, if you're in a group with 2 other people and the three of you examine a new quest starter, two of you might see "Very Hard" if you're both wearing a majority of QL2 gear, while the third person might see "Daunting" if they are still wearing all rank QL0 gear.

TSW Grouping

http://blackrabbit2999.blogspot.com/2012/07/secret-world-grouping-mechanics-guide.html

The Secret World Grouping Mechanics Guide

The Secret World Grouping Mechanics Guide by Yokai

Because of the level-less system in TSW, the fact that many dungeon encounters are *designed* to require players in the group to switch their roles somewhat often, and the fact that the crafting system is not only fully usable but also necessary for every player, there are some significant impacts to grouping in TSW. All this means we have some interesting new things to learn about grouping in TSW.

Part 1 of this guide focuses on mechanics, and is purely descriptive.

Part 2 of this guide focuses on efficiency and ettiquette, and is largely prescriptive. IT IS JUST ONE PERSON'S OPINION AND DOES NOT REFLECT FUNCOM DESIGN VIEWS DESPITE BEING A STICKY AT THIS TIME. As a result, I know part 2 will rub some of you the wrong way. Please bear in mind that Part 2 is written *primarily* for PUGs, especially PUGS that are trying to do the 5-man dungeon content. Everyone knows that PUGs can sometimes be smooth and easy, and other times can be a nightmare of drama and wasted time and ninja looters and frustrating wipe after wipe. The prescriptive elements in part 2 are meant to help PUGs simply run smoother, easier, and with less hassle and drama. If you don't like PUGGING, you probably won't like part 2 of this guide.


The UI mechanics of grouping

To invite a player you are looking at, click them, then right-click the player stats window that appears at the left of the UI and choose Invite to Group.

To invite a player that is in another part of the map, a different phase of the same map, or even another zone entirely, use your chat window to enter the command /invite playerName.

To leave a group, right-click your own name in the group list and choose "Leave Group".

To get all your group members into the same phase (aka instance) of the map that the team leader is currently on, the team leader should change the group's looting option. This pops a dialog for all out-of-phase team members asking whether they want to join the same phase as the leader.

To change the loot options for the group, the group leader must right-click their own name and choose Looting Options. You can choose round-robin, free-for-all, master looter, or only-group-leader-loots options, and all four of these can be coupled with a Need/Greed roll (or not) for any level of gear. Note that the Rare option for need/greed applies to "green" gear drops, and Epic applies to "blue" gear drops.

Group member highlighting is currently lackluster. Your minimap and map icons are the only thing you can rely on. It can also help to simply select a specific group member with F2, F3, etc. to briefly highlight them with a "defensive target" highlight, making them easier to see and find.

The group leader is designated by a "crown" icon in the group list. They can assign a different leader or adjust loot options by right-clicking their own name in the group list.

If a group member disconnects, the game is really good about leaving them in the group list while they try to get back on, and they'll always enter in the correct phase with you when they do.

Be aware in PUGS that people with 32-bit windows tend to crash a lot right now, so that group member will disco often. The perils of beta.

Auto-looting (the V key) can be done by any member of the group who sees a "light beam" coming from the ground to the "loot bag" floating above the ground. For example, if looting options are set to Free for All, then every member will see the light beam and can loot. But if looting is set to Round Robin, then only one player will see the light beam for any one loot bag. Anything set for need/greed rolls will be automatically popped in a roll window for everyone. You can clearly see the looting and roll outcomes in the General chat tab.

Money from drops is ALWAYS evenly split among all group members regardless of who actually loots the bag, and regardless of looting options. However, anything else in the bag that falls below the need/greed threshold goes ONLY to the player that loots the bag, and nobody else will see exactly what those items were.

Is this game social or solo?

First I want to address a complaint/misunderstanding I see on the forums a lot. For those of you who think TSW doesn't encourage grouping and social interaction, I'd like you to try an experiment:

Assume you are in Kingsmouth wearing mostly QL2 gear at the moment, and so one of your goals is to find more QL3 gear so that you'll be ready to move on to the next zone when your 18-tier Kingmouth storyline mission ends. Or you want to try the group dungeon in Kingsmouth (Polaris), and you've heard (or its reasonable to assume) that groups will probably need to be geared up in QL3 gear to do well in there.

So head north in your QL2 gear and *solo* farm some of the mobs that drop QL3 weapons, talismans, and weapon/talisman kits. (Many of them are "1-skull" elites.) Do this for a while and see how you do. Now go find one or two players who will join you in a duo/trio team for a while. Go back and farm those same QL3-dropping mobs for a while as a duo/trio.

I think if you perform this experiment for yourself, you'll see that soloing is certainly *possible*, but slow. Instead, having even just a duo partner to run around with most of the time is not only much faster/efficient/safer, but also more fun. Based on how I've seen *every* Funcom game balance monster health, monster density, monster patrol patterns, etc. I can confidently state that Funcom games, in general, encourage and reward at least duo/trio grouping for most of the game content. Many other MMOs are truly solo-centric (except for dungeon/raid content), but Funcom games typically aren't solo-centric. For example, in AoC, the *only* effective way to level grind, even in all the outdoor areas, was with a full 5-man group powerfarming spawn points that were clearly designed specifically for 5-man groups. I see no reason to expect that TSW is any different, and the evidence I see in Kingsmouth's northern areas makes me confident of this assertion.


Some terminology conventions

Even though TSW it technically "level-less" and we don't have the in-game mechanics of a "gear score", etc., it is still broadly useful to rank relative player strength, and there is a defacto way of doing so. For deeper detail, please read my guide on player strength (link in my sig block below), but for now I want to introduce the term "rank N" (shortform: rN) as a shorthand way of comparing the relative strength of players in a group.

The simple explanation is that your rank for any given deck is a number that most closely matches the overall quality level of your equipped gear for that deck. For example, if you're wearing mostly QL3 gear with a few QL2 pieces, then you are "rank 3" or "r3", and you would call that an "r3 deck" when talking about your deck.

The more detailed explanation is as follows:

rank = round(sum(all gear QL numbers)/9)

For example, assume a player is wearing two QL3 weapons, five QL3 talismans, and two QL2 talismans:

rank = round(sum(3,3,3,3,3,3,3,2,2)/9)
rank = round(25/9)
rank = round(2.78)
rank = 3

BTW, I'm willing to bet this is essentially the same algorithm that Funcom uses to determine player strength for monster and quest conning. Occam's razor and all that. And this explains why your conning results are weighed more by your talismans than by your weapons (because weapons are only two data points out of 9 total data points).


How colored gear affects this rank system

Obviously, a player in 9 pieces of blue QL6 gear will be stronger than a player in 9 pieces of green QL6 gear. You can easily distinguish the relative strength of two such players by calling one of them "blue r6" and the other just "r6".

Do you need to go to this trouble? Well, it's just a few more letters to type in chat, so IMO it's easy but not everyone will feel the same. Honestly, I think omitting the predominant color of your gear pieces is still informative and close enough for rock and roll.

Does Funcom's conning code (for monster/mission difficulty) take into account the overall color strength of your currently-equipped gear pieces? That will be hard to test and reverse-engineer until I have a lot of blue gear, lol, so I can't answer that right now.


How you define your role through build mechanics

Despite some grumbling to the contrary, TSW most definitely has the concept of roles. While you're not locked into any one role, ever, you are still always playing a role at any given moment. The beauty of TSW, however, is that you can switch your role by simply switching to a different deck, and there are a LOT of very viable hybrid roles compared to other games. The available roles are more clearly described in the next section below. This section focuses only on how you actually define a role for a given build (deck).

You define your role in three ways:

1. By investing SP into the second row for each weapon in the Skills page, which is its "role" attribute.

2. By equipping talismans and weapon glyphs that provide stats that are useful for a given role. For example, if you want to play a tank role, you would focus on stats that give you high health, +block and/or +evade, etc. Or if you want to play a healer role, you would focus on the +Heal Rating stat. Starting with QL3 and QL4 drops, you'll see lots of other stat combinations that are clearly designed for tanking, healing, or DPS. You can also craft gear with nearly any specific stats you want, so you could, for example, make talismans that split evenly between DPS and Heals.

3. By choosing a set of 7/7 abilities that synergize with the role you want to play. For example, tanks should pack a lot of abilities that generate high amounts of hate.

A final note that isn't obvious at first: In general, if you want to play a very focused role, you generally want to pick two weapons whose role type ARE THE SAME. For example, if you are the primary meatshield for a dungeon run and you want the best chance to hold onto aggro, you should choose BOTH weapons from the "Survival" role (aka the tanking role). This would mean Hammer/Chaos or Blade/Chaos or Hammer/Blade. Same deal if you want to be a primary healer and do nothing but heal the meatshield like crazy: choose BOTH weapons from the "Healer" role. This would mean Fist/Blood or Fist/AR or AR/Blood.

Where TSW really shines is in the sheer variety of HYBRID role types you can create. You can mix and match quite a variety of different roles and have any one of these hybrid decks ready to use at any time. Want to be "tank-y with some CC"? Try Hammer/Shotgun. Want to be "DPS-y with some self heals and off-healing ability?" Try pretty much any weapon with one of the three healing weapons.

What about pure DPS roles? Another nice thing about TSW is that literally EVERY weapon can be a pure DPS weapon if you want it to be. All you need to do is spend your SP primarily on the DPS row for a weapon, and to equip talismans and weapon glyphs that are heavy on DPS-centric stats like +Attack Rating, +Pen, +Crit, etc., and finally, to choose your 7/7 abilities to be DPS-centric.


How group role mechanics are different in TSW

Roles are not as clearly defined and focused in TSW. You don't really have tank builds. Instead you have "tank-y" builds. You don't really have healer builds; you have "heal-y" builds. And so on: tank-y, heal-y, dps-y, support-y, and control-y. Don't want to take my word for it? This is straight from Martin Bruusgaard.

The reason for this is the sheer flexibility of the skill system. A person might *think* they're a tank because they have one "survival" weapon like Hammer, Chaos, or Blades and because they have one or two abilities in their build that say "generates hate". But can they *really* tank well? Are all those other skills synergizing to *keep* the monster hate? Do they have enough different hate-generators (and therefore low DPS), or is their "tank" build full of big DPS finishers because they also use it for soloing and general purpose play? Are their talismans filled with tank-friendly stats or DPS stats or an unfocused mish-mash of stats?*

And finally, is the "tank" for the group a lower "rank" than one of the "DPS" people in the group? A lower rank than the "healer" for the group? If so, even a strong tank build is going to have trouble holding aggro unless the healers and DPS throttle their ability usage.

I could come up with similar examples for all the other typical roles, but you get the point.

Another strong difference in TSW is the fact that certain roles are VERY heavily influenced by the specific stats on your talismans. Tanks will want high +health stats and stats that ensure they land hits (no glancing), but don't need to focus on +crit or +pen, etc. Healers will want *lots* of talismans with +heal rating, otherwise their heals will be too weak to support the tank. DPS will want high +pen or +crit gear, etc. And so on.

And the last very very VERY big difference in TSW is that all group members should have different decks they can call upon as needed for flexibility. Especially in dungeon encounters, you might need all group members able to fight from long range for one boss, then all group members able to focus on impairment effects for another boss, then all the DPS/Support members switching to Frenzy- and Chain-centric decks they can call upon for another boss that summons lots of weenie swarms, etc. If you have only one deck and play only one deck, you're going to be far less useful to a team in a dungeon environment.


How the level-less and "role-y" nature of TSW makes PUG organization difficult

In other MMOs, you can clearly see that someone is a tank or healer or DPS or control class, etc., and you can clearly see their level. You can assume that they are running one of a few well-known builds for their role. And when setting up a PUG or looking for a 4th or 5th, you can easily advertise in chat: "LF2M: healer and dps for skybridge" and be pretty certain that you'll get responses from players of the appropriate level and gearing for the dungeon. And when they show up, you can charge right into the dungeon without preamble because everyone will know their roles.

In TSW, there is potentially a LOT more discussion to figure out who's who and what's what before you even step into a dungeon, and then before each new section/boss there is potentially yet more discussion to figure out who is going to switch roles and do what.

There are ways to *minimize* this discussion if you come prepared to talk about your decks and your rank in an intelligent, shorthand way. More on that the section below.


THIS PART IS PRESCRIPTIVE OPINION OF MY OWN AND DOES NOT NECESSARILY REFLECT FUNCOM DESIGN INTENT, EVEN THOUGH THIS GUIDE IS CURRENTLY A STICKY. You might well disagree with some of my advice. Please don't waste time flaming me for it, although constructive debate is always welcome and useful to other readers, who can form their own opinion based on constructive debate.

Here are the specific "Rules of Thumb" that every group member should know

We can't solve *all* of the problems with grouping mechanics with some simple rules of thumb, but we can solve *many* of them. There is no easy answer for the tank who doesn't have a synergistic tanking deck with lots of hate-generating abilities, or for the healer who isn't wearing *talismans with a ton of +heal rating stats. But there *are* easy answers for nearly every other potential problem.

Note: All the following "rules of thumb" boil down to two simple principles. Don't let the fact that I am listing 10 specific rules of thumb irk you too much. I do that only to be able to elaborate on some fine points. The two basic principles are:

1. Know your effective rank for every deck that you like to play, and *communicate* that rank clearly in a shorthand manner every time your group talks about who's doing what.

2. Be willing to do what it takes to ensure that the group's designated tank can actually hold aggro successfully. You'll all be a lot happier for it.


Guideline #1 - The group's "tank" should be the highest rank in the group. If you prefer being the tank, but it turns out someone else in the group is higher rank than you, you should either bow out of the group or be willing to switch to an "off tank" deck or play some other role entirely. If the designated main tank isn't the highest rank in the group, they just won't be able to hold aggro effectively. This is easy to test with a single duo partner if you don't believe me. Gear QL makes a *huge* difference in who the monsters will build hate for.

Rule #2 - Any non-tank roles in the group should be willing to swap roughly half or all of their gear pieces to lower-QL pieces if they are the same rank as the tank. This rule goes hand-in-hand with Rule #1. If three members are rank 4 and two are rank 3, then the two non-tank r4 members should downlevel their equipped talismans by at least half a rank to help the tank hold aggro bettter. You may be thinking: "that's too much hassle to keep old gear around." No, it's not. Just keep like 6 older pieces you've outgrown in a separate minibag. When you need to downlevel, just right-click all 6 of them and YOU'RE DONE. When the run is over, just use your gear manager to reload your normal deck and all those 6 pieces will be swapped right back into that same minibag. It's easy peasy. Again, the idea here is to *temporarily* downgrade your strength relative to the designated tank, so that the tank can do a better job of holding aggro and you're not constantly peeling mobs off the tank because your gearing is as strong as the tanks. Extrapolating to later zones where the vertical progression is maxed out for everyone (everyone is in QL10 gear), this rule of thumb might still be useful: let the tank stay at rank 10 in all QL 10 gear, but everyone else drops into all QL 9 gear.

Rule #3 - If you want to play the tank role, load your deck with as many "generates hate" abilities as possible, and load up on +health gear. Your job is not DPS. Your job is keeping the mobs from peeling off to your healer or DPS guys. Just because you're using a hammer/shotgun build (with lots of +attack rating talismans) does not mean you can actually hold aggro.

Rule #4 - If you want to play the healer role, load your deck with as many healing/shielding abilities as possible and load up on +heal rating gear. This also means you should be rocking TWO healing weapons (not just one). This probably doesn't need to be a rule because most healer-centric players will intuitively understand this, but it's worth emphasizing that +heal rating gear is very important to making your heals worth a damn. And an AR/Shotgun build or a Blades/Blood build, for example, simply won't rock *enough* different healing abilities to heal effectively as the group's primary healer.

Rule #5 - Know your *exact* rank for every single deck in your gear manager window, and make that rank number part of the name of the deck. When answering a call for a PUG or coordinating the group both inside and outside the dungeon, *always* state the rank number for any deck (role) you can switch into. It is not difficult to figure out your rank. You don't have to do the full mathematical formula I outlined above. You can easily guesstimate your rank by looking at your character sheet. More QL3 than QL2 gear? Then you're rank 3. More QL2 gear than QL3 gear? Then you're rank 2. It's that easy. Remember, nobody else can *see* a rank number for you in game, so it's just helpful ettiqutte to state your rank clearly. For example: "I can r3 tank, r2 heal, and r4 dps". Easy, short, concise, and clear to everyone else in the group.

Rule #6 - When looking for group members in chat (setting up a PUG), specify the exact ranks you need. For example: "LF r3+ for Polaris" or "LF1M - r4 tank for Polaris"

Rule #7 - When *answering* a call for PUG groups, clearly specify all the roles you can play AND the rank for each. For example, reply to a group leader with the short, sweet "r3 heal, r3 dps" if the only decks you have are a rank 3 healing deck and a rank 3 dps deck. Hopefully Funcom will give us the ability to fire off text macros in chat, so you can set up a canned response listing all your roles/ranks that doesn't require much typing.

Rule #8 - When deciding your tactics for a given encounter within a dungeon (or in some overland camp for a special elite type), if you *know* what a given encounter requires, communicate that clearly in shorthand to the rest of the group. For example: "no melee builds, no hinder for this one. Need everyone ranged with aoe and weaken".

Rule #9 - When responding to tactical discussion like in Rule #8, don't just say "ready". Instead, say "ready with r4 ranged aoe" or "ready with r3 ranged aoe/weaken". These types of responses will greatly help your group leader (and everyone else) clearly understand what type of build you switched to and either lead the charge or else stop and restrategize because you don't have enough AOE or because one of the group doesn't have a ranged build or whatnot.

Rule #10 - If you generally prefer the DPS role, make sure you have a hybrid DPS/Heal deck ready to use at all times Since it's easy to create a deck that focuses primarily on DPS but also can do some spot healing, you should always have a deck like this ready to switch to for encounters where a single primary healer can't handle the load all on their own. It would be nice to assume that anyone playing a DPS role on the team could *also* be an "off-healer" for certain encounters where needed.

TSW two weapon synergies

from http://blackrabbit2999.blogspot.com/2012/07/secret-world-synergize-any-two-weapons.html

The Secret World Synergize Any Two Weapons Guide

The Secret World Synergize Any Two Weapons Guide by Yokai

If you've seen Seki's wonderful synergy charts (here), you might be tempted to think that the weapon combo you were really hoping to play with might not synergize very well. For example, you might want to play with Pistols and Blood Magic as your two equipped weapons, but then you look at Seki's charts (or the in-game ability wheel) and you don't see too many overlapping areas of synergy between Pistol/Blood. So you think to yourself "Well, Pistol/Blood is not a good combination because there aren't enough synergies between the two."

I see this assumption reflected a lot in posts here when people talk about weapon choice and synergies. I'm here to explain how this is a WRONG assumption, and how you should really be looking at Seki's charts. The Funcom designers and devs do in fact mean it when they say "you can play with ANY weapons you like", because there is in fact a way to synergize ANY two equipped weapons.

Concepts and terms

The way this works centers around this fact that not everyone seems to be fully aware of: You can equip a passive ability from ANY weapon, not just from your two equipped weapons.

I'm going to introduce a new term that will help you understand the following explanation of mechanics:

Bridge passive - Any passive ability from a non-equipped weapon that synergizes between one attribute from equipped weapon A and one attribute from equipped weapon B.

The basic technique

1. Choose the two weapons you'd LIKE to equip and use together.
2. Note the State and Trigger attributes of your two equipped weapons that are listed in Seki's "Master Table".
3. Identify all other weapons in Seki's "Master Table" that share at least one State or Trigger attribute from your equipped weapon A and at least one State or Trigger attribute from your equipped weapon B. All such weapons will contain some bridge passives that will create a synergy between your two equipped weapons.

One concrete example of the technique

Assume you want to equip Pistol/Blood and find the bridge passives that will create additional synergies that they do not directly share with each other. Here is Seki's "Master Table" with annotations that demonstrate the steps in the basic process outlined above. The green boxes highlight the types of synergies between Pistol/Blood that you can create through bridge passives.



Next, lets assume you wanted Pistols as one of your weapons in part because you want your playstyle to revolve around crits, hindering (snares/roots), and weaken (debuffs). Blood is there primarily for heals, but you know that various healing abilities from Blood are likely to also induce Impairment effects, Affliction effects, and to improve the likelyhood of Penetrating hits. So you want to look for ways to synergize your Pistols when such things happen as a result of your chosen Blood abilities.

The green boxes in the chart show you exactly where to look for bridge passives that can create this type of synergy between Blood and Pistols. The weapons containing such bridge passives in this case are Shotgun, Elemental Magic, Hammers, and Chaos Magic.

So, since crits and hindering are two key elements of the playstyle you're going for (i.e., a "crit-hindering build"), the chart above tells you that the best places to look for bridge passives that will suit your build are in Elemental Magic and Hammers. Elemental shows a bridge between Affliction and both Crit and Hindering. Hammer shows a bridge between Impair and Crit.

So we go poking around in the ability wheel cells for Elemental Magic, and what do we find as a cheap, easy to acquire passive bridge in one of the inner "basic" rings for Elemental Magic? Why, this little gem:

Mind over Matter (passive)
Your critical hits cause the target to be Afflicted with a damage over time effect which deals 7 magical damage every second for 5 seconds.

Even better, this passive ability is the very first ability in the cell, so you can buy it for practically nothing. Just a minor blip in your AP that you're mostly spending on Pistol and Blood abilities at first. So for a simple, cheap investment in one single ability from Elemental Magic, you now have a bridge passive that will apply an Affliction DOT every time you make a critical hit from your Pistols. And there are sure to be some Blood Actives and passives that will do many nice things when used on an Afflicted target.

Why focus on only State and Trigger attributes for this technique?

I direct you to focus primarily on looking for bridge passives across the State and Trigger attributes because frankly, that's where most of the abilities that create a synergistic effect are most likely to be.

It is entirely possible that there will be a passive ability somewhere that, for example, synergizes between Hindering and a Chain attack that successfully hits multiple targets, but I'm guessing that synergies like this, if they exist at all, will be far fewer than synergies across State/Trigger attributes. We won't know for sure until we can see the full Ability Wheel on May 11.

Conclusion

So there you have it. A way to look at Seki's wonderful charts in a completely new and useful way. I hope this is helpful to those of you who've been agonizing over weapon choice when the first Open Beta weekend starts.

Now, a final proviso. While using bridge passives in this way can indeed help you create synergies between any two equipped weapons, the min-maxers among you will still find *more* potential synergies if you choose equipped weapon combos that that share a lot of overlapping synergies per Seki's charts. For example, Blades will offer *more* potential ways to synergize with Blood than Pistols will, because there's a huge overlap of attributes between Blades/Blood.

But this can be misleading in itself. While there are more *possible* ways to synergize between Blades/Blood, you cannot take advantage of *all* of them in a single build, because you're limited to only 7 active and 7 passive abilities. What I'm trying to say here is that ultimately, in any one build, you are going to be forced to choose a tight focus and there will likely be room for only a few synergistic skills. (Those of you who played Guild Wars 1 will instantly understand why this is an important constraint.)

So ultimately, you'll be able to flesh out a nice build focus even from a more limited set of possible bridge-based synergies. All that choosing two closely-aligned weapons (per Seki's charts) does for you is give you a wider set of possible synergies to choose from, but you still have to whittle down all those possible choices to just a few specific ones. So on that level of things, bridge passives are in one way completely equal to non-bridge synergies.

TSW crafting

from http://blackrabbit2999.blogspot.com/2012/07/secret-world-crafting-comprehensive.html

The Secret World Crafting Comprehensive Guide

The Secret World Crafting Comprehensive Guide by Raithwood

Contents

Introduction
1. Crafting Menu
2. Disassembling Items
3. Stacking Materials
4. Upgrading Metal/Items
5. Item Types/Tiers
6. Item Placement/Patterns
7. Reassembling Items
8. Item Kits
9. Runes
10. Adding a Suffix/Prefix effect
In Closing
Special Thanks

Introduction

Hi everyone and thank you so much for coming to check out my guide. I have received an amazing response from players just like you all over the world asking for more information on crafting, and while I had the answers (Most of the time), I strongly felt that I really had to provide a more in depth guide for you all. I’d like to state that this guide is not intended to be the be all and end all of Crafting in The Secret World. We are currently in Beta and there are an immense amount of issues that still need to be addressed. I have heard many reports from players stating that their crafting mats were eaten or simply vanished or the crafting simply didn’t work ect. My point being, I will try and provide you with the skills to become a proficient crafter. I cannot promise it will work perfectly every single time but what I can promise is that you will all have the basic skills to understand this really simplistic and beautiful crafting system should you take the time to read the guide. So I hope you all enjoy this. The guide is not just my work, but a compilation of some twenty other people’s experiences as well. I hope you find it’s what you’re looking for.

1. Crafting Menu

Now for something so vital to the game, I have received a load of tells in game from people asking how to use the crafting menu, how to open it up and how to manage it. Let me be the first to say, there are no tutorials directing you to the crafting window so don’t feel bad. It’s a good question to ask. To be perfectly honest, I only figured it out by going into key binding settings. So let me break it down for you guys.
This is the Crafting Window...



To access the crafting Menu, press “Y” on your keypad. It will open up a box that shows you where you can place your items. It also helps at this point to open your inventory by pressing “I” in order to see which items you’re going to be placing in the crafting box. As you can see, there is the Assembly box, the Tool box and the Item box. Please also note that the Assembly box is a 5x4 box. This will be important later when we cover patterns.

2. Disassembling Items

In order to disassemble an item the first thing to do is to open your crafting menu and your inventory. Move the item you wish to disassemble from your inventory to your Assembly Box. It should look like this.



You will note that the button that usually says "Assemble" will have changed to "Disassemble". Click this button. At this point your item will have been broken down into raw metals. It is also important to note at this point that when your item has been disassembled, it will be sitting in your Assembly Box in a specific shape, like so...



This shape is quite important to your future crafting so please take note. In this weapons case, it’s a broken down Assault Rifle.

3. Stacking Materials

Now that you have disassembled your item, it’s time to get ready to upgrade the gained materials. In order to do this you will need to break the pattern your disassembled weapon is in and stack the materials on top of each other. NOTE: There should be no other items in your Assembly box at this time. All you need in there are your materials. The stack should look something like this...



Please note that while I have stacked only 4 of the item required, you actually need five of the item in order to move on to the next step.

4. Upgrading Materials/Items

Now note that when you move the metal into your inventory it stacks. Stack it all up and move it back into the crafting window. The button at the bottom of the box will have changed to assemble. Click this and you will note that in your stack, (FIVE pieces) of the metal will have vanished and in your inventory an upgraded form of metal will have appeared. Each time you deconstruct you can get more materials in order to make stronger metal or other items for talismans and such.

5. Item Tiers/Types

From my very limited time playing TSW open Beta in Kingsmouth I have been able to determine that these are correct in most cases. The item tiers are as follows.

- Base
- Imperfect
- Perfect (This Tier doesn’t have a Prefix name)
- Sacred
- Pure

It’s also important to note that there are many different types of materials used in crafting. A breakdown I received from one of my many little helpers is as follows...

Metal: used to add weapon power and structure to items

Water: used to add health and structure to items

Dust: used to add healing and structure to items

Fire: used to add attack rating and structure to items

Wheel Rune: used to add hit to items

Lu Rune: used to add crit to items

Trinity Rune: used to add penetration to items

Denkyem Rune: used to add crit damage to items

Wedjat Rune: used to add defense to items

Yggdrasil Rune: used to add evade to items

Earth Rune: used to add block to items

Koru Rune: used to add physical protection to items

Pentagram Rune: used to add magical protection to items

6. Item Placement/Patterns

Please note that while I compiled single pictures of each and every crafting pattern it seems that we have a genius amongst us and that genius has a name. Yalexy! It must be the problem with living down under but I figured... HEY! Why not instead of attaching 12 or so single pictures of me running around figuring out the patterns.... why don’t I channel my inner convict and blatently steal from Yalexy’s thread. So there we have it....I did. I am saying right now that I in no way own this picture, it belongs to Yalexy and I would have asked his permission but for some odd reason I cant message him. Anyways. Here you have it. This is a picture of all the item placements for crafting. Thank you Yalexy for making my life a little easier.



7. Reassembling Items

Okay so now we have followed the basic steps of crafting thus far. The next step is to decide what you want to craft. Using your base materials (Or upgraded ones), form the specific pattern you want and then click assemble. Note that you will need to use a Weapons Kit in order to have it work effectively/at all.

8. Item Kits

Item Kits can be purchased from vendors in the game or found on monsters. You use these in crafting by placing them in the Tool Box, section of the Assembly Box like so...



It is also important to note that there are different tiers of Kits. Stronger kits will be needed to make more powerful upgrades.

9. Runes

While I have given a brief description of runes above it should be noted that runes are used a tad differently. Firstly Runes run by the same item quality as above, moving from base to through to pure. It should also be noted though that Runes are the main quality affecting your Prefix and Suffix traits on a weapon or item. See below for descriptions.

10. Adding a Suffix/Prefix effect and the Symbol for Anima Effects

In order to add a prefix or suffix effect you need to upgrade your Runes to your desired level and then place them in a specific pattern like so...

This is for Prefix and Suffix...



And this is the pattern for an Anima...Meaning pots and the like!!



Please note that I am just using items from my characters inventory in order to show you the way in which its done. Those are not the correct items to use.

Once you have completed this part, you will be granted an item that is known as a Suffix/Prefix rune or Glyph. At this point its a simple matter of placing your upgraded weapon/item in the Assembly Box with the Suffix/Prefix Rune/Glyph and hitting assemble. After which you should be now the proud owner of a very deadly weapon/item.

Edit: It should be noted that the above is an earlier draft. I believe that the Suffix and Prefix symbols are the same, although I'm not 100%. The way a Glyph is attached is either in front of or behind the weapon in the assembly box. I could also be very wrong on this point, however I will test it out next weekend.

In Closing

In closing I would like to state that once again, this guide is in no way definitive. I have not really had that much time to explore the game in between work and the game itself crashing on me every 10 or so minutes. I would like to state however, that I could not have put this guide together without a lot of help from other people. I will try and update this guide when the game goes live but I can’t really do much as I am only an Open Beta Tester, not a Closed Beta Tester. I will continue to update the guide as much as I can though.

Special Thanks
First and foremost I would like to thank Funcom, for putting together an amazing game. Mostly though I want to thank Senior Producer Ragnar Tørnquist, Lead Designer Martin Bruusgaard and Lead Content Designer Joel Bylos. You guys are amazing!

Secondly I want to thank Sappho and the other forum mods. Its great to know we players have the support to really explore this game.

Finally I want to thank the people who without, there would be no guide. Those people are ThunXa, Admittance, Yalexy and of course every single one of you forum junkies!! ;-p

Thanks again, I’m sorry if the guide doesn’t help you. I really tried to make it as user friendly as I could. I will do an official one after launch.

Thanks again

Raithwood

TSW blade abilities

Melee Abilities

- Hide Blade Abilities

Blades
Method	Technique	Wind through Grass	Tearing of Sky	Crossing River's Edge	Running of the Jagged	Sharpening the Senses	The Cutting Artist
Delicate Strike	Immortal Spirit	Grass Cutter	Fatal Flourish	Bamboo Cutter	Brandish	Tipped Scales	Forked Paths
Active Melee Ability	Passive Ability	Active Melee Ability	Passive Ability	Active Melee Ability	Active Melee Ability	Passive Ability	Active Melee Ability
1 ap	1 ap	9 ap	9 ap	9 ap	9 ap	9 ap	9 ap
Instant Instant Builds 1 resource for each weapon equipped. A single target attack that deals 48 physical damage.	Whenever you penetrate, you gain a heal over time effect, which heals you 10 every second for 5 seconds.	Instant Instant Builds 1 resource for each equipped weapon. A single target attack that deals 45 physical damage, or 55 physical damage if the target is Afflicted.	Whenever you apply an Afflicted you gain a 1 stack of the Penetration Rating effect, which increases your Penetration Rating by 30 per stack for 8 seconds. This effect can stack up to 10 times.	Instant Instant PBAoE: Applied to 5 enimies in a 5 metre radius around you. Builds 1 resource for each Equipped weapon. A PBAoE Frenzy attack that deals 32 physical damage.	2.5sec 10sec Channelled every 0.5 seconds for 2.5 seconds. Consumes all Blade Resources. A channelling Focus attack that deals 38 physical damage per hit. While you channel, you take 5% less damage per resource spent. This abiity generates additional hate.	Whenever you hit an Impaired target, you gain a heal over time effect that heals 22 every second for 6 seconds.	Instant Instant PBAoE: Affects up to 5 enemies within a 5 meter radius around you. Builds 1 Resource for Each equipped weapon. A PBAoE attack that deals 32 physical damage. For every affected that that is Afflicted, upi are healed for 8.
Delicate Precision	Blade Torrent	Twist the Knife	Spiral of Death	Sudden Return	Brandishing Support	Saving Grace	Enervate
Passive Ability	Active Melee Ability	Passive Ability	Active Melee Ability	Passive Ability	Passive Ability	Active Melee Ability	Passive Ability
1 ap	1 ap	12 ap	12 ap	12 ap	12 ap	12 ap	12 ap
Increases the Penetration Chance of "Delicate Strike" by 10%.	Instant Instant PBAoE: Affects up to 5 enemies in a 5 metre radius around you. Builds 1 resource for each equipped weapon. A PBAoE Frenzy attack that deals 32 physical damage. This attack generates a high amount of hate.	Whenever you penetrate you also gain 1 stack of a beneficial effect, which increases all damage dealt by 3% for 10 seconds. This effect can stack up to 3 times.	Instant 20sec You teleport to the target and hit up to 5 enemies in a 5 metre radius, dealing 81 physical damage. The target must be at least 3 metres away.	Whenever you penetrate, you also perform an additional hit for 18 physical damage.	"Brandish" also increases your Defense Rating by 25 per resource spent while you channel. Its recharge time is reduced by 5 seconds.	Instant 20sec Charge: 15 metre charge to your defensive target. You charge to a defensive target and give it a beneficial effect causing the next attack against it to deal 50% less damage.	Whenver you are glanced, you cause the attacker to become Afflicted with a damage over time effect that deals 12 physical damage every second for 5 seconds.
Balanced Blade	Perfect Storm	Chop Shop	Incision	Five Petal Lotus	Matador	Stave Off	Crimson Theatre
Active Melee Ability	Passive Ability	Active Melee Ability	Passive Ability	Active Melee Ability	Active Melee Ability	Passive Ability	Active Melee Ability
1 ap	1 ap	16 ap	16 ap	16 ap	16 ap	16 ap	16 ap
Instant Instant PBAoE: Affects up to 5 enemies in a 5 metre radius around you. Consumes all Blade Resources. A PBAoE attack that deals 60 physical damage. Builds 2 Blade Resources for if any affected target are Impaired.	"Blade Torrent" also causes the target to become Afflicted with a damage over time effect that deals 7 physical damage every second for 8 seconds.	2.5sec Instant Channeled every 0.5 seconds for 2.5 seconds. PBAoE; Affects up to 5 enemies in a 5 meter area around you. Consumes all Blade Resources. A channelled PBAoE Focus attack that deals 26 physical damage.	Whenever you penetrate, you also cause the target to become Afflicted with a damage over time effect that deals 10 physical damage every second for 3 seconds.	Instant Instant TAoE: Applied to 5 enemies in a 5 metre radius. Consumes all Blade Resources. A TAoE attack that deals 60 physical damage.	Instant Instant Builds 1 resource for each equipped weapon. A single target attack that deals 46 physical damage. Also gives you 1 stack of the Defense rating effect, which increases your Defense Rating by 30 per stack for 8 seconds. This effect can stack up to 5 times.	Whenever you are glaced, there is a 10% chance that your attacker becomes Impaired and unable to act for 5 seconds.	Instant 10sec Consumes all Blade Resources. Places an area at your feet that lasts for 10 seconds. Every second it will hit up to 5 enemies in a 5 metre radius, dealing 4 physical damage. This ability generates additional hate.
Expose Weakness	Martial Discipline	Seven and a Half Samurai	Trial by Swords	Fortunate Strike	Exposed	Point of Harmony	Perseverance
Passive Ability	Active Melee Ability	Passive Ability	Active Melee Ability	Passive Ability	Passive Ability	Active Melee Ability	Passive Ability
2 ap	2 ap	21 ap	21 ap	21 ap	21 ap	21 ap	21 ap
Whenever you apply Impaired, you gain the Minor Penetration Chance effect, which increases you Penetration Chance by 10% for 8 seconds.	Instant 45sec You gain the Major Defence effect, which increases the chance that attacks against you will glance by 50% for 6 seconds.	Focus abilities are 7.5% more effective.	Instant 45sec A single target attack that deals 91 physical damage and causes the target to become Impaired and unable to act for 3 seconds.	Whenever you hit an Afflicted target, there is a 10% chance you will perform an additional hit that deals 21 physical damage.	Whenever you are glanced, you hit the attacker, dealing 49 physical damage.	3sec 80sec Channelled: Every 0.5 seconds for 3 seconds. A channelled heal that heals you for 5% of you maximum health each hit.	Whenever you activate a Frenzy ability, you are healed for 8 health.
Dancing Blade	Regeneration	Destiny	Double Dash	Clearing the Path	Binding Wounds	On Guard	Steel Palace
Active Melee Ability	Passive Ability	Active Melee Ability	Passive Ability	Active Melee Ability	Active Melee Ability	Passive Ability	Active Melee Ability
3 ap	3 ap	27 ap	27 ap	27 ap	27 ap	27 ap	27 ap
2.5sec Instant Channelled: Every 0.5 seconds for 2.5 seconds. Consumes all Blade Resources. A channelled Focus attack that deals 39 physical damage.	"Major Discipline" also gives you a heal over time effect, which heals for 57 every second while it is active.	Instant Instant Consumes all Blade Resources. A single target attack that deals 55 physical damage. If the target is Afflicted, it also applies a damage over time effect that deals 13 physical damage every second for 4 seconds.	Reduces the recharge time of all Dash abilites by 25%.	Instant Instant PBAoE: Applied to up to 5 enemies within a 5 meter radius around you. Consumes all Blade Resources. A PBAoE attack that deals 57 physical damage. This attack penetrates any Afflicted targets it hits.	Instant Instant Consumes all Blade Resources. A single target attack that deals 81 physical damage. If the target is Impaired, it becomes Afflicted with a damage over time effect that deals 7 physical damage every second for 10 seconds. This ability generates additional hate.	Whenever you apply Impaired, you also gain 1 stack of the Defence Rating effect, which increases Defense Rating by 30 per stack for 8 seconds. This effect can stack up to 10 times.	Instant PBAoE: Affects 5 enemies in a 5 metre radius around you. Consumes all Blade Resources. A PBAoE attack that deals 59 physical damage. If any affected targets are Afflicted, you gain the Minor Ward effect, which reduces all damage received by 7.5% for 8 seconds.
Sharp Blade	Surging Blades	Destiny Fulfilled	Steel Echo	Voracity	Finish the Movement	Sling Blade	Shadow Play
Passive Ability	Active Melee Ability	Passive Ability	Active Melee Ability	Passive Ability	Passive Ability	Active Melee Ability	Passive Ability
4 ap	4 ap	34 ap	34 ap	34 ap	34 ap	34 ap	34 ap
Increases damage dealt by Blade abilites by 10%.	Instant 15sec Column Dash: Dash forward 10 metres, affecting up to 5 enemies in a 6 metre wide column along the way. A column dash attack that deals 58 physical damage.	Whenever you hit a target that has the Damage over Time effect from "Destiny", the effect is removed, dealing 55 physical damage.	Instant 60sec You gain a beneficial effect that causes all you Blade attacks for 10 seconds to perform an additional hit dealing 31 physical damage. This additional hit is treated as a full hit.	Increased Penetration Chance of Frenzy abilites by 7.5%.	Whenever you finish channelling a Focus ability, you gain 1 resource for your primary weapon.	Instant 15sec Throws a blade at the target dealing 93 physical damage and causes the target to become Afflicted with a damage over time effect that deals 6 physical damage every second for 5 seconds.	"Crimson Theatre" also grants you the Minor Defence effect, which increases the chance that attacks against you will glance by 10% for 8 seconds.
Stunning Swirl	Fluid Defense	Four Seasons	Flight of Daggers	Master's House	Silver Streak	Sixth Sense	The Art of War
Active Melee Ability (Elite)	Passive Ability (Elite)	Active Melee Ability (Elite)	Passive Ability (Elite)	Active Melee Ability (Elite)	Active Melee Ability (Elite)	Passive Ability (Elite)	Active Melee Ability (Elite)
7 ap	7 ap	50 ap	50 ap	50 ap	50 ap	50 ap	50 ap
Instant 30sec PBAoE; Affects up to 5 enemies in a 5 metre area around you. A PBAoE attack that deals 92 physical damage. Affected targets also become Impaired and unable to act for 3 seconds.	Whenever you receive a glancing hit, you gain the Major Ward effect, which reduces the damage you take by 7.5% for 6 seconds. Whenever you penetrate, you gain a beneficial effect that increases all damage dealt by 5% for 10 seconds.	2.5sec 30sec Channelled every 0.5 seconds for 2.5 seconds. A channelled attack that deals 31 physical damage each hit. The damage dealt increases by 5% for each hit, and all hits will penetrate. The last hit will cause the target to become Impaired and unable to act for 3 seconds. This ability has a 15 metre range.	Whenever you attack, you build a Flight of Daggers counter. When the counter reaches 5, you will hit up to 3 enemies in a 5 metre radius around you, dealing 46 physical damage. Affected targets also become Afflicted State with a damage over time effect that deals 10 physical damage every second for 5 seconds.	Instant 45sec Creates a 15 metre radius area at your feet, which lasts 10 seconds. While you are inside this area, your movement speed is increased by 25%, damage is increased by 20%, and you are immune to root and snare effects.	Instant 45sec Gives you a beneficial effect that lasts 8 seconds. You receive a 100% resistance to Hindered and Impaired. Silver Streak increases movement speed by 10%. Whenever you hit, you heal for 1.5% of your maximum health. Whenever you hit, you gain a Minor Defence effect, which increases the chance that attacks against you will glance by 10% for 8 seconds.	Whenever you are glanced, you build a Sixth Sense Counter. When there are 6 counters, your next attack will perform an additional hit that deals 248 and heals you for 10% of your maximum health.	Instant 30sec PBAoE: Affects up to 5 enemies in a 5 metre radius around you. A PBAoE attack that deals 92 physical damage and causes each target hit to be forced to attack you for 5 seconds. targets hit also become Impaired and unable to act for 1 second. For each affected target, the next 2 attacks against you will glance