Team Composition - Legend & Cata
This guide is aimed at giving people moving up to Legend/Cata a better idea of how to choose better and more synergistic builds for your team. Missing roles or too many of one role can lead to being overwhelmed by a certain type of enemy and cause losses. Choosing the best comp isn’t a replacement for improving positioning, game knowledge, or ability to survive, but it definitely helps.
Almost every Character and Career can have multiple roles, but it’s important to focus on their strengths. This helps with the flow of fighting, so that not everyone goes to do the same job at the same time, leaving gaps in your defence.
The terminology used is just to help in the guide’s explanation. These are very basic and broad ideas of roles, which should help you create synergistic comps. I understand that everyone has their own names for different roles.
Roles
Which of these you are depends on your Career, Talents and Items. Weapon choices matter greatly, and their strengths will define which role you can take. Knowing which build to choose for your team is learned by experience.
Tank:
A high health, high Damage Reduction or high CC Career who can hold enemies in place, usually with a Shield or high CC Weapon. Their job is to create space for your team to do their jobs. They usually have some way of controlling mixed Hordes or high Elite density.
Tanks can control the fight, and should position to create a safe area behind themselves that teammates can stand in. Knowing where enemies come from (drop spots), and where to bunker down if needed are things that Tanks should know or learn.
Types of ‘Tanking’:
- Shield Weapons Push > Slam, or just Slam combos, which hold enemies in place
- Heavy CC Weapons
- Ranged Tanking, e.g, Sister of The Thorn’s ‘Repel’ Talent, or CC from Sienna’s Staffs
- Career Skills with a lot of Stagger or damage protection, e.g. Foot Knight and Warrior Priest respectively
Frontliner:
A build that excels in melee, who can hold the line against high density or even Elite density. This includes Tanks, but also builds with high AoE Stagger, or high AoE damage in melee.
Types of ‘Frontliner’:
- 2H Mace, Flails, Dual Maces, 1H Mace
- Shield Weapons
Backliner:
A build that prefers to be behind someone who can CC, who need a bit of protection to enable them to deal damage. These are usually Melee Weapons with either low Cleave and Stagger or just low Stagger.
E.g. Witch Hunter Captain doesn’t have a lot of AoE Stagger, and especially can’t Stagger Elite density (without his Career Skill), so standing behind an Ironbreaker, using a Shield, gives him space to deal damage without being forced to play defensively.
Types of ‘Backliner’:
- Melee Weapons with low Stagger or Cleave: 1H Axe, Crowbill, 1H Swords
- Also includes Ranged Careers who can have low Stagger due to lack of melee focused Talents
Support:
A Career that offers buffs to teammates, or can benefit them in other ways, such as pulling far away enemies with range, so that they’re less of a risk of sneaking up on people when you move into that area. Their job is to offer offensive or defensive benefits, depending on their build.
Types of ‘Support’:
- Stat buffs, e.g. Grail Knight’s Quests
- Item drop Talents, e.g. Grail Knight and Ranger Veteran
- Enemy debuffs, e.g. Witch Hunter’s Tag (20% damage increase)
- Ranged pulls: shooting far off roaming enemies to aggro them and bring them into melee range, e.g. any unlimited ammo Ranged Weapons, Rapier and Pistol’s Special-Attack
- CC, e.g. Sienna’s Conflagration Staff Staggering Hordes, or Battle Wizard’s Stagger on her Career Skill for saving people
Elite Clear:
Someone who has a specific Weapon, Career Skill, Passive or Talent, which allows them to focus on and kill Elites. Usually with a focus on Chaos Warriors, as they require the most specific builds to kill effectively. Some can be good at fighting the entire Horde, while others may have to snipe Elites out of the Horde with Melee or Ranged Attacks.
Examples of ‘Elite Clear’:
- Melee Weapons with high single-target armour piercing damage, e.g. Dual Daggers, Mining Pick, Exe Sword, Crowbill and Billhook
- Ranged Weapons with high single-target armour piercing damage, e.g. Javelin, Trollhammer Torpedo, Handgun, Bolt Staff, Crossbow
- Career Skills, Passives and Talents with high single-target armour piercing damage, e.g. Grail Knight’s Career Skill, WHC headshot Crits killing man-sized enemies, and Armour Piercing Slugs on Outcast Engineer
Horde Clear (Ranged/Melee):
A Career or Weapon which has a lot of Cleave or can deal huge amounts of AoE damage. Horde Clearing weapons are usually very good at dealing with unarmoured enemies, while struggling against armour.
Types of ‘Horde Clear’:
- Flamethrower type Weapons
- Careers with high Attack Speed
- Careers with high Cleave
- Careers Skills, e.g. Bladedancer on Handmaiden, Ranger’s Parting Gift on RV, Virtue of Confidence on Grail Knight, Indiscriminate Blast on BH, and Kaboom! on Battle Wizard
Boss Killer:
A Career/Weapon/Talent, which allows you to focus and deal heavy damage to Bosses. Depending on the gamemode, heavily building into Boss killing isn’t always necessary, but it’s nice to have at least one in the group to make Boss fights go a bit smoother.
Types of ‘Boss Killer’:
- Single-target Melee Weapons, e.g. Dual Daggers
- Ranged Weapons, e.g. Huntsman’s Longbow or Bardin’s Trollhammer Torpedo
- Career Skills, e.g. Shade, Grail Knight, Bounty Hunter, Outcast Engineer, Pyromancer
Special Killer:
Someone who focuses on and kills Specials, usually from range.
Types of ‘Special Killer’:
- Most Ranged Weapons in general
- Ranged snipers are more specialised Special killers, but aren’t always necessary, e.g. Longbow’s, Crossbows, Handguns and Bolt Staff
- Movement Speed, e.g. Slayer and Grail Knight can take heavy Movement Speed builds to help them deal with Specials
- Mobility Career Skills, e.g. Slayer, Zealot, Handmaiden and Battle Wizard
- Lock-on Career Skills, e.g. Pyromancer and Waystalker
- Battle Wizard’s Lingering Flames Talent can replace the need for a Special Killer in low Ranged comps
Here’s a good example of a composition with all roles filled (their main roles are bold):
Waystalker:
Longbow – Special killer, Elite killer, Monster killer
Ironbreaker:
Mace(s)/Drakefire Pistols - Frontline, Melee clear, Elite killer, Special killing
Witch Hunter Captain:
Rapier/BoP - Special killer, Elite killer, Melee clear, Monster killer, Support
Unchained:
Fireball/2H Mace – Frontline, Special killer, Horde clear, Monster killer, Elite killer, Support (Temp HP Talent)
The more people focus on their specific job or role within the group, the easier the game will become.
An example of this is Special Killing. If everyone backs off from killing or controlling the Horde to kill a Special, then it leaves gaps in the defences and people will take damage. However, if the person who’s best at Special Killing backs off alone and kills the Specials, while everyone else continues to CC and kill the Horde, noone will take damage. Instead of backing off, try preemptively calling out which Special you can see and where they are.
If you’re in a premade group, you’ll learn to trust your Special Killers.
Learning your teams strengths and weaknesses will help you determine who is better for which job, and playing with them will eventually teach you what they’re capable of. Bouncing your builds off each other to make a good composition is part of the fun in this game.
Calling your roles before a match is very helpful, and playing as certain Careers doesn’t always mean you’re filling a specific role. Please be vocal about what you intend your build to do.
This may seem obvious to people who play in a premade while on VOIP, but Quickplay doesn’t always give people time to discuss ideas or give suggestions. This makes the learning curve for solo players in QP longer than in premade groups.
With this in mind, when joining Quick Play, you should always take a build with a lot of versatility, too many of one role can cause a wipe.
Conclusion:
You’ll eventually learn that this game is completable by solo, duo and trio players, and that roles only really matter when you’re playing in groups, and that’s fine. Learning the roles should help you understand the entire point of certain Careers who have Passives and Talents dedicated to a specific function, and feel weak in other places.
Additional info:
What is Screening?
Screening is the term our group has come to describe blocking enemies in front of a ranged Career, or someone who doesn’t have the ability to hold Hordes alone for longer durations. Other ranged Careers can do this for each other depending on the situation. Weapons with higher Cleave, Stamina for pushing or CC in general should prioritize Screening when necessary. Using pushes on enemies at the sides is also a form of Screening.
E.g.
There’s a Horde in front, but also a Pack Rat on it’s way. Unchained and Waystalker are together. Either the Unchained should stop shooting fireballs and hold the Horde, so that the WS can kill the Pack Rat, or the WS should Screen for the Unchained instead.
This is different to Frontlining, as it’s usually done very quickly for short periods of time before both people revert back to their usual job or both switch to melee for more safety in dealing with the Horde.