My Crusader's First War of Emperium

War of the Emprium is what I consider the best feature of Ragnarok Online. It gave me a reason to endure the long grind of leveling up and to push my character further. In the end, I will be able to take my character into the war and be happy with the results of my hardships.

When the 2-2 jobs were released, I immediately abandoned my Knight and went straight to create my WoE build Crusader. Just to give a brief background during my pRO Valkyrie days, My first level 99 character was a Grand Cross - Devo Crusader. My first level 150 character is a Shield Type Royal Guard. As you might notice I'm attached to the gameplay of a Crusader. In ROPH I'm still going for this route because I already have the knowledge, experience, and reflexes of the job class. As for the classic revo setting, I build my Crusader to be a Holy Cross - Devotion build. I can say this is my comfort job class.

What I liked the most about this job class is the skill Devotion which shields your party-mates and takes their damage instead. Outside of WoE it can also act as a phen-effect to long casting skills. Taking damage is not a problem on a Swordsman base job class since the HP Pool is high. VIT type Crusaders with maximum HP Recovery skill can easily recover health even from chunks of damage through potions.

The Devotion skill synergizes well with the shield buffs like Auto-guard, Shield Reflect and Defending Aura. These skills are passed to the party member under the Devotion skill meaning if they receive damage they have a chance to trigger Auto-guard and at the same time they can also reflect damage. The best part is that you can share this to 5 of your party mates if you have a max out Devotion.

On my first WoE, My friends and I decided to try out Reckon Guild. Based on our observation, the guild is a medium size but competitive guild. I've was part of this guild too when I was still in pRO Valkyrie so somehow I knew the GM in-game. Plus they provide a salary which really help us casual gamers to buy additional supplies aside from what we already have.

The first hour of the war is mostly going around maps and try breaking emperiums then goes to the next castle. The second hour on the other hand is more on claiming an agit and then defend it. My build and preferred playstyle suits the defense oriented gameplay like what Reckon is doing.

I have a party consisting of my friends which are my guildmates from the former pRO. I lay down my sort of rules when they are under my Devotion. Basically, I told them to as much as possible to try not to tank damage since I'm their second life. When they take damage I will flinch and will interrupt my recast of Devotion. If I can't recast the Devotion basically the skill will expire and they will not receive my protection. I also told them the priority of who will receive my Devotion first. During defense, as much as possible I tried to create a distance to cover everyone under Devotion but if they are moving away I will be prioritizing someone and let go of the other.

On the last 10minutes, we were able to hold the castle since there were few visitors. However as time is approching the last minutes, several big guild breakers began attacking our castle. We tried to hold our grounds but they were able to penetrate our defenses. Soon enough they were able to reach our Emperium and began chipping away damage. Unfortunately they dealt enough damage claim the castle.

The guild don't have a choice but to try and claim another castle on a different map. Since this is the last minute, the guild has a little time for another emperium break but we still try our luck on another medium size guild. We were able to reach the emperium room and touch the emperium. However we lack the time to break the emperium and the war ended. Better luck next time.