Siegecraft 101
Cadaellan MacLaughlin - Siege Master of Albion, Lancelot

Are you bored when we are taking or defending a keep because your class just doesn't seem to have a whole lot of utility in certain situations? Do you desire to inflict serious pain and suffering on mass quantities of enemy players while remaining hidden from sight? Would you prefer to play an instrumental role while taking and defending keeps rather than just stand around whilst the casters do all the work? Would you actually like to take a keep in a timely manner rather than get PBAOE-bombed while you’re up whackin’ on the door with your sword? Well have I got a deal for you!

Siegecraft is one of the most important skills in keep taking and defense. It is a skill that many Albs tend to take lightly, and as a result, many keep takes or defenses end up in failure due to lack of preparation and equipment. Ever run up to a keep with a zerg and hear the leader ask "Okay, who has rams?" I have, and let me tell you, it’s never a good sign when you start pounding on the doors of a level 10 keep only to find out you have no rams. Ever run to a keep and SoS in do “defend” only to realize you have no means of beating the enemy back off of the door? Yep, me, too.

The Ice Dragons have historically seemed to be king of the hill, along with very few other guilds, when it comes to supplying siege equipment for major raids, but I won't cry about that. I'm proud to be in one of the few well-rounded and well-equipped quilds out there. I've also been impressed with the Forgotten Heroes as of late. You will almost always see them with at least one trebuchet, but usually many more. As some of you may know, trebuchets are my pride and joy, and I carry one with me religiously. ID spawns rams like rabbits, but it saddens me to see so few trebuchets out there in our guild, so maybe I can motivate some of you fellow warriors into learning and understanding just how important they are. It often brings a tear to my eye when I see ten or more lined up in a keep for defense. (Not really, but you get my point.)

Below, I will discuss the building and operating of rams, trebuchets, and palintones, define their appropriate uses to the best of my ability, and hopefully give those of you who are new to the world of Siegecraft a good idea of how things work. Please note that there are other types of siege weapons available, but they are lower level. What I will be outlining below are the top-end siege weapons that you will be using in high-level PvP.

Basic Siege Equipment and Their Uses:

Siege Ram: This is the highest level ram available and is a direct-target siege weapon. It is used for breaking down keep doors in a speedy, efficient manner. A siege ram requires (1) Ram Beak, (1) Ram Cladding, (2) Swing Harnesses, and 300 Ironwood boards. Beaks, Claddings, and Harnesses may be crafted by the appropriate crafters, or they may be purchased. While crafting the individual parts is cheaper, you can’t beat the speed of simply buying the parts off of the siege merchant in the guild house or a merchant keep. Since a few patches ago, only a maximum of three rams may be used on a single target, so it is important that ram assignments are coordinated beforehand to avoid wasting a much-needed ram. You will no longer see more than three rams set up on a single door like the old days.

Trebuchet: This is the primary ranged siege weapon - sometimes referred to as a catapult - and is a ground-target siege weapon. It flings stones, balls of ice, bullets, and grapeshot at great distances to inflict area-of-effect damage to the enemy forces. Parts required for construction include (1) Ammo Bucket, (1) Padded Arm Cushion, (1) Winding Crank, (1) Pivot, (1) Counterweight, and 600 Ironwood boards. Like the siege ram, parts may be crafted or store-bought. One trebuchet alone isn’t the end-all-be-all damage dealer, but two or more assisting on a ground target with coordinated fire can quickly inflict serious pain and can help make the difference between /cheering a /victory or /releasing at the end of the fight. Trebuchets may be used in both offense and defense. They are just as useful when taking a defended keep as they are in defending a keep.

Palintone: This is a ranged direct-target siege weapon that does direct as well as slight AoE splash damage and is one that, unfortunately, you rarely see out in the field. Its primary purpose is to quickly take out enemy siege equipment, but it may also be used on doors or even enemy players themselves. My trebuchets have been on the receiving end of palintones, and I know first-hand that they are quite effective in quickly destroying enemy siege weapons. Palintones resemble giant crossbows and shoot large bolts. Required parts include (1) Gimbal, (1) Trigger, (2) Torsion Cables, (1) Spring Arm, and 400 Ironwood boards.

Building and Operating:

To build and operate siege equipment, you must have skill in any crafting order such as Weaponcrafting, Armorcrafting, Tailoring, Fletching, Alchemy, and Spellcrafting. In the past, Alchemists and Spellcrafters were not able to construct siege weapons, but this has been changed in a recent patch. You do not need a particular skill level above 1 in any of these crafts. You can build, operate, and repair with 1 point in any craft. It might take you more than one attempt to set up a siege weapon, but you will never lose any materials if you fail. Repairing your equipment, on the other hand, is a pain in the butt without a decent level in Woodworking (I only have 200 in woodworking, and it usually takes several attempts to repair). To build siege equipment, you must have the proper tools in your pack: Smith's Hammer, Sewing Kit, and Planing Tool. You don't need to do anything special with these tools other than have them in your pack. You will also want to find an empty quickbar to use as your siege quickbar so that you can have all of the required macros handy in one location.

Siege Ram:

Ah, the old days...To build a Siege Ram, you must have all of the required materials – including wood and tools – in your backpack. You will need to open up your tradeskill window and move the “Siegecraft” icon onto an unused quick bar. You will then need to click/press the Siegecraft icon and select and expand the “Siege Ram” bullet in the window that pops up. You should then select the “Ironwood” icon and place this icon onto your quickbar. Pressing this icon will construct the ram. When the ram is constructed, a siege weapon control window will pop up with “Arm,” “Load,” “Aim,” and “Fire” buttons. The “Load” button is not used with the siege ram. While you have a nice little control panel in front of you, I am going to recommend that you set up control macros for your siege quick bar in the following manner:

- /macro AIM /aim
- /macro ARM /arm
- /macro FIRE /fire

Before setting up a siege ram on a keep door, you must first ensure that you are neither too far from the door nor too close. A good method to use to determine if you're positioned properly is to run up to the door with your weapon out in attack mode – when you can hit the door with your weapon, it’s time to build your ram. The following steps should then be followed:

- Target the door
- Press your Siege Ram icon on your quick bar to build,
- Press your AIM macro. When you get the message that the ram is aimed,
- Press your ARM macro. When you get the message that the ram is armed,
- Press your FIRE macro and immediately press the ARM macro again.
- From then on, you will continue a cycle of FIRE => ARM => FIRE => ARM => FIRE => etc.
- Ensure that you pay attention to the messages in the system window to keep the ram running as efficiently as possible.
- After building, step back a few paces or off to the side to avoid or minimize any AoE damage to yourself. Your Healers will thank you.

Trebuchet:

Cad and Mag pounding back the Mids from the Lord Room Building a trebuchet is similar to building a siege ram. You must have all of the required materials in your backpack before doing so. The ironwood trebuchet icon can be found in the crafting window, and you will place this on your quickbar just as you did for the siege ram. Operation of a treb is slightly different than the siege ram, however. I have found that, unlike the /aim, /arm, and /fire commands, the /load command cannot be macroed to the quickbar, so as long as you have to use the control window that pops up when a siege weapon is built, you might as well do everything right there in that single window.

One very important requirement for a trebuchet is ammo. There are four types to choose from, and each has a different effect and effectiveness:

- Catapult Stone – Medium AoE, moderate Heat Damage
- Ball of Ice – Medium AoE, moderate Cold Damage
- Bullet – Small AoE, high damage
- Grapeshot – Large AoE, low damage

In my experience, the best ammo to use are stones or balls of ice. Bullets, while great damage dealers, require such a precise ground target, I haven’t had much luck using them at all. Grapeshot, on the other hand, will hit just about anything within the general vicinity of your ground target, but it just doesn’t put out the damage to justify its use, in my opinion. All treb ammo can be crafted or purchased from Sal the neck merchant in CS. Only catapult stones can be purchased at merchant keeps.

When you purchase treb ammo, it automatically stacks in your backpack. Unfortunately, you must first unstack all of this ammo before you can load it into the trebuchet. It is best to have the ammo unstacked before the fight, but this can’t always be accomplished, so be sure to at least have a few backpack slots open for unstacking after you purchase your ammo.

A ground target may be acquired at any time during the treb building/operating process. You can either use a /groundassist command to assist on a ground target that another player has already set, or you may set your own. To set your own ground target, you must have a key mapped as your ground target key. The default key already set at installation of the game is F5. Press your ground target key until the yellow box with the black X appears under your feet. Use your up and down arrow keys to control the movement of this box while keeping the ground target key pressed. You can use your look-up and look-down keys to adjust elevation of the ground target (for example: if you want to set a ground target in the Lord Room of an enemy keep). Once your ground target key is released, your ground target is set and will not move until you press the key again.

No, Lut, you can't use a ram on the Lord... To set up a treb, you should first hit the trebuchet crafting button on your quickbar. This will produce the treb, assuming you have all of your materials and tools, and will bring up the siege weapon control window.

One of the first things you should do after building a treb is to arm it by clicking the ARM button on the control window. It takes 15 seconds for the treb to arm, but only a fraction of the time to aim and load, so get this step out of the way first thing.

While the treb is arming, take this time to take a few rounds of ammo out of your pack and drag & drop them one at a time onto the treb. This is the first step of actually loading the ammo. You must first have the ammo in the treb inventory (as indicated in the control window) before the ammo can actually be loaded. The treb inventory can hold up to 20 rounds of ammo.

Once the treb is armed, you will then need to aim the treb to your ground target by clicking the AIM button on the control window. You only need to aim once as long as the ground target is good. When you select a new ground target, you will need to aim again to the new target.

Once the treb is aimed (as confirmed by the message you’ll receive in the system window), click the LOAD button to load a single stone/ice ball/bullet/grapeshot from the inventory into the treb. When this is completed, the treb is “loaded and ready to fire”.

To fire the treb, click the FIRE button on the control window. Immediately after firing, click the ARM button again to restart the cylcle. You will then continue with a cycle of LOAD => FIRE => ARM => LOAD => FIRE => etc. Remember, it takes 15 seconds for the treb to arm, so use that time for unstacking ammo and dropping single rounds onto to treb to keep its inventory stocked.

This screenshot gives you an idea of what the siege weapon control panel will look like with ammo in the inventory (as well as my siege weapon quickbar with ram macros).

Palintone:

I won’t pretend to be an expert on the palintone, but I know that they are very effective in destroying enemy siege weapons and doors. Their operation is basically the same as that of the trebuchet except that the palintone requires a direct target. Building a palintone, just like the ram and treb, requires the palintone icon from the crafting window to be placed on your quickbar, and you need to have all the materials and tools in your pack. Palintones, like trebs, require ammo to fire and use bolts (not to be confused with crossbow bolts - can’t remember the exact name) that can be crafted or bought off of Sal the neck merchant in CS or from the siege merchants at merchant keeps.

Your Siegecraft Quickbar:

Once you have initially set up a siegecraft quickbar, you can switch to it whenever you need to build and operate. I like to keep a couple weapon styles on this bar as well to help fend off incoming pet aggro or pesky stealthers. My standard siege quickbar is set up as follows:

- (1) Mainhand weapon (in case I forgot to switch over from my Polearm)
- (2) Anytime style
- (3) Backup or reactionary style
- (4) Shield Slam
- (5) Siegecraft Icon
- (6) Ironwood Trebuchet Icon
- (7) Ironwood Siege Ram Icon
- (8) /macro AIM /aim
- (9) /macro ARM /arm
- (10) /macro FIRE /fire

Placement of Siege Weapons:

Rams: As stated under the ram section, placement has to be just right for the ram to function. If you set up too close to the door or too far from it, the ram won’t function. The general rule of thumb is that if you can melee the keep door, you’re safe to set up a ram.

Trebuchets: Trebs must stay back a certain distance from the ground target. You can place a treb in the Lord Room of a keep, and the closest area you’ll be able to hit is roughly around where Door 2 is on the old-style keeps (Eras, Nott, Crim), or roughly the opposite side of the keep from where you’re set up. I have not yet tried out a treb on the roof of the Alb keeps to see if they’ll hit the new Door 2 locations, but this seems to be a popular spot for Mids and Hibs to set up when they’re defending an Alb keep.

The trebuchet also has limited range. If your ground target is too far away to hit, you will get a message saying so when trying to aim to that target. If you’re attacking a defended keep, don’t set up way down the hill. You’ll want to be able to assist on the Lord Room after the doors are down (or even before). Try to stay within 30 or 40 feet from the keep. You’ll get pet aggro, and archers will generally be plinking you with arrows, but this is not really a problem if you’ve got a decent shield spec. Other players will generally take out the pet aggro for you, and archers almost always give up on trying to shoot me when they realize I’m blocking all of their shots.

Trebuchets are most effective when two or more are assisting each other with coordinated fire. I was on a keep defense the other night where Wompax of the Forgotten Heroes guild started a separate battlegroup for the sole purpose of coordinating ground targets and treb fire. He set up macros instructing operators when to arm and load and when to fire, and this worked out great. While we could’ve had better ground targets, we still managed to hold off the enemy for a quite a while with 8 or 10 trebs. Organization and communication between treb operators and ground target setters is a key part of good rock-chuckin’.

Palintones: Palintones require a direct target to function, but the /assist command with a buddy may be used if you don't have direct line of sight on the target. On the rare occasion I see a palintone in use, it’s usually up on a rampart or rooftop (if you’re defending a keep), on top of a mile gate (for those annoying AMG standoffs), or out in front of the keep plinking at the door (when taking a keep). I've also occasionally seen them in the courtyards of keeps.

How do I carry all this stuff?

Siege weapon materials are heavy, but not as heavy as they used to be. As a Highlander with the Lifter 2 realm ability (total of 285 encumberance), I can carry a full ram with wood or a full trebuchet with wood and 100 rounds of ammo with room to spare (tools, end pots, miscellaneous stuff) without relying on buffs of any kind while maintaining 265-275 out of my 285 encumberence points. With the right buffs, I can carry nearly two full rams. Without Lifter 2, you can get by with strength buffs – and a lot of people do – but I’ve seen way too many people (myself included way back when) essentially rooted in place in the middle of an enemy frontier because their Cleric died or went linkdead. If you are a tank and you ever intend to be a primary siege weapon builder/operator, I would highly recommend the Lifter 2 ability (however, if you don’t already have it, I’d hold out until we find out what happens after the Frontiers expansion is released).

Wulfstan, GM of Forgotten Heroes, submits that "It could also be noted that no cleric in the realm should ever be without a siege weapon. They can buff themselves to silly levels of strength and carry one without fear of ever being rooted."

It may, at times, be required for more than one person to carry material for siege equipment. If this is the case, be sure to coordinate with those people so that the builder can get everything he needs as soon as it’s needed.

I hate Trials of Atlantis:

It's a huge time sink that I don't care to mess with, but I still got my ML1 Warlord ability which is that of Siege Master. This is an awesome ability that reduces the operation timers on all siege weapons by 30%, and I highly recommend it. I actually got this on my 46 Minstrel first, and when I botted him to a keep one day and used him to operate a treb, I was definitely persuaded to run out and finish up ML1 with Cad. With all the heal wards and power wards and this ward and that ward that’re out there, speeding up the rate of fire helps overcome a lot of that stuff that could potentially negate any damange you’d do without the Siege Master ability.

Other important points of interest:

Siege weapons tend to attract a lot of attention. Fortunately, any damage sent your way is fairly easy to avoid or at least minimize. You can stand back quite a ways from your equipment and still operate it, and doing so is highly advisable, especially with rams, as constant GTAoE and PBAoE is a popular defense against those knocking down doors. However, if you step too far away from equipment you are using, you will lose control over it. To regain control of the equipment (assuming someone else hasn't taken over), or to take control of equipment someone has released, target the equipment and type /control or set up a macro for your quickbar (/macro control /control). To give up control to let someone else take over, the command is /control release (/macro release /control release). You can take control of enemy siege weapons, but only once. Once an enemy siege weapon has been controlled by your realm and released again, your realm may no longer take control of that weapon.

Also worthy of mention is the degradation of the equipment. A couple of patches ago, some sort of adjustment was made so that everything degrades faster. This is no different with siege equipment. You have to make sure you keep an eye on the health of your equipment. If it needs repairs, /repair is the command to use. If you can't repair it, or if you're having a hard time, yell for someone with higher skill to come do it. There was a period of time when a treb could only be salvaged three or four times within something like an hour or hour and a half. That has apparently changed along with the degradation changes - The last I heard, you can now repair an unlimited number of times within an hour and a half (but don't quote me on that... I believe I heard it in alliance chat).

When you're done with the equipment, you can do one of two things to get wood back out of it - /salvage it to get as much wood as you can out of it, or let it rot. When it naturally degrades, it leaves a couple bags of wood on the ground that anyone can pick up. Salvaging a treb takes forever. You'd probably be better off letting it rot. Salvaging a ram is quicker and can yield a decent amount of wood to be used for repairing doors or constructing more equipment later. You can't salvage enemy siege equipment, but you can melee it to death, and this yields some wood, too.

Comments and Discussion:

Cad checking out his handywork after a fight Comments from Roneyr:
"If there is mad PBAOE from the other side of the door, all people melee'ing the door need to move back and let the ram ops ONLY hit the door. Saves deaths and lots of your healers' mana. Ram ops can move back quite far from the door and still be able to op the ram. I've been able to op a ram with almost nonstop PBAOE from the other side and rarely needed a heal."

- Good point, Roneyr. A siege ram can do up to 750 damage per swing on a low-level door. Put two of those up, and melee doesn't even begin to come close do that damage output (unless you have the Battlemaster ability whose name escapes me). It should also be noted that when I know I'll be defending a keep ahead of time, the first thing I do is set an initial ground target smack-dab in the middle of the front porch. I'm sure there are Hibs and Mids who do the same. That's a lot of mana-sucking damage being done to a lot of people who aren't really doing that much damage to the door they're smacking, relatively speaking.

Comments from Magnys:
"Just used my last Realm respec and Mag has lifter 2 again... With an adjusted strength of 200 (base+armor+jewelry) each point of lifter gave him 40 extra encumbrance points... So he's at 280. This also scales with buffs... Each point of lifter gives 20% of your adjusted strength. Also consider that when Frontiers comes out, siege crap changes again... Keep defense siege weapons may have to be built on fixed hook-points, which will expose and limit the number of weapons... Probably means no more lord-rooms full of catapults."

A discussion with Saerin:
Saerin brought up the subject of ground targets with me. Specifically, he mentioned the need for good ground targets. Like I mentioned earlier about my recent experience in Wompax's battlegroup, we could've had better ground targets. The Infiltrators, Minstrels, Necros, and whoever else is setting ground targets for treb operators should understand that we don't want a target with just a couple of guys sitting off to the side somewhere. We prefer large bunches of people. If there aren't large bunches of people, we want casters and healers - soft targets, in other words. Also, we don't (or I don't, at least) care about getting a ground target on an enemy treb. I get hit all the time with treb fire, and I always remedy that by just standing off to the side to minimize the effect. We're just wasting ammo and a perfectly good treb if we keep hitting one guy and a treb.

Comments from Wulfstan:
"One correction so far - in the Building and Operating Section, it states that a mundane skill is required to build siege machinery. That's not true anymore. Matillda, my cleric bot, is a spellcrafter and she is quite capable of building as well as operating a trebuchet.

Roneyr has noted, but it can't be emphasized enough that after the ram is created, the operator no longer has to stay right up against the door. In fact, you can comfortably stand several paces behind your machine and retain control - coincidentally getting yourself out of the bloodiest effects of defensive pbaoe.

It could also be noted that no cleric in the realm should ever be without a siege weapon. They can buff themselves to silly levels of strength and carry one without fear of ever being rooted.

Anyone without a ranged attack (and some like crossbowman who do) are cheating themselves out of RP's if they don't bring a treb to a keep fight. How many armsman/paladins/merc's have you seen standing around a keep waiting for the doors to drop so they can get at the enemy?

Palintones do require a direct target, but they don't require line of sight. If someone else can get target a piece of enemy siege machinery, the /assist command works wonders.

Using a battlegroup to coordinate fire is almost a necessity now that power and healing fields are in the game. If you don't have the critical mass of fire to kill the targets in the area of impact, they'll be healed quickly. Firing trebs individually allows the enemy time to heal - firing them enmasse kills before healing can take place."

- Thanks for this valuable input, Wulf! Good points all around, and your corrections have been duly noted.

Other helpful links (Thanks Mag):

- Siege Weapon FAQ - Up-to-date as of 1.60
- Siege Weapon Worksheet - Updated recipes, costs, and weights
- Thom's Wooden Info - Door and Ram info