Combat Tactics

[FoxBat]

Is friendly fire implemented in the game?

No, but AoE isn't as big a deal when you're taking on so few monsters, often...

Is terrain important in shaping the tactics used in a given battle (or misison)?

Only if you're a high-artillery mage teleporting to some odd locations. Generally not as monsters can teleport to you if they get stuck, plus there's not even any collision detection in the game. Line of sight matters in indoor locations, and you want to be positioned so you attract as few monsters at a time as possible, but that's about it.

How varied are tactics based on the different types of monsters at any given character level? ...  Does this change whether it is a group or solo?

Group makes a huge difference; soloing where possible involves repetitive tactics. Coordinating a group opens up many more combo possibilites as well as chaos.

Generally you'll find a certain X tactic works very well for a given area, only varying when you move areas to new "types" of monsters. The other type of varying is when you wake up too many monsters at a time and you have to survive somehow.

I'll admit that much of what I'm reading so far is indicating that the tactics are even less diverse than D2

D2 had tactics? :rolleyes: WoW isn't that bad, but it certainly is not any strategy game.

Can a new player do half as well as a veteran

Maybe. There is some orientation involved, and monsters are quite good at kicking your arse. But ultimately at best, I think the game still has more to do with skill (learning to respond quickly and chain together several commands appropriate to a given area) than thought-out strategy.

Is much of the difference going to be in character development/optimization?

For a given class, last I saw, no. Phase 1 was analagous to your D2 barbarian automatically unlocking every skill in the barb's combat and warcry skill trees as they gained levels, with only the passives/masteries tree to choose from. But they've since retooled the talents system, so who knows.