I’m back. Now what?

Yes, after many months of inactivity, I return to this blog. However, I am not returning to my previous theme and subject matter.

I burned out. 

After months of hype and excitement, both with Warhammer Online and my blog, I began to hit a wall. It became harder and harder to come up with content, and I was logging in less and less. It became less fun and more work. In hindsight, of course it’s easy to realize that getting buried in WAR and everything related to it was going to burn me out sooner or later. And just like most people, I didn’t see it coming at the time. And eventually, I just stopped logging in and playing, and I stopped writing. There were other factors, of course. My fiance and I just moved to a new apartment, we had a minor car wreck, our wedding date is fast approaching, etc, etc.

So yeah, a bunch of stuff has been happening in a relatively short time, and it is only now that I feel caught up enough to try and start writing again. Since I’m no longer playing WAR, I will be re-orienting this blog towards my other interests, while still including video games. I’ve been getting back into plastic modeling, mainly Gundam models, as well as anime and manga. And of course some PC and console gaming. 

Luckily, my blog name is still relevant to the topics I plan to post about and the name will stay. If you are reading, you have my thanks. And I hope that what I write will still be somewhat interesting to you. I’ll see you next post.

My First Dungeon Runs.

Yep, that’s the truth. I had never done any instanced dungeons in WAR until last night. This is mainly because I was unable to settle on a character until the Slayer was released. Now, with Khazgar at 4/5 Annihilator, I felt ready to start doing Sigmar Crypts or Skaven Tunnels. Luckiy, I’m in a guild that is ready to run newbies through dungeons, and we have a good group of players that are now massively overgeared for the instances. This is probably why the runs went so smoothly. The group was composed of myself, another newbie Slayer, our Guild Master was the single tank, with an Engi and two Runepriests. Yes, an all-dwarf group. For some reason our guild is composed of over 75% dwarfs. Go figure.

Anyway, the run went smoothly, we hit Crypts first, with my GM laying out basic strats on vent along the way. We got all the way to Twin Lectors without a hitch, and after the strategy was explained, we went to it. It was surprisingly easy, even with one tank, but as I said, my guildies were overgeared for this run. We downed them without a hitch, and the Sentinel Leathers dropped! My roll karma was strong and I won the chestpiece! I was stoked, and they don’t loot half bad either. At least they aren’t bugged and actually show up on my character, unlike the Annihilator chest.

After this we headed out to the Blowhole Tavern and hit the Tunnels. This was a first for me as well, but it seemed to go by quick. The tank kited the Grey Seer Boss while we ran around like headless chickens beating on the boss. Grey Seer went down like cake and not only did the Sentinel War Shroud head piece drop, but I won that roll as well! I honestly felt kind of bad for the other Slayer in the group, but I’ll pass on both next time til he gets them should they drop.

Doing these runs gave me a better understanding of the Ward System and how one is supposed to start progression through the endgame. I now know exactly when I can start doing Bastion Stair on my next alt, and I’m gonna make a concerted effort to get at least one character through Lost Vale.

Speaking of Bastion Stair, why don’t more players run it? It seems like a pretty doable dungeon, especially considering you can start getting your lesser wards regardless of your Renown Rank. I mean, considering the relative difficulty of getting certain pieces of the Annihilator set, doing BS sounds like a more reliable method.

Cross-server Scenarios, Is Now The Time?

A guildie and I were having a conversation last night while we were on our T3 alts, lamenting the recent lack of scenario pops on our server. I play on Badlands, which is the sixth most active server according to Warheap. We chalked it up to the fact that the Slayer/Choppa wave has mostly progressed to T4, and so, the lower tiers are pretty slow as a result. 

We were brainstorming ways to fix this, and when the subject of cross-server scenarios was brought up, we were at first reluctant to really consider it, but then we realized that in T4 at least, the Zone Domination mechanic makes VP spillover from previous tiers almost insignificant. In my experience, when locking a zone, players are running around in the lakes, capping BO’s and Keeps, or trying to bottle up the opposing realm in their warcamp. When it usually takes less than 2 hours to lock a zone, the VP spillover doesn’t seem so important..

And so, if VP from previous tiers is no longer a significant factor, why not implement cross-server scenarios? This feature worked well for WoW, who at the time was having similar issues with some servers having constant Battleground pops, while others could take hours to get a single game in.

I would support this if they were to implement it. As a player with multiple alts, scenarios can be one of the most efficient ways to get xp and renown when leveling an alt. They are also a welcome break from PvE, especially if the open RvR in your area is slow. However, since most servers can now be considered mature, with a large percentage of their population now in T4, leveling an alt can be an arduous process. This is bad for the game as it makes it difficult for new players to progress quickly through the tiers. When your game is about WAR is everywhere, not being able to get a scenario pop is pretty discouraging, especially if you are a new player.

However, Cross-server scs should only be implemented for Tiers One to Three. Tier Four activity is sufficient to not require this feature on most servers’ T4. So on each server, server pride will still be preserved. Don’t worry, you’ll still be facing your mortal enemies from your rival guilds when warbands are galloping around Praag, trying to capture the zone.

I hope Mythic takes a look at the possibility of implementing this feature, as it would address some concerns with the activity of early tiers, and it would foster a more welcoming and active RvR experience for players new to the game. While they are addressing concerns at endgame, I hope that Mythic does not neglect the early to mid-level experience for it’s players, both old and new.

Ding 40! And Additional Randomness.

I turned 40 on Khazgar finally last weekend, and I still have the same pants =/. Anyway, I got myself a Tellurian Giantsplitter from the Guild Vault and I’m now in the process of figuring out what I need to do from here. I’m evaluating what stats I need to be stacking, as well as trying to figure out what jewelry I need to be slotting. I’m also looking at different build/tactic combos, currently I’m Trollslayer to Rune of Absorption, and Giantslayer to Violent Impacts. My professions are still below 150, so that’s another thing I need to catch up on.

In other news, Order on Badlands had a great zone flip this past weekend. I say great, because of the level of organization that was required to pull it off. Destro was pushing Reikland really hard, but we were able to hold both Keeps and eventually take and hold all the BO’s and lock the zone. We had a little more than three warbands in Reikland, and we were able to hold off several Destro assaults on all the objectives. We did this by posting a scout on the high cliff at Wilhelm’s Fist, and this scout would watch the Destro warcamp and call out the directions that Destro groups would take out of the camp. 

Using this strategy, we were able to coordinate the different warbands to defend or assault the various objectives. Normally with this many players in a zone, warbands just randomly zerg, but this time players listened to the warband leaders and actually followed orders! It was a great experience, with a hefty chunk of renown, influence and medals for finally locking the zone. After the zone lock, we all rode north to Praag and captured the south keep just to spite Destro. I logged off shortly after this, with a great feeling of realm pride and camaraderie with my fellow players. Good job, Order of Badlands, it was a privilege to fight by your side.

And now that I finally got to level 40 on Khaz, guess what I do next? Yup. I rolled another alt. This time a Warrior Priest. Sigh. This altoholism is definitely a chronic condition. Oh, and I’m sorry I haven’t put up the next book review yet. I ran into a snag, namely, I didn’t have access to the book I was reviewing for about a week, Long story. But not quite as long as the review, which I will post soon. That’s it for now ladies and gents, I will see you guys again soon.

Busy, Busy Weekend.

In a strange turn of events, I’ve been too busy actually playing to get much writing done! Over the weekend, I hit Rank 38, and participated in not one, but two City defenses. Destro was out in force this past weekend, and contested Altdorf at least twice. Collected 20 Officer tokens and one Invader token for my efforts. I’d have gotten two Invader Crests, but the second siege was pretty late, and I didn’t have time to finish it off.

In other news, the Beyond the Sands event goes live today, and I’ll be checking it out as soon as I get back from work. Oh, and I hit Renown Rank 33 this past weekend too. I now have 4/5 Annihilator equipped. Yay! Khazgar is looking more and more badass. Well, I’ll hit you guys back up when I have a chance to digest all the latest events. See you guys in a bit.

New Patch! 1.21 is Live!

All right, here’s the next major content update, link to the full patch notes is here.

As usual, I’m going to single out certain notes and additions for analysis. Without further ado, let us commence:

The new Live Event, Beyond the Sands, does not actually begin this patch, but will hit the servers on the 20th.

Major highlights are the Keep Upgrade system, which I’ve covered in a previous post, improvements to the UI and combat responsiveness, and the new RvR Quartermaster token system. Other additions are the new Zone Control rewards for T4, Character Profiles, Guild Profiles, and an expanded version of the Gates of Ekrund scenario.

Keep Upgrades are now live, but Mythic decided not to implement the Dynamite and Caltrops for keep sieges, as the tester feedback was that they were too powerful. I’m disappointed about the caltrops, as I was looking forward to using them for more efficient postern defense. But I’m sure we will see them again eventually. I did notice that they are adding “oil immunity” potions, which can be purchased with Ordnance, the new RvR resource. I like the idea of being immune to oil, so that my mpds can actually attack the door for once, instead of hanging back. 

The new Ekrund sc will be 6-on-6, for ranks 19-24. I hope that they let higher ranks play this version of the sc eventually. 

• Players will no longer be required to select an instance when entering a contested city. Instead, players will always be placed in the same instance as their group or warband. New instances will be created by the server as older instances become full.
• In order to allow more players the opportunity to participate in city-related RvR, the contested city Scenarios (The Undercroft and the War Quarters) are now only accessible to players in the Rank range of 8-29. All players below Rank 28 will be bolstered to Rank 28 while in the Scenario.

This is pretty interesting. This fix addresses the issues of players involved in a City defense having to choose the correct numbered instance to actually play with their group or guildmates. Also, players were getting ported into empty or poorly populated instances, which made completing certain aspects of the siege extremely hard to complete. 

And it’s good to see that every player in the 8-29 range will now be able to actively contribute to City defense, instead of feeling useless. The more participants in City attacks, the better in my book.

In career notes, it looks like Archmages and Shaman get a large buff to many of their damage abilities.Their mechanic is also currently under review. No word yet on any major mechanic changes, but keep an eye out. In the meantime, soloing should be less painful for them with the new buffs. BW’s and Sorcs will no longer be able to stack their ground-targeted AoE’s, namely Rain of Fire and Pit of Shades. This stacking change also affect the Magus, with Tzeetch’s Firestorm. Abilities of this type will now all behave like the Engineer Napalm Grenade, only the highest rank one will apply in case of multiple ones in the same area.

For the White Lion and Squig Herder, their pet stats will increase by a percentage of the master’s stats. For WL’s, the War Lion gains different stats depending on what “Training” stance is active, while Squigs gain different stats based on the type of Squig summoned. Also, all pets gain a base increase to their hit points. Hopefully this will be the start of Mythic actively addressing pet issues such as pet damage and survivability that WL’s and SH’s have been concerned about for some time.

In Miscellaneous RvR changes, you can now queue for T4 scenarios regardless of whether or not the pairing you are currently in is locked. I ran into this last night, I was confused as to why it would not allow me to queue after Thunder Mountain locked. I’m glad they did this, as I don’t want to have to travel to another pairing just to queue up. This definitely was a pain while questing.

• Keep doors will now always be attackable by the opposite realm after the Keep has changed hands. Additionally, defenders will now be able to see the health of the Keep door at all times.

Yes! I was getting tired of having to ask someone with a mod what the door’s health was at.

• Players operating a Ram will now be immune to Knockback and receive reduced damage from Oil Siege Weapons.
• Siege Rams will now do twice the damage as they previously did.
• Keep doors will now have double the hit points they previously had.
• We have significantly increased the hit points of Ram Siege Pads.

This is good to hear. Keeping guys up on the Ram is hard enough as it is. It sounds like they are trying to make the attack on the door last longer, which is good as far as renown gains go, I guess.

I’m gonna try and write another post on the RvR tokens and other stuff I passed over here. But in the meantime, get out there and get those tokens!

Oh yeah, 

• Pre-game splash screens and opening cinematic can now be skipped by hitting the ESC key.

Woohoo!

Getting Closer to T4…Oh So Slowly. And an Update on Stats.

I hit Rank 29 on Khazgar last night. I also hit Renown Rank 25, and purchased my Devastator Torc as well. Now I have the Devastator Boots, Armbraces and Shoulders. All I have to do now is participate in as many keep sieges as I possibly can, and hope that the contribution gods smile on my rolls for a gold loot bag. I really want to complete my Devastator set, but I’m also really looking forward to getting to Tier 4. 

This time around, I really tried to include regular RvR and scenarios into my questing rotation. Normally, I’m doing PvE first, while doing scenarios in between. I would also wait  until I was in the middle of the tier before doing sc’s. On my first 40, I was rank 40…and renown rank 23. Heh. I definitely like it better this time around. I started doing T3 scenarios as early as rank 21, instead of waiting. And I run around with warbands taking keeps and BO’s much more often as well. I should have done that sooner. 

On a related note, my guild was running a small group around Thunder Mountain last night taking BO’s and keeps, and they asked my near-useless rank 28 slayer to tag along. So I did, feeling sorta sheepish, as I really couldn’t do much aside from assist dps and not die. We took the west keep in TM, and I got a lesser loot bag. But what’s this? I have TWO Massive Loot bags?! My guildies had donated their gold bags to me! It was awesome, I came away with the Annihilator Helm and Torc. I really want to thank them here. I can’t mention their  names since I’m unsure if they’d want to be named online. But you Candies, you know who you are, Khazgar thanks you! 

Update: I’ll be hitting Rank 30 tonight with any luck. Recently I just ground out the Dwarf Chapter 14 Influence for the Runic Stone Waraxe. I really like two-handed axes, even though dual-wielding is arguably superior. I will say that when I played around with the 2h in scenarios last night, it felt like my targets were dying quicker. I’m also a fan of the Deathblow ability, it feels awesome to use especially when it crits. I’m planning to grind out High Elf Chapter 14 tonight while doing scenarios. I’m am trying to collect more “split-stat” items, in preparation for when the planned changes to all stats gets implemented. Currently, they are testing new changes to all stats in upcoming patches. For example, toughness will also grant a small amount of hp regen in combat in addition to the current effect. For melee classes, some big changes to our crit damage are planned as well. Weapon Skill will now add to your base bonus crit damage, which will be affected by your targets Initiative. So say that you have 0 WepSkill, and you crit someone who stacks Ini, you may do as little as 5% additional damage. 

Basically, Mythic is trying to address the issue of arguably “useless” stats. Players currently stack their main offensive and defensive stat, like Strength and Wounds, while ignoring other stats such as WepSkill and Initiative. So many items that have these unwanted stats get ignored my a majority of the playerbase. So the plan is to give additional bonuses to stats like Toughness, while making stats like WepSkill and Willpower more attractive by tying them into your bonus critical damage. In a way, this is similar to what WoW did with stats like Resilience and Spell Penetration. 

Of course, whether this will be an overall positive or negative change remains to be seen. While I like that Mythic is trying to make spreading your stats out more attractive, I’m sure that many players will lament the end of stacking 2-3 stats on their gear. Also, I predict that we will see an overall lowering of dps across the board, at least at first. This is actually a good thing, because players will live longer in combat, instead of getting insta-gibbed, the moment they get focus fired. Even squishy classes should see an increase in their overall survivability, as killing power decreases for anyone. I know that players will be up in arms about this initially, but I think as players realize that combined with the nerf to stacking AoE, this will result in survivability getting better for everyone. Right now, even tanks are complaining of getting melted within moments. AoE is considered to be out of control. Even melee dps say that they are cut down long before they can actually make it to the back lines. Time To Kill is so short, that it is extremely frustrating to many players who feel like they are constantly dying within seconds of entering combat. 

With increased survivability on the horizon, I hope that we will start seeing slightly more tactical combat, with a less spammy feel. Let’s cross our fingers and hope these proposed changes work out for the best.

Why Does WAR Discourage Alts?

If you have spent any time reading this blog, it is immediately obvious that I’m an incorrigible altaholic. So far, six months out, I’ve only managed to level a  single Rank 40. My Ironbreaker Stahlrek. In that same time frame, I have now have a 27 Slayer, 25 SW, 24 WH, 18 Engi, 32 Blorc, 23 Blackguard and more alts in the 8-15 range. I’m sure you see the problem. Recently, I’ve given some thought to rolling up a Swordmaster as well. So I rolled one up, got him to 8 or so, and now he’s parked in Altdorf. Why? Because I don’t know if I can commit to leveling him through T2 and T3 again. 

Having one tank at max rank has taught me that leveling up a tank can be an arduous process. Now I know that doing scenarios while questing is the fastest way to level. However, my server sc pops are busiest at night. So I play my Slayer at night, so I can maintain my RR. This means because I can’t take advantage of scenarios for my SM, because my Slayer needs the renown as well. Which forces my alt SM to do mostly PvE, in the mornings when the server is pretty dead. And I gotta tell you, I’ve done T2 PvE over five times, I don’t want to do it again. 

You know, I really wish WAR would allow me to “gift” some levels to my lowbie alts. Say, once you reach Rank 40, you can give one alt of yours a certain amount of ranks, depending on the tier. If the character is in Tier 2, you can give 5 ranks, Tier 3 you can give 3, etc. Each alt can only be gifted ranks once. WAR already has the Collar of Servitude/Rod of Service items that allow you to bring a lower ranked player up to within two ranks of your level. Why not allow players who already have a rank 40 to do the same? 

The thing is, WAR rewards the player who plays one character exclusively. Your most played character will have the best gear, highest RR, most unlocks, etc. Your alts, especially ones that you don’t play often will be significantly less progressed than your main. In addition, the sheer amount of time needed to get to T3 or higher is pretty intense.

If you have limited playtime like me, you often don’t want to mess around on alts because you feel that the time is better spent leveling your “main” character. Also many careers don’t quite come into their own until later levels, usually around 21-24. For example, my Shadow Warrior didn’t quite click with me until I got to rank 18 and picked up the Split Arrows tactic, and later at 21 acquiring the Shadow Sting ability made a huge difference to my enjoyment of the class. There are some really interesting builds i want to try out with my SM, but I don’t know if I have the time to level him up to an appropriate level. 

Now before you say that I’m looking for an easy way out, this is not the case. I just want to get to a point where I can really get a feel for the class. I’m not asking to be magically 40, just for a quicker way to get to 20-22. I’ve already leveled multiple characters through that level range, including another tank. It’s not like Mythic doesn’t already have the Bolster mechanic in place. I also don’t really see a downside to providing this convenience. It’s not as if it skews the population or anything like that. Don’t get me wrong, I’m aware the leveling curve is nowhere near as grueling as it was after launch. Mythic did a great job making the grind to 40 less arduous, no doubt. 

I guess I’m just frustrated that there are so many classes I want to play, with not enough hours in the day. Mythic may not purposely try to discourage playing alts, but it certainly feels that way to me when I get excited about a class, roll one up to around 10 or so, then park them because I simply don’t have the time to level an alt effectively alongside my main.

Keep Upgrades and a PQ Proposal.

If you don’t check the Herald obsessively like I do, you might have missed some juicy news bits that Mythic has released over the past few days. Namely, first details on a Keep Upgrade system and while not on the Herald, Adam Gershowitz posted in the official forums regarding a planned change to the GTAoE spell system. These changes have potentially game-changing ramifications. Let’s start with the official word:

For the full release, here is the Herald link. 

One of the first new things will be the addition of a Guild Broker, who is the Upgrade Merchant. 

Here is the Upgrade window. As you can see, you can upgrade Keep Doors, spawn new NPC’s and access more amenities for your keep. the quick list and explanation is below:

 • Door Hit-Point Increase: Hit Points are upgraded 20% per upgrade Rank, up to 5 Ranks.

• Door Repair Merchant: An NPC that sells door-repair wood.

• Guard Numbers: More guards for your Keep by 2 guards per Rank, up to 5 Ranks.

• Patrol Guards Upgrade: Upgrades all patrolling guards to Champion-level guards.

• Static Guards Upgrade: Upgrades all stationary guards to Champion-level guards.

• Standard Merchant: An NPC that sells guild standards.

• Siege Weapon Merchant: An NPC that sells Siege Weapons.

• Healer: An NPC that cures death penalties.

• Banker: An NPC that allows players to access their Personal Vault.

• Guild Vault Keeper: An NPC that allows players to access their Guild Vault.

Skimming through the list, you can already see some tasty upgrades. The Door HP upgrade is staggering; up to 100% more HP! Combined with some other upgrades, this alone can be a huge factor in a keep defense. The Guard upgrade is nice, but warbands tear down champs pretty quickly, so the effectiveness may be debatable. However, if a smaller wb tries to attack what appears to be an undefended keep, the Champion Guards would probably slow them down enough for defense to arrive. YMMV, of course, this is just theoryhammering.

Some of these new NPC’s seem a bit dubious, though. Adding a Healer NPC that cures death penalties sounds odd. To my knowledge, in a Keep siege, when someone is resurrected by a player they don’t suffer any death penalties as is, so having an NPC to do this sounds extraneous at best. Also, you can purchase Ritualist NPC’s that will heal or lifetap, to aid in ground-floor defenses. I’m also mildly confused as to having bankers in the keeps. It’s a convenience, sure, but using a guild recall scroll and running 10 seconds to the bank isn’t that much of an inconvenience. More interesting is the Guild Bind NPC, who allows guild members to re-spawn inside the keep. This would definitely help on the defensive side, especially if in the middle of battle your healers are too busy keeping tanks up to rez you. This would save you the run back through potentially hostile territory.

While the bulk of the upgrades seem to be geared towards the defense, Mythic is also adding a resource called Ordinance that can be used by the offense. This resource is collected and traded in for items including:

• Rams that have double the Hit-points of standard Rams.
• Ballista that do twice the amount of standard Ballista damage.
• Self-only Oil Immunity potions that last 30, 60, or 90 seconds.
• Caltrops which place a small PBAoE Snare/DoT field on the ground.
• Dynamite that is a direct-target DD plus a knockback, which can be used against players or siege weapons (deals double damage versus siege weapons).

Some nice stuff there, I especially like the Caltrops, which I would use to catch stragglers sneaking into the defense through the postern doors. Quite often, unless you have a large group camping the posterns, it’s hard to kill someone before they can make the sprint to safety, unless you outnumber them 5-1 and can insta-gib them on sight. As a melee class, I really like the potential of this.

So far, the new content seems skewed towards defense, which arguably is already in the superior situation. Many players argue that trying to take a well-defended keep is an exercise in futility, that it only feeds the defenders free renown. I hope that we will see more news down the road that will make things slightly better for the offense. An idea I read was to implement a “tunneling PQ” for the offense. This would actually be great if implemented properly. Here’s how I see it:

   • At designated locations on the outer wall, there will be an damaged or broken Dwarf/Greenskin earthmover. Which is surrounded, either by large groups of defending mobs, or smaller groups with Champion defenders. The offense is tasked with acquiring Ordinance and using it on the broken machine, while fending off the mobs, who respawn at a regular rate.

  • The machine has to be receive a certain amount of Ordinance in a certain time limit, or else the PQ resets. The goal is to keep the mobs busy while others gather the resource and use it to “repair” the machine. Once fully repaired, the machine will tunnel for 10 seconds and when finished, the mobs despawn and there will be a clickable tunnel or cave graphic. Players can then click on the tunnel and spawn on the other side of the wall, similar to using a postern door. 

The advantage of this design is that Mythic doesn’t have to redesign terrain or anything like that. They just add the broken siege engine, spawn in some mobs, and code the PQ. Afterwards, you can have a basic cave graphic to click on. Failing that, just spawn a clickable pile of rocks and earth in place of the siege engine and on the opposite side of the wall and there you have it!

I think I’m going to write up a separate article on the AoE changes, as this is in danger of being a bit too long. In any case, what do you think about the upcoming changes?

Quick Reflection on Open RvR.

Yes, I know. It’s yet another blogger going on about his own personal take on ORVR. Yes, I’m gonna do my own. Okay, for those of you who are still here, here’s my deal.

Since rolling a Slayer, I have been more involved in ORvR than I have ever been before. Normally, I PvE first, with scenarios added into the mix. My goal has always been to hit rank 40 in the most efficient way possible. This time around, I’ve been playing a LOT of ORvR. I’m glad my server has a nice healthy population that can support multiple wbs going around taking keeps and BO’s almost every night. I’ve been having great fun these past few nights running around and participating in lightning sieges or frantic defenses.

The other night, in Fangbreaka Keep, my warband was involved in an epic defense, we had capped the BO’s and sieged the keep as quickly as we could, but destro got into the keep just as the lord went down. What followed was an intense defense with our wb holed up in the lord room, trying to survive against what seemed to be 2-3 times our number of destro.

Amazingly enough, everyone followed orders, and we blocked up the ramp with a tank wall, while Slayers and other dps cut down any who were foolish enough to try to break the tank wall. This went on for a good 20-25 minutes, constantly beating off destro assaults. In the end, we were overwhelmed, and they pushed us out of the keep, but we made them pay for every inch of ground with their blood. It was very 300 Spartans at Thermopylae.

Enough about that, here’s my observation: ORvR is great. RvR Influence rewards are great.

Separating the Influence by tier and having rewards bound to that particular tier you have max influence in, not so great.

My problem with this system is that unless you have a lot of time to play, you will find that during peak times, the ORvR action tends to take place within the same pairing most of the time. Which results in you getting full influence in one paring pretty quickly, while struggling to get any in certain pairings. Maybe I’m wrong, but it seems that by the time I max out influence in multiple pairings to get the items I may want from that pairing, I’m pretty close to leveling out of that tier, unless I start real early. My current situation is that I’m doing a lot of RvR in the Dwarf/Greenskin zones, but the elite reward is not something I particularly want. However, no one seems to want to do much in the Elf or Empire zones.

I suggest that instead of dividing the ORvR Influence by pairing, they could either consolidate all ORvR Influence by tier. So that instead of say, Dwarf T2 Influence, you would only have Tier 2 Influence. Also, this would allow Mythic to let you pick and choose rewards from all the pairings. So instead of grinding up three different bars, you would only have to do one, which would open up all the rewards, instead of having to grind out pairings individually. To balance this, I’d let them slow the rate of influence gain a bit, perhaps by 15%. Getting inf 15% slower would be a worthwhile tradeoff for having access to the rewards from every pairing.

That way, you could gear up slightly faster and still have some ranks left to actually use your new gear before you level out of the tier entirely.

Multiple Characters with Limited Playtime.

I’m nearing 20 on my Slayer, having just hit 18 this morning. I feel sort of bad, since I haven’t been playing my Shadow Warrior lately, being caught up in the Slayer mania. Usually about this time, I start to feel an itch to play an alt. Of course, this is also strongly influenced by the talk in the forums I am a regular poster on. Recently, the topic has shifted to Chosen, and how badass they are.

So now, I’m itching to play a Chosen again. This cycle has already occurred several times, and each time I end up rolling another alt. This accounts for my Witch Hunter, White Lion, Shadow Warrior, Knob, and Warrior Priest. Yes, I know I have a problem. On destro, I had this happen to a much lesser extent. I only seriously tried out a Black Orc, Chosen, Blackguard and Marauder.

I also quit playing characters because of weird, niggling complaints that really mess with me mentally. For example, I quit my Chosen because I didn’t like the way his shield or two-hand sword clipped through his armor. Also, some of the graphical effects turned me off with how “bright” they were. Ravage, for example.

Anyway…I’m rambling again. Back to the erstwhile topic. I really want to rank up both my SW and my Slayer, but I have less time to play. I like to play my Slayer during prime time in the evenings, since the most ORvR goes on around this time. Also, scenario pops are much quicker. So it’s a lot easier to get RvR in between quests. I really want to rank my Slayer up as quickly as possible, so I can play more with my guild at T4.

But I also don’t want my SW to fall by the wayside. From an efficiency standpoint, whichever I play, I need to play at night. I  enjoy the change of pace from melee to ranged. At the same time, I can’t help but feel that I’m not getting the full experience until I hit at least rank 26 or so, when more Mastery abilities are available to me. Sometimes I wish I could skip leveling, if only so I can start trying out all those theroryhammered career builds on wardb. Alas, this can not be the case.

First, I have no interested in powerleveling, and second, WAR is a game that really rewards investment in a single character. It’s no accident that the character you play most ends up with the most tome unlocks, titles, gear and gold.

I guess I’m just overanalyzing this. I should just shut up, play what I feel like, and have fun with the game. It’s the min-maxer in me talking. I guess its because I have less time to play that I want to make the most efficient use of my playtime. This post has rambled enough, so I guess I’ll cut it short for now. If you are still reading this, I thank you.

Book Review: Dark Storm Gathering.

This is my first book review here at GnM, and as such, you may expect spoilers in the review. I may mention plot points, and I will also be comparing the book to its predecessor, Empire in Chaos. Consider this your only spoiler warning. 

Still with me? Good. The second novel based on Warhammer Online, Dark Storm Gathering (DSG) manages to surpass its predecessor, Empire in Chaos (EIC), in certain areas, while still falling short in others. DSG is written by Chris Wraight, who also penned Masters of Magic and the upcoming Iron Company for the Black Library. 

I’m not familiar with Mr. Wraight’s writing, being more of a fan of Dan Abnett, or William King. His writing style is quite verbose, and he likes to use adjectives a lot. I counted no less than five of them in one sentence. He has a solid grasp of characterization however, and he has definite potential. To me, he comes off as trying for a pulpy, Hammer-horror movie type of feel, but he’s not as good at this as C.L. Werner. 

However, he’s a relatively new author, so this is something that will improve with time. As I said earlier, he does a good job of characterizing the heroes and villains of the piece. Bright Wizards, Witch Hunters, Chaos Chosen, Dark Elf Sorcerers and Disciples of Khaine are all present, along with a White Lion, Archmage, and Knight of the Blazing Sun. 

However, such a large cast means that some characters are better fleshed out than others, simply because the book is only so long. Also, like the novel Empire in Chaos before it, the character careers in DSG do not fit the game versions perfectly. Indeed, some characters are so far off from the in-game version of the class, that it seems that the author decided to hew closer to the official lore, than the game background. Ordinarily, this is not a problem, except that if you played the game before reading the book, you will wonder why certain careers are so different. It seems the author decided to try and mix content from both the original lore and the game, and I’m not sure I like the result.

The biggest example of this is the Archmage, Artheris. In the game, Archmages, or AM’s, are considered pure healers that utilize a hybrid mechanic for damage and healing. They are excellent healers with adequate, if a bit underwhelming offensive abilities. In the book, Artheris is portrayed as a powerful mage, skilled in diplomacy and battle magic. No where does it mention her healing skills, if any. Elves in the Warhammer IP are usually very powerful, but the character of Artheris is exceedingly potent. At the book’s climax, she is shown fighting, and ultimately defeating a Lord of Change. By herself. In sharp contrast, the AM ingame is nowhere near capable of “soloing” what is equivalent to a Lord-level spawn of Tzeentch. It’s a bit jarring, especially if you have no prior experience with the Warhammer IP and are coming straight from Warhammer Online. 

Other characters fare a bit better, Annika the witch hunter uses an ornate pistol, as well as a short sword and dagger. It should have been a rapier, but I’ll chalk it up to creative license. It’s more accurate than Udo the witch hunter, from Empire in Chaos. Udo uses a mace and crossbow, in addition to his pistols. The Knight of the Blazing Sun in both books is described fairly accurately, with Karl from EIC being a more fleshed-out character. The Bright Wizard, Alexander, has powers that are very close to both game and original lore, and fits the role of the reluctant protagonist very well. In an interesting twist, the White Lion, Morgil, loses his war lion near the beginning of the action, and in his vengeful fury to track down the killer, he is equivalent to a White Lion character that uses the “Loner” tactic.

Loner increases the damage done by a White Lion that does not have his lion with him. This may or may not be intentional on the authors’ part, but it’s a cool little detail that WL players may appreciate. 

On the side of Destruction, the biggest inconsistency is Kalia, the Disciple of Khaine. DoK’s are melee healers ingame, they do consistent heals and have a pretty decent offense. However, Kalia is not shown to use any healing abilities, save for a potion that she uses to speed her healing after a battle. Also, she uses neither swords nor chalices. Instead she uses daggers, so it’s like some weird combination of a DoK and Witch Elf. The Sorcerer, Malek, is spot-on and accurate. Now the Chosen, Jhar’zadris, is described as being immortal. Which, lore-wise makes sense. The main gripe I have is that he uses a warhammer, instead of a sword or axe. 

As far as the plot goes, it occurs a short time after the events of EIC, but before the Elves and Dwarfs have fully committed their forces. The witch hunter Annika Bohringer, accompanied by Dieter, a Knight of the Blazing Sun, is investigating the lands of Lord Grauenburg in Reikland.  They are following a trail of corruption, and believe a Chaos plot is coming together on Grauenburg soil. Alexander the Bright Wizard is tasked to deliver an important cipher by a Celestial Wizard, who is the last survivor of a Chaos attack. Meanwhile, the Elves are sending the first wave of their forces to Altdorf, led by Archmage Artheris, and her bodyguard Morgil, a White Lion. The Dark Elves are also setting their plans in motion. 

Kalia Uthorin is sent to assassinate Malek, the Arkaneth Sorceror, in order to eliminate Arkaneth influence in Altdorf before the Dark Elf offensive. As all this occurs, Jhar’zadris leads a Chaos vanguard south, to Grauenburg lands as Tzeentchian cultists enact rites there to bring a great daemon into the world. Somewhat predictably, all these characters eventually meet in their disparate quests in time for a desperate last battle against a great evil that has been summoned into the world. Cue the desperate battle at the book’s climax.

Predictable? Yes. It is the same plot sequence that most “epic adventure” movies and books use. It is however, an effective plot, if a bit cliche. My main issue with this book, and the one before it, is that they are not Warhammer Online books. Both novels are based on the game, yet both fail to stick close enough to the game’s source material. Instead, they are mishmashes of ideas from both the original IP and the game. If you are coming from the tabletop game and lore, then the books come off better. 

But if you are a lore novice coming from the game, then certain characters and powers in the novels make no sense. Seeing an Archmage solo a Greater Daemon of Chaos is jarring if you only played the game, where AM’s can be killed by a still breeze if they aren’t careful. The other Empire careers come off much better, but the DoK seems more like a better-armored Witch Elf. As someone who is familiar with both the original IP and the game, I’d much rather the author take some liberties with the content.

If only so that the characters resemble the careers from the game more closely. As it is, it tries to take the middle road and in doing so pleases no one. Well, that’s a bit harsh. I’d say that if you were reading the book from as a fan of Warhammer lore, you would find it to be competent, if a bit predictable. But if you’re a fan of the game, and this novel is your first experience with the original Warhammer IP, you may be disappointed.

Quick Slayer Impressions.

All right, just hit Rank 11 on Khazgar. Here’s a few quick personal notes on the class:

1. Zomg DAMAGE! This little ball of fury really puts out the dps, whether is be dual-wield fury or with a hefty two-hander. The AoE is great too, when you get a small gang of these guys together and toss out AoE in a coordinated manner, people die. I think this aspect of the class really shines, kudos to Mythic for giving us the capability to be “linebreakers” We break the enemy line all right, we break it dead.

2. That hurt! Man I feel squishy sometimes. I understand it’s the price we pay for putting out so much hurt, but I can’t help but wonder is the 50% armor/resist debuff in full zerk is too much. Especially in T4. With certain specs relying on being in full zerk most of the time, I can see waves of Slayers/Choppas getting cut down by random AoE before they ever reach the battle lines. Of course, it’s still early in the life of the career, and perhaps we will see an adjustment to this mechanic. Let’s hope Mythic is listening.

3. I really wish some skills were not restricted to Dual-wield or 2-Hander only. For example, Deathblow. I love it. Hits like a truck, and when used after a Rank one morale it can cut down almost anything that’s not a tank. However, the 30 sec cooldown is a bit long, and I wish I could use it even when dual-wielding. Also, most of the good stuff in the Skavenslayer path is DW only, while Giantslayer is 2-hander. I’d like to see a bit more synergy between the paths, I guess.

4. In general, I find the class super enjoyable. So much so that I’m considering just focusing on RvR, with PvE being my thing to do when it’s slow. As a mostly solo player, I tend to play PvE more, but this guy is so fun I’m making it my goal to earn the Devastator set in T3, which requires I hit Rank 28 with 25RR. Something tells me that’s easier said than done, but I might be up to it. Heh.

I should hit 12 tonight, and once I do that, I’m going to finish up the T1 Dwarf area quests before I head out to the Marshes of Madness. Once I get to 14, I’m starting the RvR drive once again. Sweet Mourkain Temple, how I’ve missed you.

Khazgar, the Slayer.

I raced home from work last night, palms sweaty with anticipation. I wasted no time in getting online, logging on, and officially rolling my Slayer. Khazuk! Khazuk Khazuk-ha! I’ve been preparing for this for a long while, beginning with the name. 

I’m a huge fan of the lore, and so I didn’t want to use some unoriginal, derivative name, like Gotreck, or something similar, heh. At the same time, I wanted to pay homage to Slayers past. The Slayer I wanted to reference was Azgar Grobkul, doomed brother of Uthor Algrimmson, both from the novel Oathbreaker. 

Azgar failed to prevent Skaven assassins from poisoning their father, the Lord of Karak Kadrin, as he was asleep on guard duty in a drunken stupor. I’d tell you more, but I suggest that you go ahead and purchase the book. It’s a good, although bleak account of Dwarfs and oaths in the Old World. 

Anyway, I didn’t want to just swipe the name, so I came up with Khazgar. A name that can stand on its own as being particularly Dwarfy, while having a small reference to earlier lore. Yes, I can be one of those pretentious d00ds that overthinks things like this. So anyway, my Slayer is Khazgar, the…um, Slayer.

In all seriousness, I had a blast in Tier one, just hit Rank 9 this morning, and I just trained Deathblow. I can’t wait to find someone to uh..practice it on, heh. I’ve been dual-wielding most of the time, as 2-handers don’t do significantly more damage as compared to dual-wield, assuming you are stacking similar amounts of strength. But still, I’m willing to give it a go again. Also keep in mind that these damage numbers were tested using tanks, switching between sword/shield and 2-handers. Melee dps careers might get different results owing to being a different archetype. 

I had a few great moments in Khaine’s Embrace, in the tunnels. A group of mostly Slayers would turn the corner and run into a group of mostly Choppas and the screen just explodes! AoE flying everywhere from both sides, the sounds of battle, the screams of the dying, and the fight is over in less than three seconds. And strangely enough, when this occurred, it would be the Slayers left standing. Most of them, anyway. Maybe we just had better heals. 

At this point, I’m kind of torn about what to do. Should I power through the levels, getting to the next tiers as fast as possible? Or should I hang around and open RvR in Emskrank and up my RRs? In any case, I think I’m gonna be having some fun. See you guys on the front lines.

A Farewell…to Destruction?

This is something that I’ve seen coming for a while, but it doesn’t make it any easier. I think I’m going to quit playing my Destruction characters. Its a pretty long and involved story, so I’ll try to keep it concise. Basically it comes down to guild and population issues. My first guild, which was formed nearly three years ago, shortly after the first announcements. We were chugging along great for a while, we were the premier Destro guild for our forum community.

We hit the 300 member mark shortly after launch, when the excitement surrounding WAR was at it’s peak. after the free month was up, several things started to happen. One, active numbers dropped significantly, as many players did not subscribe and were either MMO tourists, or they were going back to WoW and WotLK. We also started to see the first signs of a schism within the guild. The guild was conceived as a casual-friendly guild, which meant we had a certain number of hardcores that had already hit level cap or close to it. The hardcore crowd wanted a more serious focus for the guild, and when this did not materialize they started to leave.

A common complaint was that we had few players in T4. This started a spiral in which guildies outleveled the rest, hit 40, and got sick of waiting for others to rank up, so they left. Also, since the “new MMO” crowd had mostly left, we found ourselves on a now-low population server, which obviously made RvR less easy to get into. Some weeks later, transfers were offered off our server, which we took. The bulk of the guild transferred to Red Eye Mountain from Ulthuan. However, not all our members transferred. Some simply were not playing as much, and did not frequent the forums, so they missed the news. Also, we had some members never move over, or move to different servers.

We continued the guild on REM, with a smaller group of core players. At first, we seemed to be doing much better, but we ran into the same issues eventually. We continued to hemorrhage players, and the number of actives online concurrently continued to drop. We had a small core of regular players, but without the numbers needed to support endgame play, we hit a wall. We had a good alliance though, and many players could still get dungeon groups through the alliance. This, however, is not a substitute for having a healthy guild population in T4. And finally, the population issues we experienced on our original server began to crop up on REM. This was pretty much the last straw for many of us. I found myself logging on less and less.

When the Slayer and Choppa were announced, this pretty much caused me to shelf my destro characters and just finish leveling my Ironbreaker while waiting on the new career event. Later on, transfers were offered off REM, and the guild was transferred over the Iron Rock. Aside from completing the transfer over to IR, I haven’t played my Destruction characters since.

While this was going on destro-side, I was slowly leveling up my Ironbreaker. The IB was the only Order class that I was able to stick with past Rank 25. I ended up with seven or eight alts that failed to hook me sufficiently. Currently, my only 40 has been the IB. Throughout this time, my forum community maintained an Order guild on Averheim, and is now currently on Badlands.

The Order guild has maintained a healthy population, mostly casuals, centered around a devoted officer core. On further inspection, I believe this is key to the stabilty of the Order guild. Where my destro guild had a large amount of hardcores, who would race to the level cap, and end up moving to another guild when the majority failed to keep up, the Order guild had a medium size group of semi-hardcores that leveled up together. This group was mainly composed of officers, around whom the rest of the guild grew. So now, we have close to two dozen players at rank 40, with many players at all level ranges. I guess the slow-but-steady mindset worked for us. We maintain a close-knit guild, with almost no ragequits or impulse new recruits.

At this point, just before the introduction of the new careers, it looks like I will be playing Order exclusively for now. I’ll be concentrating on my Slayer, and playing my Shadow Warrior and Ironbreaker on the side. Hopefully, this will not be a permanent thing, as I think I’ll probably roll up a Choppa at some point. I look forward to the future of WAR, and finding my place in it. It’s time to take up the axe, and take up the oath.