Er... Wut?

Disciple of Khaine



•Khaine’s Embrace: The base healing value of this ability has been reduced and its cooldown has been removed.


•Khaine’s Vigor: The base healing value of this ability has been increased and its duration has been reduced.
 

I thought Khaine's Embrace didn't have a cooldown. In fact, as chance would have it, I was respeccing my DoK back to healing (and failing miserably at it) and I was spamming it like crazy, interrupted solely by my global cooldown. Maybe it's just me.

 

Also, I was farming some curios on my Magus late at night, while Epikk read to me the full details of that Wikileaks debaucle, and Indigo Fire of Change's debuff icon on my enemy still reads "If killed will turn into a horror!" or something to the same effect.
 
I mean, how hard can that be to fix? It's like the iPad's Safari not having a "find on page" function. Inexcusable. Or that I now currently have 15 "Wots a Subject?" mails in my inbox. I don't need them, I don't want them and I'm pretty sure I've completed the damn thing already.
 
While I'm here: Marauder=ganking goodness. I'm taking revenge on WLs everywhere. I'm only rk 19 but it's been great fun so far. Solo locking t2 zones for the influence weapons is a tad boring but when I find a little opposition its marvellous. For once, I don't have to worry myself with the survivability of me and my team mates. I can just run out and get killed.
 
Wots a punchline?

All I want for Christmas is a Little Piece and Quiet

I've been busy.

I've got xmas presents to buy, no mey to buy them with.
I've been ranking a Marauder, he's rk 17 now and I'm fuckin lovin it.
I have to get my cat castrated or whatever you call it. His balls must go.
Have to go buy bedroom furniture so we can stop sleeping in the guest bedroom.
Must make a doctor's appointment because I had a numb-finger episode, which is really scary since I had a half-face-numb-for-two-months episode.

I have a lot on my mind.

Be back shortly.

Smile, Though Your Heart Is Aching

I might have left things in a bit of a dreary note. Let's change that.

Shortly after the patch first kicked in I got my faith in the game restored. And it only took one man.

We went in a city siege, even though I'm always reluctant. I dunno, it seems they either leave or we do. And if we don't we're all about the fail. But I had nothing better to do so in I went, guns blazing and heals aplenty.

As luck would have it, we were being led by one who has been aptly referred to as Caligula. General but-kissing aside, I always liked Caligula's leadership style. There's no second-guessing, there's no questions asked, there's no sentences that sound like questions but really aren't. There's no pussy-footing or beaver-tickling or things of that nature generally. There's just stfu and do as you're told. You know, like war should be.

We arrived a bit late, first stage was already well under way. We were up against God knows who (well, maybe someone remembers but I sure as hell don't) and, I must say, I was impressed. With our flanking tactics we absolutely murdered them time and time again but they knew what they were doing. In the middle flag, they took out the cannons, wipe after wipe. Then they fought over the bomb, stopping us from defusing it. Then they split us up to take Lyceum and the Outcrop. And we murdered them again and again and again but never did they faulter.

If I remember correctly we eventually won on the second stage, us being able to save Engra when he was down to 10%ish and the third stage, simply because there is no great mechanic there. You just kill.

This turned out to be not just one of the best city sieges I've ever been in (just because it was challenging for both parts) but an opportunity for me to rediscover why I like the game at all. It's not something that can be put into words, or at least not any words I know of. It just felt right. We all came out of that instance completely fulfilled. We couldn't have asked for anything much better than that.

Also, one good thing about the patch was that I got to leech almost an entire renown rank during the weekend (in a VERY casual gaming schedule) simply just by idling in The Maw while waiting for Eternal Citadel pops. Yes, you know what I'm talking about.

The orc is leaving the ship

Fear not, as the zealot is still staying :)

Anyway, this started off as a 3 person blog that rapidly turned into a 2 person blog when our esteemed Nirvaesh stopped playing.

Now it's going to turn into a one person blog as I'm off in search of a diferent land, leaving Sara as the only member of this blog.

By no means i intend on stop playing. Far from it. Actualy, I intend on playign evenmore than I have lately, I'm just gonna move my rantings to a diferent place.

From now on, besides checking Super Effective, take a peek at Tea Forks as well as that's gonna be my rambling spot from now on.

I'll be sure to deliver a fair ammount of Choppa related stuff, alongside some

Patches, Laundry and Other, Less Exciting, Endeavours

I've been quiet about this patch. I've always said that I'd rather wait and see before I comment.

I've waited. I saw. I am not terribly impressed. Let me split this up in Pros and Cons (Pros as in "damn! he such a 1337 playa"; Con as in "convicted for the crime of sucking").

Pros

- I have a better mount now. No longer have I to consider making a few bogus accounts only to not be left behind during ORvR nights. Well, at least on my main, but I'll leave that part for the cons.

- My renown is boosted! Only, I haven't had many chances to up it...

- I got to change my hair! No longer will I be punishedwith clipping errors for a foolish choice made years ago when I didn't even know what helmets I would come across!

And...

I can't think of anything else...

Cons

- I got a new mount on my alts! Only, none of them is rr65. Good thing I didn't sell my old mounts before I noticed that little catch.

- I haven't really tried ORvR yet because, according to reports, it's terribad. Seems there's no time to do anything because Zerging still works. Maybe it even works better than before.

- Scenarios are... meh. I can't judge them because, in order for me to be able to participate, several conditions have to be met. If we're not in a city siege... and we needn't go any further because we're always in a city siege. Everytime. Even when no one's playing, there's a city siege going on because locking zones is ridiculously easy when there's no one in them. And they'll often be empty because zerging still works.

Or so I heard.

- I've also heard reports that, on certain players, critical hits will hit less than a regular hits or, at least, with a marginal dmg difference from a regular hit. Seems certain renown abilities could use a little revising.

- Speaking of renown training... I like it, for the most part. Some new skills are terribly interesting although most of them seemed (to me) to be tank or survivability related. One thing though: what in God's green Earth have they done to the interface? Why on Earth do you have to buy just one of them at a time from the longest list ever? This is particularly frustrating when you have over 70 points to spend. Looks like they did to that interface what they did to the AH.

- And what of the AH? No changes, I think. Don't think I actually checked but I at least read nothing about any changes. Which is a shame, really. Seems you can search for less things than before, most searched stats aren't searchable, (powers and crits) and you still can't searh for repairables. Plus, I have the distinct feeling I've been purchasing stuff from people I don't much care about.

I have to say, all of this reminds me of Ragnarok.
Not the end of the world or the spaceship. The korean MMO.

Let me explain:

It was my first ever MMO, possibly to your dismay and disbelief. I never played in the official servers, though, we played on a private free server. Drop rates and XP gain were faster there and, for a while, we were happy. But soon the "doner" factor started taking it's toll. You see, like any F2P game, people who chose to donate were quite OP and strut about like they were all that, discarding the best gear on the floor around us, like the french kings of old. We felt left out of the rain and, eventually, we became doners ourselves.

To a lesser extent, I wonder if this is what is to become of those that, unlike the most of us, won't buy the packs. I hope not. But people running around IC with useless two-headed gos between their legs reminds me of those colourful wings RO players could buy to look purty and be imba.

Fret not. I don't see myself dropping the game anytime soon.
No sir.
But I'd love to see some changes, for the feeling of disappointment to go away.
African-descendant person born equal under God and/or possibly other deities of the same religious nature now and for all time, PLEASE!

the way of the 1.4 choppa

1.4 brought many changes to the way people play their classes.

In the last few days I saw master bomber sorcs trying out single target specs, and full on damage marauders dabbling with defensive sets.

I am not an exception to this change, as obvious as I may sound.

With Epikk I was running a high damage crit spec (but then again, who wasn't?). Tons of melee power, capped str, high crit value, and some added damage tactics + crit triggered ones.

After 1.4 went live, my damage plummeted. Thanks to that forsaken "reduce damage from crit attacks" renown training, 2 out of 3 of my hits were being massively nerfed damage-wise.

It was a tough couple of days if I do say so myself. Must have spent around 50 gold and some 5 hours trying different things to see what now worked for me in this completely new world of post 1.4

for a while there I even considered a full defensive build, which would actually be something very very different from my usual suicidal builds.

But alas I crossed paths with an old friend called weapon skill. To be honest it's a pretty obvious choice, but one that didn't cross my mind at first.

So now, I ditched crit completely. Ok so I have some on parts of my gear, but to be honest I couldn't care less for it.

My current renown training is completely devoted to strength, weaponskill and parry. nothing else.

Thanks to this, I gained two new tactic slots (since there's no crit.. there's no need for crit-triggered tactics) and with my newly acquired high parry, I'm actually trying out Riposte for the first time. That and some healing coming from my exhaustive blows (25% chance) are making me survive a little bit more at least in scenarios (still running an exhaustive blows spec btw)

Best part of all of this? I'm still pro at dying, but now I can actually deal some damage to 2h tanks, and every order that trained reduced chance to be critted and reduced damage from crits actually just has a huge amount of useless renown points when it comes to fighting this choppa :P

let's see how this goes from now on. I suspect that with more people training reduced crit and reduced crit damage, more people will stray from crit builds. and with that happening, I can see people dropping the reduced crit training (or at least not going as far as 50% reduction)

Time will tell.

cheers.

Paying Customers

I recently reached rk40 with yet another alt, bringing the total of my rk40 characters to 5: a Zealot, a DoK, a Shaman, a Magus and now a Squiggy (not to be confused with Squiggzy, that guy's an ass.)

His renown rank is shameful, sitting now at 30. But I have high hopes for it. Squig Herders have been treated with a bit of indiference among the RDPS classes (not so much as Magus but hey, they're no Sorcs). This is why I leveled one, the same reason I have a 40/52 Magus. I wanted to see for myself what was so wrong about it.

Yesterday evening I went into a scenario and, lo and behold, a Sovereign piece for SH dropped. I stared at the loot roll for three seconds before I pressed the "Need" button. There was just one more Squig Herder in the scenario (compared to the whooping 5 squigsters we had in a previous one, among a total of 12 Destros) and he was probably, read "most likely", a higher renown SH than me. I won the loot roll.

This must've made him mad and I totally sympathise with his plight. But the thing is, although I'm a few months away from being able to wear that, why should I be less entitled to have it in my bank waiting for me? We're both paying customers, aren't we?

Some people believe only people that can wear certain gear or are relatively close should be able to roll on it. So far, Mythic have disagreed and I salute them for it. I got my first Royal crest on my main when I was rr35 and I still can't use any Sov but, by golly, now I'm within earshot of finally spending it. Who's to say that in the near or far future I won't be able to say the same thing about my squiggy? Me and any squigster who is close to 80 are paying the same monthly fee and have, for the same price, acquired the same rights.

The thing is, the time we've spent on a specific character does not entitle us the acquisition of loot, it only determines if we can or cannot wear it. The acquisition of such loot is determined by wether you've paid a monthly fee, and can thus play the game, and dumb luck on drop rates and loot rolls. It's not an optimal system but I think it's fair.

Same goes for the new sets and renown ranks. If you're willing to pay extra for those ranks, you're willing to spend extra time to get them too. If you're not, you're not. It's like almost any other game out there that provides its player-base with new content, only this one seems to be much cheaper. Am I making much sense? I dunno anymore, but I think I got my point across. I ninjaed a Sov piece and I'm sticking my middle finger up. As for the new packs...

Pay, don't pay.

I for one, will.

Shadow Warriors Are Skeptical of Changes in Their Stances

Lilirys was bored. She was bored out of her perfectly sculpted skull.

This wasn't going anywhere, she was smart enough to have realised that when she first crossed the outter gateway. The lack of organisation in their files was appaling and she rued the day, so many years ago, when she had turned her back on her so-called "accursed kin". In her heart, she knew she had made the right choice but boing on the losing side never went down well and she wondered how the Dark Elves had made the greenskins more compliant and effective than the dwarfs she now saw before her, some trembling, some drunk, others enamored with the feminine attributes of taller beings.

She took advantage of her perfect marksmanship to pluck a few targets from the keep wall as she stood proudly atop a warn-out grave, its occupant now surely long-forgotten.

Suddenly, she felt a dark presence creeping up behind her and she turned to see  a dark Chosen doing his clumsy best to sneak up the hill. She moved to hide behind a tree, all the while keeping both her eyes on the Chaos God's knight. She watched him as he removed his helmet and redied his blade while foul dark flames erupted from his feet and swirled crazily to envelop him.

Without as much as a hint of hesitation she began showering him with arrows, confident she could take down this threat before it reached their frail backline. Her fierce salve was gruelling and she could see the warrior starting to faulter. She grinned and took satisfaction from the knowledge that she had helped protect this failed endeavour.

Her smile quickly faded, however, when she saw the Chosen take hold of a Bright Wizard's leg and bite a chunk off his ankle. She launched one final arrow at his back but not before the Wizard tumbled lifeless beside him. She had known him and knew all too well how reckless he was with his well-being.

"Oh, Fredek," she sighed as she recoiled from the ghastly sight, "You idiot..."

Runepriests Are Kindly But They're Dumb

Grumpi waved his staff around in irregular circles as he marked as much bodies as he could with his mending runes.

They were fighting a losing battle, of that he was now sure. The hordes of his opponents had flooded in through the postern and trampled what little opposition they had encountered. It had gotten to the point where they were carelessly rushing in through the front door, counting on the assistance of their health dealers perched on the inner walls. He looked up dismally as gigantic orcs in ragtag armour taunted them from on high, defiantly taking all they had to throw at them with apparent ease.

He picked up a brave elf from the oil-flooded gate who was up no sooner than he was rushing back to the fray, only to fall victim to a pit of purple shades.

Grudgingly, more so than any other, he picked him up again and took a deep breath while surveying theh backlline. All around him more staves twirled and stomped and hammers were fiercely elevated towards the heavens.

He paused for a second to marvel at Callypous, his friend and fellow healer who had stood beside him and covered his back on many battles. She thrust her hammer up obscenely and Grumpi took a moment to appreciate the movement of her chest as she did.

She caught him staring and, instead of reprimanding him as usual, returned him a sad smile, allowing him to take what little solace he could in the bounciness of her breasts while amidst all that death and hopelesness.

"Door is almost down," came a voice from the gate that fell a bit short of enthusiastic. The words broke the spell that kept Grumpi fascinated with his friend's attributes and he prepared to give it his all and, at least take a few of the foul things that crowded the keep down with him.

Healing 102 - HoTs: maybe not so Hot?

No, I jest. HoTs are the bomb, at least for me and my OP class. And I shall tell you why.

For a DoK, HoTs are commonly overlooked and I can understand that. They only have two of them and they're not very good (or so I hear; feel free to prove me otherwise). Instead, they rely on their nearly spammable, short cast-time group heal to be extremely effective in a dire pinch. This is their strength as a healer. They're fast about it.

Zealots, on the other hand, are not as quick and their most powerful heals will take twice as long than a DoK's group heal. Thing is, we have more of them.

I have stressed this before but I shall stress it again for good measure: Leaping Alteration is our primary renown leeching tool. I'll give you mine as an example: Without critting I can periodically heal people within and without my party for around 350; if it crits it can go as high as 500. This is not to be ignored. At all.

Tzeentch's Cordial is also quite a powerful tool: not only have I seen it crit for 1k, you can now also equip that tactic that makes each tick capable of procing a 1k armor buff and a 10% less armor penetration shield. This can dramatically increase the survivability of a targeted DPS or healer.

Imagine this scenario. A tank has valiantly pushed onwards to disrupt the enemy's backlines. Immediately he is focused by whatever defenses they left there but a small force continues to beat down your own backline. Chances are that your tank is out of groupheal range. But it's very difficult for him to be out of single-target range as it is one of the longest (150 ft) in the game. So, if you just HoT him up with both LA and TC, he will be getting ticks of about 500 from each, a bit more if you're lucky. While you spam a bit of DoP to keep yourself and fellow healers up you need only the occasional Flash or Elixir to keep said tank productive, bearing in mind that tanks in backlines are very often ignored until it's too late. Even if he goes down you have earned extra renown and have kept enemy healers disrupted by proxy.

Also, in a PvE situation, HoTs can surely make a difference.

Take ToVL for example. The... 3rd boss? (the one that bombs and teleports and does the scarabs with the bridges and the river...) will deal pretty heavy damage to every party member over a short period of time. If you have not cast a pre-emptive LA over your party this damage is much harder to heal and can sometimes result in a MDPS casualty. Seeing as all these bosses are a DPS race, that can be an issue. Also, in dmg heavy bosses like the last one, having HoTs tick while your AP restores can make the difference between a phat new Tyrant chest and... not.

But lets not be extremists about this.

I came across a Zealot in T3 the other day that, while being the only healer in a 2 party warband, had resorted to only casting HoTs. So I asked him why. And he merely replied "is that wrong?"

I'll tell you now my friends. Yes. Yes, it is very wrong.

If you're in a situation where everyone and everything is taking damage, Group Healing is your Friend. Group Healing is so my friend I'm even specced all the way up Dark Rites because of it.

But HoTs help. And they can help a lot. And if you're leeching for renown, HoTs are more than your friend, they're your lover, your better half, your soulmate.

----EXTRA----

Keeping yourself alive: A few tips

Lets brush up on our survival skills.
First of all, learn to detaunt. Detaunt causes your targets to deal 50% less damage to you so, if u see a Slayer coming at you or a WL getting ready to pounce, detaunt before hand. Most of them like taking a great big bash at you right at first so you panic. What you can do is cut that damage in half and get a bit more protection on you, more specifically,
Embrace The Warp: like detaunt, reduces incoming damage by 50% but it is time based, not anything else. Plus, it stacks with detaunt (unless I'm terribly, terribly mistaken) and it makes you unsetbackable - and I know that isn't a word - meaning you can cast Elixirs on yourself and they won't be set back.
Be aware of your surroundings. Hide behind a tree or a wall, keeping in group heal range of the rest of your party.
If a tank suddenly breaks for your healer cluster, move to the side or towards and past him: there's a stagger inc.
Keep in mind that healers will die. Sometime's there's no way around it. People will die in WAR and healers will, ideally, go down first.
Err... I've said most of these things already. You might find more useful stuff here, here or generally here.

EDIT: Btw, HAPPY 100 POSTS ME!!!

Bright Wizards Are Insincere

"I'll be more careful next time, hun." lied Fredek, winking to the ample breasted Warrior Priest who had just fished him out of the growing pile of corpses that littered the ground in front of the keep.

He immediately resumed his attempts of exploding the gigantic bowl of steaming oil that poured its foul contents at regular intervals and, slowly but surely, was syphoning the health of the door's assaulters. He soon realised he was hitting nothing but the bowl itself and what little of it he could chink away was being quickly restored by unseen defenders.

He grunted as he received reports that the small resistance at the postern door had been overrun. He turned his fire to the main door, mindlessly hurling the countless bouts of the same spell at it, taking almost as much from his own life as from the sturdy wooden gate.

Suddenly, he felt a sharp pain on his ankle and, as he fell on his face, he noticed the Chosen laying on the ground with his teeth clenched to his leg, blood quickly soaking the surrounding robes, its red suddenly enriched by his own vital fluids.

As he lay dying, Parsley said something he didn't understand.

Knights Stand for Honesty

Tebas stood nose to wood in front of the massive door, splinters striking his cheeks as fireballs, arrows and the occasional ram hacked away at the sturdy gate.

"Stand firm, men! Hold the line," he yelled, while equally brave men, elves and dwarfs toppled over around him, dead, at least for the moment.

He held strong to his shield as he felt his life draining and then quickly refreshed in overwhelming waves of blessings and curses from varied gods. He could hear battle howls from Greenskins and Chaos warped men and women from the other side of the door as they toiled away, relentlessly building up the defenses that were sure to destroy his efforts.

"Door is almost down," he reported, trying to hold up the morale of his companions, knowing they would owe what little victories they could muster to the dumping of their combined sheer force of will at a critical moment.

In a moment, the door collapsed and his nose greeted the black gleaming horned helm of a warrior. In his eyes he detected the grin of one who is sure of his victory but Tebas wasn't going down without a fight.

"Into them!" Bright light flared  from his forces as they pushed forward into the wall of dark armour that barred their way. He focused his hacking on the grining warrior and, after a salve of arrows and fiery explosions hit him, he struck the final blow, cuttind him down just seconds before a ray of green light struck his chest, ending this chapter of Tebas' life.

DPS Zealot, The Double-Edged Dagger

I've done some serious testing, even FRAPSed it (although chances of it becoming an actual posted video are close to none as I don't have much free time on my hands to devote to learn how to make a presentable thingy).

I was surprised, impressed even, at the Zealot's ability to deal real damage and real kills, despite most of them being stolen. In the same exact specc, changing only my tactics and toggling on/off the Harbinger, I was healing the same as usual, which was very good.

Bear in mind we're talking about a rr70 Zealot in good gear so results may difer.

So, what I did was:

Tactics: Divine Fury (yes, I ended up using it after all cuz, frankly, I don't need to switch back to healing when in a premade with (an)other good healer(s)); Chager's Touch (the heal debuff is as sweet as I expected); Waves of Chaos, Scourged Warping.

I had to turn on Duff timer, which I don't usually use with my healer, so I could have some visual input of when Scourged Warping ticked and to check the efficiency of Changer's Touch.

I am pleased.
I would recomend all you Zealots started switching to DPS as well, if the battle is going in your favor.

You Can Take The Postern Door If It's Raining Or It's Cold

As the group approached the keep, the familiar cries of the horrors of war reached their ears and they shared a colective grin as they decided upon their strategy.

The softer ones would head for the postern, avoiding a possibly dangerous confrontation at the front gate as Parsley would move in on the unsuspecting backlines to stagger them and help the current defenders get a better foothold.

After they parted, Parsley dismounted and did the best he could to protect himself from retaliation so he could get as close to the keep's walls as he could.

But then something caught his eye. Something orange and red and hot all over.

"Fredek..." he grunted between clenched teeth and, as his grip around the hilt of his sword tightened, he discarded the plan he had agreed upon and moved in for the kill.

The memory of all their previous confrontations flooded his mind and warped his vision and all he saw now, as he removed his helm, was red. Fredek was being his usual casual self, disregarding his safety for the sake of high burst damage and Parsley timed his charge just right so he would reach him when he was at his most vulnerable.

But he was spotted as he walked up the hill, a lone Shadow Warrior beggining to shower him relentlesly with her poisonous arrows. Parsley lurched forward, his speed incredibly reduced, and dodged as much of the arrows as he could. Fredek was still blissfully unaware of his presence as he got within striking range of him but the archer's assault was unrelenting and Parsley fell to his knees.

With his last flicker of strength, he reached for the Wizard's leg and bit down hard on his ankle, feeling the flesh tear between his teeth like veal.

Fredek looked down in horror as poison rushed from the wound to the rest of his body and the last speck of his vitality was drained. He fell down, face first and, as he saw the life go out of his eyes, Parsley growled with his own last breath:

"Touch of Parsley, bitch!"

It's a Light and Tumble Journey From The Outter Wall To The Keep

Thyme rode after Rose as they prepared to step through the first postern. They had left Parsley behind, although Thyme wasn't completely sure this plan was bound to succeed. Parsley seemed to have a tendency to lose track of what he was doing and... overextend, the knowledge of having two healers as support making him feel god-like.

They got through the first door unopposed and gathered up with some fellow comrades that had just made short work of a couple of foes. They all waited for them to collect their mounts, fully aware of the strength numbers provided, especially with them being without their favorite meat-shield.

As they approached the final door, they saw a couple of dwarfs anxiously looking around and griping their arms with shaken resolve.

"Oh," whispered Mary as she dismounted. "It's on." Thyme watched as her figure became ever more transparent and flickered until all he could see of her fine frame was its outline. Following her lead, a couple more of her sisters performed their own disappearing acts and the rest of the group charged in on their horses to create the distraction.

The Ironbreaker looked as stout as any rock Thyme had ever seen but his fellow Engineer's shakiness completely robbed the duo of any menacing look they might have possessed. Apparently resigned to go out in a blaze of glory against overwhelming odds, the Ironbreaker led out a terrifying howl that stunned everyone in front of him. Thyme sidestepped just in time as to not be affected by it and began trying to soften him up a bit as he saw the covenant of Witch Elves close in on the softer target.

The Engineer's rifle shot repeatedly in desperate blasts, causing but a little annoyance to the group's ears and he yelled in panic as a group of tall, pale women suddenly leapt at him with pointy knifes raised above their perfect heads.

The Ironbreaker turned just in time to see his Oath friend gush out the last remnant of his life and yelled a curse at the beautiful elves that now started to move in on him. Thyme continued his rotation of softening as Rose refreshed the witches and Sage bombarded the dwarf with shattered shadows.

Mary had waited for just the right opportunity to reveal herself and, as she did, she cut the life out of the valiant dwarf with a single, swift blow, much to the grumbling of her sister witches.

They all rushed inside and Thyme reached the front wall to find the assaulters unstaggered and Parsley's seemingly dead body laying next to one who he indentified as Fredek, a notorious flame-wielding Wizard.

As he slowly raised his staff to restore Parsley up next to him, he heard the Chosen babble something at the Bright Wizard's dead body.

He rolled his eyes at the grinning Parsley, once he was back up, and added in the shriekiest voice he had ever uttered: "I'm not rezzing you again!"

Something Tells Me It's All Happening At The Keep

Parsley wiped the green ooze from his helmet and then looked around for something to wipe his gauntlet to. Sensing his intentions, Thyme quickly retreated out of his line of sight.
"Well, what now?" asked Rose, sporting her new Carcass Guard and overhealing the group to test out her new abilities.
"I would suggest getting out of these sewers first," Sage chimed in, sounding overly calm for one covered in slime and nurgling bits.
Mary appeared from behind a rock that hadn't been there a minute ago and unfurled a scroll she produced from... somewhere. "Says here one of our keeps is being attacked in Reikland. Might be worth taking a look." Her eyes glinted at the prospect of a few real kills, against opponents with real talent, something far from the mindless charging of the dirty beasts she had spent the better part of the hour cutting down.
"Yes... Sounds good," nodded Parsley, eager to try out a new skill of his own device. His companions rolled their eyes until they turned white.

The Healer's Hassle

That's my title, that is.
I've been trying something different, not necessarily good, but I've quite ejoyed it.

Long overdue, I've been trying to DPS more often, taking advantage of my new found intteligence softcap (sitting at 1070 with the Int buff an the Harbringer set to offensive). The result has been... satisfying and I've found myself trying to raise alternative healers for my scenario parties so I can DPS. I've taken revenge on WHs and WLs alike, closing in the gap in my Dammaz Kron. Oh yeah, I dinged 70. Also, long overdue.

But let's continue our DPS Zealot musings.

With my new found renown rank came a new mastery point which I spent to buy Chaotic Agitation. It is actually quite a good spell and I'll tell you more about its potential shortly.

I could feal the evil glares as other players started noticing the Scourge coming from my focus so I tried to not switch to DPS tactics very often, remaining in healer-friendly tactics and only turning on the harbringer once in a while.

But I've been thinking of completely rehauling my specc to slot in some new goodies and possibly make my Zealot a true force to be reckoned with while DPSing.

My DPS friendly-tactics have been Waves of Chaos (rituals pulse with damage), Divine Fury (25% more damage but 20% less healing; that or the other way around), Something-Or-Other (20%? chance to proc an absorb shield of 700~? on being hit) and Scourged Warping (each tick of Warp Reality - the DoT - has a chance of making the next Scourge cast in 10 seconds to be insta cast). All well and good but I'm not happy with Divine Fury. The extra damage is good but the healing gimp is noticeable when I have to turn off my Harbringer to save myself (and, possibly others) from certain death.

So I've been looking at other tactics to buy to slot in instead of it. I could go for Manipulation, to keep damaging while I turn back to healing. But there's too many 25%s in tthat equation, making its damage output quite gimped.

Chaotic Force wouldn't be half bad either, considering I mainly cast Tzeentch's Cry and Scourge while Chaotic Agitation cools down. But taking up a tactic slot for just two abilities seems a bit of a waste.

But what really caught my eye was Changer's Touch. Chaotic Agitation crits nicely, even though my crit is subpar (sitting at around 16%). But Chaotic Agitation has some very nice points going for it: the hits are close together; if the target goes out of range (oh, say, to the backline next to his juicy healers) it keeps on hitting, wether I lose LoS or just range; my AP ritual makes its AP cost almost null. Now, from the recently discovered usefulness of the Shadow Warrior's heal debuff (yes, only now have I started seeing Shadow Warrior's actually use it on a regular basis) I can assert that a 50% heal debuff is not to be taken lightly, especially if u can AoE it. 2k heals will only heal 1k and previously useful HoTs of 500~will be cut down to 250ish. Not terribad, in my opinion.

I'm left to wonder if it stacks with Windblock, but I'd need some help in testing it out.

I'm also thinking of scraping up an extra point to buy Boon of Tzeentch, if its axis problems have been fixed (I've heard nothing to confirm this), mainly to improve my own survivability against those pesky pouncers and stealthers.

I also wonder if anyone out there has tried these things out and can shed some light on the subject. My bloodthirst would greatly apreciate it.

Andy Made Me Feel Dirty, Bootae Made Me Feel Special

First part is simply because a bunch of us was asked to join Order side last week, and that didn't go down well. Not that he asked but what I got to witness on the other side. The level of organisation either was good but extremely cold or non-existant. Not really my thing, further solidifying my belief that Orders are all starch-arses, as Torgaddon would say. I just didn't really like it, except when I got to kill a few known Destro. The whole environment was so heavy that it made me itch. I guess that realm pride has become a bit stornger in me than what i thought.

Don't take it personally. Or do. /shrug

Bootsie made me feel special because I feel I have learned more in ths hort time I've been in Kill Frenzy about my own playstyle and working as a team than what I had in all my previous time PUGing in WAR. I have also earned better loot and more renown. However, I have also been faced with the dylemma that almost every single time I log in I feel the need to heal as I like to be helpful and everybody needs a healer. Doesn't give me much time to play my beloved DPSs or rank up my aussum BG. Being part of this new group also showed me that the player that is behind a certain class is just as important as its gear/rr. Some people just can't seem to do anything right together while others are ideal groups. It has more to do with synergy between certain people than their actual skill.

Will have more interesting things to write about tomorrow, I hope. I'm just hella booooored ATM.

Here, have a cube that's not really a cube more like some solid shape with an indefinite number of sides which aren't really indefinite it's just me that's too lazy to think about it so I just call it a cube.

Nerf White Lions PLOX.... Well, at Least One or Two of Them...

There has always been talk. That's why god (or the devil, depending on your religious inclinations) gave us tongues and a part of the brain specifically designed to understand other people's ranting.

Specifically there's been talk about how gimped some classes' DPS is. I hear about how WLs ain't got shit on a Slayer and whatnot. Or how Magi are the eternal gimps of the world.

I was always a defender that a class is as good as you play it. I've been the best killer on several occasions on my Magus and, if not at killing, at least I've taken satisfaction out of the fact that I knew my role and was keeping true to it, softening the oposing blob so they could be killed more efficiently.

Here's an example: I (on my Zealot, which is currently stacking Wounds because I can't seem to lose enough Willpower to get below the softcap but that's a story for another day) never run from WLs too seriously. I just detaunt and keep spamming and they soon move on to the next, lesser RR healer. There are some exceptions to this. One of them being Phonos. Another one is this.

Forty deathblows in one scenario is impressive. Im sure he had excellent support and I'm sure our setup was far from ideal. Still. Nerf. But just this one player. And maybe two or three more. But that's the thing isn't it? A career can be considered to be working as intended if someone can shine with it like this. And for one person that is good at something there's always going to be 50 others who truly suck at it. Take Zealots for example. I can be rezzing one and taking aggro from 50 Orders while I do but I am still considerate enough to lure them away from the place where I rezed the other one so he has time to recover. But do I always get a counter rez in response? Even if they're just standing over my rotting corpse surveying the terrain? No. I don't always, no.

So if you find a class with which everyone seems to be able to shine with, you think maybe there's something not altogether right with it? I do. Because if everyone can pick it up and rain fiery death on everything there's no reason why anyone should roll anything else.

Aren't you glad we don't have that problem?

My Single Target Choppa Specc (I'ts Epikk!!!)

This is massively delayed, I know, but here it is

Epikk's Choppa Build and some more stuff!!! (AKA big wall of text incoming)

I'm gonna split this up into a few sections in order to cover Mastery training, Renown training (even though this part will get changed when 1.4 arrives) and gear, so, let's get started.

Renown Training:

Might up to 5 for 102 strength

Blade Master up to 3 for 30 Weapon skill

Oportunist up to 2 6% crit

Mastery Training:

I went full Hitta with a dash of Savage, meaning I spent 17 points on the Hitta tree (getting it to 15 and buying "Bleed Em Out" and "Strong Finish" on the way) and 11 points on Savage (got "Wot Rules?" and "Can't Stop Da Chop")

Gear:

Currently I'm runing with a mix of Invader Darkpromise and Tyrant. Will change to Tyrant/Warlord only in a couple of Renown Ranks but that's still to come

Head and Shoulders are Tyrant

Hands and Belt are Invader

Chest and Boots are Darkpromise

The reason for this is to get the two STR bonuses from DP and Invader plus the wounds bonus from Tyrant.

The added crit from shoulders and boots together with the MP from the gloves are very nice.

Obviously, MP talisman on gloves, and crit on shoulders. The rest i slot STR.

I'm going with a "Krogengz, Cutta of Doom" (City bag) on my right hand and a "Titan's Choppa of Anathema" (Invader insignias weapon) on my left hand.

The Cutta of Doom provides some needed MP while the Anathema one gives out some more MP and a little bit of crit.

Cloak and 2 glyphs from TOVL. Still haven't been able to get a Panahasi though, for the MP and the 4 piece bonus, so, the other 2 jewelry slots are filled with an Executioner's Ring and an Icon of Assassins for the Nehekharan set.

Tactics:

Brute Force: 160 STR

Wot Rules?: exhaustive blows no longer remove rage

Flanking: Added 15% damage when attacking from sides or back

Strong Finish: Increases crit chance with Hitta abilities by 15% and decreases my ability to defend crits by 10%

As you can probably tell from the tactics, my main focus is spamming abilities that require rage, and are from the Hitta tree.

Abilities and rotation:

First of all, my Hurtin' Time is always on. I realy don't care if it damages me,

because the added damage that it provides is simply too good for me to not use it.

Other than that, I run things arround Reckless Blow.

Now, every one and their mothers bash me for using this cuz, as most say, "it's a crap ability because of the 5% penalty on getting critted and you can do almost the same damage with Slasha or Go For Da Soft Spot", but more on that later.

By the way, I rarely run alone. I'm usually either in a party or warband with guild mates, so, my buid has that into consideration, and I allow myself to suck on survivability because I know there's a healer somewhere that's taking care of me.

I wouldn't dream of roaming solo with this build. I'm just too squishie with it.

Anyway, getting on with stuff.

I revolve arround 2 main abilities, wich are Bleed em Out (sweet SWEEET DOT) and Reckless Blow. No matter what kind of oposition i get, these two are the ones I rely on.

So, as I said before, I run in groups. That being said, right before engaging, I usually kick Git Stuck In. The 35% AA haste for group mates is precious and unless everyone has a speed lower than 1 second, it does make a diference (even though most people won't notice it's magic).

Right after that, there's a 5 second gap that I hate... the 5 seconds it takes for my rage to build up.

So, before i have enough rage, what usually goes on is Slasha -> Slasha -> Bleed Em Out -> Can't Stop Da Chop -> Go For Da Soft Spot

Slasha's debuff stacks, so I try to get at least two in there right at the start of the fight.

Bleed Em Out starts ticking in slowly but it really does a lot of damage in total

The reason I spit out Can't Stop The Chop (for the healing debuff) only after 3 hits is that I really wanna take advantage of most of it's timer. It wouldn't really make a diference for the target's health if I had used it as an opener instead of when I do because even at 50% heals, a decent healer would be able to out heal my Slashas and the first tick of Bleed Em Out if they went in after CSTC, so, this way I just get 2 debuffs in and the first tick of a DOT, then the heal debuff, just in time for the big strikes to go in together with Bleed Em Out's bigger ticks.

Go For Da Soft Spot should already damage a lot at this stage cuz of the toughness debuffs

After this roll-out, it's time for the massive damage.

Reckless Blow is ready to use!!!!

Ok so, it deals a lot of damage. It's actually my most damaging ability. But it does have the drawback of debuffing your chance to be critted by 10%, which can be a pain, so, after aplying the first Reckless Blow, remember to toss in a Try 'An Hurt Me to reduce your target's chance of critting you by 100%.

Yhea ok so the other guys arround your target that you didn't debuff will still proffit from your chance to be critted, but hey, that's why I run with good healers :P

Anyway, after this point, it's just a matter of working your stuff arround Reckless Blow. Just keep spamming it, while reaplying anything that needs to be reaplied (like Git Stuck In when the cooldown ends, Try 'An Hurt Me whenever you change targets, CSTC when the heal debuff ends and most importantly, always have a Bleed Em Out runing on your target)

UPDATE

I forgot to mention something... Obviously, knock down your opponents whenever possible. This is also one of the reasons I have Wot Rules? slotted. The knockdown needs rage and I really can't be caught on a situation where I need a knockdown but there's no rage to use it because of some other ability I just used, and the same goes for the other way around... can't really be negated of a knockdown just because I used a Reckless Blow.

END OF UPDATE

With this set up I currently run at 33% crit (counting in the crit tactic for the Hitta tree abilities). I have had higher crit rates at the expense of other stats, but to be honest, 33% already crits enough.

All in all it's not an awesome spec, but it's what works for me right now. It's obviously extremely dependent on gear (reason for which I won't be able to wear Warlord untill i'm RR69) but then again, what isn't?

And I think that's that.

thank you for your time reading through this wall of text,

Cheers.

Colossus MDPS weapons

Before I start, let me warn you that this is going to be a whining post, and even though there are more weapons besides the ones I'm talking about, I am concentrating on the high crit ones only.

Ok, so, yesterday we were running some scenarios and I noticed Skreavar (a guild mate's Marauder) had a sweet looking weapon on his un-mutated arm.

I inspected him and found out it was one of the Colossus weapons. a Mesis Djaf, to be more precise.

Looking at it's stats I got kinda pissed cuz it had more stats than a Ur Khsar Odji, which made me fly to LOTD after a couple more scenarios just to check if I was wrong about the stats or not.

Surprise surprise!!!

Most of you probably know what I'm gonna say next, but I only noticed it yesterday (yheap, I know. I'm kinda slow.. but hey, I play an orc.. I'm expected to be slow on the head)

THE CHOPPAS GOT SHAFTED!!!

I mean... if you consider Destro's 3 MDPS classes, the choppa has the shortest end of the stick when it comes to weapons bought with pages from the Liber Mortis...

Let's take a look at the WE's dagger:

Sweet looking thing tbh.

Nice crit (10% crit if you use 2 of these babies.. niiiice) and some pretty cool MP going on there

the STR isn't that bad either, and the same goes for the DPS

all in all, I like them. They could be better (I wouldn't complain if they had a talisman slot hehe) but they're pretty awesome and I wanna have their babies

Now let's look at the Marauder's hammer:

Not too shabby.

same DPS and Crit as the WE dagger up there, but less Strength and MP.

ok so it has +3 AP per second. that's a nice bonus. But does it really make up for losing 14 STR and 11 MP compared to the dagger? I honestly think not!

But still, it's a nice piece of gear that I wouldn't mind using if i was a Marauder with a page of the liber mortis lying around and some spare funerary masks burning a whole in my pocket.

and now, the focus of this post...

the Choppa axe:

same DPS as the two above.. ok

same Speed, same crit chance

oh nice. it has more AP regen than the Marauder's hammer. I'm liking it already!

hmm 2 less STR than the hammer... ok I can live with that.. I mean, it must be to compensate the extra AP point per second.

and now let's check the... errr... WAIT A MINUTE!!!! NINETEEN MELEE POWER???????

let me get this straight WE get 44, Marauders get 33 and Choppas get 19????????

that's almost HALF of the Marauder's hammer stat (14 difference) and, dare I say it... LESS than half of the WE's dagger (25 diference!!!!!!!)

what's going on here? I mean, honestly...

Let's assume there is a WE out there dual wielding those daggers

and let's also assume there's a choppa somewhere dual wielding those axes

They should be comparable weapons as we are talking bout same archetypes and same source of gear.

How can a difference of 50 MP and 32 STR compare to the 8 AP per second???

what gives, Mythic???

All Come To Look For a Guard

Parsley caressed the blade of his beloved greatsword with a frown on his face. Sage stood behind him, straining to hold back a snicker, letting through but the slightest grin.

"I know you're there and I know you're smiling."

"I would never do such a thing."
"I know you know what this means as I know they know as well as I."
Rose smiled openly and chipped in:

"Less sweat from my pores is what! True, Thyme?" Thyme rose his spectacled face from the old tome he was reading.

"It says here," he started, "that the general tanking population has accepted and, in some cases, even welcomed this new decree."
"And the rest of us are quite happy with it too," Mary's head whispered as it appeared from the foliage of a low-hanging tree.
"Yes... I guess... There's nothing for it then."
Parsley put away his favourite weapon and sprouted from God-knows-where his shield and meager sword.
"We really need to find you a better one of those, meat shield," Rose helped Parsley to his feet and started to dust off his battered shield. "Now come on, try it out."

"Wait a while there," said Mary as she landed from the tree. "Why are you getting the guard? You won't be anywhere near him! I'll be the one getting stuck in with him up front, I should get it."

"And I'm the one always frostbiting my extremities off. I should be the one to have his damage input reduced." Sage stepped forth from the tree he had been leaning to.

"Oh so you plan on being up front with the rest of them, do you? A one-Druchii bomb group?" Thyme began to stand ever closer to Parsley's shield.

As the bickering continued, Parsley left them to it and departed the clearing to stare at the sun's reflection on the nearby river's placid waters.

"Where's the rain for my parade?"

Working as Intended

I tried the PTS yesterday.

I got bombed the crap out of me in a keep by a flying Archmage.

Couldn't understand or purchase anything in the renown trainer.

Figured out the range you have to be from your flamer. Unfortunately I only figured it out by feel, much like the way I cook. Without measuring anything. Also understood that it has some vertical problems when it comes to range.

I only felt sorry that the templates were only for T3. Yes, I completely understand that they need to do some T3 testing first but... I feel completely underwhelmed when it comes to classes I came to know and love like Zealot and Magus when playing them without all of their skills.

Black Orcs are bigger, true, and, from what I hear they didn't have to mess with the hitbox.

There's a lot of good stuff there and I'll type more after I get what's going on.

Struggle and Single-Target Experiments

Still doing moving related stuff. Boxing stuff in and out. Cleanin, washing, drilling, urgh.

I haven't mustered much strength to porperly play WAR as of late.

I did dabble in a Single-Target specc. I was not impressed. The boost to my Single-Target speels wasn't as significant as I'd hoped (mostly because it was pretty high to begin with) and... well, I just didn't feel like I was in my own skin. My advice would be, if you wanna experiment with new speccs do so before you've been playing the same one for nearly two years.

But, I'll be honest, seeing as I just hit rr69 (kinky, isn't it) I'm gonna give my Zealot a rest and play my Magus for a while. I'll try the single-target specc on him too for... two reasons...:

1. I've heard say it's awesome
2. I need a change before the change.

My AoE build has brought me loads of fun and killage but I need something new to keep logging in. And it's not new content or more rr grinding that's gonna keep me coming back. It is going to be my own ability to find something new to do within the same environment, with the same rules and same interface.

Jinx

Wouldn't you know it?

As soon as I have the time to set up my computer to play some well-deserved WAR, it doesn't work. Luckily, I have an engineer of these matters living under the same roof.  All is well now.

After playing on Ehone for about an hour I finally managed to get my oh-so-elusive Darkpromise Footwraps.
The only logical conclusion is that the old house was jinxing me. Many thanks to Anngrek for letting me take her place for the first wing.

And although my return to WAR wasn't the best (what with me missing the renown boost and all) I have teh best guild leader ever.

Ever. He even sings when I ask him to.