Super Effective

I've Got Some Backlash Here In My Bag

2011-06-24T15:03:00.000+01:00

Sage flinched as a shard of ice shot from his hand and straight into his eye.

"You really ought to be more careful with that," Parsley advised, shrugging off an arrow or two that had made their way into his shoulders. He had his back turned to the ram-manners and his shield up defiantly facing the rest of his party.

They had happened upon a keep whose outer door had not offered much resistance. They had quickly joined the horde of peons of the Bird God in taking down the inner door and crush what little opposition faced them on this a most sunny day in Dragonwake.

"I mean," he went on to say as fire rained around him, "I've seen you get seriously hurt from those things. I know you can be more careful with that. Besides, it doesn't help one bit when I'm sticking my neck out to defend you."

"Have you ever heard the saying 'You need to spend money to make money'?" he asked as a particularly thick, sharp and now bloodied ice spike pierced through his calf. "The same principal applies. In order to inflict pain, one must endure it, as Mary will no doubt attest to." Mary, as it happened, was falling down from above, a gun shot piercing her chest and ending her life right before her feet touched the ground.

"That may very well be but... You could give us a break. I mean just look at Rose and Tom here."

"It's Thyme..."

"Sure, Tom. They work their asses off trying to keep us up and you're not making their job any easier."Rose and Thyme looked and each other quizzicaly. They soon resumed their pelvic-thrusting and baton-twirling. They knew how things could get when Parsley made up his mind about arguing about something.

"Oh. And I suppose crushing our opposition to a bloody pulp does nothing for our cause. Or freezing over something pesky that might pounce on them or leap from the shadows." One of his ears froze over entirely and began to crack as he spoke.

"You see that? The mere fact that you're falling apart as we have this discussion is indicative of how right I am."

"And the cinge marks in your armor and all the arrows protruding from your body are supposed to make me take you more seriously then? Be silent, Chosen and do your job, which in this particular situation would consist of... not a whole lot."

"Oh, really? I guess I'll leave then."

Sage's smirk quickly faded as a Shadow Warrior's arrow found it's way to the middle of his forehead as soon as Parsley was more than 30 feet away. He rose up again, uncomfortably close to his friend the Shaman, to meet Parsley's grin.

"Although I still believe I've made some valid points, I'll take your advice into consideration," he uttered grudgingly as green and purple lights swirled around him, removing blood stains and restoring cloth to it's pristine condition.

"Glad to hear it! Now, Mary, I suspect you're about able to pick the door again?" She nodded and twirled her blades in that very characteristic way Witch Elves are known for. "Then Rose and Tom shall edge closer to the wall and Sage and I will do our best to keep them safe. Keep the chatter to a minimal and let's send some of these toons back to whine to their maker."

Down, But Not Out

2011-02-22T16:07:00.001Z

I moved.

Decided to try something different. Although I won't be playing WAR anytime soon as this blog as been mostly just about that particular game, my recent purchase of Rift and a 3-month subscription made me realise I still have something to say about gaming in general, what it's like for me, how it impacts my life, what I expect from games, how I expect to feel fulfilled and, you know, stuff.

And here's where.

Urgh...

2011-02-16T19:02:00.000Z

This is probably one of the hardest posts I've ever written. Not that I'm like all pro about posting that I do it every day or that I did it even semi-regularly. No. Posts, for me, came and went but this one was particularly hard to start.

I've been dreading this day for months now, when I'd finally put all of this in words but now the time has come and so, out with it.

For two years, I adored WAR. I loved it and was proud to play it. I spent hours on it, ditched school, set my desk on fire, let the dishes pile up in the sink. I was a healer and a damn good one at that. It was a title I wore like a medal. No other game could steal me away from it for long and I even had vivid dreams about it. I talked about it, read about it, blogged about it, wrote about it. I loved WAR.

Just... not anymore. I remember a post I wrote once on how people rr80 could still find things to entertain themselves while they waited for the post 80 patch: chase down tome unlocks, roll an alt and... I did all that. And I'm not even rr75 yet. I milked that cow dry and now I'm left holding the saggy tits of the dead thing.

I don't even know why I bothered resubscribing this month. I played it for like 15 minutes and all it did was piss me off. If people keep screaming that they need new content, that something that's not really an expansion doesn't cut it, you should listen. It's like going shopping for a woman having no idea what they like. You have to know the audience you're trying to please. That starts by listening. I think they failed to listen.

Losing interest in WAR was, for me, like losing a dear friend. I spent countless hours having fun with it, I laughed, I debated, I learnt, I taught. But now it's giving me the cold shoulder and I could care more. I could. But I don't and that's what hurts the most. That the game has become something I just don't care about.

I'm hoping that, given enough time, I'll come back to it, pretending to see with fresh eyes that which I'm now so pro at. Meanwhile, I'm going to go give Rift a try. Not that I'm overly impressed with it but I miss playing stuff with other people. At least undil Dragon Age 2 comes knocking.

If anyone finds this, I hope you continue having a great time with WAR, that it fills your life with as much joy and entertainment as it did mine, once.

Now and Then, Here and There

2011-01-03T12:38:00.000Z

Wonderful anime, that. Featuring what probably is the cartoon boy that has suffered the most and grinned and beared it. Too bad this post has nothing to do with it.

No, I'm not dead. It was Christmas.
One thing about Christmas.
I fucking hate Christmas. I hate it to the point of tears, which is usually where it ends up (or starts off as the case may be). New Year's Eve, however, I love, and this year I got drunk to the point of laughing hysterically sitting on the floor behind the couch. Good times.
So that's why I've been away.

Also, Epikk did us the wonderful favour of buying Dragon Age: Origins which brought me back to an old favorite hobby of mine: flirting with fictional hunks.

A few years back I had a huge crush on Carth Onasi. You remember him, right? The blumbering widower from KotOR. I don't know exactly why, but I almost intantly fell in love with the thing. And I call it a thing cuz I have no delusions about what it is. It's a thing, a remarkably well made and endearing thing, but a thing. Maybe it's the voice behind the thing (somewhere, a voice-actor is blushing right now) that spawned that crush in me, I don't know. Probably.

But, for a time, I could do nothing else but play through KotOR over and over again, finding new ways to romance it and break its heart. I know most fans of the game actually hated it and I can see why. It could be a bit whiny. But what man, fictional or otherwise, isn't at times?

That was then - now, its Alistair. He's my crush for the new year.

Alistair is the spiritual successor to Carth in many ways. It's just as whiny but I find it a bit more witty. Plus the british-like accent is a nice change. So, while my modem is all up in a rage, I have succumbed back into BioWare's grip, romancing their fictional hunks. I spend hours in camp, flirting with other party members just so he'll tell me how hurt and jealous he is. Come to think of it, better I do that in a game than in real life, right?

Problem is, Epikk liked the game so much he's considering buying Mass Effect as well. Oh, dear, this does not bode well for my sanity. I just know there's at least one more virtual hunk in there for me to fall for. A girl can only have so many crushes at once.

That thing about the modem: I don't know what's wrong with it, it keeps disconecting both our 360 (which is really anti-climactic when you're making out with your choice of pixels) and Epikk's new pc. Also, since we received our new bedroom furniture (crafted by a very old, very rikety hermit in Sweden that has a contract with a very big, very famous furniture selling company that starts with an I, ends in an A and has the letters K and E somewhere in the middle) we had to disband our "junk room" so it could be turned into our bedroom. Junk, however has a habit of not magically storing itself in appropriate places so we now find ourselves with the den, where the computers are stored and used, as a temporary "junk room". I'm afraid to go in there. Not only because it pains me to know I'll be doing the bulk of the cleaning and storing but also because there's a big ass mirror against a wall that I'm always afraid will fall on me when I open the door.

Er... Wut?

2010-12-15T16:26:00.000Z

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

2010-12-13T15:03:00.000Z

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

2010-11-29T14:07:00.000Z

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

2010-11-24T01:25:00.002Z

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

2010-11-23T17:38:00.000Z

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

2010-11-23T11:52:00.004Z

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

2010-11-11T16:33:00.000Z

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

2010-11-05T12:20:00.001Z

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

2010-11-04T11:09:00.000Z

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?

2010-11-02T15:04:00.001Z

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

2010-11-02T13:37:00.000Z

"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

2010-10-26T10:02:00.000+01:00

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

2010-10-25T11:36:00.000+01:00

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

2010-10-21T14:05:00.000+01:00

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

2010-10-20T17:21:00.000+01:00

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

2010-10-20T13:27:00.000+01:00

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

2010-10-18T13:54:00.000+01:00

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

2010-10-15T12:05:00.000+01:00

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...

2010-10-14T15:01:00.000+01:00

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!!!)

2010-10-14T02:07:00.006+01:00

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

2010-10-11T12:22:00.006+01:00

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

2010-10-07T15:47:00.000+01:00

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

2010-10-06T14:03:00.000+01:00

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

2010-10-04T17:16:00.000+01:00

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...:

I've heard say it's awesome
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

2010-09-28T14:35:00.000+01:00

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.

Happy Birthday

2010-09-20T13:51:00.000+01:00

No, not to WAR, to me actually.

It's my birthday and as a special birthday treat, I am deprived of internet access except at work/school/training/lowsyexcuseforgovernmentfunding.

So, for my birthday, I get to miss the double renown and increased player influx. Go me.

iPhone Birthday Cake

Freak on a Leash

2010-09-16T15:05:00.001+01:00

Magus changes. Yes indeedly.

So, what I know of it is:

For Engineers, a portion of the character's Ballistic Skill, Weapon Skill, and Wounds from equipment will also affect their turrets.
For the Magus, a portion of the character's Intelligence and Wounds from equipment will also affect their daemons. Additionally, the daemons' autoattacks will now deal magical damage - Elemental for the Pink and Blue Horrors, and Spirit for the Flamer
For both careers, the character will begin receiving a new effect while they remain near their turret / daemon - Improvised Upgrades for the Engineer, and Unholy Empowerment for the Magus. This effect will start as a +4% damage buff, and will increase every 2 seconds by another 4%, up to a max of +20% damage after 10 seconds. If the character moves away from their turret / daemon, the effect will begin dropping back down, eventually fading from them entirely until they return to their turret / daemon's side.

So my biggest doubt was: just what does "near" and "away" mean?

I found a non-answer.

"The actual range of the turret buff was omission by intent. We're still debating internally what the actual range should be. "

Andy Belford

Another interesting question was "Will redeploy reset the timed buff?", to which the answer was:

"As long as you're staying near the turret/daemon, the buff will build up; if you move away, it'll drop off. If you move away and then Redeploy the turret to you, you'll see it start to drop off a bit and then promptly begin building right back up again once the turret "lands".

Nate Levy

And so I've heard say "boohoo, so not enough. I have no reason to spend 2s cast time and God knows hosw much AP (cuz I don't) to summon a meat bag that might give me a small dmg boost if it survives the flow of melee BWs inc to my position"... or something similar. Well, I think its's only fair tro stress out some other things that were disclosed. And I paraphrase:

This does not involve tactics at all; the damage bonus is a passive benefit of having a turret / daemon out.
Giving the magus/engy access to a loner tactic is not something that we're looking into at this time
A network of multiple benefits (like a different aura based upon what you are doing) is something that we're more likely to do as a tactic - we are intentionally aiming to keep the passive effect clean, simple, and straightforward. Additional effects with more subtlety and/or complexity are definitely a possibility for future changes, but aren't necessarily our goal with this specific design.
It's possible that buildup and/or duration timers may be adjusted in the future, but it's not on our plate right now.
I currently hope to have these changes in 1.4 (with the caveat, of course, that plans and timelines are always subject to change as needed). I make no statements as to whether "in 1.4" is before or after RVR packs. =)
Going after the enemy's turret / daemon should be a valid strategy to try and hinder them, as long as the turret / daemon has enough Hit Points to ensure that someone going after it is really focusing on it, rather than just tangentially happening to kill it via incidental splash damage. Ultimately, much of the number-tweaking will be impacted by PTS results and feedback.

That's all I had time and patience to read but all of these statements (coming from Nate Levy) give me hope for the future. We can rest assured that our cries of "LOL Magus iz gimp" have reached the developers' ears and even if you don't consider these changes to be enough, at least there are changes which means its not a stagnant career like, say, a While Lion (*snicker*snicker*).

Cmon, we all have a WL in some server going like:

Healing Tips: Part 1

2010-09-14T13:55:00.000+01:00

For fast renown, heal ppl when they jump off keep walls.
Just throwing HoTs around when in a funnel and you've got your entire party of MDPS/Tanks under oil is NOT OK.
When being targeted by anything never run to the other healers. Run near a tank or a dps that can help kill it, or else they will just jump from killing you to killing the next one.
Refrain from using your knockbacks except when absolutely necessary. Targets shold not be made immune to tank punts.
Position yourself, whenever possible, away from ledges and with your back to a wall.
When in doubt, ask for help

i'll take some RvR to go, please

2010-08-31T23:29:00.000+01:00

As you all know there's been some info roaming around about the soon(?) to come RvR packs.

There's bits and pieces about this scattered all over the place. Enough to get my mind crunching some ideas, but not nearly enough to give us definitive knowledge about the stuff.

It's obviously Skaven themed. That much Andy and Carrie have disclosed and it's one of the few questions that they have openly answered.

Andy put up a thread on the official forums for people to ask questions and he's been answering them (you can read it here) and I find it funny that he openly says "no" to subjects like the racial capitals, but he says "we are not ready to discuss that" to things like fortresses.

One thing is for sure, I was thinking of how cool it would be to bring the Fortresses back but in another area, and have them host relics like the DAOC ones, but he already said that there are not going to be Relics as they don't want to give the strongest side even more power =(

What follows is a rant about what I'd

love to see as the result of 1.4 and the RvR packs. It's based on the information that I've read online, but it's more of a wishful thinking rant than a factual future.

According to the concept artwork (that you can see above) the new skaven area looks like it could be a network of underground tunnels.

Add to that the fact that they say the new area is going to be part of the campaign.

Also, on the forum thread i linked to before, one person asked "where is the new area gonna be situated on the world map?" to which Andy answered "it's going to be on the world map" (or something in those lines)

At first i thought he was making a smart remark, cuz obviously everything on the world is on the world map... but then it got me thinking...

what if the new skaven area is BELLOW everything we already know in T4??

think of this... there are 3 pairings. each with 3 zones. making a total of 9 T4 maps that are RvR enabled.

The new area could simply be a chain of tunnels that go underground, bellow the T4 as we know it today, linking all tiers and all zones together. A mesh of pathways that have diferent exits for each one of the 9 maps we have today.

They also told us that they are keeping the keeps and the BOs but they're gonna change the way the campaign advances, and that they're removing some of the locking mechanisms for the zones.

AND they wanna break off the zerg.

So. with all this in mind, my idea is as follows.

Imagine there are no zone locks. Only Pairing locks.

to lock a Pairing, you have to controll all BOs and Keeps on that pairing.

but the zones themselves do not lock. and you don't need to advance from Chaos Wastes to Reikland to lock the pairing.. you just have to controll it all, but in no particular order.

Let's consider that destro starts taking keeps and BOs in Chaos Wastes.

We take both keeps and all BOs.

We don't lock the zone cuz they don't lock anymore

We decide to move on to Praag, so we send some Warbands there to take the keeps and battle objectives BUT!!! we must leave some warbands behind in chaos wastes to defend the already controlled keeps and BOs because Order could just run back and take them away from us.

BAZINGA!!!! the zerg is broken. we need to split our forces to be able to defend shit :P

Now.. we manage to take control of Praag as well, and we try to advance into Reikland, but there's order there.. so we end up having a big fight... and obviously, as order is there, people in Chaos Wastes come up to help... leaving just one warband to defend Chaos Wastes (you twats.. you're gonna lose us a zone!!)

all of a sudden... ZOMGFACEPALM!!!!

a warband of Order goes un-noticed through the skaven tunnels. they go right into Chaos Wastes, where there's only a warband of Destro there trying to defend everything... MISTAAAAAKE!!!

all of a sudden there's order in chaos wastes and in reikland.. and Destro is sandwiched between those two zones... the shaaaame.

only way destro could have prevented this??? by having a warband of destro controlled skavens roaming in the underground tunnels, trying to catch order as they were trying to sneak by!!!!!

so. bottom line is.

no more zone lockings.. you can controll any BO and Keep freely of zone locks, and if you manage to capture all of them, you lock a pairing.

underground tunnels that you can use to stealthly go from one zone to another zone, and the oposing faction can try to block your way by playing skavens

that's what i'd like =)

Creamy Glory indeed.

oh yhea, on another note. to use the tunnels you'd have to gain access to them. the side that has access to them can roam them freely, and the side that doesn't have controll can only go there as skavens, to prevent the other side from using them.

that's all

cheers

Zealot: Path of the iPhone®

2010-08-31T14:51:00.004+01:00

Yes, after 25 years someone gave me a nickname.

So, I've been asked about my specc a lot lately. Seems that when you start edging closer to rr70 ppl start taking you more seriously. Not that my healing has changed much but there you go.

My specc looks like this with 3 more points spent in the alchemy tree (wardb doesn't account for the extra specc points you get with every 10 rrs). Bear in mind that the Warping the Spirit tactic has had its effect changed and now makes Tzeentch's Cordial have a % (20%?) chance to increase the target's armour for 1056 and reduce his armour penetration by 10% for 10 seconds. This chance applies with every tick of the HoT so, with a bit of luck it will refresh itself down to the last tick.

I'm now the proud owner of 2 Tyrant pieces: the shoulders and the belt. Still wearing Sentinel chest piece (Assasin's Suit or whatever it's called. The one that looks like a BW on its appearance) mainly because I'm only rr68. And Darkpromise never drops for me. Ever. Hands and boots are Warlord and I'm wearing a spiffy Cowl of the Fist with a Mask of the Bloodletter appearance. Wicked. I've got all 4 ToVL glyphs, the semi-crappy LoTD cloak, a rr65 SC weapon and a rr55 SC focus.

------!! SELF-INTERVIEW TAIIMMEEE!!!11eleven!-------

Q: I've heard Zealots are better off focusing on ST (Single Target) healing and not group heals. Why did you go for Dark Rites?

A: I would rather have my groupheal crit everyone for 2.5k than take as long a cast time on an Elixir of Dark Blessings for a possible 5k for the simple fact that the only thing taking a serious beating that can wait that long is a turtling tank. Also, bombing being a very current problem I gotta face the fact that every single person in my party is likely to be hit at exactly the same time. So, yes, Zealot's ST is VERY good and VERY strong, especially because, unlike the Shaman (the DoKs don't even count for ST when not dps specced), Zealots can specc specifically for ST but grouphealing is essential especially if you find yourself being the only healer in your party.

Q:Would you bet on Willpower or Wounds for survivability?

A: Tricky. I'll be the first one to admit it, I'm a very squishy Zealot. Mostly due to the fact that I stacked Willpower until I had it softcapped without my Willpower buff. Still, if I'm running with a good group that will assist me when I'm targeted, squishiness is no longer much of a factor. Also, they might say Shamans excel at survivability and DoKs have better armour but Zealots have Embrace the Warp (not to be confused with Warping Embrace even though the icons appear to be the same). Yes the cooldown is terrible but, odds are, after you use it Order will just give up on you. Another thing crucial to upping your survivability is location and spatial awareness, but more on that later.

Q: What stats are most important for a healing specced Zealot?

A: Willpower primarily (no-brainer that one) and Healing crit. Healing crit is essential and is actually something I'm lacking. At 23ish% I'm still nowhere near where I want to be (please God, Mythic, anyone, I need those DP boots. If they were to magically appear in my mailbox I wouldn't tell a soul. I swear!) It's essential not only for the obvious reason (you heal more, duh) but for 2 of my tactics: RB (you get AP back on healing crits) and BoC. With RB proccing off groupheals I can pretty much spam DoP nonstop and throw TCs and a LA around and not even care that my AP ritual doesn't apply to me. BoC just makes healing all around that much easier. It also makes my FoC crit for over 1k with just 8 points spent in Alchemy. For an insta cast cheap heal that's just awesome.

Q: Is it worth it buying more than one Ritual? Like say, the AP and the DR one?

A: I would have to say no. It's just not worth a specc point imho. If you feel your regular healing isn't cutting it, I'd go for the healing one. If you can do ok without it go for the AP one. It will make your party kill stuff faster. This "stuff" includes stuff hitting you.

Q:What about for PvE? Are Zealots any good at PvE healing? What specc do you go with when healing LV or ToVL?

A: Zealots are the quintessential PvE healer. We have so many useful things for PvE, it's scary. The selfres is useful when you wipe, obviously. You can up a tank's wounds for 60 seconds which is useful for bosses that have a hard first strike. The new Warping the Spirit works wonders because of the extra armour. Tzeentch's Talon helps a ton with dps races and so does the AP ritual. And if you're ST specced PvE is where you'll truly shine as a steady flow of Elixirs can keep your tank up against almost anything.

Tactics wise I only swap something out to slot in Subtlety, seeing as Guards are better spent on something other than me and I dont wanna die. I don't bother respeccing to ST for PvE anymore. Just not worth the money and my specc is good enough atm to handle both situations.

Q: What would you say is the Zealot's biggest fault?

A: Until 1.3.6 I would say it was its complete lack of dps viability when healing specced. Now, I really couldn't say. I haven't tried turning my Harbinger on at all, seeing as I don't need to damage anything. For leveling a Zealot, it might have been a good change but, then again, I don't know any Zealots who are PvE solo-leveling so it's true usefulness is lost on me. At the moment, I'm completely satisfied with how things work on my Zelly.

Absent Sara is absent!

Chicken Chaser

2010-08-27T14:52:00.000+01:00

We still haven't moved. Turns out the former owners had this fetiche about nails ad drills so in the smallest room of the house you can find more than 30 holes drilled in the walls. Painful.

And my mother's cat decided to jump out of a 5th story window. She lived but running to and from the cat hospital has been another adventure.

And yet, amidst all that I rolled something I'd never rolled before. A tank.

I deleted my Chosen and rerolled Blackguard. Ooooh he's so sweet. He can take on anything and nothing can take him. Watch them run in fear when I break loose of the snares and taunt them. I get it now, the whole "over-extending" thing. You're all forgiven.

I have to say this as well. I'm very happy with this new guild thing I found, this Skill Frenzy or what was it. Things are going well. As I always say, "Frenzy provides" and I've been doing my best to provide as well.

I have been on plenty non-fail LV, VL, BE/BB, BS runs (but still no boots. shock. horror.)

We fail at sense of direction though and got lost on our way to Altdorf. We ended up in this strange place where we were afflicted with a strange plague.

By the way, loving the new appearance thing. I can now dress up as a Blood Wizard, or a Bright Letter. Something. However the game is still showing some unacceptable graphic bugs. Not mentioning that Chosen shield that always seems to be facing inwards, you have the WH outfit which... just doesn't look quite right.

Ok, well, I'm off to go tank stuff in the face and winge a bit because I got shot.

My tetanus shot was 2 years overdue.

Rotation

2010-08-17T11:45:00.002+01:00

We're in the process of buying a house and moving stuff around from 3 (possibly 4) different locations on a tight budget.

Enough said, right?

PTS Against All Odds test

2010-08-07T08:58:00.008+01:00

As you may know, last night there was a PTS event.

The event was mainly to test two things, which were the Against All Odds buff and the removal of the friendly colision .

I am actually pleased with the way the test came out.

The AAO buff was showing roughly 170% when we had 3 Warbands against Order's 4 Warbands, which was a nice buff that will hopefully draw people to the fight even when the numbers aren't favourable.

The colision test was the one i was most aprehensive about. I am one of the few that actually liked the friendly colisions, mainly because it added to the realism of the game.

The main part of the test consisted of placing large ammounts of people inside Eataine's manor (together with the rest of the battle, obviously) and having more than one full warband inside manor is usually a pain in the ass because no one can move.

It was nice cuz the tanks managed to move close to the door and we DPS classes managed to position ourselves correctly to spam some AOE at the door. On normal behaviour (pre 1.3.6) we wouldn't have been able to do that cuz no one would be able to move :P

Another good thing about not having friendly colisions was that since there are far less calculations to be done, all of the RVR experience felt smoother and less laggier.

After the test there was the mandatory Q&A with the devs that shed some light regarding some subjects. I am not gonna go into much detail about the Q&A because Gaarawarr is posting a transcript of the thing, so you can read it there :) (oh and brulgnir has the mp3 of the session in case you wanna listen to it)

It was a very pleasant Q&A if not for the fact that someone decided to troll it (i still think it was Frenzik, who since last night i consider to be a major wanker) and spammed a shit ton of loud racket to disturb the session, and kept changing his name to go further down the name list to try and get his question answered. (Obviously Andy kept ignoring his question, because as he say at the start of the session, they wouldn't answer to trolling questions)

All in all it was a very pleasant test and Q&A (despite Frenzik) and after most left, Testpig, Gaarawarr, myself, and 4 or 5 more people stood arround just chatting and sharing our views on the current state of things, PQs, the new Warfront rewards, addons, Bombing in general, and we tossed some ideas into the table about what could be Mythic's big announcement.

Well, this thing kept me up till 8 AM, so, imma go get me some sleep.

Cheers.

Epikk

Zealot's Guide to Lost Vale: Right Wing

2010-07-25T05:30:00.002+01:00

Long overdue, I know, but it's been a long time since I've been there. But as I managed to do a successful full run today, events are still fresh in my head so let's begin by spewing them out already. Too bad I forgot to take any screenies of it so random stuff from previous runs will just have to do to mitigate the 2k crit from the WoT.

This was my build for this run. Currently wearing some Warlord, one piece Tyrant (with +4% heal crit), a Cowl of the Fist and 4 piece bonus from Sentinel. For jewelry I use the ToVL glyphs, o LotD Cape, a purple bag city siege weapon and a rr55 SC focus (Apostle's Focus of Anathema. A bit over-geared for this but there you go.

Also, remember to start off battles with your Morale 1 on the bosses, followed by the Harbinger (pre 1.3.6). Although they won't understand why, dpsers will notice a boost in their dmg output.

--//--

Once you're done with the spider boss you come up to the beach again. First-timers must then return to the beach and deliver the quest at the Eversissy again. On to the right wing.

Throughout the wing there will be little neutral Pain Sprites. These cast an AoE silence if aggroed so either make a point of killing every one or just avoid them entirely by cutting down on the AoE. First few tree-like mobs are easy enough. If you find their hits too strong (and they will almost definitely hit you) just detaunt them or Embrace the Warp. I find that a bit overkill for such little damage.

When you come to the stairs make sure everybody moves together and ignore all the mobs until you reach the great Treekin/thingy at the top. You must do this because a barrier appears at the bottom of the stairs soon after the first person goes up.

Moving right on to the first boss.

Chul, the Tosser

Chul crits you for over 9k. You have died.
No, actually Chul is kind of a sissy. The only thing different that he does is that he randomly tosses someone down a great pit. There are quite a few lizards at the bottom. Anyone tossed down should just run up and alert the party of incoming mobs at which the OT or any dps should focus on getting them off the healers while the boss melts away. Otherwise, just keep the main tank HoTed and make sure to through a Leaping Alteration whenever it's off the cooldown. He might silence you for a wee bit. If you're having trouble healing this it can save your lot's asses when you get silenced. Gratz on the almost free loot. Talk to the NPC. Move on through the river.

There is a cave to the right here. It's filled with Gorgers (I think they are). At the top and after a bridge you'll find the next boss.

Larg, the Stomper

Get every single person in the room. Tank&Spank him down. Once in a while he'll start stomping the ground for a small amount of damage every second or so. Just detaunt him if need be. Otherwise, heal as usual. Moar lootz!

Once done, get back down the cave and continue forward towards the patrol of Ogre&puppies. Soon after that you come to a set of stairs that can be tricky. I've wiped on these stairs a lot (and I do mean a lot) until I found a way around them. Be that as it may, the way we did it was: we pulled the first group a bit away from the stairs and waited for the scout to go get the second group. We then proceeded to take that group down, still away from the stairs, before moving on up. I must admit we had pretty well geared healers and 3dps so this might be more difficult with lower dps and less healing output. Alternatively, I believe all you have to do to make this easier is kill the scout before he gets away. Try quaking or any kind of knockback/snare.

Once you're through with the stairs, you'll want to enter the second opening on the right, when you get to the ruins by the cliff. Inside you will find...

Butcher and Gnoblar, The Married Couple

These two are the reason most parties do the dungeon with two tanks. Don't ask me what to do with all the items that supposedly help in this fight, I wouldn't know. Stand in front of the tent or inside the hole in the wall, it won't matter much. The tank should tank the Butcher by the left wall, with his back (the tank's) against the wall. The other tank, if existant, should tank the Gnoblar on the opposite wall, near the dirt pile. All they have to worry themselves about is killing the Gnoblar at Butcher's 75, 50 and 25% hp and retaunting the new Gnoblar that spawns. What you have to worry about is the heavy damage the offtank beggins to suffer when it is time to finally kill him. Being specced high in Dark Rites helps in this fight but, if your OT s a bit squishy it might not be enough. And you can't afford to let your MT get hit for too much either. Just focus heal on the OT when he magically jumps to below 50% hp and group heal them both until the gnoblar is down. When the new one spawns, keep the OT perma-HoTed and focus on the MT. Should do fine.

Hug the wall, past the bridge. Careful because the trees in the bridge dump AoE pools (they look a lot like Mistress of the Marsh) that can really hurt.

Once you get to a platform thingy have players all stand in one of the stone cyrcles. As a Zealot, stand on the one to the far left and let the MDPS stand on the ones to the right. They kill the mobs, you probably get silenced a bit by aggroed sprites. Mobs dead, speak to NPC, move on to the hardest boss of the right wing. After you kill all the tree mobs you might want to aggro a Pain Spire to have your tanks build up morales until they reach Morale 4. This way they can easilly withstand the first blow oooof

Gorak, the Fugly Electrician

At the beginning of battle (after you kill the Sprite, and please remember to or you'll be silenced for most of the fight) make sure everyone is well spaced out and avoid standing close to one another.
This boss has two stages. The first stage he will do frontal cleaves that do pretty heavy damage to anyone caught by them. So keep the MT HoTed and keep dishing out your big ST heal. Due to my Blessing of Chaos I can have this one crit for around 3500 hp so it really helps with the cleave business. Once you see him take the, what I like to call, "taking a dump" position, detaunt him. He will knock everyone back and hit people with a ball of lightning that can eat out half the health of squishies or more. I remember that he deals around 500 when detaunted. I would assume unwarded players are insta-gibbed. This attack is AoE so if someone stands next to another they'll both get hit, hence the spacing thing at the beggining. Time for heavy group heals. Don't bother with Morale 3 as this is a magical attack. Right around the time your detaunt ends, he'll revert back to cleaving as usual. Focus on healing the MT again. This is one of the few bosses in here with an enrage timer. If you don't kill him around his third lightning stage, you will die.

If you succeed, congratulations. NPC, moving right along. Place your self res as soon as you encounter any mobs as this boss aggroes without being attacked or taunted or anything.

This... is... SARTHAIN

Once you get in the wooded area, move left. Place one of your dpsers in the first clearing you find. Keep moving forward and place your tank and mdps here. See that stone near the water more to the left (if you're facing the boss)? Place a rdps there. These should be their positions when they run out. You don't need to have one but more on that later.
You all jump on to the island (although you have the range to not do so if you prefer) and dps the boss heavily. You'll notice some text going on about how Corruptors spawn and channel power and Bob Loblaw's Law Blog. Just keep AoE healing the grunts in the middle. Once they all spawn have everyone take their appointed positions. If someone gets rooted they will take slight damage in very fast ticks. Just Flash them back up. Anyone rooted will be silenced though so place a HoT on yourself when the rooting phase is on. Once the shield is down around the Corruptor's the dps need to be quick about it to get them down or else they will heal the tree back to full health. Just DoT and debuff them as much you can. When done with them wait for the timer on the tree to run down and then everybody moves in again. If you move in the water before the timer runs down you will die. Well, not necessarily but quite probably. Just avoid the water at any cost. Ranged abilities are ok during this phase though so feel free to mangle it with your UBER Scourge...
Anyways, that's pretty much all there is to it. Not much for us to do here except debuff the targets, group heal while in the island and save rooted people.

NPC back at the beach and...

YOU'RE ALL DONE! Congratulations. Be disappointed. Well if you had my luck you would be...

Cya next time.

Insta Ap Giveaway!

2010-07-24T03:00:00.001+01:00

* Ritual of Innervation: Increased the Action Point cost of this ability and removed the build time.

* Ritual of Lunacy: Increased the Action Point cost of this ability and removed the build time.

* Ritual of Superiority: Increased the Action Point cost of this ability and removed the build time.

Hmm? Hmm? So all those times you were thinking "where the hell is all that AP I had a while ago" because I get bored of casting a 2sec spell when I could be healing you are now in the past. Yes, I just might be sticking to the AP ritual this time. The one thing I hated the most about it was the longer cast time it had. Made me less mobile and, hence, less happy. Was also reducing my damage output as the circa 20k damage I do each scenario come exclusively from my Waves of Chaos (or sometimes, if we're doing ok, my Windblock) so each time I refused to cast it because I was busy healing I was dealing less damage as well.

So look forward to some happy times AP boost. I'm still not happy that I don't get any AP back from the damn thing as I am not hitting anything at all. Not because I'm not happy about the damage I would be dealing but because RvR these days is too healing demanding for me to do anything else at my level. So I'm not hitting and, in result, not getting any AP back. But you lot are. And I know you love it.

Also, they have changed my favourite HoT ever! Although I might have to give up the afore mentioned Wave of Chaos to slot this tactic in.

* Warping the Spirit: This Tactic is now available at Rank 27. It has been redesigned, and will now give Tzeentch's Cordial a chance each tick to increase your ally's armor and decrease the incoming armor penetration of attacks against them.

These can be the things I'm most happy about with the patch notes. All the rest is kind of "meh". I'm not gonna pronounce myself over the whole Harbinger thingy. I haven't tested it yet. See it to believe it is my policy.

EDIT: Check out the instance number on that screenshot. Kinky.

Reikland Factory... AGAIN!!#$%&*

2010-07-20T02:06:00.000+01:00

Not this crap again, you're thinking. Yes, this crap again.

You know, I thought it was just me and Epikk hating this, seeing as we were fairly good players playing in disorganised pugs. I thought we were just getting the ugly end of the scenario and that it actually had potential.

No. Al llies. Lies and misconceptions. Even on a proper (or almost proper) premade with vent and everyting it's crap. Wtf cares about the flags, honestly? I want to get in the thick of it, keeping people up against impossible odds, not riding around almsot solo trying to cap this or that while the fight is going on somewhere else. And then I get ganked.

Nobody likes this. Nobody I've met so far, anyway. Epikk has even gotten an addon so he can queue for everything but Reikland Factory. That's how much the public loves it. It's a hassle, it's a paaaain, and we all hate it. With a will.

I for one loved that one that only popped during city sieges, Altdorf War Quarters or what was it. And I understand that making them count for the siege thing was ridiculous and unwanted but now that every instance is self-contained and independent, we could have it back. Or for the Weekend Warfront. Just having everyone from everywhere fighting it out on those two small corridors having to worry about nothing else but murder each other was great fun.

Another one of my favourites, as I stated before, is Mourkain Temple. It's small and simple enough to be exciting and the hill and ruins still provide various tactical options. So why not have that? Why have a scenario as big as a Reikland keep (or almost) where you have to roam to find your fights? I want space to roam outside the scenarios, not in them. I join scenarios because I'm guaranteed a fight there. I don't want to cap flags. In the grand scheme of things, what good is that flag anyway? And there's so many of them!

Or if you reeeeally wanna keep it, get rid of the farther flags. The other two, the tunnels and the stairs are enough to keep us guessing and busy.

Something. But I'm not going in there again. Not as is. Not if I can help it.

Have another zen moment.

No, that's not me. I'm much smaller. :)

Mixing armor sets

2010-07-19T09:51:00.003+01:00

Yesterday I hit RR 54 on Epikk.

Up until that point I was mixing 3 sets (lately it was 2 piece Invader, 2 piece Conqueror and 2 piece Dark Promise) solely for the triple STR bonus, and had WS slotted everywhere possible (except gloves. i have Melee Power there).

This was working fairly well for me as it gave me a little bit over 50% armor penetration (2H tanks were mostly a piece of cake to take down, except for 2 or 3 specific KoTBS), my STR was capped from the gear alone and my survivability was close to zero, giving Sara something to do.

Since I don't have the "private" flag turned on, every now and then someone would inspect me and one of two questions would pop up.

if they were low rank: "why do you stack WS, and can you teach me your rotation?"
if they were high rank: "why are you retarded? don't you know you don't mix 3 sets?"

to the low ranks I'd say "WS cuz my STR is capped, and I like to be squishy, and my rotation is so-and-so"

to the high ranks I wouldn't even bother answering, unless it was someone from the guild, or someone I knew from somewhere else.

After reaching renown rank 54, I decided that it was time to ditch Conqueror all together and give the "2 set only" a try.

result is... I'm confused... My STR is down, my WS is down, my Damage Bonus is down, my Armor Penetration is down... the only thing that's up is my survivability, because of the wounds and toughness bonuses, but not enough to make a difference.

To be honest, I didn't plan things a lot.. I just went to the bank, got my Invader Helm and Dark Promise Gloves, slotted them, equipped them, and jumped on some scenarios, without doing the math to see which pieces of each set would be more profitable to wear, and what tallis I should slot and all that, but my first reaction was "I'm not impressed".

I think I need something to hit repeatedly for a while so I can check stuff up and try some shit, but all things considered, I'm thinking I'll keep the 3 set configuration until I can run with Invader and Warlord.

cheers.

Manor Whoring... I Mean, Holding

2010-07-19T00:02:00.000+01:00

Got some 60% renown defending Manor in Eataine today, which put my total up to 1 and 1/4 rr in one day.
Also did one wing and a half of LV, one Altdorf siege and several scenarios. Getting close to rr 64 wich would mean me wearing my first Warlord piece but it's not worth it alone 'cuz of the set bonuses.

And here is, my moment of Zen.

Accomplishment

2010-07-17T03:08:00.000+01:00

So I've been real silent lately, mostly because I've devoted most of my time to stop being a no-lifer.

Still, I woke up today and I thought "I'm gonna do something in WAR that means something. I need to feel like I accomplished something." I logged in dead-set on getting to rr62 at least. I got halfway there and then got an inv to join a ToVL run. GIEF!

So off I went ready to do my thing. Even respecced back to the AP ritual, even though I detest it. Seems I'll keep going back and forth with it when I need to PvE. We did most bosses fine, had to reset the damn thing once because one of the bosses decided to go off to visit his mom or something but, all in all, was a great run. Think I proved to some seasoned WAR veterans that my healing 500k in a sc can translate in keeping them alive in VL. And that was my feeling of accomplishment. Sure, the Tyrant shoulders and third Glyph were like "double rainbow oh my god" (please do click) but making it known that my ability is reliable is priceless.

So, although I'm still a bit far from my renown goal, other pieces have fallen into place and as long as I can feel accomplished, I'm good.

THEY BE STEALIN' MAH WS!!!

2010-07-16T10:19:00.004+01:00

The new MDPS sets have been revised... the only thing i liked about them went away.. the WS 4 piece bonus on the offensive set.

the rest of it looks sweet though, but the one and only thing i thought was nice, was removed.

It was kind of obvious from the start that the WS bonus wouldn't stay, simply for the fact that the set is the same for all MDPS, and that would mean that WE and WH would be getting a useless 4 piece bonus. and that pisses me off.

Why the hell do we all get the same set? We surely don't play the same way, so why do we have to "dress up" with the same stats?

Ok, so, it's the easy way out. It kind of reminds me when Blizzard decided that they were gonna have some classes specific to each of the factions in WoW (you know, like Shamans were Horde only and Paladins were Alliance only) and when things got messy cuz of balance and whining, they took the easy way out and simply decided that both sides were gonna have exactly the same classes (so, the only thing that differs are the racial skills).

I HATE THAT SHIT!

one of the things i like about Mythic is the ability to differentiate everything. DAOC had fucking 44 classes. they were all different. they were split up between 3 factions (Midgard only had 14 Hibernia and Albion had 15) Ok so some are similar, in the way that a magus and an engineer are similar. But for the majority of it all, they were different.

Same thing with WAR. 24 classes. 12 each side. and for the majority of it all, they are different.

Obviously this brings balance issues and all that crap, but Mythic never stood down and never took the easy way out regarding that (at least in my book) by making the exact same classes on both sides of the game.

I can imagine the in-house talk between the Concept Guy and the Balance Guy over at Mythic.

Concept Guy - Hey, let's make new SOV sets

Balance Guy - wtf? you crazy? no way. too much stuff to take into consideration

Concept Guy - Oh, don't worry. we only need to make 8. two for each archetype.

Balance Guy - that's awesome! i can balance 8 sets with my eyes closed.

Concept Guy - and since everyone is gonna have one DPS set, you really just need to think hard about 3 or 4 of them :P nice ain't it?

Balance Guy - awww. i love you concept guy. you're the greatest

Concept Guy - i know i know :) you're pretty awesome to.

(I bet Concept Guy plays a Bright Wizard)

anyway, i lost my focus (and my 4 piece bonus WS) so i'm gonna leave it at this.

cheers all

Playing Games With the Faces

2010-07-15T16:47:00.000+01:00

At the gates of Altdorf a lone pair of guards stood watch. Forever vigilant in a state of suspended animation until our party drew close enough that they immediately took a defensive stance." "Who goes there?" One of them asked.

"Err, nobody much, really, just your average party going to the city for some shopping and training and all that."

"Yes?" asked the second one, "And what's with the dead tank behind you?

"Oh that? No, that's just battle fatigue. He's just tired that's all. Say hello." Parsley nudged Sage just enough so he wouldn't fall over again.
"Aeo."
"What was that?" The first guard drew his weapon closer to him.
"Err, that's his name. Aeo. You know tanks, never really inventive when it comes to their own names." Mary did her best to look angelic and... good.
"And that Dwarf there looks a bit pale. You alright there, fellow?"
"Zog off!"
"What?" The second guard held his weapon with his good hand.
"I meants, By Grumble's sideburns I ain't pale I'm drunk! Hardeeharhar!"
"They're not buying it," said Rose.
"No, they don't seem to be. Oh well." Parsley stomped the ground. "Run for it! When the stagger ends we'll be far enough for them to reset!"
"What about Sage?" Mary and Rose struggled to move him to no avail.
"Sod him. You can res him from the inside. Or we can summon him. We'll figure something out, move!"
"Bye bye pointy ears!"
The stagger ended just in time for the guards to see them fade into the distance. They then noticed the shiny armor standing still before them.
"Aeo..."

Choppa Build Delays

2010-07-15T12:11:00.007+01:00

i know i promissed a choppa build.. and i know i'm late

the reason for that is the fact that come 1.3.6 one of my core abilities is gonna get changed, and i wanna check it out first and see how much it will affect my game. (that and i don't wanna share a build that might become useless in a week or two)

anyway, as a consolation prize... have a pic of Betty :D

the anatomy of a last name

2010-07-14T10:58:00.002+01:00

Yesterday i found out that "Waffles" is restricted as a second name in WAR...

To be honest, up until that moment i wasn't even aware that there were restricted second names. i thought only first names were.

Anyway, another one of my characters has food for his second name now. Epikk Waffle joins the "food family" of Camomila Mascarpone, Ahrimana Cantilope, and Freakish Melons

new SOV gear for MDPS

2010-07-13T10:52:00.006+01:00

As you all know, Mythic has been tossing out the stats for the new sovereign sets.

Up until now, every archetype has been given two sets. a set that matches the archetype and a set for DPS. (exceptions are the RDPS who get one for DPS and one for survivability)

Now, i don't wanna sound like a prick here, even though i will, but even though i think that each person is entitled to play his class however they want to (bright wizard as MDPS? sure. zealot as RDPS? no problem.. just don't try to roll a healer choppa plizzz) i always thought that it would be a good idea to have the Sovereign sets reflect the archetype of each class.

i mean... you wanna be one of the Everchosen's zealots? then ffs heal more. you wanna be is favorite choppa? then don't hide in the backlines and chop more!!!!

But apparently that's just me.

I've been discussing the new SOV sets extensively these last few days with Sara and she always tells me "then post about it" but i wanted to wait for the mdps sets to be revealed, just in case there was something there that would make me say "ohhhh! now i get it". But unfortunately i still don't get it.MDPS got the "one set DPS and one set survivability" treatment.

What i'm wondering is how's this gonna roll out. i mean, as things are today, we already see in some scenarios tanks out-dpsing MDPS (and i have nothing against it. i actually respect each and every chosen that deals more damage than a pure DPS class) and, taking the risk of sounding too obvious now, part of that is because of the survivability factor.
Simple math. if you're alive during 98% of the time, you're gonna deal more damage than if you were alive only 80% of the time.

Now let's take a sample DPS chosen (I'm gonna call him Ranark The Kryg just so he has a name) and give him a two hander. if he's specced correctly and he knows what the hell he's doing, he can bash some serious head and spill some soaky red blood. Kryg there, even though he's thinking "shit, i'm thin as paper without my shield" is tougher than nails compared to a choppa (let's call the choppa Betty, just for context).

Even if you raise Betty's survivability, i'm betting that Kryg is still tougher.

And this is my main point... you raise a choppa's survivability but it's still gonna die more than a chosen (for obvious reasons.. and that's how it's supposed to be) but since the chosen has a SOV DPS set, he's gonna deal more damage than the choppa most of the time because of the "up-time" they have.

Same thing worries me about DOKs. Give Melael (my sample DOK for this ramble) a SOV DPS set, spec the guy in sacrifice, and look at him go!!!

what Melael The DOK doesn't have in toughness/wounds/armor, he compensates by healing himself through the dark powers of the bloody hand god. (Again, i have tons of respect for most DOK's out there. don't get me wrong)

Again, i think everyone is entitled to play their classes however they want to. it actually pisses me off when people yell at DPS zealots for not doing their jobs (healing, according to the guys) and i laugh my ass out when that same zealot out-dpses the guy that was bitching about it :P

but my bottom line is... i rolled a choppa cuz i wanted to DPS... apparently i chose wrong.

let's hope everything works out in the end :P

cheers

Epikk's cheat-sheet of character names

Ranark The Kryg - based on Ranark and Krueg, both former chosens of The End

Melael The Dok- based on Meelmael the Disciple of Khaine formerly from NOX (we miss you dude)

Betty - evil guy from Kung Pow

Gogo

2010-07-01T16:49:00.000+01:00

Isego Isegooo, me wuvs da name. <3

As for what everyone's raving about (no, I don't need to tell you what) I'm left to wonder: Why stop at Sovereign? I mean, few healing healers ever actually wear Conqueror or Invader, although us Zealots are more likely to do so with the new system. But it kills me that I have to continuously try to do a long god-awful LV run just for a pair of boots that would boost my healing crit by 8%.

I'm not the biggest fan of PvE but I've been doing lots of it lately. Just for those boots, mostly. And my other healers need at least Sentinel. I've tried to focus on my RR for a while but even so, Warlord isn't much better than Darkpromise. Please, please. Help me. Give us something like PvE tokens, or an invisible loot drop percentage boost or something. I've done at least 10 runs just hoping for those boots. At 2 hours a run at least I've invested more than 20 hours in LV. And I hate LV. I didn't before, mind you, it was a good change of pace. Now I hate it. And it is possible that, no matter how many times I run it, those boots will never drop.

Anyways. I like the good news for .6. I honestly miss large and small scale fighting. Any kind of fighting really. Like epic sieges where you had 50 tanks dying at the gates trying to keep the enemy out. You know what I've never seen though? People using those altars in keeps. I mean, I must have collected like 40k skulls already and never did anything with them.

Oh oh. A good idea. Well, possibly... For good RvR weapons you have scenarios. For RvR gear you have city sieges. What we're lacking is good jewelry and/or pocket items. Let's have that in keeps. There really isnt good jewelry for casters or healers outside of LotD. Most of them are very tanking oriented.

Hmmm? HMMMM??

No, I haven't been drinking.

His Bow Tie Is Really a Camera

2010-07-01T13:48:00.000+01:00

"I say," said Parsley from within his new vestments, "these Warrior Priest robes are quite spiffy. Good thing they didn't have a Knight with them. Would hate to run around with a bird atop my head."
Rose eyed him maliciously. "I don't much like this hat but at least it doesn't have feathers."
"Feathers?"
"Feathers make me itchy."

At this point Mary came from behind the bushes sporting the robes of the Archmage she had just slain.
"Mary," Parsley asked, "Why is there blood dripping from your sleeves?"
"I got a little carried away."

"Hmmm Kmmmt mmmmmv!" The group turned their collective attention to the static Swordmaster armor behind them.

"Sage seems to be having some difficulties adjusting to his new role," observed Rose.

"I'll get him moving when need be. Or I can just kill him and you can keep resing him up ahead. Or we can summon him. Who cares! And where's the gobbo," asked Parsley looking around. It was then that Thyme jumped from behind the bushes wielding his new firearm.

"DAKKA DAKKA DAKKA! Teeheehee!"
"I think those mushrooms haven't worn off yet," sighed Rose.
"Tom, please behave once we get to the gates or I shall have to smite you with my new hammer."

Behind them Sage fell to the ground with a sound thump. Much groaning issued from within the shiny suit of armor. Parsley sighed.

"Ok lets get going. Mary, go clean that blood off, Rose help Sage up. Tom, put that turret away before you put an eye out."
"Look, I have a gun too," said Rose as she held the glistening and impossibly long pistol against the rays of the sun. "Fancy that."
"Oooh, gief it to me! I luvz guns now!"
"I'm starting to think this wasn't the best of plans," Parsley confided to Mary.
"It'll be fine," she replied. "Just have the goblin stay quiet and make Sage seem somewhat alive."

When Yesterday Comes Back

2010-06-30T01:18:00.001+01:00

Today was the first day of "the week that never was" and I decided to dip my toe in the water.

What fun. Really. I even broke my personal record on a scenario. Deathblow and all.

Of course you had your sceptics in advice asking "why is everyone here? just for fun?"
YES! Most definitely. Just for fun. In the grand scheme of things, I don't pay my subscription so that I can have the privilege of being full Sov one day. Who then would I brag about it to? My friends thing I'm weird enough as it is. I pay and play to have fun. And the continuous streak of pops has shown that a lot of people do too. I even found people logged on that I hadn't seen in months. Let's hope they keep playing after the rollback, when yesterday comes back.

So yeah, crazy me had fun today just for the sake of having fun.
Call a doctor.

The Man In The Gabardine Suit

2010-06-30T01:11:00.000+01:00

Engra had sent a messenger the night before. They were told their next mission was to infiltrate Altdorf itself and kill one of Karl Franz's aids. The group sat in a clearing for a while, exchanging ideas on how to proceed from there.

"I have a plan," said Mary as she applied some more poison to her blades. "We'll have to ambush an enemy party and disguise ourselves. Then we can easily gain entrance to their city without having to wait for a siege."
Parsley checked his timers.
"I'd go for that. It seems its still a while for the next one."
"Sure, I'm game," said Thyme. "Say, those are some weird looking mushrooms I see there..."

New beginings

2010-06-29T03:14:00.004+01:00

Ok so, me and the missus decided it was time to move on from The End as the guild is unfortunately dead, and Nirv doesn't have the time to play these days.

That being said, we enlisted in Kill Frenzy!!!!

Up till now there's nohing much to say as we haven't done any guild activities with them, but they seem like a great bunch of ppl.

Here's to hopping it will last as I'm kind of tired of fail guilds, and all this orc needs is a cozy spot to keep his tea forks.

On another note, I found an old friend online today. Someone from the first guild i joined, back when Karak Hirn merged with Karak Dron. A Nox. His name being Bogpad. Chatting up with the little gobo was refreshing and some good memories came back to my mind. Unfortunately when Dron merged with Norn, the guild vanished. All members but me and Ehone left and we ended up merging with The End.

It's kind of prophetic that the day I move into a new guild, someone from my first one appears :P

Anyway, all of you enjoy your week of no-renown, and see yha back in the battlefield come 7th of July.

Cheers

Forfeiting Fails

2010-06-29T02:52:00.000+01:00

I'm tired of fail runs. Honestly. Fail city runs, fail LV runs even fail BB runs ffs.

So, since Nirv doesn's seem to be coming back anytime soon, I decided to park my stuff somewhere and see how I settle in. I felt the need to try out a bigger guild for once.

Of the upcoming week, seeing as they'll probably roll it back to today (finally got to rr...59) I'll respecc single-target DPS and go crazy. Let them bitch, who cares. I sure don't and I'll make a point of showing it.

2010-06-28T17:00:00.002+01:00

here it is

the GOA to MYTHIC transfer faq

They don't really say anything new, except that it will begin tomorrow and end by the 6th of next month.

What that means is that from tomorrow and up to the 6th of July we can play but we will not gain any exp or renown (according to war-europe.com) but come the 7th of june we will get 2 free weeks.

Our account names will be changed to accommodate a _EUR at the end; meaning, if my account was epikk (which is not) it would be changed to epikk_EUR

and apparently we will have to buy game time from EA's store site

oh yha and the servers will be in Germany, as many of you already suspected.

anyway, this just sums it up, but check the link at the top of the post to read it in full. there's also one or two points at war-europe.com that are not covered by the link at the top (most importantly the free game time and the no-exp time periods)

cheers

Choppa Builds in a not so distant future

2010-06-28T12:29:00.003+01:00

Hello peeps. Resident Choppa here.

Sara was showing me the blog statistics yesterday, and she was telling me that i should post something about Choppas.

Like, some kind of guide, or some tips, or even just my build and why i use it.

She wants me to do this because apparently, "WAR choppa guide" is one of the top searches that lead people to this blog (and unfortunately the only choppa related guide that we have, is the LV one, that even though it's a good one, if i may say so myself, it's not much to go for.)

I know i already told you about my build, as i explained it when making the LV post, but maybe you won't read it if you're simple looking for a choppa build guide cuz you're starting a choppa (if that's the case, i don't see why you'd be reading an LV guide in the first place, so, you wouldn't read the build either :P)

Because of that, i'm gonna try to come up with the time to put up a simple choppa guide.

keep in mind, that's my build.. not THE BEST build.. just my own.

cheers

Scars Borough Fair

2010-06-27T17:09:00.000+01:00

Engra presented himself at the Eternal Citadel to share with his Warlord the names he had decided upon. Tchar'zanek stood there, ever vigilant, ever believing that there was only one throne and that it was made of skulls and not for his own behind.

"Here's what I need you to do..."
"Forgive me, lord?"
"Sorry, Engra, reflexes and such. I trust you come before me with those names I asked of you?"

"Yes, indeed. These warriors, although somewhat inexperienced show great promise and I believe they will prove a worthy addition to our Host and the right candidates for this task."

"Lets hear it then."

"I first chose a Chosen."

"Ha! I see what you did there!"

"Yes, I see it as well, now. His name is Parsley Puppykicker. He is reckless and rash but the fire of War burns within him and he seems capable of producing much Change."

"Always a good thing. What else?"

"I have taken the liberty of bringing up some of the mischievous Dark Elves as well, my liege."

"As I knew you would."

"There is one amongst the Sorcerers, one even Malekith eyes suspiciously. He holds much power but his kin, both accursed and regular, fear him for it. I know not his real name and I take it that few do. They refer to him only as 'Sage'."

"Sounds promising."
"There is a Zealot I've been eyeing for some time now..."

"Well, well..."

"Not quite what I meant."
"My interest has dwindled."

"I apologize. Her name is Ehone Deadrose but she has gained the unassuming alias of plain old 'Rose'. The conversations she holds with that skull of hers always ring true and her knife has brought as many men to their deaths as her magic has saved many of ours from it."

"A bit convoluted but I trust your judgment."

"Next I chose a Witch Elf for none are so helpful when secrecy is of the essence. One of them, Likith Marrymenot or just 'Mary', has been rising slow in their ranks, despite her prowess. I know not the reason for this but I am sure she would not hesitate at a chance to gain your favour, and Malekith's, by joining this venture."

"Queer name. Not very Druchii. Carry on."

"Lastly, I thought of the most curious of Goblins. He was raised by..."

"Wolves?"

"Wolves, my lord?"
"Not wolves then?"
"Humans. He has the cunning of a gobbo and the communication skills of, say, a Marauder."

"Oh. Well, a greenskin is still a greenskin, couldn't except much more than that. His name?"

"Thyme."
"Tom? What an odd name for a goblin."
"Not Tom. Thyme."
"It is getting close to noon."
"No, sire. His name is Thyme."
"Tom."
"Thyme."

"Exactly what I had said before."

"Indeed."
"Very well. Meet with them tomorrow at first light... of... some place where light still shines upon. There is a village I need them to visit, possibly even plunder. I will have the particulars delivered to you by then."

Engra nodded, for he was, as are we, tired of this dialogue. He left to, once again, stand at his platform near the chasm by the arena. He looked behind him at the Winds of Chaos, wondering of the far places he had once ventured to visit for a short while only to be spewed out most abruptly. Some day soon, he thought, I will unravel your secrets and your precious static lands will feel and tremble before the wrath of Change as has the rest of existence.

Graul scratched his behind with his knife.

Healers and You: What to Roll

2010-06-26T14:46:00.002+01:00

I see this question asked a lot in the advice channel. Granted, I see a lot of similar questions asked but healers are more my thing so, here's my two cents on the matter.

"What healer should I roll/is more effective/is better in T4?"

The answer to the first question is, and always should be "the one you have more fun with". The second is debatable and the third relates closely to the second. What follows is merely my take on how they measure up when compared to each other and should be taken with a grain of salt, as I am more familiar with the Zealot than anything else.
Be warned! Wall of Text ahead. Plus I did not organize this in any way prior to typing it so... well, enjoy.

ABILITIES

Healing:
Zealots have, from early on, more healing abilities than any other. While DoKs spend quite a while with just two direct healing spells, Zealots (and Shamans to some extent) have a wider choice when it comes to just standing back doing the heals. In fact, DoKs get 5 direct healing abilities at most while Zealots get at least seven that I can think of at the top of my head (correct me if I'm wrong). When it comes to pocketing you might feel more comfortable having a Zealot and Shaman at your back, seeing a DoK has only two single target healing abilities (Restore Essence and Soul Infusion). A Zealot is more likely to keep you HoTed (with TC, LA, DM and maybe even the third ritual) between big heals while DoKs will rely more on their quick-casting group heals and their group absorb and HoT.
Shamans sit somewhere in between. Although they lack the instant gratification spell and have, instead, a very short cast-time heal/HoT similar to Restore Essence, they have what I like to call the "big one-target" that Zealots also possess. Their single-target absorb is also as useful/useless as a Zealot's although it can be made a bit more useful with the use of a certain tactic (although as soon as the barrier fades, which is soon, its bye-bye dmg).

Damage:
DoKs are, by far, the most common of DPSing healers. This could be because they have the sturdiest of armors compared to other healers (Medium Robe vs Robe) or it could just be that everyone loves the way a Dark Elf looks dual-wielding. Whatever the reason, DPS Shamans and Zealots in particular seem to be the most shunned. I've tried the DPS route with all of them and, granted, they all have very different feels to them, but the most fun to play, imho, is the Shaman. Simply because i still have the ability to help support my team while I DPS as it increases the effectiveness of my healing. But if you prefer a more "hands-on" approach to damage, DoKs are the Melee ones of the bunch which also makes them one of the first targets in the front lines.

I can't tell you which of the classes is more adept at DPSing or which has the most damage dealing abilities simply because I've never delved into the matter much. But if you do decide to embark on this venture be prepared to grow a very thick skin. Although it is my belief that DPS healers are completely viable, people expect a healing class to heal. That is the main reason they group with them.

Support:
All three classes have a certain buff they will cast at the beginning of a battle. For Shamans its Mork's Buffer. For DoK it can one of three Covenants, depending on the Mastery they chose (this is a good way to know what to expect from a DoK): Tenacity (they are usually going to be healing), Celerity (usually full DPS) and Vitality (Sacrifice mastery). Zealots have the wider choice in this, having several Marks to buff their group mates with. These are: Daemonic Fury, Vortex, Spell Destroyer and Remaking. Healers expect to be marked with SD and DPSing classes with DF. Tanks are a bit trickier and I usually ask what they want. If not, I give them DF because, lets face it, every tank wants to deal just a bit more damage.
In the midst of battle I consider the Shamans to have the better utility. Zealots have their choice of Rituals (Innervation, Lunacy and Superiority), the afore mentioned absorb and a very basic knockback. Depending on their spec they can also have an AoE stagger. Also, they can increase the wounds of an ally for a short while and silence an opponent. Bu that's it. DoKs have that absorb, and, if Sacrifice specced, they can bestow a damage-to-heal aura. They also have their meager knockback (cone effect) and can reduce their target's parry chance if Torture specced. They can rob AP, nullify buffs, steal strength, silence and snare. But there are too many conditions for these to work for my taste. I find them more useful in 1vs1 combat than in a large scale fight.
Shamans, in my opinion have the best support of all the healing classes. They can give their group mates more damage, cast a GT snare while reducing resistances, rob AP, a healing debuff, a knockback that snares, debuff offensive stats, increase toughness, reduce toughness and most of these skills hit more than one target.

MORALE ABILITIES

Common:
As with every archetype, healers have some morale abilities that are common to every class. Divine Favor is the first you'll stumble upon and it will prove useful for a long time. Until it stops being so and you'll never use it again. Or at least, I recommend you don't. I never used Steal Life myself. Again, I don't think it's worth it.
As for rank 2, you'll probably use Rampaging Siphon much as it heals your entire group and deals undefendable damage (at least I think it is) to possibly a wide range of enemies. As for Focused Mind, I personally have never used it, but it might have its good points. If I remember correctly it makes you impervious to silence and such. That or 0 AP cost. I can't remember.
Rank 3 has just Divine Protection. Bear in mind the shield only works for melee attacks so it's less useful against a bomb squad.
Rank 4 has Alter Fate. I can rarely get this one to work. The radius of it just seems too small. Remember, if you're trying to be a healer you can't quite be in the muck of it where everyone's dying.

Disciple of Khaine:
Rank 1: Life's End - I don't know what this one does but I get the feeling its damage related.
Rank 2: Khaine's Withdrawal - this one removes all debuffs from your entire group. Useful in places like BB and against Engineers.
Rank 3: Universal Confusion - useful for a damage specced DoK. That and for staggering, possibly.
Rank 4: 1001 - This is possibly one of the most famous Morale 4s in the game and if you were ever in a raid where you kept reading "1001 up" now you know what they were on about. Very useful to help damage mitigation. This is available in the Dark Rites (healing specc) tree. Chant of Pain - I don't believe this one is used much as it is only a self-heal. But it beats Alter Fate. In the Sacrifice tree. Vision of Torment - unfortunately, not burst damage, but good for preventing tanks from getting out their good morales. In the Torture tree.

Shaman:
Rank 1: Gork Sez Stop - My favorite morale ability ever. Enemies will rarely notice if they have the debuff and they can literally run themselves ragged after you. I've killed many this way.
Rank 2: Breath of Mork - By the time you get this morale you already have group heals. Good for healing outside warbands or if you really don't like your other morale choices.
Rank 3: You Weren't Using Dat - Another skill that makes Shamans (just like AMs) AP powerhouses. Useful for draining a front line as it is charging at you.
Rank 4: Feelz No Pain - Good for the damage reduction. In the Mork (healing) tree. Fists of Gork - decent damage (for a healer) and a knockback. I'm guessing I'd only use this as a last resort if specced on the Gork (DPS) tree. Steal Yer Thunder - A solid buff/debuff in the Da Green tree (damage-to-heal).

Zealot:
Rank1: Tzeentch's Talon - Or, as I like to call it, the "reverse 1001". It does the exact reverse of 1001 to your target, with the exception of the evade stats. Useful for taking down tanks and PvE bosses.
Rank 2: Eye of Sheerian - My second most favorite morale, simply because I think it looks so cool. Good to add an extra HoT like when you know a boss is going to silence you, for instance.
Rank 3: Suppressing the Fragile Unbelievers - Would be awesome if not for the short range. Again, you would have to be in the thick of it and I, personally, prefer hiding behind a tree.
Rank 4: Tzeentch's Shielding - A very decent shield and everybody loves AP. In the Alchemy (direct heals) tree. Tzeentch's Scream - Another one with AP and maybe a not so excellent HoT. In the Witchcraft (HoT) tree. Windblock - the heal debuff and my weapon of choice for killing Steveo. Yeah, I killed Steveo once and this is how I did it. My moment of glory. In the Dark Rites (group heal) tree.

TACTICS

If I went into a detailed description of all tactics I'd lose whatever little readers I had so I'll just make a quick overview.

DoK: I feel that, as tactics go, they're pretty limited. Either you take up offensive tactics which severely hamper your direct healing ability, or you take the more healing and defensive oriented abilities and you might as well be stabbing people with a butter knife.

Shaman: They have the most coveted of all the healing tactics, at least in my opinion. They also have the equivalent for a damage build. They also have a wide range of utility tactics that gives them a third possible role to play. If you played FFXII (although I weep for your loss if you did) you will understand that I call them Synergists. They also have the ever useful GTFO tactic.

Zealot: Zealot's have many tactics based on the Harbinger which I will net get into because they're about to change the whole meaning/functionality of the thing. One of the most useful Zealot tactics is Blessing of Chaos, that can make all healers more efficient. The tactics bit is the one I'm the most excited about because of this overhaul business.

MASTERY TREES

You might want to study them all in more depth as I cba to do it for you. :)
DoK: They have the Pure DPS tree (Torture), the Pure Healing tree (Dark Rites) and the Lifetap tree (Sacrifice).
Shaman: As above, a DPS tree (Gork), a Pure Healing tree (Mork) and a Lifetap tree (Da Green).
Zealot: Unlike the other two, the Zealots trees are defined by damage/healing type. You have the Direct tree (Alchemy), the Over Time tree (Witchcraft) and the Group/AoE tree (Dark Rites). If this distinction is a blessing or a curse is up to the individual.

FEELING

Every healer has a different feel to it and you'll find different kinds of people behind each of them. Shaman's tend to be more fickle and unstable. They can, and are encouraged, to swap from DPS to healing on a regular basis so its the right choice for you if you'd like to do a little of both from a safe distance and without having to mess with different gear and builds.
DoKs like to die trying. They'll keep moving and stay close to the front line. They won't be afraid to stand their ground against a small force and, if specced correctly, they can take them on successfully. Healing-wise they can reach the highest numbers in scenarios, maybe because they have the fastest group heals in the game (if you don't count the possible instant cast of Gather Round due to the Shaman mechanic) but they feel a bit gimped when healing in the back lines.
Zealots are sometimes viewed as the best healers and worst DPSers in the game. I consider both these statements a lie. They have maybe the smallest DPS potential (but I take it that that's about to change) but they are also underestimated which can make them deadly. As their healing goes, their heals take longer and are more "to the point" because they have no class mechanic restrictions. A Zealot is usually gifted with more patience and, even though some call them the "mobile healers", a Zealot will be more comfortable hiding in a bush while he does his business.

IN SUM

What is better in T4? As with all other archetypes, a healthy mix of all of them. Although I tend to see a higher number of DoKs around and the ones I see the least are Zealots. So if you want to fill a gap I would suggest a Zealot (in Karak-Norn at least). They can all be extremely useful in any tier, mind you. The biggest factor in this would be your affinity to the class not exactly the way it is currently engineered.

It always comes down to the "play what you have the most fun with" argument. I hope this gave you a small insight of what you can expect from each class before you invest your time in one of them.

The Dangling Conversation

2010-06-25T17:19:00.001+01:00

Engra entered the mess hall to find his brave leader in heavy debate with a bar wench. As soon as he was finished and wiped himself clean, Engra approached his table.

"The Raven God calls!"

"Engra! My most valuable, valorous, vivid, voluminous and vivacious of warriors. Sit here, fellow, I have kept for you the sturdiest chair in the house. We would not want to repeat last week's debacle now, would we?"

"No, oh Champion of Change, we would not. I heard you had pressing matters to discuss. I would very much like to get to them so I could return to the post you have assigned me to."

"Then we shall do just that. As of the now. I have a task for you, Engra, a most important one."
Inside his helm Engra grinned a most malicious grin.
"You see," Tchar'zanek continued, "it was not by accident that you landed on the thankless post you now hold. You were sent there to hone your surveying skills for this very mission."
"I think you lost me there, of Great Hoofed One."
"One of my seers has seen a sight. Such a sublime sight is seen seldomly, surely."
"The winds of Change seem strong within you today, oh Thee of The Most Splendorous Horns."
"Quite. The particulars of this vision are none of your concern. You need but know there is a party now to be formed. You are to assemble these warriors and keep close watch over their actions. From time to time you will dictate their actions and see to it that they see them done."
"A lot of seeing and surveying seems to be in order. I must confess, sir..."
"Sir?"
"I'm at the end of my list. I must confess I was expecting, or rather, hoping, for a bit more action."
"Fear not, blodthirsty Engra. There are many who will try to stop these warriors and, when you are noticed looming over their shoulders, you will most surely be faced with glorious battles."
"Well, that puts a nice twist to things. Of these warriors..."
"Ah, yes. I leave that to your full discretion."
"I had the impression they were to be put on quite a dangerous path, on quite an important mission."
"Yes. But it was also seen that Engra Deathsword was the wisest one to bear the weight of this choice. Now begone. My throat runs dry and you have long run out of amusing titles to adress me."

With a bow, Engra took his leave and returned beffudled to his surveying post at the arena. It was true he knew of a few names but this seemed like a matter on which he should invest a bit more time and consideration. As he watched the unending battles unfold before him, Engra started dictating to his newly appointed assistants.

At the Arena

2010-06-24T21:24:00.001+01:00

From his perch at the furthest end of the Saccelum Arena, Engra Deathsword surveyed his surroundings dismally.

"I killed man, woman and child to be reduced to this...? A glorified zookeeper with varicose veins? I, the one who laid waste to Praag and instilled the darkest of fears in the soul of Magnus himself! Where is the change I was promised?! WHERE IS IT?" Graul, standing beside him, shook his head as to say "Search me".

It was then that a bloodied Chosen of the Raven Host approached them.

"Gird your loins, what is it you want?"

"I bring to you a message from our master, the great Tchar'zanek. He wishes to speak with you, the one who laid waste to Praag and instilled the darkest of fears in the..."

"And what is it he wants from me? I'll have you know I'm a very busy Chosen. Lots of things to survey here. Yes, indeed," he nodded violently in the direction of Vilebane who, in turn, nodded as to say "Yes. Indeed".

"That, he would not confide in the likes of me. But I got the distinct impression it was of the utmost importance."

"It would be, wouldn't it, or he would need not send for the spiritual successor of the mighty Asavar Kul!"

"If you say so, oh tall one."

"What? You dare doubt my competence?!"

"No, that is far from what I..." but Engra took him by the head and flung him high above his shoulder before he could finish.

"Blood for the blood Goooooo......" was the last line for this our Chosen. Engra hastened to conclude.

"Skulls for the skull..."

ALTDORF LIES UNDEFENDED! CHARGE!

"SWEET!"

Something in My Head Died

2010-06-21T23:40:00.000+01:00

It did.

I woke up one Monday (or maybe it was Sunday. Well, it was definitely on a day that ended in "y") and the right side of my face was numb. I gave it a day, thought I might have slep ton one side for too long. Next day it was the same and the same it was on the third day.

So I called my mother, she's a nurse, and she said it could be a wisdom tooth. So I made an appointment at the dentists. "You can come in on the 7th of July". "Eff that," I thought, "I ain't having my face numb for a month. I'll scratch my nose off till then." Mike got me an appointment for his dentist the next day.

I go in and he tells me it's not my wisdom teeth. They're actually looking pretty good and will probably give me no problems in the future.

Then I did something one should never do: I Googled my symptoms. I started panicking at the mention of MS, aneurisms and all sorts of degenerative diseases. So I picked up my family and off to the hospital we went.

As general practitioners couldn't see what was wrong with me, they sent me to the neurology department for which I had to get in one of those spanky hospital gowns and ride around in a gurney (or trolley if that's your fancy) while old people were puking all over the place. I was the spunkiest patient in the E.R., I was.

I got to do a CAT scan which I thoroughly enjoyed. After some 4 hours I got the "we have no clue what's wrong with you but you shouldn't be too concerned. Stuff happens. Especially to people who work around freezers". But I don't work at all...

As you can probably realise, the idea that you can just wake up one day without feeling a part of your body because "shit happens" didn't sit well with me. Neither did the news that it'll probably stay like this for at least a month.

It is the most annoying thing I've ever experienced. It's like everyday, you're coming home from the dentist after a root canal or permanently having a layer of adhesive over half your nose and upper lip. My right upper teeth are numb too so they always feel cold.

I still have some more hospital visits scheduled so WAR is thoroughly on the back burner for now.

Sorry 'bout that peeps.

The Ghost of Christmas Past

2010-06-14T11:37:00.002+01:00

Yesterday i was in the mood for some Magus, so i pulled out my Ahrimana and ranked her up a little bit (still in T2, but I have to say, Magus IS FUN!)

All went well until someone from the Alliance (Small In Numbers) suggested an LV run.

For some stupid reason I decided that I wasn't going with Epikk, so I logged my WE and ran to Avelorn.

A valuable lesson was had on that LV run.

Ok, so, I don't play with it ever since i rolled Epikk, and as such I really can't remember what's god and what's not. But i don't remember her being so utterly suck.

It pained me to see that she deals almost 5 times less damage than my dear Choppa. At one point, i can't really remember what boss it was, I decided to stop being useless and logged with Epikk. That's when it really hit me. I was dealing about 160 damage with the WE to that boss, and Epikk was dealing almost 800, plus hurting time, with my run of the mill cookie cutter...

It saddens me to admit it, but... MY WE SUCKS DONKEY BALLS.

and that's that.

cheers

Portugal, The Man

2010-06-10T21:41:00.000+01:00

That's actually the name of a band from Alaska. I never heard it though.

Here's a caption if you're having doubts of where its at. (Yes, Azores and Madeira are part of Portugal too even though they wish they weren't. Conversely, Galicia wishes they were.)

So, June 10th, Portugal Day. If Italy is the boot of Europe then Portugal is its face. And the nose would be its capital.

Its funny how Portugal has become so hip these days. Most Europeans have heard of Mourinho for obvious reasons (although he's not the specimen we're the most proud of but, then again, we all have a little Mourinho inside of us.... eww, that came out wrong). Overseas we have Nelly Furtado (which means "stolen" BTW) pretending to have a real passion for this country which I find completely insincere and wish she would just stfu but whatever. Also, these days, Portugal has been showing up all over the place. You can find a "Portugal Yell" in one of buffalax's hits, mentions to it on various sitcoms (Arrested Development, New Adventures of Old Christine, etc) mostly as this obscure country that they've heard about but aren't really sure where its at and what it does, and it continues to be, as it has always been, a favorite holiday destination for the middle class of colder regions like the UK, Germany and the phallus of Europe (Scandinavia).

All in all, I find it a great country to be in. Weather is always nice, we're not bankrupt (yet) and... did I mention the weather is always nice? The food is tasty, the booze is intoxicating, the people are short and friendly, even more so these past few years (except the "short" part, we're getting taller) and the sidewalk is always awesome, albeit a bit dangerous. There is history here. My favorite part of it would be it's origins. Over a thousand years ago this dude stood up and said "fuck this, I don't even like the spanish anyway", rebelled against his mother and proceeded to create a country of his own. Some time later some other dude said "this feels a little cramped here, right? Let's check out the rest of the world." And so they did. Of course, like all the big empires it eventually fell through but who gives a crap. T'was an awesome initiative. I also like the story of Martim Moniz. The most legendary tank wall ever.

I have come to the realisation that I am as dedicated to Destruction as I am to being portuguese. I mean, sure I may visit other countries and learn to speak different languages but this is where I belong, where I reside and what I fight for. Although, unlike Destro, Portugal has lost the habit of imposing its beliefs on the rest of the world. Still, I feel warm inside when I think about both. The bigges difference would be, as a Destro, I feel like part of history in the making.

I love my country. In a healthy european way of loving one's country. It's like so small and cosy and friendly and tasty.
And did I mention the weather is awesome?

Happy Portugal Day everybody!

Spreading the Giggliness

2010-06-09T17:29:00.005+01:00

Just had to share this one.

I'm not a racing game fan, I spend more time hiting the sides of the circuits or trying to stop running them in the wrong direction than having fun. The one I did play the most was Mario Kart though, simply because all my friends were and game nights started revolving around that for a while.

Makes me giggle like a little girl.
I also like the italian version. They even bleeped it! So funny.

*giggle*

Reikland Factory

2010-06-09T03:27:00.001+01:00

I have no idea why this scenario made it to the permanent list. I have yet to find anyone that actually enjoys it and doesn't go "Oh GOD, not this again...." when it pops.

This scenario can/will/shouldn't play out in 2 ways.

First:

Players head straight for Landing and start the main campfight around one of the spawn points. Meanwhile, a very small force of Order/Destro takes out to capture the far flags. Whoever does this wins, usually.

Second:

Players head out to the far flags while a small contingency goes bravely for landing only to be pummeled by the opposing side who went for the first option. The pummelers then notice the further flags being taken and move out to meet the other faction head on. The farther flaggests are outnumbered because of the ones killed at Landing.

And BTW, how wrong are Manouche's DBs in this here screenie? Especially considering the amount of overall kills he had. And below you have a censured Bruce Willis just because I can.

All of this is a fail to me. Of course, there are times when impossible numbers or an impossible number of healers make a difference and spawn farming becomes a reality, for either side. But I still hate it. Wether I win or lose I absolutely loathe it. For one, the far flags are too far. The middle flag has too much clutter to be of any strategic use. I mean, seriously, when was the last time you actually went up those stairs? Landing is just too close to the spawns. Anyone trying to hold it has to deal with wave after wave of the same people coming to push it. And worst of all: people don't listen. They don't. They don't go for the healers first, they will always hit the tanks and they never listen. So it becomes a great big ball of "Oh GOD, not this again..."

I would much rather have Mourkain Temple up on T4. You go up to the middle, you AoE frenzy and you pick up a Murderball. You then proceed to knocking stuff off the ledge and feast on an all-out campfight. How can anything be better than that?

Funny thing. Today while I was in the shower I had an idea. I often have ideas in the shower. I also come up with lyrics to game music and then sing them for the rest of the day much to the annoyance of my peers. I was thinking "with so many bloggers in Norn out there it's a shame I never see them. We should do like a meet or something and bash eachothers to death." And then I logged on and I found Bootae. For the first time, mind you, he's a sneaky one. So I guess the world once more proved to me that it is indeed a very small place. And Norn even more so.

"Best Zealot Norn Semor Warhammer"

2010-06-08T03:11:00.000+01:00

Apparently the above is a Google search that led someone here. Either Semor has been feeling like boosting his ego or someone out there has a crush on him.

I like Semor, honestly. I was on vent with him once (my famed ToVL run, when he logged in to help us kill the last boss and we still failed) and his voice sounds very calm. It made me sleep better, I swear. Healing wise I'm gonna say he's good. Not that I ever saw him heal outside of that room, cuz I haven't, but he has the approval of Fionna and Darkdeadly and the like and if he does, he must be good.

Still, if not the best he is surely one of the most famous. He seems to get around a lot. I can't think of many other Zealots doing well that I see all that often. There's Manouche (although that guy/gal aint that good), there's Ultelot but he's frightened of me, Incahealerlolz but haven't seen that one in a while, Zapperinyi (or whatever its typed) that is surely not taking the most out of his Tyrant set... Dunno. Where did they all go?

Maybe the supposed new class mechanic will bring more people back to the class and more new ones to it. I'm not complaining, I always loved it just the way it was. I don't agree that we're the underdog healing class even though we don't have a defined healing tree. I'd still love a set tree just for healing, no doubts about that but I rarely see people outhealing a Zealot. Unless, of course, it's a Tyrant geared DoK. Those things are fierce.

On a related note, I heal-raced a DoK I have nothing but respect for. Semchance Nenhuma is a tuga DoK in Norn (he means to say you have Nochanche Atall) and I bumped into him in a city siege. I kept being rezed and I finally told him how disgruntled I was that he was always one step ahead. Somehow I managed to get in front of him in the third stage. And I got to rr58! \m/

Now I'm going to go surf the interwebs for appliances because I think we found a house we're ready to buy.
Still no job though, but the order of these things doesn't relaly matter much, does it?

Cards

2010-06-07T00:55:00.000+01:00

I was looking through my Rewards section in the ToK and I started wondering? What's the deal with this "Cards" section? If they're never going to use it why don't they remove it?

And then I started dreaming about a card game similar to that in FFVIII or FFIX (yes, I'm very Square-oriented these days). That would be awesome. Not only would I totally rule but it'd give me a reason to get re-hooked for real on WAR. God only knows how many hours I spent tracking down those cards and winning those battles on the PS, who knows what it'd do to my life if they implemented something similar in WAR.

But even if it was just like a collector's thing, I wish they would do something with it. I dislike empty tabs, makes the game look unfinished.

Or is it implemented and I just missed it completely?

Super Bock

2010-06-05T02:31:00.001+01:00

Thats the name of the beer I'm drinking that prevented me from finding a better title.

Things have calmed down a bit and I got to play a bit more. Been to a lot of city sieges lately. It pleases me that I can do 2 of them in a row. Just today I was in one with Dex and we managed to win the first 2 stages but on the third one Karl chose Kardinal (you might remember him from a previous post) to be a champ and all was for naught. Still, I went back in and managed to get a fine Sov chest for Dex in the end. That was nice.

Loot wise, life's been good. Sov helm and purple knife for Ehone to add to my new vault tab wich I like to call "sweet loot I'll never get to wear cuz I'm so lazy to get my rr up" where my warlord chest, gloves and boots already await. I got to be big in a city siege too. Of course, it was only three of us on Destro side by the third stage so poor Tchar didn't have much choice. And 2 of us were healers so only two of us ended up being big.

I'd completely forgotten about those new talismans they were selling, especially the reduced AP one. I just bought one before I logged out, haven't had a chance to try it yet. What I definitely will not be buying is a Barbie pony. Only because I went to a toy store the other day and there it was, a Barbie horse. And I swear it looked familiar. I got home and I understood why.

The bombing nerf seems to have worked, somewhat. At least I can brag about having won a SC with 4 BWs in it. Flash of Chaos seems to be much improved as well.

All in all a good end to a very bad week.
Now if only I could muster the €375.000 they were asking for that apartment I saw today.

Swallowed up

2010-06-02T15:26:00.001+01:00

In life, to be honest. So much fecal matter has been hitting the proverbial device comprised of rotating blades that produce airflow, often for cooling that I've had little time to do whatever.

The IRS is on to me, for one. I forgot to declare I made a whooping 200 euros last year so I had to get that settled. Also, I've doubled my efforts into finding a job and waiting 2 to 4 hours in a job center can shave a few years off your lifespan. On top of that we've been aggresively house hunting, a need that has been further reaffirmed by the appearance of a large swarm of termites out of my kitchen wall. Not what you'd like to find when you come out of the bathroom wraped only in a towel. Oh and the front door of our building wouldn't open for almost a week. That was fun too.

While I was walking into the building, cursing 'cus the door aint fixed properly, the water people warned me that they're cuttingg our water supply to replace the pipes. Brilliant.

So excuse me now while I go bash some Ordas to take the edge off.

Santinha

2010-05-28T17:50:00.000+01:00

Late Spring/early Summer always means summer colds.

Which in turn mean a big headache and a desire to do fuck all. So I haven't mustered much strength to hole up in the office and play WAR, let alone write about it. I've spent my time on Numblast, painting Mike's Dark Elf army and Final Fantasy VII.

Yes, I bought FFVII, FFVIII, FFIX and Vagrant Story from the PSstore. Now if they would only release Xenogears, Saga Frontier 2 and Front Mission 3 I could brag about owning the "best of Square" collection again.

Good old days. Now excuse me while I stuff myself full of paracetamol.

What's the Difference Between Us?

2010-05-24T22:15:00.001+01:00

We can start at the penis. Or we can scream, "I Just Don't Give a Fuck," and see who means it.
But enough Eminem.

Different people lead different lives. For instance, for you sidewalk can very well only mean that which you step on when you go outside. For me it's a constant adventure of pothole jumping, slipery slope surfing and a stiletto inhibitor. (The representetive photo includes a man lugging a pink thing that made me chuckle much at the time.) When the ground is composed of easily detachable rocks like so, you live your life a certain way. You learn to navigate it from an early age, OCD suffererers skip to avoid the black bits, you learn the rocks are much too hard to kick with soft shoes, you kick them out of the road if you're nice. People that live in places where sidewalk is just slabs of concrete put together never have to deal with such exciting dillemas.

The difference between me and the rest of most of the bloggers who've posted about the new city is that most of them are part of a large, organized guild. I'm a pugger. So it was with much dread that I ventured into the new city, self-conscious but ready to try my best. "Just follow the zerg" said Gonk, the supatank. And follow the zerg I most certainly did. As luck would have it, and much to my delight, we ran into another pug on order side. As pugs go ours must've been better as we breezed through all the stages without me dying even once.

I got a Warlord Carcass-Guard on the second stage and a purple bag on the third. Had a crappy knife in it so I just took the crests. I flapped my papier mache wings in excitement at the sight of a cowering Karl among our super-sized puggers.

So yes, I too aprove of this new city. I found myself asking "Can we go again?" right after it was over. It totally made up for the uselesness I had endured trying to defend Caledor earlier.

Waiting Between Worlds

2010-05-22T11:52:00.001+01:00

Har-dee-har-har.

While the patcher patches, which should be another hour, give or take, I thought I'd share something.

Of course, now that I'm here I completely forgot what I was going to share so, here I sit with a defunct lighter and candy wrappers, typing about nothing, really, while the patcher seems stuck at 10%.

I'm glad my last post was so inspirational for so many, I honestly didn't have much to say (kinda like now but I did! I swear!) so I just posted about one of my core beliefs about this game: crying about it is useless, you might as well try and do something smart.

Honestly, I don't get people that go on /ad to say "This game sucks" day in, day out, the same people. And these aren't trialers either. So wtf are they still doing in the game, paying for it, or even logging in? There's so much more to do in the world. Take it from me, the world is wider than your widescreen and you won't be missed.

Why, just yesterday I sat at our friends' house drinking copious amounts of chick drinks, rum and absynth, playing Pictionary and watching a very clothed Shakira not strutting her stuff much on the stage of Rock In Rio while being brutally mauled by their territorial cat. Life is fun like that. So if WAR isn't your cup of tea, go out drinking and drive or go play Puzzle Pirates or something just don't bother us with your whining because the rest of us are trying to have some fun here.

I'm all for constructive criticism though, and I'm guessing someone somewhere is bound to have a brilliant idea that the devs never did and we should thus all pitch in with our 2 cents. I don't, however, so I'm keeping my mouth shut (except, of course, make contribution not random and do something about PvE drops like a token system cuz I'm tired of running LV). But simply saying "nerf/don't nerf BWs" or "RvR is boring" doesn't cut it. It's like going to a restaurant, ordering soup and saying "this soup is bad". What're you going to do about it? Order something else? What would you rather have then? You don't know? Then would you kindly leave the premises and make room for people who do?

I like the soup. It's tasty. It'd be even tastier if it wasn't still at 14%.

If, however, you decide to suck it up and play a while, make the best of your money, time and patience and try your bestest. No one can blame you if you try your bestest. In fact, you're likely to be commended for doing so. It shows, believe you me. Sometimes, when I'm tired or just lazy I try a little less harder and it shows. Other times I get in the zone and I give it my all and the difference is there. Not the bestest healing ever but it surely made a difference. Oh yeah, btw, you know that addon that makes you thank the healer for when you get rezzed? Only the most annoying thing ever, especially when I get a "Thanks for resing me, dude!" A misogynistic addon does not make me feel appreciated. Taking your time to actually write a thank you for my efforts does.

Yay, 44% after a wall of text of near senseless gibberish. Ok, I'll stop bothering you now.

Make a Difference

2010-05-20T19:26:00.000+01:00

Hecticness has struck and I am still amidst a tidal wave of tasks (including watching Supernatural season 5. That show is awesome). So I can be forgiven for taking a week off WAR, just to clear me head and all.

Today I went back. As luck would have it (or wouldn't) today was the day of the supposed launch of 1.3.5. But since things didn't go very well across the big blue wet thing, patchness was delayed.

Still, I went cruising around t4 SCs with mah main healer to grab me some emblems while I wait for the new city.

I read somewhere that WAR had a big fault as in it didn't make the individual feel like he was crucial or vital to the unfolding of events in a battle. I beg to differ. Especially in scenarios, which is where I've spent most of my time lately. Even if one cannot, for various reasons, contribute much to the overall healing or damage dealt, there's always other ways of making yourself worthy of the bandwidth you're taking up. If your side is getting farmed, go around and cap some flags. If you, as a tank, can't get your marks under 50% hp before they're healed back up again, go back and punt the healers' threats away.

Today I felt like I mattered. Faced with yet another Nordenwatch spawn point farm I went around and joined 2 other players in capping Lighthouse and Fortress. When we get to Barracks I start reading complaints about how people "haven't had a single heal since the beggining of teh SC QQ". Since we were done capping anyways, I bravely rode my steed headfirst into the red multitude and kicked them with my new morale 4 goodness and started healing away. Sure enough, we drove them back and ended up winning it. It's not like I was the only healer because I wasn't, and I wasn't near the top of the healing chart. But my efforts made a difference. We capped the flags for time enough to swing the points in our favor and eventually kept enough people up for us to drive them back.

Same with Dex, later on. Although I agree that damage alone is not the way to go and we should all strive for a good dmg/DB ratio, that rarely happens with Dex. Mostly because I entertain myself interrupting their backline and keeping the healers busy on themselves so their frontline withers away. Yes, healers are extremely difficult for just one player to finish off, I know that from personal experience. I also know how important it is to be concerned about other health bars apart from my own. So I usually top the damage table and have very few deathblows. But all that damage mattered for something. It might have been healed away but at least those heals, that cast time, that AP was spent on my effort, allowing other people's efforts to get through and kill and whatnot.

Maybe I'm just an optimist and revert to over-analyzing just to feel better about myself. But I do. I feel good about myself. About my noob dmg and all.

"What does the gun do?"

2010-05-14T20:45:00.000+01:00

"It shoots bullets really fast."

- Detective Joe Miller

And if you got that reference, kudos to you for being awesome.

I've been super busy lately: between spring cleaning, trying to find a new place so I don't have to spring clean this one, daydreaming about it in the shower and finding vile things behind furniture, I've had very little time to play WAR even, much less post about it.

I was, however, pleasantly surprised with the news of the BW/Sorc nerf.

Cry me a river. Or don't, as most of you are sane people that realize this is a bold yet much needed first step in the right direction. Being instantly obliterated by 2~3 tiki torches surrounded by fast moving immovable bricks is not okay. I guess our favorite bombers really showed them what's what. (Btw, I found a pic of Arsanist grinning at an ice cream. Now I won't feel so bad when he kills me. Now I need a goofy pick of Steveo to make me feel better).

Maybe we'll even get lucky and some people stop playing BW altogether, bringing some variety into our lives. True BW lovers won't quit on them and kids over-compensating can give tanking a go because of their big swords.

WOO! Thanks to Jesus and the Pope!

2010-05-10T21:39:00.000+01:00

No, this post has absolutely nothing to do with WAR.

Or very little at least.

So my team's da champ now, after a long dry spell. But Jesus came through for us, in the end, and, with a little help from the Pope (he's in town for a quick visit. People get the day off if they want to go see the Pope. So everyone's totally religious right now. Big surprise, huh), we finally walked away with the tittle. Man, I wish I was more into football (or soccer for all you Californians and Texans and... Michiganesians?), I would've been so happy. I remember the times when I still was, back in the day, back before I realised that my team lost every game I decided to watch. So I stopped watching and started gaming instead.

I'm not terrified of crowds but seeing this

turn into this

can frighten pretty much everyone. The subway workers pretty much went home and left everyone to do whatever they wished with their spray cans and beer cups and random hooliganism. It was like everyone had a free pass to do whatever because we finally won the big one. I mean it.

I wish people got that excited about king kills. If king kills were this exciting everyone would be doing it: banding together to push to the city, getting organised and actually listening so we could get to the big mofo and spank it down to dust to then be rewarded with a night of all-out drinking, random yelling and car-honking. I'd take that over any Sovereign piece. But maybe not two.

That'd be awesome.

Epikk's Choppa Guide to Lost Vale: Left Wing

2010-05-07T23:44:00.007+01:00

Ok, so, the missus has been nagging me to write some Choppa guides to go with her Zealot guides to the several T4 dungeons and whatnot.

First of all, lemme tell you about my spec, so you can laugh at it a little bit :)

I'm a Savage Choppa at heart. To be honest i can't really live without Can't Stop Da Chop and Furious Choppin', and i allways have my thrusty Wot Rules? equipped.

As for a second tree, i usually go with Da' Wrecka when we're out dungeoning because even though i can't adapt to it for PVP, i do enjoy it for PVE because the AOE really helps when too many trash mobs start to hump my healer.

Now, the juicy parts.

WOT EPIKK DOS AS A CHOPPIN' CHOPPA WHEN WE'S GO DUNJUNS!!!!

My usual role is the main DPS guy (except on the bosses that are

easier to burn with ranged crap).

I don't really know if you other MDPSes out there use Don't Hate Da Choppa (or equivalent) for the reduced aggro when you're out clubbing or not, but i rarely do

Mainly because i've been a DPS for most of my life and as such i know how to controll my aggro pretty well, but also because i can use that extra tactic slot for something more useful, and Nirvaesh will yell at me if i lower my aggro too much cuz he's usually "chaneling" my aggro to himself (so, the more the merrier).

And i also have Hurtin' Time on at all times, as any respectable Choppa should.

As for Morale abilities, there's no M1 that's worth it, and M3 and M4 are just too far away considering that i always go for Tantrum when it becomes available, because the added damage is nice, and the fact that it doesn't fade when i go out of combat is a nice bonus.

i think that's it for general notes.

I'll follow Sara's lead on this one and i'll organize the rest of the post by Boss sections, so, here it goes...

Lake Lizard

Big Angry Cloud Boss

Slaanesh Cutie (I like to call it the Nipple Monster)

OK, this one is actually different.

I ALSO spam it, but i run arround lashing out some Lottsa Choppin because of the little adds that the Nipple Monster spawns (just so that they don't go pester the healers and RDPS)

This boss also makes me think of the movie Total Recall for some odd reason...

Dralel, the ICritYouToDeath Spider

Complete different approach here.

I don't even toutch the boss. that's a job for the tanks and maybe the other DPS if he feels like it. My sole purpose in life with this boss is to kill the little spiders that come from all over the place to try and reach the big-scary-spider-thing (i am an arachnophobe btw. the boss actually creeps me out a little bit) to raise it's crit.

Lottsa Choppin comes as a big help in this one as i can just run arround lashing at the little critters before they reach Dralel, and Charge! helps a lot when the thing knocks me back all the way to Burkina Faso and i have to run back ASAP to keep killing the adds.

On a side note, i love doing this boss with a Chosen, because i can let pass an ocasional spider and not worry about it because the Chosen's DPS aura will take care of it when the little one gets to his momma.

To be honest, the best part of this boss is after it's dead and we head back. I always just stand there and look at Sara trying to get out of the cave because she ALWAYS tries to exit through one of the fake holes on the wall that have big pillars of light coming out of them. Every time we kill Dralel she starts bitching about the Darkpromise Footwraps that never drop, and then she starts running against a wall, like a moth attracted to a lightbulb haha. there's also the now-so-classic "FUCK!" when she finally realizes that she's doing it again :P

All in all it seems that i spam a lot... well... i do. But whenever i say "spam" i don't mean just hit "4" untill the boss drops. My usual "spam cycle" for PVE mainly consists of a mix of Can't Stop Da Chop (my regular cookie cutter), Furious Choppin(for some added heals) and Go For Da Soft Spot(whenever i'm behind a boss), and i ocasionaly squeeze some other stuff in there just to be colourfull.

Anyway, that's that people.

Cheers.

Bring forth thy DoTs

2010-05-07T19:33:00.000+01:00

I get a lot of visits from Washington and California. And I had someone from Brighton here! Aussum! Never been, but its in some of my Rankin readings. Lots from Denmark too. Makes me miss the broodparents. (You know who you are!)

So, Darkdeadly invited me to a ToVL run he was having. They had apparently been wiping on the 5th boss and needed an extra healer to help out. Lil' old me had only done the first 2 ToVL bosses so far but I offered to help out to the best of my ability. After they insisted I should have Superior Wards for it I broke down one of my 2 Warlord Crests to buy an Invader helmet and get to 4/5 Sup wards. All the good it did me, I don't think I ever got hit except on purpose.

Anyways, by the end of the night we were stumping on the final boss. First we were doing well but not quick enough and he was enraging, then with only one tank, we started wiping and after much blaming on my heals (no, I wasn't actually healing for 300, my HoTs were, actual heals were around 3k but who the fuck is coutning anyway) we had Semor come and help out and, lo and be utterly amazed, we still failed.

I'm not the best healer, I've said that countless times and I am also severely miss geared but, personally, I blame the tank. But I don't give a shit, I got mah second Glyph! \0/ Nau I haz 2.

Seeing as I had to respec to single target and buy the AP ritual (apparently, this together with the stagger is quite useful in ToVL. I wouldn't know cuz I've been there just twice and if you can do it without a zelly, you can do it without those 2 skills), I got poor again. Something always comes up to slice my finances down the middle.

So I hoped on Dex to try and farm a few city dungeons for curios. I had shelved Dex for a while because I had full Invader in the bank. Yes, I shelved him because of the good gear I had for it. It's just that I was going to take so long to get there I lost my motivation. It's dealing fair enough damage over time but still lacking in stopping power, aka, not enough deathblows. I'm thinking of trying to get some Darkpromise for it while I get to Invader but, by God, I'm scared of going LV with him and watching Zealot drops while not on the donkey. I just know they will.

As of yesterday, Dextrose is rr47 so it's not that far from his first Invader pieces anyway. As I am kinda hoping for the patch to hit and boost my Leaping Alteration and favourite ritual (i like it because its cast time is lower, you hate it because it doesn't give AP) I might start playing Dex more often now. That and its less stressful. I don't have to worry about what EVERY destro is doing around me all the time.

I even defended IC after I promised mysef I wouldn't bother until the patch came. We had an unusual combination of a Rift, Changing (me) and Havoc Magi so, even while being farmed, I had a good time. Eventually Order came 1VP short of locking and we all /loled at them in the end. Good times.

After that, we took the opportunity to lock some zones so I roamed around in a good PUG for a while, which is how I finally dinged. Looking back, I can sure tell the difference between being Annihilator geared (I was in it for the longest time) and my new Sent/Conq mix, especially on keep mobs. Before, they took quite a while to die, now... they don't. Looking forward to my Invader now.

Nothing too interesting today, expect the rest of the LV guide when my lockout ends and I find a good group to breeze through it. Any volunteers?

Zealot's Guide to Lost Vale: Left Wing

2010-05-05T03:39:00.002+01:00

For your learning pleasure, I took part in one of the most god-awful runs ever. Just to take notes, of course, as nothing ever drops for me. Oh wait, something did drop. Two more belts, me now having 3 of those and a pair of gloves. Ain't I joyous. The run wasn't bad cuz we had a bad group. The run was bad because we barely had a group at all. I found a BO, a Choppa, a Shaman, a Sorc and a WE (f u Shadowlost, giving Kill Frenzy a bad name). You will note the absence of an OT. I did. But I was alone in my worries so I let it rest.

Long story short, the WE misteriously disappeared after the first boss (we found a BG to help out but he left after the left wing was done), the Sorc had to go tend to his/her daughter, the Shaman logged off mostly at the same time so I managed to find another Choppa (the so far ever-patient Bösewicht, which has been in another fail-run with me before) and Gwaan, our main and only tank, brought a Squigster and another Shammy from his guild WOLF HOUNDS. We managed to complete the first wing and clear the path to the third boss of the second.

But let's get to the Zealot part of this post.

(NOTE: whatever I call "Gors" might not be Gors at all. They might be... Ungors or some centaur-like thingy. They go unga unga so I call them "Gors".)

Tactics: again, same as before. Discipline, Subtlety, Restorative Burst and Blessing of Chaos.

Morales: Tzeentch's Talon, Eye of Sheerian, Divine Protection, Alter Fate or whatever. I don't really care for morale 4's for Zealots. I think they're, most of them, crap. If you disagree please show me the light as I am currently very disapointed in them. Needless to say, have your selfres up for bosses and be sure to die away from their spawn point and advise everyone to die quickly if you're gonna wipe.

Ok, make sure everyone has been there before and, if not, make sure they have the Blood of the Vale quest that Hellebron in the Palace gives.

Buff up but don't bother mounting up. You take a few steps in and, in the distance, you'll see an Elf going something like "OMFGWTFISCHASINGMEGETITOFF!" and then a big worm thing pops out. No big tactic here, just heal through it and it'll go away. People new with the quest, go back to deliver it and get the next bit.

Beginning of left wing, kill a few scorpions, a few Gors, heal right through all that crap until you come to the lake. The big lizard boss should be right there in the middle. You should stand next to the boulder that has a shard behind it. You can even stand on top of it.

Lake Lizard

Be sure to keep your tank(s) hoted and just heal through the sucker. Throw a Morale 1 at it as soon as you can, so it goes down faster, and possibly a Harbinger of Doom too. Choppas deal Corporeal damage, if I'm not mistaken. Crucial though, someone has to pick up the ads it spawns. It's not that they hit super hard but, if no one picks them, you inadvertadly will and will be setback until forever. Be sure to Embrace the Warp if that happens to hold you up while someone takes care of them. Alternatively, Zizzy (can I call you Zizzy? Sure I can) advises you to u se your Morale 3 if you pick them adds up. Should hold you for a while longer but not forever, believe you me.

After the boss, someone take the shard on the left side of the clearing (just don't let it be a WE) and then up the stairs. Beware here. These stairs can wipe. The rest of you must always go for anything with "Pleasure" in their names first, as they add a bunch to your cast-time. There are more shards around, keep an eye out. Pretty soon you're up the stairs and on to another clearing filled with trash gors or whatever and the next boss. Clear the trash.

Big Angry Cloud Boss

The way this sucker works is that he'll always go for anyone who steps on a pink cloud he spawns. And he'll spawn plenty. What I usually do is that I have everyone but the MT standing on a rock (the first big rock in the clearing, before the tent) and the MT drags the beast to stand real near the rock, with its back turned to us. Note: The front part of the rock, not the side or he'll just reset. The DPS can reach it there but clouds don't spawn there. Another viable place is the tent further on. It has a log near it. I usually avoid the tent because people tend to get stuck coming down from it. I've also stuck the boss there once too so, pick your poison. How I ended up doing it the last time though was prolly the most dangerous way. The MT was just running around trying to touch purple clouds while I stood very still and tried not to move just in case it spawned a cloud around me. Eventually the MT died but the OT was sporting a S&B too so it wasn't too bad. Nuke it.

Pass the trunk bridge, make sure ppl are delivering the quest if need be. You'll come to a path filled with spider and spider eggs. You can either have a rdps destroy the eggs from afar or stand near them and they'll spawn lil' spiders. If you've been wiping somewhat destroy some eggs so it'll be easier for ppl to run back *shudder*. Spiders are fairly easy to heal through so just slap down a ritual, a Leaping Alteration and you can even Demon Spittle and Rite of Agony them. There are more shards hidden behind rocks and one near the ledge right at the beggining, to the right I think. There are also two in the corridor filled with eggs. You can spawn two or three eggs at a time and AoE them to death. Kill spiders, push forward. You'll get to a clearing filled with harpies. Clear trash. Selfres on.

Slaanesh Cutie

Stand near the trunk. It the tank is tanking it against the pillar, stand near the front of the trunk, if he's tanking it on the side, near the ramp you came from, stand on the side of the tree trunk. Tank and spank, nuke it. All it does is knockback once in a while as far as I can remember. Oh yeah, some adds do spawn. I don't remember them but I remember looting them in the end. ^_^. Same deal as with the first boss, Morale 3 if you pick them up until the Choppa shreds them. Get loot (or don't if you're anything like me. All I ever get is Heart of Lolololyougetnothinggood).

Use the shards (they're in the quest inventory, just right click them) near the big pillar. You just need 10 to spawn the quest ghost thingy and now you should all have the torch. In the cave to the left is the reason why I started these guide thingies in the first place.

Dralel, the ICritYouToDeath Spider

Clear all the trash in the room. The way this is usually done is: When you get in, Dralel should be in front of you. There's a recess to the right of her with a ramp leading to a blue light. You tank her there. Well, not you, he/she/it/tank-like-thing. Oh and, don't jump off the ledge to get to said ramp. I've seen lot of people get stuck on those rocks. Once she's in position, place yourself with your back to the rock to the left of the ramp, facing the blue light. Your camera will probably weird out (I, at least, feel claustrophobic). Make sure everyone has the torch in their hotbar.

So here's what I've been meaning to tell you all along. Swap out a tactic (I take out Blessing of Chaos) and slot in Waves of Chaos. And here's a rundown of how the boss battle should go.

First thing she does is a general knockback. Everyone gets knocked back and snared. That's what the torch is for. You have to use it to be able to move again. She will instantly aggro the first person to use the torch so make sure the MT is quick to use it so you can do it right after.
She will not move from her spot instantly so the tank has to work hard to get her into position.
Any AoE dps and your Ritual must be on lil' spider detail. Every little spider that reaches the big one gives it a 5% damage buff.
Once the spider is on the ramp, place the ritual on the ramp behind it (around where I'm standing in the picture), so that it catches any stray spiders that get past the dps. Some spiders will also come up from behind you so use your Rite of Agony when they do. If you have a Chosen, have it use its damage aura. Spiders only have around 50~100 hp.
This is not a DPS race its a lil spider race. Last time I did it, Dralel had a 25% damage buff on her when she died and we still managed it without much difficulty.

An AP banner here will work wonders since you have to keep healing and using your AoE dmg. As long as you keep the tank hoted between big heals, and kill any spiders as they're about the reach the big one, you should be fine.

If the thing would've dropped the boots for me I could be sporting +8% crit heal. But nooo, phantom Marauder got them or something.

So tired of this spider, I swear...

Screw you with a stick, Shadowlost

2010-05-04T13:01:00.000+01:00

AKA, "Preamble to LV guide: Setting up a party", alternatively "The Run-back Curse: The Beginning". I go with the more insulting, personal one cuz I started this damn thing I can insult whomever I want. Long live the interwebs.

Aforementioned Witch Elf is probably a nice person. I wouldn't know because he/she/it has ragequit on me twice in LV, on the same exact place so we never got to bond. I have the feeling it only needs stuff from the first boss and when it's done it leaves us hanging for a dps.

With this in mind, here's a short list of things to make sure you have when you embark on that sad sad journey that LV can be. If you're lucky and it isn't sad, it ain't the most thrilling thing in the world either.

Don't have a Shadowlost WE in you party, destro Nornites. It will only give you grief. It'll collect the shards and then leave after the first boss.
Be wary of Shamans. People who play them tend to be very fickle and a have a very short temper. Excellent candidates for rage-quitting.
DoKs are nice because their heals are quicker and they themselves are quick. Most DoK players are trigger-happy so they tend to keep moving.
Have an OT. At least for the right wing. There's a boss with a gobbo that is almost impossible with just the one tank and million choppas.
Be sure to resolve any loot issues ahead of time if you have more than one of the same career in your party.
Make sure everyone has at least 2 hours to spare for each wing you propose to do. It's harder to find replacements because nobody wants to start a run from the middle of a wing.
Apart from needing on dyes, make sure you all agreed on the loot rules of repairable Remnant equipment.

Next time, expect a post about LV's left wing from a Zealot point of view. Granted, it wasn't the best run to take notes but, alas, I take the runs I'm given and am gifted with extraordinary patience.
Seriously.

Left my banner in El Segundo

2010-05-03T19:09:00.001+01:00

And someone got it. An Order something starting with an L.
What happened was as follows.

After a tormentuous climb full of blood, sweat and tears I finaly gripped that final rocky ledge of rr56. Took me a week for one measly rr. So I decided to actively go looking for fights.

And so it was that, last night, after a few fails against several bombsquads, I found myself hoping from BO to BO hoping to secure Praag's Domination lock. Mike had gone to bed already so, as I was camped in Martyr's Square with my leech banner, I decided to log his Choppa in so he could earn a little renown while he slept. Isn't that what true love is after all?

Two minutes to go. Me and a few more jumped randomly around the flag, counting the seconds.
One minute to go. Just as a percautionary measure I slap down a ritual with Waves of Chaos around us to spot any eventual Witch Hunter.
Thirty seconds to go. Two people leave the BO, out of boredom perhaps. I don't understand why cuz they lost the Field of Glory buff or whatever it is that gives you 100% more renown or 150%... or something.
Twenty-two seconds to go. The first Bright Wizard gets rendered in the distance. "Son of a sack filled with dirty whores", I thought. "Need help at Martyr's", I typed. But not much help came. To their credit most of the people leeching did come. There just wasn't many of us at 3am.

Still we fought hard but we were just stragglers, all things considered, and we were up against 12 tight-knit players that beat the crap out of us over and over again.

However the "one-of-their-tanks+me" combo was not without merit, as a strategic Knockback made me immune to melee attacks for some 2 minutes. Time enough for me to res a couple of sorcs and healers up to my position and finally drive them from the BO. After we lost it, of course. And after my banner was stolen.

So after this debockle we went around to try and protect other BOs from further attacks. We found them, eventually but again we failed and we all decided this was a good time to turn in, while we still had some of our pride left.

During the day, when we have some good things happening, alliance Warbands close themselves up. God knows I understand them but some valid players are left headless-chickening around always one step behind. Oh well, I have myself to blame for my loyalties. :)

On an interesting side-note, I went to T1 on Ehone the other day, trying to find a good place for Undead farming (for the Undead Tome Tactic) and I noticed some of our guildies were leveling some T1 alts. So I told them to make a WB, make me an assitant in it and roll out to the lake. I, having since given up on the whole farming business, parked myself on Ch2's PQ (you know the one by the cliff with all the ppl with the rifles) and res the masses.

Thus was the setting in which we discovered this wonderful BG called Wraith-something. Let's call him Wraithfail. Wraithfail started following me becase, and I quote: "I saw you ride by". Apparently he'll chase anything with a skirt that "rides by". The WB leader didnt want to lead anymore so the party hat fell to me. Wraithfail proceeded to yelling "GIEV ME LAEED1!!eleven!!" I responded with a kick. "ESCUSE ME!" he said after he joined back. "Oh, I'm sorry. I pressed the wrong button." And he apparently believed me. After some more rambling about how awesome he was and random "You're in a scenario, lol"s I kicked him again. "EXSUSE ME, HELLO!1!" he said upon reentering. "I'm so sorry. I don't know what's wrong with me today, always pressing the wrong things." Dude replied with "well, you could stop clicking my name for starters" and I replied with another kick. He came back, of course. But at this point guildies had come back to proper tiers and I left them to do whatever. T'was fun that bit, goes to show you can always find entertainment in lower tiers.

Have a pretty flamer picture that has nothing to do with anything.

Zealot's Guide to Bilerot Burrows

2010-05-01T01:11:00.002+01:00

So after you fall off the edge of the city and make your way back to the Monolith (we've all done that, one time or another) you get into BB.

First of all, every now and then a "PLAYER starts to feel (or seem) very sick!" That player has to gag or they'll be out of AP in no time. To gag you need to press a button that appears near your granted abilities (like Zealot Marks that I'm sure nobody ever uses).

Same tactics and Morales as above (or below), use whatever linis you want. For this dungeon I like to keep my Mark of Remaking up most of the time. First trash you'll deal with are slugs that can add about 2secs to every cast time. Even morales. I keep it up just in case tanks are just a bit too squishy and can't hold them through the long cast times. Just try and stay away from the slugs to avoid getting that curse/hex/whatever. I believe that, at the bottom of the first ramp you should take out the small nurglings to the left before you pul the mobs in front. Otherwise they all aggro and its too much to handle. Also, I believe there's an armour or toughness debuff that keeps getting put on the tanks that starts stacking up. If so, keep removing it. It may seem like it's bugged and that they always have something to remove. Keep casting Glimpse of Chaos just in case.

Every now and then you'll get a "doggie time" from the MT. This means that he'll pull a big nasty Plaguebeast that supposedly looks like a dog (I don't see it). From what I can remember the tanks Xguard, melee stands back, ranged Doombolt/Plink/Flickering Red Fire it. NO DOTS! Not ever. No freakin DOTS. Unless you're all Warlorded and just doing it for shits and giggles.

Also, there are some tall thingies (that's what I call them, I dunno what they're caled. They're tall, green and come in groups of 2) that can wipe you if you overpull. Don't fret its normal.

I'm not 100% sure about which boss comes first and I'm always too far to catch their names. Try and make your party wait for your selfres especially if you feel the party usually has their common health below 60% through trash fights.

Boss with a pet Nurgling

Don't kill the Nurgling, nuke the boss. Easy. They usually kill this one before I even realise its a boss we're fighting.

Ssrydian Morbidae
You have the kill all the doggies in the room where this guy is before you take him on. Tank and Spank, don't hold back. Never had a problem with it.

Boss that spawns Nurglings
There's a tooth outside the room. Some ppl like to have their healers stand on it. I prefer to have a Dissolving Mist or a Surging Pain taking care of the adds and let the healers stand wherever they want. Focus and do your best and have your selfres on. Should be fine.

The Great Unclean One

Have selfres. Tricky boss but not that hard. What you have to do is to find a happy medium between proximity (so your heals can still reach the tanks) and distance. Distance because he spawns Diseased Grounds on the... ground. You'll need to have your graphics on at least medium to see them. But you'll know if he spawns one under you if you start getting repeatedly hit. Further warning, if there's a Magus with you, stay away from its Daemon as the boss is likely to spawn a pool under it too. Also, if the nurglings he eventually spawns go for you, try and stand on a Dissolving Mist so they die or pass by the Magus or Sorc so they can pick them up. You have to keep moving and stay away from those pools. When the boss is almost down he'll swallow you all up. Keep group-healing through the loading screen. This is crucial. Some people die on impact inside the thing. Keep healing in the innards until you're spat out again. Again, groupheal through the loading screen. With any luck, no-one died inside (if they did, there's no way to reach them. Ever again. They have to respawn) and no one died on the spitting out part. Boss should be down quickly after that. So, main points on this boss.

Avoid the pools. Keep moving.
Have the AoE dps of choice grab the nurglings or they'll set you back until forever.
Groupheal through the loading screens.
If you feel you're about to wipe, be sure to die away from the boss's original spawn point so the selfres is actually useful.

If I forgot something or a whole Boss even (highly likely) let me know.

So, it should be done, you should have, with any luck, at least one new Sentinel shinie.

And, to wrap it all off, have some gratuitous finnish swearing and a very tired mailbox.

Hey all you little things of WAR!

2010-04-30T14:50:00.003+01:00

Klara vappen to any bastardous Finnish/Scandinavian etc. person who finds themself here, I will soon be off to celebrate it the only way I know how. By getting shit-faced. With the rest of Finland.

But this is NOT the point of this post. This post however is still random but mandatory 'cause I have been silent far too long.

Now to random business - WAR players who have no idea of the lore and don't care about it. Given i'm no expert - but I know a little bit of that and a few bitz here and there. And now i'm learning more about dark elves - if you know me, you know I love them sadistic, cruel creatures without competition known as Dark Elves. WHY I love them so much I do not know, however I do know that I do.

So, my source? Dark Elf armybook - I finally started collecting again, supported by my new job. AND I can't wait to order that blackguard command squad... I'll name the champion Nirvaesh Vihankylväjä, those who know me, know why.

So back to the real business again started up there - I know anyone no matter how stupid, idiotic, retarded, young, old, blisfully ignorant one may be they have a right to play this game. However! If we decide to mutter about the lore and give praise to our gods and talk about the tabletop game or other such stuff which is definetly warhammer related - don't come screaming at us that its all bullshit and what not.. it isn't. The lore is in the game - you're playing it - your characters are build on the base of the lore. It does mean that you can ignore but don't give us crap about it.

Also, advice chat - what the hell man - I know idiots linger there but hey c'mon.. I tell a person who sais something along the lines of "40k holds more interest to me than warhammer." I reply cause i'm an annoying lil fuck at times that "40k is Warhammer, so is Warhammer Fantasy Battle.." So what do I get out of this? Somewhat what I deserve " stop talking when you don't know what we're talking about." Well clearly I know quite a deal compared to your false paradoxal statement. And.. its pretty clear to anyone with a hint of intellect that they were talking about the two games and who likes which better and such.

Aaand it continues! He starts telling me to go to bed, and that I am a kid. And probably a retard - I didn't much care about his name calling... I get enough of that in guild chat.. even tho they are somewhat wellwished but still. Jokes get old too? (Doesn't mean that i'm gonna rage you all my beloved guildies if you call me your bossgirl or w/e you wanna call me.)

But, I loved my next statement - "Well you're right, I do have to go to bed soon. I have a job to go to." Surprisedly that shut him up. AUSSUMSAUCE!

And now referance to the last post by Sara.
A tank-archetype who has the balls to call himself a tank and goes to an instance to main-tank - and then goes "What's menace?", are the biggest idiots, failers and one skill spammers I must know. If you don't even know your tactics and you're holding warlord tells much about what this game is going to. I once thought that wearing sovereign is like aussumsauce - now I just find it the final step of being a grindwhore. Because me - in my invader - in my OLDSCHOOL brightwizard college glaive can deal better DPS than a full sovereign choppa. And i'm not even str capped OR have focused offence on. For the love of Khaine, the chaos gods.. and EVEN Gork and Mork. Whats the point of even driving yourself to Sovereign when you know that you're awesome and what you get out of it? A bomb squad by order in the face. Oh and about tanking - I tank in the same set and tank whole of LV. So - something.

Anyway, I HATE YOU BOMB SQUADS! It should be seriously nerfed - no I don't care that I will never be able to set one myself cause its nerfed and can't renown farm by it. I just want a good clean fight with different players with their individual skills not a play style from a guide from a forum about bombing.

Now, i'm done randomly ranting. Next post will be about tanking - a task I so hate and love. The stress of it - I HATE. The feeling of being able to go to LV and be like "Yo guyz, check diz out!"

So, look forward to my random, undirectional, very rant-like, off-topic filled and senseless blog-guide about tanking. And fear not, I will rant about bombing aswell.

Love ya'll ya lil fings of WAR<3

Zealot's Guide to Bloodwrought Enclave

2010-04-28T22:12:00.000+01:00

It is exactly what it says. If you do as described here you should have no biggies healing through it. Last time I went at it as a Zealot I managed to solo-heal a 3-man party. Of course, I was already near full Sentinel but still.

Anyways.

Tactics: Discipline, Subtlety, Restorative Burst and Blessing of Chaos or whatever. Maybe throw in a tactic you might have bought in a mastery tree. I didn't buy any so go crazy. Just don't slot in Waves of Chaos. At least not while trash clearing. I rarely do any PvE without these tactics. Just changed out one for one boss that I can remember but that's for a different dungeon.

Morale: Tzeentch's Talon, Eye of Sheerian, Divine Protection, Alter Fate. The last one I never use. I rarely get past Morale 2 even, mostly because I love Sheerian's animation so much. And it's another HoT. I love Hots. I passed on Divine Favor because I don't think the amount it heals is justifiable. I'd rather have a reverse 1001 to help kill bosses. If you have a different morale 4 you're in love with go right ahead.

Depending on what gear I had I'd either use a Liniment of Inspirational Winds or a Wounds one instead. I like(d) to keep my Willp at least in the 1k range without Mark of the Spell Destroyer but if you feel the second healer is doing fairly well and the MT ain't too squishy, by all means slap on yer Willp mark. Save your Mark of Remaking for the bosses.

Once inside, turn left. If you're specced Dark Rites (AoE) like me, just lay down a ritual (you can use whatever you have, I just have the one), throw your Leaping Alteration and a Dust of Pandemonium between sending bottles of Tzeentch's Cordial to the melees. If not AoE specced, just make sure everyone is HoTed at least before you invest your AP in party heals.

After you clear all the trash on the left you get to the first boss. Three centaur-like thingies. "Nuke the boss" they'll say. You slap on the self-res before you answer "ready". If your tanks aren't great you'll be off-tanking the champs. It shouldn't be a problem. With your morale one and a Harbinger of Doom on it, the thing should go down fairly quickly. Just keep the MT all buffed up (give him a willpower/initiative mark if he's getting hit too hard) and remember you have a Daemonic Fortitude to put on them tanks if they seem to be a bit fail.

Party: "What you're not using Menace?"
Rk40 Tank who should know better by now: "No. What's Menace?"
True story.

If you do find yourself tanking the adds, save the Fortitude for yourself, remember that besides the detaunt you have Veil of Chaos, to give you time to get a big heal in and Embrace the Warp, a beauty of a thing. If only it didn't have such a long cooldown. HoTs are crucial to keep up in this fight, especially on whoever's tanking because now and again you'll get silenced.

Boss down, boohoo you didn't get loot and yes, we are needing on dyes. Moving right along.

When you get back to the first intersection you go left again (that is, straight forward if you're coming from the entrance). Clear more trash, spam more heal, declare the tanks incompetents cuz they can't keep aggro. The person who got the key in the last boss opens the door, you all go in and you healers and any rdps go stand at a staircase. Either one is fine. If you have an AP banner place it down next to you in the stairs. The tanks can find their own.

This bastard is moody but fairly easy. If it's your first time here it can take a while. Tanks should guard the melee(s) but let the MT get all the aggro. You have your selfres on, you slap down a ritual and you answer "r". The most crucial thing to do, once everyone is blown up in the air is that whatever you're doing, once the main tank is knocked back you have to stop doing it and uncurse/hex it. Seriously. STOP and Glimpse of Chaos it. The fight then proceeds as it was, you keep HoTing everyone and once they're all in the air again you jump and uncurse the MT again. Rinse, repeat, Barakus should be dead now. If not, your selfres should be useful to prevent you all from having to run back. Just remember to stay near the middle of the stairs, not too up, not too down. Its normal if the OT or the meleegets one-shotted. I don't know why. I don't know tanking rules. Just know it wasn't your fault.

Boohoo, phantom Marauder has 2 new Sentinel helmets now and you have jack shit. Tough luck.

See you in BB.