Andy Made Me Feel Dirty, Bootae Made Me Feel Special

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Renown Training:

Might up to 5 for 102 strength

Blade Master up to 3 for 30 Weapon skill

Oportunist up to 2 6% crit

Mastery Training:

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

Gear:

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

Head and Shoulders are Tyrant

Hands and Belt are Invader

Chest and Boots are Darkpromise

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tactics:

Brute Force: 160 STR

Wot Rules?: exhaustive blows no longer remove rage

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

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

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

Abilities and rotation:

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

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

Other than that, I run things arround Reckless Blow.

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

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

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

Anyway, getting on with stuff.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Reckless Blow is ready to use!!!!

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

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

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

UPDATE

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

END OF UPDATE

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

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

And I think that's that.

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

Cheers.

Colossus MDPS weapons

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

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

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

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

Surprise surprise!!!

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

THE CHOPPAS GOT SHAFTED!!!

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

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

Sweet looking thing tbh.

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

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

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

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

Not too shabby.

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

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

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

and now, the focus of this post...

the Choppa axe:

same DPS as the two above.. ok

same Speed, same crit chance

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

what gives, Mythic???

All Come To Look For a Guard

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Where's the rain for my parade?"

Working as Intended

I tried the PTS yesterday.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Struggle and Single-Target Experiments

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

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

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

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

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

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