Asuryan's Flames

Yep that is right, in fact Global chat in AOC is worse than Barrens Chat in WOW, which is kind of hard to achieve considering the poor choice in topics there. At least it is entertaining.

So, like all games you try and hit level cap as quick as possible so that you can get a real feel for what the game is like. I am sitting at just over 4 days played total and I am close to level cap. In War, it took a similar amount of time, and even in WOW is was close, but there seems to be a greater feeling of accomplishment with the higher number that AOC provides.

Now there is more to level in War then just hitting level cap, there is renown rank, which AOC does have PVP rank, but it seems to be way less important than hitting RR 80 in War. Ontologically, they are focusing on different areas. Where as War focuses on getting your character to 40 then the real grind begins because the best items are PVP related and earned, AOC has the PVP caveat for those who like it, but that are encapsulated in a raiding environment where PVP is not the core.

In both instances you will end up doing the same thing over and over, but in War you will end up doing that substantially quicker due to the limited scope that endgame seems to focus on. Now with the huge expansion on the horizon that might change, but that is still a ways off and it could be the Trials of Atlantis that plagued DAOC being brought to war. I say that lightly, but we are not 6 months after release and we have seen several huge promise that where made by Mythic broken.

So when I started out playing AOC a couple of weeks ago my buddy fatpork was coming over with me. He decided that he was going to roll a necromancer, so that was off the table so I tried out a few classes over a couple of days while he got the game downloaded and installed. First I tried the demonologist, your basic heavy direct damage/aoe DD caster class. It has low survivability but hits like a Mac truck. You get a naked succubus, or partially clothed incubus if you are into a guy trailing you around. Overall, I enjoyed the class, but I was not interested being so dependent on potions and healers.

The next class I played was a Herald of Xolti, this class I know will be my first alt, she was so much fun it was staggering. I read on AOC Forums

This is not a class I would recommend for beginners, it has a limited number of tools to deal with most situations and PvP. If you're looking for AE damage with more survivability and versatility, the overwhelming consensus is to play a Tempest of Set. If you're a masochist, want a little extra damage, and if a fire-slinging, sword-wielding, crocs-wearing battlemage sounds fun to you, roll up a HoX.

That just struck me, a melee mage that has almost the best of both worlds, of course there is the huge weakness in being a clothie, but you get a self restoring shield and so on. I passed on this for now since I would be grouping with a buddy, and there was only one other class that just stuck in my mind.

The tempest of set and healers in general in AOC are probably the best healers of any game I have ever seen. You can heal moderately well, and you can dps like any other dps class. In some cases, priest of mitra, you have a ton of CC as well. There are down sides, you have little survivability, healing in AOC is not like healing in other games where you can full heal yourself with one spell, it takes a lot of work, so you have to live by killing.

Onto the tempest, tempests are aoe healers and very heavy aoe dps. They can put out very high numbers if speced properly, and can heal very well while doing it. I chose this class largely because I like the idea of being able to heal well and dps well all in one package. It is Shadow Priest 2.0 + extras. Being that AOC relies a lot of group pulls of mobs and so on the aoe ability is key to leveling quickly, and with my buddy at the helm of a necromancer we are off.

I will give more details soon a few notes.
AOC so far is a great game, a lot of the commotion that was around when it was released has been fixed and the game is on much better footing.
Classes in AOC in some cases are very different and in others are very similar to what you have seen before.
Combat is very interactive for melee classes, you have to control combos, actively block, positions and so on to be effective, which is something button mashing games don't offer.
Finally, the graphics are amazing, as I have been leveling I have seen oceans with tropics, to the frozen tundra’s, in some areas it makes Crysis graphics look weak.

Well I have not posted in a bit, and when I last posted I was having issues of being burned out on Warhammer and as I have taken my break I have yet to have the desire to go back. There are several reasons why I feel this way. The first of which is that I have seen and done all of the endgame PVE, and to be honest what is there is lackluster and un-polished. They are zones the size of AQ40 with no way for fast transportation, or even original fights. In fact every boss fight is a spank and tank.

Now to the core of the game, PVP. I feel that there was too much of a push to do scenarios. The carrot that was dangled was too great to ignore that you had to go after it which meant that oRVR was left to rot. Additionally even after limiting the number of people in sieges, of which I was a vocal opponent, there is still to much lag and it is not smooth as promised prior to launch. It leaves me with the feeling that there are so many things that are un-kept in this game that should have been looked at and where not. Look at the city siege, doing PVE in order to get to the king in a process that is very one sided on most servers with balance any where form 2:1 to 4:1 ratios.

These are just some notes on why I am not happy with Warhammer. My buddy Fat and I decided to try our AOC since it has been out almost a year and we are having a good time so far, but it has had a year to polish and that is what has happened. Mythic has had almost a year to polish and all they had done is adding content and nerfing classes. I wish you all the best in your adventures.

Happy Hunting
Enslaver

Just like last Sunday, it is here again. Post whatever you would like to talk about and I will address it on Monday.

As many of you have seen, there have been several issues with the 1.2 patch, the first thing that stuck out on the list of issues was:

Nepentheon Tonic: This item can no longer be used to resurrect allies while the player is affected by the Terror debuff. In addition the cooldown for this item is 15 minutes

This was the new way to get around the terror debuff that was preventing rezzes during boss fights and it has been taken away as well. I have to ask, does Mythic think we are glutens for punishment. I have been in N'kara fights where you get here to 1% she bugs out and 1 shot the group, and others where no matter how much you taunt her wont get off of your healers or dps in the group. So I hope people like the 10 min runs back in the Vale because that is what you get to look foreword to. I have a lot of pity for those of you who did not learn the fights before these changes. It will make things a lot harder.

Suggestions on this would be to A. If you are going to do this, make it so you don't rez in the warcamp outside, have people rez at the spirits in the zone. They can already remove the debuff, so why not have people rez there. B. Allow mounts, give a run speed buff or something to speed up transportation in the zone. C. Fix your buggy bosses. Nothing sucks more than getting a boss to sub 10% only to have them reset on you.

So I have lost my enthusiasm to play War, 5 40's several different servers, all of PVE endgame. I took a break from our planned events last night on my knight and I am felling less and less inclined to log back in. I know many others have gone through this, how do you get through this. What makes you come back day after day?

Girl IRL is one of a hand full of blogs primarily written from the woman’s perspective. Her latest post, Bucket List, touches on some very fun things, and goals that I personally skimmed over in my race to endgame, but she appears to be a bit more determined to enjoy and complete a few things on her journeys.

One of her more interesting points is:

As I mentioned in a previous post, I have this horrible habit of making friends with players who decide to stop playing or change their play times shortly after I meet them. Because I am fairly certain that my characters don’t have body odor problems and because I know I was perfectly cordial and cooperative with these players, I can only assume it’s a freaky coincidence. Through doing more group content and more oRvR I hope to make nice with at least a few consistent players. I love playing in a duo with Boyfriend, and our friend makes for a fun trio, but it would be nice to have a large group of buddies with whom we can form scenario premades or hit BO objectives/PQs/instances. We may go about completing this entry to the bucket list by joining some of our characters to a larger guild, while leaving an alt in charge of The Devious Morticians, though this hasn’t been discussed at length.

A lot of us take for granted the people we meet in online games, but she seems to be making it a point of finding some new faces to keep playing with. I think that this is one of the key elements of her post, yes talisman crafting is important, but MMO's are about adventures with friends and if you don't have any to run around with, then you are paying to play a single player game.

All in all she has so very good commentary and well worth checking out the other sex’s perspective on a male dominated playing field.

Well I did not get to try all that I wanted to, in fact nothing except the Lost Vale. First and foremost I appear to be taking way less damage on my Knight which was an issue I was seeing prior to the patch. Additionally, I never ran out of AP with bellow commands on, that and auras do not affect GCT. So that is really nice, I had not seen that in the patch notes, but it was a nice exchange for the nerf of shield of the sun.

Now on to the Vale, drops seemed to be fairly steady. Our witch hunter scored him one of the new 1-handers that have the effect:
5% chance to proc a 45% snare and deal 119 dmg over 10 seconds.
That is a very, very nice proc for a 1-hander. Then of course the darkpromise drops seemed to be substantially steadier. I can not comment on the whole zone since we called it a night after the butcher, but I will get back with you all when we finish it.

Tonight we push a zone so I will be able to tell you all about that as well as the new scenario.

Mythic has added to their recruit a friend program by adding that if you are able to get 2 people to sign up and become paying subscribers, they will give you an in game pet. Details can be found Here, and below are pictures of the pets you can get from the program.

The Destruction pet will be a Chaos Hound:


The Order pet will be a Hound:

Yep, I was checking site stats this morning and could not figure out why I had such a huge jump in readers, then I was looking through the blogs on my blog roll and came across a post from The Captain's Blog that showed a screen shot:

Of the front page from Warhammer Alliance with several of the WCPI members blogs listed. Thanks again for the recognition, and check out some of the WCPI members for a different perspective on Warhammer.

So servers should be coming down right around now so without further a due, 1.2 patch notes from Mythic.

I will reserve judgment until I can get on and actually see it in action, but I will state the following just based on reading it. I am in no way happy with the changes to Alter Fate, this was already a gimp ability only to get nerfed even more. Then adding a 2 second timer to shield of the sun, an ability with a 20 second cool down, and 10 second buff so it will hit a target a max of 5 times. This is a self buff; they did this because they wanted it in line with the chosen s group buff version of the ability which is a joke.

I will post more on this subject either tonight or tomorrow depending on my impressions of the patch on live.

Anonymous asked:
"I wouldn’t mind a discussion on tactics in RvR, and especially keep/fortress sieges."

There are a few tactics that can be used in RVR, mind you need to keep a fairly organized force going for it to be successful. Now as the attacker you face many daunting challenges. First is getting through the doors, then it is getting to the lords room. Getting into the doors is straight foreword attack them, but the push to the lords room is where it gets tricky. One option is to use AOE knock back classes and move a tank wall, with one group focusing on the lord the others can kill any enemy players in the room. The next option would be a moral 4 push where everyone unloads a rank 4 moral on a tank wall/support classes and pushes in. These options will more than likely kill most of the tank wall and a good chunk of support. In both cases, you need to be prepared to move as a group and not stop on the stairs. If you stop on the stairs you become a very easy target.

As the defender you get a bit more leeway in terms of what you can do. First set up a good defense on the walls, someone on oil, people repairing the doors, a couple of healers at the door keeping skirmishers up and ranged DPS dropping rocks from the walls. Your first goal is preventing a ram from being put up. This is not to hard to do if you prep before hand, but if it does get up, have your skirmishers hop out kill it and hoop back in. Next have skirmishers and ranged kill all classes that can pull targets to them; Magus, Engineer, White Lion, Marauders. Kill them all then use your pulling classes to get people under the oil and use the oil + rDPS to kill them in swaths. Say they get through the first doors, you can tank wall in a few places and have it be very effective. First at the outer wall door. Tanks stack in the corridor and keep AOE's and Oil a flowing on them as they try and rush in. Next in the main keep door, same as before, AOE's and oil. Finally, and the ever popular lord room defense. Stack 2 tanks walls, one slightly ahead of the first so that they can eat the initial punt and another one is there to keep people out. Have the first one back fill the other line if and when they get knocked back. Have ranged spread out around the stairs and on the upper portions of the room. Healers should do the same; remember that the key is to keep the tank wall up. Now to combat a rank 4 push you need pots, all tanks need them so that when they are blasted they can pot up quick and keep standing, and additionally healers need to be on the ball for this to keep people up. Chances are though, tanks without shield, few wounds and resistances will be dying as well.

In both cases above you are trying to combat, or prevent access to the lord. These work on forts as well, except with more people in most cases. Other things to remember you need to keep people out of the keep. As the attacker you need people guarding the postern doors and kill as many as possible. Preferably out of LOS of healers who might be in the keep, and once you have capped a keep you need to make sure that it is completely clear of all defenders. Remember any class can banner rez people so be wary of the ninja caps. All in all, everything about a keep attack and defense can be tweaked to fit your group of players, but this is just a brief touch on theories for defending and attacking keeps.

Inquisitor asked:
"Are Pet classes in WAR overpowered???? In WOW I was always reading complaints that Hunters were overpowered so I wondering if the same were true in WAR."

Well first and foremost I think any class in the right hands is dangerous, but that is a bit beside the point. I do not think that pet classes in war are overpowered. Let’s look at all of them one at a time. First you have the Squig herder, at release they put a ton of emphasis on having a pet with this class, and albeit important, the Squig herder is now deadly with or without one. I feel overall compared to other ranged classes that fall in to the same class at the Squig herder it is substantially better than the shadow warrior, its counter part, but even then it is in line with all other ranged DPS classes.

Next, the white lion. Of all classes with pets this one has the most potential to be way over powered. I think first, that this class is a first ever in MMO's, a melee pet class so it is hard to compare it to others, but I will point out the one ability that makes them a bit over the top. Fetch, in its current form they can grab a target 150 feet away and pull them back to where they are standing. It is being nerfed in the patch coming up to 65 feet, but the ability to bring a target to you it very important. Additionally, white lions who are solo specced, ie without a pet, are substantially more deadly.

Engineer/Magus, now both of these are pet classes of sorts, but their "pets" are stationary turrets. So they are essentially dots with hit points. Both of these classes really only rely on them for that fact, so in that respect I don’t see them as overpowered.

I think the keep difference between the hunter and these pet classes are the utility that they have. A hunter has tons of utility, feign death, traps, and so on that complement the pets, but most of the pet classes in Warhammer can easily be effective without the pet. Now a hunter can be effective without a pet as well, but I feel that the pet for them not only adds to their utility, but also supplies them with a steady source of damage. Additionally I think you have to look at the intended focus of each class, in WOW classes are suppose to be a lot more autonomous and harder to kill overall where as WAR classes are more designed to group and fight in small warbands to monster zergs so they don’t need as many OMG save my ass abilities.

I am going to take a page from another blog that I read a fair amount, Tobold's, and open this Sunday up to anything. What ever you all wish to talk about, put it in the comments and I will address it on Monday, or at some point in the week.

Cheers
Enslaver.