Community Spirit

Its that time of the week again. Check out Rainbow MMO blog.

Kudos to it for drawing my attention to this gem.

Are Mythic in a panic

Have Mythic's developers got in a panic? I have been reading a lot of feedback from testers and have been testing myself when the server is up.

Their approach to the Black Orc is utterly unconvincing. (Some other classes claim the same)

First we have an emphasis on Black Orc's 2 hander damage when we have a melee class coming out.

Then we have nerfs to the tanking viabilty of the class.

Then we have nerfs to newly buffed emphasis on damage, this nerf being driven by issues with the new melee class.

Orcs are Tanks, that shouldnt be undermined. We should be able to play as tanks in PvE and PvP enviroments.

We have a tree for 2 handed play, which has recieved some of the help that it needed but taking away 25% of our crit damage undermines that. That, that change is driven by another class being imbalanced is laughable(I chose this word deliberatly)

Getting the Black Orc right isnt too hard, take a breath, listen to your testers, if Mythic cant get this class right what hope have the classes that are really screwed up.

I genuinely wonder if they have enough staff to deliver the patch in the time scale they promised. This mess strikes me as too many people having too much work.

I would give them some advice, listen to your feedback.

I do believe that while there are decent options for sword and shield Blorc that some of the buffs are lacklustre. The new group buffs added to not in the Face and Savin me Hide are inadequate, the duration is to short.The higher part of the toughest tree needs some love.

I have a few sugestions.

1. Changes the duration to these neww group buffs to 10 seconds
2. Change our tactic Mor Hardcore to turn Jibles and Not in the Face to knockdowns
3. Remove the movement speed debuff on Cant Hit me, or put it lower in the tree
4. add an Anti-healing debuff or a healing buff to this tree.
5. The Blorcs lack of defensive CC combined with a short distance knock back compared to all Order tanks needs to be adressed


In Other trees The Damage on Waaagh is inadequate.
Put a 50% crit Damage Bonus in the Brawler tree.
The lack of an effective class rank 3 moral needs to be given attention.

If you can do some of these and fix the bugs that have crept in(Loudmouth is still wonky)then you should have a balanced class.

Testing a new build

I have just spent some time on the test server and am impressed with some of the changes.

I tend to play with sword and shield, so I tested with that preference in mind.

First of all I think that the buff to Stop Hittin da runts is excellent. They took a worthless talent and gave us something that is useful in PvE and PvP. A proc based on the frequency of our bellows is a useful and pretty decent piece of balancing.

The change to Da Biggest allowing it to buff group mates is bugged at the moment, however Da Greeniest is buffing group mates which would be nice if it went live.

The change to Waaagh is promising (some decent damage) although it seems to have picked up a completely unnecessary 5 second cool down. Da Biggest procing like crazy on multiple mobs. Combining it with loudmouth was useful.

With the AP regen I could literally spam a cycle of Wot Armour- Big Swing - Waaagh without pause. Loudmouth boosted damage on my main target (not by as much as I thought it would) and Da Biggest buffed me considerably.

I can see it being a useful spec in scenarios and in Keep/Fort sieges.

I will have to do some research in to which classes on destruction benefit from a corporeal debuff to their targets.

The buff to Can Youz Hear Me Now makes it a nice single target attack against our squishiest opponents

I will continue to test this spec.

Updates for PTS

I hope to testing a new build today but for those of you who missed it here are some of the changes.

Black Orc

Bug Fixes

* Tree Hit Combo: This ability will no longer interrupt itself while moving.

Balance Changes

* Da Toughest!: Wound buff increased from previously reduced value.
* Da Biggest!: This ability will now grant a stat buff to nearby group members.
* Da Bestest!: This ability has been renamed to “Gud at Big Choppin!” and will now increase damage and Parry rate while using a great weapon.
* Skull Thumper: The additional damage caused by this ability's debuff has been increased, is now mitigated as Corporeal damage, and no longer gains an increase from stats. Additionally, the damage from this effect will show up on its own line in the combat log.".
* Loudmouth: The damage of this ability has been increased and changed to Corporeal. However, this damage will not critically hit or receive benefit from stats.
* Can Youz Hear me Now?: The damage boost of this ability has been increased.
* Keep it Goin!: The damage boost of this ability has been increased.

Lets build that community

Warhammer Alliance and PhoenixRed have come up with this great new Initative.

We call this program the WAR Community Promotion Initiative, or WCPI for short, and it is our effort to get other sites in the WAR community seen, heard, and otherwise looked at, through mutually beneficial, simple, cross-promotion. Inspired by efforts such as January's Age of Blogging, the WCPI seeks to continue and expand the effort across all kinds of WAR community sites.

Here's what you need:

* An active WAR fansite/blog/forum/podcast/other community resource (active meaning at least one post a week)
* Willingness to promote other sites such as yourself!

In order to help promote the warhammer communnity I have decided to sign up.

I would like to ask you to have a look at the blog of Bootae, a chosen from my server, Karak Hirn.

Bootae is often to be found where the Order corpses are stacked highest and has gained an insight into how to get the most out of your Chosen.

The best Lost Vale guide I have seen.

A quick post if you want to do Lost Vale read this.

A comprehensive Lost Vale guide by a guildy of mine.

Things to do in Reikland when your bored

We were on guard duty last night in the southern keep in reikland. Finding ways to appass the times when their are no order about is a challenge. We actually had a decent laugh.

We tried Hide and Seek, it worked suprisingly well.

We had a race where people managed to get lost.

Finally we climbed some trees.

7 favorites

people's seven favorites are doing the rounds. Here are mine

Favorite Zone:

Kadrin Valley, some nice ambush spots, good keeps for a tank wall and lots of access from the non RvR area.

Favorite Race:

Greenskins. So funny and full of personality.

Favorite Career:

Black Orc - a bit obvious

Favorite WAR Feature:

Public quests

Favorite Skill:

Right in Da Jibblies, How cant you like a quick kick to the family jewels

Favorite Scenario:

Talabac Dam

Favorite Live Event:

I havent really enjoyed any of them.

A few Weapon Changes from PTS

I popped on to the test server to see how Lost Vale named items had changed. Some rather nice minor buffs it seems.


Earthkeepa Cutta



Blocka o'da Doombull



Eye of the Spider Queen

A Guild, my Guild, any guild, why bother?

I was about to write up your standard recruitment post for my guild. You know it, guild looking for three of this class and two of that yada yada yada

Then a rather central question dawned on me, why would you join ? We do not do have any world firsts, no server firsts. Its fun to be in but we have our drama too. We belong to a decent alliance that we enjoy but its nothing special by the standards of other servers. It dawned on me that this description covers most guilds in most games.

So thought why don't I interview our guild leader and see if he can convince me to join my own guild. I have kept editing to a bare minimum as I think it does a better job of keeping Badgers voice.


So Badger why are you a guild leader?

Well it started back when i discovered that Warhammer was going to be my next big game, I wanted to be ahead of the curve and get established in a guild before release. In the past i always joined guilds in other games after once reaching the highest level. This meant i was always back of the Queue for raiding and always missed out. I searched for guilds on unofficial Warhammer forums a1. After considering the guilds available i chose a mostly UK populated guild in July 2007. Things where going good, the forums where really active seeing as the game wasn't released, and it help to build the anticipation for the games arrival. In other mmo's and guilds ive never had much to with the leadership side but i didn't want the great bunch of lads i have met to split and go there separate ways because of the lack of leadership, so i took it on my self to help them in keeping the guild alive and to which they made me a officer. Then the worst happened, only after a couple of days of trying to get the guild morale going again the site went down and we had no way of contacting each other. I had but a hand full of the members i got on mostly with on my msn and some i knew in wow. After several days of discussion we decided to start up our own guild, the only problem most have already tasted being a guild leader and did not wish to do it again. So i took the bull by its horn with no experience and raised my hand to say ill give it a shot. One of the lads asked a favour from a friend who was a web designer to set upe a website and forum and on the 11th January 2008 the guild was born. I emailed every one from heresy to let them know about the guild and they flocked in numbers to sign up back with there old friends. So i guess that's my story how I ended up a guild leader.

What experience had your previously?

None at all, as i said above my previous gaming experiences have always been as a follower as much i am in real life as well. Only experience i have is from the guild leaders i have played with in the past. I had reservations about some guild leaders mentality, some seem to think they were better than the run of the mill player. I'm not saying every guild leader is this way i have most likely been very unlucky in the guilds i have joined in the past. There always seems to be a invisible line between the selected raiders and the back ups that could only sit and watch as there fellow members link loot they had won in high end instances. I know hows these guys felt and its not good. Your only there to make numbers up, to carry the guild tag only to advertise. In my guild i wasn't going to let this happen and i started my own way of guild leading one of which every one is equal. Every one is going to have a chance and be a part of something where every member enjoys playing and will wear the guild tag not to make numbers up but with pride. You can ask any of my members what I'm like and they will properly tell you I'm the thickest person on the face of the planet. they will take the piss out of me until they run out of breath. The reason they can say these things? because they see me and as fellow member and not some one they must suck up to or impress. I also know in the same breath of them having a laugh at my expense they will tell you i wear my heart on my sleeve and i treat every one as equals and more importantly as my friends. So to answer you question i use my past bad experiences to educate my self on how a guild should be ran.

Why The Unnamed?

Well there is no great story to this one unfortunately. It was a drunken night on msn just before the website was created and we spent a couple of ours thinking up names. Some funny, some serious, and some.. well... better left to the people that where there. It wasn't until some one joked "We are never gonna agree a name lets just called it The Unnamed" we laughed a little but it grew on us and there you are. That's we are called The Unnamed.

Your guild leader in a run of the mill guild no world firsts, why is it important that guilds like this get noticed?

Good question and its really what The Unnamed is really all about. I think when people see a guild with no elite background or members with monster reputations being successfully in a game it raises there hope that any one can achieve great things. As a guild we stay in the shadows we don't boast our rewards, instead we work with others to reach a all round goal. This shows that if run of the mill guilds work together they can achieve more than the the elite single guild. Also you gain the respect of other guilds and players, majority of which are the run of the mill like us. They have something to relate with and when trying to organise a server push i feel people listen more to players of there own mentality.

Whats your proudest moment as guild leader?

Every day i am proud, but I'm proudest when my members say things in vent like " badge, your like no other GM your hilarious" i like to think they mean they feel happy to be around some one who is no different from them selves. Most guild leaders when asked this question would probably reply "we downed this boss" Or "we got this loot this day" I'm just pleased to be playing a game with people I call friends.

Guild Politics: Does it rear its head? Why?

Unfortunately it does and there is no way of getting away from it. When you have 60-80 different players with different idea's and personality's there are always going to be clashes. I think a successful guild need to do its best to take all its players thoughts into consideration before making a decision. Having said that with such a big player base there needs to be a team which makes a final decision which is hard as you know some people properly won't be happy with it. And here comes one of my weakness as a guild leader. I'm not the most educated or articulate person and some times struggle to explain to people our decisions, to which I'm gratefully to have great officers. My officers take time to inform the rest of the guild what we decide to do and afterwards take in any criticism or thoughts on the matter and always try to find a happy medium.

When things go well what’s being done right?

In MMO such as Warhammer coordination is the key to every thing. In open RvR every one has a role to play. So when every one works together great things are achieved. In PvE its a practise and dedication thing you get out of it what you put into it and as long as every one is willing, eventually you will get success. Also once you are kited in a certain tier armour its important to keep doing it to help the less fortunate people achieve the same. I am proud to say that the high geared people in my guild always run lower instances to help the less lucky people. The key to things going well, Teamwork.

Good job Badger I am convinced where can I sign up

Fortess time

I did not have time to post today as I was running a fortress atempt(or at least trying to)

At first it was a bit like this



Luckily in the end it a bit neater and we took it.

Bad Moon Rising

A little song dedicated to all my destro chums who fought last night in Black Crag's Bad Moon Hole.

Survivability for Black Orcs: I see a possible new trend.

I would test this approach to the new patch.

We replace our resists talismans with wounds and our resist accessories with toughness/wounds/ initiative gear. We get a mixture of strenght/toughness/intiative and Block from our renown tree.

Now, if we get our resists in such a set up to say 25 to 30% mitigation unbuffed which should be rather easy to do. We can use Da Greeniest to break the soft cap. We then add to this our new anti-magic damage skill. This should leave us with decent survivability against casters. Would it be as much as an equivalent to 50% mitigation?

Now have a look at the following:

Blessed Pullets of Purity: This ability will now deal Spirit Damage.
Blessed Bullets of Confession: This ability will now deal Spirit Damage.
Blessed Bullets of Cleansing: This ability will now deal Spirit Damage.

This is just one example of what used to be unmitigated damage is now mitigated via resistances now.

Having done this we have added survivability/damage from other sources which in conjunction with the toning down of armour penetration across the board makes us tougher against melee.

We could also get into the habit of switching bellows more often even a 50% reduced Da Toughest would be of some use.

(Anyone want to write a bellows twisting addon?)

While a rebalancing of gear, talismans, renown and class build may be need. I do see potential in these changes and a few opportunities for our class.

It’s a team game so if I keep my team alive longer I am happy to let them get the kills while I buff and debuff.

I really would like a sword and board knockdown to augment this.

The sky is falling the sky is falling

Have a quick run over the forums, everyone is crying about nerfs. The Black Orc forums seem to be following the same pattern.

So were we nerfed, lets take a close look.

Shield Wall: The block bonus from this ability will no longer stack with other block buff bonuses

Must be a nerf but I don’t really understand it TBH.

All Disorient effects cast by players will no longer stack. Only the most powerful Disorient will affect the target.

This seems a huge buff to us.

Armor breaking/ignoring abilities got severely nerfed in their effectiveness (which helps high armored targets the most)

All absorb shield buffs have increased in effectiveness, and will now absorb roughly 50% more damage in most cases.

We have an underpowered shield now it may be viable.

Rock 'Ard: This ability no longer claims to lead to Gud Plan, or highlights while you have a Gud Plan.

Does this means it can be used every 10 seconds? If so that will be very useful.

Challenge: This ability no longer requires an enemy target.

A small but effective buff.

Wot armor?: This ability has had its stacking % armor debuff replaced with a fixed-value armor debuff. Additionally, it will now apply its maximum debuff value in a single hit.

A nerf especially against high armour targets but we benefit overall from the nerf to armour pen on all classes.

Da Toughest: This ability will now grant less Wounds and health to the Black Orc when it triggers.

A nerf, We will need to see how much it is reduced by.

Da Big Un': This ability will now deal more damage, and affect a larger area.

Buff

Savin' Me Hide: This abilty will now deal more damage, and will also reduce the magical damage taken by you and your group.

This could be very good, it isn’t raising resists, its stopping damage. This could be very powerful. I look forward to testing it. Very useful in pvp and situation ally useful in PVE. It is not as if we will miss the toughness bonus.

Shut Yer Face: This ability will now deal more damage and cost no AP to activate.

Simple buff

Down Ya Go: This ability will now deal more damage, knock the target down for 3 seconds, and cost no AP to activate.

Buff

T'ree Hit Combo: This ability will now deal more damage but will receive less damage contribution from stats.

Perhaps nerf

Not in da Face!: This ability will now deal more damage and also make you and your group briefly immune to disabling effects.

Interesting, we will be less susceptible to disabling effects any way but buffing our healers and ranged dps gives us greater utility.

WAAAAAAAGH!: This ability will now deal more damage.

Buff

Can't Hit Me!: This ability will now deal Corporeal Damage.

Nerf but consistent with all other classes

Big Brawlin': This ability will now disorient targets by 25%.

Don’t know

Dat Was Great!: This Tactic has been changed to match the changes to Wot armor?. The Tactic will now increase the duration of Wot armor?, and reduce the victim's Toughness.

Nerf but not that important

Rock 'Ard: This ability will now absorb more damage.

Buff, ok for PVE and great for PVP

Can't Touch Us: This ability will now absorb more damage.

Buff


I am pleased with these changes in so far as I can be until I test them. Brawler Orcs have some nice buffs, Tanking Blorcs may have to change their builds but with the change to a fixed Da Greeniest, new builds may appear and they may even be superior.

Build

New improved self shield, a reduction to magic damage, a fixed greeniest below a lot of group buffs, Increased damage and reduced AP cost on our attacks. At worst we sacrifice a little bit of survivability for greater utility and damage. It’s a group based game so I am happy enough with that.

It has a lot of potential. A few questions come to mind. If Da Toughest is reduced by 25% and our shield goes up by 50%, have we lost out on survivability?

I have never been one for stacking resists. I have tested it in the past but have gone for other options. How strong does the new Savin' Me Hide have to be to make up for the soft cap in resists?

As I see it worst case scenario we have dropped a little survivability for more Damage, utility and more efficient AP. We may even have been buffed in survivability relative to other classes.

A very big patch

A lot in the patch Notes. I will comment on them as the day goes on.

For me the stuff that caught the eye is.

All Disorient effects cast by players will no longer stack. Only the most powerful Disorient will affect the target.


Immovable: Duration increased to 20 seconds.

All absorb shield buffs have increased in effectiveness, and will now absorb roughly 50% more damage in most cases.


Shield Wall: The block bonus from this ability will no longer stack with other block buff bonuses


Black Orc:

Bug Fixes:
* Waaagh!: This ability's debuff icon tooltip now states correct reduction type, and no longer requires a target.
* T'ree Hit Combo: This ability will now behave correctly when interrupted.
* Can't Hit Me!: This ability will now behave correctly when interrupted.
* Da Biggest: This ability will now continue after zoning.
* Da Toughest: This ability will now continue after zoning.
* Da Big Un': This ability will now continue after zoning.
* Rock 'Ard: This ability no longer claims to lead to Gud Plan, or highlights while you have a Gud Plan.
* Challenge: This ability no longer requires an enemy target.
* Da Greenest: This ability's armor-buffing effect will now scale with level.
* Puddle O' Muck: This ability will now actually snare targets.
* Where You Going?: This ability's description has been updated to reflect that this is actually a PBAoE.
Balance Changes:
* Wot armor?: This ability has had its stacking % armor debuff replaced with a fixed-value armor debuff. Additionally, it will now apply its maximum debuff value in a single hit.
* Da Toughest: This ability will now grant less Wounds and health to the Black Orc when it triggers.
* Da Big Un': This ability will now deal more damage, and affect a larger area.
* Savin' Me Hide: This abilty will now deal more damage, and will also reduce the magical damage taken by you and your group.
* Shut Yer Face: This ability will now deal more damage and cost no AP to activate.
* Down Ya Go: This ability will now deal more damage, knock the target down for 3 seconds, and cost no AP to activate.
* T'ree Hit Combo: This ability will now deal more damage but will receive less damage contribution from stats.
* Not in da Face!: This ability will now deal more damage and also make you and your group briefly immune to disabling effects.
* WAAAAAAAGH!: This ability will now deal more damage.
* Can't Hit Me!: This ability will now deal Corporeal Damage.
* Big Brawlin': This ability will now disorient targets by 25%.
* Dat Was Great!: This Tactic has been changed to match the changes to Wot armor?. The Tactic will now increase the duration of Wot armor?, and reduce the victim's Toughness.
* Rock 'Ard: This ability will now absorb more damage.
* Can't Touch Us: This ability will now absorb more damage.


We have added three additional mount variants exclusive to guilds only. These can be purchased by visiting the Guild Quartermaster once your guild reaches Guild Rank 25.

Lost Vale
Lost Vale has benefitted from some significant changes in version 1.2. We have itemized the dungeon with a number of new drops as well as improved a number of older items. In addition, we have revised the drops for most of the bosses in order to improve the chances of getting set items for each career.
General:
* Darkpromise weapons have been retired and will no longer drop in Lost Vale.
* Darkpromise cloaks have been retired and will no longer drop in Lost Vale.
* Darkpromise accessories have been retired and will no longer drop in Lost Vale.
* New, unique Uncommon, Rare, and Very Rare items have been added to the Lost Vale. These items are available as dropped items from all monsters in the dungeon.
* All of the old "Unique Named" special weapons dropped in Lost Vale have had their stats improved.
* A number of the "Unique Named" special weapons have been moved from boss loot tables to rare monster drops to make room for new items.
* We have added an additional Unique Named Weapon for each career to Lost Vale. These are powerful weapons with magical proc effects.
* Multiple items have had their names changed. Existing items will update automatically to the adjusted name.
Boss Loot:
* Wing Sub-bosses have been updated and will now have a 100% chance of dropping the following: 1 Set piece, 1 new dungeon Rare/Very Rare item, 1 rare Dye. In addition, they have a 50% chance to drop a Unique Named Lost Vale weapon.
* Wing Main-bosses have been updated and will now have a 100% chance of dropping the following: 2 Set pieces, 1 new dungeon Rare/Very Rare item, 1 rare Dye. In addition, they have a 50% chance to drop a Unique Named Lost Vale proc weapon, as well as a 50% chance of dropping an additional Dye.
* Lost Vale Wing Main-Bosses will always drop different 2 different career pieces.
* Darkpromise gloves for the Tank archetype careers now drop off of Ahzranok, Larg the Devourer, and the Darkpromise Beast.
* Darkpromise gloves for the Healer archetype careers now drop off of Ahzranok, Larg the Devourer, and the Darkpromise Beast.
* Darkpromise gloves for the RDPS archetype careers now drop off of Horgulul, Butcher Gutbeater, and the Darkpromise Beast.
* Darkpromise gloves for the MDPS archetype careers now drop off of Horgulul, Butcher Gutbeater, and the Darkpromise Beast.
* Darkpromise Belt for the Tank archetype careers now drop off of Malghor Greathorn, Chul Earthkeeper, and Zaar the Painseeker.
* Darkpromise Belt for the Healer archetype careers now drop off of Malghor Greathorn, Chul Earthkeeper, and Zaar the Painseeker.
* Darkpromise Belt for the Tank archetype careers now drop off of Malghor Greathorn, Gorak the Ancient, and Zaar the Painseeker.
* Darkpromise Belt for the Healer archetype careers now drop off of Malghor Greathorn, Gorak the Ancient, and Zaar the Painseeker.


RvR Fortresses
RvR Fortress raids have received an update for their itemization in version 1.2. The focus of this update was to better reward players for completion of a Fortress capture as well as give players who do not successfully capture a Fortress some chance at improved loot.
* The Fortresses now feature the same world drop items found in the high-level city dungeons. This includes rare drop "Watcher" weapons.
* The Fortress PQ bags now feature new, unique Uncommon, Rare, and Very Rare items.
* Non-PQ target mobs within the Fortresses, including general mobs and the guards of the lords, now have a chance to drop the Conqueror Belt. The belt will no longer drop from Gold Bags.
* Additionally, the Conqueror Belt has been made bind-on-equip. This only affects new instances of the Conqueror Belt. Any Conquerer Belts found prior to this patch will remain bind-on-pickup.
* The number of PQ reward bags that drop in Fortresses has been increased to 30, with 12 Gold Bags for each completion.


Zone Control Domination
To help place more emphasis on Keep claiming and defense, as well as to combat the "defense by not defending" strategy, we are introducing the Zone Control Domination mechanic. With this system, players who take and hold all Battlefield Objectives and claim Keeps in a contested zone (in Tier 4) or a shared RvR lake (in Tiers 2 and 3) have the opportunity to capture that zone, forgoing the standard mechanics of Zone Control. Each Battlefield Objective and Keep will be worth 1 Domination Point. To capture a zone via the Domination rules, your Realm must have all 6 Domination Points. In Tiers 2 and 3, capturing all six points in a shared RvR lake will give the capturing Realm control of the entire Tier. These are represented as small pip marks on the Zone Control Bar. Battlefield Objectives and Keeps have different requirements for earning their Domination Point, as follows:
* To earn a Domination Point from a Battlefield Objective, it must be owned by your realm for 30 minutes.
* To earn a Domination Point from a Keep, it must be claimed by a Guild and then held for 2 hours. If you lose control of a Battlefield Objective or Keep at any time, you lose the Domination Point.
* Multiple Domination Points cannot be gained from a single source (for example, it isn't possible to get 6 Domination Points by capturing Martyr's Square 6 times).
* If a zone that was taken over by Zone Domination is put into a contested state, all timers and Domination Points are reset.

Fortress down on Karak Hirn: Operation Snotstorm.

Last night the Destruction Forces of Karak Hirn set out to take a fortress. Approximately an hour into the operation the human stronghold south of Reikland lay in ruins. Hordes of destruction pillaged as their loyal piggies frolicked in the once proud abode of the Lord of that land.

The Build up:

I got a very interesting mail in the post the other day from Roo. Roo’s ambition was to get 200+ destruction players in the field and try and push 2 zones at the same time in the hope of taking a fortress. He had contacted every guild in the game and got commitments from all the Alliances to support this initiative. H spent a small fortune on internal mail and organised meetings of all those interested.

The Plan:

I took the lead in Reikland with my alliance and 2 non aligned Warbands, Roo took the lead in Kadrin Valley. Zone pushing started at 7pm GMT / 8pm CET, giving people with lives a fighting chance of getting home from work.

When the zone locked:

When we locked Reikland the team that locked moved to the fort immediately. The other zone team moved to blockading duties. If the first team wiped on the lord, we would have immediately moved the next team into the fort before Order could return.

The transition from zone lock to fort attack went very smoothly and the first door was down as our stragglers arrived at the fort and the population cap was reached. The second door went down very quickly with a rather scary amount of DPS concentrated on it.

Over the last few week we had practiced out Lord attack tactic and had been fine tuning it (having a little more success each time) this time it worked perfectly. It did so because everyone knew the plan and executed it. Discipline and good spirits ensured that when we had killed all the order players in the fort we were well placed to take down the lord. The kill on the Lord was especially nice as people controlled their agro and didn’t get over excited.

The feeling after the kill was very gratifying, while people did get loot; I genuinely think no one really cared. The kill was a combined effort with everyone on destruction playing a part. Players in tier 4 with sub level 40 characters formed their own WB to defend the outer zone so that they could allow level 40s in to do the fighting. Everyone did what they had to do to make the kill possible even if there role was less than exciting. Not everyone can be the Main Tank or the general but without every single player doing what was asked there would have been no kill.

Overuse of the word Thanks

This bit may be a bit tedious.

Congrats and thanks to all destruction players, everyone did their bit, every pq farmed is as important as tanking the Lord.

A special thanks to Roo, the level of preparation he put in to this was staggering. People were mailed, meetings were held, forums were set up. His target was 2 simultaneous zone attempts and a fort capture; he got that through sheer hard work,

Thanks to my alliance Shadow Wind, its very easy to run a zone lock when you have 100ish people that do exactly as you tell them. We kept a census of our members during the event.

7:00pm - 100 members
8:00pm - 113 members (Reikland Lock/Reikwald Fort)
9:30pm - 107 members
10:00pm - 100 members
10:30pm - 91 members (Eataine Lock/Fort Attempt)

To the other warbands (non Alliance) who worked on Reikland I would like to thank Calana and Bakchop and their teams.

Thanks to Bakchop who took his warband to Eataine to stop order from capping there while we were in KV.

Thanks to Donegal who rounded up the sub 40 players into a warband. Thanks to you guys for staying out of scenarios and the fort.

Grats to the guys in Tier 3 who were working away to support us.

Congrats to order for a superb defence of KV and the grace of the majority in acknowledging the fort take. The ORvR on our server last night speaks highly of the competiveness of the server.

I expect a backlash soon.

It was a pleasure to be involved in and I really enjoyed myself.

Aldorf here we come, Mrs Wiggles needs a new dress.

Clean that Screen: A Sharper UI for WAR

I was chatting in guild last night about addons and came up with a few we really liked and that give us a clean interface.

The first of these is Pure, which is a unit frame addon for specializing in player, target, group and pet unit frames. By offering a wide array of customizable options, you can change the look and feel of Pure.

We also use Phantom which is a tool to hide portions of the default unit frames in WAR (and/or the associated default buff frames).

For your action bars I would recommend Vertigo. Vertigo allows you to customize action bar layouts - set the number of columns, the number of buttons on the bar, show/hide the pagers or background for each bar, and whether or not to show empty slots. I use this in conjunction with ActionBarColor which Tints the entire button red instead of just the binding text if the current target is out of range, out of LOS, et cetera.

WarHammer Scrolling combat text is another nice feature. Target Ring puts a ring around your friendly/hostile target, so it stands out of the crowd As a Black Orc, you really shouldn’t be without Plan B. It is such an aid to key binding and makes our Plan system playable.

I have found that combining these makes my Black Orc more playable in mass ORvR and my screen has less clutter.

That Elusive Fortress Take

In the last few weeks I have found myself trying to organise the unruly masses for a Fortress take. Our best effort so far was the Lord in the Elf Tier to 10%.

I have come up with a few tips (pretty obvious) for those of you who would like to do the same. There is nothing earth shattering here but they may help.

1. Use CAPS, some people don’t like them but it catches the eye
2. Use channel 2, It saves you annoying people in channel one, region chat.
3. Have able deputies who can and will support you in public channels
4. Let someone else lead the Warband you are in. It is hard enough to run a raid; you don’t need to be worrying about group management.
5. Warn people well in advance what you’re going to do. Let them know the tactic well in advance.
6. Repeat yourself, repeat yourself
7. Where possible be nice to people.
8. Explain to each class type their exact role, have a reliable rep from that class confirm what the best strategy for them is. Tanks should know where they are going, Melee DPS too, Ranged DPS should know their role and when to commence bombardment, healers should know their placement.
9. Use a count down, start on 3 minutes and go 10 9 8 ....2 1 GO
10 Stick as closely to the same approach on each keep(tweak for improvements) This gets everyone into a habit.
11. Thank everyone afterwards, emphasise the positives
12. The more Fortress attempts you run, the more people will be familiar with you and therefore the more likely they will listen to you.


Trying to organise a mass attack can be frustrating and tiring but it can also be very rewarding. Don’t try and do it when you’re tired, hungry or cranky

The Guild

Orc, Snort, Coke.

I recently appeared in the Coke ad that premiered during the superbowl.

I am the Orc in the cafe.




(I didnt really really, I am pretier than that and i just wanted an excuse to use the title for the blog)

Warhammmer TV advertisement.

War needs a TV segment. Lets get some advertising out there.

Start with Random Celeb. Lets say Kate Wynslet.

Voice over.... "Whats your game?"

Kate wrinkles that oh so cute nose.

Looks at the camera and says " This isnt a game, This is WAR"

Cut to cinematic of Blorc called Kate kicking a Witch Hunter in the Jibbles.

Cut to Kate, evil grin.

Alliance Talent Showcase - The singing Zealot

Guilds and alliances are very useful for drawing on, for all sorts of information, skills and experiences. Some members are even talented.

I discovered that one of our allied guilds officer's plays bass and sings.

I present the singing Zealot.

He is now in charge of our Alliance Anthem.

Ghetto gear can make a difference for your Black Orc

After the levelling grind a lot of us get caught up in the gear grind. On Karak Hirn a significant number of players are grinding dark promise gear. So what do you do if you just dinged 40 to compete with the adversary that is decked in top end gear?

As a Black Orc there are a few options such as the Enervating GutStrap. Easy to find in the Auction House, I bought mine for less than a gold. It has some very decent stats. +2 to block is hard to come by and very useful for a tank, the resists are helpful and 22 wound is a passable stat. Check out the equivalents for other classes.

Another source of easy yet useful gear is on your renown merchant.
In terms of bang for your buck don’t underestimate these as placeholders until you upgrade.

Vanguard Warp Ring
Vanguard Chaos Ring
Vanguard Dark Band
Vanguard Cloak

You could also look at the lower set such as Martial if you wished to stack a stat or if your renown isn’t high enough yet. The Martial Darkband will gain you another 37 wounds.

Just taking these very accessible items you can get (I need to check the maths):

102 Wounds
91 Initiative
42 Toughness
282 Spiritual Resist
409 Elemental Resist
338 Corporeal Resist
+ 2 Block

For about 2-3 gold you have some tasty stats.

Stayin Alive – Tank specing your guildies

We have had a few new members of the guild and some older ones who were complaining about how squishy they were.

While I am happy to admit not being very knowledgeable about any class other than any own, I would like to think I have gained some insight into how to stay alive. So I decided to see if we could “tank them up”

The 2 guys in question were a BlackGuard and a Disciple of Khaine.

A mix of Annihilator and Sentinel pieces was available for both guys as well as some offset pieces. Both were cookie cutter builds so we didn’t change their mastery trees’

How did we pimp them?

First of all we took at a look at which pieces they had and tired to get the best combination of Annihilator and Sentinel looking particularly at the bonus on the sets. Pick the best combination of pieces gave some useful resists stats and the individual pieces have some reduction to crit. In the end they were both on 3 Sentinel, 3 Annihilator spread across the various slots or 4 Annihilator and 2 Sentinel depending on their preference.

We also reslotted some of their gear where needed, with the gems we had to hand, resists and wounds.

Both of them had very few decent accessories (In terms of survivability) so we started them on the quest for the Winds Impervious set. They are both also looking into getting Stryfe and Torment. The parry on the set is very useful. In the mean time they were able to pick up a few cheap wounds, toughness and initiative rings from the renown Vendor


We then had a look at their renown. It was respeced to provide a bit more focus taking an emphasis on toughness. Toughness comes into its own in pvp where you are being hit by a number of attackers. Taking wounds from your renown tree is not good value so we got our wounds up elsewhere.

By moving some gear around, farming some items and respeccing renown we were able to increase their survivability to a noticeable degree. As they gear up or become more comfortable they can reduce their emphasis on “Tanking” gear and spec and gear more liberally. But for now they don’t feel as if they are a free kill.

MMOs as Religion

I found this on massively

Do MMOs have similarties to religions?

Just bumping it because it covers two of my interests MMO's and Theology.

I will give it a read tonite.

More here

The full thesis here.

MMO, Politics and Human Relations

While they may not to be peculiar to MMOs politics and human relation issues do seem more prevalent than in other gaming genres. Managing people from different cultures, different outlooks and of different ages can be a delicate affair. As most communication is in the written word, tone, intention and emphasis can be lost. Indeed when communicate orally we adjust out approach to individuals as we perceive their mood, bearing etc. This week I had a fine example of that.

Chat in our alliance channel took a very negative turn last week. You have seen it yourselves in your own alliance or in general chat, I am sure. A mood can suddenly be set that is unhelpful and doesn’t actually reflect the reality. What people were perceiving as a lack of desire to cooperate and an inability to play well together was in fact about low morale within the member guilds about the state of the game. We had had a large alliance event a week before where cooperation was superb and we all played well but the event failed due to short comings in the game.

To overcome this mood we decided to a meeting of representatives of all our guilds on vent. This was a task as we have 8 guilds but eventually on Sunday at 11am we got together. This worked very very well.

There were a number of reasons for this success. Voice coms are a far more efficient way of getting people to resolve issues. Guilds can build up reputations that are not wholly deserved and these can extend into rivalries with other guilds. Clearing the air between such groups is essential before you can tackle any practical or logistical issues. Secondly we had someone chair the meeting so we did not speak over each other, we also had a person record the minutes so our members can see what we discussed. Imposing a little structure on the gathering seemed to help us all. In the end we came up the following very simple conclusions. The may be of use to some of you in similar situations


Our Goals and Ambitions:

Having Fun
ORvR rather than ORvE
Locking zones and seeing end game content
Building on the strengths of the Alliance
We do not exploit


Communications:

Try and be positive in Alliance Chat

Use the Alliance Chat with care, if we are doing Alliance RvR we should not use it as a general chat. This doesn't mean you can’t type into it or chat , just don't spam it with chitchat when we do events or massive RvR, use common sense when you use and you should do fine
Each guild will police their members in alliance chat
Support those leading Warbands and Raids
Channel criticisms and ideas through appropriate channels
A forum for alliance is available



Events:

We will try and have an Alliance event once a week even if its only jumping of a Bridge
We will also have Ad Hoc events
During the week if people ask for help in defence or attack in ORvR try and assist them where possible Help the Alliance: If someone requests help to lock a zone everyone that is up for RvR should go and help with locking that zone.
Fighting vs Farming: We should try to fight order instead of farming loot from empty keeps.


I am optimistic that will improve from now and am hopefully that our next event will be a success.

Warhammer Word Puzzle update

Seems one of the letters is a H

It seems a H has been found. Where is Richard Whitley when you need him?

As it stands these are the letters are


_ T _ I H T N _ V _ R A _

If we take the letters and accept one of the words is valentine we are left with an R and a T and 2 unknown’s

V A L E N T I N E

H _ R T

Could it be:

H U R T?

The Squig Herder is a person in your neighbourhood.

I asked a Guildy for some information on the Squigherder class as he plays it well and is involved in a few discussion threads on the class. Thanks to Nublet for the following.

Why did you write about the squig herder?
The Squig Herder section on the Warhammer alliance forums felt a bit like a synopsis of the class with a lot of players asking questions relating to endgame, game play mechanics, specs, leveling ideas, tactics vs order classes, shot rotation, mastery points, renown points you name it. Seeing countless different topics relating to this class I decided it was time to share my knowledge and experience of the class with my fellow Herders. This link will take you direct to my post titled "Squig Herder - My experience"

As I have played the game through its closed beta, open beta stages I have learned alot about the game mechanics thus far and how these relate to the Squig Herder. Many players who have posted on the Squig Herder forums of Warhammer alliance have explained that they are having difficulties in tier 2/3 and asked what endgame was like. I felt that as this class in my opinion is underplayed I would post some information for discussion from an informative view to give hope to those who were finding it hard. I have had a lot of positive feedback on the thread started by myself with several very good Squig Herder players sharing their knowledge.

What is attractive about the class?
The best thing about this class is its a gobbo! Sneaky little gobbo to be precise, we have an awesome selection of abilities which really make for some sneaky attacks on unsuspecting order players. The ranged classes of this game really do have the upper hand... that is until we are engaged in melee.. wait what was that... sneaky Witch Hunter on my ass?! Squig armour time - we get gobbled up by our trusty squig to return the favour of the melee damage!

What are the top 5 most enjoyable things about the class?
1. Annimations - specifically - Dont Hit Me, goblin soils himself in a cowering gesture - makes me chuckle every time.
2. Squigs - although slightly gimped once these receive the fix they deserve expect alot more squigs on the battlefield. The different buffs each squig provide make each battle interesting.
3. Squig Armour - As mentioned above, this is awesome fun and yes it does need a fix!
4. Small Character - feel for the little guy eh!
5. The Damage Per Second (DPS) - they can spec to have extremelly potent single target dps, or an increadible Area of Effect (AoE) which you can cast while running!

What needs to be fixed?
1. Squig Armour - Instant cast, 10sec cooldown. This is really our only choice when melee closes the ground between us and them, with it currently being on a cast time with a reuse time of 60seconds it makes us a sitting squig for melee.
2. Squigs - Instant cast no cooldown, at the moment these squigs are on a 2second cast time with a 30second cooldown- this turns most level 40 squig herders into Goblin Archers and only because in Open RVR you dont have enough time to wait and summon your squig... the enemy wont let you!
3. Squigs out whilst mounted - If they added this alot more players would be happy, it was in Beta at one stage, why the took it out i dont know, it would be even better if we could mount our squig and dismount when in combat it attacked.
4. Current build of the game theres an annoying graphical bug with Lots'a'arrers where the cast annimation keeps going even after the ability has ended. Its about time this was fixed.

How should you spec for Leveling?
Firstly at Rank 17 you should take this spec, http://www.wardb.com/career.aspx?id=8#3:8:0:0:0:0:25 - this gives you a tactic called Aimin Quickly which makes your main attack, Plink, a 1second cast instead of 2seconds, which means you just increased your dps by 100%
Keep pumping points into Big Shootin Tree until you can take this spec at Rank 28: - This tactic reduces the cost of your Big Shootin Abilities which means if they cost less you can fire em more often, in turn increasing your dps again!

The choice splits into 2 here, you can either continue with Big Shootin or for a little fun you can take this spec at Rank 30: - This will change your game play as you will now be AoE melee specced, Use your gas squig and Big Bouncin to AoE down mobs, see how many you can pull at a time for maximum xp/hour.

Alternatlively those of you who want to go Quick Shootin Spec follow this;
- You can now AoE with Run'N'Shoot.
Rank 26 - Rotten Arrer, awesome addition to our DPS - also this reduces the targets incoming heals by 50% !
Rank 29 - Shootin wif da Wind - Range on Quickshootin abilities increased by 50%!!

Please do remember that there is no set path and that the above is for a guidline only - use what you prefer and remember respecs are cheap, so play about and find out what works for you.

How should you spec for Open RVR?
This is heavily debated on the original link at the top of this interview. A build that is becoming more mainstream for level 40 players Renown Rank 40 is this

This is a Hybrid spec, takes the best abilties from both Big Shootin an Quick Shootin. You have maximum versatality with this spec and the tactics you choose determine your play style. The ones in this link are the ones I currently use in Open RVR.

How should you spec for PvE?
With regards to PvE endgame its all about dps on the boss before the enrange timer hits, as range generally isnt a thing to worry about here I would suggest this spec

This allows for the proven shot rotation for maximum dps which is: Yer Bleedin > What Blocka? > Rotten Arrer > Plink, Plink, Plink > Yer Bleedin > What Blocka? etc etc..

How should you gear?
Currently with a ward requirement for PvE when doing any of the Ward Requirement dungeons in the game, you should always put on your maximum amount of wards regardless of any stat. However that aside it would be advisiable for both open RvR and PvE to stack as much wounds as you can (surivability) Alot of the squig herder gear lacks any real big wounds stat and comes with plenty of our main stat - Balistics. At about 1000 of any stat the soft cap kicks in and you will notice diminishing returns on any more points applied over 1000. At this point it might be beneficial to you to stack either +Crit on Ranged, -Chance to be Crit or +ranged power stats.
Survivability is your priority, a dead squig herder cant do any dps.

Thanks for Interviewing me and my preferred class - Squig Herder, hope you have enjoyed reading and learned a thing or two!

Regards,
Nublet - Squig Herder @ The Unnamed: Karuk-Hirn EU.
Character & Gear: http://img162.imageshack.us/img162/1386/nubletjan09qk9.jpg

Moi