I have a Bright Wizard rank 36 playing in T4, playing in T4 I find very tiresome, mainly because the progress is slow and when I come up against Destruction they are so much further ahead than me and basically, I feel like a noob again. As a result I find myself starting new characters. Now I am trying to equal the balance here so I started an Ironbreaker as in my opinion Order does not have enough of these. We have too many of the “pretty” classes and the tanks and healers are rare.

A tank in Warhammer is different though, too me it’s someone with a bit more survivability and in that time he can do some damage. Even better if he gets healed. I have a Knight as well but find all that aura twisting too much stress. The new guy is called Doorf and he’s rank 12 now. Good fun too.

On the Destro side I started a Marauder, Chendelen (Sword of Truth again). What surprised me about Chandy was how much damage he can do compared with his Order counterparts. I can toe to toe with Swordmasters quite easily and on the Destro side healing is abundant so he survives well. I might get some DPS meters out to compare, but then I could get a headache from the injustice of it all.

End Game

Last weekend was a free trial weekend I believe,  a lot of people on general chat mouthing off about the game I felt. It was all about the end game and the lag. I for one feel that Mythic have created a great game, much better than LOTRO or WOW which I am familiar with. End game seems performance limited and I would welcome improvements there.

Some of my feelings are that Open RVR is tidal, there are so many areas that could be under attack in a tier that if one side is getting hammered in one, they can go to another. You could be left defending a keep and nothing happen or you chase after them, find there are too many there to deal with and then you run away.

Survivability is low when on your own, if you leave the group and are caught you are dead. Being sneaky is not possible unless you have a one shot kill move.  Maybe we should all have one of those, circumstances would need to be right, of course, but it should be possible for a Witch Hunter to sneak behind someone and in one move slit the neck or something. They do it in the movies…

I’d like to see some more dynamism and variety in the keep sieges, for example when defending, if the team reaches a certain objective, that releases a cavalry charge outside the keep.

Perhaps different layouts to the keeps could be used. It would be great to stop the “line of tanks and the top of the stairs defencive” tactic. Other choke points and ways in to the main room would help that.

On the offensive side, instead of the cavalry charge we could bring in a big beast to start hacking at the walls.  Or an aeriel bombardment of some sort. Having other siege equipment to get up onto the walls could be deployed. I’m sure there are plenty of ideas out there… please comment?

PQs

In it’s current state is there any point to PQs, when the game first launched crowds of people would be gathered around one and progress was swift and the rewards useful. Now, no one is around so by the time you get the rewards you have moved on and they are no use. I don’t have an answer though, maybe you shouldnt be allowed to move out of the tier until you have completed all PQs, but then you could be trapped there forever…

I moved my BW up to level 35 and have been playing around with my specializations. Firstly I had enough points in Immolation to have Playing With Fire and in Incineration to have Nova and . My usual rotation was to Fireball and Sear and then hit with various hexes, Playing With Fire would go on pretty quick if I was targetting a dps or tank class. Looking at the stats after a battle the damage from PwF was still too low, about 110 per tick and I wasn’t seeing it “spread” around like it used to do at lower levels.

Next, I tried a build based on AOE and went into Howling Gorge, this used Fireball and various hexes to load up the target. I used Spreading Flames early on and this did spread (he he), then when the mobs get too close I would use Fire Breath (with the spreading talent), then Backdraft to knock down and stun, then Annihalate. Shovaa just puts his head back and screams and the ground around him turns molten for 3 seconds. It starts to get pretty effective.

Even better, another BW joined me to do the Anihalate and Destro were well and truly roasted. After being beat up all day by rampaging bands of Horde tanks (oops sorry!) this little trick seems to get the better of them.

On reaching R35 I had enough points to get the Rank 4 Morale Ability, I never actually got up enough morale to use it though so am left wondering will that always be so. Anyone?

I suppose the way I play it takes one night roughly to gain one level.  I try not to look ahead to see what ability I will get next, as sometimes, for all the effort, it seems like a let down. Really I’d like all the abilities all of the time Morale for example, build it up but to have to pre-choose what you will use is a bind. I know there are ways around this through various add-ons, I would really need a closet gnome to handle all that I guess.

At the lower levels you don’t always get the mastery point. But for Shovaa I now have enough to reach the Morale 4 Rank ability if I wish to choose it, in the end I declined because I just don’t see enough situations where I would have enough morale to be able to use it.

How do people use the KoBS “auras”, do you rotate them as you should or do you choose one and stick to it? I tried using twister to do the swap just on one key press. I also have fixed up my hotbar to place the aura keys at intervals where the could be used, ie hitting ’1′, ’2′, ’3′, etc will bring in hit, dot, aura, hit, dot, aura… I just found it takes away from the fight, too busy switching auras to do any damage, and then the inevitable death. I changed the keys back pretty quickly.

Scenarios are frustrating, sometimes you get an awesome team, the next it will be lousy and you’ll be lucky to get zero points. You can come up with no healers or no tanks. If you come up against a team of Destro tanks accompanied by an equal number of healers then you’re toast.  From my side the Order has too many DPS classes (or people who have rolled them) and insuffucient tanks/healers. Destro players tend to roll a BO or a Shaman with a few WE and Magus thrown in. Makes for a strong team… and the tanks all stick together.

I am a mature (in age) Warhammer player, with quite a few characters on both sides of the divide, I mainly play order though as I just don’t feel right being all evil. I play a few hours a night as real life dictates. I want to use this forum to post my experiences and maybe raise a few questions, I am still learning this game and my characters and what style of play my characters will use. Maybe some of this will help others.

Why the blog name, well my characters are mainly all Empire humans so are tall. I love the trash talk of the Orcs… and then I used to have a WOW character called ATallOne ’cause I loved the way the gnomes would say “my you’re a tall one…” and in my case they were right. Well, it made I larf.

My Main:-

Shovaa, is my main but not the first. Named after something I heard on Stargate. Bright Wizard currently at level 33, was AOE specced until T4 and until T4 he was great fun. At T4 I found that he couldn’t do enough damage before he was dead, usually at the hands of a Witch Elf. Really don’t like them… Anyway, I re-specced him into a more DPS hybrid with Fireball Barrage and Nova Cast (?) for that instant damage and then I have some points in ?? so I can use Playing With Fire. I will come back to Shovaa later but am currently playing with a Witch Hunter – Drefin.

My Alts:-

Darlis (was named Nicci – I am a Sword of Truth reader) was the first. I had a warlock in WOW called Nicci so the closest I thought I’d get in WAR was the sorceress, Darlis is currently level 13 and suffers from my inability to get going with the dark side, plus she was on a low pop server for a long time which affected the scenario pop rate. She’s a lovely looking girl really, with only mild facial scarring, and she tends to go for the orange look to her skimpy yet powerful ensemble. If I can remember to not let her get dragged into the zerg she does quite well dps wise but then again it’s early days for her. When I first played her in Nordernwatch it impressed me how much the Destruction guys worked together. There was a point where she was getting beaten on and two orcs stepped in front of her to shield her from the nasty Order player.

Drefin- female Witch Hunter now level 21 and at last making a difference, one more level and she’ll be T3 and a complete dufus again. I started the WH as a counter to the Witch Elves and as someone who can get into the back lines and take out the healers. Now I have Flowing Accusations I find I can do this, kill the healer that is. Well one perhaps before the big Orcs get me. My main problem is movement and keys being hit and the ability not firing when you expect it to. I’m not much of an in your face type of player as my reactions are too slow but it’s still fun none the less.

Sordella – Warrior Priest (level 13). I am not a healer.

Tokra – Knight of the Blazing Sun (level 18). Getting there with this one. I find the great swords too short though… can’t reach the healers.

Towr – Black Orc  (level 8 )