Grab your gun and bring in the cat

Hail and Sigmar’s blessings to all.

You may be asking yourself where the frak I’ve been. There are several reasons for this.

Dawn of War II – It’s awesome. As many of you have probably heard, Relic decided to go in a different direction with this game and blend RPG-like elements with the RTS. They abolished base-building altogether and decided to concentrate on tactical combat. It’s been said more than once that the single-player campaign is very Diablo-esque, and I’d tend to agree. This is especially true on lower difficulty campaigns, such as Recruit and Sergeant. And doubly so when you begin to get to the high end gear.

The graphics for the game are unsettlingly beautiful, and very few games (games that I can play, anyway. FPSs make me a sick, sick boy) can offer the pleasure of watching carnage unfold in goring detail. All it takes to get addicted to the game is to watch a squad of Assault Marines use their rocket packs to jump into the middle of a group of orks, or the unstoppable juggernaut-like Dreadnought charging into a tightly packed group of tyranids. In both cases the unfortunate orks or tyranids are thrown to the side and promptly killed.

Well. There is really only one good reason, as it turns out. The rest are common ones, such as work.

Battlestar Galactica concluded its run this past weekend. I’d have to say that it was an amazing ending. I thoroughly enjoyed the series. And it was a good time to end it. If the series had run any longer I fear it would have Jumped the Shark sometime soon.

TV shows and games-that-aren’t-Warhammer-Online aside, I decided to spec Inquisition again to pick up Exit Wound, Punish the False and Prolonged Confession. Prolonged Confession combined with Flowing Accusations means that pulling off a 5-point execution is no longer an exercise in patience.

But alas, the Slayer is released. First impressions? Fun. Mind-boggling so. I’ve never been one to play a dwarf but after going through the opening quests (and actually taking the time to read the quests and understand) I’ve got a newfound respect for dwarfs. Not to mention the accent. I love the accent. They’re definitely worth a try if you like playing a squishy melee class.

I’ve also finished the first book of the Mathias Thulmann: Witch Hunter omnibus and am currently going through Nagash the Sorcerer. I highly recommend these books if you’re interested in the story and lore of Warhammer. Many of you, I’m sure, already know of Mathias Thulmann, as I have mentioned him before.

Nagash is the First Necromancer. He was born some 2,000 years before Sigmar’s reign, in the lands far to the south of the Empire known as Nehekhara. It was his quest for immortality that brought about the existence of the undead.

Anyway, I’ve rambled on enough for now. I’m back(ish).

“What do you hear, Starbuck?”

Status Update

This time of the year becomes extremely busy for me, both at work and IRL. That leaves what little free time is left for actually playing (which is split between several games) and catching up on shows. My play time has been split between my Witch Hunter and my dabbling with a Magus, Sorceress, Witch Elf and Shadow Warrior. I recently reached rank 30 (and Tier 4, yay!) with my witch hunter and am now deciding to respec completely one of the path masteries for a new execution.

I’m a little worried that participating in Tier 4 RvR content at this stage will be too much like jumping into Alterac Valley at level 51 and going up against raiding guilds who have full Blackwing Lair gear, or jumping into AV at 61 with early Burning Crusade quest greens against Season 3 Gladiators. So the options become PQ, chapter influence and quest grinding. That means my renown will continue to suffer and the best option for gearing up once at rank 40 will be the dungeon crawls. But… here’s hoping that gear disparity doesn’t mean as much in WAR as it does in WoW.

Several things I was very happy to leave behind in WoW were Daze, Fearlock and Stunlock. But from the sounds of it, it’s only been replaced by every combination and permutation of Silence, Disable, Disarm, Knockdown and Knockback. Still, it’s rather nice to not have to put up with warlocks and rogues anymore.

I picked up my Shadow Warrior again and grinded (ground?) a PQ chapter the other night. I had a blast. I realize now that my Shadow Warrior is pretty much what I wanted my WoW Hunter to be: Petless with melee skills to augment their ranged ability. Hunters are “balanced” (I use this term lightly, since I consider any class in WoW with a pet to be intrinsically overpowered) around having a pet, and running around without one means you’re running around with reduced effectiveness. Any melee skills hunters have are based around large, quick hits and abilities to get you back to range. There is no option to give up your pet to get more ranged and melee skills. I can’t comment on the relative power of the Shadow Warrior to the Bright Wizard or Engineer, but I will say that I’m really digging the playstyle.

As for the 1.2 patch notes, overall, I am excited. Trial By Pain is getting a much needed change, but I still fear that the extra bullet proc will not be worth the global cooldown, not to mention being extremely prone to being interrupted, thus wasting accusations that could have been better used.

Dawn of War II will eat up my WAR time for the next week at the very least. Tier 4 will still be there when I get back…

/random 1-pi

Tier 3 Woes

Path Masteries – They matter now. The difficult part is in choosing one, and play styles change depending on the one you pick. And respecializing gets pricey. Altoholism can apply to path masteries as well. So it goes.

Not enough Fingers – Evolution has only given us a few fingers. At this point we are starting to get more abilities and spells than we have fingers to keybind them to. It wouldn’t be so bad if I had telekinesis, but then if I had telekinesis I’d be fighting crime instead of playing WAR. I guess the trick here seems to be deciding which abilities and spells you don’t need to use and removing them from your keybindings.

Trial By Pain is one of them. And that applies to all path masteries. Even Confession. So it goes.

Longcoats – They look funny in Tier 3.

High Pass – This area looks too much like home: Snow. Lots of snow. Snow. Snow. And more snow. And a temple of Tzeentch.

What I Look Forward to in Tier 4

Declare Anathema – Looks like an awesome multi-purpose ability.

Gunblades – I know when I get one I’ll have wished I made my character’s hair white.

Longcoats – The rank 40s I see around Badlands look pretty damn good. I’d dye mine brown. Browncoats FTW.

A Witch Hunter’s Thank You

I believe a large “THANK YOU!” and “Job well done!” is in order for all those who supported the Age of Blogging initiative. A big thanks goes out to Syp of WAAAGH! for a great idea and for everyone who supported it, and Rivs of Way of the Chosen for the encouragement.

Another “Thank you!” goes out to Warhammer Alliance for giving us a great community site dedicated to everything WAR and for their tremendous support in promoting the blogs, both new and well-established, involved in the Age of Blogging initiative.

Blogging is something I’ve been interested in doing and without this initiative it would never had been realized.

Cheers!

Feelin’ kinda basic today…

Top 5 RvR Skirmish Albums:

1. Bullet for My Valentine – Scream Aim Fire
2. Dragonforce – Inhuman Rampage
3. Alice In Chains – Dirt
4. Avenged Sevenfold – Waking the Fallen
5. As I Lay Dying – Frail Words Collapse

Altoholism Affects Us All

Altoholism struck late last week when I convinced a friend to try out Destruction characters. After trying out a few classes – Blackguard, Zealot and Witch Elf – I decided the zealot killed too slowly and the witch elf was basically a carbon copy of the witch hunter. At least in terms of PvE, Order hates Witch Elves something fierce, lemme tell you. After killing a warrior priest at their back lines, with the help of some amazing healing, I led about two witch hunters following me with an intent to kill back to our lines where they were mauled by Black Orcs and Marauders.

The Blackguard’s Hatred system was alright. It felt practical but it wasn’t as neat as the Swordmaster’s Balance system or the Black Orc’s “Da plan!”. In the end, I feel that I’m enjoying my Knight a little more and will be continuing my tanking with her. And I’ll probably be playing her for the next few evenings.

My biggest distraction, however, came back in the form of Devil May Cry 4. I haven’t played the game much in months, but after watching a few youtube videos of some extremely skilled players pulling off insane combos, well… While judging heretics at the Temple of Change, every confession started with me trying to perform aerial launches and double jumps. I realized soon after my twitch could only be sated by DMC4.

Being a sucker for a good video, here are a few I’ve stumbled across.

Confession X – Rank 40 Witch Hunter PvP – This seems to be a dated video, but well worth a watch.

Omega Dawndeath Volume 5 – Rank 40 Witch Hunter PvP – This one video is a fifth in a series.

Tanks and Healers and DPS! Oh my!

A problem I’ve always had with MMOs was deciding which character(s) to play. I’m not really sure I feel “at home” with any particular archetype, and they’ve all got their ups and downs.

Melee DPS are at a disadvantage in larger group battles where there is a stand-off – both sides face each other but neither of the groups’ tanks and melee DPSers make any moves or charges, there is only ranged DPS. And there is a whole other issue with keep sieges and defenses. In smaller group battles melee DPS, I’ve found, do quite well.

Ranged DPS seems to be the opposite. I’ve found them to be effective in large group battles and much less useful in smaller battles where there is no tank line to protect them from melee. On the plus side, I was able to assist in taking down keep doors without having to worry about having oil dropped on my head, as well as pick off enemy ranged DPS lined up on the keep walls. During keep defenses it’s satisfying to attack anyone who strayed too close to the keep and easy enough to back off out of line-of-sight if I was focused.

It can be strangely satisfying to deny the enemy their kills, which makes playing a healer archetype enjoyable. Playing a healer also gives a sense of self-sufficiency – Too often when playing a tank or melee DPS class I find myself silently praying for a heal. Invariably the heal comes, but there is still the panic. The obvious drawback is that I’m usually staring at allies’ health bars and making them go up, instead of watching enemies’ health bars and making them go down. It’s often more satisfying after a hard day’s work to watch health bars go down instead of up.

Tanks offer a refreshing perspective. They’re meant to take damage so they’re great for charging into enemy groups, especially when accompanied by other tanks and melee DPS. They’ve got a lot of support abilities in the form of Guard and Hold the Line. Knights of the Blazing Sun have even more support abilities with their Battle Commands.

So, how do you choose which class to play when you know you can appreciate the roles each archetype is given? Do you choose the class that looks the coolest or most bad-ass? Do you do research or ask around and see if any particular class or archetype is lacking numbers at endgame? Or do you choose one or two of them at random and just shelve the characters later on if you start to think you don’t like them anymore?

Lore, Witch Hunters, and You

Gameplay certainly wasn’t the only thing that has drawn me into WAR. I’ve found the lore and WAR story so far to be very refreshing. In particular, the story of Sigmar and the story of the Dark Elves. The extent of my exposure to fantasy centers mainly on the Warcraft universe, so you can imagine my surprise, and to a lesser extent – delight, when I first read about a race of evil Dark Elves.

“Elves who worship their God of Murder and War!? No way!?”

To me Elves had always been good, whether they were druids striving to keep nature in balance or arcanists learning what they can about magic. When I first tried a Dark Elf I saw elves who would just as easily kill a fellow Dark Elf (or Druchii, as they call themselves) who got in their way as they would a mortal enemy of the High Elves. These former High Elves broke away when their favored prince Malekith was denied ascension to the Phoenix Throne, despite his lineage. Malekith’s father Aenarion saved their people from destruction as the ruler of the High Elves. It was because of Aenarion and his family’s predisposition to war that Malekith was denied the Throne.

But I digress. The point is that rich history and lore is just as important to me as gameplay. It’s fulfilling to understand why my witch hunter is fighting against chaos and heresy. It’s good to know that witch hunters would rather burn a hundred innocent people than let a heretic roam free.

The story and lore offered by WAR, either in-game or not, barely scratches the surface of the world Games Workshop has created. (At least I suspect it does. I’ve not yet gone through the entire game, and I’ve got a nasty habit of not reading quest text… I know, I know, I will! That’s what alts are for!) The first and most obvious choice for delving deeper into the world of Warhammer was of course to look into the actual tabletop game itself.

Upon further investigation I found that there was actually a local Games Workshop store, in addition to third parties selling Warhammer. One terrifying truth, though possibly expected, is that there are no Witch Hunter units in the tabletop game. Though I should note that there are Witch Hunters in the Mordheim game. The Armies book for the Empire talked about the history of the Empire and the backgrounds of the various units used in the Empire army. I have to admit that with the absence of Witch Hunters in the tabletop, my original plans to build an Empire army has been pushed aside. Now while the Knight units do look fairly impressive, I have to say that the Dark Elf units just stood out that much more to me. When I do get around to starting an army, it’ll likely be Dark Elf. Again, I digress.

Now if I remember correctly, the Empire Armies book did contain lore about the Knights of the Blazing Sun, Sigmarite Priests and possibly even the Bright Wizards, but those of us looking for lore specific to the Witch Hunters are left to look elsewhere. After consulting with Google I stumbled upon a few good reads:

http://www.warhammeralliance.com/forums/showthread.php?t=8282

This thread started off as a general discussion on the background of Witch Hunters and delved a little into the Cult of Sigmar. Around page 6 of the thread is a post by who appears to be C.L. Werner, the author of the Matthias Thulmann Witch Hunter series. The discussion then ensues for several more pages.

http://www.warhammeralliance.com/forums/showthread.php?t=227691

This thread started off as a central place, though short-lived, where people could post excerpts of text from any of the Witch Hunter books and novels.

From what I’ve seen, as far books go, the following two are the ones which would seem to give the best background on Witch Hunters:

Matthias Thulmann, Witch Hunter:
http://www.blacklibrary.com/product.asp?prod=60100281055&type=Book

The Witch Hunter’s Handbook:
http://www.blacklibrary.com/product.asp?prod=60100281023&type=Book

The handbook seems to be out of print, and used copies are running in excess of $200 CAD (according to amazon.ca). The Matthias Thulmann, Witch Hunter is an omnibus which was recently released and likely available at most large book stores. My copy is hopefully in the mail as of this writing.

Hopefully this is just a starting point for delving into Witch Hunter lore. Go forth and read, my brethren! And don’t forget to hug your healers!

Woo, 25!

Now, time to see what the big deal is with Repel Blasphemy…

Starting out as a Witch Hunter

Tier 1 does very well to give you a feel for a new class, almost like a tutorial. You get the basic core spells and abilities, and even a morale and tactic. For Witch Hunters, we get our basic attacks (Razor Strike, Torment and Fervor), two out of our three types of blessed bullets (Purity and Confession), two out of three executions (Absolution and Burn, Heretic!), stealth (Incognito) and our first opener (Burn Armor).

Like all classes, we don’t get our first mastery point until rank 11, so mastery paths are not an issue in Tier 1.

Our choices are limited but this isn’t necessarily a bad thing. In Tier 1 we learn how to control our character and get a good feel for their strengths and weaknesses. We learn that in order to deal more damage to more heavily armored targets (medium & heavy armor) we want to get behind them and use Torment. When fighting light armored targets Razor Strike does the job just fine and you’re not punished if you attack while they’re not facing away from you*. We see that if the fight will be a long, drawn out affair, using Burn, Heretic! will deal more damage rather than using Absolution.**

As we progress we train new abilities which either require you to be behind your opponent (Pistol Whip) or are much more potent when used from behind your target (Silence the Heretic, Snap Shot), as well as a tactic that makes all your attacks stronger when attacking your opponent from the sides or rear (Flanking), so taking this time to learn how to position ourselves when fighting opponents will be invaluable to our success in the future tiers. The Snap Shot ability is perfect for chasing down fleeing targets as it snares them when used from behind.

Incognito is our way to close distances between us and our targets. After a 2 second cast time we enter a stealth mode. During that time our AP generation is halted and AP is slowly drained from us. An important thing to note here is that unlike WoW rogues, we cannot stay in stealth indefinitely. As well, we can stealth during combat, though having a 2 second cast time makes it prone to being interrupted. Incognito has a 30 second cooldown which starts when stealth is lost, either by being attacked or attacking. This means stealth is not so much of a be all and end all offensive/defense mechanism as it is for a rogue. Instead, it’s more of a way to get into melee range of our victims without them noticing us.

These lessons stood out the most to me as I leveled through Tier 1. This is a good time to get a feel for the class and make a decision about whether or not you want to continue onto Tier 2 with this character or reroll. Progressing through Tier 1 is relatively quick compared to leveling through Tier 2, so this is the best time to decide on a class. If you’re anything like me, repeating slow, grindy content is a sure way to get bored of a game fast.

*According to WarDB (www.WarDB.com), At rank 40, Razor Strike does 262 damage, while Torment does 187 damage. When Torment is used when attacking your opponent from behind, it ignores armor.

A light armored target might have 20% mitigation, which means Razor Strike will hit for:

262 x (1-0.20) = 262 x 0.80 = ~210 damage

Meanwhile Torment will strike for 187 damage from behind. So against a light armored target Razor Strike will do more damage than Torment. An opponent will need roughly 30% mitigation from armor for Torment to begin to out-damage Razor Strike. My rank 14 Warrior Priest has about 40% 30% mitigation from armor while my now rank 22 Witch Hunter has about 20%. Of course, this assumes these percentages remain constant from rank 1 to 40. If anyone can confirm or deny that, that would be appreciated.

Edit: I originally checked my Warrior Priests’ armor with Prayer of Absolution up (at rank 14 this prayer adds 231 armor, which translates to a little over 10% mitigation). Without Prayer of Absolution her armor gives about 30% mitigation.

**At rank 40 Absolution deals 262/348/437/524/610 damage depending on the amount of accusations, while Burn, Heretic! deals 648/852/1080/1278/1506. With only 1 accusation BH deals more damage than Absolution. The difference is that for BH that damage is applied over 10 seconds, while Absolution’s damage is instantaneous. An important thing to note here is that mitigation due to armor and toughness is not taken into account. Depending on the actual formulas the effective damage numbers could be vastly different. I am operating under the assumption that mitigations will have the same effect on both the instant damage effect and damage over time effect.