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.

Brave New Blog, Part 2

I have to admit, I am a newcomer when it comes to the Warhammer Universe. I first heard about Warhammer when I was 12. I was interested and had wanted to try it then, but didn’t have the money to buy it. I heard about it again last year when some Warcraft buddies were in the WAR beta. They told me about the RvR system, how it would have collision detection, and they told me about all the different classes. To say the least, the Witch Hunter and Warrior Priest had piqued my interest enough to pick up the game when it was released in September. I was impressed enough to tell some RL friends about it, and their interests were piqued enough to pick up the game. We’re eventually gonna get back to leveling Dwarfs together, it’s on hold for now. Both of them are leveling their WoW mains and one of them just had a second baby with his wife.

As many problems and bugs there were just after release, I had stuck with it cause I knew this game had potential. I did shelve the game for a few weeks when Wrath was released, only to pick it up again once I got bored with Wrath a few weeks later.

So now, the Witch Hunter is rank 21 and renown rank 21. I leveled her through Tier 2 with a combination of quests, public quest/influence grinding and keep and battlefield objective (BO) capturing. Unfortunately, there was very little actual warband vs. warband RvR happening since people seemed to be more concentrated on capturing undefended keeps and flipping BOs. Any RvR that happened was a result of the Order and Destruction warbands passing each other on their way to keeps or BOs or a few Destruction members defending a keep. While this was NOT the most efficient way to rank up, I was able to keep my Renown Rank (RR) equal to my rank and claim all Tier 2 Open RvR elite rewards, as well as two pieces of Obliterator gear.

I still plan to try out a White Lion, Marauder, and Witch Elf. It would be interesting to compare the strengths and weaknesses of the other melee DPS classes to those of the Witch Hunter.

That should be about it as far as introductions go. Next time we’ll talk about things more specific to Witch Hunters and WAR gameplay in general.

Brave New Blog

Hail and Sigmar’s Blessings to all. This will be my first attempt at a blog, so here’s hoping I find it enjoyable and you find it useful. Or at least interesting.

I suppose a good place to start would be who I am. The name’s Eric and I’m the youngest of three children. I work as a network administrator for a federal government project and I have a degree in Computer Engineering. I was exposed to video games at a young age. From as far back as I can remember, maybe when I was 3 or so, we had video games at home. I can remember an Atari system and a basketball game in which the ball had a square shape, and an E.T. game which didn’t make sense at all.

When I was 6, I remember my Dad buying us a Nintendo which came with the zapper gun and Duck Hunt, as well as the classic Super Mario Bros. When I was 10, Dad bought us the Super Nintendo console.

There was a bit of a lull in gaming between the ages of 14 and 17. We neither had a current gen console (N64 and Playstation, I believe it was at the time) nor a computer good enough to play anything other than text or ANSI-based games. I did play Land of Devastation and Legend of the Red Dragon on local BBSs that were up at the time, and that is what inspired me to try my own hand at writing my own games. I wrote an ANSI-based Star Trek game in Pascal during this time. It certainly passed the time until…

…I got a job at Red Lobster when I was 17, just before I started grade 12. During that summer, Dad splurged and bought me a machine from Future Shop. The machine was good enough to play Starcraft, Diablo and Final Fantasy 7. That was my re-entry into video games.

Throughout university I played Diablo 2 and Warcraft 3, but nothing too hardcore since school and drinking took precedence. World of Warcraft being released and my father falling deathly ill both happened just as I was finishing up my degree. He spent several months in the hospital before being transferred to a hospice, where he passed away only a few days after being transferred.

I spent a large portion of my life between his death and now playing WoW and trying not to deal with issues that should be dealt with as they arise.

Fast forward 4 years to now: I find myself with a job I’m enjoying and my own condo which needs to be cleaned more often than it is. Over the years I accumulated four level 70+ characters and a few more 60+ characters. I even had a second account which I discontinued when I bought my condo. And I now find myself canceling my one remaining account. About a year ago I bought myself an Xbox and an LCD TV and took an immediate liking to Devil May Cry 4. I spent several weeks playing it, stopping only a few missions into Hell and Hell mode.

That, my friends, is the condensed version of my gaming history.

As I conclude my first post, here are my results for the Bartle Test:

Killer 87%
Explorer 53%
Socializer 40%
Achiever 20%

Hail Warhammerers!

Blood, faith & fire. Coming soon…