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…

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?