Friday, April 17, 2009

My New Tank Spec vs. Choppa

During Gromils Crossing last night I got stuck far off by the keg capture point and was followed by a Choppa. I was instantly incited to test my new Tank build out on this lowly choppa. I, being mounted, began to head past him when he began flailing his choppas causing my Gyro-copter to malfunction. I quickly dismounted and charged into mortal combat with the ugly greenie. Within the first few seconds I had a great upper hand. My attacks were hitting him pretty hard and I got him to 50% with out hesitation. But once he got to 50% I had a rough time grinding his health down further. That damn tactic of his was healing him faster than I could DPS him! My grudges were full by this time and it was time to start spamming my new favorite ability, Oathstone. And it worked quite well. Keeping my positioning up I kept at him, but he was working me down really fast now. His knock downs left me taking 1k+ of damage since I couldn't defend w/ my shield (i only have 8k HP). The last few seconds were neck and neck. We were both at 5% health. My Earthshatter was on cool down and that is my primary source of crit damage. I was critting him with that earlier at about 1k. Quickly I popped my Oathstone and he ended up eating my shield as I hit him for 600HP.

It was far from an easy victory. I barely limped away from the fight with about 300HP. There are still many abilities that I failed to use that could have left me at a higher advantage.

What I need to incorporate into my RvR battles:

- Shield Of Reprisal. Knocking down my opponent for a few seconds would have really helped out. But I'm still not used to using a situational knockdown (one that can only be used when I block). Cave-in has really spoiled me.

-Taunt. I seem to have misplaced it and it wasn't in my action bar during the fight. That extra damage could have helped out, but I'm not really sure how much the taunt helps in RvR when someone like a Choppa is wailing on you. Edit: Taunt used to be a lot more useful. It seems that it only does an additional 3% damage now...

-Punishing Blow. yep, I completely forgot about this ability. If I had used it I could have caused two possible outcomes:
1) He would stop circling around me and fight me face to face making my blocks much more effective and making Oathsone a sure bet.
2) He would keep running circles and take some damage. This would have helped counter balance all the healing his tactic was doing.

-Away with ye. Didn't use it once. And if I had used it with the Punishing Blow, It would have been a great way to give myself a breather and force him to walk to me.

Yep, there is plenty of room for improvement when it comes to my RvR Tanking. I do think that I had my tactics set up pretty well though. Offering a good amount of damage output, but not limiting the use of my shield

Sweet Revenge + Raising Anger + Shield Mastery + Seasoned Veteran

Oh yeah, my current build.

Any other thoughts on how I could successfully run with my Tank in RvR would be very much appreciated.

Thanks!

Wednesday, April 15, 2009

Demons, Khorn, & Angry Hell Dogs

Last night I broke down and respected Stone Mastery. I've gone from R1 - R40 with my two-hander, and for sure he will be missed, but the fact is that I just don't do enough damage with my two-hander to make it worth while. I will really miss my Powered Etchingse tactic (aoe knock back) and Cave In (4 sec knockdown). Two awesome crowd control abilities that really made it hard for me to go over to the axe and shield.

Ok, I'm ready to tank!
A group of alliance members and I made an awesome run through Bastain Stairs last night. We flew through the left & right wing with out any problems. In the right wing I managed to pick up Bloodlord Irongaunts the first PQ there. The middle part was full of blood trusty followers of Khorn, but posed little a challenge until we reached the final PQ. On the way I did manage to get Axe of the Bloodmoon. Considering I had a crap-tastic R29 axe, I'm happy! And I think it pares very nicely with the Bloodlord Irongaunts (+7 chit chance together).

I'm a little surprised that we even made it through that last PQ. Khorn Bloodletters were a bitch and a half to take down. Yet, when we got to the Big bloodletter at the end, he was a cinch. But it was this guy who made my night![We did all this while the rest of our guildies raided IC... PS, I'm bored of raiding IC.]
It took us 2 tries to down him (as this is the first time I've even seen the middle wing) and I was pretty surprised that I didn't get splattered or loose agro.

As you can see we had a BWx2, RP, WP, AM, and Me (IB).

I'd like to blame Brasus for forcing me to have fun in Bastian Stairs. It was a rockin' group and a damn good time (Even if it did take forever!).

Monday, April 13, 2009

Guilty & some other stuff

Ok so I've not posted in a while for a few reasons. Primarily because I got bored with my IB one day and rolled a Squig Herder on Phoenix Throne (an RP server) and, low and behold, I loved the orc talking RP play style. Perhaps it's just a phase, I'm still not sure, but I've spent the past 2 weeks playin my squishy squiggy.

You can call me a traitor and all that stuff now. Especially cause I would sit at home, paint some of my dwarven models, and then log on my squig herder. GUILTY as charged. I know. But the RP is so much more fun than logging on and hearing "When is the token system coming out!?!?!" & "The raiders lost another football game! NOOOO!" So yeah, I don't have to hear all that jazz. *cheer*

wait... did I just say token system?

I finally took the time to go through some of the new things coming out. I was wondering what ever happened to that RvR dungeon-esque Tome King expansion that I was so excited about months ago. Then I came across this, Dev Diary

Here are just a few quotes that made me happy:

"Thoughts of true action-RPG experiences crept in my mind. Visions of the Temple of Doom, Zelda, and God of War flashed through. Questionable levers, treasure that looks too good to be true, collapsing floors, swinging pendulums, spitting darts, (much) larger than life boss fights – I wanted it all."

"That’s when the blatantly obvious hit. We’re going to let players chase each other into dungeon instances."

"Every monster throughout the Necropolis desert has a chance to drop tokens, with which there is a lot of new phat gear and crafting materials to purchase."

Wow, lots of neat stuff. Traps and puzzles sound promising, but I'm not sure how it will go over with the MMO crowd despite my own excitement. In actuality, my old D&D games were full of traps and puzzles, that just made it all the more fun. The thing is that in an MMO your going to be doing that trap/puzzle over, and over, and over. With that being said, I better get my IB all geared up so that I can hit the Land of the Dead as soon as it breaks from it's shell. That way I'll get to partake in problem solving traps and not just tag along w/ everyone else.

Sunday, March 29, 2009

Invading IC

It's finally Orders turn to return the glorious City Siege. Though the first time we made it there few order were on and even fewer destro around to defend – to top it off the server went down a few hours after the initial assault. Second time we hit it, just a few nights ago, I actually got to join in the fray (for it wasn’t at 3am like the first one).

Today we hit IC again, once again, like the first one, I totally missed it. *sigh* so I’m going to talk about the 2nd one! Yay.

First let me start by saying that all in all I enjoyed the city siege. It was ok farming with no destro, but got to be a lot of fun once destro showed up to wipe our asses for us and feed some renown. Mm mmm
There are a few things I want to point out about the attack though. A little, compare and contrast. Comparing the time that destroy siege Altdorf for those 4,5,6… however many days.

Two hours of PQ’s. It seems that we had about 3 hours for our City PQ (I was absent for about an hour and I think it started right when I left). I recall the Altdorf PQ’s being around 6 hours of madness. So for one of our sieges, destroy had 2. multiply the 6 or so times that they hit the city and it would take us 12 sieges to get the same amount of time, with seemingly less rewards.

No more Dungeon. Perhaps it’s just that I (or we) couldn’t find it, but I’m pretty sure that Mythic took that section out and added it to Stage II. I still have my fingers crossed that we’ll find a secret entrance.

Two Gold Bags per PQ. I was thinking that we would get a few more than 2 per PQ. Think about it, it takes at least four hours to get to the city gates (mind you, we do get rewarded along the way, but its no stroll in the park). Then we have three hours to pray that destroy doesn’t defend, and if they do, we hope they suck. But only 2 gold bags? At the same time I’m thinking that this is an attempt to keep groups from capping IC at 3am (cough cough, the first time we took it! Haha) and farming the living daylights out of it.

Boss Scales Down when the destro are around. And he scales up when destroy aren’t around. I thought this was awesome addition on Mythic’s part. Even though the boss still kicked my ass when we had 48 destro rollin’ around!

Easier to Advance to Stage II. We almost made it to stage II (or so we’d like to think, haha). We held at 91 VP’s for a while before it sunk down into the pits of hell, AKA IC. It seemed like we didn’t struggle as hard as destro had to in order to get that high. Perhaps it was just population imbalance.

Zerg vs BW OP so we are almost even. When destro was rollin’ us in up to altdorf they out numbered us in the ORvR lakes big time. And now destro claims that the BW’s over powered-ness is the cause of our success, SO BE IT! I’ll bask in the glory of our IC city sieges just as they did during our siege! We still need to cap the city 9 times to make it all even though… we’ll see how that pans out.

Honestly though, I had fun fighting against destro during the IC siege. It was great fun. Even if I didn’t get a stupid gold bag with an item that I can’t even wear for 20+ Renown Ranks.

And cheers to all the destro that showed up in our PQ to own us! Grinding PQ’s isn’t my bag, so thanks.

Wednesday, March 25, 2009

An Epic Battle at CoF!


Last night was an insane night for ORvR! When I had logged on, Order had already locked up all of Empire and the Elf zone was resetting (I was told that the server crashed right before I logged on). We had our alliance stationed at Dragon Wake, while other guilds set up in Thunder Mountain. No doubt, there was A LOT of order. I'd never seen so much order. I thought to myself as we rolled through a defended BO, "This is what desto feels like when they roll through us. WOW!" Needless to say this was the first time I'd gathered that feeling, and I could see how I'd get tired of it, but in that moment, it was amazing!

Order owned everything on the map except for Covenant of Flame (CoF) Keep, which was being defend by many a destro. We hit the keep and after a bit of door knocking we made it through the first... and soon after we demolished the second door. And destro were there ready with their pits of shades on their tank wall (It looked pretty awesome despite its destructive nature).

The order was given over vent, "Charge" so me, being the good little dwarf follower that I am, charged. It looked like others were heading up the ramp, so hey, why not. I made it up no problem but found myself standing alone in the midst of a tank wall and god knows how many pits of shades. It didn't take me long to die.


Order pushes on, we hold tight on the bottom floor while the doors respawn, and are broken back down again - this time with little resistance as most of the destro are in the keep guarding the ramp. Once the doors are down, we make a major push, a push where everyone actually cooperates, and we finally break through.

I'm going to go out on a limb and say the entire battle took about one hour. It was pretty awesome, even though we did outnumber destro, they put up a great fight. One hour of defence is nothing to scoff at. I'd say they had 100 or so on defence while we had just under 200. but that's a complete guess. Ether way, we out numbered them. Never the less it was an epic battle!

Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Twitter

Today I tried to get a Twitter account set up. Although it seems that this new site is so popular that I can't load a page with out ending up here:

"Twitter is over capacity.

Too many tweets! Please wait a moment and try again."

Tired of trying, maybe I'll 'tweet' another day. I'll be sure to post it here if it works out.

The Slayer

I've spent the past few weeks playing nothing but the slayer. I love this class! Perhaps this is why I've not posted on my blog much lately, been addicted to my slayer. I'm fairly sure that this character, Bitterstone, will become my main. Though I'm only lvl 23, im well on my way to T4. I slowed down my lvling rate a lot (went from 1-18 in less than a week) so that I could enjoy my character a bit more. But mainly to grid T2/T3 Inf for these kick ass Elven Hammer and Empire Hammer reward!

Friday, March 20, 2009

New Herald stuff

So life is crazy and I really miss my blog! anyway, while I was checkin the fourms this morning I found the coolest thing. Perhaps it's old news, but I think it's pretty cool non the less. The mythic site now has updated info on your relms status. Such as what areas are locked/unlocked or who has the most VP's in Kadrin Valley. Not only can you check your staus now, but you can also add your character. All you need to do is sign in with your user name and password (same one you use to play WAR) and ta da!

Check it out here: https://realmwar.warhammeronline.com/realmwar/UserLogin.war

Sunday, March 8, 2009

Super Patch

I had a bit of a rough week, but I’m back. And I've missed my blog. So much has happened this past week. The new patch has lead to profession changes, new classes, RvR changes, and much much more. All of witch I've not even begun to touch upon. So I'm going to sum up what has been happening in game for me lately.

The new Apothicary & Butchering

Talk about some changes! Some amazing potions are out there to be had now. Although, they all seem to favor cultivators. And being that I'm not a cultivator I'm growing more and more cynical about my butchering profession everyday. Savaging was a blast, I truly enjoyed that profession, and although butchering is similar, I feel that the items that I'm obtaining from my time are not worth it. With Savaging I would get purple items every so often, even if it was a bad spot to farm, I'd get a purple every 30 or so. Have yet to see anything exciting with butchering. Seems that I'll have to talk it up with other butchers to find the good spots.

The Slayer

Oh my goodness! They are almost there! I truly can't wait for this long anticipated class. When the test server first opened up I spent a good amount of time with the slayer in T1. Though the RvR was a bit stale - Slayer vs Choppa - I found that the PvE was very fast and fun. I have a good feeling that I'll be spending much of next week lvling up a new slayer. Check back for more details as I take up the Slayer Challenge.

RvR

Our guild has run some crazy RvR nights with the release of the new patch, including an attempt at taking a fort. Sadly, I wasn't able to attend the fort push, but I was around while we were playing with the domination system. It seems that I need to take some time and read up on how exactly it works. but it seems that once the timers on the keeps/bo's are up and you reach 10 (or so) domination points, you lock the zone.

Well, I have a lot to work on here. This patch has takin' me by surprise, primarily the destruction of my apothecary profession, but I'll find ways to make money again. I've gone broke with this patch! HAHA

Saturday, February 28, 2009

Polls and WCPI

So a few things crossed my mind tonight while surfing the net. I love Polls. Because of this, I'll be posting a weekly or bi-weekly poll to both entertain and get some fun feed back from everyone else out there. This weeks blog asks what you think the slayers impact to Order's population might be. check it out.

Secondly, I noticed that my blog roll is a bit lacking. So to fix that I'm going to make a weekly post promoting other blogs out there and placing them in my blog roll. Thank this idea to WCPI.

Tonight I'll start with a blog that I frequent,
Way of the Chosen. Like me, Rivs also plays on Iron Rock. Though we are sworn enemies on the field, it sure is great fun to get Destro's side on how things are going.

I also enjoy Epic Saint, check out his guest article about WAR PVP. Good read and some interesting ideas.

Wow, I should have been in bed 2 hours ago. Off I go!

Friday, February 27, 2009

Order Goes on the Offensive

Tonight was our ORvR night for our alliance. We set out with a goal, to flip the zone Thunder Mt and go from there. We managed to get 3 warbands together and along our quest for domination found many a pug to join in. The night turned out to go from a successful mission, to assaulting a fort... I guess we had the organization, cause I was surprised enough that we took TM, let alone Breezing through Black Craig and into the Fort.

Once in the fort it was another story. Destro had a well set up defence and our puggers kept arguing with eachother. /2 chat was crazy annoying tonight. Our alliance made two strong pushes into the keep, we really didn't have too much trouble taking down destro, but we had a hell of a time with the keep lord. I believe he reset on us the first run through. We got rid of most of the destro, but at a price, we only had about half a warband left to take on the keep lord... perhaps more if you include puggers. Wipe.

second time around we did an alright job against destro. All I know is that the keep lord hit me about three times and I was dead... (TvT)

In the end it was great for us to have gotten as far as we had when we were only aiming to flip TM. I think it was one of the best pushes that we've ever made. And it was a blast! Well... the fort fight was lag city... and wasn't very much fun. spamming my abilities hoping that something happens... yeah. anyway.

I also made my first trip to Bastain Staris. I look forward to seeing that place some more as I didn't take any pictures and was only there for an hour (visited left wing).

Thursday, February 26, 2009

Mythic Hates Me, lol


OH look I finally won a Altdorf PQ! See, my persistence did pay off...
Starbreaker takes a long sip of ale, hesitates for a moment, and then guzzles the rest down right before falling to the floor piss drunk.
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I Hear Destro Knocking...

But why don't they come in?

So this is interesting, after working their asses off (yes, thats right, we made work for the fort this time) they decided that altdorf wasn't that fun after all. or they took a nap, or got burned out, or lots momentum, or whatever. I'm not sure what happened on their side, but once the siege started (in the begining that is) they were around in numbers, not a lot, but a good amount. So we get a Warband + a few groups to run PQ's and join the ones with the Most destro.

Here is the run down of what happened everytime we joined a PQ with lots of destro:

1) we enter the PQ and go straight into battle with destro, balls to the fuckin wall.

2) they put up a good fight or they wipe.

-If they wipe: Most of them leave the PQ leaving a few behind to farm.
-If they put up a good fight: Say good bye, cause they don't actually want to fight. They port out or go to the instance.

3) we port out and join another PQ with a good destro population. because honestly, who wants to farm a stupid PQ. I came to fight destro. oh, and the one time I did roll 1st in the PQ, it was all green bags - again. *sigh*

4) see #1

Yep, that was it, all night. Didn't get any real good fights. The night before we had some AWESOME battles! last night... not so much. *tear* I don't mind if they wanna run the instance, I would to, but all night... and usually they just left to farm the pq somewhere esle. It was really frustrating. To top it off, their were very few destro in the PQ's anyway, maybe 60 or so for the last 3 hours.

I hear destro knocking, but they don't wanna come if there is a fight.

Wednesday, February 25, 2009

The Siege Continues

Day 6

Today was another smashing day for ORvR. I loged on early to help the Resistance and we actually got 2 warbands up in Etain ready to take back our lands (well, the elves lands). We were met with strong opposition. Taking BO's wasn't so hard, we had enough to spread across the zone to scout and take multiple BO's at one time, But when it came to taking a keep, we just couldn't compete. We tried all kinds of tricks, had great organization (pretty good at least), and did a great job of delaying the inevitable - the siege on Altdorf.

Six nights of Altdorf PQ's. It's almost like this giant sign hangs over our castle doors saying, "Enter here for an all expenses paid trip for 7 days and 6 nights in the beautiful Altdorf!" Then again, we have been shutting them out every night... but you'd think we could shut em out at the fort or something. ugh, forts! anyway.

Before this whole Altdorf fiasco happened, we had the great idea of taking the Thunder Mountain. We did manage to take both keeps right off the bat and I won my Anihilator Helm. YAY!

Once we got to 81 VP's they just decayed faster than we could gain more (this is with 3 BO's left untaken for the final push for a flip). Nope, we didn't filip it... IDK, Destro sure knows how to flip zones. I wish we all had the knowlege or capability to flip a zone. Not sure what the problem is: our numbers, maybe the PQ's go too slow, maybe we arn't winning the Scenario's. whatever it may be, we gotta figure it out and fix it. WE cant even flip with NO DESTRO! lol

Ok pic of the week right there! After a long battle with Destro, this is what we got:
Yep, thats 4 green bags... Thanks Mythic! hehe

Tuesday, February 24, 2009

Iron Rock is like a 24/7 job

Day 5


Another night, wait, not even a night, on Iron Rock. At around 3pm pacific time, Destro started their push through etain towards their first fort. and with in about 40 min, they cap it. By 4pm they are rolling through Reikland and by 4:20 they hit the fort, 4:40 the keep is down and we start doing Altdorf PQ's.


By the time everyone is home from work, Destro already had Altdorf by the balls. They still have yet to get a good grip on those balls though. Once 5pm hit more order loged on and our PQ's in Altdorf were fairing pretty well.


The biggest complaint I have right now is the Fortress. I truly don't know the exact numbers, but I do know that Order is always outnumbered and we truly have no advantage. While on Ungrim we were able to successfully stop destro from taking keeps if we got people to come and defend, this isn't happening on Iron Rock. Destro just whipes through us.
This is us at the fort getting whiped. We had about 15 Tanks on our tank wall with a few DPSers. We thought it would hold alright, but we just eneded up being a 20sec speed bump.
Might I add that this Fort lags like crazy with all these people. Defenders can truly do nothing but stand there. I click my spells and there is a good 5 sec delay on anything I do. SPLAT!

Monday, February 23, 2009

Atack on Altdorf


Day 1 on Iron Rock
Friday
Less than 6 hours after I transfer my character over to the new server Destro hits us and they hit us hard. With little organization on our side (god knows how much orginzaion the destro had) we were able to successfully whipe in the reckwald fortress. YAY! ok, not so yay, but we did manage to scrounge up a decent guild wb to keep them from getting past the Altdorf PQ.

Once in the Altdorf PQ it was pretty fun. Most of the guys in our guild that participated had a blast or at least didn't think it sucked. 6 hours of that same PQ sure gets old though, luckely we had people logging on and off to keep the wb up and keep destro out. All in all we successfully defended (if you call letting destro into our city and lighting fires everywhere successfull). But the point is they didn't advance. We lost no city rank due to the battles. Every thing goes back to normal and the zones reset.

Day 2
Saturday
They are back, more organized and angry that they couldn't finish what they started. So another evening of Altdorf PQ's. Meh, not so bad. Get gold bags out of it (some do) with Invader gear. It's not a total loss, and I get a TON of RP from those PQ's.

Day 3
Sunday
Destro just can't get enough and we can't defend the fort worth crap.
Altdorf PQ's once again.

Day 4
Monday
THANK GOD it's monday. Never thought I'd say that ever, but I was thinking that because its monday less people will be on and perhapse we could push the zones back a little. WRONG. Another Night of Altdorf PQ's. Should be ending soon though. They assulted at 3pm, and it lasts 6 hours.

So why do destro own us so badly?

1. Currently, we are outnumbered in ORvR. on the weekends it was full on both sides. So I don't think that is the whole reason, but it defenetly has an impact when Destro side is full and Order is still at Medium (today & sunday).
2. Fort defence is a joke. We could only fit two warbands (50 players) in to defend while destro had 5-6 warbands. Some one told me the attacker gets 150, not sure if thats true, but if it is it's no wonder that we can't defend a keep. This also has me realize how few destro their were on Ungrim, they couldn't take our keeps if we had a solid defence and they "never" had 5 full wb's hitting em.
3. Organization is truly a key in this game. It wasn't untill we had Altdorf PQ's going that we could set up a solid Defence, for the 2.5 hours that I played we kept destro at bay in our PQ, though we failed to succeed in finishing one.

Perhapse the system needs a little tweaking. Purple bags in Altdorf PQ's will be better with this next patch so don't open your purple bags yet! idk, I'll ponder on this more after a break.

Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Good Bye Ungrim

Today Mythic announced that they are allowing server transfers from our server of Ungrim to either, Iron Rock, Ironsomething, or Monolith. Legends and the alliance, along with many other Order and Destro guilds have chosen to transfer to Iron Rock. I hear that the server pop ballance is solid (or fairly so) and I'm hoping for the best.

Tonight Starbreak sets down his axe and packs his bags for the move. There are about 100 messages from the AH in my mail box, along with 50+ from friends/alts... I've got a long night of packing a head of me. Since all I'll have is my bags and my bank. Oh the adventure... And I was just starting to get used to ungrim.

I hope Rivs from Way of the Chosen is headin' over to Iron Rock as well; we still have yet to smash heads in RvR. I've been looking forward to it.

Happy packing to all my fellow Ungrim Players.

Sunday, February 15, 2009

Seven Favorites

In response to Girl IRL's post, Girl IRL’s 7 Favorites


  • Favorite Zone
  • Favorite Race
  • Favorite Career
  • Favorite WAR Feature
  • Favorite Skill
  • Favorite Scenario
  • Favorite Live Event


  • Favorite Zone
    Marshes of Madness PQ's were a lot of fun, but the story line and PVE in Reikland is the best that I've experienced so far.

    Favorite ORvR Zone: Praag has those dark alleys and open plazas that make for fun head on battles, great escapes, and exciting surprise assaults!

    Favorite Race
    Dwarves. You're probably not supprised; I love dwarves! Friends say I portray an elf due to my tall height (6'4") and cheerful attitude, and perhaps this is why I find the stumpy, grumpy, beer guzzling dwarven race to be so enthralling.

    Favorite Career
    Slayer (so i presume) but untill then, the Bright Wizard. The idea of the Bright Wizard fits in really well with original Warhammer fluff. Even if I do hate watching my fellow human's dieing off, it really is what they deserve for tinkering with the chaotic powers of magic.

    Favorite WAR Feature
    Tome of Knowledge by a land slide! This feature has me spending hours and hours running around each map trying to find the different pocket items, tactics, trophy’s and stories to indulge in.

    Favorite Skill
    This is a tough one. I'm going to say this: my favorite skill for the Iron breaker is Cave In. It only gets better as my grudges build, so awesome.

    Favorite Scenario
    Mourkain Temple holds the best memories for me. Good times were had.

    Least Favorite Scenario: Phoenix gate, OMG Somebody please do something!

    Favorite Live Event
    Night of Murder. This event was the least grind intensive of the events that Mythic has thrown our way. It was quick, fun, and had great prizes. By far my favorite!

    Feel free to post a comment with your fav 7. Or leave a link to your blog where I can check it out!

    Friday, February 13, 2009

    Eataine, A Monumental Defense


    Chillwind Manor has won my love. This BO proved to be very fun to defend. Tonight, we attempted to defend it with a decent sized warband of 3 groups (18 players). We headed out to defend Chillwind and once there we cleared the area of any scouts. We picked up the new BO defense quest under the impression that, upon turn in, would provide extra VP's for the zone and perhaps make up for the lives we were about to loose (anyone know if this quest helps towards VP?) .

    Within the manor we set up our tank wall - four tanks in total (3 IB's and 1 SW). The manor doors only allows for 2 tanks to squeeze into the doorway side-by-side, so the other tanks (myself) stood in-between the cracks for extra cushion support.

    Chillwind manor is now order controlled - appears across the screen.

    First Wave

    Obviously destro wasn't expecting anything other than PvE as they only sent a party of about 6 and we dealt with them swiftly. This was a surprise as we knew of 2 scouts that had spotted us setting up and expected that they would have relayed the info to someone. Even if they were just pugs, you'd think it would have showed up in RvR chat/Region chat. Never the less, a min went by, nothing. We sat their with our tank wall... silence. Then the ground began to shake and the sounds of horror approached. The doors burst open.

    Second Wave

    Destro were prepared this time, well, they were prepared for a fight, I don't think they saw an organized tank wall coming. The front line tanks were doing a great job with CC, knocking enemies away, down and keeping the destro push to a minimum. Our tanks manage to hold tight for the first min or so, then Destro began to pull us out. Both of our front line tanks get pulled, one is killed and the other struggles to reclaim his ground while destro begin to trickle in. Luckily, only a few got in and it was nothing our RDPS couldn't handle, as they finished them off just as I got my rez. 30 sec later and the fighting was getting more intense. A hand full of Chosen and Marauders breeched the tank wall and went to town on our healers & RDPS. But we weren’t done fighting; there were still a tone of destro here. We only hoped that our struggle would buy our comrades enough time to gain some ground and push from the warcamp. As for us another 30 seconds or so go by, at this point I lost track of time. Keeping the tank wall up was getting harder as now everyone had Rank 4 Moral abilities blasting us to shreds. Our healers were barley able to keep us up, but they did, and the line held tight for about a min - until we just got over whelmed. Destro made a massive push forward, cutting through our line and gutting our healers, the room was flooded with triumphant destruction players and a pile of dead order.

    Conclusion

    A lot was learned from this battle. Destro ultimatly smashed us out, but we held for a good time before they were able to gain any ground. Strategies to defeat the "zerg" that everyone talks of may not exist, but in theory, we can indefinitely delay its advancement into the next zone or simply force them to spread out. A key to winning a battle is fighting a battle where the terrain and maneuvers work in your favor. Use buildings and doorways to bottleneck your enemies should be used to your advantage. If used well enough, they may just give up and walk away. haha

    Feel free to comment w your thoughts on the topic

    My First RvR with Legends

    The other night, after playing some catch with Kilor, the guild leader of Legends, I enquired about the current status of the guild. Being an ex-B&B (Bash and Brew) officer from the Averheim server I knew that a few of my old guild mates ended up over there. Sure enough I found a hand full of old friends! I'm so happy in my new guild! And to kick off my happiness with a bang they had RvR night. OH YES! FINALLY some organized ORvR (being that scenario's never popped).

    Reikland
    2/10/09

    When I arirved Legends, Crimson Guard and Omega had a pretty good stand off at Reikwatch. Order had the high ground of the BO while Destro was north on the opposing hill. There were a lot of destro, but after a few more reinforcements, it was truly an order zerg - the likes of which I have never seen before - and with a swift order of our leader to push, everyone uniformly pushed. We pushed them off of Reikwatch and once they were on the run we all came back to reikwatch to cap the BO. I was amazed. Not only that but we sent out scouts to neighboring BO's and keeps to check the status. It seems that the PUG's were camping destro's warcamp. but I couldn't care less, it's happened to me dozens of times. Plus, its not like there aren't other ways to get into the RvR lake. TRY the back road... oh wait, that takes orginization. In the world of PUG's, we know how that works out.

    Once we had all the BO's and Keeps, it was time to earn some VP. So we queued up for scenarios and headed off to the PQ. And that’s when we all got bored. Oh, the first run was fine, fun even. We were all energized with the idea of flipping the zone back to Praag (cause its so much fun to play there! Love that zone!). Then the 2nd PQ, still no VP gain, 3rd PQ... 4th PQ... and I'm spent. Our VP went from 84, down to 82 and back to 86 and in the end, 84. Perhaps destro was doing the same PQ grind, hence few returns from either side. I’m not sure, but it wasn’t much fun and there was no sign of accomplishment; time to move on and/or call it a night.

    Sunday, February 8, 2009

    Challenging All Slayers!

    Thank you Dont, from Blame the Healer, for giving me something super fun to do with my upcomming slayer! A few days ago Dont posted a challenge to all slayers. To sum it up, take a screen shot of your TOK with the '10 deaths by monster' or '10 deaths in RvR' as the most recent Tome Unlock. Lets see how far you can lvl up before getting 10 deaths. Sounds like fun!

    Check out the full article here: the ultimate challenge for all the slayers

    Saturday, February 7, 2009

    Isle of the Dead

    "Only by the powers of chaos can such things exist!" Starbreaker looked very upset with the elves and their new assignment for him: travel to the Isle of the Dead. There he stood, at the base of the portal that leads to the Island. Radiant blue, purple and pink vortexes vibrantly burst forth from the portals center. Images of chaos daemons filled Starbreakers mind while he gazed deeper into portal.

    He takes a step back, “I shall not fall to the dark powers on this day due to some Elven trickery!”

    The two Elven warriors who guard the gates of the portal burst into laughter. “We have no quarrel with you Dwarf. This I will not lie, for the portal leads to chaos, but then, does not the road behind you lead to chaos and every road that it thusly connects to? It is in this day and age that Chaos is all around us. We have but to fight back and reclaim these lands for our own.”
    Still ever reluctant to believe the Elki, he keeps his axe lowered, yet firm and steady, as though he was waiting for the essence of chaos itself to burst forth from the portal.

    Before another word, the sound of a galloping horse catches the attention of the party, they look to the east. An Elven Swordmaster approach, and with out a word he pass by the three, up onto the bridge and into the portal. Gone, not a trace of him, not even a puff of smoke, only the foot prints of his galloping horse are left behind. There Starbreaker stood, bewildered by the occurrence.

    The second warrior chimed in, “You see our Dwarven brother, even now our kin march to the fight on the island. We bid that you gift him, and others that you may encounter on the island, with your strength and indispensable courage.”

    For a moment Starbreaker pondered upon what the Elves had said. Would the portal truly lead him to the island or where they still trying to trick him. Perhaps the Swardmaster entering the portal was nearly a ploy, one to draw the dwarf in to face the tortures of chaos. No doubt that purple hue that shone through the portal was due to the tainted god of pleasure, Slaanesh. Despite his instinct to not enter such a magically endowed doorway, he was drawn to it. Then a thought occurred to him, if he helped rid the island of chaos he could become famous, a hero in the eyes of Elven society; feasibly sculpting a statue in his honor. Without a second thought, Starbreaker raised his axe to his shoulder, grunted loudly and looking straight at the ground before him as he stormed off into the portal.

    ----------------------------------------
    Game note:
    Today I took a trip to the Isle of the Dead. To be completely honest, I had imagined this island to be full of RvR and quests. In my mind it was going to be the island this it is now, looks just as I imagined it, yet functioned like an ORvR server. I guess I was expecting some BO’s and maybe a Keep in the center for a king of the hill type atmosphere. Anything RvR related was on my mind. I was so excited to head over there for the first time.

    My dreams were utterly destroyed after doing about two quests. Though the area has an awesome map and some decent quests, it only took me about two and a half hours to complete all the quests (not including PQ’s). There was no camp or safe haven for me to rest and enjoy my profits, nor was there anyone (human) to fight against. Perhaps I’m too RvR orented and close minded, but I really had high hopes for this island.

    I really hope that this new expansion, Tome King setting, conjures up the RvR fulfillment that the Isle of the Dead failed to bring me me.

    Thursday, February 5, 2009

    1v1 in Praag DoK vs IB


    Ironrbeaker (me) R36

    VS

    Disciple of Khain R38

    My first thought was, “Oh laady, I’m going to get my ass handed to me on a paper plate.” That didn't stop me from charging in - of course I charged in - and with my lovely Cave In ability followed by a 40% movement reduction to dismount him (although, I probably could have just spit on him and he’d dismount). I popped my Toughness and Armor buffs up, but As he went from 50% to full health with the snap of his fingers, I begin to feel that this was a complete lost cause (With Starbreaker’s death being the only option). So while my health was at about 70% I punted and ran behind a corner.

    And he almost passed me by… Damn gyro chopper makes too much noise. Haha. This time our fight took place with a lot of contact with the walls around Praag. I think I did an alright job of keeping him on his toes with positioning and knockdowns/punts. And I’m guessing that I punted him at just the right times cause his heals weren’t as effective as they were from the first time. I don’t know how I out damaged him, truly, he must have been having a coffee break and was playing with only one hand, *shrug* but I’ll take the victory never the less.

    Thanks for the fun battle, Alder!

    Destruction Almost Sacks Altdorf

    Tonight I logged on around 8pm and saw this:
    Holy crap! Destruction locked up Shining Way? AND they are at Reikwald? It was like the apocalypse was coming. I got such an adrenalin rush as I stunted up to the defensive line. When I arrived at the door it seemed that the main fort defense was full, Looks like I couldn't get in. Oh well, I headed over to Reikland to block off the folks who couldn't get rezed. That in itself was a total blast! I had so much fun in ORvR tonight that I almost peed my pants.

    The best part is that there was little to no lag. I honestly was surprised. I'm not sure on the specifics of what Mythic did to the fort system, but it seems to have helped out a lot. The fact that destro was getting so far was so exciting! I almost wanted to see them sack the city, but then I started to have flashbacks of building up Altdorf all over again.

    In the end they couldn't pull it off in time to take Reikwald. So we all headed back to Praag to claim the zone. This is where i got to have some really fun group vs group battles as well as a few 1v1's.

    I got completely owned by a Witch Elf tag team. I must say, it was pretty awesome, they just popped out of the blue sky and proceeded to each go in a circle (one clock wise, the other counter clockwise) around me and kick my ass. And I loved every second of it. twas almost like a dance. =p

    Sadly, I was so impressed by the whole scene that I forgot to grab a few snap shots… Shoot! If anyone has screen shots from the fortress fight I would love to see them. Just leave me a comment with a link. Thanks.

    Wednesday, February 4, 2009

    In Defense of Reikland

    In Starbreakers own words:


    “So one o’ me friends back in Kadrin Valley, good ol’ chap, 'e sends me all over tha place collectin’ things for ‘im an’ what not. So ‘e asks me to gyro it ova’ to Reikland to help out the humans. Humans are interestin’ creatures o’ habit.” Starbreaker grabs a drink and chugs down a large amount of ale and as he begins to talk again, droplets of ale splash out of his mouth. “I’m quite fond of ‘em really, or I was... but originaly twas this fondness that I choose to help ‘em out. I came to fight against, what they call, the “taint of chaos” that plagues their lands. Now we all know very well that the powers of chaos are notin’ to scoff at. In fac’, I know first hand what dose monstaz can do. Clearin’ out the mines of Eight Peaks is no simple task. But I ain’t gonna get inta that long story. I’m sure you know all ‘bout it anyway.”


    Starbreaker bows his head and pauses for a moment as if remembering a terrible time in his life.“At least not at this moment,” he faintly mumbles. The dread on his face is quickly whipped away as he continues his story.

    “Yet those humans don’t trust no ones! At least not other humans, an’ I guess they got good reason for et. The corruption in that place is unbelievable. For instance, I talked to his one lady, she was way up high on this observatory deck. You’ve seen ‘er, anyway, think her name was Greta. An’ she comes to me an’ asks if I’d run a bit o’ an errand for ‘er – go out an ‘elp some Lord Gramburg wid his peasant revolt. So I do, and when I get back, she tells me that this lord that I just helped out is” he speaks in a mystical voice, “tainted by chaos.”He continues on as normal, “So I run back talk to ‘im again an’ he says she’s got that SHE’s got the taint o’ chaos. So I think I’m done ‘elpin out these noble people, an’ have a chat wid the local militia.”

    His hands start to shake with excitement as he stands up to tell his next part, “Well they say the lady AND the lord got” he uses his mystical voice, this time very sarcastically saying, “the taint of chaos!”

    Starbreaker bursts into a fuss and starts yelling with all the excitement in the world, “What is wrong wid ‘em! I know chaos, don’t see no chaos in ‘em at all! Juss 'cause ya don't like someone don't mean they got the taint of chaos! These humans are crazy. What kinda empire they runnin' o're there? Well that does it, I’m done. Feel a lot better, thanks little guy.”

    A Dwarf has to practice his story telling somewhere.

    Saturday, January 31, 2009

    Mount Gunbad: The Boiling Cauldron

    I went back to mess around in Mount Gunbad alone today. Did some exploring, played around with the cauldron quests, soloed a few mobs and learned some stuff.

    The Boiling Cauldron
    The three quests for this provide no exp or items, they simply provide you with a 30min buff that lasts only while you are in Gunbad. Each quest requires that you collect 5 mushrooms (a different type for each quest). Once you collect them, return to the cauldron to receive the 30 min buff. There should be cauldrons located somewhere before boss battles if you look around for them (but not all of em).

    Here are the 3 quests and the buffs that they provide (most provide 2 buffs and are color coated):



    Bloodfang Brew: Collect 5 bloodfang mushrooms; increase Weapon Skill & Ballistic skill by 50

    Green Ooze Brew: Collect 5 Green Ooze mushrooms; increases Intelligence & Willpower by 50

    Spikespore Brew: Collect 5 Spikespore mushrooms; increases Armor by 450 & Toughness by 50

    On a final note, you can not solo things and get inf. *tear* In actuality, I really like that idea.

    Tome Unlocking Fun

    One of the things about this game that really caught my attention was the Tome of Knowledge or ToK as I will refer to it. It not only has some interesting stories to read, but some really wacky stuff as well. Just what I expected from the Old World!

    You might have heard that their are a good amount of tome unlocks that are attainable via running around naked killing things, letting things kill you, clicking on things, getting clicked on, and then clicking on some more. Yes, all of those give you tome unlocks. So here is myself, and my old guild from Averheim, Bash and Brew, going at it in the Marshes of Madness... naked.



    Oh look! It's Brimmstone (AKA Bashstone) the only one whoes not drinking... he gets naked in the marshes on a regular basis, the rest of us needed a few drinks. Weee!




    Needless to say I've found ToK unlock hunting to be one of my favorite passtimes in WAR. Currently im using the following addons to assist my search for knowledge:

    TomeTitan
    http://war.curse.com/downloads/war-addons/details/ttitan.aspx
    TomeTracker
    http://war.curse.com/downloads/war-addons/details/tometracker.aspx

    Friday, January 30, 2009

    Mt. Gunbad Chapter 1

    Tales of Mount Gunbad have been heard from the depths of the dwarven caves to the highest points of Altdorf. A large connection of caverns filled with unimaginable demons, giant squigs, and thousands of highly trained (if there is such a thing) goblins. Our story begins with the great Starbreaker and a glorious idea.

    After a few pints of bugmans finest, Starbreaker pondered what might lie in the depths of Mount Gunbad. He had traveled through the Badlands, over came trolls and goblins in Black Fire Pass, and had even made his way through the winter passes of Kadrin Valley to where he currently sat on a stool in the Hungry Troll pub.

    “Far too few green skins have died on this day - there is debt to be settled,” Starbreaker mumbled to him self and anyone willing to listen. “Gunbad, I’ve heard there’er many o’ goblins lurkin’ in those twisted caverns.”


    Many times had he heard that name throughout his travel towards the great Dwarven city. It was in this moment of recollection that sparked an interest in him to explore this lost world. So he set out to, back through the black fire pass and into the Badlands, where Mount Gunbad toil. Of course he was alone, for what dwarf would travel in a pack if not due to fear. No, there was no fear here, only confidence (perhaps too much confidence). Upon entering the cavern Starbreaker grunted and growled, in an attempt to not only boast his own strength to whatever may be lurking in the dark, but also to invigorate his senses. After a steady glance around the area, he was faced with three paths. Without hesitation he stormed off to his right, towards a decrepit old bridge. The stench of goblin was thick in the air and with less than a foot onto the first plank he could see the goblins festering in the distance. He stepped closer, more cautious than before now and fully aware of his surroundings. At the other end of the bridge now stood two goblins, they were not there but moments ago. Unsure of how the goblins arrived, he charged into battle. His great axe of Kadrin lifted high into the air was swiftly brought down upon his first foe. The goblin seemed unphased by the blow. Starbreaker swung again, this time hitting the goblin hard and cutting him deep. A few more swings, yet once again, had little effect to the goblin. At this point his life bar was at about 50% and he’d just noticed a goblin shaman around the corner healing his primary target. With a quick jolt (for a dwarf that is) he rushed the Shaman and immobilized him. Only moments later the shaman burst to his feet with another round of heals. Starbreaker knew he was doomed, but running in fear is not the path of an Ironbreaker. It is caves that he originally trained to be part of this elite class. Starting out in the lower ranks by wandering the caves, tunnel after tunnel, fending off any goblin scouts encountered on the way. But this was no goblin scout that he faced. These goblins obviously knew what they were doing, and they had seen visitors of his stature before, noting the dead dwarven skeletons lying in the dirt a head of him.


    The night goblin’s bright red eyes grew as he made his final blow, bashing in Starbreakers head and knocking him completely unconscious. His lifeless Dwarven body clanged as his platemail splashed into the damp floor below. After kicking him a few times, the two goblins examined his eyes and gave a good yank on his beard before returning to their patrol. As the goblins left Starbreaker for dead a rune priest from the camp at the cave entrance revived him and escorted him to the camp. After a few hours of rest Starbreaker was ready to go at it again. This time with an axe and shield in hand - for the great weapon seemed to provide little defense – he set forth. Before he had another chance to charge into battle he was confronted with some old friends, Bashstone of Averheim and Apacalipsio Truman made their way into the cave. Now with a rune priest and a witch hunter by his side, Starbreaker felt that any task could be done. Nothing quite filled the young dwarfs ego like a few well placed heals from Bashstone.


    The three of them set off again, this time into the left wing of the caves. With only a few hundred feet into the cave, more friends arrived. Halomander, an Elven arch mage, and a warrior priest of whose name he could not even begin to pronounce. With the party of five in full function the group made their way, cutting down giant squig after plague maggots and even some nasty trolls lurked in the depths of Gunbad. After only an hour or two of dungeoneering it seemed that the party had only grazed the surface of this seemingly never ending labyrinth of vile creatures.

    Saturday, January 24, 2009

    Solo ORvR - UI testing


    Tonight destro locked up the elf area. My warband had already made it to the fort and I was one of the few stragglers. A straggler who came across a black orc named, Stonetusk. After I made a quick retreate across the river and then back, the two of us locked metal. I was very excited to test my new UI set up (diablo-esque) as the ORvR earlyer left me dieing before I knew what hit me. This was my first chance to really test out my keybindings and button layout.

    Aside from our initial charge, Stonetusk seemed to be a bit imoble. Throughout the battle I had compleate positional controll leaving Stontusk's shield to be of little use. I made sure that I was on his flank or rear as often as possible. I was expecting a long battle and after hitting him with Binding Grudge, I proceeded to buff myself with Guarded Attack (armor buff) and Vengfull Strike (toughness buff), and went for positional controll. My lvl 1 moral poped fast, and after casting Inspiring Attack (str buff) and stone breaker i used it. This is where i did the most damage (pic taken a bit after I used my moral 1). Continualy keeping my binding grudge and cave in up, it didn't take long to finish him off. I was supprised to walk away with more than 50% health.

    I was somewhat dissapointed, as he had a two lvl advantage, and I was expecting more of a challenge. Nevertheless I finished with a bow and about 10 sec later was rampaged by 6 of his closest friend. haha

    All in all I'm really enjoying my new UI config. I still have a few tweeks, but other than that it's great. I'll talk more about my UI next time.


















    This is a pic from ORvR in Eataine at the Sanctuary of Dreams. Order was doing well, and then another destro warband showe up. ouch!