Orc Choppa:
Dwarf Engineer:
Warrior Priest:
Dark Elf lvl 12, skills and gameplay:
WAR Beta Sieges
Read rest of entry
Dwarf Engineer:
Warrior Priest:
Dark Elf lvl 12, skills and gameplay:
WAR Beta Sieges
Friday, April 25, 2008
Witch Hunter Review - Thoughts on class.
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Rank 27 RR 8, Inquisition Spec
Skill Feedback:
• Builders
Razor Strike - Useless. Totally eclipsed by every other builder. It's not even on my bar.
Fervor - I'm currently a little on the fence for this one, which is a shame since I'm Inquisition specced and used to use it regularly. I'm uncertain whether the DoT adds up to being as effective as just using Torment. Sure I could do the math, but I haven't yet. Perhaps later. I still throw it into my combos usually.
Torment - My main builder. I don't have to worry about filling up my stacks like Fervor and it does good damage. Particularly if you can nab the enemy in the back. Does run you out of AP faster if you use it exclusively.
Punish The False - Love it. Helps me put away those healers somewhat. Great damage, low AP. Just gotta wait for it to cooldown.
Confess! - Love it. Decent damage, disarm, and low AP. It's a shame the hot bar icon is bugged right now, but I've gotten to where I can catch those parries popping up pretty consistently.
Pistol Whip - Great skill. I can do some good damage to a caster during a 3 second stun. I usually don't have too much trouble getting behind my target, since typically they turn around and try to flee.
Seeker's Blade - I'm also on the fence with this one and only because of it's AP cost. I'm just not certain how much blocks, dodges, and parries affect my damage. Does a 5% decrease in these have any meaningful impact? It's nice that I have an ammo option that cripples my opponents when I execute, so using it is fairly simple.
• Executions
Burn, Heretic! - Hereto this is the only execution I use. Drops things quick when I get it off. Very effective
Absolution - Useless. It just... doesn't do anything. 286 damage? Useless.
Trial By Pain - Bugged right now so I don't use it. I think I fired it once to check out the bug. It used to be a nice skill though.
Exit Wound - I haven't really been able to play with it yet, but I don't expect to use it at all for RvR. I need damage and I need it immediately. This does look like a good skill for taking out big PvE bosses, though.
• Utilities
Sigil Of Sigmar - Absolutely critical! I use this in practically every single RvR encounter I have. Works well too. Never needed it in PvE though.
Get Thee Behind Me! - I'm not sure this is functioning correctly. I haven't checked any combat logs but it sure doesn't seem to halve my opponent's damage. Also, it seems to be resisted fairly often. I only use this skill as a last ditch attempt to pull my tail out of the fire.
Ambush
Incognito - I don't have much problem with the AP drain or the cast time, but I'm beginning to realize that popping up in the back of an enemy group usually just results in my death. The skill works, but I'm uncertain of the effectiveness of it's role considering the speed with which I can be killed and the ease with which healers can keep someone alive. Also, it's too bad that it apparently does nothing for mobs.
Sudden Accusation - This is the opener I use in RvR. I think the snare is probably more useful than Burn Armor's toughness debuff just so I can build up some accusations to launch an execution.
Burn Armor - This would be nice to use in PvE. I think I'm going to try using this one in RvR just to see what kind of increase in damage I get. May be worth. Judgment withheld.
Ammo
Blessed Bullets of Purity - I believe this ammo is plainly inferior to Bullets of Cleansing. Less damage and no snare.
Blessed Bullets of Cleansing - It's a nice little addition to my Burn, Heretic!'s damage tick as well as having a handy dandy snare.
PvE Method: Since ambush is useless against mobs I pull with Snap Shot. Combo goes Punish The False, 4x Fervor or Torment, Burn Heretic!, repeat. I take advantage of whatever Confess!'s present themselves. Pretty simple, but engaging enough to be fun. Like I said, when things get rough I sometimes try out a Get Thee Behind Me! with mixed results. Overall, I feel the results are good. I can survive one add fighting mobs up to 2 or 3 levels higher than me. The Witch Hunter seems to work just fine in PvE.
RvR Method: Obviously things are different with every encounter but I'll try to describe my general strategy. Most important is to stay out of sight as much as possible. I use houses, trees, rocks, whatever I can find to avoid attention. The goal is to work my way around back of the main enemy group. When I've done so I stop behind some piece of cover and use Incognito. Then it's a straight line to whichever target I have chosen. My pecking order goes Zealots, Sorceresses, Disciples, everyone else. If I don't go for the healers first it's extremely difficult to drop my target. I take Sorceresses before Disciples just because I can typically kill them much faster, and I likely won't get a chance at a second target. So, I open my attack with Sudden Accusation to build 2 accusations and slow them so I can keep applying damage. My main damage combo is essentially what I use in PvE - Punish The False, 4x Torment or Fervor, Burn Heretic! The difference is I always have to interrupt the damage chain in order to manage the situation. For example, I have to use Sigil Of Sigmar in every encounter. The very first thing which will happen to me when I begin an attack is that I'll be snared or rooted. Popping out of that as quickly as possible is vitally important. I've also been getting flung rather lengthy distances lately by, I believe, Zealots. I have no counter for that one and honestly causes me quite a bit of grief. I have to pop a Snap Shot in combo with the Running Is Useless tactic, which I always have active during RvR, and run my way back into combat. Interference aside, as soon as the snare from Sudden Accusation wears off I use Pistol Whip to keep my target in range as well as to take the heat off for a couple seconds. By that point I usually have my 5 accusations and set off my Burn Heretic! All the while I do my best to catch the parries so I can whip out a Confess!
All in all, it's a suicide mission. I may take one down with me but I won't escape. This is partly because, I feel, most people don't play aggressively enough. Sure, we can all complain that when you stick your neck out it gets chopped off, but if everyone is pressing forward, there's no way the Ranged DPS classes can knock out everyone. Resultingly, I'm abandoned behind enemy lines. I might be okay (maybe) with this fairly high likelihood of demise if I could be more certain of making a kill. Right now I would say I have between a 60 and 75% chance of taking out my target. That may even be a bit generous. My success or failure seems to hinge on whether the healers in my target's party realize that I'm on to one of their squishies. I simply don't have the burst damage to take out a caster with even one healer assisting them. You may say, "But it's 2 on 1. You ought to lose.," and that may be mostly right, but the nature of a stealth class makes it so you can almost always depend on being outnumbered.
I average between 20k and 30k damage in Talabec dam. I am totally not satisfied with that. I've seen Witch Hunters rack up high 30s but compared to the 50k+ I've seen Sorceresses and Bright Wizards score, I am highly disappointed. Heck, I'm competing with Warrior Priests and Disciples for damage scores. I think a large part of that is the fact that I both spend too much time setting up a kill and then spend further time getting back to the fight after being killed. I'm just not in action enough. Beyond that though, I do believe that Ranged DPS is overpowered right now. It seems to me the utility of being able to strike from range is not being properly factored into a class. The only way a Melee DPS class will be comparable to a Ranged DPS class is if the Melee class has a significantly higher damage output. The difficulties and dangers in applying that damage require it. As it stands now Ranged DPS can do more damage with almost no risk.
Unfortunately I've missed most of the keep action so far, but I've still been able to get some open field RvR in. I think I fare better in these situations. I devote my time to mopping up stragglers and reinforcements. 1v1 I tend to do well against any opponent, and using ambush I can keep it that way. Still, when I'm forced to go after a target within a group, even if I have an equal number of allies doing their little stare down, my results are frustrating.
Tactics:
The deal with tactics is that right now only the top two mean anything. If it's not the best then it never gets used, simply because I have limited slots. This is also why I only select passives for my renown abilities. The tactics are too specific and they require I swap something else for them. The passives are 100% bonus, no trade-off, and always useful.
Currently, I use Jagged Edge and Brute Force for PvE, and Jagged Edge and Running Is Useless for RvR. Here's the whole rundown.
Brute Force - Damage is good. Damage is what I'm all about.
Flanking - Might be good for boss raids when I have more tactic slots.
Full Confession - Sounds good but not quite good enough to be used.
Inquisitor's Fury - Auto Attack just doesn't seem to be important enough to use this skill.
Running Is Useless - Love it. Makes my job possible in RvR.
Righteous Steel - This isn't damage. I need damage. I'm currently not certain whether Confess! can be used after you parry or your enemy parries or both. It's possible this parry increase could translate into damage and disarms but I kinda doubt it.
Unwavering Faith - Not Damage. I need damage.
Emperor's Ward - I tried this out for a bit and I don't think I ever saw it go off. Either it's bugged or it sucks. Don't know.
Jagged Edge - Adds some damage. Don't know how much. Maybe I should look into that to see if I should keep using it.
Trial By Fire - This might be good. Particularly for raid bosses.
Persistent - Also not damage.
A Note Regarding Dyes: I've seen some of the dyes look good on certain classes, but Witch Hunters are not one of them. All the colors are too bright and are sloppily applied to our textures. I'd go around default color if it weren't for the fact that the quests keep giving me neon green items.
Final Thoughts and Suggestions: Despite some of the difficulties this is still one of the more enjoyable classes. He has a great style and some fun skills. He needs work in two primary areas - damage and ambush. With the kinds of situations that ambush requires we put ourselves in, it's important that we be able to act fast. If a healer is going to be able to save you from a Witch Hunter it needs to be a very quick healer and not just one who's awake. We also need ways to be able to get out of those nasty situations. Addressing the first issue will naturally help the second. Also, I'm a little perplexed about the 60s Incognito cooldown. We have no other way to reach our targets alive, and yet I do not think it's intended that we only make one attack per minute. Either Incognito needs to be more usable, which I think I'd rather not have, or we need other ways to get to grips with our enemies. This is a little tricky since it was Mythic's lauded position that they would not have stealth in their game, and yet here we are testing out stealth for one class that it sort of makes sense for and one that it makes zero sense for. If they choose to make stealth and openers more important to the Witch Hunter's play then they will not only have included stealth but created a class very similar to the stealther from that game which shall not be named. I'd much rather emphasize mobility. This would allow us to both get in and get out. Hit and run. Like a proper skirmisher.
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Marauder Class Review - Thoughts on class.
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Monstrosity
Switching from Brutality to Monstrosity, I'm firm in the belief that Monstrosity is not gimp at all like people think it is. Monstrosity's strength is threefold: Survivability, AoE, and Healer Disruption. Arguably Savagery will be the better healer killer with the 75% debuff (would have to test), but the ability for me to AoE knockdown is certainly valuable (you can do the AoE interrupt in Savagery, so both specs/arms have that advantage), but Savagery can't live up to the survivability power of Monstrosity. With the tactic to boost toughness, and the monstrosity arm active, I gain a whopping 45 toughness. Combined with the +1 toughness per level tactic, that's 65 toughness in all (and brings a template lvl 20 marauder to 204 toughness). The difference in my survivability when switching these specs is astronomical.
Monstrosity, however, does not live up to it's AoE name at all, and has a very weak single target game (flail being the main move, my tooltip registers a total 106 damage on flail, I'm 8 points in monstrosity). My AoE combo is Demolition (70 dmg), Concussive Jolt (93), Mouth of Tzeentch (70), Demolition (70)...and then I have to wait 17 seconds for concussive jolt to cooldown before I do it again. Total damage (by tooltip) of this combo is: 203. In reality I'm sure it hits for more (seems to), but still is rather weak. Usually I can take out only 15-20% of a Bright Wizard's health with this combo, and less on targets with more toughness. It's honestly not worth AoEing anything. It could POSSIBLY work with stacking a bunch of AoEers in an organized group (I doubt it...1 AoE heal negates 4-5 dps'ers worth of AoE damage)...but imo Chosen are much better suited to doing this with Quake + Raze.
My suggestion to Monstrosity is to do 1 of these 4:
Make Monstrosity into a AoE support line. Savagery is already a sort of single target offensive support line, Monstrosity could be the same but with AoEs.
Make Demolition spammable.
Make Demolition do substantially more damage, and give it a 3s cooldown instead of 5.
Raise the damage on all our AoE abilities.
Overall Monstrosity is much more enjoyable then Brutality imo. I have lower DPS, sure, but with some DPS support, we can actually kill a healer with a well timed Concussive Jolt and enough damage.
Problems with Marauder as a Whole:
The biggest problem we have is that we're extremely, as much as Chosen, healer dependent. It's a requirement to kill anything that isn't alone. In mass situations (5v5 or more) I still feel like we sit behind the lines way too much because of tab target -> death. Speccing Monstrosity has helped me enormously, but I still can't contribute without a dedicated healer or 3+ DoKs spamming AoE heals.
We lack appropriate damage. I'm well out damaged by any RDPS class, even when I'm on top of them (let alone when I'm not!). To me, if I have to brave the front lines, there should be some (huge) benefit to it. Either my damage should be superior, or my CC/control should. Currently RDPS outdo me in both categories, as well as having superior AoE damage. It's very frustrating to be rooted, break it, and then be rooted again right afterwards...then a 5s disable after that. I have no way of preventing a group of RDPS from doing these things to me. I've said it many times, and with all my heart and head believe it to be the right thing: but CC should be concentrated on defensively specced tanks (Corruption spec for Chosen for example). By putting the CC on tanks, you gain these benefits:
You can always do something about avoiding CC: stay out of melee range. With the CC focused on the ranged classes as it is, you can't do this as they CC you from range...or CC you to get out of range. Since healers/RDPS are the best first targets (you won't kill a SM with a healer), and those 2 archetypes have a thing for standing next to each other, it's pretty unavoidable that you're going to have to run into them and be rooted.
Tanks truly become the "protector" types. Still, as they have been for all of the time I've been in beta, tanks are still the weakest archetype by far. They don't contribute anything really meaningful when compared to other classes. Why bring a tank who can debuff things for -30% damage when you can bring a RDPS to root it for -100% damage, or disable it for the same? Their damage also doesn't compare to RDPS or even melee DPS (to be expected, but I'm listing all the ways they could contribute). The only thing they do well is die well...literally, and most people have figured out they're no threat, so they ignore them...making that role pretty much obsolete as well.
RDPS become the true squishies they should be (imo the challenge of playing a RDPS should be your own survival...prekiting should be a must), and gain a dependence on having other classes (tanks) around, just like everyone else does atm. This is my biggest gripe about RDPS atm: they depend on no one else in order to be effective, while every other archetype is dependent on another archetype to do their job (all melee need healers atm, and healers generally need DPS, with the exception of the melee healers, but I do know you guys are focusing a lot on adjusting the melee healers so I'll leave that be). If everyone else is dependent on someone else, it's only fair to make RDPS depend on something.
Praises to Marauder as a Whole
Ok, praises: first, Wave of Horror. I wish my tanks had this. It's a (dark) godsend. Second, a renewable snare. Ya, I think it should last much longer (WE snare lasts 15 seconds, mine is 5...which allows for only 2 skills to be used before I have to renew it), but it is SO vital to have such a tool on any melee class. Third: Mutating Release. Consider giving tanks this skill too. Often enough I use it and am just re-rooted, but sometimes that isn't the case and it allows me to get back in the fight.
I also think the marauder's look is superb. He still needs tons of polish graphics wise (but that's the whole game yet), but he looks like a barbaric psycho with a temper...exactly what he should look like! In addition, Convulsive Slashing is my favorite animation so far, and I do like seeing the wave animation of Demolition spread out over my foes (although it's bugged yet and doesn't always fire).
Miscellaneous Improvements that Would be Nice:
Some of the animations/sounds I don't like, they don't have enough impact. Flail is a good example. It only feels like I'm grazing my target's skin, not Flailing it off. The same is with animations/sounds for a lot of different skills: they just don't feel like they have BAM! impact. Take Slam (or any melee stun) in DAoC for example. The sound, the way your target's body rocks, and the red streaks that circle his feet give a feeling of "BAM! you've just been stunned!" (or "BAM! AAAH CRAP!" if you're the other guy). Eviscerate from WoW rogues produces a similar effect. The explosion of light and telltale sound let you know exactly what just happened. They're crisp, impactful animations and sounds.
Mouth of Tzeentch, when it interrupts a target, should have some sort of after-effect. I know there's a tactic that increases your target's build times by 1s afterwards, but 1s more to spellcasting (and it's an anti-spellcasting tool) is rather pitiful. It's better used on melee due to all the instant casts. I rather see, "When Mouth of Tzeentch interrupts a target, that target can not use skills for X seconds," with X being approx. 3 seconds.
Monstrosity needs 1 more skill dedicated to it. It only has 4 skills (Flail isn't listed on the appropriate mastery page btw), while Savagery and Brutality have 5.
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Bright Wizard Class Review - Thoughts on Class!!
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Bright Wizard to Rank 26, RR 10.
Bright Wizard is a TON of fun to play, and is definitely overpowered.
As a Bright Wizard I don’t really fear anyone, least of all Melee classes, lowest on the food chain is most definitely Witch Elf’s and Marauders. These guys are a joke, and can basically be ignored to you feel like dealing with them, then utterly destroyed in no time at all.
A witch elf gets at you.
Shield of Asquishy (or whatever its name is) buys you second to finish your current target.
Root, walk a few feet.
Disarm.
Dot
Dot
Nova Stun
Fireball
If he is really persistent or you don’t want to fight, detaunt. 3 sets of CC without even trying. And that’s not even the most effective way of killing them, that’s just getting them off you, and still normally enough to kill them.
The only melee that i even ever be slightly concerned about is Chosen, and that’s only if they have dedicated healers. Only because once that chosen (tanked and getting healed) gets on you, you can’t shake him in the 8 seconds it takes to shake anyone else. However generally your own healer will notice and out heal his dps. At which case it just becomes interesting to see how long he will whack you before becoming disinterested and running off to hit the healer.
On a side note, there morale ability really hurts, hitting for 1/4 our health easy, but then, big heals crit at twice that, so I can only imagine how much some of our abilities hurt.
I can kill most targets with
Fireball
Fireball Barrage
That’s pretty much it. If there still alive I either DOT DOT or just SEAR. (I’m Incineration spec)
I don’t really see how this fits the TTK at all, and I realize that Fireball Barrage is being looked at.
Since i got FB (fireball barrage) I pretty much just spam Fireball and FB. They just hit so freaking hard. My Fireball his for something like (not exact figures) 350 then another 350 over time. That’s 700 a hit without a crit. 2 of these and a fireball barrage = anyone without a healer. That’s 3 second cast, instant, 3 second cast.
Changing from Barrage to Combustion.
I don’t really use Combustion, I don’t really worry about it either tbh.
It doesn’t seem that alot of the important abilities for Bright Wizards have combustion. There is SEAR, but it’s on a timer. Most of the others are AOE effects or skills I don’t use alot. So it’s just not important at all to me. Not to mention that even without FB at all, i hit so damned hard, and kill so fast. That it doesn’t matter in the slightest.
Correct me if I’m wrong, (I’m at work so no in game reference and didn’t play yesterday so memory might be not so good) but the following are the skills I use alot and whether they have combustion.
Fireball – No
Ignite - No
Boiling Blood - No
Fireball Barrage - No
Sear - Yes
Nova - No
Shield of Asquishy - No
Flame Cage - No
Disarm (name?) - No
Now I might be wrong about 1-2 of those, but as I stated, I don’t worry about it so much that I never really checked tbh. I 'think' some of them might have chances to explode based on your current Combustion, but in truth, that’s never really a worry anyway. Healing is quite heavy now, so going absolutely full power will funnel popping 80 health of you every 1-2 seconds is NOTHING. Let alone the occasional explosion. 1x 3 second heal could fix an explosion and 10 funnels from massive nuking, let alone some dot heal sitting on you. Combustion might be vital if I didn’t already annihilate people, but atm, it doesn’t factor for me at all.
Melee
I have never lost a 1v1 to a melee.
I have beaten a few 2v1's against both melee.
Just blow the crap out of 1 real quick while CCing the other, then finish.
Ranged
The 2 things that i watch for as a Bright Wizard
Sorc's
Zealots
Sorcs hurt, and there Shadow Knives and (disastrous cascade ? ) are to be watched carefully. Most of the time I die, its to Sorcs or Zealots (or just a bucket load of 10x ppl focus fire). Sorcs have (from playing against them) alot of the same issues as Bright Wizards, just in different spells. But having not played 1 this phase (I did last phase) I wouldn’t want to comment further.
Zealots I have only had a few 1v1's, there the class that’s to be feared the most as a BW. Mostly before you have FB. They have some massive heals, shield spells and they can hurt, not in massive 500+ hits, but definitely hurt. I think its Warp Reality that really stings. Generally they can make the fight last long enough that funnel power combined with their dots really start to take there toll.
Problems
Healing really can throw out alot of survivability. So you come up with some tricks to deal with it. Smack someone with a fireball. Healer goes to heal him. Fireball the Healer, Drain AP of healer (morale), dot, Nova stun, Fireball Barrage, Sear. If he is still standing and pops his big heal + shield, then dot dot and move back to original target, the healer will right now be crapping himself so much and focused on restoring himself to 100% that you will kill the other target before he gets back to his group job.
A few zealots in there, and it started to become ridiculous. However it just became necessary to get 2-3 Bright Wizards to target the zealots first. 3x Fireballs hitting someone is GG. This is all without using any other little toys like the rank 3 morale, and the anti healer spell (playing with fire??) which I don’t spec.
Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely love this class. And I guess that’s the problem, I know its overpowered, and id be terrified to play against it, especially is melee.
On a side note, RVR is still utterly dominated by range.
Mastery Tree Review
Incineration
This seems still far and away the best spec for a BW if you want to blow things up. Fireball Barrage is just crazy good, and fun as hell to boot (who can't love multiple fireballs raining from the sky in quick succession?). I don't think it in and of itself is overpowered, it's the matter of the stacking damage add procs. I also like that channeling ceases when the target goes out of LOS/range (which is what we Order all complained about Shadow Knives last phase, and you guys fixed....kudos!). I have noticed that the animation goes kind of wonky if the first hit is disrupted. Instead of getting the six quick graphical hits, you get more like pause, hit, pause, pause, hit, hit.
I think the tactic to make Sear heal for 25% damage 25% of the time should really be made 100% of the time to make it attractive. It might actually be worth using a tactic slot on then, as right now I think every BW pretty much stacks INT tactics, or maybe rarely takes the +AP on crit one (I do usually when Conflag specced).
Immolation
This line feels like it should have more potential than it does. Detonate is a fun spell, though frustrating when it gets disrupted since you can't try again for 10 seconds. Also, since DoTs have been changed to not tick until 3 seconds after application, is there any chance we can get the 3s recast removed? It's frustrating when you want to use an ability that requires the target to be hexed, you hit Ignite, and it's disrupted (and Boiling Blood is on cooldown). Now you have to wait 3 seconds to try and hex again to use another ability that requires it.
Withering Heat feels underpowered compared to Fireball Barrage. First off it channels 6 hits in 6 seconds instead of 6 hits in 3 seconds, and each hit is much, much less than FbB. The snare is nice, but even chain casting it on a mob, it takes like 4-5 withering heats to kill the mob, and it's easily in my face after the second or 3rd. Channeling in one spot for 6 seconds is an eternity in RvR though.
Conflagration
Spreading Flames feels like it could use a bit of a damage boost since player HPs were raised (not necessarily double, maybe 25-50%). It's a fun spell, but really no more of an annoyance right now.
Annihilate is oh so much fun if you can pull it off, especially if you're using it with Funnel Power (though you better have a healer watching you!). The channeling aspect kind of sucks though when you have to be such close range to use it, it's too easy for people to hit you and (in the future) knock back your channeling. I'll repeat what I said about spells like this in previous phases though, I hope you can find some way to make them not go through walls. I would hate to see keep seiges devolving into who can bring more AoE/PBAoE to bear on the door through the walls.
Choking Smoke is also nice, though the cast time feels kind of long, and the graphic is much smaller than the effect I believe (which is also a problem with Pit of Shades). This may be intentional to tone down graphic lag, however it's probably pretty frustrating for people who suddenly find themselves silenced and never saw an effect to show it. Disable effects in general actually aren't communicated real clearly, I frequently find myself disabled in a fight and have no idea what I was hit with to cause it (and mousing over debuff icons in the heat of battle isn't really practical).
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Thursday, April 24, 2008
Sword Master review - Thoughts on class.
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PvE:For now, PvE is very easy. I can take on 2-3 mobs one after another without a period of rest at all. However, when you just finished killing your first mob and you suddenly have two on you, then it gets very difficult. I may live, I may die, it's all up to how well I do (dice rolls mainly). I've tanked PQs as well, without too much of a problem. I feel that my DPS is pretty good considering my spec. It can kill stuff easily, but not as quick as my 2h SM counterparts, like it should be. Overall, even if PvE is boring, it's still easy to do and enjoyable when RvR gets frustrating.
The Good:
-Good spot in DPS
-Mechanic makes me use almost all my moves (aside from a few off-spec openers)
-Easy to take and hold aggro
-Bosses in PQs are easily tanked, even with many other people beating on the mob
-Casting mobs are easily dealt with
The Bad:-Attacking two mobs at once can be dicey, most of the time I run away (unless it's clear that I can win)
RvR:
Completely different story. The 1-2-3 mechanic of the SM seems to hinder it some, as I may need a snare RIGHT NOW instead of having to wait a few seconds to cycle through my moves. Aside from that little quirk, the mechanic is actually quite nice. While my DPS is lower (especially against other tanks), I feel that the debuffs I can do really hinder an opponent that chooses to ignore me. Plus, I can take a good amount of punishment unsupported before I go down. With a healer, I've taken on 4-6 Destruction and not died. Most of the time it was just one healer helping my out. In small scale engagements the SM does fairly well, but larger scale battles (roughly 10 or so) the SM really feels useless. I find that I use my rank 1 morale ability, demolishing strike, as my main form of DPS, rather then a supplement. Why? Because all the damage I can do can be undone in less then a second (I saw a Zealot heal itself from about 10-15% health to FULL in one cast). Sometimes I really feel like giving up because whatever I do can simply be brushed aside and ignored. All my debuffs, while great against one target, are HORRIBLE when facing multiple opponents, since your stance resets upon switching targets.
The Good:
-Small scale battles (about 5 or so on each side) are good, I feel useful
-I can wreck havoc with my interrupts against a single caster
-Throw is a great ability, great for stopping runners! All classes should have something akin to this in my opinion...
The Bad:
-The 1-2-3 Mechanic works against the SM in large scale battles, as the SM often has to switch targets
-No way to break out of snares and/or roots
-Goes down fairly quickly without healing support
-Heavily relies on demolishing strike for DPS, all other forms negated by healing
-Going against a healer is a joke, can't kill it and they just wear you down.
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Shadow Warrior Class Review - Thoughts on class
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On a level 28 rr11 SW:
I've tried respecializing between the 3 masteries several times for PvE and PvP. Each time I tend to play in a similar way but make small adjustments for the abilities I have. I have not found that changing my specialisation greatly changes my playstyle, more that it just affects how successful I am in that playstyle.
PvE
In solo PvE I tend to use Broadhead Arrow and Takedown for each mob as well as Spiral-fletch shot or Festering shot depending where my points are. I use flame shot if I'm in a group and pulling lots of mobs, between the flame shot cool down I tend to just plug a few spiral shots in. The other abilities are used for emergencies or special circumstances. Due to the way the content of the game is spread at the moment I often find that any quests/pq I am doing are slightly higher level than myself and so are the mobs. This isn't a problem with the SW but explains that I am usually attacking mobs roughly 0-4 levels higher than myself. Issues I have had are as follows:
The build time for scout stance shots is so long I only get the first shot and 1 other before I am in melee with most mobs. If I have taken scout mastery high this will usually mean I am entering melee with the mob on approximately half health, if the mob dodged one of the arrows, it will have 3/4 health. The ensuing melee will be drawn out and tedious, usually ending with a win for myself but also some downtime.
I would get a third shot off but after another 2-3 seconds build the mob is within 5 feet (this will hopefully be remedied by the idea RHinkle_EAMythic put forth)
I haven't found the assault stance worth using. With all 18 points into assault I still could not make up the difference that an archery shot or 2 would have made with points spent elsewhere. I possibly didn't give it a chance, I gave up on it less than an hour into testing it.
I tend to spend 90% of my time in PvE in skirmish stance. Unless I want to get a festering shot off before switching back to skirmish I will often just remain in skirmish stance whilst solo. Whilst grouping I will flit between Skirmish and Scout, with only flame shot being the reason to go scout.
Overall the damage of the SW in PvE, compared to other ranged DPS, is either poor (solo) or very poor (grouped).
AoE performance is very poor compared to BW, Sorc (and magus if it hasn't changed too much), AoE is actually worse than some other classes such as WP, as flame shot is on a very long reuse timer and does low damage. AoE performance does not worry me too much except that AoE DPS is the preferred method of levelling at the moment with XP rewards so low.
Single target DPS is nearer the mark and nearly comparable to other ranged DPS providing a) your weapon is high DPS for your level b) you can stand 5 feet away from your target (not always possible in dangerous areas. If these two criteria are met then the SW DPS may approach similar levels to the BW/Sorc although in my experience the SW has to work harder and maneuver much more just to manage similar results as a BW hitting 2/3 buttons.
PvP
I have had a reasonable amount of success in PvP, which I put down to other players prioritising healers and BW before the SW in large fights. I am often able to plug arrows into various classes for some time before I am attacked. In small scale fights I tend to do reasonably, the damage output of the SW is enough to drop any non-tank class in a reasonable time. I put this down to the huge amount of crits I tend to get. Looking over my log, crit chance is somewhere around 40% normally and 90% after I use Eyeshot. I assume this is due to low initiatives on most players.
I tend to use skirmish stance in small scale RvR, switching to scout stance for throat shot regularly, but otherwise only to throw out a festering arrow or flame shot to reap some RPs from other people's work. Spiral-fletched arrow is pretty much the meat of the damage I do, either using it as I chase a caster or as I back away from an oncoming melee.
If I get caught in PvP I will tend to die very quickly regardless of healing. This is fair enough if the class is destined for Glass Cannon style play, but does not bode well for Assault Mastery
My biggest issues and worries with the SW:
The SW is overshadowed in PvE by nearly every class, not damage wise but usefulness to a group. The only class I would want less in a PvE group I was making would be a second tank.
In solo PvE, the SW often has to go toe-to-toe in melee with mobs, due to being jumped on by a respawn or add. Whilst the SW has Flee and whirling pin, flee essentially means you lost that encounter and Whirling Pin is on a medium recast and activating a large AoE in many areas is not a good idea. I have found that kiting tends to be one of the more successful methods of PvE for the SW and this does not mesh well with groups or many mob types.
I do not like the way switching Stances works at the moment. With no cooldown (either global or per stance) it is incredibly easy to just hit the stance an ability needs then then the ability immediately after. If WAR has a similar macro system to DAoC then there will be little point to the stances at all, with each player replacing abilities on the hotbar for a 2 line macro to switch to that stance and fire the ability. As it is at the moment, anyone who "stance dances" is just doing it the hard way.
If I stand around and let a melee class beat on my SW, he tends to last between 10 seconds for Marauder/WE and 20 seconds from Chosen. The other way around, the marauder will take around 35-45 seconds to die in melee to my Assault mastery SW. The chosen takes much longer. Assault is not even close to viable as a playstyle at the moment.
Ranges seem too short on some abilities. 65 feet range on core abilities such as Broadhead arrow and Takedown mean that these mesh well only with skirmish stance abilities. The choices for a SW in scout stance at 90 feet are very limited. If the target decides to run from the fight there is nothing the SW can do but watch the other player skip out of sight.
In group RvR, the utility abilities last longer that any target stays alive, but the cooldown is too long to apply these effects to more than every other or every third target. Especially takedown.
5 foot minimum range. I see the logic of not being able to fire a bow at someone in melee, but not being able to fire at someone 3 feet away who is not even looking/targetting you is frustrating. In PvE encounters this often means moving around and being the one person away from the melee who catches extra unwanted aggro.
The Detaunt for SW is a bow ability with a 5 foot minimum range. I have never used it due to not wanting to lower my DPS by having to throw this at mobs before they aggro and go to melee range. Worst ability the SW has.
Things I love about the SW.
Subtlety. I like the understated (for the most part) bow attacks, this helps to make the SW a bit of an ambusher, as the Warhammer Lore would have them.
The look of the SW is very good, I especially like the shoulder armor parts that act as cowls. Hooded cloaks will be great on the SW.
The ability to move and fight. I love the maneuverability of the SW again this helps the hit-and-run, ambush feel of the class.
The utility of the SW in RvR groups. Although I feel there is some way to go with these abilities, the SW brings some useful abilities to groups. The only problem is the cooldowns tend to be too long.
General: Vengeance doesn't seem to do a whole lot. I think almost every ability should have a secondary effect while in Vengeance mode. Right now I rarely use this ability unless I want to pop a Flank Shot. My overall consistent DPS is pretty good, but its not often I get to do that. Burst damage seems pretty low for an RDPS class considering BWs and Sorcs and that Zealot dot that can crit for 500 which is way more than I can in anything but one attack in Scout Stance while Scout Spec'd and it has a cooldown. BWs and Sorcs get as much utility as we do. We should get the ability to do somewhat comparable DPS. I suggest improving DoTs and long buildtime abilities damage.
Skirmish: Still very fun to play run in and out for hit and run tactics while circle kiting and going behind trees then popping back out and hitting someone again. The problem arises when there are lots of other RDPS on the other side who have greater range than you (i.e. Sorcs). They just unload so much damage on me that its very difficult to play this style when if I close the range I still cannot out damage them. My only chance is to silence > dot > heal debuff > barrage > spiral fletched arrow all while hiding behind a tree and popping out and shooting. If I fight them in an open field I'm toast. The tactic that extends the duration of the debuffs is AMAZING. Any chance it can be improved to also increase the duration of Black arrow (the healing debuff one?) it may possibly be OP to do that though so I'm not sure if I recommend it.
Flank Shot: Its awesome in idea but with the 10 second cooldown and requirement to be behind the target it makes it hard to use much. I'll be shooting at their back and they will turn right at the end of my build time and cancel the shot. Its very fustrating. Perhaps give it a hefty damage or crit chance boost (not counting vengence).
My dmg rotation in RvR: Eye Shot > Broadhead > Black Arrow > Spiral Fletched > Spiral Fletched.
I feel that Skirmish is really missing some burst damage. Perhaps give an attack that requires ailment that hits very hard or has a high chance to crit without vengence.
Scout: This spec finds its strides in the ranged stand offs currently going on in 24+ RvR. Stand in the back or sneak to the sides while dropping some AoE attacks into their lines and maybe some single target dps if you think you can do it and get away without dying. The loss of the healing debuff makes this line less effective by far for the amount of damage it does. This line needs a deeper specialization. Better AoEs or better single target DPS. It is currently missing both of those.
Make Scout good at something except standing still at range. Good AoE or Good single target DPS. It is currently not matching a BW or Sorc even remotely close.
Assault: Due to the ineffectiveness of melee in open field RvR this spec is nigh impossible to really play effectively. However by specing into the 3 second stun ability I am able to solo anyone as long as I have AP if I am able to get into melee range. They are perma-stunned. I use the stun attack and step back and shoot an arrow special attack step back in and stun them again repeat. This attack is seriously OP in 1v1 situations and really in any situation when you do not have to be afraid of getting focus fired.
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Wednesday, April 23, 2008
Warrior Priest Review - Thoughts on class.
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Rank 27 Renown Rank 12Grace before the changes and Salvation after
My observations so far, I respecced salvation after the changes went in since I was mostly doing group outdoor PvP and Sigmar's Shield isn't very useful there. I have played a Warrior Priest pretty much every beta phase (when available) since beta 1. Granted, we all agree the previous version was overpowered. So far as salvation spec, well I don't really seem that useful, and it’s not entirely because of the changes, there isn't much incentive in salvation spec to actually melee, but since you have to keep using Supplication to feed your RF to actually
Now one thing that doesn't really make sense for me, and this goes for all healers not just WP, are the current values of the heals, whenever I get a new ability in any game, I always visualize how exactly it comes into play, in which situations it would be useful, and so on. Some people have already posted the numbers so I'm not gonna repeat them, but I believe that each healing spell should have a specific purpose, each for his own situation, and all should be useful, right now the single target heal is so much better than every other healing spell (by a humongous margin) Is it the only option we have to heal? No. But it’s the only viable option. We shouldn’t have different heal spells just for the sake of having different heal spells, each needs to have a use and be on the bar of every healer for a reason.
Lets look at the heals :
Hot..................Insta cast.................30 RF...................Healing for about 300ish over 15 seconds
Heal+Hot.........0.5 cast....................60 RF...................Healing for about 350 over 9 seconds
Single target...3 sec cast................50 RF....................Healing for 800ish unspecced, 1000+ specced INSTANTLY, crits up to 1900-2k.
Heals have 1 purpose and its to cancel DPS, now 2 situations can arise which I will call Emergency or Non-Emergency.
Now we have to ask ourselves in which situations we would use each spell, the Hot is obvious but when looking more closely at the numbers it drastically reduces the usage. It costs way too much for the poor amount healed and the long duration to react, I never use it except to top someone off while chasing or running from people, or as a pre cast hot before pulling a mob (and even then it doesn't make much difference if I do it or not). In my opinion hots should have a cost advantage over direct heals. Direct heals mean NOW which means EMERGENCY, hots should mean preparing in advance, as such I think the hot should cost a lot less than it does right now and/or possibly heal for more, we could increase the time to prevent them from being too strong, if we keep the cost at 30 maybe make it heal for like 800 over 20 seconds or something, the reason we keep it instant is because it can't be spammed (since the cooldown) and its slow to build and take the full effect, thus isn't suited for emergency situations.
Now the Heal+Hot, I certainly hope no one has ever used this spell and if you do, please take a good 5 minutes to examine the spell statistics closely.
Its a fast cast, almost instant, which to me rings EMERGENCY but the poor amount of health returned on the cast (170ish) doesn't make any difference and is actually less than 1 second of dps from the average player, the high cost is further prohibitive which ends up that no sane person would even bother keeping this on his bar. In an emergency situation you won't use it because it wouldn't make any difference anyway at 170-180 HP, and then in non emergency situations you won't use it either because the high cost and low amount of health just makes it better to use the direct heal, to further discourage you from using it you're not even in a hurry and can have the health right now or 9 seconds later, obviously no one will choose 9 seconds later.
Heal + Hot should be filling the Non-Emergency situation, highly efficient spell, longer in casting but again slower to react. I suggest basically changing it to about what the direct heal does now, 1k overall healing with mastery around my level, 50RF, 500 health now 500 after 9 seconds, 3 seconds cast.
Now the direct heal, this is your NOW and your EMERGENCY spell, as such its much too slow to cast at 3 seconds, but since it was overpowered at 1 second, something else has to go, being a direct heal is a large advantage over hots and has such it should not be used over them in every possible situation (like it is right now).
Suggest to downgrade the cast time to 1 second (for everyone not just WPs), decrease the amount healed by about 30-40ish%, which will make it less efficient and less interesting to use than the Heal+Hot in Non-Emergency situations, the cost could remain the same at 50 RF since the amount healed for will actually decrease.
Now each heal has a use, the key I think is to balance out the Heal+Hot VS the Direct heal so that the direct heal will do slightly more or the same healing at about an even cost than the first tick of the Heal+Hot, the fast cast with a decent amount of instant health will be the incentive to use it.
In a % value here is how I would ideally have it. We would take the highest Heal, in my proposed scenario the Heal+Hot as 100%
Spell....................Cast Time.........................Cost................ ....Amount healed
Hot.......................Instant, 5 sec CD.............30........................75%
Heal+Hot..............3 sec, no CD....................50........................1 00%
Direct Heal............1 Sec, 2 sec CD..............50........................60%
I didn't really talk about the group heal or other aoe hots such as can be found in healing mastery lines, mostly because I have nothing to say about them, they have their uses, and I feel they are about where they need to be, the aoe heals are highly efficient and that is the advantage to offset their slow buildup. Group heal is decently useful, its efficient as long as 3-4 people are getting it, which is ok in my book, otherwise it could end up being too good, I would probably increase the amount on it slightly, maybe 10%, but maybe that's just my impression that Aoes like pit of shades are overpowered since the spell seems currently bugged and people end up not being able to get out of it (120% reduced movement speed ;/)
Respecced Grace, the difference was pretty much night and day compared to salvation, Sigmar's Shield, while severely weakened by the reduction to our AP pool, is still the only viable way to actually fulfill our intended role of melee/healer hybrid. Without it I was basically getting stomped in a few seconds, happened a few times when I lost myself as target. With it, I can last quite a while against 1 player and decently long enough to put up a fight against 2, granted its unlikely I will win a 2v1 unless the other 2 players are pretty bad, which is ok in my book, a skilled player with good gear (I have 2 PQ epics and quite a few elite PQ rewards) should be able to tackle more than 1 player, although not to the extent that it was so easy with the WP before the changes.
It seems quite a few abilities do not trigger Sigmar's Shield any more, obviously dots shouldn't but other abilities that I'm not sure are dots don't seem to be triggering it either.
I did about 3 scenarios, all of them I felt I was contributing to the group, tossing a heal here and there, and sometimes popping sigmar's shield and spamming Diving Strike on ppl getting focus fired, it’s a lot more challenging than before but it feels a bit more balanced now, we aren't completely dominating everyone else, a skilled player can still do well but it’s really hard now.
Skirmish RvR, we defended a wall gate, ran around some objectives, failed to take a keep, and failed to defend another. Basically open world RvR is back at stage 1 where it’s a big standoff with each side having tons of ranged classes (I hate Sorcs and pit of shades, it definitely needs to be looked at) and some healers standing in the back and trying to keep them up. The melee classes either stand back and do nothing or charge in and go down faster than a Shadowbane server admin can say LAG! So the and I heal, and I heal and I heal is definitely the case in skirmish because any melee will not be able to do anything there, too many aoes, roots, stuns and CC with no counter and no diminishing returns they don't even get to hit someone before they eat dirt. We can't even heal them with our slow cast heal now.
Grace spec is still working and quite efficient in smaller group encounters. Salvation spec is pretty bad for any situation. I cannot comment on Wrath because I haven't tried it yet, but it doesn't look up to par either, and judging from the posts of Wrath specced WPs, it doesn't seem too good.
On top of the heals needing to be adjusted there seem to be a game wide problem with melee in large battles, I mean this is WARhammer, it should be about huge melee battles of armies crashing into another, the current Sorcs vs BW backed by a bunch of healers standoffs are pretty boring overall and need a solution sometime in the next few months before release. Aoe spells (pit of shades I h8 you) seem really way too good atm and aoe heals are nowhere up to par to keep up with them, pit of shades tick for what about 150-200dmg every 2 seconds or so, we can't even cast a grp heal every 2 seconds, and once they have it up, it doesn't cost them AP every tick.
Now another thing, about prayers, I like the change to prayer of absolution being an armor buff, and it seems a significant enough buff to actually want to use it now, the 5 toughness from before was a joke anyway. Now prayer of righteousness seemed pretty much unchanged, it was good before, its still good, so no problem there. Now prayer of salvation, I mean, 15 HP?, 20% chance, come on, ok it WAS, read WAS, overpowered a few months ago in the first EvC focus test, its been changed (read nerfed) a dozen times over since then, I use it sometimes for a single reason only, on the odd chance that the heal it procs will crit and regain me 75 AP from one Tactic I use. Even if it was 100% chance it still wouldn’t be very good, this needs a buff.
15 health is not going to help keep someone alive, it’s not going to make any difference in a pvp fight that can last less than 10 seconds at times. This is quite certainly the worst iteration of the ability we have seen so far, even taking beta1 into account.
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Tuesday, April 22, 2008
Archmage Review - Thoughts on class.
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Level 22 RR 11
Use: PvP Scenarios and Open World PvP. Grouped and ungrouped.
Specs: All three, though I prefer Vaul.
One thing that I find about the Archmage that's really engaging is the amount of concentration and ability that goes into playing one. Finding a fine balance between DPS and healing can be hard to do, as sometimes you get caught up in the moment and forget to heal while you're tossing some nukes around, or you end up sitting back and healing and not doing any damage. It's a fine balancing act that, if mastered, really gives that extra umph to the class to let it shine.
Path of Isha
Funnel Essence - The 0 AP 150 range channeled lifetap is an awesome, awesome ability. Kudos for putting it where it is, as it's very powerful and efficient of a spell. It's perfect for harassing enemy casters or catching runners thanks to it's wonderful range, and because it hits every second (seems faster sometimes) for the entire duration of the channel, it's great at interrupting other spell casters. It gives healers a safe and easy way to deal damage, while still keeping allies and themselves alive.
Balance Essence (name?) - I'm talking about the single target 2s cast lifetap that's early in the tree. It feels a bit weak due to the subpar damage, but seeing as it's a 100% return on damage to life it's understandable. I just didn't find myself using this spell very often, mostly because if I wanted to do damage it was much more mana efficient to toss a Law of Conductivity on someone and just to back to healing. The 2s timer seems a bit excessive, and it really seems like you're better off just tossing a big heal on someone, or casting a DoT instead. I'd suggest tweaking the numbers around just a little on this one, because if we're using templates and I'm not able to break 100 damage on an equal level target, I can only imagine how atrocious the damage must be without purple gear.
One question I have though, is how does Will Power factor into lifetaps? From my observations, it looks like willpower adds to the amount of health healed on the tail end of a lifetap. In a sense lifetaps benefit from both int (extra damage, more health returned due to more done) and willpower (adds to the heal effect). Can someone confirm this? It might be worth checking into whether or not an Isha spec AM can tweak his stats into a very heavy intelligence build to up the lifetap damage (and subsequently the amount healed), but still be able to heal better than a non-Isha AM due to mastery point benefits.
Path of Ashuryan
Ashurya's Rage - The instant cast DD on a 30 second timer. 65 foot range. I feel the timer is too great here, especially for a low tier mastery abilitiy. It's great for finishing people off that are nearby or for chasing a runner, but honestly the timer feels excessive. I'd suggest 15-20 seconds, as it gives the AM some much needed insta damage that primary nukers have. The damage seems about right for the AP cost, so no complaints there. One funny thing though, is that on my computer when someone dies there's a brief 1-2 second lag time where there is no enemy body or corpse. After that a naked corpse appears like normal, but it's fun to get kills with this spell due to the graphic. It looks like a giant pure white light coming down on someone's head...first time I killed someone with this spell and didn't see a body, I thought they had just been abducted. Was great for a giggle.
Winds of Ashuryan (name?) - The instant cast 30 second cool down AE spirit debuff. Wow. No wonder this baby has a steep cool down, anything you hit with this is in for a world of pain. With all my points in Ashuryan mastery, I was seeing some big crits on damage. 589ish for a radiant lance crit on most enemies that had been debuffed with this beforehand. I've not been able to bring someone from 100% to 0% in the entirety of the duration, which is good for balance. But, if I could have a 2nd AM that I could coordinate with over voice chat that would focus on my target after casting this spell I'd wager that just about anyone and everyone I felt needed to die would in 10 seconds or less would. I can see why there's a 30 second timer on it, so please don't shorten.
Forked Lancing - The tactic sounded neat at first, but honestly I don't think I've seen it work or seen a way to use it effectively enough to justify taking a tactic slot up. First off, I believe there's only a 25% chance of Radiant Lance splitting and hitting multiple people, so that's one red mark. The other red marks come the difficulty of using Radiant Lance to begin with (2s cast time), and the fact that the max split range is 30 ft from the target. More often then not, the AM's are in the back ranks, meaning that they most likely will not have the opportunity to cast this spell into the center of the dress convention on the other side. More often than not, the target is a tank or melee character that runs towards you, so the potential AE effect really has no use. My other complaint is that the lances that split off do less damage than the main one itself - I can understand the reason for doing this, but given the limited chance of the spell splitting in the first place I think dealing the full damage of a casted lance to the extra targets would be OK.
Overall a Ashuryan spec AM will see a very noticeable increase in damage, but one thing I found was that I had mana management issues. I feel that I had to spend more time actively thinking about the most opportune time to heal, and was watching my HM counter a lot more closely. Sure I can fry someone, but when I have no mana left to heal other people I do them a disservice. One thing I'd like to see, is a tactic unique to this tree that gives all your Ashuryan spells a 25-35% chance to build 2 high magic instead of 1. I think it would a bigger emphasis on the high magic system, and would help balance the damage to healing ratio.
Path of Vaul
First and foremost, this is not a solo spec. It's a very RvR heavy tree that relies on coordination with team mates to really shine. You won't be getting much glory or RP's with this tree, but you will be doing an immense job of pushing the enemy lines back, as well as almost assuring the death of any tank that runs towards your lines. This is my favored mastery, and I think it's the least used or understood of them all.
Law of Ages - the meat and potatoes spell. I think the major adversity to this mastery branch is just that people can't quantify exactly what losing 80 points of Toughness does since we don't know the formulas involved for determining damage. I think it was stated in the past that Mythic wouldn't be releasing any of the formula for stats and what not because they were overly complicated or something, but it'd be nice to know roughly how much more damage someone takes when affected by this spell. I could try to test some numbers on a before and after basis with AI monsters, but I'm under the impression those guys have pretty standard and high amount of toughness, and if the formula has diminishing returns players might get the impression this spell is actually weaker than it really is. The neat thing about toughness is that it's involves in all resistances, even spells, so everyone that does damage can benefit from this.
There's no cool down timer on the spell, which was really the best thing that could have been done. You folks were wise enough to have it build high magic as well, so it's a very well-rounded spell that can be spammed, but also help you keep your high magic up for the heals. The AoE is just icing on the cake, since it's not hard to blanket the entire chaos team with just 2-3 casts. I've seen DoK's and Zealots drop like flies to melee characters with this debuff on them, and the Bright Wizards really seem to enjoy the added damage to their AoE effects. Like I said, it's a very team oriented spell.
Winds of Something (name?) - the -50% heal value for 10 seconds is all it takes to nearly guarantee any tank running towards you is as good as dead, since they always seem to be the primary heal target for the enemy, and the primary target of all your ranged allies. This debuff insures that all that delicious healage the enemy throws on Rambo is wasted as he lights up like a christmas tree. The DoT component gives the spell some added gusto, and helps give this mastery line some overall damage to help with solo viability and pve content. My only complaint would be the wind up time on the cast, but given how decimating this spell can be it feels justified.
Radiant Gaze - A spell I don't see used much, especially by people who don't put points into Vaul to increase the damage on it. For a 2s cast time, the damage does seem underwhelming - but the true power lies in the added protection from crits. It's a great spell to toss onto a fast melee dps character, like a Witch Elf of Marader, who relies on dropping you as soon as possible. I sometimes use this spell, though it's usually only when I'm out solo or when I get ambushed. What I would like to see is this ability instead lower your chance to hit rather than the chance to crit.
-deep breath-
Overall I feel the class really fleshes out as it grows in levels, but having the ease of a premade level 20 character helps the class avoid some of the problems found at lower level. I still do not think we have proper escape tools or ways to peel a persistant tank/melee dps class off of us at lower levels.
I'd like to see a little more from the High Magic concept. I like the free spells with 3 charges, but I hate seeing them wasted on things like the insta HoT or cleansing light. I'd prefer that we have the option to turn the use of charges off for these spells.
Also, probably a pipe dream, but I'd like to see High Magic become more of a tool, rather than just an AP saver. I'd like to have 2 buttons, one that converts all my HM points into instant healing for my target, and another that converts it all into damage. Of course the values would scale based off the number of charges you have, and the results would probably have to be weaker than actually casting a spell (trade off since it's instant vs casted) - but having 5 HM points doesn't mean much to me when I'm still at full health and trying to kill someone.
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Rank: 23
Realm Rank: 9
Current spec: Full Isha (only spec skill is Funnel Essence)
Previous spec (thru Rank 21): Full Asuryan (with both spec abilities but no spec tactics)
Overall:
I'm finding it hard to figure out how to work with High Magic. Mostly, it seems very situational in usage for me--not at all the career-defining mechanic that I was expecting. More details later.
Healing power seems okay for both PvE and RvR, but healing overall feels sluggish. The heals I use/need the most are the big heal and the group heal. The heal+HOT is too expensive, too weak and has too long a build-up time to help me much except to top things off after a battle. The Core HOT is just too weak and too spread out. Funnel Essence rocks, but is also expensive AP-wise. When my enemies (NPC and player) are kind enough to leave me alone, I can crank out heals just fine.
Survivability seems pretty good for a squishy, but it requires quick and careful use of the shields and heals. The new setback mechanics also help in this regard. It's hard to balance defense with offense, though. A medium-sized combat heal would help a lot. Also, some kind of /face would be nice to counter the hyper-active, button-mashing, disabling, melee strafers who take full advantage of the "target is not in cone of fire" mechanic. Maybe some of the cc spells that I see coming up will help with this, but at this point, it's rough going.
Damage-wise, I have mixed feelings. Even with full Isha spec, I can solo fairly well, which is eons better than other MMORPG healer classes I've played. But in group situations, even with full Asuryan spec, I feel that I'm lacking in damage. I like that AMs aren't confined to the sit-back-and-heal role. I just hope player perception (fueled by the min/maxers) doesn't force AMs into that role anyway.
There are many inconsistencies between the spell descriptions on the training windows and the actual spells, which makes it hard to evaluate some things. Funnel Essence, for example, clearly costs AP (I see my AP bar dropping while I'm channeling it, anyway) and heals for an amount equal to the damage done, but according to the spell description it's free and heals for 0. In general, these need to be carefully combed through. It's frustrating to expect one thing and get something else.
High Magic:
I've tried some strategies for using HM effectively, but I'm still struggling.
When I solo, I'm naturally mixing offense (usually HM-generating, except lifetaps) and defense (HM-consuming). So I get some benefit from HM, but it never builds up to more than about 3-4 before I use a defensive spell and wipe it all out.
In groups where I'm primarily healing, I've tried throwing in a few nukes to get some HM going. It's hard to gauge the cost of the nuke vs. the AP benefit of the HM, so maybe I'm just wasting my time with these random nukes. Mostly I use Searing Touch or Law of Conductivity, since they're fast and relatively cheap (if I cut ST off after a tick or so). I avoid Radiant Lance and Radiant Gaze--2s build-up is way too long when I need to be healing, they're too expensive, and they don't do much (unspecced). There are some insta-cast spells in Vaul and Asuryan that might help here, but at the moment, my feeling is that nuking (and hence HM) is a bit of a luxury.
The only time I've seen HM build up to 5 is when I could focus solely on nuking for long enough--maybe there were multiple healers in the group or my group wasn't under fire at the time. But these situations have been rare so far.
There are some things I can try to get better use out of HM, but I think basically I'm just going to need to wait until I have enough Mastery points to build up a decent secondary spec. Having more useful spells around that can generate HM will definitely help a lot, especially since one HM-consuming spell wipes out a fair chunk of HM (3 or 4 that I've seen) while one HM-generating spell only builds up 1 point of HM.
Top/Fun Spells:Funnel Essence (although it would rock if it generated HM)
Searing Touch (both of these channeled spells could use a new sound effect, though, rather than the extremely un-elvish THUD! THUD! THUD! )
Shields
Losers:
Balance Essence: Way, way too little damage and healing for the AP cost and build-up time, especially since it doesn't generate HM. I respecced out of it.
Drain Magic: Also too slow and too little effect. It's not on my main 2 hotbars.
Radiant Lance/Gaze: Useful to begin a solo fight, but generally not worth it in the cost/benefit equation, even when I was specced for these (yes, I tried a Vaul spec once, briefly ).
Heal+HOT: I like HOTs in general, and I've tried to work this in, but it's just too much time and cost for too little.
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Thursday, April 3, 2008
Warhammer videos collected, looking great
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Brothers and bloggers Keen and Graev have put together a nice collection of Warhammer Online videos over on their YouTube account, and this seems like the best we've seen of the game so far (I saw it at PAX a few years ago, and then we saw quite a bit of it at E 4 All, as well as the various videosreleased since then). The video above was taken at a German show, so it's in Deutsch, obviously, but the graphics are clean and clear, and the gameplay looks pretty manic -- just the kind of thing to get us all excited for this baby.
They've also got a character selection video, some Bright Wizard gameplay, Zealot footage, some Hammerer and Choppa RvR combat, and a little world exploration. This game is definitely looking better every day -- it's still on track for a release sometime in the middle of this year.
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Warhammer online: Hexxus Gaming Previews WAR and it's "Awesome"
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Hexxus Gaming did a review of the current beta build at Mythic's Paris event this week. The preview includes a nice review of some RvR features such as skirmishes, battlefields and campaigns as well as a detailed review of the Reikland Hills scenario, some new screenshots and even some Mythic quotes:
We’ve been optimising this game for a long time and we have regular breakthroughs. The city performance now is better than it was a month ago. We were having so many problems in terms of getting the frame rate up, then we had a massive breakthrough and the frame-rate jumped up to 40 frames a second instead of 5. The optimisation team are working on it all the time, it’s really important to us. We haven’t decided yet what the right size will be for these battles, whether it will be 50, 75 or 120 a side. We need to keep it fun and that means that the game has to be playable; and it will be.”
You can read the rest of the article here
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Wednesday, April 2, 2008
Warhammer Online: Character Customization
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Mythic has stated the following: “We allow you to customize your ironbreakerness,” said Paul Barnett. He made it very clear though that while you can be an ironbreaker who likes pistols, you cannot be an ironbreaker who is secretly specialized as something else entirely such as magic. “Beard, stick, pointy hat. Wizard!” Barnett yelled from time to time during the recent press conference held at mythic entertainment.
As a player also advances and levels up, their model will grow and change. Dwarf beards grow in length, Orcs become larger and more brutal looking, and the vile servants of Chaos will become "more vile."
What he was attempting to emphasize is that Mythic fully believes in silhouetting, which is to say that if you walk up to a guy in a full plate mail, he will be what you expect him to be and won’t start casting fireballs at you. This also combines well in PvP. As your character kills more dwarf’s for instance he might end up having a dwarf beard draped off his belt. This let’s Mythic remove the con system that they used in Daoc and use a purely visible con system. If that Orc is eight feet tall and has twenty dwarf beards hanging off his belt and armour, he's going to be a very very tough opponent.
As more Career lines become available a section dedicated to what you can make will be put up here for your reference.
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The Warhammer World
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In War there are three distinct settings, one each for the three pairings of the armies that are within. The mighty Empire and the Hordes of Chaos fight from the Northern Wastes south past Kislev and into the very streets of the capital Altdorf. West lies Ulthuan, the home of the High Elves.
North across dark oceans foaming with black waves reside the lands of the Dark Elves, the twisted and evil brethren of the High Elves. Across these oceans and on the shores of land that both races call home will blood be shed as they again battle.
Far to the south, the stocky and brash Dwarfs find their mountain homes encircled and under siege by the countless hordes of the their ancestral enemies, the green skinned Orcs and Goblins.
Across the Old World banners are being raised and horns begin to sound. Soldiers and heroes lift weapons and answer their nations call to serve. Over the next months and years that follow tens of thousands will march forth, prepared to face their enemies and lands will cry under the heavy tread of steel and drown in seas of blood. War is coming, and the crows prepare to feast.
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