Game is over

Well, I guess it's time i bowed to the inevitable. I've cancelled my Warhammer Online account, and I'm discontinuing this blog. But it's a bit strange why.

It's not that I didn't like the game - I did, but just over the last couple of weeks I've not been feeling like playing any games (with the exception of the occasional bit of Fallout 3).

It's not that I've succumbed to the new WoW expansion, which was what I always secretly thought would drag me away. Nope, in fact I'm not sure if i'll play another MMO again.

So, I hope everyone else is still enjoying the game, and thank you to those couple of people who read what I had to say and gave me feedback.

Normal service will resume soon...

I actually haven't played WAR at all this past week. Not because I'v given up on it (no siree), but for two very good reasons - job hunting and Fallout 3. I'm sure once those two fall by the wayside I'll get back to posting inanely once more.

Thoughts on Sacrifice spec

While I definitely enjoyed playing as a Dark Rites specced Disciple, it's not a tree that encourages you to level through PvE. When the scenarios started slowing down, I went back to levelling the old fashioned way - by hitting people with pointy objects. Slight alteration to the usual plan though, as I thought I would give Sacrifice a second go after the abortive previous try.

Since I last wrote I've hit level 36 (renown rank 29). I'm using this spec currently. The most dramatic difference from my last attempt at using the Sacrifice tree has been accessing the Empowered Transfer tactic, which dramatically improves the healing power of both the Consume Essence and Transfer Essence abilities. With this done, you're hitting mobs for between 150 and 250 per hit, but healing back 150% of that. In straight on PvE that gives you great longevity, and the unique nature of melee healing allows you to combine with tactics that normally nerf healing - Divine Fury and Murderous Intent. It's a very strong PvE spec.

Unfortunately I've found it a mixed bag in the RvR side of things - although, to be fair, that may come down to some degree on my inability to divide my attention between melee and healing at the same time effectively. The jury is still out on the straight up RvR utility - I don't feel that i've given it a fair shot yet. Where it does shine is in keep sieges and similar situations. Consume Essence heals all allies within a very small AOE, and because of this you end up with a very effective healer against keep lords without sacrificing a single point of dps.

Dedicated healing

I'm now level 33, and I'm beginning to find some aspects of the game a bit of a grind. Unfortunately I'm finding that the content at about my level is running out more rapidly then I am levelling, so I am having a bit of difficulty levelling in PvE at this point.

I decided to try levelling just based on RvR and scenarios, and given this change I thought it was time to try out a more dedicated healing role. I've spent the last couple of weeks slowly accruing an alternate set of gear better suited to healing - concentrating on willpower and toughness/wounds rather then the usual strength and weaponskill gear. Thanks to this I'm now almost hitting 600 willpower (with the talent that gives about 120 willpower).

The impact was obvious. My usual amount of healing in a scenario went from about 30 to 40 thousand to between 80 to 120 thousand regularly. This is in part due to two things - my regular heals are definitely boosted significantly, but there are also a few AoE healing abilities which are only available in the Dark Rites tree. Combined with the latest version of the Squared mod, which makes it much easier to Cleanse debuffs off allies and I'm finding myself a pretty good healer. When scenarios pop reasonably often I am making very good xp, but if they slow down then I am in trouble.

There are three issues with Disciple healing as i see it:

1. Reliance on Soul Essence - As a pure healer, almost everything you do relies upon Soul Essence, and the only significant use for action points is to channel in order to get more Soul Essence (which you will do often). There is no stat that boosts Soul Essence collection as there is with Action Points regeneration, and there are no tactics which either make it easier to accrue Soul Essence or which make your abilities more efficient in their use of it.
2. Tactics - The tactics available to a healing Disciple are a fairly mixed bunch. There is one which makes it easier to accrue action points, which is of extremely questionable use, and even most of the decent tactics are aimed more at a melee/healing combination rather then a pure healer. Mythic may have intended the class to be involved in combat while healing, but the game doesn't really make that practical, and as a result the tactics available for healers are fairly limited in their applications.
3. Renown - The recent changes to healing renown went too far. While it was definitely fair to pare back the ridiculous amount that many healers were getting, the current situation leaves healers near the back of the pack in terms of renowned earned even when they do a good job. In addition it creates perverse incentives, as it encourages healers to only heal high dps classes rather then tanks or other healers. Obviously most healers aren't silly enough to let everyone but the DPS die, but Mythic should fix the system in order to reward good practice.
   

State of the Union

It's been a little while since my last post, and that's partially because I've been enjoying WAR so much, partly distraction by more mundane matters, and mostly laziness.

I've just now reached level 28 with my Disciple, and I feel like I'm coming near to the end of tier 3 content. Given that I don't think tier 4 kicks in properly until level 32, I'm a little concerned about how to fill that XP gap. It seems to me that Mythic designed leveling with the assumption that you would complete almost every quest in almost every zone. I operated on an assumption from my WoW days - complete the zone you're in, then move on to the zone next door. I'll be interested to see if this causes problems.

I will be very happy to see the end of tier 3 RvR, and it's pretty much all due to the Tor Anroc scenario. This scenario isn't so bad in and of itself, but there are 2 factors which have rendered it incredibly irritating:

• Knockbacks into the lava - It's a zone which is designed to make classes with knockbacks feel like gods, and the rest of us like pinatas. It wouldn't be so bad if the lava was either instant kill, or didn't have that enjoying snare effect, but the way things are at the moment it is a fight which is largely built around knockbacks. This would be more acceptable if there were a defence against them other than not being near a class who has that particular type of attack.
• The only scenario that pops. I had hoped that the recent change to allow you to queue for any scenario regardless of which zone you were in would help in this regard, but if anything it has made it worse. I don't understand why only this scenario ever pops (i've tried queuing everything but Tor Anroc and waiting... and waiting...

It's not that I haven't had some enjoyment out of tier 3 rvr and Tor Anroc, it's just that it feels like a very limited version of what the realm versus realm concept could be applied to. I've taken part in one or two keep sieges, and they were much more what I envisaged realm versus realm being like, but at least for the moment they are fairly rare.

I'm also still unsure of the best way to spec my Disciple. I've been playing with a Torture build for most of the game so far, and this seems to be the best way for soloing. I very briefly gave a Sacrifice build a go, as this would allow me to concentrate on Strength gear without having to worry about Willpower, but I didn't enjoy it. I've read that Sacrifice comes into its own at level 30, so I may give it a go then. I'm also heavily tempted by a full Dark Rites build, and depending on what I find myself doing in the end-game I can definitely imagine myself going down that road.

Briefly revisiting the topic of mods

I guess it was fairly inevitable that I would do a post on mods and then immediately find a couple of new ones that I wanted to write about. What has been unexpected is how good some of the mods coming out are.

My biggest gripe about the Disciple class has been to do with the default UI making it difficult to receive information on who needs healing, and also to select the people who I want to heal.

One of the best known mods for World of Warcraft was a healing addon called Grid which gave a layout which made raid healing much easier. The WAR messageboards i've been reading have been running reasonably thick with healers hoping for a Grid-type mod for WAR. Yesterday during one of my wanders through the Warhammer Alliance UI sub-forum, I ran across one.

It's called Squared Unit Frames, and it is developed by Aiiane, the same chap (no idea if man or woman, but i love saying chap) who gave us the Clean Unit Frames and Hovercast. Squared gives a much more intuitive arrangement of group health information, and allows for easy selection. It's also reasonably customisable, in spite of being in early beta stages. I think Aiiane is in real danger of becoming the patron saint of the Warhammer modding community at this rate - I found my healing done in scenarios jumping significantly without it impairing my damage done at all.

Here's a picture of my UI running Squared (if i can get the links working):

Problems with installing the game

I went into my local EB Games to pick up my copy of WAR this morning. They had opened early, so the poor guys seemed to be surviving on nothing but energy drinks. They cleverly had a cross-promotion going with the Games Workshop store, so I got a free White Dwarf magazine as part of my purchase. Man that takes me back.

Anyway, I started installing the game (reading the magazine as it crawled along). After it had finished I went to run the game, but it only flashed up an MSDOS box briefly and nothing happened. It turns out that my copy has a broken .exe as part of the installation, and apparently this has happened to a number of other people in Australia trying to install the game.

Thankfully there appears to be a solution - you can download a working version of the .exe file you need from here. That appears to have fixed my problems. If you're still having problems after that, try reading through this thread on the Warhammer Alliance message board for other remedies.

I think it's fair to say that this is a pretty colossal screw-up if it is widespread, but hopefully it won't put too many people off playing what is an excellent game.

Mods

In WoW I was eternally finding using new mods to use. My UI didn't look at all like the default UI, and I would spend hours adjusting it and trying to find new features to include.

I think this points to one of the problems with WoW - the freedom to mod the game has evolved past the point of utility and is pretty much now at necessity. There are certain situations (arena, raids) where if you use no mods then you are putting yourself way behind the 8-ball.

I've been interested to see what would happen with WAR in this regard, as I'm coming at this issue from both sides - I love mods, and redesigning my UI, but I can also see how excessive moddability can cause problems in your playerbase.

It was fairly astonishing that even in beta there were a number of mods already coming out. I've only used a few so far, and i thought I would list them with some comments:

• Clean Unit Frames - As a healer I spend more time staring at the unit frames then most people, but as a Disciple I need them to convey information quickly and be easy to select the right frame so that i can go back to ripping people asunder. This project tarts up the party unit frames nicely. Nothing dramatic, just some presentation options which make it easier to read and select. And mouseover healing as well, which is nice if you're into that sort of thing. Unfortunately it is currently limited to the party frames, but hopefully this will be expanded to scenario and warband frames in the future.
  
• Plan B - If I were to play a Black Orc or a Swordmaster again this would be vital. It switches your abilities bar based on which stance you are currently in. Simple, but vital.
• Metahud Unit Frames - A nice HUD which gives you useful information right beside your character rather than in a corner.
• Action Bar Color - When your target is out of range of an ability, the entire ability button turns red instead of just the number associated with the ability.

I would be interested to hear if people have found any other mods that they've found particularly useful - especially to do with the unitframes and healing, which is my current gripe. Tomorrow's the big day - actually pick up the game itself. Hopefully this will mean an influx onto the Oceanic servers, and some decent scenario wait times.

Taking a look at the career trees

In the break between open beta and the standard edition headstart kicking off I spent probably a bit more time in the Career Builder than was absolutely healthy. I fiddled around with various templates (as well as taking a look at a few other careers to get an idea of who I can expect to hit me over the head), and these are my observations.

None of my template builds that I would seriously consider contain any of the Morale Tier 4 abilities. I don't get the impression that people will reach morale 4 very often in a situation where that ability would actually turn a battle. In addition, the 60 second cooldown on using any morale abilities is a pain, as some of the lower tier abilities are very useful.

The Sacrifice tree seems to be a bit of a dud choice. The abilities which are linked to that tree are not your most important damaging abilities, nor your most vital healing abilities. Also, the abilities you can get from going up the Sacrifice tree are pretty underwhelming in comparison to those in either the Dark Rites or the Torture trees. Their strongest point seems to be a focus on regaining Action Points for allies or removing them from enemies.

There seems to be 2 definitive abilities in each of the other 2 trees.

In the Dark Rites (essentially healing) tree, the two abilities I see as definitive are Khaine's Refreshment and the tactic Persistent Rending. In Torture the two abilities I think are vital are both tactics - Curse of Khaine and Bloodthirst. Sacrifice simply does not have any abilities that are as significant as any of those four abilities.

Initially I will be building up through the Torture tree. Disciples of Khaine can definitely solo extremely well, and a Torture build is probably the best way to power through PvE content. At some point I imagine I will have to begin to prioritise healing over damage done in RvR battles, but this will involve more than just a respec - I imagine it will involve a fairly dramatic reevaluation of the sorts of items I'm after.

Starting all over again

Well, let's have a look at the first day of this new character.

I've ploughed through fairly well - reached level 10 without playing too intensively due to pretty much knowing where to go, what to do, what loot to get, etc. This advantage will come to an end about the time I hit level 15, as that's as far as I got in the open beta. It's nice to catchup though.

At first I was finding it strange not to have abilities which I'd come to rely upon with my open beta character, but I think now that I have Rend Soul I'm feeling pretty much at home again. I haven't had any spectacular loot drop so far (not that I can use anyway), but what has dropped combined with the renown gear is very adequate for the moment. A few blue items wouldn't hurt though.

I do have two gripes about the experience so far which I would like to share.

The first is the lack of a Dark Elf tank class. I don't question Mythic's decision to not implement the DE tank class, but it does make things very difficult in the public quests (and to a much smaller extent, low level RvR). For example, it's almost impossible to heal through the first public quest you run into as a Dark Elf - the one with the dragon at the end. It's so low level that no Black Orc or Chosen will ever come near that area, but the dragon does so much damage that the only way to complete the quest is a graveyard zerg - and that's when you're lucky enough to have 15 or more people. With less than that it is almost uncompleteable. I know this issue becomes less significant as Destro tanks begin to fly into the area, but even then that's not a perfect solution - they are still pretty rare.

The second issue is probably just to do with it being head start on an open RvR server, but the cupboard seems to be fairly bare Order wise. I've seen a decent if unspectacular number of Destruction players, but I have only seen 2 Alliance players so far (for the record, I killed one, the other one scarpered). I've found that queues for RvR scenarios can stretch out for more than an hour. Obviously this situation will change to some degree with the official launch of the game tomorrow, but it is fairly irritating for the moment.

Missing the perfect blog title. Also, some gloves drop

Well, I just hit level 10 on Gerbil and immediately I knew that I missed the perfect title for this blog - I should have called it 'Stand, Coward' after the DoK resurrection spell. Ah well, I'm sure a better blog will snap up the title.

Also, the loot tables (or however these things work) mock me. I got a lovely drop today - a wonderful set of blue gloves with strength and some lovely resists... for a black orc. Damnit. They have been redistributed appropriately.

Who am I?

My name is Patrick. In games I usually go by the name Gerbil, for reasons lost in the mists of time. I've been playing computer games since the early 90s, and my MMO experience includes a lot of WoW and a bit of Guild Wars, LOTRO, Age of Conan and now Warhammer Online.

I played in a part of the beta about six months ago, and I was not very impressed. At that point you had to play level 31 template characters, and part of the reason I was not impressed was that the options were overwhelming and without context. I played it a bit, and quit disappointed.

About 2 months ago I began to hear very positive things around messageboards and gaming blogs that I frequent. People were overwhelmingly enthusiastic about the new beta push, and a lot of the aspects of the game they were enthusiastic sounded exciting. This coincided with a time when my interest in WoW was beginning to wane, so I began to check it out. Eventually I decided that the weight of positive opinions and descriptions of great improvements made it worth checking out, so I placed a preorder and got into the open beta.

Now the servers have launched for real, and I am playing on the Anlec Open RvR Oceanic server (as an Australian, and with bloodthirsty friends, this option made the most sense).

During the open beta i tried out a number of classes. Initially I thought that the magus would be my main class, as I have enjoyed playing a warlock in WoW and this sounded similar (I also enjoy casters when I have played Warhammer Fantasy tabletop in the past). Unfortunately I didn't enjoy my magus character, so I tried out a number of other character classes.

I was quite surprised to find that the Disciple of Khaine is probably the class I most enjoy. I find this surprising because while I definitely enjoy healing classes (resto druid main in WoW), I don't usually enjoy melee dps (I know DoK is not super dps, but it's still definitely part of the class mechanic). Still, i enjoyed the combination of DPS and healing, and i found the soul essence mechanic very fun, although i find myself dying in scenarios far too often from being undisciplined.

The Disciple of Khaine class will probably be the major focus of this blog, but I will also include other stuff. I intend to have at least a few alts. One will definitely be a Chaos Chosen, as I tried this class in beta and also enjoyed it immensely. The role of tank in WAR is going to be enormously fun i think - professional bastard.

I will try and to some analysis down the road about the DoK class. I've never been a hardcore theorycrafter in any game (I simply lack the aptitude for maths), but I've always wanted to make sure that any character I've played is as effective as possible. I will also try and collect and link to useful information resources as I come across them.