Congrats to Hogg over at Da Best Plan who, according to his latest post, is getting married! Now that’s a Tome Unlock!
Save Da Runts wishes Hogg a great honeymoon and good luck with trying to get back into both WAR and blogging afterwards, har.
Dismayed by the speed at which Marauders kill single mobs? Bored with “kill ten mobs” quests? Solo-ing PQs taking forever? Well, it’s because you’re doing it wrong. Below, the proper way to quest for any self-respecting Black Orc.
Step 1: Get your weapons and tactics sorted out. I preffer to do it using sword&board and the tanking tactics but if using a two-hander and dps tactics works for you, I can’t argue.
Step 2: Put Raze in your level 2 morale slot.
Step 3: Get Da Toughest up.
Step 4: Round up anywhere between 6 and 12 mobs. The more the merrier. Maneuver around a bit so that you’re facing all of them.
Step 5: Hack away. Get Tougher ‘n Nails, Savin Me Hide and whatever else you use up. Then make sure to use Big Slash every time it’s off cooldown.
Step 6: Use Raze once you get enough morale points. Remember the positioning (step 4).
Step 7: Rinse and repeat, while thanking the devs for not including repair costs. Play something with a tempo of at least 180 bpm while doing it.
There you have it - really, there’s no reason for you to fight just one target at a time, considering your obscene damage mitigation and self-healing capabilities. Not to mention all the people that’ll get envious (Hot damn, I’ve seen this Black Orc fighting 15 mobs without a healer. Wow, just wow!)
Later Update: If you’re specced Da Boss and have WAAAAAAGH, that’s even better. Also curious about how Can’t Hit Me from Da Toughest would work. Will test it at some point and post the results.
As I’m taking a small break from the Black Orc to allow mates to catch up to me, I figured I might as well check out some Order classes in the meanwhile, starting with the Shadow Warrior. This was actually the first class I tried during the beta and I wanted to see how the second impression turns out. So there I am, on one of the Karak-Something servers, doing my best impersonation of Legolas (if Legolas had been played by Christopher Walken, judging by the face I gave my poor elf).
The Shadow Warrior seems like a really cool class. It has range, it has damage, and he actually does somewhat better than most ranged dpsers while in melee. That being said though, I gotta ask:
Tags: RvR, Shadow Warrior
And welcome to a post about something completely other than Black Orcs and say hello to the ramblings of a lunatic, that’s right!
Bit of unrelated background info here, the best of my gaming days are behind me here, I can no longer find the time or the willingness to commit to any game, especially one that requires social interaction for more than a couple of hours at a time. Yet, like my good friend Alex once put it:”Shit, you are full of it!”.
And I quite agree with that notion, allow me illustrate with work other than my own:
Me and Gaming (Penny Arcade)
After having my arm twisted by the Man himself (that and my awfully slow torrent speed), I said to hell with it, I need yet another thing to keep me distracted from getting anywhere in life so I went ahead and got this little jewel to see what all the commotion was about.
First impression: Nice packaging, awfully painful registration process :/
*note to self: I hate Royal Mail for creasing my box*
A few password resets later in order to get the registration server to recognise me, i was set, fired up and good to go. Except that at first I didn’t pay attention to which server I selected and ended up in a German server. Deutsch? Nein danke!
Tags: Chosen, El G, first impressions, Introduction, Marauder, pwning, random thoughts
Like Professor Hubert J. Farnsworth would put it, good news everyone!
You see, over the past few weeks, I have been slowly corrupting my friend (henceforth misteriously known as G) to 1. buy Warhammer Online and 2. Come do a bit of blogging in his spare time (which he has plenty of).
Mind you, I do not do this because I like him. Nor am I especially fond of his writing and I certainly hold no hope he will provide any deep insights into whatever it is he’s going to write about (the Marauder, he tells me). Your experience may differ though so if he does actually manage to post something that won’t break the built-in spell checker, you will find out for yourselves.
A bit of background - the two of us have been gaming together for years now, starting from Utopia and then going from Medieval Total War to Diablo to Starcraft to Kdice to Warcraft to World of Warcraft, after which he decided to start on his own path and dedicate his free time to Hello Kitty Online Adventures. Now however we are reunited, at least for the next two-three weeks until he gets bored with it all.
So let’s hear it for El G, the newbie Marauder with a randomly generated name who will absolutely kick your arse (I’m not even kidding).
Apparently Snafzg ran into a bit of a SNAFU (har har) with his blog, thegreenskin.com, in the sense that alot of Asian readers have trouble accessing his blog. So if you can’t get to The Greenskin website or know anyone who can’t, please use/pass these instructions below.
- Find out your IP address (http://whatismyip.com)
- Perform a tracert on the domain from your command prompt (”tracert thegreenskin.com”) and you’ll eventually notice it only outputs * symbols from a certain point onward
- Write down the country you can’t access the site from
Once you have all this information, please send it in an email to snafzg@gmail.com and I will share it with my Web host. This information isn’t overly sensitive, but I assure you that I will share it with no other person(s).
And if you’re not a very technical person, below are some detailed instructions for step #2 on Windows machines:
Hello there, healers! Creepy goth Zealots, butt-ugly Shamans or even haughty Disciples of Khaine. How ya doin’? On behalf of all tanks, I’d like to tell you that you are indeed appreciated for your efforts. But you know how it is - a good healer is invisible. Only when the fecal matter hits the oscillating unit and people start looking for scapegoats, then you too shall be noticed. And blamed.
But really, everyone loves a good healer. So if you’re thinking of maybe rolling one, this piece is for you. It contains a few tips that will make your relationship with the tank (me) much smoother and hopefully, also much longer. ‘Ere we go!
#1 If I’m hanging back and guarding you, that’s your cue to stand in my general area (ie: 30 feet or so). That way, all damage you take will be split between you and me.
#2 However that doesn’t mean you have to grow roots in one place. If you see me getting between you and a Witch Hunter with a mind to kill you, don’t just stand there. Move a little! I’m blocking and snaring him so he won’t be able to chase you easily but if you just sit there, he can still hit you! Besides, I’ll feel pretty stupid for just sitting between you two and watching him reach you through me. (Especially since I might not have any knockbacks yet). So don’t just sit there trying to finish that 3 seconds cast. Take some distance!
#3 Don’t be afraid to DPS. If the fight is going rather well and there are plenty of healers, don’t be shy, go for it. I know alot of people will tell you that your one and only role is to healbot it up but don’t listen to them. You’ve got DoTs and instant spells so if no one is dying without your immediate help, feel free to be opportunistic and finish off some enemies.
#4 If you have a detaunt then, for chrissake, use it!
#5 Understand how damage builds up and be on the ball. You see, with the way alot of class mechanics work, what will happen is that the damage I take in the first 10 seconds of the fight will usually double in the next 10. Sure, I’m a walking panzer, I can take a good amount of punishment, but do watch for bursts.
Thulf the Stunty Stomper has a post on his blog linking on a few WAR webcomics. There are others out there of course, most of which you’ll probably dig if you like WAR. However, as far as goblin comics go, you can’t beat Thunt’s Goblins webcomic. In a nutshell, it’s about a group of goblins who decide to become more than a source of easy XP for adventurers and take fate into their own hands. Much like The Order of the Stick, it’s based on D&D but makes for a funny read even if you’re not familiar with the game.
So go read: Goblins - life through their eyes
Years ago, I was playing a pvp-focused IRE mud. I used to be completely crazy about it - the game was more fun than any text-based combat game had a right to be and the roleplaying community was just plain awesome.
Then I discovered the forums. Within a few hours, I found out that my class was both severely gimped and obscenely overpowered (depending on who you asked). Furthermore, the people in my faction were all idiots, awful at PvP and our city’s politics were simply nonsensical. Needless to say, all this was new and shocking to me.
Don’t listen to the rants on the WHA forums. Seriously - don’t even go there. The career doesn’t need a complete rehaul, it doesn’t need to be “brough up to par” with Ironbreakers/Chosen/Chuck Norris. The other tank careers don’t “do everything better than BO ever could”. Ignore the petitions, the whines, the grand plans on how the Black Orcs can be “redeemed”. There is nothing severely wrong with them. Of course, some tweaks are always welcome but to claim that we’re simply substandard after about 2 weeks of playing and 3 days of being in Tier 4? Rubbish. Absolute rubbish, coming from spoiled players who’d rather point fingers and blame everyone else for their ineptitude than find a proper approach for their class . I’m sorry if I come off a little harsh (lack of sleep does that to me) but until I see large samples of cold, hard data to backup these statements, I’ll pay them no mind and continue to enjoy my Orc as much as I did until now. And I suggest you do the same. Don’t let forum whining ruin the Black Orc for you.
Besides - you’re green, you’re huge, you have fangs, a big axe and you ride a warboar. Is that not enough awesomeness for you?!
Tags: Black Orc, random thoughts
I love WAR. The PvP is great and, when in a group, the PvE part is actually quite tolerable. That being said though, there’s a thought that’s been lurking in the back of my mind for a few days now, poking at me to give it a proper shape and let it roam free.
There’s not a single NPC I could name off the top of my head. None. And here I’ll have to bring WoW up again, like it or not. Concept and focus aside, WoW had one particular twist that WAR doesn’t (from my experience at least). Memorable non-player characters. Which happens to be one of the things I’m always looking for in an RPG, online or otherwise.
Tags: random thoughts