The Tyrant/City Test/ES Nerf

Three Topics I want to address in todays writing, thus this may be a long blog. So bare with me :-)

The Tyrant

Last night, after farming ToVL for the last 3 or 4 months, and trying to farm it since release my completely Epic ToVL group and I went on a regular run through the forrests of the Vulture Lord's palace. We got purged and no one showed up, Boss 6 bugged and we had to reset and Boss 7 did some weird ass shit that you always see. One thing was different however, the DPS Helm dropped and I won it.

YES!!

Full Tyrant, yes I have everything from TOVL Except for a Library page and while I would love to have that %5 crit weapon that comes from the fruits of that labour I honestly could not give a Rat's ass about going back in there on this toon. There are too many good players in DN that need some Tyrant so unless it is demanded of me, Kruelhand will not go into ToVL again and it is time to get my Sorc warded and start my Chosen through there regularily. I'm very pleased to have all 6 pieces. I'll be swapping out as I go along because I don't have enough Dark Promise to really get a strong DP/Tyrant combo going. Right now I'll stick with the DP boots and belt, the rest Tyrant with the 5 piece set of jewls.

City Testing

Tonight is the RVR-City test on the PTS which I will be attending unless I get bumped out for someone else (entirely possible). The best of Iron Rock's Black Listed Guild will be there and they work a lot with Art Supplies, so I honestly do not know what to expect, nor would I expect them to want to take a Marauder now that we've been nerf'd into a horrible position. Either way, I don't really care about loosing a RVR Test fight to a bunch of rr80's in full Sovereign/Tyrant combination. What I am interested in is the new mechanic and seeing how things are going to go. This is such a badly needed change for this game that I can see it really resurrecting it for a lot of people who have grown tired of it's hopeless end game. Mythic is lucky their PvP mechanics are so good or else this game really would have died a year ago.

ES Nerf

After testing the new AP Drain Tactic on the PTS yesterday I am unhappy to say that Marauders have been nerf'd down to where we were about 8 months ago. This is bad, and while Order rejoices in the thought of no more AP drain from Marauders I am utterly disappointed.

I played this Marauder starting in December 2008. Since then the Marauders were nerf'd every single patch one way or the other. The real kicker was the epic AOE Nerf which made Marauders basically a Joke of a class and you never saw them anywhere. Some minor DMG buffs later and a reworking/finishing of the mechanic saw Marauders stronger, competative with other weaker classes instead of easy kills. The AP Regen Bug was fixed and then suddenly Marauders were the bane of all of Order.

Now, as I've said on the forums I do believe ES was Over Powered and yes it needed to get a nerf. Did it need to be made utterly useless? No, you kill a valid play style with the way it works now and Marauders now have to find a way to move forward with lackluster DPS abilities, marginal survivability and all we have is the Single Target Pull and 3 decent debuffs (Cutting Claw, Draining Swipes and Thunderous Blows, all sec required).

In the end, I've gotten rid of ES in anticipation of having to relearn new builds of this class. Savagery to me is still the best option in any situation with or without an AP drain build. I'm trying a Parry build right now, it is so far proving effective. We shall see.

Anyway that's all for now, have a great day.

Renown Rank 80

Tonight, in IC I ranked RR80 when DN went into the city to defend. It came from flipping the PQ to the final stage, fitting I think since I didn't really want a solo kill thing I wanted something silly.

It took a long time to get to 80, and I'd like to explain why. Firstly, WAR is the first MMO I ever played to max level (in this case 40) and the only MMO I ever stuck with. I don't consider myself a gamer, I just like to do it. When I decided to stick with this game, it was a great choice for me. It's offered me many many hours of entertainment. Sometimes it was hard and frustrating. There was a very steep learning curve to PvP in this game, something I did not have any experience nor equipment for. I played on an outdated Laptop for the 7 months, unable to handle the outrageous Ruin Zergs of Dark Crag. In fact, upon entering any PvP situation I ussually had to die 2 or 3 times before I could catch up and start seeing the enemy on my screen. Thusly when I hit 40 Kruelhand was a mighty RR29.

It took a long time to get renown, the guild I was in was a Casual guild, a great group of people but not people with ambition to go out in the lakes or go and do Premades. Renown was hard to come by, especially for a lowbee Marauder which was at the time the worst class available (maybe Magus was worse, but they still had rift when it was good).

Eventually i started to educate myself on specs, mechanics, rotations and basically L2P. I don't consider myself to be an outstanding player or a great player but at least a good player playing a very well geared toon with other great players. DN(the guild I am in) is full of great players and they make me better. The proof was how bad I was in Lost Souls and SoC (although I was improving a lot during that guild tenure). in Lost Souls and SoC I was a guild Officer and I appreciate that rank. I got to learn about leadership in the game but realized I was better off being a front line soldier and am more then happy to be a strong part of the DN family.

I do not intend to shelve this toon even with the upcoming nerf. Kruelhand will be my main forever. Right now I'm working on RR for my Chosen and for my Sorc while the 2 week bonus is going on. Then I will level up another Order toon to 40. All the while I will be running premades and warbands with DN, finishing my Tyrant and starting on my sovereign gear. Ganking squishies and taking care of business.

I want to give special thanks to these people for all the great times which I guess is in no particular order

Xina, Eilo, Greenriver, Gorthak, Kitsuko, Devve, Laonsela, All my ToVL teammates(Snot, Dahhaka, Taotao, Alcii, Musana), Beefsteak, Usurps, Spyy, Indasoth, Shintoa, Guttersnipes, Stradegist, Medikage, Lyram, Carso, Sparkkee, Arwing, Carri, Maebus, Gargis, Renae/Finleaf, Fryday and the rest of Feared. All of Artsupplies for being the best enemy to fight against. All of DN

The Renown Train is Off the Tracks

100% Renown bonus

The other night, after ToVL I hit 79. I was happy, but not looking forward to what I anticipated to be about 3 weeks worth of grinding scenario after scenario. However, after the fiasco of the billing issues, Mythic decided to give everyone %100 EXP/RR for 2 weeks (which after that time I assume 1.3.5 will be live).

I'm on the fence right now as to what this means. For example, in grinding SCs mostly a few zone flips I caught, nothing out of the norm I wracked up %31 of RR79 in 1 day of gaming. I'm on pace to be 80 by the end of the weekend (pending on distractions and PvE). This is great since I've been wanting to finish this for a little bit now and move onto leveling up some alts and getting my RR on my Chosen and Sorc improved. But you're going to see a lot of ppl at 80 after 2 weeks, people who right now might not even be 70.

The next thing, is most people anticipate that Sovereign gear will be very easy to achieve once the new City mechanic is live. I being one of those people am worried that full Sovereign is not going to be the rarity on Badlands that it is now (only 2 ppl I know of are rocking it, 1 got it through cheating 1 got it through being good) and Mythic will be stuck with people with the best gear the highest level and nothing to work towards other then just the PvP aspect of the game to keep them subscribed.

Basically, a lot of people are going to 'beat this game' in the next two months.

So what are you going to do Mythic?

PS

Thank you Kollar, my long standing Slayer Rival (although I doubt he considers me a rival) for the kill that gave me 79. I'm glad it was a DC Vet and not some badlands scrub.

Quote of the Night

Indasoth: Kruelhand... I would Fucking hate playing against you.

made my night.

How to Have a Chance puging in SCs

Step 1

Always kill Healers first, get the squishie ones then get the Warrior Priest. After that you kill the BW's. Ideally you kill the BWs at the same time, it'll be easy if you keep the healers busy on themselves.

How many SC's have you joined in only to watch the Choppas and Chosens beating on the Iron Breaker with a shield? If you answer at all anything above 1 you're playing with people who aren't paying attention.

Step 2

Don't solo group. Healers, even if you're not spec for group healing, group heals still heal. Toss them out there. Your buffs, your procs etc etc make a huge difference. Yes, we all want more renown. But you aren't going to get shit all for RR if you loose 500 to 10

Step 3

Tanks, Guard your DPS. Yes, everyone loves a guard, healers like to get them and they feel more secure. But a healer can take care of himself. The DPS need the help, especially crashing into all the other dmg. Guard your DPS, do it now.

Step 4

When the fight begins, don't split up. This is what kills PUGS before they even have a chance. In Nordenwatch 3 guys run off to the LH thinking they're supermen while all of the other team moves as 12. If you move as a Zerg you will improve your chances of wining as a Pug by about 50% right then and there, even before you guard your DPS, Attack Healers and group up in 2 6 man units, just moving together is enough as it is. If when you wipe your enemy you want to split up and capture points decide after you've seen their strength.

Step 5

Always fight on your own terms. Don't let the opponent dictate how the fight goes. If they are heavy on Melee then kite if they are loaded with Sorcs/BW's then get into situations where they are getting zerg'd by melee.

Step 6

Know your classes. It doesn't take a genius to know that if a Chosen is running in ahead he's probably going to Quake so don't spam your AoE button like a lunatic hoping to see numbers flying across your screen. If you're being spawn camped dont' CC the shit out of the Melee trying to kill you, let the Magus or Marauder use Rift/Pull to get guard agro, let the BG punt into the spawn etc etc.

Step 7

Don't Overextend.

Brutality

I respec'd Brutality with this set up...

With the gear set up I was running when I respec'd without Ferocious Assault I was sitting at 281dmg bonus. This gave me some nice base numbers to work with on Impale and Guilotine. Wave of Terror hits nice and is a good way to keep the Absorb Morales a little bit undercheck especially with it's short cooldown. Once I start taking dmg shit gets crazy.

I was in SP when a Witch Hunter saw me at around 35% and thought... easy kill. Oh no you didn't! I hit him with Pulverize and that with a Covenent Proc, Frozen Fury and my Auto Attack I hit him for just shy of 4k in 1 swing. He agile escaped away faster then i've ever seen anyone try to escape. Terrible Embrace, knockdown and Guillotine and he was very dead. Seeing the big numbers is satisfying right now. In Savagery I see a lot of smaller numbers always flying across the screen. No more dot dmg for me right now, it's all about the big numbers.

Now that I have my Tyrant belt (which is utter shit) I have %25 attack speed increase which I'm looking forward to working with in this build, obviously because the Brutality AA proc going %25 faster should equal a significant DPS upgrade.

In Vulture Lord I was at 320 DMG bonus against Boss 8 which was sick. I was hitting him routinely over 2k with impale!

Auto Focus? Are you Serious?

Just finished a SC against a premade, possibly a x2 premade with like 3 BW's all using Auto Focus.

This Mod is hacking, I don't care what people who use it say to justify this bullshit but if you can click something and everyone's abilities fire off at the same time it's bullshit. no amount of healing, challenging, guarding or detaunting can do anything when 3 Fireballs hit you at the same time + all the dots and procs that come with that. You die, and you don't have a chance.

People who play BWers and need auto focus, I'm sorry but you are HORRIBLE and I laugh at you for doing such things. Where is the challenge in that, the sport in it? Just hit your "kill everyone button" and get your renown and crests.

So I hit my "I Win Button" and pull everyone stupid enough to get close to my guards into them and laugh while I do it. The Problem in that is, BW's slot their "cannot defend fireball" and get to fuck you up every 3s. I have to wait 30s and hope that they don't disrupt or block it and that who knows if the Guards will even agro.

So people on either side who Auto Focus... you fail at this game. Try me 1v1 in a Duel and if you beat me then then no problem. I'd say that you wouldn't stand a chance.

1 Hour, 58 Minutes

Full TOVL Clear 1 shotting all bosses except for 7 (which would have been 1 shot if the 1st add didn't parry Quake) including a Smoke break for Snotslinga the monster MT.

I had fun in ToVL, we were on point. I now have 4 pieces.

Dolla dolla bill y'all

Well, everyone knows about the Billing errors that Mythic has made this past weekend. Lucky for me I have been spared, which could have been ugly since my last sub payment was a 6 month one which was like 77 bucks or something like that. Multiple billings of that nature would have hurt my credit card but not killed me. However, my concern is for the young people and the people who work week to week to make their ends meet and getting drilled for sometimes over 1k in charges from Mythic. Those people are hurting and I feel badly about the whole thing.

As a protest I have cancelled my account and in August when I am no longer paid up I will leave Warhammer Online unless something major happens to this game. Right now everyone is quietly waiting for .3.5 to come out hoping it is a savior patch much like 1.3 was supposed to be (and was in a way). However after the total clusterfuck of 1.3.4 and the RvR token system, AFK, rollbacks and all that trash I wonder really what hope there is left in this game.

At this point i'm sitting %25 of the way through rr78 not really playing my Marauder that much and instead screwing around on Alts on the Order side trying to find that class that I want to play after I ding 80. I'll be rerolling to Order when this all goes down and probably buying a 2nd account so that I can stay on Baddielands. The other servers have no interest to me atm which sucks cuz my WHer is fun. I really am liking the SW and IB right now and think I'll stick to Iron Breaker when the time comes. But I want to be a DSP Iron Breaker, oh yeah that shit will be legit.

Hopefully this week I can get another pro tovl group like we has last week. Snotslinga is the best Tank in this game that I know of in RvR and PvE and I love running in his ToVL group. Not only that but his rl Significant Other Musana is probably the best zealot on Badlands, no offense to other great zealots but she is unbelievable (solo heal all of Tovl is a feat to behold).

So I patiently await patch notes for .3.5 with my Marauder nerf incoming but a whole new end game system which I hope is going to kick ass. I'm confident it will be functional as long as Mythic doesn't "jump the shark" after this epic fail on the weekend.

Oh PS

This last weekend Talebec Dam? Are you serious? That is like the worst SC in T3 and I played it once all weekend on my Marauder, I just didn't que for it. It's trash. Mythic please pick good Scenarios to feature on the weekends Kthanks

Ding RR78

Thanks to the faceless no name Arch Mage that tried to kite me for the solo kill that dinged me rr78.

I appreciate your Fail kiting skills

AP Drain Nerf

Well I didn't think it would happen so fast but apparently Mythic has decided to nerf the Exhaustive Strikes tactic thus nerfing Marauders again.

Great job Mythic.

Now, I understand the AP drain is OP. But it's not OP when you think about the long run big picture. The Marauder is a weak class, people who spec Savagry such as myself sacrifice a lot of DPS for the drain. The Drain is best effective by rr60+ Marauders who are wearing high Crit gear, thus low defensive stats, low DPS and then they have to be on their target going for the kill which eventually is eaten up by Choppa spam.

Going to a 40AP/3Sec is a massive nerf. I think that it would have been better to put an internal GCD on it + bump it down to 30 AP/Crit and it would have been more fair.

So Sadly I think tonight I'll be respecing out of AP Drain and bumping my my DMG bonus again and get some practice in. I still think I'll be AP Drain spec, right now I'm in 'asshole' AP drain mode (48% crit, Force of Will M2 + Kamenra) and could be 'uberasshole' (if I slotted Feeding on Fear and used my Bloofist Axe)

I think that Sav has the best long term DPS of the 3 trees with the dots etc. Brutality has the best Burst Damage, but really it's so situational (Impale = Flank only) that I would just hate it right now.

Think I'll be respecing my renown out of Crit and into Parry too. We'll see.

Prolord Weapons, The Gate and some... ownage?

All and all a fun weekend just about to end. Pheonix Gate was my favorite low level SC with MT a close second. I love me some Nordenwatch but we get that all the time now, so when PG became open I was very pleased. Especially with Mounts! Now, wasn't happy about two things.

1. PG doesn't talley points on Kills, only flag Captures means that it is a long SC. For crests this is bad, for RR and a good fight it is awesome.
2. The Siege weapons were rank 15. Making them totally useless in T4 but utterly OP in T1. I started a Shadow Warrior this weekend (holy fun class) and did some lowbee shit when IC was under siege and the Weapons just tore us up.

Onward.

I got my Warlord Weapon last night, the 65 DPS is noticeable to the point where with 238 dmg bonus I am seeing similar dmg to when I was rolling with 271. Not to mention that I'm rolling with around 46% crit chance I see a lot of numbers all over my screen. Lately I've been running two tactic sets...

Deadly Clutch
Exhaustive Strikes
Brute Force
Scything Talons

This is when I count more then 3 healers, and adjust if I note DPS healers, OR pending on the group make ups (if there are a few Squigs for example) I won't need the extra juice on my heal debuff and so I'll swap out Deadly Clutch for Jagged Edge.

Jagged Edge now being fixed ticks pretty good for me, plus it's almost always up same with Savagery DoT. Since a Sav Marauder cannot Burst for DPS I figured soak up the DoT dmg. I don't have Rend on my hotbar anymore, I used to. Anyway, two constant DoTs up on a target with all the other debuffs I am finding that I can burn down targets right now better then I have been.

There was a SC the other night were I had 7 solo kills which I can't believe I didn't screen shot because those kills were mostly on Iron Breakers and Witch Hunters?!?! Yeah I was wrecking face a little bit which is not the norm.