The Grumblings of Gorebash

So, the 1.2 update has been out for a while, and I wanted to get into the game core before I posted my thoughts on it. 

Outside of my fanboy nerdness for Warhammer and WFB game in general, the thing that impresses me most about Mythic and the game is that there is always improvement.  It never feels like the game is worse after an update.

Anyway, improvements to the Black Orc Class:

1. Da Biggest.  You used to have to use a tactic to get the bonus to add to party members.  Now its part of the passive buff itself.  Thats a huge difference.  Almost all the tactics for Black Orcs have one use or another, but since you are limited to 4 tactics at one time I almost never used it because other tactics took priority.  Now when I am MT or OT and I do an AoE attack against large number of weak enemies, I can really buff the snot out of party members. 

2. Trophies fixed.  A lot of the gear had problems with trophies.  They would show on the armor piece, but in the character screeen they had an ‘X’ on them and you couldnt move them around.  Plus the trophy would pixile in and out.  These issues are now taken care of.

3. Armor Painting.  This was always one of the thinks that worked the least and I wanted to work the most.  The whole concept of guilds and clans being able to have a unified look despite whatever armor was worn was one of the thinks I thought was the best idea.  But for the longest time a good number of armor pieces didn’t allow to be dyed or only part of the armor could be dyed.

<enter cheesy Mortal Kombat Music>

Or not.  I finally got a sample of what the game has braggin on for years and I had been hoping for since launch.  I log in sunday night and get a call for Keep defense in TM.  So quick as wyvern I zip to the castle and see that 1 castle is under attack, and order is on the 2nd door.  Great, another roll.  But wait……but wait. 

I manage to sneak in the postern and we are all waiting on the 2nd floor for the battle to start.  I quickly grab the new “kill 20 enemy” quest from the keep lord, not expecting to finish it but what the hell.  What I got was the biggest shock and most fun I have had in game since the start.  Wave after wave after wave of order tried to push through the line.

Heals were up and they were good, rezzes were plenty, and I managed to turn the quest in 5 times.  Eventually the rez sickness began to hamper the order and thats when we made our push.  We kicked them out and waited for the RR/Inf tick to move out.  And boy did it ever tick. 815 was the final number.  I am not quite sure what formula they use to determain defense inf, but we must have earned it.  Another couple of 100 ticks for the doors to close and we moved out.  We crushed the rest of the zone, flipped it, and then crushed the next zone.

Outside of the zone flippign (which is irrelevant since I never seem to be on when a keep assault is going), I finally got what was promised.  I got massive RvR battle.  I got that hour long attack against player that pitted strategy vs numbers.   Thats whats been missing from the game.  Thats what I have been craving.  And I hope I see it again soon.

Some game days are good, some are really bad, and some just rock.  Tuesday was one of those days that totally rocked. 

It started out with a massive RvR push.  I logged in around noon and Order had all 3 zones pushed ready for fortress attacking.  I zone into Black Craig and its close to a zone flip, but the warband had spent the last hour trying to flip the zone with no luck so we moved on Caledore and claimed all the BO’s and both keeps.  After we finished that someone said that Order had taken a BO back in BC and was going for the keep. 

A quick sprint and a massive Defense and the WB had booted order out of the keep.  After the doors closed we went and retook the BO which was enough to trigger a Zone lock.  Its been a while since I had been involved in one of those.  We then pushed on to Thunder Mountain.  Some more order stomping and another zone flipped.  I got up halfway past lvl 41 RR.  Unfortunately the warband broke after the 2nd flip so I logged and got some lunch. 

Got back in before I had to go to work for the Bloodlord Enclave run.  A quick game of rock paper pwnage with Barakus and my lovely helm drops.

The stat change from the Annihilator is: +27 armor, +5 Str, +3 Tou, -16 WS, +12 Wounds.  But the big difference is the combat bonus.  I lose the +2 on the disrupt, but I gain +3 reduction on critical hits.  As a tank thats huge.  Attacking there are only so many strikes you can do, but trying to tank multiple enemies not getting hit with a crit saves the healers effortand makes things better.  Plus I already had the boots, so that got me the 2nd set bonus.

So we were about to leave when the guild leader asked if anyone didn’t have the belt yet.  I didn’t and sure enough my belt dropped.  

This was a tougher upgrade from the Wraith’s Gutstrap I got from Elfland RvR Influence reward, but not that tough.  The Stat difference is: +24 Str, -1 Will, +18 Tou, -8 Wounds, -14 Init, -28 SR, -20 ER, -23 CR, -12 bonus melee dam.  On the surface thats a lot to give up, but the belt also gave me the 3rd set piece bonus.  So add in another +66 Str.

So I just ticked RR 40 this week.  Always a big step.  It marks the end of the 1st half of the game like I mentioned in an eariler blog.  Now I am grinding out the 2nd half of the RR levels, I took a look ahead at the next gear piece and I must say I am underwealmed.  Here is what I am talking about.

The basic breakdown is:

Strength: -29, Wounds -16, Toughness: +4,  Weapon SKill +18, Armor +35, Parry +2%

Thats a joke.  Granted the extra parry is nice to have and the greater ward is necessary on some level, but outside of that this gear is worthless.  Plus it costs 10g to boot.  The armor bonus is irrelevant.  The one thing I cant figure out is why the “next step” better gear is so much more worse than the one.  As a tank losing Str and Wou for a piddly amount of Tou and a miniscule parry bonus is rediculous.

Hopefully this will change.  Right before I hit Tier 4 and started on my Annihilator set, the stats and set bonuses were better in the Devastator set but Mythic changed them.  Sooner or later the Conqueror set will be better.  But for now I am working on the Sentenal pieces

I had my first real WTF moment in the game today.  I had just flown into Dragon Wake and was making my way down the hill when I saw a lone swordmaster standing there just waiting to have a face to face with my choppa.  Well, one long protraced battle later I was looking at my respawn timer and I had to wonder what the hell happened.  I mean I have had 1 sided battles before, but that was usually against an Ironbreaker or kotBS (btw, I will forever write the name of the class with the only emphasis on BS because the entire class is broken BullS**T).  Was there some patch I missed where Swordmasters became sick and broken in order for them to fall in line with the rest of the Order classes.

So instead of paying the healer I took a few min and went back through my combat log.  What I saw nearly made me jump out of my skin.  Throughout the fight the SM had either: Parried, blocked, dodged, or absorbed for less than 10 damage( I am assuming through a pot)……….85 of my attacks.  I am dead serious.  Skull Thumper….blocked.  Right in the Jibblies….blocked.  T’ree hit combo……blocked blocked and parried.  Ok, now seriously, WTF was that about.  I did the math and as near as I can figure I had a less than 40% chance of actually hitting the SM for any real damage.  Now granted I don’t know the order character builds very well, but I have fought SM on a few occasions and have never faired as bad as that.  I checked his char on the realm war site, but nothing stood out.  Maybe it was just a bad numbers day for me.  I have them now and then.

Now on the truely broken side.  There is a great vid on Youtube.  It shows just how broken, wrong, and beyond broken the Fetch ability is. 

I am posting the link because for some reason the embed never works when I try it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ooM9gSl-mXY