The comparisons between Warhammer Online and World of Warcraft run rampant throughout the Internet. One of the biggest differences when it comes to RvR, is the role that the Tank classes play in group combat. While WoW tanks were completely useless and would just re-spec to a DPS talent-build to compete, the Tank archetype in WAR requires the player to provide a whole new element in RvR. Within the archetype, there are a number of different classes, all with the different skills and playstyle mechanics (i.e. Ironbreaker’s Grude vs. the Chosen’s Auras), but for now we’ll be focusing on the tank class archetype as a whole, and why it’s potentially the important class on the battlefield.

Naturally when it comes to tanking, survivability should be a core concern, I can tell you that it probably won’t be a problem in WAR, because from what I’ve seen so far, tanks are very hard to take down even without healing support. Once you get a dedicated healer to back you up, it’s quite possible that you will not go down, at all. Tanks naturally have much higher wounds (health) than any other class in the game and their armor seems to grant higher armor/resistance bonuses. This also dispels the ‘Rock/Paper/Scissors’ theory in RvR, seeing as I had just as much trouble bringing down Ironbreakers and Swordmasters on my Sorceress (supposedly the counter to tanks) as the Witch Elves beside me.

 This brings me to the point of tanking gear. There seems to be an abundance of defensive stats in Warhammer Online, and their functionality seems more thought-out then that of WoW. First off, armor works the same, as it grants you a % reduction in damage taken from melee attacks. The difference is in the way magic resistances work; they also grant you a set % damage reduction from a certain school of magic, instead of an arbitrary chance to resist the spell (resists do happen as well, are called ‘disrupts,’ and are governed by a different stat altogether). On top of that, you can raise your overall health through the Wounds stat, Toughness will reduce the overall damage you take on top of your armor/resistances, and Initiative decreases the chance you will be critically hit by enemies. I have a feeling that the defensive potential of the tank classes is amazing, and once they get a good set of gear at max rank, it will be very hard to do anything against them if they’re backed by a solid healer.

Control the Battle

Aggro. Threat. Hate. No matter what you call it, tanks need it to be useful in a fight. While in PvE encounters you’ll be able to force a monster to attack you just by using certain abilities and skills, players in RvR will have a mind of their own. This is not to say that there’s no way of convincing other players to attack you, instead of your squishier teammates. The first thing tanks get is a Taunt ability. (more…)

Discuss this entry in our forum

RvR, Warhammer Classes | No Comments »

I exclusively played a DoK up to Rank 15. Renown Rank 10 during Preview Weekend and this is the class I will be playing at release. The DoK is a very strong melee/support class, and in that order.

Damaging enemy players is a very important thing; a DoK standing in the backline is not the proper way to play this class and will not benefit your team.

The DoK play style is centered around a mechanic that we all know as life leech. This mechanic is best known from the game Diablo2. In WAR the DoK can store up to 250 ‘soul essence’ at a time and use it to restore health through the use of 2 main abilities. A minor heal with a HoT (Restore Essence), or a strong HoT (Soul Infusion). In my experience it is best to pre-HoT allies you know are going to be taking damage prior to engagement with the enemy, a full soul essence bar is not going to help as the majority of your melee attacks leech soul essence and so there should always exist a buffer for the overflow.

The third heal and the one you will be using most of the time is Rend Soul. I cannot tell you how excited I am about this ability. Its primary effect is to deal 4 hits over 4 seconds, but each successful hit heals your defensive target for 250%!! In the RR6 Tier 2 RvR gear I was healing for an average of 150-200 per hit! Now finally an ability that increases my healing power as the amount of damage I deal increases.

When you run out of soul essence, you can restore it by attacking a nearby enemy with abilities that restore soul essence, or by converting action points to soul essence. Out of combat soul essence regeneration is fairly quick.

The DoK also gets a snare mechanic, but it is not as simple as spamming hamstring. Applying the snare requires your enemy to be already debuffed with a cripple ability, which is a DoT called Lacerate., which is another mechanic that requires a player to be at the top of their game and prioritize their use of abilities.

At later levels the DoK play style follows these same core ideas. The amount of healing you can provide to your allies is proportional to the amount of damage you deal, and limited to the amount of soul essence you have.

DoK Secondary Abilities
A DoK is also classified as a support archetype. A Covenant is the same as an aura, and the DoK gets several very beneficial Covenants. The first of which is a group armor boost. AC makes a big difference in this game as it lowers incoming damage from all physical sources.

My Morale ability gave me a powerful single target heal at level 1 morale and a decent aoe group heal at level 2.

A DoK can also Rez and gets a group heal morale ability at rank 40 (awesome)

My PoV
This class is so ME. I have also been a melee dps type of guy (CS 1.6 roots) with a knack for staying alive/getting out of hairy situations. There is an incredible amount of adrenaline felt from the initial rush alongside your melee dps/tank allies, while also realizing you have the power to sway the course of the battle with your healing and morale abilities.

The downside is, you won’t likely get heals from a true healer as they will be occupied with the classes that cannot heal themselves. You have only yourself to rely on, but with great group synergy. A properly specced and geared DoK, which does not in fact mean you need to spec for healing or stack healing bonuses on your gear like a madman, but as such you have the toughness and survivability to take place in the initial charge and stand alongside the tanks and physical dps. A tank is very easy to keep up, and this is the strongest pairing for a DoK.

Another role the DoK can play is that of a rover (if you ever played softball). A rover stands between the frontlines and the ranged catching anything that tries to break through the ranks. This give you access to both the ranged and melee, while keeping you out of the line of fire (believe me anything that heals is going to get focused on) allowing you the time to build up soul essence and dish out heals.

All in all, a powerful and needed class.

Glimpse these vids for a demonstration of the action a DoK can expect.

Discuss this entry in our forum

Warhammer Classes | No Comments »

I promised myself that I would stick with a ranged DPS class as my main this time around. I tend to gravitate to the melee classes, mainly rogue archetypes, and it usually ends up with me getting pissed at the game. I figured I’d try something different, and since I had recently played a Priest in WoW arena for a couple of seasons, I wanted something fresh.

The first class I really stuck with in the Warhammer Online preview weekend was the Dark Elf Sorceress; Destruction’s glass canon class. I was little worried at first, I’ve had my eye on the sorceress for a while now, and the general lack of Crowd Control abilities in Warhammer gave me the impression that classes with low survivability would be at a huge disadvantage.

Masteries

The mastery lines of the Sorceress are split up into different types of damage focus; Agony (single-target, direct damage), Calamity (Damage over Time), and Destruction (Area of Effect).  Using each damage type as your main source of DPS changed the playstyle and capability of the class in a variety of situations.

Destruction - Personally, I’ve always been a fan of direct damage, whether it be nukes or DoTs, and never really found a purpose in other games I’ve played for AoE; I’d rather kill one enemy than injure a few.  Imagine my surprise when AoEing actually had a place in the game: Keep Sieges. There’s plenty of chokepoints and high ledges that you can stand on to make great use of your AoE abilities. Another use I found for AoEs was to put pressure on healers in scenarios and smaller scale RvR; if I couldn’t burn through someone’s healing on my target, I’d hit their group with an AoE and force their healer to panic and try to keep up everyone, at which point I would refocus on my previous target, sans heals.  

Agony -  The big nukes. I was naturally drawn to this mastery line. There’s a number of valuable single target nukes available as base skills. I’m not going to analyze each nuke one by one and tell you the best and worst, because each one is useful in a different situation. The core nuke is called Doombolt, and it carries a 3 second cast time on it, it does a lot of damage, but you really have to be confident you have a spare 3 seconds to finish the cast.  Every other spell the Sorceress gets is seemingly made to compliment that Doombolt. Despite all the spells I learned, all with different cast times, damage, and effects, I still managed to keep Doombolt in all my spell rotations. It can be hard to fit an extra 3 seconds into a nuke-string sometimes, but it’s definitely worth it.

One nuke I feel worth singling out is Cataclysmic Darkness. It’s a 2 second single target direct damage nuke that has the added effect of snaring your target by 40% if they are afflicted by a curse. As soon as I got this, I changed my spell rotation to start with Chillwind (curse requirement) and followed it up with a Cataclysmic Darkness. Even if my target had pin-pointed my position, they were now snared for 5 seconds, allowing me to launch a Doombolt, and follow up with a quick Gloomburst before they could reach me. I imagine this will change even more as I rank up. (more…)

Discuss this entry in our forum

RvR, Warhammer Classes | 1 Comment »

So after toying around with a handful of classes during the stress test, I can sum up the zealot rather quick.

This class feels very similar to wow’s priest without dispel. That sentence will probably be interpreted as war = wow. That’s definitely not the case.

But here’s a simple rundown of playing one. You have an instant cast HoT. It’s always handy to have those on people right before a fight starts, especially on squishy sorcs and the like. You have a 3 second cast heal that is a BOMB. Since it’s 3 seconds, start casting before your target takes damage. However, it’s nearly impossible to cast with something beating on you. Luckily you have a 1 second cast heal that works just like renew in wow. It heals for a moderate amount and then drops a HoT. I find that dropping those 2 HoTs on a sorc/bw will be enough to heal backlash. At least at a lower level. But for the cases where you’re being hit and can’t drop your bomb heal, there’s an instant cast that heals a moderate amount too. It’s not the most ap-conservative move on Earth, but for those emergency cases, especially while running, it’s handy. But when things are looking bad, there’s also a shield. So there’s level 10 healing in a nutshell. The higher level spells will certainly give you more to do.
But just healing isn’t enough. There was a pretty large amount of time where I didn’t have to heal anything. This is mostly due to 2 HoTs and a shield, but this time is obviously used to either regain max ap or dps, depending on your situation. But you have a DoT that’s relatively weak compared to a sorc’s. Damage is damage. There’s also a 2 second cast single target nuke. “Nuke” is probably a misnomer since it’s mediocre at best. It hit for about 150-200 whereas my sorc at the same level was doing 600. But like I say, damage is damage. Sometimes it’ll make all the difference.

Moving on! Sorceress!
It’s not exactly the most challenging class in the world to play. DoT, nuke, AOE. It’s your straight forward caster, but your spec will probably vary on what you like to play the most.
So there are basically 3 types of pvp (I still hate saying rvr) fights. Battlegrounds, world pvp, and keeps.
For the battlegrounds, single target nuking worked best for me. Just find someone and blow them up. It’s easy to top the damage charts by tab-DoTing, but against an organized team that will get you killed.
The world pvp felt a lot like wow’s AV. Two rather large armies meeting with a no-man’s-land in between. Walk in, DoT, walk out. With a 3 second cast on your AOE (remember, level 12 here), you’ll quickly be targeted within 100 yards range. Plus the cast timer set back when you get hit. So DoT spec will probably be huge for this stalemate.

And lastly, keeps. I had the opportunity to defend a keep against roughly 20 or so players for the better part of 2 hours. The keeps are large buildings, but the battles inside are relatively small. So I’ll break this down into the two parts of keeps: fighting outside the keep and inside.
Outside: Hot oil and catapults aside, this is extremely position dependent. When there’s 15 people right in front of your door, it’s hard NOT to go AOE suicidal just to see the numbers. So while defending, try to find a spot up high on the keep without being too obvious. They have range too. While attacking out here, single target nuking the people up high will most likely be the most useful thing you can do.

Inside: These rooms are extremely small for the amount of people that were in it. On the defensive side of things, you don’t want your NPCs going down. Now, with a set of NPCs on both floors (the third is for vendors), you have two big chances to stop them. When they’re on the first floor you’ll find it difficult to find a safe place to drop bombs here. Your instant cast AOE will be fun, but it draws attention and you’ll die. Fast. Your best bet is just to use your team as a pick and drop bombs when you can. On the second floor, you have more options. There’s a ramp that goes up and down from this floor. This is your best bet for hiding and bombing. The third floor is the best since they have no business up there. You can spam your instant cast AOE while running by to start causing panic in the healing ranks on your way up. This is the most dangerous time, obviously. But once you’re on the third floor you can use an angle around the ramp to start your 3 second cast AOE. At end game you’ll probably have something more useful, we’ll see. But that worked extremely well for me at these levels. Your average character had 1600 or so HP and I was critting (100% dark magic pretty much all the time) for about 550. I was hitting probably 2/3 of the people in the room. That alone kept 20 or so people from capturing the keep for a few hours. There were some people in there with me, but we weren’t organized or even working together. So basically, sorcs + keeps = good fun. On the offensive side of things it’ll depend on the number of defenders. If you catch them off guard (like what happened to me), single target the NPCs down and get the keep. If an organized guild is defending, still single target AOE to focus fire people down. In the end the specs will ultimately depend on the abilities, like most MMOs. So perhaps this is where to use what spells instead of spec fun.

/rant

Discuss this entry in our forum

News | No Comments »

Ah, the Warhammer Online Preview Weekend, died so young, with so much more to give, we mourn your passing. What a great three days of WAR. I’m not going to lie, I let a lot of my responsibilities gather dust while I merrily shot bolts of shadow at preppy High Elves all weekend. If this is a taste of things to come, we’re all doomed. As Elan mentioned earlier, there are things in the game that still make us rage collectively, however; the game looks done for the most part.

PvE

It’s the little things that count, and there’s oh-so-many of them that really make Warhammer more enjoyable than your average WoW-romp. Despite this being primarily an RvR game, I found the PvE actually very enjoyable. While we spent most of the weekend RvR’ing, I wanted to touch on the PvE a bit first, before I forget about it, because let’s be honest here, I’m not here for the PvE. I was dreading it to be honest. Ever since leveling multiple characters, then raiding in WoW, I’ve had absolutely zero interest in PvE content…

It Feels Right

It does. The first thing I was tasked to do after creating my Sorceress was to go kill some High Elves. Sure they’re NPCs, but at least I’m killing NPCs that are relavent to my interests. None of this ‘bring me 8 rat tails’ crap. The trend continued as I progressed through the ranks. There are different quests than just killing Elves though, but they don’t stray too far away from the main point of the game: War. Everything you do after first setting foot in Warhammer Online is to bolster the war effort. It really gives you the feeling that no place is safe, that there’s actually a war going on.

Public Quests

Public Quests are a God-send. I had read about this before trying the game, and wasn’t particularily excited, but it turned out to be something completely new. They way PQ’s work, is that certain areas have quest events constantly going on. When you enter the area, the quest automatically pops up tell you what to do. You don’t have to join any groups, or wait until the quest restarts, you just get in there and start killing. As soon as you start contributing you gain influence points, which pop up over kills just like experience would. In addition to the influence, you gain experience noramlly, and an experience bonus after each stage of the PQ is completed, like you would with any normal quest (all PQ’s have at least 3 stages). Influence does two things; first, determines what kind of bonus you get on the PQ loot roll (more contribution means a better chance at loot) and second, it accumulates in the zone’s influence bar, and is later redeemable at the zone Rally Masters for rewards. The Rally Master rewards are divided into three levels; The first is just potions of various kinds, the second is a piece of armor, and the third is usually a chestpiece or weapon.

Even though my luck rolling on PQ loot was horrible, I was having a blast just contributing. Public Quests works perfectly with the RvR Scenarios; I would Queue up for a scenario with my group, and the just participate in a PQ until the queue popped. Once it did, I would take it, finish the scenario, and then be thrown out right back to the PQ I was doing earlier. There are usually three PQ’s per zone, with the very first one being a little ways from the starting zone. The synergy remains the same with normal quests…

Solo/Group Quests

I hate questing. I’ve done enough MMO questing for a lifetime. Yet, the way Warhammer does questing, is refreshingly easy. (more…)

Discuss this entry in our forum

PvE | 1 Comment »