New To Me Blogs - Casual War

The post on missing DAoC over at Casual War really struck home for me. Asheron's Call holds the title of my first MMORPG. But it is DAoC that will always be my favorite. I played DAoC from release all the way until Warhammer's release. There are days when I consider going back. There just seems to be no game that can hold a candle to the mechanics of the three-way RvR DAoC had. Anyways the post was a good one and dealt more with the music/soundtrack of DAoC, but it got me reminiscing.

WAR RvR Updates

Updates that will be moving onto the PTS are reminiscent of DAoC siege. Hopefully they will add some extra flavor to our battles!

Realm vs. RealmKeep Upgrade System

Once a Keep has been claimed, a guild member with sufficient permission can speak to the Guild Broker NPC on the upper level of the Keep to choose what upgrades to purchase. These upgrades require a periodic maintenance fee and some are available in multiple Ranks. Once purchased, upgrades will take time to be completed and this process can be monitored on the new Keep Upgrade Interface. Upgrades will decay if funds are unavailable to pay their maintenance or a guild member chooses to stop paying for the upgrade. Guilds that successfully hold a Keep until the zone is captured will be rewarded with a free Gold Bag that will be mailed to the guild master and is tradable to his or her guild members.Realm vs. Realm Ordnance
This patch also introduces a new resource material that players in RvR can gather and trade in for deadly assault upgrades! Scattered throughout the RvR lakes, and acquired from killing players, Ordinance is collected and traded in for various items and weapons to use in open RvR!

These items include the following:

Rams that have double the Hit-points of standard Rams

Ballista that do twice the amount of standard Ballista damage

Self-only Oil Immunity potions that last 30, 60, or 90 seconds

Caltrops which place a small PBAoE Snare/DoT field on the ground

Dynamite that when thrown at a player will deal direct damage and knockback and if thrown at a siege weapon will deal double damage.

New To Me Blogs - Shadow WAR

Check out today's new to me blog at Shadow WAR.

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Choppa AoE guide

Where to grind (general info):

This is the same general info from my Chosen AoE guide, but it should be repeated here. For the best xp find a PQ filled with kill task mobs. If you can find them they should be your level or one higher, lower than that and you should be looking for a new spot. Caster mobs are nice to round up if you can pull them around a corner out of LoS to stack them. If they are melee then just make sure they don't stun/knockdown/disarm/etc. If you can't find a PQ/kill task spot, then just agood fast spawn of kill task mobs. If you can't find these then just a good concentrated spot of anything.



Basic Spec:

Dual Wield. Parry is your friend , the increase in damage from a two hander will not out weigh the lost 10% parry when it comes to AoE grinding.

Spec straight up the Wrecka tree. Get Longer and Stronger, Extra Choppin, and Get to Da Choppa (for some AoE CC when you need a breather).



Tactics:

These are no brainers and pretty much cookie cutter by now, but here you go...
Longer & Stronger (heal tick) ( if you have a healer add in another damage tactic instead)
Extra Choppin' (up to nine targets for Lotsa)
Brute Force (added str)
Easy Killin' (Reduced AP cost when raged)



Strategy:

• At low levels use the good 'ol body pull. At higher levels you can pull with your Frontal Cone dot.
• At low level just spam Lotsa Choppin.
• Don't bother using your using exhaustion attacks. You want to keep up your max damage, plus I believe it will stop your heal tick. As long as you are not over pulling the damage + heal outweigh the loss in armor.
  
• Use you T1 shield morale every time it pops.
• Use heal pots when you need to reduce downtime.
• Use Thorn pots for the added damage.
• Keep the mobs dotted, if the run they should die.
• Run Hurtin Time, it deals good damage when AoE pulling and will enhance your kill speed.
  
• Don't get greedy. If you over pull and die then you lose time and therefore efficiency.
• AP regen gear or a guild standard with AP regen is always helpful if you have acess to them.

There is a lot of personal preference that can change this info. You may pick up certain skills depending on whether you are grinding straight thru or doing some RvR along the way. But this should give you the basics to get you started.

New to me Blogs - Grace of Sigmar

Check out today's new to me blog at Grace of Sigmar.

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New To Me Blogs - Tooth Skinner

Check out today's new to me blog at Tooth Skinner.

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Interesting Token System

Here's an interesting take on implementing a token system for both RvR and PvE. Actually something I had not thought of, but seems to be a step in the right direction. Check out this article and more over at The Greenskin. It started an interesting conversation so check out the comments section too!

Quoted from The Greenskin:

"I originally posted this on the WAR forums. Please comment and kudos on the official forums if you agree so it gets the attention of some devs!

RvR

This system will allow people to be rewarded eventually for their hard work in oRvR. A broken contribution system and random chance will no longer be their only option to gear up. Even if contribution were fixed, there is still the element of chance, which is an old system this genre moved past years ago (or so we’d hoped). Chance should augment a token system, not be the primary determinant.

• Add tokens to player kills in oRvR only (do not award tokens from scenario kills)
• Tokens gained in oRvR can be used to buy gear up to the Conqueror level (or higher)
• Killing players in normal T4 oRvR zones yield Annihilator tokens (or T1-T3 RvR set items)
• Killing players in fortress raids yield Conqueror tokens
• Each player killed will drop 1-3 tokens
• Tokens are looted through normal group loot rules..."

Read full post here