Rufus, a Study in Character Design

"FuriousJodo wrote: 

I'll never main her, but I am totally obsessed with her (Chun Li) as a character for some reason.

Hiryu02 wrote: 

I'm like this about Rufus, for some reason."

 With the release of Super, I notice that I've been playing Rufus more and more. I wasn't a big fan of his in vanilla, mainly because he was considered to be OP, given the amount of damage he was able to put out, especially in conjunction with his easy-to-combo Ultra. Now due to the across-the-board damage nerf the entire cast received in Super, Rufus went from doing ridiculously high damage to only doing somewhat-high damage. Personally, I'm thrilled. I feel that it makes playing him require more effort, and you actually have to land stuff more than twice in a round to win it. But that's a discussion for another time, I digress. 

Anyway, I'm really beginning to appreciate the design that went into his character. I will be honest, and tell you that I'm not a big fan of his default costume, but I really love his first alternate. I think it's mainly because I can't figure out what the hell he's supposed to be wearing in his default outfit. Some kind of riding suit or something? His alternate outfit has more cool touches, I think, even with the pigtails. For example, take the "Wu" kanji on the back. Wu is the Chinese symbol that stands for "martial", as in martial arts or a martial way. I feel that it strongly fits his personality, and his backstory, which describes that he taught himself Kung-Fu by watching martial arts movies and reading kung-fu books! He also supposedly traveled through China to see the different Kung-Fu styles, and reinforce what he had learned.

I also notice more and more little details, like the way he shakes his head, Bruce Lee-style, after landing a palm thrust. The way he holds his hands when he does a cr mk, or the little light-footed shuffle he does when Spectacle Romance is blocked. Or even just the way he lands from a back throw. Little things, I know, but they add so much. Rufus isn't a character that looks good in still images, one has to see him in motion to really grasp the fluidity of his movement.

I especially like the Snake Strike animation. He leaps, stabbing furiously with each limb, and yet manages to land like a ballerina from a triple axel. Again, now that I pay attention, I see the multiple styles blended in his own, as befits his self-taught martial way. Bajiquan, Tai Chi, Snake style, Baguazhang, and more.

Of course, his effusive, motor-mouthed personality is great too. Win quotes that are so long you can't read them before they go away. Or the hilarious gestures and movements in his Rival cutscenes. I used to hate the fat man, but now I have a strange new appreciation of his design. 

Now I'm aware that the Rufus we see today is very far from the original idea for his character. He was originally supposed to be a slender black guy with a shaved head, wearing the "pimp gi" outfit that is now Ken's first alternate costume. He was going to be called "King Cobra" and was going to use a blend of breakdancing and kung-fu as a fighting style. However, at some point during the development process, one of the art directors suggested making him fat, an idea that the main designer (Daigo Ikeno) liked. Eventually, the design changed so much it bore almost no similarity to the original work. I'll be honest, at first I was totally turned off by the character and the grotesqueness of his physique. But over time, I've come to appreciate the originality of the design. 

It took me the entire life-span of the first game to realize this, but Rufus is a damn good character. Belatedly, my hat's off to you, Capcom.

New Patch! 1.21 is Live!

All right, here's the next major content update, link to the full patch notes is here.

As usual, I'm going to single out certain notes and additions for analysis. Without further ado, let us commence:

The new Live Event, Beyond the Sands, does not actually begin this patch, but will hit the servers on the 20th.

Major highlights are the Keep Upgrade system, which I've covered in a previous post, improvements to the UI and combat responsiveness, and the new RvR Quartermaster token system. Other additions are the new Zone Control rewards for T4, Character Profiles, Guild Profiles, and an expanded version of the Gates of Ekrund scenario.

Keep Upgrades are now live, but Mythic decided not to implement the Dynamite and Caltrops for keep sieges, as the tester feedback was that they were too powerful. I'm disappointed about the caltrops, as I was looking forward to using them for more efficient postern defense. But I'm sure we will see them again eventually. I did notice that they are adding "oil immunity" potions, which can be purchased with Ordnance, the new RvR resource. I like the idea of being immune to oil, so that my mpds can actually attack the door for once, instead of hanging back. 

The new Ekrund sc will be 6-on-6, for ranks 19-24. I hope that they let higher ranks play this version of the sc eventually. 

* Players will no longer be required to select an instance when entering a contested city. Instead, players will always be placed in the same instance as their group or warband. New instances will be created by the server as older instances become full.

* In order to allow more players the opportunity to participate in city-related RvR, the contested city Scenarios (The Undercroft and the War Quarters) are now only accessible to players in the Rank range of 8-29. All players below Rank 28 will be bolstered to Rank 28 while in the Scenario.

This is pretty interesting. This fix addresses the issues of players involved in a City defense having to choose the correct numbered instance to actually play with their group or guildmates. Also, players were getting ported into empty or poorly populated instances, which made completing certain aspects of the siege extremely hard to complete. 

And it's good to see that every player in the 8-29 range will now be able to actively contribute to City defense, instead of feeling useless. The more participants in City attacks, the better in my book.

In career notes, it looks like Archmages and Shaman get a large buff to many of their damage abilities.Their mechanic is also currently under review. No word yet on any major mechanic changes, but keep an eye out. In the meantime, soloing should be less painful for them with the new buffs. BW's and Sorcs will no longer be able to stack their ground-targeted AoE's, namely Rain of Fire and Pit of Shades. This stacking change also affect the Magus, with Tzeetch's Firestorm. Abilities of this type will now all behave like the Engineer Napalm Grenade, only the highest rank one will apply in case of multiple ones in the same area.

For the White Lion and Squig Herder, their pet stats will increase by a percentage of the master's stats. For WL's, the War Lion gains different stats depending on what "Training" stance is active, while Squigs gain different stats based on the type of Squig summoned. Also, all pets gain a base increase to their hit points. Hopefully this will be the start of Mythic actively addressing pet issues such as pet damage and survivability that WL's and SH's have been concerned about for some time.

In Miscellaneous RvR changes, you can now queue for T4 scenarios regardless of whether or not the pairing you are currently in is locked. I ran into this last night, I was confused as to why it would not allow me to queue after Thunder Mountain locked. I'm glad they did this, as I don't want to have to travel to another pairing just to queue up. This definitely was a pain while questing.

* Keep doors will now always be attackable by the opposite realm after the Keep has changed hands. Additionally, defenders will now be able to see the health of the Keep door at all times.

Yes! I was getting tired of having to ask someone with a mod what the door's health was at.

* Players operating a Ram will now be immune to Knockback and receive reduced damage from Oil Siege Weapons.

* Siege Rams will now do twice the damage as they previously did.

* Keep doors will now have double the hit points they previously had.

* We have significantly increased the hit points of Ram Siege Pads.

This is good to hear. Keeping guys up on the Ram is hard enough as it is. It sounds like they are trying to make the attack on the door last longer, which is good as far as renown gains go, I guess.

I'm gonna try and write another post on the RvR tokens and other stuff I passed over here. But in the meantime, get out there and get those tokens!

Oh yeah, 

* Pre-game splash screens and opening cinematic can now be skipped by hitting the ESC key.

Woohoo!

No Arenas, Please.

A few days ago I was reading the dev chat transcript over at Wizards and Wenches and something just jumped out at me. One of the questions was regarding implementing Arenas into WAR, to which one of the devs replied "definitely possible". More recently, Snafzg over at The Greenskin gives a rundown into what features he would like to see in a Warhammer Arena system. Yesterday, this article over at Wowinsider.com states that Arena participation is down a whopping 65% from last season! I consider myself strongly anti-arena, not because I don't like to compete, but because there is no real way to ensure balanced competition. Below, I'll go into my reasons for my stance.

• No such thing as an even playing field. The very nature of an MMO means that it is an constant state of evolution and flux. With real class balance being more of a moving target than an attainable goal, an MMO can not sustain truly "fair" competition. Every patch changes the dynamic of the game, classes rise and fall in effectiveness, etc.

• RvR in Warhammer is based around large-scale pitched battles. Of course, there is also quite a bit of smaller group pvp, but the niche that WAR ascribes to is massive pvp. Thus, the classes are usually balanced around a group role, taking in to account that they will be part of a larger force. You can't have large-scale pvp as a balance goal, then rebalance around small-scale arenas. Blizzard made this mistake with Arenas, and the repercussions are still being felt. If massive battles are the goal, don't dilute the vision by trying to be all things to all people.

• Arenas breed the "e-sport" mentality. While e-sports certainly have their place, most games that support competition at the highest levels of play, usually follow a certain design. I'll go into this more later, but one must remember that there is a reason the "pro" gamers only play certain types of games, namely FPS's, RTS's and 1-on-1fighting games. Also from a community standpoint arenas are more divisive than they are uniting. With all the posturing and e-peen comparisons already going on the community, can you imagine how much worse it's gonna get when you get inter-faction pvp? Hardly conducive to realm pride. I'm against cross-server scenarios for this reason as well.

• WAR just doesn't need another "thing to do" right now. While WAR is in great shape overall, it has its fair share of issues. Tier 4 still needs work, the players are clamoring for AoE to be toned down, ALL careers need their fair share of nerfs, buffs and tweaks. End game City sieges underwhelm many players, more polish needed in late/endgame etc.etc. Many players feel Mythic needs to work on current problems, before potentially introducing a host of new ones with an Arena system. Lets get the game to a much more stable point, before rocking the boat again.

Traditionally competitive games are based on the premise that the game rules are laid out, and static. Characters, weapons, maps etc, can all have different characteristics, but within the game, these characteristics never change. There can be a multitude of variables within a game, but these variables will be consistent. For example, let's look at Ryu from Street Fighter. He has a horizontal projectile, a leaping anti-air punch, and a spinning kick that travels across the screen. Each move has some variation, for example the projectile can be thrown at different speeds, but it never leaves the preset height at which it travels. And so the challenge is to utilize these moves with maximum effectiveness whilst minimizing their risks. Other characters have their own moves, with their own attributes. In Counterstrike, the guns all have different rates of fire, stopping power, etc. But every player has an equal chance to earn and use the different guns. In an MMO, nearly the entire game is based on modifying how the rules apply to your character. This is done by altering your stats via gear, leveling up, learning new abilities, etc. And so, short of modifying how gear and abilities work in the arena, a true balanced and fair playing ground is not possible.  Lastly, reread this article if you have to. Read the comments. That's a pretty good argument right there.

Of course, this all assumes that WAR Arenas will follow the WoW example. For all we know, it might be a casual thing where people can just try out new specs and tactics against different opponents. This type of arena I wouldn't mind at all, but I think WAR needs more issues addressed before we add something else to the mix.

Quick Reflection on Open RvR.

Yes, I know. It's yet another blogger going on about his own personal take on ORVR. Yes, I'm gonna do my own. Okay, for those of you who are still here, here's my deal.

Since rolling a Slayer, I have been more involved in ORvR than I have ever been before. Normally, I PvE first, with scenarios added into the mix. My goal has always been to hit rank 40 in the most efficient way possible. This time around, I've been playing a LOT of ORvR. I'm glad my server has a nice healthy population that can support multiple wbs going around taking keeps and BO's almost every night. I've been having great fun these past few nights running around and participating in lightning sieges or frantic defenses. The other night, in Fangbreaka Keep, my warband was involved in an epic defense, we had capped the BO's and sieged the keep as quickly as we could, but destro got into the keep just as the lord went down. What followed was an intense defense with our wb holed up in the lord room, trying to survive against what seemed to be 2-3 times our number of destro. Amazingly enough, everyone followed orders, and we blocked up the ramp with a tank wall, while Slayers and other dps cut down any who were foolish enough to try to break the tank wall. This went on for a good 20-25 minutes, constantly beating off destro assaults. In the end, we were overwhelmed, and they pushed us out of the keep, but we made them pay for every inch of ground with their blood. It was very 300 Spartans at Thermopylae. 

Enough about that, here's my observation:

ORvR is great. RvR Influence rewards are great. 

Separating the Influence by tier and having rewards bound to that particular tier you have max influence in, not so great.

My problem with this system is that unless you have a lot of time to play, you will find that during peak times, the ORvR action tends to take place within the same pairing most of the time. Which results in you getting full influence in one paring pretty quickly, while struggling to get any in certain pairings. Maybe I'm wrong, but it seems that by the time I max out influence in multiple pairings to get the items I may want from that pairing, I'm pretty close to leveling out of that tier, unless I start real early. My current situation is that I'm doing a lot of RvR in the Dwarf/Greenskin zones, but the elite reward is not something I particularly want. However, no one seems to want to do much in the Elf or Empire zones. 

I suggest that instead of dividing the ORvR Influence by pairing, they could either consolidate all ORvR Influence by tier. So that instead of say, Dwarf T2 Influence, you would only have Tier 2 Influence. Also, this would allow Mythic to let you pick and choose rewards from all the pairings. So instead of grinding up three different bars, you would only have to do one, which would open up all the rewards, instead of having to grind out pairings individually. To balance this, I'd let them slow the rate of influence gain a bit, perhaps by 15%. Getting inf 15% slower would be a worthwhile tradeoff for having access to the rewards from every pairing.

That way, you could gear up slightly faster and still have some ranks left to actually use your new gear before you level out of the tier entirely.

Quick Slayer Impressions.

All right, just hit Rank 11 on Khazgar. Here's a few quick personal notes on the class:

1. Zomg DAMAGE! This little ball of fury really puts out the dps, whether is be dual-wield fury or with a hefty two-hander. The AoE is great too, when you get a small gang of these guys together and toss out AoE in a coordinated manner, people die. I think this aspect of the class really shines, kudos to Mythic for giving us the capability to be "linebreakers" We break the enemy line all right, we break it dead.

2. That hurt! Man I feel squishy sometimes. I understand it's the price we pay for putting out so much hurt, but I can't help but wonder is the 50% armor/resist debuff in full zerk is too much. Especially in T4. With certain specs relying on being in full zerk most of the time, I can see waves of Slayers/Choppas getting cut down by random AoE before they ever reach the battle lines. Of course, it's still early in the life of the career, and perhaps we will see an adjustment to this mechanic. Let's hope Mythic is listening.

3. I really wish some skills were not restricted to Dual-wield or 2-Hander only. For example, Deathblow. I love it. Hits like a truck, and when used after a Rank one morale it can cut down almost anything that's not a tank. However, the 30 sec cooldown is a bit long, and I wish I could use it even when dual-wielding. Also, most of the good stuff in the Skavenslayer path is DW only, while Giantslayer is 2-hander. I'd like to see a bit more synergy between the paths, I guess.

4. In general, I find the class super enjoyable. So much so that I'm considering just focusing on RvR, with PvE being my thing to do when it's slow. As a mostly solo player, I tend to play PvE more, but this guy is so fun I'm making it my goal to earn the Devastator set in T3, which requires I hit Rank 28 with 25RR. Something tells me that's easier said than done, but I might be up to it. Heh.

I should hit 12 tonight, and once I do that, I'm going to finish up the T1 Dwarf area quests before I head out to the Marshes of Madness. Once I get to 14, I'm starting the RvR drive once again. Sweet Mourkain Temple, how I've missed you.

A Farewell...to Destruction?

This is something that I've seen coming for a while, but it doesn't make it any easier. I think I'm going to quit playing my Destruction characters. Its a pretty long and involved story, so I'll try to keep it concise. Basically it comes down to guild and population issues. My first guild, which was formed nearly three years ago, shortly after the first announcements. We were chugging along great for a while, we were the premier Destro guild for our forum community. We hit the 300 member mark shortly after launch, when the excitement surrounding WAR was at it's peak. after the free month was up, several things started to happen. One, active numbers dropped significantly, as many players did not subscribe and were either MMO tourists, or they were going back to WoW and WotLK. We also started to see the first signs of a schism within the guild. The guild was conceived as a casual-friendly guild, which meant we had a certain number of hardcores that had already hit level cap or close to it. The hardcore crowd wanted a more serious focus for the guild, and when this did not materialize they started to leave. A common complaint was that we had few players in T4. This started a spiral in which guildies outleveled the rest, hit 40, and got sick of waiting for others to rank up, so they left. Also, since the "new MMO" crowd had mostly left, we found ourselves on a now-low population server, which obviously made RvR less easy to get into. Some weeks later, transfers were offered off our server, which we took. The bulk of the guild transferred to Red Eye Mountain from Ulthuan. However, not all our members transferred. Some simply were not playing as much, and did not frequent the forums, so they missed the news. Also, we had some members never move over, or move to different servers. 

We continued the guild on REM, with a smaller group of core players. At first, we seemed to be doing much better, but we ran into the same issues eventually. We continued to hemorrhage players, and the number of actives online concurrently continued to drop. We had a small core of regular players, but without the numbers needed to support endgame play, we hit a wall. We had a good alliance though, and many players could still get dungeon groups through the alliance. This, however, is not a substitute for having a healthy guild population in T4. And finally, the population issues we experienced on our original server began to crop up on REM. This was pretty much the last straw for many of us. I found myself logging on less and less. When the Slayer and Choppa were announced, this pretty much caused me to shelf my destro characters and just finish leveling my Ironbreaker while waiting on the new career event. Later on, transfers were offered off REM, and the guild was transferred over the Iron Rock. Aside from completing the transfer over to IR, I haven't played my Destruction characters since. 

While this was going on destro-side, I was slowly leveling up my Ironbreaker. The IB was the only Order class that I was able to stick with past Rank 25. I ended up with seven or eight alts that failed to hook me sufficiently. Currently, my only 40 has been the IB. Throughout this time, my forum community maintained an Order guild on Averheim, and is now currently on Badlands. The Order guild has maintained a healthy population, mostly casuals, centered around a devoted officer core. On further inspection, I believe this is key to the stabilty of the Order guild. Where my destro guild had a large amount of hardcores, who would race to the level cap, and end up moving to another guild when the majority failed to keep up, the Order guild had a medium size group of semi-hardcores that leveled up together. This group was mainly composed of officers, around whom the rest of the guild grew. So now, we have close to two dozen players at rank 40, with many players at all level ranges. I guess the slow-but-steady mindset worked for us. We maintain a close-knit guild, with almost no ragequits or impulse new recruits.

At this point, just before the introduction of the new careers, it looks like I will be playing Order exclusively for now. I'll be concentrating on my Slayer, and playing my Shadow Warrior and Ironbreaker on the side. Hopefully, this will not be a permanent thing, as I think I'll probably roll up a Choppa at some point. I look forward to the future of WAR, and finding my place in it. It's time to take up the axe, and take up the oath.

Perusing the Patch Notes for 1.2. Part Three.

Still with me here? Good. All right, now on to itemization and other cool stuff.

* Many mounts have been renamed. Existing mounts will have their names updated.

* We have added two additional mount variants for each race. These have been added to the Stable masters in the capital cities.

* We have added three additional mount variants exclusive to guilds only. These can be purchased by visiting the Guild Quartermaster once your guild reaches Guild Rank 25.

* We have added three new improved mounts (Faster & Lower dismount chance) exclusive to guilds only. These can be purchased by visiting the Guild Quartermaster once your guild reaches Guild Rank 37.

More mounts? Faster mounts? New and Improved mounts? Yes please. These all get a big thumbs up from me here. Having more options is always a good thing, and the "epic" mounts for your guild is another addition to the benefits of being in a stable, progressive guild. if nothing else, this will add some visual variety to the mount system. Having vaguely similar looking horses across Order for the Empire and High Elves is getting a bit old, At least Destruction has three very distinctive mounts for their races, but Order needs some help. And no I don't hate the Dwarfcopter.

RvR Fortress raids have received an update for their itemization in version 1.2. The focus of this update was to better reward players for completion of a Fortress capture as well as give players who do not successfully capture a Fortress some chance at improved loot.

* The Fortresses now feature the same world drop items found in the high-level city dungeons. This includes rare drop "Watcher" weapons.

* The Fortress PQ bags now feature new, unique Uncommon, Rare, and Very Rare items.

* Non-PQ target mobs within the Fortresses, including general mobs and the guards of the lords, now have a chance to drop the Conqueror Belt. The belt will no longer drop from Gold Bags.

* Additionally, the Conqueror Belt has been made bind-on-equip. This only affects new instances of the Conqueror Belt. Any Conquerer Belts found prior to this patch will remain bind-on-pickup.

* The number of PQ reward bags that drop in Fortresses has been increased to 30, with 12 Gold Bags for each completion.

Now we're getting into some meaty stuff. Adding more chances for gear to drop, both off the mobs and the gold bags will significantly speed gearing up for successful Fortress takers, enabling them to push the campaign along faster and more effectively. Plus 30 Bags, 12 of which are Gold? Awesome. You could theoretically completely gear up two groups in days by consistently taking Forts. I can see smart guilds putting together 12-man strikeforces specifically to siege Forts and acquire gear. Kudos again to Mythic for easing the gear acquisition curve. The more people geared and warded, the closer we are to a successful City capture.

Capital Cities

The capital cities have been updated with numerous adjusted items and new drops. Players should find items dropped in capital cities to be more rewarding than previously.

City Invader PQs:

* The Invader PQs now feature unique Uncommon, Rare, and Very Rare items in the PQ bags.

* Both Attacker and Defender versions of these PQs offer 12 PQ reward bags. Attackers will continue to receive a greater number of Gold Bags for victory.

City Warlord PQs:

* The Warlord PQs now feature unique Uncommon, Rare, and Very Rare dropped items from monsters and mini-bosses within the PQ instances.

* The Warlord PQs also now feature unique Uncommon, Rare, and Very Rare items in the PQ bags, including potent Warlord weapons.

* The number of PQ reward bags that drop in these PQs has been increased to 18, with 4 Gold Bags for each completion.

Palace Encounters:

New, unique Uncommon, Rare, and Very Rare items have been added to the King's Palace instances. These items are available as dropped items from all monsters in the dungeon, except the Kings.

* Unique weapons are now offered on the sub-bosses within the King's Palace instances.

Same as above, we are seeing efforts to increase gear acquisition for players. Comments above apply.

Lets see, lotsa bug fixes, etc etc.

Zone Control Domination

To help place more emphasis on Keep claiming and defense, as well as to combat the "defense by not defending" strategy, we are introducing the Zone Control Domination mechanic. With this system, players who take and hold all Battlefield Objectives and claim Keeps in a contested zone (in Tier 4) or a shared RvR lake (in Tiers 2 and 3) have the opportunity to capture that zone, forgoing the standard mechanics of Zone Control. Each Battlefield Objective and Keep will be worth 1 Domination Point. To capture a zone via the Domination rules, your Realm must have all 6 Domination Points. In Tiers 2 and 3, capturing all six points in a shared RvR lake will give the capturing Realm control of the entire Tier. These are represented as small pip marks on the Zone Control Bar. Battlefield Objectives and Keeps have different requirements for earning their Domination Point, as follows:

* To earn a Domination Point from a Battlefield Objective, it must be owned by your realm for 30 minutes.

* To earn a Domination Point from a Keep, it must be claimed by a Guild and then held for 2 hours. If you lose control of a Battlefield Objective or Keep at any time, you lose the Domination Point.

* Multiple Domination Points cannot be gained from a single source (for example, it isn't possible to get 6 Domination Points by capturing Martyr's Square 6 times).

* If a zone that was taken over by Zone Domination is put into a contested state, all timers and Domination Points are reset.

Ahh, here we are. The vaunted Zone Domination system. Before I comment, I'm going to repost something a fellow forum-goer said about this that I found to encapsulate my feelings precisely.

"The domination system is not that hard to understand. If people are zerging back and forth and keeps and BOs are changing hands frequently, nobody gets any domination points and things work exactly like they do now because the domination stuff sits on top of the existing victory point system. The only place it's really going to kick in is when one side takes all the keeps and BOs in a pairing, and the other side says "everyone run PQs and scenarios to prevent the zone from locking!" I've seen that happen a couple times now. If you were diligent enough (and didn't get whipped in scenarios), you could keep the other side from locking a zone indefinitely, even though they held all the objectives, and you never had to set foot in the RvR lake to do it.

The domination system means you can no longer do that forever (or until everyone gets tired and goes to bed). You can stall for a while, but after at most 30 minutes BO domination points start to come in, and after at most 2 hours keep domination points start to come in, and if the attackers get enough domination points, just those and the objective points will probably be enough for zone control. So if you're defending and you really need to prevent that zone lock to prevent a fortress siege, which could prevent the razing of your capital city, you need to get back in the RvR lake and take some of those objectives back. That's ultimately what the domination system does, force the fighting back into the RvR lakes where it belongs."

Couldn't have said it better myself. Credit goes to vonPoonBurGer on the PA forums.

New RvR Chain Quests

* The rally call has gone out! The WAR rages on and help is needed at every warcamp across the realms! New quest-givers have appeared in every warcamp and will offer players brand spanking new chain quests. 'Chain' quests are a new feature that will allow players to complete a set of linked quests and repeat the 'chain' again once they have completed all of the quests in the 'chain.' The new quests will be available from NPCs near the Rallymasters in the warcamps, and they are designed to reward players for participating in open RVR.

Basically, we are getting RvR dailies. I'm liking this addition, because every additional incentive to push players into RvR counts. Players will take the path of least resistance, and if ORvR starts to become a viable leveling alternative thanks to quests like these, I can only see that as a good thing. Lets get players out fighting, and if we need to throw goodies at them for doing it, then fine. Look at the resurgence of ORvR after the RvR influence system came out. Same thing. 

* We are introducing the new Rally Call system. At various intervals, players will be called to join the battle in the Tier 1 and Tier 2 RvR lakes. A button will appear near the mini-map, enabling willing participants to jump right into the action.  

I touched on this earlier, I think. Free teleports to the fight? I'm down for that, makes it easier to get groups and guilds to where they need to be quickly.

Well, that concludes my roundup of patch notes that I find interesting. I apologize if I didn't talk about your career or your bug. The patch notes are just too massive. I'm going to try and write a last update and summary later on. It's been quite a slog, thanks for reading this far.

Perusing the Patch Notes for 1.2. Part Two

All right, continuing with the patch notes analysis here. I may skip many notes, especially ones pertaining to classes that I have no personal experience playing. If something really jumps out at me, I will address it. Otherwise don't be surprised if I skip your class or bug entirely.

Chosen:

* Dire Shielding: This Tactic will no longer cause Bane Shield to stack when multiple Chosen in the same group use the ability.

This comes as a welcome change to AoE-based classes, especially Engineers. There have been reports of this ability stacking so much that Engineers and Bright Wizards would drop some AoE's down, only to get nearly backlashed into the ground as the stacking proc on all affected targets hit them back. It also looks like Bane Shield got a cooldown to only trigger once every 2 seconds per character.

Ironbreaker:

* Stone Breaker: This ability's % armor debuff has now been replaced with a flat value armor debuff.

Same deal as the BO with this tweak.

Marauder:

* Terrible Embrace: This ability's build time has been reduced to 1 second, and its cooldown time increased to 30 seconds.

* Terrible Embrace: This ability's cost has been reduced. Additionally, it will now continue to build while moving.

Fetch: This ability's range has been reduced to 65 feet, and its cost has been reduced.  Additionally, this ability's cooldown has been increased to 30 seconds. (White Lion)

This is both a slight nerf, and a decent buff. Yes the Marauder will not be able to pull as often, but being able to move while using the ability in order to keep the target within range is a huge deal. The White Lions are up in arms about this, especially combined with the range nerf to Fetch.

Shadow Warrior:

Bug Fixes:

* Split Arrows: You can now hit keep doors with Spiral-Fletched Arrow while this Tactic is slotted.

* The bonuses from Scout, Assault, and Skirmish Stance will now stack with other bonuses.

Balance Changes:

* Eye Shot: This ability can now be used while moving.

* Fell the Weak: The build time for this ability has been reduced to 0 seconds, but the cost has been increased.

The Split Arrows fix is a huge deal for Skirmish SW's, especially during keep sieges. Previously if this tactic was slotted, Spiral-Fletched Arrow wound not hit keep doors, which I'm sure you will see is a big problem. Now Skirmish SW's don't have to use different abilities other than SFA when bringing down a keep door.

Eye Shot now working when you move is a fix that has been asked for since beta, as it was the only Skirmish ability that required the SW to stand still. Now it is more consistent with the other abilities in the tree.

Fell the Weak becoming instant is great. The ability was previously very difficult to use effectively, due to the requirement that the target be below 20% health to get maximum damage, and that it was a 2 second cast. Now a Shadow Warrior will be able to use it on reaction, and won't have to gauge the travel time as much. I'm stoked about this myself.

Swordmaster:

* Balanced Accuracy: This Tactic now affects all strikes of Ether Dance, Dragon's Talon, Crashing Wave, and Whispering Winds

SM's are getting a good amount of buffs and bug fixes in the patch, but I wanted to point this out in particular. This tactic is a mirror of the Blorc tactic Gork Smash! which is a 10/20% buff to critical strike rate when in the two higher stances. The SM version now affects all hits from their combo, while the Blorc version still only affects the first hit of the five from their T'ree Hit Combo. I'm pretty disappointed with this, I had hoped Mythic would have noted that the functionality of this tactic was mirrored on both factions and buffed both, instead of just one version.

* All chapters throughout the game within Tiers two through four have received a pass on Public Quest difficulty, much like what was previously done within Tier one. All affected Chapters now have an "Easy", "Normal", and "Hard" Public Quest. Public Quest points on the map have also been updated to reflect these difficulty levels as well as suggested player numbers to successfully complete.

* Numerous epic quests within the Dwarf vs. Greenskin pairing have been modified to be more immersive and rewarding. For many this means that the length of the quests have been increased in order to tell a grander story. The experience and coin rewards have been adjusted to account for these changes.

This is pretty cool to see that we are getting more difficulty options with the PQs. As many people know, I love solo farming PQs to grind up my influence for that chapter. I like this a lot. Also, good to see that the Dwarf/Greenskin quests are getting looked at. This is my favorite pairing, I mean who doesn't like to kill gobbos and stunties. As the Dwarfs and Greenskins are my favorite races, this is a cool change for me. I hope that there is an uptick in the overall experience for this tier.

Crafting:

We have introduced a number of improvements to crafting in version 1.2. The focus of these changes was to better pair-off specific gathering skills with specific production skills, making it easier for crafters to be self-sufficient. In addition, we have made a concentrated effort to improve the leveling curves of all trade skills as well as reduce the number of different materials needed to make various items. In addition to these changes, we have also introduced a number of new player-crafted products. Please refer to the sections on each trade skill below for more specific information.

General

* The Apothecary production skill will now receive the majority of its materials from the Butchering and Cultivation gathering skills.

* The Talisman Crafting production skill will now receive the majority of its materials from the Scavenging and Salvaging skills.

* Players can right-click on crafting items in the backpack to auto-move them to the appropriate slot when their crafting window is open.

* The Ctrl-Right-Click user interaction has been added for item conversion, e.g. plants being converted back into seeds.

* Salvaging will now display the percentage chance of success on the item tooltip.

* Talisman crafting no longer removes materials from the crafting window if there are more left in the stack.

* Apothecary ingredient subtypes (Gold Dust, Essence, etc.) are now reflected in the item list view and item tooltips.

This is pretty sweet stuff overall. I'm glad to see that they are clarifying the Crafting system and laying out the best pairing for gathering and production professions. I'm a bit miffed by the slight nerf to Scavenging, now that Scavenging no longer produces as many items for multiple professions. Used to be you could procure materials for Cultivation, Apothecary and Talisman making. Now it is tied more closely to Talisman making, with Cult and Butchering being tied to Apothecary instead. I had Scavenging purely as a money-making profession on multiple characters. Looks like I'll be picking up Butchering or Cultivation in the future.

There are quite a few more tweaks to crafting being added as well, including new components being introduced and some new systems being implemented. For example Cultivation now gets something called Reaping.

Plant Reaping:

Plant reaping is a new skill given to Cultivators. This allows the Cultivator to harvest most plants for seeds as well as for Apothecary stabilizers.

* Reaping a plant will consume the plant and produce 2 - 4 seeds for that plant type

* Reaping a plant will also produce 1 - 2 stabilizers that can be used in Apothecary.

Guild Crafting Merchants

We have made adjustments to the guild merchants who sell crafting supplies. These changes represent adjustments needed after we refined many recipes and skill-up progressions. In addition, we have added the first of many "Guild Exclusive" crafting materials that can make unique crafted items that are not available any other way.

* Crafting materials from skill 0 - 74 will appear on guild merchant at Guild Rank 7.

* Crafting materials from skill 75 - 149 will appear on the guild merchant at Guild Rank 21.

* Crafting materials for skill 150+ will appear on the guild merchant at Guild Rank 28.

* A new, exclusive Skill 75 Apothecary main ingredients are available at Guild Rank 7.

* A new, exclusive Skill 150 Apothecary main ingredients are available at Guild Rank 21.

* A new exclusive Skill 200 Apothecary main ingredients are available at Guild Rank 28.

The above is another great incentive for guild advancement. It's good to see Mythic offering more rewards for the guild system, while simultaneously NOT rendering player-acquired ingredients sold on the Auction House obsolete.

Next post, we'll take a look at the itemization improvements currently planned. These are some long notes, so bear with me here as I slowly get through each section. 

Perusing the Patch Notes for 1.2. Part One.

Well, the highly-awaited 1.2 patch notes hit the Herald last night, and as expected the community is abuzz with discussion of all the proposed changes, tweaks, bug fixes and nerfs. Mark Jacobs obviously wasn't kidding when he said they were going to be 50-plus pages in length. I'm going to go through the notes in order, pointing out specific ones that catch my eye and giving you my thoughts on them. This may be a really long post, so I may split it into multiple parts. Without further ado, let us begin.

We already know about the Slayer and Choppa, as well as the Twisting tower scenario, but something that just jumped out at me was this:

*Answer the Call to Arms with new Realm vs. Realm gameplay enhancements! Introducing the new Open RvR Rallying Cry system that summons you to key battles for Tiers 1 and 2.

What is this? I've never heard about this before, I even missed it when going over the notes last night. From the sound of it, it could be a button similar to the scenario button, except that instead of porting you to a scenario, it posts you to where there is heavy RvR occurring in your tier. This could have a great impact on ORvR, as well as making open RvR more dynamic. Instead of flying out to the camp to defend the keep, your warband can be ported to the area in question and be able to join the siege that much faster. Of course it remains to be seen how close to the action you get ported, this could be a great feature, so long as it's implemented properly.

* New treasures await! Across-the-board itemization improvements have been made to the Fortresses, world dungeons, and city dungeons of WAR, including better world drops, quest rewards, Influence rewards, and more!

Better loot is always good, not much to see here, maybe I'll see less Willpower on the non-healing gear.

* Crafting System Improvements! We've made many improvements to the game's crafting system, including pairing-off specific gathering skills with specific production skills in order to make crafters more self-sufficient. Also, the leveling curve of trade skills has been improved and fewer components are required to create items. Last, but certainly not least, is the addition of new craftable items!

This is great news for dedicated crafters. I personally am not a big crafter, but I scavenge on quite a few characters to make some extra money, mostly. I tried leveling Apothecary and Talisman making, but I tend to fall behind in my crafting since I outlevel the mob range that drops the mats that I need. I have yet to hit 200 on any profession save for scavenging. More details on this later.

* Multiple mail attachments! Now you can send several attached items with a single mail message.

Amen. Thanks Mythic, this was sorely needed.

* When instructed to attack a target on the other side of a closed door, pets will no longer run through the door.

This fix was a long time coming, and hopefully after this is implemented we will see much less complaining from players regarding Engineer turrets or Magus pets continuing to attack them through closed doors. Good fix.

* When attempting to loot from a pile of corpses, the client will now prioritize corpses with loot on them over empty corpses, making it easier to loot.

This. I'm very happy about this. I would get very frustrated on my tanks when I would AoE grind and then be unable to loot some mobs because they would be stacked on each other and I simply would be unable to loot. This is a minor fix, but highly appreciated.

* Monsters which flee from combat due to being at low hit points will now immediately begin moving at a slower speed.

This too. Many players don't experience this, as they kill mobs one at a time, but tanks and certain dps classes who AoE grind know the pain of dying, not because of a bad pull, but because a mob will flee exceedingly quickly, then evade to full health and return to the attack because its original position was within aggro range. I've died to this more than once. 

* All Disorient effects cast by players will no longer stack. Only the most powerful Disorient will affect the target.

* We have adjusted the way that the Disorient debuff will effect characters. Instead of increasing all ability cast times by a flat value, it will now increase cast times by a % of the total cast time of the spell. As a result, melee abilities and instant cast spells will no longer be affected by Disorient since their cast time is effectively 0 seconds. Specific abilities for each career affected by this change are noted below.

This is a pretty major change to the disorient mechanic, it hits Marauders pretty hard, and other classes in varying degrees. This is a pretty major buff for melee, as the majority of their attacks are instant, and so will no longer be affected by disorients. I'm pretty stoked on this personally, as I play melee characters mostly, and now melee will be a lot more effective in T4, simply because they will be able to maintain their damage output without being setback by disorients.

* All absorb shield buffs have increased in effectiveness, and will now absorb roughly 50% more damage in most cases. Specific abilities for each career affected by this change are noted below.

Looks like a blanket buff to damage shields, although how many careers have those? I know SM's and BG's have them, BO's can spec for one, and the Zealot and Runepriest have them as well. I'll have to do more research to see how many careers are affected by this change.

Black Orc:

* Wot armor?: This ability has had its stacking % armor debuff replaced with a fixed-value armor debuff. Additionally, it will now apply its maximum debuff value in a single hit.

* Da Toughest: This ability will now grant less Wounds and health to the Black Orc when it triggers.

* Shut Yer Face: This ability will now deal more damage and cost no AP to activate.

* Down Ya Go: This ability will now deal more damage, knock the target down for 3 seconds, and cost no AP to activate.

* T'ree Hit Combo: This ability will now deal more damage but will receive less damage contribution from stats.

* Not in da Face!: This ability will now deal more damage and also make you and your group briefly immune to disabling effects.

* Dat Was Great!: This Tactic has been changed to match the changes to Wot armor?. The Tactic will now increase the duration of Wot armor?, and reduce the victim's Toughness.

Looks like all the percentage-based armor debuffs have been replaced by a flat value, this sounds painful, but it's a bit early to tell the long-term effect of this change. I do like using the armor debuffs on my tanks, but so long as the flat value isn't completely pitiful the ability will still be useful in my rotations. 

I'm sad to see the Da Toughest nerf, I loved that thing in PvE hopefully Mythic will change the value it gains from speccing into the Da Toughest tree, so Blorcs built for survivability will continue to get decent returns from this ability. Good to see the AP requirement removed from Shut Yer Face and Down Ya Go, it was kind of dumb to have these finishers consume AP while others did not. This helps with the AP consumption issues the BO has from time to time. Not in da Face! conferring a short immunity to diable adds some utility, as well as helping the BO spearhead a push into the enemy ranks.

I'm unsure about T'ree Hit Combo, as it seems to be both a buff and a nerf, and testing will be required to see how it shakes out.

There are a lot more notes to go through, and I will continue updating throughout the day.

My take on the Slayer and Choppa footage from NY Comic Con

First off, I'd like to apologize for the lack of updates over the past few days. It's been a busy weekend, both for me and the game. The NY Comic Con just ended yesterday, and over the weekend there has been quite a bit of news, So much new info is now out there that I though I'd wait a little while for the dust to settle, and go over the news that interests me. Mythic debuted the Choppa and the Slayer at Comic Con, and Adam Gershowitz showed off the first hands-on footage for both careers in two videos over at Tentonhammer. There was also new info on improved mounts for high-level guilds.

On the whole, the Slayer and Choppa are shaping up quite nicely, Their rage mechanic icon, while different for each career of course, looked easy to read and the look of both careers at level 40 was great. I thought the Choppa looked nice and threatening in the demo, wiv lotsa spiky bitz stuck on his armor. I know the Choppa is technically medium armor, but the gear showed looked very close to heavy, with spikes, chains, heads on spikes and all that lot. He also had some cool-looking choppas, with what appeared to be either goat or ram skulls mounted onto the axes, very bad-ass. Adam also showed off character customization options for the Slayer. In addition to the default options, Slayers get to select some pretty awesome tattoos, as well as a few beard options that are exclusive(!) to the career. Even the mohawk has some nifty choices, ranging from the classic crest to a split mohawk and even a more ragged look to the basic crest.

Gameplay-wise the two careers came off looking pretty similar, which is expected. Lots of cool slashing and spinning moves and effects, and some nice autoattack animations as well. Adam stated that both careers would have Mastery paths split into Greatweapons, Dual-wielding and Balanced. The Greatweapon Mastery focuses on big hits that drain your rage bar, the Dual-wield path is based on getting your rage as high up as possible and staying in the redzone dishing out tons of damage/AoE while getting real squishy, and the Balanced is well, balanced. One interesting thing is that the AoE for these two careers will be significantly different from that used by other careers. Adam stated that their AoE will be more powerful, but with a caveat: it will be somewhat random. Your selected target will always be hit by the AoE, but surrounding targets will be hit at random. They will NOT be hit by every AoE attack, but when they are hit, it will hit them harder. So instead of the typical sustained dps of other AoE, it will be a sort of "burst" dps.

The unpredictability of this new type of AoE is crucial to the Slayer/Choppa's role of "linebreaker". The new careers will be best used to slam into bunched opponents and bursting down random targets in the with their AoE, with the random nature of their AoE making it difficult for healers to focus heal. Properly played, the Slayer and Choppa will be great for breaking up the assist train and breaking up the zerg. This sounds pretty stonking great, and I already have visions of slamming into a packed group and dealing out death left and right.

Some other shared abilities include a move in which the Choppa/Slayer lashes out at anyone attacking them for several seconds. now what makes this different from the other "backlash" type abilities is that it looks like it hits back for the same damage as a regular attack, instead of a preset value. This could lead to some pretty hard-hitting revenge hits. I didn't see too many morale abilities except for one Adam called "Doomseeker" in which the Slayer sweeps with both weapons around him in an arc twice, which I assume hits for MASSIVE DAMAGE.

That's mainly what I was paying attention to over the weekend. I hit 39 on my IB as well. I ought to hit 40 this week, and I have the boots for the Conqueror set and the Sentinel belt waiting for me in the bank. Thanks for bearing with me, and I'll be seeing you guys again in a few days.

300,000 subs. More Mythic layoffs. Now what?

Despite the title of the post, this is not another doom and gloom article. I'm as saddened as anyone else about the layoffs, but I'm still cautiously optimistic regarding the future of WAR. Let me give you some personal background about the type of work I do. I work in retail, in a very niche/enthusiast activity. My business, aside from the apparel sales is based on an activity that is completely dependent on discretionary income. In this economy, my industry is hurting fairly badly, many brands have gone out of business, and many retailers have failed as well. This past Christmas season was the worst one we've had in seven years. The business I work for is still doing okay, but we have tightened our belts and cut costs as much as possible. Sales are down, and we are hurting, but we are much luckier than most.

Okay, with that out of the way, let me attempt to address the current topics.

1. 300,000 Subs: All right, this is the current number of active subs released by Mythic. This is down from the 750,000 number of active subs that was released some months ago. Of course, people are freaking out, and proclaiming that the end is nigh, without looking at the whole picture. The 750K was when many players had yet to renew their subscription after the first free month. Also, the WotLK and Mines of Moria expansions were released shortly after this period. And one should not be surprised that many players flocked back to WoW and Lotro, after WAR's "new MMO shine" had worn off. I will also admit that WAR had many more issues in those days than it does now. One must commend Mythic for the sheer amount of new and improved content that they delivered since then. We are currently looking at the final two careers debuting soon, a huge new zone and dungeon from the Lands of the Dead expansion. Stability is much improved etc, etc. Of course there still are issues and bugs, but you have to give credit where credit is due. In the limited timeframe since launch, the amount of "new and better" stuff Mythic has released is incredible. 

Lets not forget, 300K subs is roughly 4.5 MILLION dollars every month. That's nothing to scoff at. I also positively believe that number of active subs will only go up. Many players are excited about the upcoming expansion content and new careers. I also personally know many players coming back to play the Slayer and Choppa. 300K is a solid base to grow from, and I think that it will slowly grow over time, like the playerbase for EvE and Lotro. At 4.5 mil a month, I think WAR will continue to be a profit-maker for EA

2. Mythic layoffs: This sucks. Flat out. But it is not completely unexpected. Again, despite claims that the video game industry is "recession-proof", the game industry is hurting. Just like many other industries all over the world. We have seen publishers and game developers go under, Free Radical, Ensemble and more. THQ is laying off close to a quarter of its staff. In recent months as you all know, Mythic has had to let go playtester, QA and CS staff, and now some members of the design and dev teams. Mark Jacobs has taken flak for both not speaking out fast enough, and when he did speak about it, he took flak for the tone of his post. I don't envy MJ is position right now. He's damned either way, no matter what he says or does. He has to try for a positive spin, otherwise the doomsayers will point to his post and say that even the main guy is telling people the game is doomed. Players still criticized the positive parts of his statement, saying that he's not in touch with reality and that he's living in his own happy world. See what I mean?

Even though I personally would have liked him to say "yes, this sucks, and we feel bad about this", I understand why he can't. He also can not remain silent. I may not feel great about his statement, but I understand the position that he is in. He has to do the best he can, within the resources available to him. It's a bad bit of news, but Mythic has to keep its chin up. I know that the remaining team feel terrible about what has happened, even though they may make no official statement about it.

3. Now what?: Actually, syncaine over at Hardcore Casual just put up a great post on a similar subject. Basically, WAR is in the post-tourist/launch hype stage. Many players that played WAR at launch because it was the new hot MMO have left, and a core number of players have settled down. A large infusion of new content is coming soon, and while enthusiasm has been dampened by the sad news, anticipation is still high for the new careers and events. Mythic is in a position to consolidate their gains, and solidify their position. I think that so long as Mythic shows it's commitment to the playerbase and continues to add and tweak content we can expect some steady growth for the game. I think that 500k active subs by the end of the year is a doable goal. Also that 300K is a good, solid number, especially when compared to the numbers of games (Other than Wow) that are considered successful, such as Lotro or CoH/V.

Personally, I would like Mythic to start minor consolidation of the servers. I'm not speaking of massive server merges, but reducing the number of servers by 15-20% would be a good start towards helping the population on some lower-pop servers. Also, opening up an Asian client and getting some Korean and Chinese players going, could only be a good thing for the bottom line. Don't forget that WoW gets a considerable chunk of its revenues from the Chinese market. So much revenue in fact, that Blizzard actually modified some parts of the game in order to conform to Chinese tastes and laws. No reason that WAR can't get a slice of that pie.

In closing, I'm gonna say that I've already made my choice. I'm sticking with WAR. I want to experience the new expansion. I want to play as the new careers. I'm sad about the layoffs, but I hope that if WAR does well, and the economy starts doing better, we may see some people rehired. I want to help the game grow. The Warhammer IP is so unique, and i doubt we will see another MMO based on the Warhammer Fantasy IP again anytime soon if WAR fails. This may be a one-time chance for us all. For crying out loud, you can play a freaking SLAYER! Show your pride! Give your free trials to your buddies! Go fight! For Order! For Destruction! For the Emperor! WAAAGH!!!

The end is in sight, Rank 40 this week?

I just hit Rank 38 last night on my Ironbreaker, somewhere in Dwarf Chapter 19. I'm finally feeling closer to the end of the leveling road. I hope to hit 40 this week. I'm pretty stoked, even though I really don't have any cool new abilities coming up, aside from a few tactics and the default rank 4 Morale. Oh yeah, I do get my movement barb at 40. 

On my Black Orc though, I did get to Rank 31 and I'm preparing to start questing my way through Tier 4, but I will admit to a bit of burnout. Leveling tanks can be a very tedious process, especially in PvE. I'm considering speccing into Da Boss Mastery for the WAAAAGH! AoE ability so that I can start AoE grinding. However one of the main abilities for AoE grinding is not attained until Rank 35. So I may do some theoryhammering about the spec until I feel ready for it. 

This does touch onto a sore subject for me, the leveling curve. I'm coming to the conclusion that the leveling curve in WAR is tuned too slow in Tier 4. Now, I do recall that Mythic just buffed the xp curve from 20-33 if I remember correctly, so maybe I need to just power through those levels on the Blorc. Also I may not be completely objective on this subject. The deal is that I can only play nights and I try to play at least 2-3 characters every night, so when the leveling curve slows down I perceive it to be worse than it actually is since I make less progress in my allotted time. However I'm sure that if I actually sat down and computed the xp gained per hour while accounting for the increased xp needed per level, I would find out that I'm still making decent progress.  

Other than that, leveling multiple characters is a daunting undertaking. The game really tries to reward you for investing a lot of time into a particular character. Acquiring gear, trophies, leveling professions and raising renown ranks all come into play with a single character. Also in a strange way, the banking and bag system is a factor. I'm always having problems juggling bag and bank space, especially if the character is a crafter. I've had to take close to half an hour to reorganize my bags. Granted this doesn't happen often, but the bag and bank stuff can be irritating. 

My goal is to level three characters. A tank, a melee dps and a ranged dps. The tank is coming along nicely, my Shadow Warrior is in the middle of T2 at the moment, and of course the Slayer will be my third. I'm just worried that I'll still be leveling characters when the Tomb Kings are released, heh. In any case I'll be toughing it out in the coming weeks and with any luck I'll be hitting 40 for the very first time this week.

Edit: Oh yeah, finally picked a name for the Slayer, I'll post it next time, gotta reserve it first.

Alting Around... Again.

So, yeah. Being the easily swayed weakling that I am, after I read a discussion on the forums I frequent about Shadow Warriors, I just had to roll one up. I hit Rank 11 last night, and I also maxed out my RvR Influence for the T1 Empire vs, Chaos pairing. So now I'm running around New Emskrank looking for fights and just messing around til I hit 12 and have to move on to the next tier. 

I gotta say, I'm enjoying the Shadow Warrior a lot! I had rolled one up shortly after release, but shelved him at Rank 3 because the career didn't grab me right away. I didn't realize how much of a difference getting all my stances would make on my fun factor. Skirmish stance, which is the mid-range mobile dps tree, is simply so much fun to play. It feels great being able to run around whilst firing off bow attacks. Once I got Spiral-Fletched Arrows and Takedown, the career just got so fun to play. I know that my melee stance, Assault, is considered the best stance to be in, but I still like the mobility I get from Skirmish.

Another amazing thing is the versatility of the career. In a single engagement, I can select say a Witch Elf from range and begin dpsing with my bow in Scout stance. As they get closer, I switch into Skirmish and snare and DoT, then kite a bit. When they close to melee I can swap into Assault stance which buffs my Armor and  Strength, and bring them down with very respectable melee dps. I love having the potential to switch roles in an instant, which sometimes confuses my targets. Today I started picking off a Witch Elf from range, she started to run, so I chased her down in Skirmish, DoT-ing and dpsing. She ran behind some cover to break my line of sight, but I guess she didn't expect me to flip into Assault and run her down, where I cut her down in melee. I guess that move confused the other Destro players around her, because she got no heals, and I was able to make my escape. I guess they didn't expect an archer to move in and finish the job at close range. Now I'm aware the situation I've described is pretty much an ideal situation, but still, it's pretty cool when it happens.

Perusing the forums reveals that veteran SW players do have several issues with the class, but the general feeling is that the career needs some tweaks, but is doing quite well otherwise. Also, the more experienced players agree that the career is in very good shape, but I'll reserve judgement until I have several more ranks under my belt.

SOME DAYS LATER...

Well, I am very close to 14 now, and have some more observations about the career. I still enjoy the Shadow Warrior, but I've come across my first issues. One is just a graphical issue, when I equip my helm it changes my selected hair into a "default" hairstyle that's the same for every SW of the same gender. Only the original color is retained. Not a big deal really, as I like my selected hair and don't mind turning the helm graphic off.

I've also gotten a chance to play some Mourkain's Temple. Overall, I enjoy it on my SW. I'm much squishier than I've ever been before, and it's a very different mindset to play as a ranged damage dealer as opposed to tanking or melee dpsing. I like finding good vantage points for sniping, and killing or harassing squishies and healers. Once the focus fire finds me though, I'm dead meat. Still, it's a great change of pace, and a great feeling to take down that Witch Elf who just popped out behind the healing line. 

PvE-wise, my Shadow Warrior is competent, if a bit repetitive. Of course, I'm still low in Tier 2, and don't have access yet to many of my abilities. I'm spending lots of time in Assault Stance, basically DoT-ing and pulling from range until the mob closes and then finishing it off in melee. I try to kite a bit, but I think Skirmish could use a bit more range, and it seems that it's quicker to just pull, then melee.

I'll continue to try and level this guy, who I have named Zanshin, after the Japanese martial arts term referring to a certain mental state. I hope that I can somehow find time to level all my other characters before the Slayer/Choppa is implemented. Still, we shall see where I stand on the Shadow Warrior some ranks from now.