Official Shadow Warrior Suggestions

Official Massively Multiverse Shadow Warrior suggestions:

1.  Glass Arrow: add a 3 second stun to the aoe, increase cooldown to 30 seconds

2.  No Respite: Increases chance to parry, dodge, and disrupt by 10%  (crit bonus removed)

3.  Barrage: each time this ability crits it will increase shadow warrior run speed by 20 for 10 seconds (may not trigger more than once a minute)

Just to clarify, this is all coming from an CR 40 RR 45 Shadow Warrior.  The only people I seem to find who think Shadow Warriors are just fine and dandy seem to be RR 50 and up…which says a lot about how important gear is in the game.  But that’s no surprise really, and I will update my Shadow Warrior thoughts once I get higher renown and obtain better gear.

I still believe strongly that Shadow Warriors do need some tweaks to ratchet up the fun factor.  But as with all things, this is just my opinion and you can take it or leave it. 

Round 2: Making the complicated simple – SW Fixes

For those who stop by here and don’t regularly check the Official Warhammer Online forums, a discussion on my previous Shadow Warrior blog post has been raging with many and varied opinions.  So I’ll throw up a link to that thread and then make a few more comments.

http://forums.warhammeronline.com/warhammer/board/message?board.id=archetype_ranged&thread.id=6449

The thing I would like to mention here is partly what I talked about in that thread.  Shadow Warriors are NOT completely helpless, nor are they incapable of killing enemies or dishing out respectable damage.  The fault of the Shadow Warrior class has more to do with the survivability and cohesion between the three stances.  The stance mechanic itself is flawed and clumsy, as many have said previously.

The 5 second timer just makes things awkward as well, as does the ability to go stance-less.  But the point here is simple despite continued attempts to make it more complicated.  Play a Shadow Warrior from levels 1 to 40 and then tell me that you think the class is just fine the way it is, needing no tweaks or changes whatsoever.  If you honestly think that then I respect your opinion.

But the opinion of many Warhammer players is that Shadow Warriors could use a little bit of love to make them more accessible.  SWs do not have that “pop” feeling you get when you are playing a class that is concisely built to achieve a specific purpose and fill a particular role within a game.  Shadow Warriors are a class meant to personify the ability to drift fluidly between the various stages of battle.

They cripple their enemies from a distance, swiftly move to skirmish mode when things get tight so they can continue to fire their bows while moving, and then unsheathe their swords in melee range to finish things off.  The problem with all this is that Shadow Warriors are very squishy and die quite often.  Yes, I am well aware that the CR 40 experience improves greatly once your RR gets higher and you get some good gear.

But an MMO class should not only thrive once it hits the cap and gets nice gear.  An MMO class should feel adept at its purpose throughout the leveling experience.  This is difficult to achieve and most certainly speaks as to why MMO classes are always being adjusted and tweaked over the life of an MMO.  My point is that Shadow Warriors need to be able to survive just a little bit longer in a fight, as well as being able to switch between their stances with greater ease.

I would honestly vote to dump the whole stance mechanic for Shadow Warriors altogether, but that won’t be happening so I will focus on what we can do to make the experience more enjoyable.  We can either buff up the defensive capabilities of the Shadow Warrior, such as attaching some new dodge/parry/disrupt boosts to each stance.  Or we can give Shadow Warriors a little more utility to help them maintain distance from their enemies, such as the Glass Arrow buff I suggested or the VON enhancements.

I am not asking that Shadow Warriors receive a massive amount of buffs.  I like that Shadow Warriors are complicated and require a great deal of thought in order to play well.  What they need is to have their overall fun factor buffed through allowing them to serve their purpose better.  They are a class that shifts through the battlefield like water, utilizing their tactics to best suit the situation.

Adjusting Shadow Warrior survivability would certainly permit them to fill their niche more efficiently.  It would also give players a greater sense of fulfillment when they choose to join up with the ranks of Nagarythe’s elite, the guerilla warriors of the Elf kin and the arm of Ulthuan’s vengeance.

You can’t cure stupid

This post is mostly for entertainment purposes, so I am playing myself a little more over the top than usual.  I am sure some of you have had similar experiences so feel free to share them in the comments!

So at last I find myself in a competitive Scenario with the score sitting at Destro 458 – Order 452.  Order has the Lighthouse, Destro has the Fort, and the Barracks are up for grabs.  A huge battle is raging at the Barracks so I sprint back up to take the Fort while the mob of players is engaged.  I get there and see a Witch Hunter standing near one of the rocks.  “Excellent,” I think to myself.  He will come in handy when the Witch Elf pops on me, which is almost sure to happen.

With the groundwork of the story complete, I am now going to employ a sophisticated technique known as foreshadowing.

The score now moves to Destro 488 – Order 487.  I am standing at the Fort with the Witch Hunter and we flip the Fort to Uncontested.  I watch with fervent anticipation as there are no Destro in sight and the ownership bar slowly fills up.  Then the unthinkable happens…using his undoubtedly ingenious tactical knowledge, the Witch Hunter decides to run off.  And so he goes, as useless as a writer on a movie set.

Does he not realize that I am a Shadow Warrior!!??  You can’t leave us alone!!!  We are like lost puppies by ourselves!!  *grins*

So I am left to fend for myself at the Fort while the crowd is still engaged at the Barracks.  I start to say something to the Witch Hunter in Scenario chat when…you guessed it…a Witch Elf pops out of stealth.  I die in about 5 seconds, she retakes the Fort, and boom…Scenario over and Destro wins.  So I would like to take a moment and say to said Witch Hunter…

I understand the plight of the moronic…I truly do.  It’s not your fault that you were born with a deficiency that prevents you from processing logical thought patterns.  So the next time you get distracted by a fly would you mind taking one little step off the edge of that bridge over there?  It’s completely safe, I promise.

*sighs*

Clear blue ocean…clear blue ocean…

Making the complicated simple – SW Fixes (Expanded)

My Shadow Warrior experiment is going well I suppose.  I have been trying different talismans and switching my specs up a bit to see how they play with the increased wounds in particular.  The conclusion I am beginning to draw from all of this is not surprising.  Shadow Warriors tend to go as their group goes.  If you are playing with competent people then you can do some damage as a Shadow Warrior.  If you are participating in lots of pick-up groups or find yourself in one-on-one situations then your frustration is probably mounting because you find yourself taking dirt naps far too often.

This is quite different for a Shadow Warrior than a Bright Wizard.  This is because a Bright Wizard can still top the charts even if Order gets destroyed in a Scenario.  That’s not going to happen with most Shadow Warriors.  But what we usually hear in these cases is the old “balance for group argument.”  Yes, Mythic, we know…WAR is not balanced around one-on-one fights.  This makes perfect sense as well, but I think the point they are missing is that classes still need to be fun and Shadow Warriors could just use a little love.

Survivability is the problem here and it really isn’t that difficult to fix.  A tweak here or there would drastically improve things for Shadow Warriors in this regard, but for some reason Mythic just doesn’t see it that way.  Adjusting the range of Takedown to work from point-blank range would work wonders for starters.  If you throw us one more utility bone other than that and we would be in business.  It’s that simple, folks.

I am looking very hard at Glass Arrow right now because it genuinely seems to be the most useless ability I have ever seen.  It has a 2 second cast time and does crap damage.  It really is pathetic and I can hardly believe that they still have it there in its current state.  So here’s my thought…leave the damage as is and lower the casting time to 1 second…then add on some kind of utility to the skill that Shadow Warriors lack.

A 5 second root would work wonders, though I am not keen to add even more crowd control into a game that already has too much.  But this would give us one more regular ability other than Takedown that allows us to put some distance between us and the enemy.  Everyone can do crowd control in WAR so generally speaking, the snare on Takedown is not very useful because your foe just snares you back.  So adding some kind of utility proc to Glass Arrow to help SWs get some distance would go a long way towards helping people enjoy the class more.

The only other ability I would look at right now is VON.  Adjust the cooldown to 1 minute and we are good.  Two minutes seems like way too much for a skill that is useful but I would hardly call it overpowered.  VON could truly be turned into the primary support skill for Shadow Warriors, as they could use it far more often to proc all kinds of fun little abilities.  Some skills already work this way of course, but you could certainly add some other procs to make VON even more interesting.

I could go into a lot of more things but I don’t want to muddy the waters.  You could do lots to make the Shadow Warriors a more enjoyable class, though.  The stance mechanic is also faulty in my opinion, as the five second cooldown just makes it feel clumsy.  In addition, the ability to accidentally go stance-less if you press the wrong key adds to the overall feeling of bleh.  But I doubt Mythic will change the cooldown so maybe we can just hope that they might eliminate the ability to go stance-less.  It’s ridiculous and does nothing but make SWs more frustrating than they already are for some.

That’s all for now I suppose.  Till’ next time. 

EDIT:

I would like to say a little more regarding the concept of fun.  Class balance has always been and is still a major flaw in Warhammer Online.  I do believe much of this is due to the fact that we have 24 classes in WAR and trying to balance all of them must be akin to getting Israelis and Palestinians to stop killing each other.  I do have empathy for the class balance process, because developers are sifting through tons of voices all screaming for different things.

At the end of the day, however, it was Mythic’s choice to put 24 classes in the game and so that represents a contract of sorts with the player.  Mythic’s job is to make sure all of the classes are enjoyable and fulfilling to play.  Too often I hear the words “WAR isn’t balanced for 1 v 1″ used to hide from some of WAR’s more serious balance issues.  Shadow Warriors need some love and they are not alone!

When a Witch Elf pops onto me I should have at least a moderate-small chance of survival.  But nine times out of ten I am dead in under 3 seconds.  That is not fun.  That is not rewarding.  That is not balance.  Yes, Witch Elve’s should be a major threat to Shadow Warriors as we are exactly the kind of class they should be looking to kill.  But the fight should not be over in 3 seconds.  That is absurd.

If you want to play an FPS and light people up with headshots then that’s fine, go play an FPS.  But MMOs are supposed to have a little bit more thought and strategy built into them.  I am NOT saying that Witch Elves should be nerfed, however.  I am saying Shadow Warriors should be given a little bit more survivability.

That is all. 

The Experiment

Good Shadow Warriors, who have traveled from villages near and far…lend me your ears!

After endless deaths and a general rebellion against the Shadow Warrior’s lack of survivability…I have decided to conduct an experiment.  I am CR 40 and RR 43 atm, so without the benefits of top gear to boost my damage numbers I am inclining to think outside the box a little bit.  I have decided to dump a large pile of ballistics in favor of wounds and toughness, hopefully making me a little bit harder to kill.

This will take some extensive testing to determine whether or not this is viable for a young level 40, but I shall report back with my feelings once I have run with this a while.

I do know that my first Scenario saw me with 7080 hit points that were buffed to 7880.  I am still running in Scout stance with a toughness of 311 and Ballistics of 839.  I know what you are thinking…why beef yourself up and not just go Assault to boost armor as well!?  I may try that to be honest, but for now I would like to see how Scout handles the extra hit points and mitigation.  I did not die once in the entire Scenario (good heals too) and honestly felt like I survived a few barrages that I would not have before, with much higher ballistics and lower wounds/toughness.

This obviously lead to me being alive more often and gave me more time to do damage, even if my bonus numbers were nothing to write home about because of my dropped ballistics score.  I still managed to finish 6th in overall damage when the Scenario was over.  I will continue to try this out and see how it goes.  I may throw in some different specs as well, we shall have to see.

Vaunri Steelrain and the Land of the Dead

I said the other day that I would be throwing up a few more thoughts on Land of the Dead…but I haven’t really spent enough time there to form a valid opinion yet.  So I’ll just go over a few highlights and save my analysis for later.  There will be a certain someone reading this who was in my thoughts the entire time I explored here.  The screenshots will reveal why. 

As I mentioned already, I really do love the design and atmosphere of the zone.  It’s a lovely change of pace from Warhammer’s normal style.

The in-game map for Land of the Dead only lays out the basics…with the Destruction Warcamp in the top right of the zone and the Order Warcamp in the lower right.

One thing I think we can all agree on is that Land of the Dead came out during a time when it was not needed.  I am enjoying the zone thus far, but it was not what WAR required when the decision was made to divert a bunch of development time to creating it.  I think Mythic did a fine job with the zone itself, but WAR was suffering so many other problems at the time Land of the Dead was released that it only served to pour salt on the wounds.

That being said, I am happy we have Land of the Dead and feel that it serves its purpose well.  Lotd opens up to players in the 30s, and is an open RvR (PvP) zone where both Order and Destruction vie for entry.  Both sides gather resources in a race to unlock travel to the zone.  When one realm wins the race they may enter and run Public Quests and Tombs to their heart’s content.

However, after a short period of time the opportunity to open the travel route begins again…and if the opposing side gains access then they may enter while their enemies are still in the zone.  This gives Land of the Dead a wonderful quality of suspense, as you know that you could be beset upon by your foes at any time while you are doing PvE.  Each realm’s Warcamp can also be assaulted by the opposing faction, furthering the level of general animosity in the zone itself.

Apart from the RvR available here, there are 16 different Public Quests, 4 Tombs, and 1 Dungeon…the infamous Tomb of the Vulture Lord.  The Tombs require you to earn Glyphs from the PQs, each requiring different Glyphs in order to enter.  Lotd also has its own currency drops that allow players to progress and earn some very nice loot during their trips here.  So there is plenty to keep you busy in Lotd, as I promptly learned when I came upon a lone Squig Herder while he was hunting monsters.  I promptly laid him to rest and sent him back to the Inevitable City. 

I haven’t had the opportunity to run Tomb of the Vulture Lord yet, though I do hear that it’s getting some much-needed love and attention from Mythic in the next patch.  Once I have a chance to experience more of the zone’s content I will be back with my thoughts!

A decent little Land of the Dead preview vid from G4…

Pugs and your will to live…a symbiotic relationship

I was going to begin today with an epic wall of text regarding the trials and triumphs of the Shadow Warrior, but I am going to put that on hold.  The main reason for this is I don’t feel that my current experience is reflective of max-level Shadow Warrior gameplay.  I have been absent from WAR for a long time and am only RR42.  I’m currently operating in gear that was adequate the last time I ventured into the lands of WAR over one year ago, but now that same gear is woefully outclassed.  I am in need of more power…

There is also another statement I would like to make at this time.  Pugging Scenarios can demolish your will to live faster than a…

I sometimes wonder if this is one of the primary reasons that so many people complain about class balance in WAR.  While I do agree that class balance is a problem, I think this is compounded by the fact that many Scenarios end with one side facerolling the other and nothing in between.  It’s amazing how ugly it can get out there.  I ran 7 Scenarios this morning and Order got absolutely hammered in every single one.  I felt frustrated, perplexed, and ready to throw my keyboard out the window.

I was trying my best to analyze how I could do better and wasn’t coming up with much.  I am a Scout Shadow Warrior and my gear has talismans to reflect that.  I have tried many different builds in the past, from Assault to Skirmish…but I find that Scout just suits me best.  If I wanted to be a melee dps class I would have rolled one, and my current gear is just not good enough to run with Skirmish…I simply die too quickly.

It’s no secret that the main problem with Shadow Warriors is SURVIVABILITY. Get used to that word, Mythic, because you are going to be hearing it from me ad nauseam until SW’s get a little more of it.  I’m going to wait until I get better gear before saying more, but I am confident that my primary concern for the Shadow Warrior will be the same even then.  But as for these Scenarios…I was just at my wit’s end.

Run just one more, I kept telling myself!  Surely my luck would have to change sooner or later.  So against the pleas of my wiser angels, I dove into the Scenario fray one more time.

The Scenario was Caledor Woods and I entered just a bit after it had begun.  Order was backed up to their camp on the little hill and things did not look promising.  I ran up to the collection of terrified Order on the hill and thought, “Pugs…crushing your will to live since 1997.”  I stared at them for a fragile moment while nothing was happening.  I could not understand what they were waiting for…we were all there so why not jump the hell down and make a fight as best you can!  And so I did, leaping gleefully down into the frothing mouths of the Choppas that awaited me.

This sparked several other to jump as well, and before you knew it we were all there screaming at the top of our lungs with weapons swinging wildly.  Several melee were on me in a flash, and I thought for sure I was a goner as I switched to Assault for the disarm.  To my utter and complete shock…I was still alive as I spun about, disarming the one and using Whirling Pin to slap the other into place.

I retreated as the heals flowed through me and moved back to Scout…debuffing and dotting up my target as I popped Von and UF for the Festerbomb.  I followed with a Fell the Weak as a few others chipped in and the Choppa was down.  But our victory was short-lived as the other melee was on me, announcing his arrival with an axe to my left nostril.  I thought for sure it was over, but again to my bewilderment the heals erupted into me, buying me time to get a little distance while we melted the target beneath a hail of damage.

These guys weren’t too bright for focusing on me instead of the Warrior Priests, but I wasn’t complaining.  “So that is what getting heals is like,” I thought.  I had quite forgotten after all that pugging.  The battle soldiered on as the two sides swayed back and forth like a branch on the cusp of the wind.  We ultimately lost, but to my astonishment I did not die once.  As a Shadow Warrior that is no meager feat.

So I decided to end my run of Scenario pugging on a high note and moved on to other things.  After 8 tries I had finally found some healing and a group that acted as if they had actually played the game before.  With a restored will to live and determined focus to find premade groups for Scenarios rather than pick-up ones, I logged out of Warhammer Online with this lesson well in hand.  Until next time, folks. 

And the steel-tipped arrows shall fly

It’s time to send a big, hefty truck load of thanks and appreciation to Mythic/EA Customer Service!  I am proud to announce that yes, he’s back…his class is still a little gimped…and he is very pissed.

On the bright side, he still has the ability to deliver the Festerbomb.  So life isn’t all bad. 

Together Forever?

I would like to begin this Tuesday with a simple question.  Who here has ever taken the brash step of actually deleting a character of theirs?  I’m not talking about your mule alt either, but a higher level or even max level character.  Have you ever done it…said goodbye to something that you put God knows how many hours into building and nurturing?  If you have taken that step in the past then how did you feel afterwards?

Did you come to regret that decision or did you move forward without ever thinking twice?  You know, I imagine that most of us don’t take much time to reflect on all the memories that become associated with our characters over the years.  Not only do we spend countless hours, days, weeks, and years developing our characters…but we also spend just as much time using them as a vessel to interact with other human beings within these wonderful virtual worlds of ours.

It’s not difficult to understand how some folks becomes deeply attached to their avatars, viewing them as sort of an alter-ego.  These characters become an alternate representation of ourselves in a way, we speak and act through them in a world where we can do things that would never be possible in real life.  Again, it’s just not difficult to understand how we could become emotionally attached to what we create.

So back to the original question…if you have deleted a character then how did it make you feel?  I ask this because I fancied that I would make a fresh start when I returned to Warhammer Online.  I wished to begin anew with the game and so I created a group of new characters and deleted my old ones.  This includes my max level Shadow Warrior, who is now nothing more than a memory.

At first I felt fine, as I have done this before a few times so the experience is not alien to me.  But now that a few days have passed I am beginning to feel that slight tinge of regret.

I learned that Gaiscioch was doing a Tier 4 raid and I thought, “I could hop on my SW and join them…oh wait…yeah maybe not.”  In the past I put myself into a similar situation, and I even went so far as to ask SOE customer service if they could return my character to me.  To my surprise they did so without much fuss.  Now I am beginning to wonder if Mythic would do the same.  Could I go to them and request that my character be resurrected?

If they refuse I will only have myself to blame.  So I decided to take the plunge and see what they would have to say.  I only deleted the character a few days ago so surely it should still be in a database somewhere.  Mythic’s response was a little odd, I must say.  They are experiencing high traffic due to all of the billing problems, so it is understandable that their response might be a little delayed.

But when they did respond I was told this…

Thank you for contacting EA Games Support.

We understand that there has been a delay in our response and apologize for the wait. We are currently experiencing especially heavy traffic. While we are doing our best to respond in a timely manner, some delays are inevitable. We thank you for your patience while we work to address these issues.
Unfortunately due to the sensitive nature of your request, you will need to contact our phone support team at 650-628-1001. For account verification, you will need to provide the secret word you created when you created the account, over the phone. I sincerely apologize for the inconvenience this may have caused to you.

If you find you need further assistance on this, or any other issue, please don’t hesitate to let us know.

Due to the sensitive nature of my request…what is that about?  What is sensitive about my question?  I’m not asking to change account information nor am I requesting account information.  I’m simply asking if they can bring my character back.  Like I said, if not then it’s my fault anyway.  I just thought that there response was a bit peculiar.  Now I am scrambling to find out where I wrote down the secret word!  lol

Ahh well…only myself to blame.

I might call them or I might not, as I haven’t decided if I really want to go through with it yet.  Who knows, perhaps Vaunri and I were not meant to be together forever.