Gaming from where I least expect it
December 20, 2010 4 Comments
(Reminder to tell Rancid to see if he can work a way to link directly to abilities on his wardrobe instead of to an ability list page)
Both are close range, AoE staggers.
Both last 9 seconds.
One is a baseline Morale 3 that does 1200 damage as well, the other, a speccable ability that does a couple hundred damage at best.
What do you think of them as they relate to each other? Balanced? Appropriately placed?
September 24, 2010 Leave a comment
I’m coming to you with a proclamation: Shadow Warriors bring the bomb! I’ve had bronchitis and a sinus infection the last couple of days, but I still got to be a part of a pretty decent city instance yesterday. People may say otherwise, but the Shadow Warrior as a career is in the best place it’s ever been. There’s still some work to do, and some minor tweaking, but they can fill a number of roles pretty decently. Playing bomb is pretty damn simple, mind-numbingly simple, but it’s pretty effective.
I died a lot more than I’d like, but we were shy healers and tanks actually, and everyone there from my guild was DPS. I’m pretty happy with the way things turned out. Follow the jump to see my action from the city.
August 10, 2010 3 Comments
It’s alway been surprising to me that the shadow warrior class didn’t have a bigger following given it’s immediate visual references to popular pop-internet-culture memes. Namely, the fantasy fan-boi hardon for the theatrical adaptation of Legolas, and the ever popular Ninja. The appearance of the class is a clever blend of bows, swords, and masks that make the career appear to be a deadly assassin and get the adolescent juices of every young boy firing in over drive faster than Angelina Jolie in Gia. I think it’s always been a bit of a testament to the lackluster state of the career that it remained near the bottom of the barrel of population despite its immediate “pick me!” appearance. Maybe this is why almost everyone you know has a Shadow Warrior alt left languishing in tier 2 or 3, but never seemed to take it any further.
However, there are a lot of things coming with the new patch that I believe are culminating in a very substantial step towards the class being competitive. Maybe not desired, or a first choice, but competitive, and I mean this for both single target assist trains and bomb groups. The class is seeing an overall slight boots in damage thanks to the recent change of including the melee weapon into the calculation for ability damage. With a 70.0 DPS sword, Shadow Warriors will see about a +36 DPS universal to all physical attacks (sorry, not for you Festerbomb). This, in it’s own right, isn’t a game changer, but it’s a rectifier for a long-inequitable situation. It’s also one of the many small changes we’re seeing.
The class is also waving adieu to minimum ranges, the damage increasing tactic is being lowered BUT the situationaly negative aspect is being removed, a range increaser for the mid-range attacks, and a tactic that gives a situational cast-time increaser. The career is becoming more dynamic and varied in its play. I can easily switch between short and long range without seeing a detriment to any of them. I can apply all my debuffs when that Choppa is standing right on top of me, and I can hit you with my fast, low-damage mobile attacks from 100′ away. The play of the class is being opened up to actually play more in line with its intent, of being effective at multiple ranges.
That said, I think the career is still going to lack the consistent killing power/utility that lets the other RDPS’s (Sorc, BW, SH) be so deadly. In future iterations of the game, I hope to have the lethality of the class placed somewhere other than a once-a-minute trick pony.
August 9, 2010 6 Comments
I got an email last week about my old WoW account. It had been banned, for gold sales. Yes, my WoW account, that I hadn’t played for more than two weeks in the past two years (right after WotLK came out). This happened a day after I got my StarCraft 2 copy, and set up my battlenet account. Surprise, surprise! Making a log-in name for an account the email it’s attached to across a multi-game platform made it easier for accounts to be hacked! Shocker! On the plus side, Blizzard was very good about restoring everything a day or so later, and I now have a WoW account to play for however long if I decide I want to. I probably wont, but I could always log-in and poke about for shits and giggles.
That said, I did have a bit of a PvE bug put in my ear. I was talking to someone about EQ2, and they still play the game, and we got to talking about the game, and it stirred up all these great memories. So of course, as all things nastalgia-driven, I was incapable of resisting. It’s like not watching “The Price is Right” when home sick, you just can’t avoid it. I haven’t purchased the most recent expansion, so I finished getting my Shadowknight to 80 (took all of one kill), and am not playing around on my low-level dirge. This really is an incredible, more “sand-boxy” PvE game, with more depth of content and variability than you can hope to have time for. Plus, cross-server Battlegrounds! My favoritist PvE game with scenarios? SQUEEEE!
On the Warhammer note, I played some this weekend, but the wife and I spent time out-of-town with the baby at Grandma’s so gaming was at a minimum. I still got to do two city sieges though, one with my SW, and another with my Knight. My Knights a little behind the benchmarks I made for myself as far as renown gain goes, a week actually. He’s almost half-way through RR78, when I wanted him to be RR79 at the end of this current week. Still, with my recent alt-itis on my SW, and SC2, and EQ2 all being played, I won’t complain. Speaking of my Shadow Warrior: I’m half way through RR71 now, and am still having a blast with him. Even better, is the amazing news that Nate Levy just verified on the officials (see a reason to still read them). Off-hand weapon DPS will contribute to damage for the shooters.
That’s hawt.
July 14, 2010 5 Comments
Nate Levy posted the general changes to ranged DPS classes yesterday. There’s a lot that has changed, and a lot more for the Shadow Warrior and Squig Herder communities to be very happy about. Things that have been asked for, and yearned after for the longest time are seeing fruition. I can’t adequately put to pen how happy some of these changes make me. His post and my analysis after the jump.
June 28, 2010 4 Comments
Snare Proc, woot!
And apparently, it’s my Shadow Warrior. I don’t play mine a lot anymore, mostly when solo, or when just farting around for a little bit of time. Or when my other characters are locked out of the city. He still needs to get RR70, and the rest of his set of Sovereign gear. So, when the city opened up Sunday morning, I took my SW in there all by my lonesome for some good, stance-dancing fun. After an instance full of split-arrows ward checking after being made a Champion, I was blessed with this insignia-trivializing weapon. I have no reason to do scenarios anymore outside of pure fun and renown gain. It’s my favorite part of the game, which makes me sad that I’ve lost a carrot, but happy at such a great piece (slight scoreboard brag after the jump).
May 28, 2010 8 Comments
I spec’d my Shadow Warrior to Scout.
I hate that I did. I really do, I’ve adamantly avoided the spec because I don’t like the feel of the game play. Admittedly, it’s slightly better with a 1 second cast time on Eagle Eye, so my mobility stays pretty high, but I really REALLY miss playing as a skirmish/assault mix. Being a short-range to melee play style, weaving in and out, is just so much fun. However, scout is just as (if not more) lethal AND I never die. I was checking out my RvR Stats Improved mod after a handful of scenarios, and the results were stupid. 85 kills, 32 deathblows, zero deaths. I went off and tried to take a scenario objective from a Choppa and a WE by myself, just so I didn’t forget what it meant to be a SW.
April 19, 2010 11 Comments
Just an FYI: this is going to be a long, rambly post, with probably no concern to anyone other than myself. I’m trying to work through what it is I’ve been experiencing in-game of late and the resulting future participation I am worried about by putting it to word. Feel free to read if you’re REALLY bored, but don’t expect any great insight, hilarity, or scathing witticisms in this one. It’s more what you read from a teenage boy, laying on his bed as he hurriedly scribbles in his journal (not a diary! diaries are for girls!).
You’ve been warned.
February 3, 2010 4 Comments
Just got done with the Q&A session after the PTS event. I asked about their feelings on the stance mechanic’s benefits for the Shadow Warrior when considering it’s limiting nature and the comparison to what a squig provides. Nate Levy’s response was that the stance mechanic in general is something they are looking into and would like to work with, but can’t give any details beyond that.
Maybe it’s just me, but I got a sense of a nudge and a wink in his reply. Wanting us to know that changes are coming.
Take it for what you will. I’ll be sticking with my Knight until I get more definitive response, but some info is better than none.
February 3, 2010 5 Comments
The notes are up for the latest of patches coming our way in Warhammer. I missed out on the exclusive hotness of it all yesterday while I spent time with family that came in from out of town (my niece is 4 days older than my daughter, and they look eerily similar). All the buzz right now is over new RvR weapons that can be gained primarily in scenarios. Other bloggers have covered the news of this subject pretty extensively, and even given some great examples of the artwork we can find of the new RvR weapons. As great as the RvR weapons are, there is a lot more to the notes than just that particular system, as well as some corollary changes brought in with the system that have a far-reaching effect.
One of the biggest changes to the game with this patch is the removal of the vast bulk of the scenarios across all tiers, and the decoupling of racial pairings with victory points. To more fully explain, all scenarios that are played will count towards victory points in all campaign pairings. So, if you are playing in Battle for Praag and win, it will affect the victory point contribution to flipping Dragonwake, Kadrin Valley, or any other zone for your tier. In addition and concurrently with this, they have removed all but six scenarios that will be played at tier 4, with a reduction of available choices at the lower end. I take issue with this for a couple of reasons.
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