Warhammer Tank

Gear Grind - Priority goes to...?

The Greenskin effectively captures my feelings from the recent grab bag on the Gear sets in Warhammer. 

I actually find it a bit scary that the requirements sound so ominous.

If it's anything like WoW getting this gear is bound to get a little intense, and, quite possibly, will bring in guild DKP systems to make sure that gear goes to the most "worthy"

Obviously I have not seen any of the top end fights so I am not sure about their mechanics but in my minds eye I imagine that your tank would be the first person you'd want in resist gear.  Can anyone out there confirm if that's true or not?  I just can't imagine everyone in the group/warband taking damage equally.

I am pretty sure that the gear that drops won't be in the form of Tokens, as those are out, so it'll come down to fighting the random number generator to see if your gear drops.  And if the drop rate sucks it'll mean farming the instances or the RVR zones for months trying to get your stuff.

Right now I'm kinda hungry so I'm going to rail against long leveling times and stupid gear grinds.  I don't mind gear checks in MMO's, they're almost a requirement, but don't make me run an instance 20 times just to fill out my gear so I can move on.

NPCs in Scenarios - Fun and Tanking Opportunities

One thing that I liked in Battlegrounds in World of Warcraft was the fact that there were NPC's Alterac Valley.  As a Protection Specced Paladin it was a lot of fun to tank them.  Now, admittedly, AV wasn't so much about PVP as it was about rushing to the other end as fast as possible, but it was still fun.

I'd like to see some boss type NPCs roaming around various scenarios that would sometimes appear and help one side or the other.  As a tank it would give me something compelling to do rather than punt people into the lava endlessly.  

It's pretty simple really.  And if done right it could shake up the routine of scenarios and make them a bit closer to open RVR for us tanks.

Damage Taken - Why it's important

Right now in WAR there's a bit of a bias against tanks, and for dps and healers.  As I've said before, overall it may only be a %5-%10 bias but it's enough that it should be addressed.  It's unfair to have non-tanks get more renown and xp in scenarios and rvr when tankspecced.

So I have two options for Mythic when it comes to tanks.  Either you can give xp and renown for damage taken in RvR and Scenarios, or you can give renown/xp for damage blocked and avoided.

Personally I'd lean towards the latter.  That way you could give an incentive to tanks to actually block players and take damage, and get into the fray, rather than spec dps as many do to level faster.  You would also give incentive for tanks to throw up guard on non-tanks and soak up some of the attacks on them.

And, if you did that, you'd be able to do the same for all classes, and not have to give xp or renown to that bright wizard who just got nuked and while he took a lot of damage, he was naked and not doing anything.

Of course this wouldn't work in groups, where xp and renown is split, but it would possibly help in open pve where, I'll be in a PQ, tanking some champion, and slowly working him down, when some other player comes up, 2 shots him, and takes 66% of the influence points.

Lastly, one thing it might do, is show who the real tanks are.  The dps and healers get to sort their scenario summaries and see who is on top, and tanks could then do the same.

If Mythic doesn't do this then there will always be a sense, particularly in scenarios and RVR situations, that a tank is less useful than heals and dps.

New Character Slot for new Careers?

I've read in a couple spots, where players are asking for an extra character slot so that they can try out the new careers, Black Guard and Knight of the Blazing Sun, when they come out.

The reasoning seems to be fairly sound.  That is that, a lot of people may have used up all character slots in order to try out the other classes and mess around on alts.

Personally I don't think that Mythic should do this, although I believe they will.  The following is my reasoning.

First, I don't want the starting zones swamped by everyone just trying out the career on day one just for kicks.  It's going to hurt the experience of new players who choose the class and players who are more dedicated to rolling one.

Second, players are just asking for, IMHO, another mule to store stuff on.  I think that this is a BS reason and that Mythic needs to better address the storage management issues in Warhammer Online.  The Mail system is still crap, the UI is bad making it a huge time sync to mail stuff to alts.

But why should I have to mail stuff to alts?  Why shouldn't I have enough storage space on my actual character, and the means to manage it efficiently.  It shouldn't feel like a job to manage my inventory.  

I played SWG for years were it was, (not sure if it still is) a single character per server system.  You could pick up auction mail anywhere, access the AH anywhere at a terminal, and there were banks terminals all over the place.  And it worked.  Also being able to use containers to manage stuff was nice.

So, I don't think that Mythic should add character slots.  I'd rather they minimize the need to have mules for storage space and inventory/AH management.

Grab Bag BS - Don't Heal Tanks

So the lastest "Grab Bag" states

If you’re a healer and you want to make the most of earning Renown, heal those around you who seem to be doing the most damage. The system encourages grouping with others and/or keeping the top killers alive, so if you do so, your healing Renown will flow!

Edited to add: One word can make a difference in a statement. It's important for healers to group, and to heal everyone in your group, not just the damage dealers. Of course we never intended to suggest ignoring everyone else!

I feel compelled, in my anger, to comment that the "Grab Bag" is pretty close to "grab my balls mythic"

How in hell does this make any sense?  Maybe I'm unsure of the mechanic at play here but it would seem to me, if there is a tank taking damage, and a dps career at low health, that healers will heal the dps instead. And then, what will happen is that that tank will run back from the spawn point, die, rinse, repeat.

Then, it will mean that that tank will get less xp and renown than they do already.

Healers should get renown for healing damage.  Period, end of story, full stop.  

Black Guard - Brief Overview

In December of this year (2008) the Black Guard will march into Warhammer Online. This will bring the total number of tanks for the destruction side in this mmo to 3, having them stand side by side with the Black Orc and the Chosen.

There's been some suggestion that there will be a special event for the intro of the new careers. I'm hoping that this involves a couple of things, namely, a huge number of npc's marching in columns to defend their respective areas, and a swarm of NPC's that must be defeated and are difficult to defeat without the new careers being around to tank them.

The Black Guard will line up, mechanic wise, against the Ironbreaker.  The BG will build up hatred as they fight in the same way that the ironbreaker builds up grudge.  If things go the way I hope, the Black Guard will use halberds and will have the opportunity to do some AOE damage.

There isn't a whole lot of information on the Black Guard as of yet but the speculation is that they'll be a bit more offensive oriented than the ironbreaker, filling more of the roll of the Swordmaster.

I believe it'll take a while for Black Guards to get the same number of players as Black Orcs and Chosen due to the fact that both those classes are pretty cool looking and popular but over time, as a higher than average DPS tank, they'll hold their own.

Knights of the Blazing Sun - Brief Overview

It was announced recently that the Knights of the Blazing Sun are going to be quickly reintroduced to Warhammer Online.  Classy Gamer seems pumped and seems ready to take up this class with conviction.

I think that, despite the feathers that some people denigrate, this is going to be a popular class.  I don't really like the look of the SwordMaster, and I have never really enjoyed playing dwarfs, so when I roll my first Order Tank, the KOBS will probably be it once they go live.

The Knights of the Blazing Sun are a "minor" order in the Warhammer universe but fill that classic good guy tank look that order needs. Bright, shiny, and mustached they are set to provide the armies of order with leadership on the battlefield.

KoBS are designed to be the "mirror" of Chosen, providing buffs to their party, and by placing debuffs on the enemy. I'm not certain if their mechanic will work exactly the same way as the chosen does, where they throw up an aura, that takes 12 seconds to fall after a new aura is put up.  This allows the chosen to "twist" the auras and keep a couple up at a time.

KoBS will likely use commands or something slightly different than auras to achieve their effect.  They'll likely have a dps specialty, a tanking specialty, and a utility spec.  They'll probably be seen with a two-hander as often as they are with a sword and board if they're anything like Chosen.

Don't expect there to be a million KoBS mains when they come out but it is reasonable to expect that some players, including a fair number of Swordmasters, will respec. Over time I predict they'll be fairly popular if they look anything like the image on the right.

I'll post more information here once it becomes available.  KoBS didn't appear in Beta for very long so there is little information out there on them and I suspect they've gone through substantial changes.

I'm super pumped about this class and the fact that they're making it in game so soon.

BRB AFK

For those of you who wait on pins and needles for me to post please do not be concerned.  I've been slammed at work and now am out of town with the little orcs.  

I'll definately have some time this week to do some planning and writing so I'll be back on track shortly.  Of course, I won't have time to work on my leveling but it'll mean I come back at it with renewed vigor on Sunday.

What I think is happening is that I'm falling into my typical MMO leveling routine. I behave differently once I hit end game and I can mark out fun goals for myself and the team.  When I'm leveling I am basically just watching the xp bar.  Guild chat gets neglected, fun little side adventures get neglected, and variety is non existant.

On the variety side however Warhammer is a nice change from my previous MMO experiences.  By being able to level in Open RVR, Questing, and in Scenarios you can mix it up a bit and still make progress and I must thank Mythic for that.

Being a tank hasn't slowed my leveling progress all that much but it has a bit.  Tanks get less xp and renown in scenarios and RVR but I think it might be, on average 5% less, especially if you ensure you have the quests for killing players and such.

So, I'll hopefully write some posts this weekend, and will be back in game on Sunday.

My New Guild Is Brutal!

I've managed to sneak into a guild that has more than 3 people logged in at any one time!  It's a really nice shift and while I haven't taken the time to get to know very many people it's good to have guild chat regularly tick by with hello's and welcome's and "who wants to go take a keep" type messages.

It's got me thinking about why MMO's have staying power.  You can talk about balance, gear, leveling, bugs all you want.  You need community.  If you have a strong community, and plenty of friends or at least people to play with, you'll have a winner.  It's like a giant snowball that keeps on rolling.  My personal prediction is that once more players in Warhammer get to 40, they'll have more time to focus less on leveling and small group stuff and will have more time to spend on community.  And that'll be great for the game.

So you'll see me rolling with the Brutality tag over on Vortex.  Seems like a good bunch that is going to have a real impact on the server. And, given my experience in scenarios the last few days it's a real requirement!

Lately, it seems, that destruction is getting rocked in scenarios and doesn't own very many keeps.  I don't know what it is but it seems to have really changed in the last couple days, and, Order is getting bonuses on Vortex because the population is low relative to the more beautiful Destruction.

Black Gaurd and Knights of the Blazing Sun are back!

You've probably already read the news here. Patch 1.1 promises to contain a few things that will make those of us who enjoy tanking in mmo's very happy with Mythic's commitment to us.

The first news is that in this patch, scheduled for December, the two cut tanking classes will be back. It's huge news and I'm very surprised it happened.  If they were going to come back I expected that Mythic would do it in an expansion where you'd have to pay more to get them.  Kudo's to them for bringing them back so quickly.

So the Black Guard will line up against the SwordMaster, and the Knight of the Blazing Sun will line up against Chosen. 

Others have said that this will fill some gaps but I don't really see it that way.  I like having more options, but I don't see there being any real lack of tanks in the end game so this will just mean more choice and more for Mythic to Balance.  All in all good, but it won't change the end game.  It'll just be more fun.

From here on in the Knight of the Blazing Sun will be known as KoBS, as in corn on the...

Secondly, they are giving us Main Assist, and Target of Target.  This will help everyone use tanks more effectively in all kinds of situations.  Bottom line is that this functionality is a requirement.  It's nice to know it's coming.

Third, is improved drops and RVR "influence"  I think that this will mean that Tanks won't get the short end of the stick on gaining renown from RVR, either open world or scenarios. We'll have to see but the hope is there that we'll be brought onto a more even footing with DPS and Healers.

Oh, and if you're reading this check out my custom google search on the right hand side.  And let me know if it gives you crazy results.  I've tried to tweak it so you only get warhammer results when you search with it.  Feedback appreciated.