1.3.1 And Beyond!!! Apparently

1.3.1 New Stuff

I have to say, I'm a fan of the new stuff. Lets get things rolling with... dum dah dah daaaaahhh!

Keeps

TWO RAMPS! Finally our prayers have been answered. Tanks walls, while still an integral part of any good keep defense, will no longer be practically invulnerable in huge attack/defend numbers again. You'll now have to split your forces in half, guarding both ramps and adjust where you place the higher number of defenders all the time. Attackers can now push up one ramp, ignoring the second one completely while a defender cannot. This eliminates so many frustrating situations where defenders can't get new people up, due to massive enemy presence on the ramp, and the defenders being able to utterly bottle-neck the attackers with a wall of 30 tanks/MDPS and healers group healing, while they wait on a door reset which will then let them push down to wipe them with a lot less fear of losing the keep.

City Sieges

I can't wait. I played on my US mates account, as I said in the last patch, and I really enjoyed the experience in the new City Invasions. Even in a defended instance, you can help push to stage 2, rather than just trying to get crests off the other guys. Plus, being able to flip the victory conditions from their stage 2, to your stage 2 is a brilliant idea. Now the reward is for those with the drive to actually slaughter their enemies, rather than those who wait outside for 20minutes to get an empty instance. I believe it is now better to have a defended one, than an undefended one, as you can get the 1,000 points you need to progress to stage 2 in an invaded city much faster than baby-sitting 3 BOs for a few months (extremely large exageration[spelling?]).

Although, I am wary of this whole 18 hours of a Captured City thing. Order has been pushing really hard during the late morning/early afternoon on my server, which could let them have ages inside IC. On the other hand, we've been more likely to take Altdorf in the very early morning, after several hours of locking zones and pushing forts during peak hours. Surely this means that people will be, essentially, in a city for hours on end on my server? But, the advantage of the new Capture City is that you no longer have to do the Warlord PQs to get in to pay a visit to the king. Sure you'll still have to do them to gear up, but they are now 24-man instances rather than 48-man randomness where Order can come in and bugger it up by destroying a cube or two (BW Academy one, which they've done to me a few times!).

1.3.2 "Ideas"?

Forts being taken away from the end game? I applaud the move, but how then will we progress to the city? Will it just be a case of locking two of the three pairings again, but this time without the fort? What exactly will happen to them, and what loot can I expect to get from them now? Where will Conqueror set bits drop if they are no longer coupled with the keeps/city progression? Is it possible that we are going to see something similar to the relics of old that we saw in Dark Age of Camelot?

And whats this Apprentice/Hireling system all about? MORE DETAILS PLEASE MYTHIC!

1.3.1 PTS shenanigans

NEW STUFF

Well, I've been playing around on a US friends account so I could see what all this hype was about. TWO ramps in Keeps, and the new city siege stuff? I LOVE IT!

No longer can you hold a keep against far superior numbers just by having a shite load of tanks standing there and being group heal spammed. Now you actually have to split them up, move some about, guess where/when they will next push and compensate. Admittedly, my friend plays a Black Orc so my choice of what to do was very limited, as I have no idea how to play the class, considering my tank of choice is a gimpy Black Guard. I just stood there bashing buttons aimlessly, hoping I hit the right AoE thing at the right time, and mainly popping Immaculate Defense when it was ready.

Now, as for the new city siege content, its brilliant! When you are on the attack, its so much more fluid. You can't just sit around, waiting with two warbands full of people and get a brand new instance with no defenders. You spend so damn long standing there "guarding" the BO's that you get really bored, really damn fast, just to finish the PQ like 2-3 times in total. It pays off now to charge in early on, hoping that you all get in together (when more than a warband or split apart), and start laying down a beating on the other side. Sure, you only get 1 point per kill, but thats better than waiting 3seconds for 3 points in an empty instance. You could be holding 2 BO's and getting say 50 kills every 10 minutes, and that sends your score way up, much faster. I also really like the fact that you can finish stage 2, or flip it to your victory conditions, by getting a further 1000 points, rather than having random Orderlings charge in and just disrupt everything by knocking down healers, bashing tanks out of range, or the general charge and die mentality to stop you DPSing that damn Lord down fast enough.

Along side this, I really REALLY like that you no longer have to finish the two warlord PQs to get to the king. I don't know about Order, but the Bright Wizard Academy constantly bugged for me when I was in there on the live servers, and the Temple of Sigmar was just agony and almost an instant wipe when he cleaved.

SAME OLD COMPLAINTS, BUT MADE AFRESH

One thing I do wish had happened in this patch, is the nerfbat to Magus being undone. I do like to complain, but only when its really required of me in an MMO. I played a Shaman in WoW and I had great fun on it. I re-rolled as a Paladin tank there with The Burning Crusade, and quite often whinged about how much less desirable I was compared to Warrior and Druid ones, until Mount Hyjal, and later on Black Temple were launched.

In WAR, I find myself always complaining that my Zealot is a far, FAR less useful healer than a Disciple of Khaine, or a Shaman. To be blunt, both of those classes DPS much better than my Zealot, and both of them are also excellent healers. My Zealot has the worst group heal (or at least it seems that way), and yet we are almost always ignored completely if we attempt to be a DPS'er. Not that I'm saying there are no good DPS Zealots out there. I have been informed of a rather good one on Karak Eight Peaks by a few guildies, but the name slips my mind at the moment.

Please Mythic, make my Zealot a viable hybrid class. I remember back when beta was out there was the very blunt statement that there was no pure healer. Thats a bunch of lies and you know it, as almost every "pure" DPS class is likely to be taken before me, except for my Magus who is even worse. And to prove I'm not biased, I well understand the fixes needed. I was originally a White Lion, who was at the launch of WAR, the absolute worst class in game. It goes to show how they can fix something properly, when Mythic goes "This class is underperforming, lets show them some love," and turns the worst class in the game, to a class where the bloody PET can solo my healer down. You know, the guy who's meant to be able to live through almost anything except a full out assault by a melee class. "Half" a White Lion's DPS should be in the pet, maybe 75% if they are the spec that focuses on the pet, but not to a point where the damn pet can kill me no matter what I do, or whatever class I play. I've seen tanks in tank kit, with a tank spec be killed by the damn thing.

End whinge.

Rerolled from semi-gimped to 150% gimped!

Yes, its true. I've re-rolled (sort of) from my semi-gimped Zealot, who's biggest thing was Blessing of Chaos (25% increse to heals on crit), to a 150% gimped Magus.

I love my Magus, I love the idea behind a Magus, I love seeing all those pretty numbers sky-rocketing in scenarios even though I do almost nothing really. I lie, I get a lot of kills, but never 1v1.

What I don't love is the massive nerfbat that Mythic is constantly hitting my sexy new Magus with. By the way, she's called Robba Loldps. Uroo from Ancient Shadows, part of the Evil League of Evil alliance, suggested I call myself Robba OfBanks. I was tempted by Robba Baron, but until they fix my lovely new choice of class, I'm in protest.

And speaking of protests, take a look at these cracking videos of the protest that we staged on 27 July, to show just how we feel about the previously mentioned nerfbat whacky that we have undertaken.







And just for laughs, heres Roo's first video, Memoirs of a Maniac Magus, which made me fall in love with the class all over again, even after the nerfing. I mean come on, I was only 30 when the nerfbat beating hit me, and even I lost bloody 1.5k damage over all. That made me a sad panda :(