WAR NDA officially lifted. Post pics and info!

[Jaded]

You'll enjoy Warrior Priest. They certainly feel overpowered at level 10.

[Havelock]

Originally Posted by Digits

This thread, and the SA thread, move far too quickly for me to keep track of in a serious sense. I can only find tidbits about the classes I'm curious to play, such as the Warpriest/Arch Mage/Rune priest. Here's my take on beta and the testimonials. Would someone please confirm this?

War Priest: Shamans from WoW, basically. Huge survivability, mediocre damage. I really like this class from a perspective of a hybrid, but ultimately I feel that his melee centric nature is going to inhibit him as a serious healer. Maybe I'm just not used to the system, but being in the thick of it makes healing very difficult. You have to pay attention to not only your entire group, but also yourself and your offensive target. That's alot to ask someone, especially as healing in pvp is very intensive.

Arch Mage: Much better, ranged nuker/healer, but requires intelligent management of AP which I believe will ultimately be 'Use cheapest nukes to build up tranq, but mainly focus on healing.' I believe that range is much, much better suited to an offensive healer than a war priest.

Runepriest: Have yet to play, but everything says that these guys are dedicated healers. No annoying gimmick to worry about, just keeping yourself and other idiots alive. As a result, they are very boring to play unless you have a hard on for healing in pvp (Which I do).

So would rune priest be the right choice for me? I prefer mindless offensive, a few great defensive moves but most of my game play devoted to intensive support. In Daoc I played my cleric as a ranged debuffer, stunner and healer and I fucking loved it, and in WoW I played my shaman as an offensive healer that jumped between healing and distrupting the other teams support.

Rune priest is the god of healing, at least in my limited experience. I was a little wary about the lack of offense, and I played around with an archmage, too, but I found that the offensive necessities of that class detracted from my focus on healing. I wanted to be a dedicated PvP healer, and between healing ability and survivability, you can't beat the RP. A few good rune priests can keep their side up indefinitely in a scenario or RvR, and with the action point system, you can stay intense without significant break until the fight's over. I can't wait to see how the higher level abilities work out. The core mechanics, though, are perfect.

Warrior priests, on the other hand, are in certain contexts just plain disgusting. I was running a PQ with one last night and the dude was soloing three or four +con mobs in less time than it took me to down one of them, without any need of healing from me and with zero downtime or risk to himself. I chatted with the guy awhile, and his take is that they're not all that great in group situations, but they are miles above everyone else in the solo combat context. It seems like staying on top of healing in a pvp environment with a warrior priest would be really, really tough.

Another upside to rune priest is that I was almost always either #1 or 2 on the contribution list when bonuses were calculated for PQ loot roles. Not that it often meant anything (damn my piss-poor rolling skills), but in the long run it should be quite helpful for gearing up.

[Menion]

I really like my Rune Priest so far up to level 10. It's a fun class to play, I just don't know if I can put up with the embarrassment of having a ROFLCOPTER mount in release.

[Leadsalad]

Oh you will Menion, you will. (So that we can give you endless joking at your expense for it)

[Grumpy Old Fart]

I sure hope Mythic is smart about release servers. I'd rather see things over-populated for the first month or so, honestly. This is one of those games that requires lots of other people around to be fun, preferably balanced evenly between the sides. The PQs are impossible with only a few people, as are taking keeps and other RvR objectives, etc.

I spent the last hour running around Altdorf - which is huuuuge - and saw only three other people. Most people don't like to hang around MMORPGs if they feel alone.

They also have one heluva lot of bugs to fix in two weeks. The NPC AI and pathing issues - which they acknowledged - just kill the fun, especially when they make taking keeps and RvR objectives impossible. There are animation bugs (my AM gets stuck in some spell animations, and the blazing trail will extend across the entire zone unless I re-log), the 100% chance of CTD when the client hits 2GB of mem usage, etc.

None of this is news to you folks, but I'm super leery of Mythic releasing too darn many servers. I've commented on it on the in-game forms over and over. I hope they read that stuff.

Anyways, I had a ton of fun and will definitely see the other three of you that intend to play on RP servers with my Archmage!

[Lost Ranger]

There is no real reason to be in Altdorf atm heh. On my server the T2 rvr area has been a non stop war. Order is currently defending one of the keeps and has been holding Destruction off for hours hehe. TONS of people currently and I am having zero problems.

I did just CTD though which kinda sucks. Hoping they fix that little issue soon. Anyway... back to goblin stomping!

[CnCGOD]

Originally Posted by Torrid

Are you destruction? Because my shaman dies like a little bitch quite easily. Two people on me and I'm dead in a few seconds.

Any destruction class that doesn't have a shield seems to die quite fast. People dying before I can target them and cast heals is very common. On the reverse, half the order classes seem an order of magnitude more durable. I found some keep sieging going on tonight, and it was comical what a meat grinder it was. The only reason why I completed my 10 kill quest at all after a 15 minute battle of like 20v20 was because Order got too close to our warcamp and some died to cannon fire. Just sitting there watching the destruction respawn point, you'd see a never ending stream of destruction players appearing. Also, every T2 scenario I've joined tonight has ended up with Order camping below our starting point ledge.

From the perspective of a shaman, my healing actually seems weaker than that of a WoW healer. (disregarding MS of course) The top DPS usually has more damage done than the top healer with healing done on the meters. I have no clue where this 5 people to kill a healer comes from, because I sure ain't seeing it.

If you were on gorfang in the relic one where the guy glows and ahs to hold it... that was prob my guild doing the 500-10 games sorrY!

[Kreugen]

So, quick breakdown of stats compiled from Barak Varr and Blood whatever. First off, Barak Varr is the most evenly balanced server to date, wheras Blood has 40% more destruction than order, so keep that mind. I averaged the count of level 10+ players at 10pm est.

Order
bright wizard 54
shadow warrior 44
Archmage 42
warrior priest 36
Ironbreaker 34
Rune Priest 32
Swordmaster 31
Witch Hunter 30
Engineer 18
white lion 8
329

Destruction
Sorceress 65
black orc 58
Chosen 55
Disciple of Khaine 54
Shaman 53
Zealot 40
Marauder 29
squid herder 22
Witch elf 15
Magus 13
404

Here's where you see the real problem:

Tanks Heals Mdps Rdps
Order 65 110 38 116
Dest 113 147 43 100


Apparently, everyone has figured out that the life of a melee dps sucks ass compared to that of a tank, which survives five times longer and doesn't do much less damage. But the shortage of tanks on order is alarming. I think anyone playing order, even on a -balanced- server, is in for a rough time.

EDIT: Fixed witch elf numbers. Apparently you search for them by "elf".

[Mist]

That's weird. I never see other Shadow Warriors on Mad Dog Pass.

[Zbkuk]

So the flip side of that is if you play an order tank you'll be the star of the show?

[Daezuel]

How are you getting these numbers? I get a max return of 30 using /who or the interface. Just curious.

(I mean seriously ONE witch elf? on Barak Varr? I'm in tier 2 and I promise you I've had 3 WE's on me at one time!)

[Tongue]

Originally Posted by Kreugen

So, quick breakdown of stats compiled from Barak Varr and Blood whatever. First off, Barak Varr is the most evenly balanced server to date, wheras Blood has 40% more destruction than order, so keep that mind. I averaged the count of level 10+ players at 10pm est.

Order
bright wizard 54
shadow warrior 44
Archmage 42
warrior priest 36
Ironbreaker 34
Rune Priest 32
Swordmaster 31
Witch Hunter 30
Engineer 18
white lion 8
329

Destruction
Sorceress 65
black orc 58
Chosen 55
Disciple of Khaine 54
Shaman 53
Zealot 40
Marauder 29
squid herder 22
Magus 13
Witch elf 1
390

Here's where you see the real problem:

Tanks Heals Mdps Rdps
Order 65 110 38 116
Dest 113 147 30 100


Apparently, everyone has figured out that the life of a melee dps sucks ass compared to that of a tank, which survives five times longer and doesn't do much less damage. But the shortage of tanks on order is alarming. I think anyone playing order, even on a -balanced- server, are in for a rough time.

Having played a Witch Hunter to 16 I can't agree more. I get steamrolled by two dudes and I watch tanks get wtfstomped by 8 guys and still get away. I do however disagree on the dmg thing. Only people that top me on dmg done are DPS casters.

I cracked the code on killing heavy archetypes and can beat most casters but jfc Zealots, holy fucking hell are they hard to kill.

[Saban]

Stonetrolls crossing is so fucking stupid.

[Kreugen]

Are you sure it was a WE and not a DoK? Because I had a game where there were 4 chosen, 2 black orcs, 4 DoKs, misc shaman/zealots/dps and we lost 500 to 7. Tank and healing heavy groups are destroying. Of course those same tanks are probably miserable in a pug zerg fest RVR.

BV there were 0 WE's above level 10. Blood had 1.

[Mogley]

I was expecting to see a lot more marauders running around. They are beasts if played properly with support.

The RDPS vs. MDPS balance should even out some once tanks figure out how to play. Playing as a healer, I've had to explain how Guard works and why they should use it and a shield instead of a 2h. A lot do not understand that shields can block magical attacks, not just melee. Blocking hits for someone and splitting the damage they take is huge.

Hold the Line is great in a coordinated guild warband. Three tanks with overlapping Guards leading a MPDS charge with Hold the Line will absolutely rape the other side's RDPS. Anyone behind the tanks will get +45% chance to disrupt magic attacks and +45% chance to dodge ranged physical attacks.