Blackon's...

You got that? Blackon's... Black Orc Addons. Blackon's. Clever ehh?

Eerhmm, ok. Moving on to the actual post. A few days ago I did a short rundown of the addons I use for healing when Chefen is in the hot seat. Having been doing quite a bit of tanking the past weekend I thought I'd share what I consider usefull mods for getting beaten to a pulp (which is more fun than it sounds!).

The first one is PlanB, of course. Every selfrespecting Black Orc (and whimpsy Swordmaster) should atleast give it a try. It made my gaming experience a gazillion times better. No make that a quadrillion billion dollars! In unmarked bills! And a Dodge with a full tank and a trunck full of skittles! It's that good. No lie.

Next on the big list o' mods is Squared. Yup, the healing addon of some infamy. It may be of most use to healers, but when you need to know who's taking the beatings and putting your Guard out (which you are, if you're a proper tank) it's really nifty as well. Also informs you of the different classes that's in your party with a simple and easy to use interface. 26$ and half a marsbar worth of enjoyment. And some skittles. Never enough skittles.

HuxTax. This little fella changes your tactics when you enter or leave RvR. Dont get cought with focused offense on under focused fire!

Moraleset. Allows you to set different combinations of morales. Just like tactics. Very nice if you like to switch around like I do. Still not hot enough for skittles, though.

Dat's it so far. What I'd really like was a better tab-targeting mod as the normal one is somewhat buggy and mouseclicking just gives me gas. Just like elves.

Jawbreaking News! Dis just in!

The Mo' Heelz Institute for Industrial Spionage and Jaywalking (MHIISJ) just informed me that Warhammertank just posted a brilliant suggestion as how to fix the renown balance in scenarios.

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Give points for damage mitigated. Simple as that.

You'd award tanks for tanking and not risk awarding clothies for taking damage and dying. You'll give tanks a motivation to do some good tanking (incl. using Guard!) instead of equipping a big and impressive zweihänder og choppin' away at the enemy (I'm looking at you, Oberst!). And if included in the scenario summary you'd even be able to measure who's the best tank - like you can with healing and damage at the moment*.

Brilliant thinking in my oppinion. Now get those minion to work, Jacobs! Chop chop!

*) I know there's more to the "best" of all three classes, but as a rude indicator it'll do fine.

I's a Dorf Punter Extraordinaire!

Dat's rite. Obersten turned 18 last night and got himself a nice knockback. I teamed up with Thecla (the hottest witch elf north of Naggaroth) and headed to Mourkain Temple.
The first few rounds I had to climb the learning curve somewhat, but after getting used to positioning yourself for the proper Dorf Punt it's a blast. An absolute blast! Those pesky Ironbreakers and Swordmasters were flying everywhere and Runepriest and Archmages got punted right into our own lines for taking it on the mouth in the proces. Awesome stuff.
And it really does add to your usefulness as a tank. Seeing that Shaman getting clubbered by a few Witch Hunters? Move in, 'it 'em 'ard and send them flying away. If they come back they'll need get past you and your trippin' skillz first. Absolutely enjoyable and the healers love it (dat's wot dey tells me).

After doing some Mourkain Temple runs Thecla ranked up to 22 and simply got too big for the rest of us. Off to Tor Anroc then. Being a melee dps in the low end of your bracket is apparently not the bomb. Being an ironclad wall of green with the punting skillz of Morten Andersen is, however. If punting people over the sides of the Temple was fun - punting them into sticky, hot, burning lava was hilarious. At times I seem to forget about being a tank and just goes all in on the punting - sorry 'bout dat team, but it's sooooooo fun! :)

Apart from getting the knockback Obersten picked up Juggernaut. No more snaring, rooting or tooting at him no more. It was really a delight to just shrug of the defensive moves of the squishies and go chop them up with a twohander - yup, I did bring the big stick instead of the sword and board. As long as I dont get hit that hard I still last a while. If the Order pussies decides to focus fire the tanks, the armor goes back on ASAP (or after I res that is).

PvE also saw a massive boost going from 17 to 18. Knockdowns and the chapter 9 elite PQ reward great weapon really ups my dps. Rank 20-22 mobs are just being munched upon. Blam, blam, blam and if thing's turn sour the Black Orc has so many moves that boost his surviability. Untill then, though, it's just been focused offense and down with the critters. Yay! :)

In the horizon rank 20 looms with a whole slew of great benefits. The obvious ones being a Mount (Piggyback Mountain), extra bagspace and a new tactic slot. The last one means that I'll have to tinker a bit with the combinations - and will be the subject of a future blogpost.
Rank 20 will also bring about a level 2 morale called Raze. It opens for the possibility of really doing some AoE mobgrinding (Stunty Stumper and Da Toughest has fine guides to using it) and I suspect I'll be going back to Sword and Board by then. For tanking and RvR there'll be the Challenge skill which I really look forward to - it seems really usefull in the bottlenecks that always seem to crop up in scenarios and keep sieges.

Anyhoo, that's almost it for me for this week. Thursday will see me flying to New York and I wont be coming back untill next weekend. Election day, yay! It'll also be my first ever trip to the US and I'm really looking forward to it.

A New Kid On The Blog

Yeah, corny title I know, but I'm a sucker for that kind of thing.

Anyhoo, the point still stands. After a weekend of being a green, mean, not-getting-killed machine I really do enjoy the Black Orc. So much, actually, that I'd consider making Obersten my new main character. He's almost level 18 by now, so only a few steps after Chefen. And in any case it never hurts to have both a healer and a tank as I make through the chapters.

But back to the weekend. As mentioned in the post below I actually planned to do a post on the three greenskin classes I play. This will not be it. This will be all about da boss. All about Obersten. The one they call Thundermountain... Farting just seem sooo orky!

When I got back to him this friday he was only 11 ranks old. He'd just managed to sneak in his first mastery point, but nothing big yet. When I left him yesterday he was standing on the verge of level 18 and about to recieve his first knockback - great times await ye! As I've been the victim to more lavapunts than I care to admit with Chefen I fully understand the power of the knockback. And I can't wait to punt my first Runepriest or Ironbreaker. Burn, baby, burn!

The plan-mechanic of the Black Orc forces you to use quite a few different attacks. And to weave them in combinations. It's very satisfying to work on the best chain of attacks depending on the opponents. So far Wot Armor, Right in the Jibblies and Skullthumper have been a stable selection of mine. But I suspect Big Swing will move in big time after rank 18 becomes reality.

While PvE is lots of fun RvR is even better. As a healer I know how important it is to use the guard abilities and to help them avoid the pesky dps classes that try to single them out. Communicate with the healers, let them know you got an eye out for them, and they'll send you lots of green lovin' the other way. Level 18-20 will give me some very useful tanking abilities and I really do look forward to using them on the battlefield.

Which leads me to my last bit. Friday afternoon saw a party of Destruction players claiming keep after keep. First the Dwarves felt the hammer, then the pesky Humies and lastly the wimpy High Elves. Despite fierce resistance by a few Bright Wizards and a White Lions everything got burned. Lots of xp, lots of renown and lots of epic fun. Tanking a Lord while the rest of your team struggles to kill everything and everyone around you is really enjoyable. Lobbing a Choppa in the back of that Bright Wizard when he turns to run is just icing on the cake :)

The strangest thing...

Before the weekend I planned to write a blogpost about the three greenskin toons I play. So far I've spend most of my time on Chefen, the shaman, and thought I'd better give Obersten (Black Orc) and Preben (Squig Herder) some playtime love as well.

It wasn't hard to boost Preben as he was basically still waiting in Mount Bloodhorn as a level 1. I rolled him mostly to ensure that the name was not taken. As always I loved the gobbo attitude and skill names, and the playstyle of the Herder reminds me a bit of my Hunter in Wow. It's fairly easy to level him in pve as the squig holds aggro well (at this level atleast), but rvr was somewhat rough. Although he's only level 6 and thus quite low levelled the dps really stunk. I think this was mostly me needing to learn how to play a dps class (and the squig herder in particular), but compared to how well Chefen did early on I was a bit disappointed - mostly with my lack of skillz though :)

After fiddling around with him a bit I decided to go have a look at what Obersten was up to. Seems he's been standing right where I left him a few weeks ago and still haven't levelled one bit on his own. That meant he was a level 11 Black Orc behemoth in dire need of healer lovin'. I had not installed PlanB the last time I played him and found it a bit challenging to dance between all the different stances and skills. With PlanB installed this became easypiecy, though, and the enjoyment factor went through the roof. Yay for Black Orcs.

The rest of the weekend was spend on Obersten (and getting drunk), so the blogpost will be less of a threesome, but perhaps with a bit more passion :)

How to choose a career and stick with it...

... would be a really useful post, but not one I can write. Still, I'd like to spill the beans about the thoughts I've had on picking careers and specs.

Where I begin is actually a bit complicated. Ehh, ok - I just couldn't find the proper translation of two-sided (danish), so I'll stick with complicated for now. With my shaman it was partly the fact that I wanted a healer (career) and partly wanting a goblin (race). I've played a Hunter and a Druid in WoW, and I much prefered the druid in groupplay. Seeing WAR very much as a social game and finding healing to be a blast I had to choose a healer.

Actually I'm getting ahead of myself here. The VERY first choice I made was choose the Destruction side. This was very much based on what my real life friends were choosing - and the fact that Greenskins are only playable by this side. Which lead me to choosing the specific Shaman career.

I browsed the net to scoup up information on both the Disciple, the Zealot and the Shaman in order to make the most informed decision. The general consensus was that the Disciple would be a second rate healer with lousy dps - and we don't want none of that!
People were arguing heatedly about the Waaagh mechanic of the Shaman. Some arguing that you'd need to dps to heal and vice versa, and that would lead to a pisspoor results in both areas. Others (sensibly) mentioned that instead of basing you entire strategy on Waaagh, you could see it more as a cimpliment than a base for your abilities. That it added a bit to your dps if you healed, and a bit to your healing if you choose to dps. Overall verdict, runner up as best healer.
Last candidate was the Zealot. This career was toted to be the best healer money could buy and the one that would end up mainhealing everything and everyone. Sucky dps and topnotch healing meant first place with a good distance to number two.

So, why is this not a Zealot blog then? Because the charming nature of the Gobbo kicked me in the jibblies and ensured I couldn't roll anything but a greeny. Secondrate healing with a wierd mechanic fu**ing everything up and a lowdown, cheating and squeeling nature - what's not to love? Nuddin' yo can do 'bout it, Boss. Choose what you like and see for yourself if it play the way you want it to - give it a chance and you might be surprised.
Later on, of course, all the theoryhammering got a bit more nuanced. Disciples might actually be worth a penny, Zealots might not be the only healing class (though their dps really do suck ;) ) and the Waaagh mechanic work surprisingly well.

The lesson of all this? Roll a greenie if you want to - nevermind the screaming and cursing. Which is why I enjoy my Shaman, Squig Herder and Black Orc sooooo much.

Riding hard, breaking bones.

After lingering at rank 19 for longer than I'd like to admit Chefen dinged 20 last night. After a few hours of Scenarios I was close enough to let the area xp of the Inevitable City finish me off. Yup, El Chefe has never seen the capital and so far he's only just done a brief tour around the attractions. I'll most likely go back tonight and finish some of the quests and get to know the place a bit better (/ty to the kind souls in the chat, who could be arsed to point me to the mount vender. Twice...).

But nonetheless, I managed to climb my way to rank 20. Not a very impressive feat at this point in time, but still a nice time to stop and think.

What have I learned as a healer so far?

1. WAR heals are hot, hot, hot! Compared to WoW a three second heal will bump your target about a third or a quarter of a health bar. What really counts here is thinking ahead of time. Put autofire on your instant HoTs and pay attention to who ever is getting focus fired - they'll need it. And while your at it, notice who'll be next in line and start caring for them as well.

2. Wearing a sexy brownish robe might get you all the ladies (or mushrooms in case of Greenskins...), but it wont do you jack against the Witch Hunter blasting away with his .38 and poking you with his rapier. Run, baby, run and better head for a tank or a crowd of allies. Circle amongst them and make sure you make the best use of the terrain. I cannot count the amount of times I've run a melee tired by sprinting amongs the trees and rubble. Avoid LoS and keep your HoTs cooking. And if you can manage to spare a few for your teammates, do so!

3. Use the force, Luke! You got a shield - use it! It really saves lives, and not just your own. Ok, it's limited to your own party, but still it really can give you those split seconds you need to pull off a big heal. Think of it as a 400 hp buffer for your Bigger and Greener. And if your specced Mork, you should even use it as a damage buffer for your dps-mates.

4. Darn it. I had one more thing, but getting disturbed is one of the perils posting at work brings about. Nevermind the bollocks, though, it might come back later.

5. It's fun. Running around and keeping your mates alive is a blast. The times where you just manage to save your team is priceless. And even moreso if it's appriated - so remember to thank your fellow healers and tanks (and dps).

Ok, so you've played half the levels of your game - what's new? Well, the biggest difference you get by turning 20 is a mount and another tactic slot.
The mount will be really nice even though WAR is a compact game without the boring (and sometimes epic - but most often epically boring) travels through the terrain. 50% speed increase for 15g? SOLD to the fat git in the snazzy coat!

A new tactic slot means I can juggle two tactics at a time. For now this means I'll be complimenting either my +willpower tactic (for healing) or my +20% damage tactic (for damage...) with the tactic that let's you build Waaagh faster. Throwing instant heals on myself while soloing or Your're Not So Though's in RvR much more often will be appriated. I just haven't tried it yet :)

The slightly less revolutionary bit about turning 20 is a groupwide heal. I think this will be slightly situational, but really helpful at times. When the entire party is getting burned down a medium heal combined with a smattering of insta-HoTs will be very handy.

And what of the little git himself? I suspect he'll respec to Mork and renownboost his Willpower instead of the solo-pve build I've been using so far. Healing in scenarios (and a bit in PvE/Open RvR) seems like my favourite way of levelling as I'm getting a bit sick of grinding mobs as a shaman. Rinse and repeat ad nauseum.

Halfway to the top and still enjoying the journey - that can't be bad, can it? :)

Save Da Runt, You Git!

After reading a fine bunch of tips from a tank to us 'ealy gits I thought it was only proper greenskin manners to return the favor. So without further ado - what I want from a tank!

5. Save me! You get inch thick armor plates all over - I got a dress! And a rotten, fleabitten, stinken one to boot. That means even though it might be hurting, it's better to have the enemy hit you than me (it would too if you were the one in the dress and me in the panzer, but hey, dats life). So get in front of me, put your guarding skillz out and help me help you.

4. You may be kneedeep in knockbacks off cooldown, but blowing the enemy back 30 yards is not necessarily the bomb. Save you knockbacks for punting stunties into lava and for saving healers. Having a swathe of Order pussies blown away from around me will earn you more healer karma than you can imagine.
I found a good review of when to knock and when to ... ehh, I leave the rhyming up to you. Can't find the link, though, but I'll edit once I get it.

3. Remember to use challenge. Everything that reduces the healing I need to put on myself is coming your way, remember.

2. If you see a healer tagteam along with him. Send him a whisper to stay near you if he seem to drift. Put guard on him and let him know - if he doesn't value it, punt him into lava!

1. You may not be a healer, but pay attention to the rest of the teams healthbars. If they're dropping like flies expect the healers to be working overtime on no AP. This means that all your protective skills should be coming into action. Shieldwall and whatever their names are - get them working! You'll be number one on the healing list, but we could sometimes use a hand with the squishies :)

That's about it so far. I've not included any with relevance for PvE but whattayouknow, it may be in the pipe.

Healing addons - wot I haz in me bag

After playing WoW for about a year I've grown to really love the addons. Especially as a healer I've found it too be immensily usefull to be able to customize what information, when and where you want. You'll need to make decisions as to where your heals are going to do the most good and which part of the chain you can afford to loose.

In WoW I ended up using Grid and Clique in combination which made my Resto Druid very capeable of rolling lifebloom on four tanks while still moving from instance AoE damage. Nifty.
In WAR I found that the default UI was a bit better than Blizzards UI - if only because you can customize it to a very large degree. Still, I really missed my Grid and to a certain degree also Clique. In the fury of RvR it's really usefull to have a good overview of who's taking damage and where the f*** they're at.

So, what have I found so far to help with this?

1. Squared. Grid for WAR. This is hands down the best thing since dwarfs came sliced. Easy to use and with a brilliant overview of the battle/warband/party you're trying to keep alive.

2. Ishealbot. I must admit I haven't started using this addon yet, but it's only due to my innate Gobbo lazyness. Having a fan of heals right at a mouseclick it very handy once you've learned them - and fairly dangerous untill then :)

3. Mechanic Alert. Sounds a little ding (a bit too low, though IMO) when you hit your career mechanics maximum (Waaagh for me). It's handy as a reminder to fire of those instant Brain Burstas or Your Not So Tough. Also the other way around when in PvE, it tells me when I can haz instant big heelz.

These are my three favorite healing addons. I'll make another post concerning the rest of the junk I keep in my trunk, but for now I'll point you in the direction of the addon-post extraordinaire at Hammerofwar.com

Boatorious' Addon Roundup.

Informative and fun. Go have a look and if you like it, here's a link to his blog.

Top 5 reasons why Shaman rocks!

5. We've gotz heelz!
Keeping a steady supply of health coming is a fine way to keep death a few moments away. Be it that add you just pulled or a RvR gangbang I've found shamans to be quite durable. Of course we wither under spikedamage or focusfire, but so do most toons. With only one or two Order lackeys battering away at your scrawny green skin you can really take your time, though.

4. We crap our pants!
Carrying on from number five, when you get cought and smacked around just let it go. With a warm moist sensation you can witness that pesky Order dog's dps halved. And your heelz just keep rolling in!

3. The Greenskin Campaign.
Ok. Not strictly limited to the Shaman, but still it's way more fun than the other campaings. I might be a sucker for the lowdown nature of the Greenskins, but WAR really manage to capture it both in the quests (though they get a wee bit dull) and in the general chattering amongst the npcs. Job's a good 'un!

2. We're Gobbos!
The hands down most charming race in the entire Old World. Only rivalled by the Skaven Gobbos are my favorite race. Sneaky, smelly and cowards at heart - what's not to love about them?

1. We've got heelz to spare!
Ok, so this is a bit cheap, but the hands down best thing is the fact that healing as a shammy really is blast i RvR. Keep your HoTs rolling and fire of the occasionaly instant Your Not So Tough while dodging Witch Hunters and fireballs is just dandy.

Hmm, after writing this I've noticed that half of it applies to Squig Herders and Black Orcs. Bugger that, though, they rock too :)

Levelling is hard...

After spending about a year playing WoW I got used to the way a toon levels in that game. Especially after the boost in quest xp and lowering the thressholds for each level, levelling was a breeze. Apart from the endgame 55-60+ adding a level a day was easy even for my very casual approach to the game, and even with a bit of effort it could be done after hitting 60.

WAR is different. Of course there’s 30 less levels to actually gain, so each should be almost twice as hard to aquire. Still, the first ten or so levels came very quickly and then it seems the curve is really taking off. I’m currently standing at almost twenty and I’ve spend a good few nights RvR’ing my way towards that level. Playing a shaman is slightly boring in PvE solo – in my oppinion. It’s very much a rinse and repeat experience, and it does take quite a while to fight your way through mobs. Add to that the quick respawn time of WAR and you could quickly get into a nasty situation… and I certainly have.

However, this is not my biggest concern. The questing and solo-PvE part of WAR just seem a bit… dull to me. I like the PQ, but as others have pointed out they cannot be done unless you’ve got a good group together. And these are not always at hand leaving you stuck repeating the first part over and over if you want that influence grinded.

RvR is another ballgame, though. I really do enjoy it even with the unstable nature of PUG’ing. So far my guild has not been able to muster any serious RvR action or scenario participation, and it nags me a bit. I don’t want to change guild this early, but on the other hand I’d rather not get stuck with PUG’ing my way to rank 40. We’ve managed an alliance, but I’ve still to see any result of it.

So all in all? WAR is still loads of fun, it’s just soooo much better when in a group. Gotta get the happy face on and start making more friends, I guess :)

Me arse just spoke...

I love greenskins. No doubt about it. After travelling through the first nine chapters in the Greenskin campaign I decided to take a look at the other places. Not being much for dresses, glitter and whining I choose the chaotic part of the Old World. Ok, actually I do enjoy whining, farting and peeing my own pants, but them elfy gits just seem a tad ... off to me. Nevertheless, I was off on me trusty dragon.

The chaos campaign is a fairly grim experience. Chop this bloke, corrupt this priest, grow this tentacle etc. etc., but with a distinct lack of farting. Still, it was all good fun even though the rewards was a bit under my level. It seems to me that grinding PQ is mostly worth the effort if you're a bit low level for the area - it does take quite a while to get the influence necessary to get the elite items - which really is what the PQ are all about (apart from the choppin', bashin' and general mayhem).

Chefen is almost level 18 now and I'm considering grinding alot scenarios to get my renown up to par (it lingers at rank 14 at the moment). Healing is a blast, and with the pushbacks, knowdowns etc. that the tanks are sporting by now it's seems like it's easier for them to protect me - or people are just getting better at their game. I'm still learning to take advantage of the waaagh system. Often it's just spam healing, but I've found an addon that should help me fire off those instant You're Not So Tough more often.

And in the bragging department - I managed to outheal the top five healers combined in the last scenario. My confidence was sky rocketing and I quickly lined up for the next one. 15 minutes later I had managed to secure a first place, but with a meager 25k healing done and next to no damage. What this tells me is that Mythic has managed to give us a game that really rewards teamplay. When the tanks really tanks the healers really heal and the dps really ... well ... dps. It's a great feeling of teamwork. Very addictive :)