Set the pace.

Normally, the success of a group isn't measured by how many enemies they beat, or how good the XP per hour is; merely how fast the team perceives itself as moving through spawns.

Don't get me wrong. When I'm gaining multiple bars of XP per mission, leveling more than once with the same group post lvl 20, yeah, that group is badass. However, in general, the teams I remember most are the ones on which I felt like I was unstoppable.

Now, as awesome as my Blaster (Police Drone TH) is, he is made stronger by good teammates. Specifically, Tankers and Defenders.

Now, this isn't some post extolling the virtues of the "Holy Trinity" (Tank/Healer/Mage). Instead, I'm saluting the people who control how fast the team rolls. In CoH, it's the Tankers and Defenders. Tankers who eat alphas and manage agro, and Defenders who buff (not heal).

Tankers get a bad rep sometimes. They can be regarded as glory hounds, or seen as trying to do all the work just to show off. However, the real strength of a Tanker is in his ability to embolden the team, and make them strike harder and faster, having faith in the Tanker to keep the agro off them while they rain hell. This applies equally to all classes, not just "Mages". It's safer to debuff once a Tanker has moved in. It's safer for a Scrapper with a mandatory agro aura to engage the foes. Additional agro is less of an issue if the primary spawn is being adequately managed. Tankers, when performing their job properly, help set the pace at which a team does it's job. The better the Tanker, the faster the pace, without team safety being sacrificed.

Any player can tell you that they feel much stronger when an Empathy/Thermal/Pain Manip/Kinetic/etc buff is cast on them. The very nature of buffing powers in CoH lends huge strength to a team. Strong characters are bold ones, and a buffed team is more confident going into battle. While they may still be numerically inferior, they will most times still press on, putting faith in that extra +18.5% def the Defender gave them, or the extra +500% regen the whole group has. Knowing that they are backed by a vigilant Defender (no pun intended), a team is more likely to stand it's ground when people start to fall. More likely to keep fighting when they would otherwise run away. I've seen more team wipes resulting from premature retreat then from failing to run away fast enough.

When solo, I know my own limits. I can ride the razors edge, and tackle odds far greater than most other players. Most players perform better when solo, as they only have themselves to consider in any given situation. When teamed, everything changes, because up to seven other people can be impacted by what you do. When teamed, I have to exercise restraint, since more than my own fate rests in the balance (and usually, the odds are vastly stacked against me). However, when teamed with the right people, when there is the right combination of agro management and buffing, I can once again become the engine of death that I know I am. And this applies to the rest of the team as well.

MMO Manners

People online are notoriously rude. Whether or not one is actually being rude, it is usually how they are interpretted as acting anyway.

Two days ago, I was running some RWZ (Rikti War Zone) missions with my friends. We had a team of heroes and villains, are were doing the story arc where Longbow (think S.H.I.E.L.D.) tries to steal Vanguard's (think an even more badass S.H.I.E.L.D.) thunder. One thing leads to another, and much to the delight of the villains on the team, we start busting Longbow skulls. Fun.

Eventually, our battle takes us head to head with a Longbow Hero (Archvillain), who could make Chuck Norris's blood run cold. He smashes into our group like an angry bull, and we wipe. Once. Twice. Three times.

Finally, we re-order our team a tad, trade one or two of our players, and lower the difficulty. We go in for round four, and we start to win, but then our tank panics, jumps into the backline, right as the Hero fires an AoE at him. The result is a lot of dead support characters, and a fifth wipe. We rally, and keep the fight going. The tank runs back in, then gets knocked back into us. Again things get hairy, when I realize that our tank has no KB (knockback) protection. I try to get him to stand in a corner, in order to negate the KB, but he won't listen. As a result, he keeps getting bounced back into the team, who then eat AoEs in the face.

It doesn't take long before I flip a monumental shit, and start screaming at the guy. A few moments after my tirade, he falls in line, and we are able to take the Hero out.

We exit the mission, get ready for our next run, and I apologize to the guy. It turns out he was brand new to the game, so I took the time to explain what was going wrong, and what could be done in the future to fix it. As it turns out, he did have KB protection, he just failed to use it. I give him some slotting advice, as does the scrapper. As I wrap up with our tank, one of the villains chimes in:

"Wow, that's the first time I've ever seen someone apologize for something like that."

And that bothered me, because he was right. Online, far too many people are not accountable for what they "say" or how they "act". I play games, online and offline, in order to relax, not to yell at people. I don't enjoy acting like that, and it's important to me for people to understand that.

That's why I apologized, because I meant it.

Crab Battle!

Firstly, I squandered yet another Double Xp Weekend, having fun instead of religiously powerleveling my toons. How dare I? All told, I gained a scant 16 levels across all characters (and that includes a Brute I soloed to 12 on Virtue). I even teamed with Icey Pants 2 again. During my absence, the ability to "rate" players was introduced. I currently have it set so that all my personal rankings are displayed above a players head, and the game tracks these ratings across the player's account (So if someone rates me a well deserved 5 Stars, that rating is reflected on all of my other characters). So, upon joining a team with Combative Medic, I saw that my team leader was ranked 1 star with the comment "Hates tankers and scrappers". However, I then saw that there was a lvl 28 Martial Arts/Regen Scrapper on the team (and better yet, the Scrapper was a brand new player!). Icey Pants 2 certainly had her rating go up after that.

Regardless, last night, I decided I wanted to take one of my mid-40 characters up to 50. After a brief debate, I settled on Police Drone TH-01, my human-form Peacebringer. In short order, I was teamed up with the Vampire's Coven SG (none of whom seemed to be vampire themed, oddly enough), saving the world.

No, literally, the name of the mission was "Save the World".

After a lot of fighting, and I mean a lot, we finally reach the +4 AV. After a pitched battle, waves of ambushes start spawning and attacking us while we're still engaged with the first AV. Once he drops to 1/3rd HP, and cutscene triggers and we get to see a second +4 AV approach, promising much doom. The battle continues, we defeat the first AV, and engage the second. This AV, not to be outdone, also triggers ambushes on us.

After much gnashing of teeth, and player death, we finally work him down to 25% of his HP. So he triggers Personal Force Field.

A collective groan issues forth from the team, as we watch him regenerate much of the damage we dealt, but then the force field drops, and we start working him over again. And again, at 25% HP, the field goes up.

Such is the battle for the next hour. Whittle whittle whittle, shield, regenerate, whittle whittle whittle, shield, regenerate, whittle whittle whittle, shield, regenerate, whittle whittle whittle, shield, regenerate, whittle whittle whittle, shield, regenerate, whittle whittle whittle, shield, regenerate, whittle whittle whittle, shield, regenerate, whittle whittle whittle, shield, regenerate, whittle whittle whittle, shield, regenerate, whittle whittle whittle, shield, regenerate...

You get the idea.

It reminded me of the fact that City of Heroes is functionally very similar to dozens of other RPGs, in that at the beginning of each fight, either you are, or aren't, strong enough to win. Where as, in some games, pure skill can overcome a statistical disadvantage, it usually cannot in a game based almost purely on preprogrammed percentages.

So, despite the fact that we were all very competent players, with powerful characters, our team was mechanically insufficient to handle the task at hand (we needed either massive regeneration debuffs, or large amounts of stacked holds to prevent him from casting PFF).

It's a shame really. For 95% of the game, a group can get away with having an unbalanced team, since competent play wins battles, not powersets and ATs.

"We don't team with your kind here."

With the release of Issue 16, Defenders were given access to the Assault Rifle secondary set. My heart leaped with joy when I found out I could finally roll up an Empathy/Assault Rifle Defender, so first chance I got, I did.




At the time, I had been trying to find a way to turn this picture into an outfit, as a way to lure a friend of mine into playing CoH again. In the process, I fell in love with the idea of playing a medic from a Warhammer 40K or Starcraft scenario, so I rolled up Combative Medic (and I changed the outfit, along with color scheme).

Combative Medic is now level 26, blasting and buffing his merry way through all manner of task force, AV battle, and general tomfoolery. I'm still trying to find my inner Defender, but having a Council Assault Rifle to blast my way to said inner Defender with helps.



So, yesterday, after having some trouble finding a team, I end up grouped with two Controllers, whom we will call Icey Pants 1 and Icey Pants 2. Both were Ice Control/Cold Domination 'Trollers from the same SG. Upon joining them, the leader (Icey Pants 1) laments how few people are within our level range, and how none will join. I comment that I have a friend who will join us, to which the leader reacts favorably. After a few minutes of plowing through Sky Raiders at +1, I mention that my friend is now ready, with his Tanker.


And so it starts.

Icey Pants 2: Oi vey.

Icey Pants 1: No tankers, no scrappers.

Combative Medic: As a policy?

Icey Pants 1: SG rule. We don't allow them.

::After a few moments of politely testing the waters of the issue (while
still performing my job admirably), I address it directly::

Combative Medic: So do you also exclude Brutes, Stalkers, Blappers, and
Kheldians?

Icey Pants 1: No, just tankers.

Icey Pants 2: And tankery storm defenders,

Combative Medic: Why?

Icey Pants 2: We deal with enough of it on PUGs, so we don't allow it when
our SG runs a team.

Icey Pants 1: Chasing a tank around as it runs blindly into spawns get old
fast.

Combative Medic: Why not ask them not to, and boot them if they refuse?

Icey Pants 1: Have you ever asked a tank to listen to you?

The rest of the conversation is more of the same, but you get the gist. Rather then exclude all melee or melee capable classes, they simply exclude the two ATs most suited to deal with the damage they will inevitably take (I love my blapper to pieces, but anything less than perfection when I play him at +4 results in bloody violent death for moi). And this exclusion isn't truly against the ATs, simpley how some people chose to play them. But rather than having 30 seconds of patience with a player to see if they will play nice with others, they discriminate against a large portion of the player population, then lament that there aren't enough people around to join their team.

In the end my response to them was this: I will give almost any player and any AT a chance. Unless my team absolutely does not need, or will be hurt by the presence of a particular AT (a team with 6 blasters doesn't need a 7th), there is no reason not to include another player. If said player causes issues via their play style, I speak with them. If they adapt to the needs of the team, they can stay. If they refuse, I politely ask them to leave, and failing at that, I simply boot them myself. Conversely, when I play my Tanker, or any other AT for that matter, I almost always defer to the judgement of the team leader. If he has a problem with something I'm doing, I'll stop. Sometimes this means I end up doing stupid shit cause the leader sucks, but other times it means that I help the team running better by accepting the fact that my way isn't always the best way. Maybe I should be corner pulling on a Nemesis map, or maybe I should be on the opposite side of the AV from the team to protect them from melee cones (these are things I already do, btw, but that many Tanker neglect).

However, at no point can I ever expect another player to accommodate to my wishes if I refuse to do it in turn. Icey Pants 1 & 2 refuse to play with 40% of the available ATs, based on what they perceive as an issue with the classes, when in truth it's an issue with play style (one that can be found in every AT, Red or Blue side). I have no time for people who discriminate, but at the same time, to their credit, Icey Pants 1 & 2 were very polite, and answered all of my questions. So, rather than leave in a huff, I finished the mission with them, politely excused myself, and went off to team with my Tanker bud who had been left out.


This applies equally to all classes, ATs, professions, in any game, MMO or otherwise.

Level Cap=/=Fun Cap

I don't play World of Warcraft, for many reasons. Almost all of them are personal preference; as much as I don't like WoW, I can't say that it's bad. Far too often, people mistake their own opinion as fact, and I want to go ahead and put that out there before I go on.

Now, there is one thing that Blizzard has done, that I hate, and it's the repeated increase of the level cap in WoW. Also, by proxy, how this practice has lead to droves of people carrying over a faulty logic to other MMOs that, in increasing the level cap, one can make a game more fun.

Firstly, why I dislike increasing the level cap in an established, persistent online game. It tends to invalidate the work and effort of a player. If I've spent the last two months raiding with my guild, to complete my Tier # armor, I'd feel pretty shitty when the developer of the game decides that everything my character owns (and that I thought was good) is now worthless junk, because there are ten more levels for me to grind out, and each one has gear more powerful than the last.

Now, increasing the level cap certainly isn't bad for newer players, or ones who haven't dedicated depressingly large amounts of time to pimping out a character. It sucks for the hardcore players. Of course, they are also hardcore enough to suck it up and grind out those ten new levels, and work up to the newest Tier of gear. I sit somewhere in between casual and hardcore, where I care enough and play just enough to be well equipped, but I haven't religiously cleared the same instance dozens of times to earn a particular set of gear (this doesn't exactly translate into CoH and GW, but close enough).

This brings me to the crux of my rant; I'm tired of hearing people suggest upping the level cap as the best way to make a game better. Wrong, bad, fail. Firstly, not all games revolve around high level play. Secondly, not all games have an endgame the involves endless grinding for loot. For example, City of Heroes is more about the (admittedly downplayed) story of a world recovering from a massive invasion, and your role as a fledgling hero trying to save it. You start as a scrub fighting riots and taking down low level drug dealers, to traveling between dimensions, defeating evil super-powered despots and liberating entire worlds from tyranny. The scope of such an evolution is hard to appreciate if you blast past low level play to get to high levels, and it's completely lost when you replace one plateau of power with another one.

Guild Wars is another great example. While Prophecies, Factions, and Nightfall vary greatly in their PvE application, it's undeniable that the endgame in Guild Wars is PvP. Lots of PvP. Coordinated, uncoordinated, pro, scrub, hardcore, softcore PvP. Wanna do small scale? Arena. Large scale? Alliance Battle. Ultra cut-throat internationally competitive? Guild vs Guild or Hall of Heroes. Increasing the level cap offers absolutely no benefit here.

What can make a game better? What can extend it's life? Additional content, not at the expense of the effort players have already invested in the game. City of Heroes publishes a new issue of the game every three to four months, adding more content each time (including but not limited to: New Powers, New ATs, Inventions, New Zones, Power Customization, New Villain Groups, etc). Guild Wars released an expansion meant almost exclusively for max level players. Additionally, they added (early on) the ability to play all the low level areas as elite lvl 20+ zones.

Issue 16: Power Spectrum

Powers Customization:

Hundreds of powers have been updated to allow new color selections and customization. Players can now pick new Themes for each powerset, adjusting colors, appearance, and even animations for some sets.

Key Features:

• Thousands of Tintable particle and geometry effects for powers, such as Energy Blasts and Stone Mallet colors.
• Customizable Primary and Secondary colors for powersets, with color choices themed to match the selected powerset.
• Powerset Themes selectable for a complete set, or individual powers.
• Powerset Themes selectable at character creation, as well as in the tailor screens.
• Independant Theme selection for each character costume.

New Theme selections:
New Themes of Spines and Thorny Assault available, including themes of Thorns, Metal Spines, Crystal Spines, and Slate Spines. New Animation Themes for Super Strength and Martial Arts.Huge variety of customizable powersets, including Cold Domination, Dark Armor, Dark Blast, Dark Melee, Dark Miasma, Devices, Earth Control, Earth Melee, Electric Armor, Electric Assault, Electric Blast, Electric Melee, Electricity Manipulation, Empathy, Energy Assault, Energy Aura, Energy Blast, Energy Manipulation, Energy Melee, Fiery Aura, Fire Assault, Fire Blast, Fire Control, Fire Manipulation, Fire Melee, Force Field, Gravity Control, Ice Armor, Ice Assault, Ice Blast, Ice Control, Ice Manipulation, Ice Melee, Illusion, Invulnerability, Kinetics, Mental Manipulation, Mind Control, Necromancy, Plant Control, Psionic Assault, Psychic Blast, Radiation Blast, Radiation Emission, Regeneration, Sonic Resonance, Sonic Blast, Spines, Stone Armor, Storm Summoning, Super Reflexes, Thermal Radiation, Thorny Assault, Traps, and Willpower.
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New Character Creator:

* The Character creator and Tailor screen have been updated to be easier to use and even preview the animation and color choices for powers!

Key features:

• Tabbed Character Creator: Jump between Archetype, Power Sets, Costumes, and Character ID in any order without losing progress.
• New Powers Customization screen, for adjusting powers and previewing animations.
• Select colors and themes for each individual power, or apply it to the entire power set!
• Preview live animations of all powers, showing the selected Theme and color choices.
• Save and Load Theme settings for each powerset, saving colors and selections for all powers.

Costume slots: Your active costume slot is stored when you log off will be the costume slot used when you log back in. It will also display that costume in the character selection screen. _______________________________________________

Powerset Proliferation:
More power sets are now in the hands of Archetypes who couldn’t use them previously!

• Archetype - Blasters * Radiation Blast
• Archetype - Brutes * Claws
• Archetype - Controllers * Cold Domination
• Archetype - Corruptors * Archery * Trick Arrow
• Archetype - Defenders * Assault Rifle * Traps
• Archetype - Dominators * Earth Assault
• Archetype -Masterminds * Thermal Radiation
• Archetype -Scrappers * Electric Melee * Electric Armor
• Archetype -Tankers * Electric Melee * Electric Armor
• Archetype -Stalkers * Broadsword

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Enhanced Difficulty Options:
The old notoriety system has been removed and replaced with a new difficulty system of independent settings. You can now fine-tune the difficulty levels of the missions you play by telling the game exactly how you want to be treated:

* Choose to fight monsters between a -1 to +4 level difference from the player's level.
* Choose to set your personal team size (1-8).
* Choose if you want bosses to scale down to Lieutenants when soloing or not
* Choose to have AVs scale down to EBs.

The difficulty settings of the mission owner dictate how the mission is handled. Actual team size overrides any difficulty setting, so you will always get Arch-Villains if the team has 6 or more members. The difficulty setting is per task, so personal team member sizes do not add together. You can change your difficulty settings at any Hero Corp.’s Representative in Paragon City or Fateweaver in the Rogue Isles.

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Sidekicking Changes: Super-Sidekicking! One player can now sidekick or exemplar the whole team, everyone can always play together!

• Each player in the group's level is set to the level of the owner of the active team task. If no team task is selected, everyone in the group's level will be set to the level of the team leader.
• When the team level changes, players will be notified via a dialog and have the option to quit the team or immediately accept. The dialog will time out after 30 seconds at which point acceptance is implied.
• While in the pending state, players cannot receive rewards and any critters they damage will be worth no experience.
• Players can choose to auto-accept team level changes 0 to 50 levels above or below their current level.
• Exemplars will now earn XP and a level capped person will get XP converted into influence like exemplars used to.

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New Badges: Last issue we announced our future plans and design direction for new badges. Here’s a list of the new badges that can be obtained in Issue 16:

• Master of Reichsman Strike Force
• Master of Reichsman Task Force
• Master of Imperious Task Force

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Epic/Patron Powers Pools:

The balance between the Epic/Patron power pools has been revisited. Now all Epic power pools have 5 powers to choose from.

• Force Mastery (Blaster) Existing Powers * Personal Force Field * Repulsion Field * Temporary Invulnerability * Force of Nature New Powers * Repulsion Bomb - Ranged (Targeted AoE), Moderate Damage(Smash/Energy), Foe Knockdown
• Flame Mastery (Blaster) Existing Powers * Bonfire * Char * Fire Shield * Rise of the Phoenix New Powers * Melt Armor - Ranged (Targeted AoE), Foe -Res, -Def
• Fire Mastery (Controller) Existing Powers * Fire Blast * Fire Ball * Fire Shield * Consume New Powers * Rise of the phoenix - Self Rez, Special
• Psionic Mastery (Controller) Existing Powers * Mental Blast * Indomitable Will * Mind Over Body * Psionic Tornado New Powers * World of Confusion - PBAoE, Minor DoT(Psionic), Foe Confuse
• Dark Mastery (Defender) Existing Powers * Oppressive Gloom * Dark Consumption * Dark Embrace * Soul Drain New Powers * Soul Transfer - Self Rez, Special
• Power Mastery (Defender) Existing Powers * Conserve Power * Power Build Up * Temp Invulnerability * Total Focus New Powers * Force of Nature - +Res(All but Psionics)
• Blaze Mastery (Scrapper) NEW Existing Powers * None New Powers * Ring of Fire - Ranged, Moderate DoT(Fire), Foe Immobilize * Char - Ranged, Minor DoT(Fire), Foe Hold * Fire Blast - Ranged, Moderate DMG(Fire) * Melt Armor - Ranged (Targeted AoE), Foe -Res, -DEF * Fire Ball - Ranged (Targeted AoE), Moderate DMG(Fire/Smash)
• Body Mastery (Scrapper) Existing Powers * Conserve Power * Focused Accuracy * Laser Beam Eyes * Energy Torrent New Powers * Physical Perfection - Auto, +Regen, +Recovery (50% of the values offered by Stamina and Health)
• Darkness Mastery (Scrapper) Existing Powers * Torrent * Petrifying Gaze * Dark Blast * Tenebrous Tentacles New Powers * Nightfall - Ranged (Cone), Moderate DMG(Negative), Foe –To Hit.
• Energy Mastery (Tanker) Existing Powers * Conserve Power * Focused Accuracy * Laser Beam Eyes * Energy Torrent New Powers * Physical Perfection - Auto, +Regen, +Recovery (50% of the values offered by Stamina and Health.
• Soul Mastery (VEAT) Existing Powers * Gloom * Soul Tentacles * Darkest Night * Dark Obliteration * Summon Widow New Powers * Darkest Night - Toggle: Ranged (Targeted AoE), Foe -DMG -To Hit
• Leviathan Mastery (VEAT) Existing Powers * Spirit Shark * School of Sharks * Bile Spray * Summon Guardian New Powers * Arctic Breath - Ranged (Cone), Minor DoT(Cold), Foe -Speed, -Recharge, -DEF -Res, knock down
• Mace Mastery (VEAT) Existing Powers * Mace Blast * Web Envelop * Disruptor Blast * Summon Blaster New Powers * Shatter Armor – Melee, Superior DMG(Smash), Foe –Res
• Mu Mastery (VEAT) Existing Powers * Mu Lightning * Electrifying Fences * Ball Lightning * Summon Striker New Powers * Static Discharge - Ranged (Cone), Moderate DMG(Energy), -END Mu Mastery (Brute) Existing Powers * Mu Lightning * Electrifying Fences * Ball Lightning * Summon Striker New Powers * Static Discharge - Ranged (Cone), Moderate DMG(Energy), -END

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Mission Architect:
Check out the improvements made to the Mission Architect:
Custom Critter XP Scaling

• Custom Critters with Custom powers now reward XP proportional to the number of powers added to the critter.
• Critters with no powers are allowed, but they are worth no XP.
• Standard and hard critters are worth less than extreme critters.

Mission Browser Improvements

• Author Hyperlink: Author names are now hyperlinked and will underline on mouseover. Clicking on the name of the author in the Mission Browser will do a search for all the other arcs that author has also published. Clicking it will search for arcs by that author only

Mission Creation Improvements

• Runaway Boss Dialog: The boss now has dialog when he runs away.
• Health Dialog on Allies: Allies and Escorts can be set to say things as they lose health.
• Betrayal Options: Allies and Escorts can now be set to betray on any normal objective. They can also say something when they betray.
• Drag & Drop Mission Goals: Goals in Architect missions can now be dragged and dropped to change their order.
• Objective Counts: A count is listed on each detail creation button of the number of details that can still be placed.

Custom Villain Groups

• If a player has all three basic critter types in their CVG, they will receive full rewards for the mission. If one critter type is missing they will receive 50% rewards. If two critter types are missing they will receive 25% rewards, and if none of the core critter types are in the CVG, there are no rewards. o This applies only to critters auto-spawned by the mission, not specific bosses called for by objectives XP Curve Adjustment

To go along with our new changes to sidekicking and exemplaring, we've made some adjustments to the experience awarded from minions, lieutenants and bosses in the level 5 to 24 range. In short these enemies are on average receiving a 20% experience and influence increase. This will slightly speed up the pace at which heroes and villains advance through the 5 to 24 range

Police Drone TH

Posting pictures in this blog is always a crapshoot; either I screw up royally and it looks terrible, or everything fits together supremely well, and it looks like a work of art. Anyway...

Police Drone TH, level 50 Assault Rifle/Energy Manipulation Blaster. He was my second character to hit 50, and by far my favorite character. Even with the PPD long gone, and most likely being one of the last "drones" patrolling the City, I still feel proud to wear that outfit.

As you can see, TH has been fully outfitted with IOs (on his primary build). Among other things, he has Sting of the Manticore 5-slotted, three sets of Positron's Blast 5-slotted, two sets of Thunderstrike 6-slotted, three sets of Mako's Bite 6-slotted, Gaussian's Synchronized Fire Control 6-slotted, Essence of Curare 6-slotted, and a few other unique IOs tossed in for flavor.

I specced him for ranged defense, and I succeeded. With Combat Jumping on, he has +32.88% defense to ranged attacks. Math time!

Base accuracy for an even con minion is 50%. With my defense applied, an even con minion has a 17.12% chance to hit me (effectively, I take 66% less damage than other blasters, at range). Of course, it's always important to understand the difference between positional defense, and typed defense.

All attack are classified by "position" and "type". An attack can only have one position (ranged, melee, area of effect), but it can have multiple types (smashing, lethal, fire, cold, energy, negative energy, toxic, psychic). For example, if a Council mech fires an energy blast at you, it's a ranged attack that deals energy and smashing damage. Resistance is applied separately to each type, however, only one defensive value is applied. If I have 30% ranged defense, 15% energy defense, and 10% smashing defense, the game will roll to hit against me using the highest relevant value (in this case, ranged defense). If the same mech runs up to me and tries to back-hand me with its' gun arm, the game then rolls to hit against either my melee or smashing defense (which in this case, my smashing defense is probably higher).

This is more important for melee characters, because different sets run different defenses. Super Reflexes is all positional defense, while Invulnerability is mainly typed defense. Knowing which you are when slotting is paramount for making sure IO set bonuses synergize with your character.

Battle Suit Justice Burailion

An insane anime mecha, Burailion has almost no IOs slotted up, but is still one of my favorite characters. I went Invulnerability/Energy Melee because I wanted him to be a PvP character, but interest in him PvPing gave way to mild RPing with him.

This isn't his original outfit, but it's my current favorite (mainly because most of the pieces didn't exist when I stopped playing). It's a combination of Cyborg (arms, legs, shoulders, belt, hat, face plate, and chest plate), Enforcer (gauntlets, chin piece), and Techbot pieces (torso and head), with Piston Boots tossed in for good measure.

I'll be adding some binds and macros to him later, fleshing out the whole deluded crazy robot angle. Such catchphrases to be added:

• "Burning finger!"
• "Battle Suit Justice beatdown!"
• "I've seen this episode; it's the one where I kick your ass!"
• "Last time on Battle Suit Justice Burailion: I was awesome!"
• "Battle Suit Justice Burailion has high insurance premiums."
• "You are a fly in the soup of justice!"

That last one seems more in the vein of what the Tick would scream out, but you get the idea.

Vanquishing with Warriors

I've bitched and moaned in the past about how difficult it is for a Warrior to get a team, or to be useful to one, many times in the past. And I've bitterly muttered to myself about it far more often. Sad as it is to admit, Perma-Sins, Cryers, and Old School Ursans are and were simply more useful to teams, leaving little to no room for Warriors to join in the fun. However, today, my Alliance and I had a little fun in Melandru's Hope, an area within Echovald Forest, home of the Kurzicks.

"Vanquishing" is the act of killing every single last enemy in a zone, while in Hardmode. The game tracks how many foes are present, versus how many you have killed. When you kill 100% of the enemies present, the area is considered "vanquished". The area on the map goes from red to gold, and you get another point in the title track to Vanquish all of a particular campaign. In Factions, if you vanquish a zone while under the effect of a blessing (Kurzick or Luxon respectively), you receive a very large bonus in the form of both money and alliance faction. In short, it's a way for PvEers to earn lots of faction for their Guild and Alliance.


So today, we went and vanquished Melandru's Hope. With four warriors.

I can honestly say, it's been a long while since I had that much fun PvEing, much less with 50% warriors. Myself, Noble (Officer within [CoF]), Cloud (Officer within [HELL]), Tam (Officer within [HELL]), and Travis (member of [HELL]), plus three heroes (monk, elementalist, and necro respectively), cleared the zone in less that one hour. All told, we each earned about 14k faction, which isn't bad at all, especially given how fast one earns it in PvP (1.5k-2.5k per battle, each battle taking 10 minutes or so).


But to me, the best part was how efficient we were. We killed fast, kept our back-line safe, and suffered only a handful of deaths, always at the hands of bosses. I ran my Imba-War, while Cloud was gracious enough to run a Tactics spec and keep the back-line covered with Protector's Stance. Meanwhile, Noble and Tam ran more offensively oriented Warriors, giving us a good mix of mitigation and single target DPS (Although Noble just ran my build with "Save Yourselves!" swapped out for another attack).

It went so well, in fact, that everyone involved is eager to vanquish in other areas of the Echovald Forest, to earn more faction, and in general have more fun.

(this post will be prettied up with links once I get home, the work computer is now blocking Guild Wiki)

Taking 103: Warrior DPS and IAS

Most warriors I encounter within the game, alliance, and my guild, seem to think they must choose between dealing damage, and taking it. They either spec into what they feel is an overwhelming offense, or into something they hope is a faultless defense (sadly, despite their specialized builds, quite often neither is true).

However, it is quite easy to deal damage and take it while on the front line. Now, you may not be as tough as someone who devotes all eight of his skill picks to survival, and you'll never outshine your teams Ele; but you can contribute substantial and vital DPS to what your team is already generating, allowing you to quicker deal with things like bosses, enemy casters, or loose agro.

• IAS: IAS stands for Increased Attack Speed, and it's the easiest way to jump-start your DPS. Even though the stance says it increases your attack speed by only 33% (which is the cap), that translate to you attack 50% more. That means you do 50% more damage (and gain 50% more adren, steal 50% more life with a vamp weapon, etc). If you were doing 30 DPS before, now you're at 45 DPS, by simply using one skill (which also helps you generate more agro, since you've now become a bigger threat to the NPC).


• Attack Skills: The place most warriors go wrong. You don't need six attack skills, ever. Even assassins, who are dependent on chaining attacks skills, don't need that many. In general, don't take more than three. If you're tanking, your elite should be tailored to that end (Gladiator's Defense, Defy Pain, Obsidian Flesh, etc). Too many warriors use elite attacks cause they're OMGWTFBBQ awesomesuace on the battle field. Too bad your dead teammates don't agree. If you have to use an elite attack, use one that helps you tank (Dragon Slash is a good example, as it can feed skills like "Save Yourselves!"). Less is more with attack skills. Simply adding Power Attack to your skill bar can give you a boost of up to 14 DPS (which, plus the 45 you already have, give you 59 DPS, which is actually quite good considering). Being able to add you damage to that of your team against tough targets can create shorter battles, meaning that your team has more resources left when it's over, making the next battle that much easier (if you help end a fight even 5 seconds faster, consider how much energy your monk or ele didn't have to spend casting).


• Conditions: Warriors have the ability to apply almost every single condition in the game, with the exception of Cracked Armor, Poison, Disease, and Burning (and all of these can be found from a secondary profession). Degeneration can be a great boon, especially against high armor targets, or ones that ignore damage (Mist Form, certain PvE only boss skills). Each pip of degen equals two HP a second lost, meaning Bleeding adds 6 DPS, Poison 8 DPS, Disease 8 DPS, and Burning 14 DPS (degen caps out at 10 pips, or 20 HP a second). A W/R running Power Attack, Flail, and Apply Poison could easily net 67 DPS. Deep Wound is even more fun, as it reduces your targets total health and ability to heal (a valuable and often overlooked feature). It will reduce a targets health by 20% (maximum of 100 HP). What most people don't realize is this not only affects maximum HP, it affects current HP. That means an attack that adds Deep Wound can deal up to 100 damage over the listed value, that ignore ALL damage reduction and armor.

Warriors shouldn't ever be relegated to the role of meatshield. Warriors should be mobile little tanks that run around slicing, chopping, and smashing everything in their path, while their team rains down holy hell on their foes. A warriors high armor gives them the unique ability to go deep into the enemies backline and raise hell; an ability that is all to often overlooked. Just today I was running Eternal Grove with a guildmate. Each of us took up defense of a separate ramp. While he engaged the foes with his minions and heroes, I flagged mine to stand guard by the tree, while I ran out and played with the Luxons. At one point I found myself holding agro against a Siege Turtle, three Luxon Rangers, two Luxon Warriors, and two Luxon Elementalists. I killed them all in time to run off and catch the next turtle. All in all, we only lost a single Tree Singer, even when we experienced half a team wipe and Afflicted flooded into our base.

In my opinion, every warrior should be able to do what I did and more.

Guild Wars Update: March 5th

Some changes came down the pipe today, and frankly, ANet hates Rangers. Taken directly from the Developers Updates page:

Read the Wind (PvP Only): functionality changed to: "For 24 seconds, your arrows move twice as fast."

Flail: decreased duration to 1..15 seconds.

Rangers had been outshining spellcasters at dealing damage and could do so while being much more resistant to pressure damage. This made them ideal for spike builds. By removing the damage bonus on Read the Wind, we're cutting the damage they do with each attack, and by dropping the minimum duration on Flail we've made it harder for them to get an attack speed boost without any real drawbacks or costs. (Rangers can't put points into the Strength attribute, so they can never increase the duration on Flail. Warriors who use this skill should be unaffected by this change.)

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Ok, saying that they "hate" Rangers in an embellishment to say the least. However, this is the second time they've nerfed key skills in Ranger spike builds (in recent memory). Skills like Sundering Attack and Experts Dexterity have already been nerfed to the point of near uselessness in PvP (they still retain their PvE shine, in all fairness). However, it's kinda obvious what the meta will shift to now (Favorable Winds anyone?).

There is one change that makes me happy:

Disciplined Stance: decreased duration to 1..4 seconds; decreased armor gain to +10.

Defensive Stance: decreased duration to 1..5 seconds; decreased armor gain to +10.

Soldier's Defense: decreased duration to 1..5.

Shield Stance: decreased duration to 1..6.

These stances were originally balanced with 8v8 combat in mind. In 4v4 play, where there are fewer attackers and enemies cannot have as wide a range of utility skills on their team, Monks using these stances have become a problem. We've lowered the durations and armor bonuses to help 4v4 teams fight through these defenses.

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I hate stanced Monks. Nothing pisses me off more than a Monk who uses Disciplined Stance and Shield Bash to fuck up melee spikes (granted, while I was pissed, I always conceeded it was legit, since they sacrificed team support for self protection). Granted, my plans to start playing PvP Monks have now been backburnered, but playing Saru just got more fun.

Oh, and finally, a handful of skills that just got buffed:

Shadow Refuge: increased duration to 6 seconds.

Ether Feast: increased Health per Energy drained to 20..65.

Aura of Restoration: decreased Energy cost to 5; increased recharge to 12. Functionality changed to: "For 60 seconds, you gain 0..1 Energy and are healed for 200..500% of the Energy cost each time you cast a spell."

Healing Signet: increased Healing to 82..172.

To split effectively, characters typically need more self-sufficiency than they do when fighting in a big group. With that in mind, we've made a selection of self-healing skills more powerful.

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Interesting, I might stop running dual-attunement now, since Aura of Restoration now gives a smidge of energy back (we'll see). Also, a whole new reason to run Tactics again, Healing Signet is now a healing nuke. Protector's Stance+Healing Signet=ftw?

Tanking 102: Builds and Skills

At the request of Greg (my guild and alliance leader), I'm adding some more specific info on tanking. There are several key skills that can assist the playing of a tank, depending on whether or not you spec for Strength or Tactics, and whether you spec for energy or adrenaline use:

• Strength/Adrenaline: Defy Pain (+hp, +AL, -DR), Lion's Comfort (self heal, +adren), "For Great Justice!" (double adren gain)
• Strength/Energy: Warrior's Endurance (+energy), Flourish (+energy, skill rech), I Will Survive (+regen), Endure Pain (+hp), Dwarven Battle Stance (+IAS, interupt)
• Tactics/Adrenaline: Auspicious Parry (100% block, +adren), "Watch Yourself" (+AL), Bonetti's Defense (75% block, +energy), Riposte (100% block, +dmg), To the Limit! (+adren), "For Great Justice!" (double adren gain)
• Tactics/Energy: Gladiator's Defense (75% block, +dmg), Protector's Stance (75% block), Deadly Riposte (100% block, +dmg), Victory is Mine! (self heal), Bonetti's Defense (75% block, +energy)

Signets were not listed because they don't cost adrenaline or energy. Dolyak Signet and Healing Signet are the two most common signets you'll use as a Warrior. Keep in mind both have very serious draw-backs. Dolyak Signet makes you nigh-immoble, so make sure you won't need to move once you use it. If you feel you will need to reposition after casting it, bring along a shadow-step skill (Death's Charge works). Running Warrior's Endurance, Dolyak Signet, and Death's Charge will turn you into a teleporting infinite energy tank. Healing Signet causes -40 armor. For those who don't know how armor works, that means it doubles the damage you take while casting it. Makes sure you're running a block stance while casting it (and make sure that it won't end on skill activation).

Skill synergy is paramount too. Consider running a hammer tank, with Gladiator's Defense, Protector's Stance, and Renewing Smash. Now you can keep up near infinite block, and protect your team too (requires you to stand with the backline, so it's better as an off-tank, or when facing enemies without AoEs). Running Brawling Headbutt and Steelfang Slash in any adrenaline fueled build will give you a constant boost in adrenaline gain, and give you a solid interupt on nasty enemy skills. A Warrior/Paragon build that uses Spear of Fury along with Barbed Spear and Blazing Spear can jack up the teams DPS, while being able to spam "Save Yourselves!", with either a Strength or Tactics spec.

For tanks that run energy intensive builds, the use of a Zealous weapon is highly recommended, especially if you are using an IAS stance (keep in mind, you can only activate one stance at a time; you'll need to decide whether or not attacking faster is more important than blocking). Even though most IAS stances list an increase of 33%, that translates to 50% more attacks. Blunty, if two identical warriors, without attack skills, auto-attack the same target, the warrior under the effect of a 33% IAS stance will do 50% more damage. So, for terms of DPS, no skill is more important to a warrior than one that provides IAS.

I prefer to run Strength/Adrenaline builds. I'll run Flail, Enraging Charge, Lion's Comfort, Defy Pain, "For Great Justice!", "Save Yourselves!", plus two attack skills, either energy based, or the Brawling Headbutt/Steelfang Slash combo, to increase the rate at which I spam "SY!". In my opinion, Defy Pain is the best and most versatile warrior primary tanking skill. With a 20 second duration, it's easy to keep in up indefinitely durring combat. At 16 Strength, it gives +314 HP, +20 AL, and -11 DR. All from one skill. This puts the average tank at 120 AL vs physical, 100 AL vs Elemental. Math time:

NPC deals 100 physical damage with attack 1, and 100 elemental damage with attack 2 to Tank A, who is wearing max AL armor. Tank A takes 50 damage from attack 1, and 70.71 damage from attack 2. The same NPC then attacks Tank B, who is wearing the same armor, but is also running Defy Pain at 16 Strength. Attack 1 does 24.36 damage, while attack 2 does 39 damage.

Now, “SY!” is also, in my opinion, one of the best ways to protect your team:

An NPC boss hits your team with Searing Flames, at 20 Fire Magic, dealing 230 damage (130 base, x2 for boss damage, and we’ll pretend the whole team is on fire because you’re in lava). You monks, mesmers, ritualists, and elementalists all take it on the chin at the listed damage. You assassins and dervishes get hit for 193.41 damage. You paragons and fellow warriors take 162.63 damage, while the rangers laugh it off at 115 damage.

The boss hits you team again, but this time, you’ve cast “SY!”. The monks, elementalists, ritualists, and mesmers all giggle as they take 40.66 damage. The assassins and dervishes tell knock-knock jokes while they take 34.19. The paragons and warriors have an arm wrestling match while they take 28.75 damage, and the rangers shed a single silent tear for the boss as they take 20.33 damage.

The above assumes that no one wears a shield or has native damage reduction, and doesn’t use insignia that boost AL. “Save Yourselves!” is a warrior PvE skill gained from either the Luxons or the Kurzicks. It’s +100 AL for your team, for 4 to 6 seconds, at the cost of 8 adrenaline. It’s pure hotness.

I’ll add more tidbits as they present themselves.

Know your role.

I'm currently very excited about my lowbie warrior, Roland Dresden. He's the one I posted about before, wearing E-platemail. Anyways, as a result, I've been playing him more than Saru, even though buying his armor made me broke again.


Roland is level 16 at the moment. His armor and weapons are max, fully runed and fitted with insignia, and using both normal and elite warrior tomes, I've taught him a few powerful skills he would have been otherwise unable to learn for quite some time. So, quite obviously, when he team with with people his level, and runs quests and missions at his own level, he kicks huge amounts of ass, and dominates his foes.


So, a few days ago, I ran a mid-level mission, D'Alessio Seaboard. Ended up on a team with a lvl 20 Monk (the leader), plus his two heroes (lvl20 splinter barrage, lvl20 minion mancer), a lvl 12 Monk, and a lvl 14 Necro (I'm lvl 15 during this mission). As soon as I accept the invite to the team, the leader asks me to ping my build. This is both a good thing and a bad thing. He's being aware of how his teammates work, but he's also trying to make people alter their builds. I thought about griping at the him, but decided it wasn't worth the effort. I ping the build (basically the same thing I run FoW with), and the leader finds it acceptable. Meanwhile the low lvl necro pings his build, and it's abysmal. I mean, I usually don't tell people what to run, but why the hell does a necro run a build with Rain of Fire, Phoenix, and Conjure Flame, with 0 ranks in Fire Magic. To my surprise, the leader tells him the build is fine.

So, we enter the mission, and I immediately start to like the leader less, cause not only does he start ordering me around, he's calling me "war". It's not like "Roland" is hard to type. Even worse, when he's ordering me around, he ends up saying stupid things that aren't helpful, like "stop moving". How can I tank, or even fight, if I can't move to follow a target or engage a new one?

This particular mission has almost exclusively undead foes, among them, Skeleton Sorcerers. They tend to spam blinding flash, rendering me useless. After fighting several battle where the monk fails to remove it from me, I start to ping it to remind him. He responds with, "don't have rest con". Dude. You're going to tell me how to play, and double check my build, but you're not going to bring any condition removal? What the fuck? Guess what, you're splinter barrage ranger is useless too when she's blinded! Apparently, I run monk heroes more competently than you play your own monk.

We keep going, and once we reach the 90% mark, the leader starts to talk to me directly:

Asshole: Do you know what to do?
Me: Um, pretend I don't.
Asshole: Run ahead of the minions.

DUDE, SHOVE IT! I'm sorry the NPCs minions are dying. Minions were a shitty choice to run against undead, since you can't exploit undead corpses. Even if you could, I'm out DPSing the whole damn minion army, Flesh Golem included. So don't tell the lvl 15 Warrior (with Elite Platemail, wielding a Deldrimor Sword and Deldrimor Shield) what to run, don't tell him how to tank, and don't tell him how to play. I could have soloed that whole damn mission, if only I had had condition removal (Mending Touch, Antidote Signet).

So, we complete the mission, get the bonus, skip the cutscene, and hit the next town. The leader asks who's going and who's staying. At this point, I very politely, and with proper grammar and spelling, decline to join them in the next mission. He promptly kicks me from the team.

...

I don't know who beat you as a child, or raised you in such a manner that you consider any of your behavior socially acceptable, but you're a tool, plain and simple. You lack the common sense to adjust skills based on the foes you'll be fighting (notice how I swapped out Sever Artery and Gash for the mission, since we were fighting undead, while you kept the MM), you run a prot monk but don't include a single skill for condition removal (as much as I like getting bonded by a monk, it's kinda pointless against lvl 14 foes in NM), yet try to order the team around like you know shit.

I has a fan-club!

Ok, not really, but you'll see what I mean.

So, I tried to organize a FoW clear team today. Got my sister-in-law, plus 6 strangers together. It started out rough, but then went a lot smoother for 30 minutes or so. Then we enter the forest of the Wailing Lord, and everything goes to hell. Classic Saru-style, we wipe and I'm the last one alive, fighting against 2 1/2 spawns. I had a few scrolls of resurrection on me (I craft and keep a few on hand so I don't have to bring a rez skill in PvE), and I try to position myself to where I get the whole team, but I keep having Iron Mist spammed on me, and I get pinged to death.

Good times.

So, we reform, my sister-in-law leaves, and I give the reins over to a Necro named Tangram Soultheif. We get new players, and right before we're set, someone enters Underworld, not FoW. We zone in, and wipe, cause the Perma-Sin is a douche, the other warrior is a complete tard, and no one is listening to me or Tangram.

So, Tangram and I meet back up for a third time, and form a third team. We're more careful this time, Tangram emphasizes that I'm the tank, I lead on agro, etc. We go in, and we do much better than the first run. However, people keep DCing, and eventually, we're down to 5 people left, with no monks for healing or protting. I suggest we hit the beach to clear out the cave for what little loot we can score. Everyone agrees, not realizing that I'm serious, just thinking I wanna dick around on the beach before we resign.

Next thing they know, I've explained to them how the beach is laid out, and how the enemies fight, and we're clearing it, skales and all. At one point, we wipe again save for me, and this time I do get the rez scroll off, bringing all of them back to life mid-battle. Not long after, we reach the cave. Try as we might, I can't keep them alive through the hail of poisoned arrows being fired from the spiders, and they wipe. That leaves me, alone to face the cave. Easy. However, I'm not running my dedicated farm build, so killing is taking forever.

Well, I'm thinking about just resigning, since I'm out of scrolls, then I notice that the team's bitching cause a few shards have dropped for them, but they can't get them cause they're dead. So, I offer to clear the cave, snag the shards once the timer counts down, and hand them back out to the people they dropped for, while continuing to clear the cave, in hopes of more shards. Everyone stop for a moment, then thanks me, dumbfounded by my offer.

Eventually, I reached a point in the cave where I was far enough away from the group that they weren't getting drops, so I try to lure the spiders closer to my team. No dice. Feeling defeated, I break agro and head back to the beach, picking up the shards that dropped. We resign, and meet back at ToA, where I hand them out. Then, Tangram sends me a URL through teamchat.

Huzzah.

Tangram told me he had taken those pictures, explaining that most people don't get a chance to take good pictures of themself mid-battle. Everyone added me to their friends list (I was solicited to join another guild), I gave my FoW build to a couple peeps, and talked them through it's usage. All in all, a great time.

Except for the fact that I spent 2 hours in the Fissure without getting a single fucking shard. DAMN YOU RANDOM NUMBER GENERATOR!!! A POX UPON YOU!!!!!!1111!!

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Things like that were common for me back in the day when I played City of Heroes. There was a much better sense of community, and I felt eager to help out other players, and foster good will. Not so much in Guild Wars, so I'm thankful for what happened today. Even though I failed to clear FoW three times in a row, I feel good about what we did as a team today. I wish I had more days like that.

Get to da choppa!

Erm, I mean, portal...

It's not often in games that you're forced to retreat without the aide of a cutscene. Most of the time, when you need to run away, they just have a cutscene where you run away. I figured it was because gamers can be fairly strong willed, and have been known to go against the grain if it suits them.

Guild Wars, contrart to popular belief, has only one expansion, Eye of the North. It has three campaigns, Prophecies, Factions, and Nightfall, but each is it's own game, and you can play any one without the other two (or you could own all of them like I do). To get to Eye of the North, you have to do a mini intro, where you meet two of your new allies, plus the enemies you'll be facing, the Destroyers.

Destroyers are badass.

So much so, that when the NPCs run off screaming, you join them. Last night, I found myself deep beneath Lion's Arch, with my humble level 15 Warrior, Roland Dresden (who has a shiny set of Elite Platemail, :P), fleeing for my life with my personal golem in tow. Not the first time I've brought a character to EotN, but it always strikes me how unique that segement is. You, the hero, who's deeds include but are not limited to defeating the Mursaat, sealing away the Titans, casting down the Lich, unifing the factured factions of Cantha, banishing the spirit of Shiro the Betrayer, facing down Warmarshall Varesh, rallying the Elonian princes, and casting down a forgotten god, you are now running for your life from gigantic, hulking, magma filled warrior beasts whom wield weapons forged out of their own flesh.

Good times.

Personally, I still think Titans>Destroyers, but apparently Anet disagrees.

Fantasy Armor, where style murders functionality

Armor in RPGs is usually the defining part of any characters design. It defines many aspects of a character, be it a potential for strength or speed, limits to mobility or reach, or the ability to complement a fighting style. No one expects a hulking giant of a warrior clad in steel plates from head-to-toe to start tumbling into melee with a rapier, parrying and lunging.

For the longest time, the only set of armor I had for Sarutobi was the 1.5k Templar armor (pictured left, undyed, full set costing 7.5k+materials), dyed silver. I crafted it so long ago that when I got it, it was still called "Knight's Armor", and the silver was closer to white than it is now.

I loved this armor so much for two reasons. Firstly, it was functional. It protects nearly everything I'd want it too, rather than leaving my mid-drift, cleavage, thighs, etc exposed to attack (ok, this leaves the tatas a bit exposed, but not nearly as much as most).

The second reason I liked it was because it was symmetrical. Not a huge deal really, but sometimes it really bothers me how they have their armor sets designed. The art department that worked on Guild Wars deserves plenty of kudos for creating a beautiful game, but seriously, why can't I get armor with two pauldrons? Is it really too much to ask for equal protection of both shoulders?

I crafted this set so long ago, at the time, no elite version of the "Knight's" armor existed. Because of that, I never felt like my character was lacking or inferior, because I was perfectly happy with what I had. However, after I spent a few weeks farming FoW and selling Obsidian Shards on the player market, I noticed that I was getting lowballed by most people who were buying shards. Generally, market price is gauged off what NPCs offer. If the NPC Rare Materials Merchant is selling shards for 3.5k, but buying at 2.5k, the market settles at 3k flat, thus letting the seller turn a profit, and the buyer saves cash in the process.

However, when trying to sell shards, people would lower their offers too me after a face to face meet. Over time, I concluded that since I was wearing cheap armor, people assumed I was poor, so they could still make a buy off me since I'd be too broke to turn them down. After a while, I got fed up and "upgraded".


While it wasn't available for some time, the elite version of "Knight's" armor (now called Templar) came out about two years after launch. Elite Templar, like almost every other set of armor with 'elite' attached to it's name costs 15k per piece. So, I dropped 75k+materials on the new set of armor, which functioned identically to my old set. Not content with that, I went and dyed it black (Black dye is the most expensive, costing 6k-8k, depending). So, that was another 35k or so. And, like I expected, I stopped getting lowballed by every buyer I met. I don't know if it was worth the 100k+ I spent, but at least I don't get 'lolmad' at them anymore.

But now Sarutobi's boobs are exposed. Same with her thighs. And, wait, now she only has one pauldron.

DAMN YOU ARENA.NET! WHY DOST THOU HATE ME SO?!

Sure, my elbows are covered now, cool beans. But now I can't even walk through a bush without getting scratched up. How is that considered effective armor? All I'm doing is encouraging my foes to target my weak spots.

And where is it written that exposing cleavage makes armor more effective in a melee situation? If anything, it ensures that not only will I die faster, but my corpse is liable to be violated. Joy. The worst part is that other than that, the armor is actually really neat. The detail is great, I like the texturing, and it keeps the style of the 1.5k version while being something relatively original unto itself (I really like the gauntlets and the greaves, I felt those were the weaker aspects of the 1.5k version. The helmet is weaksauce though).

However, as you can see from my post about farming FoW, I found an elite set of armor that suits me fine for the most part, Elite Kurzick armor. It makes Saru look a little thinner than I'd like, but more than makes up for that by being the medieval gothic version of Storm Trooper armor. Currently I have it dyed silver, and I'm toying with changing that too white (silver has a distinct blue-ish hue to it, despite making the surface shiny).

I'm considering getting a new set of armor. I'm seriously considering Ancient Armor, and I always talk about getting Obsidian Armor, but I don't know how serious I am about that. Obsidian Armor just seems like such a headache to craft, and I don't like dealing with the FoW PUGs that seem to abound in lieu of actual teams.

I'm open to suggestions.

Sarutobi, in the flesh

I've spoken about her before, but now you can see her, Sarutobi Sasuke, my warrior.

She's wearing her Elite Kurzick armor in this picture, armed with a Mursaat Hammer (I have three, Ebon, Sundering, and Vampiric). I guess it would have better to take a picture with the helmet off, so you could see what she looks like, not her armor.

The Elite Kurzick is outfitted with Sentinel's Insignia (+20 AL vs Elemental), and she has Elite Templar armor with Knight's Insignia attached (-3 physical dmg). I have a set of Elite Platemail that also has Sentinel's on it, and I'm debating what to do with it (salvage, refit, etc).

My current goal is to find a build for solo farming Underworld that I'm comfortable with, so I can start farming Smite Crawlers for Ecto. I already have a bitching build I use to farm Armored Cave Spiders in Fissure of Woe for Shards, but it's not suited for UW. But, with recent buffs to Hundred Blades, I think I'll be able to head there pretty soon and start farming up a good number of Ectos (I need 120 Ectos and 120 Shards to make a full set of Obsidian Armor, while a good run in FoW for me only yields 5 shards, meaning I'll need at least 24 runs to be halfway there.)

This single target version of my FoW build can run the beach and cave in under 30 minutes (which is fast), and can survive agro from Skales, while out-healing their degen (which is great). I currently use this same build, with Body Blow traded for Whirlwind Attack. I prefer Swords to Axes; I know that I could get better AoE is I used an Axe and switched out Counter-Attack for Cyclone Axe, but it's my opinion that having superior single target damage lets me cycle through targets faster, and makes the run go quicker. Either way, here's the rundown of the build:

• Strength 12+1+3
• Swordsmanship 12+1

• Max Zealous Sword (+def mods are kinda pointless, go with +hp)
• Max Shield (-2 in stance is pointless for this build)
• Max Armor with Knight's Insignia & Superior Rune of Absorption

1. Power Attack
2. Counterattack
3. Whirlwind Attack
4. Flail
5. Enraging Charge
6. Defy Pain (E)
7. Lion's Comfort
8. "For Great Justice!"

Otherwise, it functions like any other version of a warrior beach build, but it takes no damage from spiders, meaning the only threat they pose is via degen. Since you'll have over 800 HP near constant, losing 8 hp a second is trivial, especially when you'll heal for 114 about every 10 seconds (Meaning you still post a HP gain of 34 points). Since it takes so little damage, there is little need to pull spiders, you can just dive right in, and start killing. Even if you pull Skale agro, you can live through it, as long as you're actively engaged (Skales can still damage you, and they cause a 20 hp a second drain).

As far as variants, the only skills you have to have are Flail, Enraging Charge, Defy Pain, and Lion's Comfort, and even then, it's really Defy Pain and Lion's Comfort that do all the work. I'm sure more effective variants can be created, but most other builds hinge on using Dolyak Signet, while spamming every Axe AoE they can find (not my style).

Take for example, this build, claiming to be the fastest solo beach run build on PvXWiki. You can see that my build and this one are very different in their approach. Even with the +38 AL granted by Dolyak Signet in this build (giving it 154 AL vs Physical), the -2 stance shield, Knight's Insignia, and a Sup Rune of Absorption, it still takes damage from the spiders (that's -8 physical damage), while mine doesn't (my build possesses -17 physical without the shield, while Defy Pain also gives me +20 AL, for 136 AL vs Physical). Also, notice how it's only direct healing option, Patient Spirit, can and will get interrupted. Lion's Comfort won't, as they don't attempt to do so. Lion's Comfort by itself provides enough healing to cover you, making it you sole source of healing, while the PvX build needs two sources.

It's glaring strength over my build, however, is it's three AoEs to my one. However, as proved by my screenshot, I can still complete the run under 30 minutes, so it's apparently not that much of an advantage. I've posted faster times, but have yet to upload them to photobucket.

The hardest part of farming FoW is learning how to get to the beach. The actual combat is ludicrously easy, given the nature of the instance, but getting there can prove fatal if done poorly. Luckily, many videos exist documenting the safest route to get there, in the least amount of time possible.

Obsidian Shards sell for anywhere from 2.8k to 3.5k, depending on the market. Rubies and Sapphires drop with relative frequency (4.5k to 5k), as do Obsidian Keys and Scrolls of Passage. Standard drops (salvage items, collector's items, white/blue weapons) will earn you a consistent 2k to 2.5k. Less the cost on entry (1k to enter FoW or UW), you'll earn on average 9.4k to 12k, but more than likely, you'll pull more than just 3 shards, and more than just standard drops, earning you anyway from 15k to 27k. Not bad, but not amazing. The real value, to me at least, if not having to pay for shards (If you bought the shards needed for Obsidian Armor, it'd cost anywhere from 336k to 420K).

Soloing

Ah, soloing.

Be it forced or chosen, it's almost a completely different game from teamed content. However, soloing isn't possible in most MMOs. At least, not soloing story based content. One can easily farm, or grind out a few levels solo, but eventually, you'll end up needing a team to tackle high level instances or end game missions.

Not in City of Heroes though. With the ability to adjust the difficulty of your game on a mission by mission basis, you can crank up the difficulty to where the spawns are double sized, and +3 your level, or turn it down a notch, making them even con (the five difficulties in order being Heroic, Tenacious, Rugged, Unyielding, and Invincible). Even in story arcs, turning it down to Heroic causes Arch-Villains to spawn as Elite Bosses, allowing everyone a chance at solo glory.

But where's the fun in that?

Let me introduce you to my scrapper, Pale Tiger. He solos AVs. Not solo as in "Lemme use 15 temp powers, and summon a billion allies", I mean solo, as in, just me and the AV. And this is post ED, pre claws buff. Huzzah. In fact, he soloed his first AV at level 24, without IOs. He's been pimpin' since been pimpin' since been pimpin'. You wouldn't think that such as thing is so easy, after taking a spin in the Scrapper forums.

I had planned on attempting every AV in the game. My subscription ended while I was on the story arc to fight the Envoy of Shadows. I was slowly IOing him, and even with what little he had, you could feel the bonuses. Definitely wanted to get some inherent +acc on him, it's painful fighting +3 Devouring Earth with only one accuracy IO per attack (Terra was worth 44k XP solo at level 37, that's almost twice what a level 50 hero gets for completing a mission on Invincible).

I don't like soloing in Guild Wars. I use that term, even though I'm technically teamed. I don't consider doing missions and quests with seven NPC teammates being "teamed", I call that solo. However, I'm forced to do it most of the time, since PUGs are a dying breed, at least from what I've seen. Maybe I should try looking for groups in the International dist, or European dists. I hear that you can find high quality teams that way, and that there are more people willing to PUG with you.

I guess what I'm really lamenting is that my guild is sorely inactive, and that my alliance has one too many douche bags in it. I'd drop guild and solicit myself to a mid ranked PvP guild, but both of my sister-in-laws are in the guild, and play constantly. The three of us comprise 60% of our active members. Although, honestly, even if 100% of our members were everyday active, we'd still have a small ass guild with only 13 people.

Le sigh.

Tanking 101: Playstyle and Aggro Management

Playing a "tank" in any MMO is pretty simple. You aggro first, you're expected to hold said aggro, you take the majority of the damage for the team, you're not expected to put out massive DPS. However, simple does not always equal easy. The specifics vary from game to game, but I'll be talking about Guild Wars for the time being. I'll touch on City of Heroes later.


1. Aggro Management

Tanking in Guild Wars is one of the most challenging tanking scenarios I've dealt with in an MMO. There are no clear aggro guidelines to be found in game. The only thing you really know for sure is your aggro radius, indicated by your compass/minimap in the top right corner of your screen by the transparent white circle center on your character.Any enemy that enters earshot of you will be aggroed. However, this doesn't necessarily mean they will attack you. The AI in GW evaluates targets, and picks them based on priority. At the top of that list are players with low armor and low HP. Essentially, the very people you're trying to protect get attacked first. Certain actions on your part will move you up that list. Body-blocking an enemy, quite literally getting in their way and becoming an obstruction increases your own aggro. Attacking, and activating skills against an enemy increases your aggro. Thusly, a good tank (in most, but not all situations), should always be moving and attacking, getting the enemy's attention. Beware, moving too much can cause the enemy to re-evaluate aggro, moving you back down that list. This is especially true is you're under the effect of an IMS (increased movement skill) skill, you will lose aggro very fast.



2. Surviving Aggro

Now that you can better manage aggro, you need to survive it. Either you're keeping yourself alive, you're receiving support from your team, or a combination of both. Don't feel that you can't do your job without a monk, but learn to trust them when they support you. Breaking from a fight for fear of dying will get your whole team killed. Think about it: if you with your high armor and high HP can't take that aggro, how is your team going to hold up when it gets put on them? Be willing to die on the front lines, rather than run away and draw the aggro into your backline. If you need to run, side step your enemies. Run to your left or right, not backwards. This way, when the follow, you're putting more distance between your team and the enemies.

Whatever you do, make sure that your antics on the frontline don't attract the attention of other enemy spawns. Careless side stepping or repositioning can cause you to aggro neighboring spawns, making the situation drastically more dire.


3. The Informed Tank

I had considered writing up a section on gear and skills, but I decided against that. Being aware of what you enemies do and how they do it should dictate what gear and skills you set your tank up with before each mission and quest. When facing large amounts of physical damage, go with blocking stances. When facing large amounts of elemental damage an spell casters, go with +AL and +DR. When facing large amounts of degen, or armor ignoring damage, go with large amounts of HP.

When in melee, sometimes you'll be expected to call targets for the rest of the team, so they can target through you. Try to target especially dangerous foes, or annoying ones, like enemy Elementalists or Monks. Knowing which enemy caster is spamming Empathy on your versus knowing which enemy caster is summoning minions can be the difference between victory and a teamwipe.


4. Tank DPS

As I mentioned earlier, you're not expecting to generate huge DPS. This doesn't mean you shouldn't or can't. Bringing attack skills can not only make managing aggro easier, it will help the team kill faster. Remember, killing a foe gives your team 100% DR to that target.

Conditions allow most warriors to add large amounts of DPS to a team. Even if you're only adding a skill that inflicts bleeding to your skill bar, consider the fact that this negate the inherent regen most bosses have.

It helps to bring attack skills that don't use the same "fuel" as your tanking skills. For example, if you're running Gladiator's Defense, plus one or two other stances that cost Energy, bring attack skills that run off of adrenaline instead. If your tanking skills run off of adrenaline, it's not as bad having attacks that do the same, but attack skills will slow the rate at which you can activate them (Adrenaline skills "charge" as you attack. They all charge at the same rate. Once you have built up enough to activate a skill, the icon lights up, allowing you to click it. Using an adrenaline based skill deducts one point of adrenaline from each other skill, requiring you to connect with another attack, to replace lost adrenaline before activating another skill. Spamming adrenaline based attack slows the rate at which other skills recharge.). Just be aware. For example, I have a build made to spam the skill "Save Yourself!", a PvE only shout that grants my team +100 Armor for 5 seconds. At a cost of 8 adrenaline, I bring Power Attack and Counter Attack, so that "Save Yourself!" charges faster, giving my team more protection (also, since it keeps my teams armor so high, it helps me keep aggro).


None of these are hard and fast rules, but keeping them in mind can allow a novice warrior to preform admirably on the frontlines.