Thank You. Thank You Very Much…….

CTD Fixed?

In an earlier thread, I had mentioned that the dreaded Crash to Desktop” remained my single biggest frustration with the game. Well, I’m happy to announce that after the major 1.1 patch – I haven’t had a single crash. I haven’t changed anything, just let the autopatcher do her work and voila – no more CTD.

Spanked in Serpent’s Passage

Sometimes all you can say is “ugh”.

Just a note – don’t cap if you don’t hold the middle.  Period.  Better to hold the salvage part at your spawn point and farm destro.  Of course, Order almost never does it – because someone has to be a hero and capture the part without controlling middle.  Then destro grabs part, holds it, and farms order ftw.  It’s predictable, it’s consistent, and it will happen to you more often than not in PUGs in the Serpent’s Passage scenario.  Consider yourself warned.

Warhammer RvR

A comment in a earlier thread mentioned that Warhammer was fairly “instant gratification” compared to WoW.  I would have to agree with that completely.  One of the great things about Warhammer is the RvR play.  You can join a scenario, participate in a keep attack, whatever – and find yourself on a pretty level playing field.  Plus, unlike WoW, you actually gain both renown AND xp when on the battlefield.

Warhammer RvR tries to adjust your level for the scenario.  So, if you’re level 11 but want to play in the tier 2 scenarios – you get an automatic “bolster” buff that takes your abilities/AP/Wounds up to level 18.  You don’t have access to any spells not available at your level, but the damage dealt and all other stats of your known abilities are “bolstered” to a high enough level to be competitive.  In other words – the lowbies aren’t constantly getting ganked because they can be one-shotted like in WoW.

I hated grinding badges in WoW pvp.  You could find yourself in a Warsong Gulch turtle, get stuck in the pvp for 30 minutes, and escape with one single WSG mark and virtually no honor points.  Made grinding that Gladiator gear really, really boring.

RvR in Warhammer is fast, frenetic, and vicious.  It gives you good XP and renown.  There are even kill quests and scenario completion quests that are repeatable that you can do for extra XP.  In WoW you had to choose between PvE XP and PvP HP – in Warhammer you can complete both items at once.  Grinding quests is still the most efficient way to level.  But you need renown to get the best gear for your end-game set.  So – do the RvR, fool.

Finally, you can do RvR for an entire night (capture and then hold a keep), or you can pop in for an hour, run a couple of scenarios, and end up advancing both your PvE and RvR careers.  Did I mention that it’s a blast?  If you think you’ll hate the RvR component of Warhammer because you hate PvP in WoW – think again.  Try Warhammer, try the RvR, and I’ll think you’ll be a convert.

UPDATE:

By the way – I’m not trying to make a “Warhammer is better than WoW” argument.  I loved WoW, leveled and geared 5 lvl 70 toons, met a lot of great people, and generally had a blast.  I just got tired of grinding for gear – and WoW is MUCH more gear dependent than Warhammer.  Like I said – if you’re bored with Azeroth but don’t want to try Warhammer because you don’t like WoW PVP – I would urge you to reconsider.  RvR is a huge component of Warhammer – and it’s fun and rewards you for participating all at once.

Tru Dat

more animals

Crash to Desktop

The CTD continues to be my main frustration with Warhammer.  RvR play has improved dramatically.  The aggro schemes and settings are much better than at launch.  But there’s still times when, after grinding through Bastion Stairs with your guild warband – you just get dumped.  Warhammer closes unexpectedly, and you’re left cursing because you know there’s no way to get back to your group in time to get your fair share of the loot.

I can play for hours with no issues, or suffer 2-3 CTDs in a single hours play.  No rhyme or reason that I can find.  I’ve mapped heat, memory useage, pagefile swapping, etc.  The next major patch (1.10) is supposed to address CTD issues – I hope it does.

Best Killing Combo EVAH!

OK, so Tatter has been respecced immolation tree for a day or so now. I like it a lot. Very efficient solo killing, great for RvR – what’s not to love.

My best grinding combo so far:

Ignite, boiling blood, detonate, stop drop and roll, and finishing with withering heat.

If you’re always moving – you won’t even let equal level mobs hit you, much less have to worry about your HP. Remember to always run LATERALLY – you get 100% run speed if you run right or left, compared to I think 60% if you are backing up. The stun effect of stop, drop, and roll lets you run well away from your targeted MoB – and the 40% speed reduction of withering heat means the MoB is a pool of melted fat and gristle long before it can reach you.

Not as flashy and as many explosions as the incinerate tree. But very, very effective. Tatter gives it 2 flaming thumbs up.

Immolation Respec

So, after reading the Burninating the Countryside post I link to below, I decided to respec heavily into the immolation tree.  It’s a lot like playing an affliction Warlock in WoW.  DoT, run, DoT, run, DoT, laugh at your now dead enemy.  It’s actually a pretty rapid kill process, since all of the DoTs are instant cast, with the exception of Withering Heat.

Immolation, relying on DoTs, is much different than the instant gratification and splodey incinerate tree.  Both are fun, but the immolation tree holds enough promise of future lethal goodyness that Tatter will probably stick with it to 40.

Bright Wizards Own the RvR

Bright Wizards are a pretty amazing class when it comes to RvR combat.  We can do massive RvR, have a nice trap spell, and can do large AoE damage to prevent the capture of objectives that require time to interact with.  We are squishy, and destruction players will usually take down the healers first and then the BWs.  But give me a pocket healer, and Tatter can do lots and lots of damage.  She is almost always at the top of the damage meter at the end of a scenario – usually only beaten by higher level BWs.

As I’ve mentioned, Tatter is specced high in the incindiary tree.  She just got a morale rank 4 talent called the burning head.  At level 33, it does almost 2200 HP damage to the target, 1600 damage to any destro players within 30 yards of the target, and steals 500 points morale from all targets that it hits.  Pretty impressive stuff, all in all.

While we’re talking BW tactics – this is a nice BW guide: Burninating the Countryside.  I like the tactics described – always move, never stop, use your instant casts, don’t get hit.  I differ a bit on some of the minutiae, but all in all it is a very good guide (which really just means that it’s what I do with Tatter, so it must be good, right?)

Todays D’oh moment

OK, so it’s important to get to level 30 bfore you make it to T4 – otherwise you can’t see most of the quests that are available.  I was flying to all of the warcamps, looking for quests – but no questgivers.  So, I did a bit of RvR grinding until I hit 30 – and what do you know – NOW I can see questgivers.  Not like WoW, where questgivers with high level quests show up – you just can’t get quests from them.

Oh, yeah – Nova is a must have talent for a BW.  Respec to get it.  Do it.  Now.