Usually finishing up the Annihilator set in Warhammer Online is no big deal. It’s the first real set of RvR armor that provides Lesser Wards. I’m proud of my accomplishment though because it has taken me since the very first T4 Keep sieges to get it. Morkeen (my Shaman) is the first character I created in WAR – I had to rename him from Keen to Morkeen after transfering from Wolfenburg when the server was dissolved. After taking a break from my Shaman, then a break from Destruction, then a break from the game, I’ve finally returned and found my place in the game. I’m enjoying my Shaman more than I ever had. I enjoy healing and making an enormous difference in my groups and warbands. I feel like I contribute, even though the Shaman is still not developed properly (waiting in 1.3…) and AP starved all the time.
RvR has been crazy the past few days since I hit 40. I’m able to log on at 8am or 11pm and have non-stop action. Being the underdog isn’t so bad now that I think Destruction has found their groove. Our Realm is still very outnumbered and undergeared but we’re organized. When we have our warbands working together on ventrilo and truly planning our actions it feels like we never lose. When we’re hectic and unorganized we get stomped. That’s how it should be.
We’ve been able to hold our capital city for 3 days now without losing it and I was able to run Bilerot for the first time yesterday. Fairly simple dungeon actually. It’s the harder of the two city dungeons but I found it to be cake if the people going know how to play. The hardest part seems to be the random mechanics like whether or not certain mobs will one-shot your tank or if the healer will get killed. Other than that, it all felt tank and spank with a few kiting parts for big dogs. I’m going to do both Blood and Bile later this week with hopes that Sentinel gear will drop for me. Right now the PvE content in WAR is lacking and I see where Heartless_ misses the PQ’s at 40. I could really use more dungeons (especially since B&B have lockout timers).
Gear does matter in WAR and I do feel it a bit. Being 5/5 Annihilator has helped me catch up and I’ve socketed my gear with wounds talismans since I RvR so much. With nearly 6k HP I live long enough for my needs and never feel stretched with my own HP – just that of my allies when they’re being focus fired. I was also able to run the middle PQ in Bastion Stair and get my staff – something I did a couple dozen times with zero luck months ago.  When Land of the Dead comes out I should be ready to hit that content running. My Squig Herder (Gorkeen) is level 30 (or 31?) and he should be able to run through the “leveling up” content of LotD. I have the best of both worlds right now and I’m finally enjoying WAR’s “end-game”. Finding this enjoyment pre-lands of the dead has solidified my staying in WAR for a long, long time.
Grats on the armor, Keen! It looks pretty sweet 🙂 I have the graphics in WAR are very nice. It does all tempt me to go back!
Gratz dude 😉
Bit of luck with Sentinel and you’ll get to visit Lost Vale before you know LotD too 😉
I really, really, hope to see some Sentinel gear soon. I have never been to Lost Vale and I want to see what Mythic was able to do with it.
Lost Vale is a cool dungeon, it has a good theme, cool visuals and a nice mix of tank+spank bosses and those with more involved tactics. It’s potentially’ as good as the better group sized dungeons in WoW.
I say “potentially” because LV’s reputation was ruined by the bugs when it was first released and the new ones that appeared over the following months.Certainly I don’t remember any of Blizzard’s group sized dungeons having so many issues for so long (if at all with most).
However LV today is much improved from the hotfixes over the last month or so. Sure with every other run at some point something odd will happen, be it random crazy damage on an extremely well geared tank, not being able to get out of combat or the ever popular getting stuck on rocks 😛 Tends to be minor irritations these days, rather than full on AAAGHHH moments 😉
My advice though is if you go in there knowing that it’s not 100% perfect and are prepared to let the occasional oddity wash over you, then you’ll enjoy it immensely. And of course going in with people that already know the dungeon makes a massive difference, but that’s the same in any MMO’s dungeons as everyone knows.
You know you can wear a better cloak and just use the DOT on the cloak in your inventory on your quickbar right?
I just wish they would reoffer the cloak from the first live event again with 100 armor bonus for casters.
Nevermind that’s a pocket item (with the same icon oddly enough)…
It’s been two months since I’ve played WAR and I’ve already started to forget bits and pieces. Please forgive my ignorance.
But it does look like you missed the pocket item from the last live event (think it was the last one) … it buffed you against piercing armor stats, etc…
So, by “very, very, long time” you mean like a month or two, right? You lost so much credibility with your one night (month) stand with darkfall, it’s not even funny.
Here’s a prediction: you like the game now, so you’ll sit and play it for 6 hours a day or so until you’re totally burnt out and post about how this or that is broken with the game.
Another prediction: within the next 45 days, we’ll see a post about why you’re only staying with WAR because your “friends are there” or some such other excuse to justify your perpetually jaded, yet oddly cloying, outlook on gaming.
I know, I know, it’s your blog and it’s for sharing your opinion (as your interweb fanboys will comment, or would if I didn’t say something)but the fact is, you post so people will hear you. You want people to read what you write. It’ll be a while before you recover from your “love it, love it, love it, ‘this game was a hit and a miss'” debacle.
And yes, I also know that you pointed out criticisms the whole way through. Anyone will tell you that your glowing comments far outweighed whatever negative you ever pointed out.
Fuck though. It’s late and I type too fast. Five minutes is worth it though to share the real perception many of your long term readers have found themselves exhibiting towards your commentary.
Syn4pse i dont understand your post ? why being so judgemental over keen’s gaming style ? stop talking as if you know best and everybody is wrong..
currenty i am playing mass effect,Fallout 3 , drakensang, last remnant, sacred 2 ,lotro and WAR.. i played them on rotation basis.. thats why i never got burned out of any of the games (and never achieved anything either lol)..
thats how i play and no one can tell me to play games any other way..
so off with that ‘holier than thou’ attitude ..
@Mathias: The difference between you and Keen tries to post with authority by nature of this site. The problem with Keen is that he pumps stuff up until he burns himself out and then acts like it’s the fault of the game, then publishes it without the “i play six hours a day” disclaimer and tries to sway people to his utterly jaded way of seeing things. It’s a shit way to have “fun” and only wrecks that of others.
How does Keen burning himself out on a game hurt anyone else in any way? If the guy enjoys what he’s doing, even if only for a month or two, I don’t see how that effects you, me, or that other random person over there…
I hope you have more luck with Sentinel gear than I, Keen. The belt was given to me and I got the boots on my very first run. I got the chest on my fifth run. Unfortunately, I haven’t gotten a single other piece in the last 10 or so runs. Given the lockouts, that’s about a month of doing the dungeons every three days. Since I don’t log in that often, those ten runs were spread out over about 5ish months. I haven’t seen a single piece of gear I’ve needed or wanted in 5 months in WAR from PvE OR PvP. Booerns.
Since I don’t care about LV or city siege, the gear isn’t absolutely necessary for me, still, it’s quite discouraging to see almost zero progress except your realm rank and marginal amounts of influence (still not at elite rewards, which are the only pieces I’m interested in) in almost half a year.
Keen, just as a tip here, I don’t know how many officer medallions or conqueror crests you have, but if you convert them into scout medallions, you can trade them in for obliterator gloves which VENDOR for 1.2G each.
That means 3G per officers medallion, and 15G per conquerors crest.
If you’re eyeing some conq boots, gloves, belts on the AH… it’s worth it to compare thier gold cost thier vs the token values you’d have to trade in for them.
obliterator gloves are the only thing that trades in at that value. Good luck with your quest for greater wards prior to the 1.3 sigil system (which will make all this much, much better).
@Snafzg: I’m hoping that maybe tokens will offset bad luck should I run into a streak of it.
@Gali: I have 1200 gold, so I’m contemplating spending some on maybe just straight up buying conq boots. They’re going for 200g on my server.
@Steeldragon: Yeah, I missed the pocket item on this guy. 🙁 It bugs me, but I hope to find a better one when LotD comes out.
@Syn4pse: I play whatever I want, whenever I want, and write about it. If that in any way impacts how you play games for the worse then please consider leaving. And by all means reconsider taking the time to comment because it might seem as though you actually care. Let me give you a disclaimer.
Disclaimer: I play more than one game at a time. When I am bored with a game I put it down. When I feel that a game needs a few months to improve I take a break. When I complete all of the content in a game then I stop playing if there is nothing to keep me interested. I look for flaws in games and I look for what is done well in them too. Reader beware.
Dude, if you have 1200g, buy the boots already! That’s cheap! they are going for like 300g+ on PT.
Also, the pocket item is nice, but I think it has a 1-2 hour re-use timer, so I couldn’t call it a make-or-break piece of gear. 🙂
I’m really looking forward to the new event leading up to Land of the Dead. I’m hoping it will feel just as epic as the AQ gate event was in WoW. On the same hand though, I want them to take their time with getting 1.3 right on the test server.
I remember when 1.2 came out I was looking forward to that patch so much, and it felt like it broke everything, that caused me and a couple of my friends to cancel (for the second time). I don’t want that same feeling again especially since I’ve found a new love for the game. I realized that after bouncing around with other games since I quit for the first time back in December, WAR is the game for me despite its flaws. Hopefully they can make 1.3 a hell of a patch, hit a home run with LotD, and bring back a lot of people who were burned by the game at release.
Anni gear is better for some classes than the upgrades to sent, invader, etc. On my BO, my sentinel gear has the best damage bonuses while my LV gear provides me with a lot of health and toughness.
I think the new ward system where you can gain wards simply by killing players will be good because from Lesser to Superior wards its generally just 1 of those sets tend to be ideal. In some cases stacking anni, sent, and DP or invader is great if you don’t need the set bonuses.
I hope Patch 1.3 goes over well.
Let me be clear. I don’t care how you play. I never commented on what games you play or when you decide to switch. My comment was directed at the fact that you played the hype machine until you hit a brick wall and looked like a moody little kid.
What bothers me is your “the game is broken” attitude that is nearly completely your fault. Occassionally you write something interesting and I return to the site because I hope that you’ll do something to get your credibility back. All we get is the same old “this is the bestest thing ever (though it has flaws, minor negligible flaws that I only point out now so I can fall back on this statement late) and I’ll be playing this game for a long time” drivel you’ve made your norm.
Don’t tell me how wonderful something is because you’ll just wind up whining about it later.
Your gaming does not effect me but your need to tear games down because you’re more hardcore than 90% of gamers is plain out stupid. A gaming enthusiast we have in wonder-blogger Keen. Yeah. We also have someone who’s obsessed with his hobby to the point that he can never be satisfied for more than a couple of weeks at a time.
It’s no different than a kid who eats nothing but ice cream all the time telling the starving child not to touch it because it sucks.
Face it, Keen. You said something stupid that half of the people who read you thought was stupid. Look at Syncaine’s post when you said jumped ship from darkfall.
And you know what, buddy? It’s a free internet. I’ll point out the truth to you whenever I’d like the same way you’ll run your mouth and try to wreck things for other people… the same things you tried to hype them up on in the first place.
Hypocrite.
For some reason syn4pse reminds me of Rush Limbaugh and I don’t know why.
@syn4pse- you know this is just one persons opinion on games and what he likes to play. It is his blog and he is free to write however he choices. MMOs are always changing so one flaw or bug in a game that cripples it for some at launch may not be in a few months later.
You talk as if you hang onto every word Keen says as the one and only truth.
Also MMOs live off hype and if one feature is great in Beta or right after launch but you find out its garbage you would want to write about it.
All of Keen’s reviews are personal thoughts, those that take those thoughts to heart without even thinking about them are dumb.
Make your own mind up about games, its like X-play or any game review. If that person does not like it, fine. Try it out yourself and maybe you will have a totally different experience.
Before WAR came out I said a lot of things to my friends what the game was going to be like, basically it was all hype. Mythic then ended up cutting some content and when my friends asked me if those features where still in I said no.
Or that the mechanic that I thought was going to be great did not work out. This is all that Keen does, finds some cracks and holes in games because lets face it nothing is perfect. For some those cracks might be game breaking for others not so much.
There are plenty of other blogs out there in the e-worlds for you to read syn4pse. If you do not like this one then stop reading and complaining.
Hahahahah, I love it when folks get bent ata shape on the Net-O-Inter. That just made my day.
Gratz & welcome to last year 😀
Lol, well it’s the beginning of what I hope is a quick boost to the present. 😉 With the awesome guild I’m in now it shouldn’t be hard to make up all the missed time.
@Engrey: *spoken with gyrating jowels* My friends, we live in a time where conservatism is under attack. The drive by media loves whores and trees and hates all that America stands for. We live in the UNITED STATES. If an upstanding American like myself decides to send their illegal immigrant maid to buy so black market pseudo-heroin, well, I just think that’s my choice. OBAMA (cue Movin’ on up theme song) would have you believe I’m wrong. But the truth it, I’m actually God. No, my friends, I am your savior. Now to hell with this “flex-fuel” liberal agenda. Your first commandment is to buy a Hummer.
@Syn4pse: Wow…that just made my day.
I am so confused as to how this discussion turned from Annihilator gear and me finally enjoying WAR T4 after months of trying to… this…
Interesting to hear that WAR endgame is finally starting to shape up. I’ve got a couple classes in the mid-teens that I could never bear to level back in the day because I was on the pop-dominant faction so scenarios took an hour to pop and world pvp was nonexistent. Plus the midlevel PVE is generally pretty junky and hollow feeling. Keen, how fast would you say characters level now in the teens and 20’s doing nothing but world or scenario PVP?
@Syn4apse: Shrug, Keen in general gets more excited by “new shiny” in an MMO than the average blogger. He also game hops to check out new mechanics frequently. He does his best to objectively describe faults of the game on his way out. He has a bit of a fixation on finding a “perfect” MMO that will somehow stay fresh despite his veteran status when probably no such thing exists. I fail to see how this adds up to some horrible offense on Keen’s part. Are you perhaps an angry Darkfall fan?
“an angry Darkfall fan?”
That was my guess.
Gratz Keen on the set Keen.
Syn4pse seems like a drama queen to me. Really reminds me of a blogger with a similar name. Could it be?
Here’s to hope that it would be even better with the coming of 1.3.
Hey Keen, how are city sieges? Remember my marauder? https://realmwar.warhammeronline.com/realmwar/CharacterInfo.war?id=16750&server=188
Anyways how is happy fun guys and the game?
PS. I still read your blog everyday 🙂
@Wickidd: This just in, teenage poster loves lisping internet blogger! Further reports indicate that the boy has a developmental disorder; spelling evidence at 11.
And no, I’m not Syncaine. Though he is my brother, he and I differ greatly. Different mommas.
@Nissl: True true. As far as Darkfall goes, no. The game is boring beyond all get out, even when you’re with a clan. Any “game” that encourages you to afk for most of your playtime isn’t much of a game anyways.
@Keen
Recently 4 of my friends wanted to try out WAR. I decided to play with them and resubed. I was having a blast on Vortex as Order until we realized that the lack of Destro made the game boring. We want to keep playing but our server feels dead.
Right now WAR needs people. If they have to give away 30 day trials to everyone I’m fine with that but WAR needs players more than most MMO’s to survive. You have to have an enemy that is willing to fight you.
Gratz keen, i was lucky enough to come back to having my full ann. gear on my witchhunter. Came back cause you did basically. Look forward to ganking you soon 😀
Wahahahahah, Congrats Keen & Graev…you are mentioned on the DarkFall Info post.
very last line!
http://forums.darkfallonline.com/showthread.php?t=191365
@Nobs: It is VERY server dependent. If you play on Dark Crag I think you’ll find yourself thinking quite the opposite about populations. We have so many people playing we can’t even all participate in fortress sieges. RvR action in T2, T3, T4 is so intense. If you like the game, try out Dark Crag.
@Howdy Doody: Yeah I saw that. Aventurine asked me if it would be alright. Should bring some readers and maybe even some new members of the community.
I’ve been on a WP for the past six months and about 100k into RR72. Gear grinding is okay, but people make end game come alive. On our server Destro knows that scenarios drive 25% of the percentage required to cap zones; without having to wait for zone domination to kick in. On our server (Monolith) order PUGs join every scenario, no matter what time of day or where T4 zones are close to being lost to the other side.
If zones are not being pushed Destro simply does not cue for scenarios; which means they don’t pop for hours on end. 1.2 gave us slayers and choppas. On our servers choppas make up the bulk of the forces we face and keep Ninja’ing, and lord room defenses vs. all that AoE is horrible. We just don’t have any counter to it in slayer population. So at the moment 1.3 is anticipated to weaken the dread AoE. However, so many have become frustrated with the mechanics they face now that our population and participation in T4 suffers.
The long winded responce is basically describing how much players participation and class choices seem so very dynamic in each wave of patches in turn dramatically effect play on a server scale.
When your done with the wonder lust of the new (City Instances and Lost Vale) content and all the gear grinding has been satiated….it is the players that make or break the game fun. So hold tight to that guild, those friends, and especially your enemies that will breath life into the game.
Mythic has tried to make a game that rewards the mass instead of the focused teams. Which became the focus for players 8v8 in DAOC. However, in doing so they have made it a win at a mass level or a fail at the same level. Content bugs and game bugs just erode at the mass scale and I hope that the dynamics of a new DF will breath new patience into the game that has become very spent; at least where I stand amongst my friends.
1.3 will bring us the lockbolt; anti-ninja defence and likely a new focus on the damage increase at the single target level. I suspect a change in RvR will be the hardening of tank/mdps assist trains; and single target quick kills will become the new “I win” button.
I just hope they change the way scenarios pop. I think their the missing link for smaller scale play that people like me, who came from DAOC, need to satiate our appetite for PvP outside of the zerg.
Instead of slotting all wounds, slot some perm toughness talismans in. An extra 100+ toughness makes a world of difference.