My Warden is level 24 now. I’ve been putting in a good deal of effort to level so that I can see the PvP, learn more about my character, and make absolute certain that I want to continue to play (aka start over and continue on) at launch. I finished up Darkwater and moved on to Tenebra without issue. Getting groups to do the elite mobs in Darkwater was fairly easy. Castle Blight, the instance in Darkwater, is really quite difficult and as a result no one was looking to do groups there. Moving on to Tenebra, my Warden started to feel like I was fighting an uphill battle. Mobs started taking longer to kill and they would be more difficult for me than I had gotten used to.
Stats are a big deal. Finding that sweet spot for you is what it’s all about.  I had originally ignored Luck completely and never felt like I was suffering. Seeing everyone else around me amassing Luck (it’s the stat that increases your crit %) I thought that perhaps I was ‘doing it wrong’. Changing up some gear I was able to lower the rest of my stats but boost my luck significantly. This brought me up to a 20% increased chance to crit. As I leveled up to 22 I was really starting to feel sluggish. I decided to unequip all of my luck gear and just focus on boosting Intel and Perception with Wisdom trailing slightly. The result was that I didn’t crit much at all, but my regular hits were hitting such that they were almost what my crits were. Still, I felt sluggish and I still do now at level 24.
Since there wasn’t much I could do about my stats, I decided to examine my build. My plan has been to be a Melee Warden, which is a playstyle that uses Fist Weapons to get in there and tear stuff up. Unfortunately, this playstyle is either a very late bloomer or it’s just not in line with what I want. After watching a few other Wardens as caster specs have some great spells and do well I’ve decided that a caster spec with a lot of emphasis on the pet is the route that I’m going to try at launch. There are a lot more bonuses to lightning damage, utility abilities, and ranged burst damage available to a caster spec.
The Holy Lands are a rough place. Imagine Stranglethorn Vale but in a denser jungle, with harder mobs and enemy players lurking everywhere — that’s Asee-Teph.  The League have a port at the north end of the allod and the Empire are stationed at the south. As a League player I am giving quests that send me all over the region, even right next to the Empire’s port. Running across an enemy is very, very common. Being hunted by an enemy is even more common. It’s all out PvP here. There’s no flagging and the only “safe area” is deep inside your port city. Random skirmishes happened so often that I’ve lost count, but a few major PvP fights took place in the center outside this enormous Pyramid temple. Each side had about 15 players and we would push each other back and forth. Scouts would flank and sometimes we would surround them. It was exactly like what we used to see in Hillsbrad back before BG’s were released, right after the PvP ranks were first added.
There are PvP ranks implemented that let you gain access to gear. From what I understand it’s like a modified version of WoW’s PvP ranks. You gain ranks that let you buy gear. Ranks are reset every week (or two?) making you have to regain them.  The gear looks nice. I haven’t seen PvE dungeon/raid gear to compare, but I assume it’s going to be somewhat on par.
Adding to the random battles, there are 14 objectives in the Asee-Teph Holy Lands that allow you to gain Glory (it’s like Renown or Honor).  If your side controls the majority (or is it all of them?) then you get access to the Temple Pyramid contested instance in the middle. It’s a neat system. Quests in the zone send you to capture certain ones. I believe they’re repeatable as well. These quests + the natural desire to capture them for dungeon access + the buff you get for visiting them = lots of hot spots for battling the enemy. They work out a lot better than WAR’s objectives.
Sadly, I didn’t see much success with my class which has me down a bit. Scouts are like snipers that will pick you off very, very quickly. It’s like the old days where a Pyroblast or whatever that huge fireball mages shot, followed by a fireball or two, would mean certain death if they got the jump on you. Warriors are also bad news for me since they charge, sweep, and execute an ability chain that sends me to the respawn point pretty darn fast. Summoners don’t kill me quickly, but they’re very sturdy with their life drains. I blame my spec mostly though for my inability to really take on anyone. My damage is rather pitiful against other players since the damage range on claws is so low and I don’t gain access to the +%dmg bonuses until the 30’s.  Grouping up to fight is where I was able to help the most with my regen buff and my knockdowns/silences. I can only imagine adding damage to that arsenal and I’d feel very well-rounded.
It’s been a good experience thus far. Holy Lands are rough and I think a lot of players are in for a shock. I recommend a questing partner and a lot of patience…. a lot. You’ll die a lot, you’ll get lost a lot while trying to find quest objectives that are not clearly labeled, but you’ll also have fun.
sounds great
imbalanced PvP and getting yourself in a corner by not picking the right build – yikes – sounds like a pretty bad game design
thanks for doing all the legwork though Keen – best!
Having to use your brain and being treated like an adult sounds like good game design to me.
My warden (animist) is currently 18th. I was specced as a caster/pet specialist, which was going fine. Then I foolishly bought a ton of +Luck gear and completely gimped myself. My DPS dropped by almost 50% just from that change.
The Holy Land sounds terrifying. Not at all sure about my long-term interest in Allods. If it was all PvE I would be signed up already, but trying to do PvE quests in a PvP area has never appealed to me in any game. It’s like mixing your drinks.
Also not convinced about levelling all the way up in CB and then doing it over again for OB/Live. If Mrs Bhagpuss wasn’t so into it I might shelve it for now and come back at OB.
It’s very, very PvP oriented in the Holy Lands. Expect to get ganked while doing PvE quests. If you’re not comfortable mixing PvE and PvP it’s probably going to be annoying. Most of the time I don’t mind the added excitement, but there are times when I’m just about done with a quest and I get ganked and sent back to the camp and I grumble a bit.
“As I leveled up to 22 I was really started to feel sluggish.”
Keen: Feel exactly the same way right now as I’m about 80% the way through 22nd lvl. Something doesn’t seem right about the Elven allod of Tenebra. I finished the northern allod fairly easily with a few minor hiccups (i.e. Vampire Elves jumping you out of nowhere).
As soon as I got to the southern Tenebra allod it’s like the difficulty shot through the roof. Normally with my Perpetual Healing, I maybe lose 20 to 30% health tops. I attacked a spider on the southern allod and I watch my health plummet steadily until I was dead. I was like, WTF? Even weirder, the Respected faction gear is only 21st lvl, I’m almost 23rd, yet I can’t even kill the creatures to get the repeatable faction quest so that I can get better gear to kill them with it (i.e. the old chicken and the egg problem). I’m probably going to lvl to 23rd somehow, see if I can upgrade my non faction gear pieces (i.e. chest, feet, etc) and give it a second attempt. In my opinion, the repeatable faction quest should have been immediately accessible on the northern allod, similar to most other zones (i.e. Darkwater).
“Holy Lands are rough and I think a lot of players are in for a shock.”
From what little I’ve seen of the Holy Lands, I’m going to guess that this is most definitely not a zone you want to be solo’ing within. Remember there are barely any people in it yet. Now imagine the same zone with 50 to 100 people in it, once they all level up to your level. You will have to be grouped or you’ll be slaughtered. I’m guessing you’ll see a lot of guild groups roving in packs, somewhat similar to what was done in Warhammer Online.
“Then I foolishly bought a ton of +Luck gear and completely gimped myself.”
Same thing happened to me around 17th level as well. I bought all of the Respected “Leather” gear which had all of the Luck bonuses on it which seemed like overkill. Afterwards I was like, this isn’t right. I’m actually worse off than my previous 14th/15th lvl faction gear. So I sold it all and repurchased the Respected Cloth faction gear instead and was quickly back in business.
No idea what class would need that high of Luck and yet have their Intelligence and Perception nuked by it at the same time.
@ toot: I didn’t take Keen to say that the PvP was imbalanced, just that his build wasn’t good for one on one PvP. Perhaps group support is that specs strong suit; strong support vs high dps is are common mmo class distinctions.
Cute Gibberling on your header btw…
@ Toot : I think you are completely missing the point. Keen went with a bad PvP build and paid the price.
I don’t necessarily see it as bad design, but, as in any MMORPG, some classes are better @ solo PvP than others.
I think you missed the point TooT. Every game that is centered around PvP usually has builds that better suit 1v1 play vs group support play. I think Keen was just saying his build isn’t suited for PvP. It seems like in a lot of games melee get the early shaft and then the devs are left scrambling to fix that (at least it happened in WAR and AION). Also balancing a game around PvP is usually more of a challenge.
My only issue with Allods is that it is tough(without shelling out RL cash) to respec that “screwed” up build. I guess that is what this beta is for… and I’m praying that they offer free respecs if the dev team ever decides to nerf a particular build.
While its certainly too early to tell at this point, I am liking what I am hearing about Allods to this point. If there is a fun endgame, I can see myself playing this one for awhile.
Any word on when open beta will start?
A couple others have already done a good job answering. All builds are not created equal. I don’t even think all classes are created equal in a 1v1 pvp situation. My problem when writing this was that my gear was underwhelming, my stats were thus underwhelming, and my build is naturally not impressive for mid 20’s pvp. I’m doing a little bit better now that I’ve upgraded some of my gear. My build is still questionable, but I’m making it work.
Do we have any Russian players in the community that might be able to point us in the direction of a place that would tell us how to properly spec our classes depending on what we would like to do with them? IE. a Warrior class that focuses primarily on doing massive burst damage or a tanking Paladin class that soaks up a ton of damage? The whole speccing and point allotting in this game has me a bit through a loop.
Greetings, playing a Warden myself, but a Kainian cause of the racial Scare`em, it works in PVE *and* PVP. 10 secs of fear that i have yet to break with lightening or my pet biting em. Too bad the gibberling racial do not work 🙁 Cause we all now Gibber>all 🙂
As for a talent advice have wasted 7 rubies on hunt/bestialwillpower/dirty paws, *not* worth it at all. At the pet tree natural instincts and natural endurance is better. But my next warden will start caster cause lightening master and natural wizardry is just too good.
Wow, just did some roaming in the Holylands with Keen and Dawnwarden. Went pretty well and definitely like it (at this point anyways). I didn’t die myself but I missed topping up Keen once and he died (although we won the fight). With Dawnwarden tanking, it got much easier.
One thing that Keen mentioned was that you can almost skip the Elven Tenebra allod and just go right to the Holylands. I now see what he means. Once you get your Greenhorn rank (which I got today fairly easily in our group), Dawnwarden mentioned that you can buy some really decent Greenhorn PvP gear in Novograd which is much better than the Elven Tenebra faction gear, thus there is no point grinding the Elven Tenebra faction gear at all.
Even better, I’m a half slot away from 23rd lvl now and I’ll soon get access to the Trusted League Army gear which will probably boost my performance a lot. Looking forward to it and PvPing more.
Just curious what you think, one of the big complaints about WAR was that there was only 2 factions. Do you think Allods will work with only 2 factions?
Here is a talent calculator site that might help…
http://allodsbase.com/en/talents#
I meant more along the lines of where to spend points not just in the talent trees, but actually allocating points into your core stats.
Sigh, I’m level 8 still 🙁
@Fresnel: Right now I do not foresee any big problems because it only has two factions. However, it will certainly lack the benefits of three factions. To truly answer that I will need to be near the level cap.
sounds like wow with harder shit. runes of magic. bleh all shit.
Is their item store live yet? I think you guys keep forgetting this is a f2p game, and one day they are going to open an item mall that will make your experience seem fun and balanced with all the stat boost goodies they will sell. PvP especially can get shot to hell in cash shop games.
The item store is visible, but we can not use it yet. No stat boosting goodies in there. What’s in there though are respecs that I would definitely buy. 😉
Good right up. I’ve rerolled the same class 4 times now going from NA to EU and Empire to League. Your stats and build are VERY important, even more so than I’ve seen in other games. I fight with the combat log open at all times. I make small changes and what the results just to be sure how each stat impacts my combat. Spec are important but I think the stats are the more complex aspect in this game.
The version of my summoner that I’m playing now is night-and-day different than the first because I’m working the numbers. However, I’m not convinced that their combat mechanics/algorithms are the best I’ve experienced. You’ll see regular mobs hitting very frequent critical strike chains where the crit is 4x and 5x their normal damage. If two of those happen against a same level mob you are dead. There is no way for you to survive it and I think that part is flawed. Compare that to your own critical strikes and mine are only .5x to 1x my normal damage and it really seems off. Even with a healer in tow, the static trio I’m in loses the tank to a 1 hit critical strike. They feel much more like a crushing blow for a WOW raid boss. Regardless, I’m enjoying the game.
We have no idea what the item store will really be. It’s basically a cut&paste of the Russian one.
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If there is no balance between the two sides. PvP will be horrid. Those that say being the underdog is fun, unless solo gankers, will likely find an unpleasant experience with the 3 to 1 odds.
Not sure any F2P game can make money on respecs alone. They try and get you with stat boosts and item lottos, and they can’t make an item store truly optional, because no one would pay at all.
I really think that beta F2P games should be clear on what they eventually will charge for, and maybe even let players use it for free (while wiping the character later) to see the effects on balance.
@Dblade – I agree. There’s nothing to hide. Springing it on players at release will just have them leave anyway. Also I’m VERY surprised that they didn’t provide a way of doing respecs minus the item shop in BETA. They don’t know what sorts of build players will conceive that could be completely OP and will drive potential customers out of the game before they can take corrective action. Better to know now than live I say.
I too am somewhat confused as to why we’re not being allowed to respec. I think it’s silly that we’re wanting to test the specs and such but can’t unless we spend hours and hours farming an uber rare drop from the first dungeon.
As for an intrusive cash shop, if they change what the Russians have had and what we’re being shown in-game to something obtrusive and damaging to gameplay then I’m gone. You’ll never meet a bigger opponent to cash shop crap than me. If they destroy the game with a cash shop change then you’ll hear about it from me.
The Melee Warden is generally regarded as the “Yeah, you could sure try it, and with a really tight build, you might not hate it” build, based on the forums. There’s a specific melee warden guide that looks good, but I’m building my warden to be all spells and pets, and I’m enjoying it.