If there's one thing playing on Jade Quarry has taught me, it's this: people who are really, seriously into world PvP are really bottom-of-the-barrel tier scum.
It's a little harsh, but I can't think of any polite way to put it. These guys are willing to extoll, at length, the virtues of world PvP, but they are all invariably ego-driven idiotic chucklefucks of the highest caliber.
Special thanks to JadeQuarry.com for helping me finally attain the conclusion to something about MMO players that's been itching at the back of my mind for a while. Not a lot of time spent lurking the forums there makes how much of a retarded ego circlejerk the WvWvW "community" really is quite apparent.
I unwittingly got wrapped in the still-fresh MMAC/AoS debacle. Menaace, the "franchise owner" of MMAC (Mixed Martial Arts and Crafts--an absolutely brilliant guild name) tried to depart from JQ.com's shithole by creating a new site for more serious, on-topic WvWvW discussion called the Emerald Council. I sent him a big message telling him how I agree with his disgust with JQ.com and wishing him better luck with EC; he eventually hooked me up with a guild invite to MMAC. Little did I know, the people he had charged with leadership of the GW2 guild were on the cusp of demanding Menaace step down from leadership because of all the retarded, retarded forum drama. Menaace responded by clear cutting all of the dissenting leadership, who promptly responded by creating their own guild and dragged most of the active membership of MMAC with them. I'm sitting on membership in both guilds (but only representing my own now) while the dust clears; I wish MMAC and EC success still but it's clear that MMAC is now going nowhere, and while I became fast associates of several okay dudes in what is now Army of Shepherds, I firmly believe they're another drop in the pond of the sea of leaderless shits who run around Jade Quarry's WvWvW thinking they're tactical geniuses.
I'd also tried to start a guild to use as an impromptu Looking For Dungeons channel, but after about a week and a half of recruiting (managed to get just shy of 100 members at its peak), I basically gave up since it was turning into too much work for how useless it turned out to be and anyways Lion's Arch general chat serves the same purpose.
Aside from all of the above, I have my own lil personal guild that I enjoy some peace and quiet in whilst I accumulate influence. I now have my own private guild bank and am close to having my own set o' guild armor available. Also, some teenage kid keeps messaging me to ask my advice on random subjects.
UPDATE 11/28/2012: I discovered probably about a week ago that Menaace has since transferred to another server to join some other guild and he's deleted both the Emerald Council and MMAC websites. Lending further credibility to the argument that he's a complete whackjob, he was caught fervently pretending to be a member of AoS on GW2Guru. All this made the decision on which guild to stick with that much easier.
Friday, November 16, 2012
Super Duper Update Part 3 - Meanwhile...
Though I still consider myself to be on the Guild Wars 2 bandwagon, I'm not still playing it a ton aside from running a few explorable mode dungeons a day for tokens for gear and leveling random (literally, I've taken to dice rolls to pick which to play on a given day) characters to power through the (what would now be referred to specifically as the PvE) daily achievements. Actually, I've taken to listening to girlwriteswhat's videos (the MRM is an interesting subject) to extend the life of each play session before I get tired of clearing the same maps over and over.
Aside from that I've been bouncing between an assortment of games including Torchlight 2, Borderlands 2 (shout out to my old FFXI buddy Margulis, who hooked me up with a spare copy), Orcs Must Die 2, AI War: Fleet Command, XCOM: Enemy Unknown, and Dota 2. Been killing a lot of time watching through the 2012 Dota 2 International (actually, I wrote a huge post on my Facebook that I oughtta copy over to here at some point about how fucking awesome one of the matches was).
Alice and I made very quick work of Torchlight 2 and then quickly lost interest in it. We've been kinda floundering trying to find some other game to co-op in now that SMNC is basically dead. Payday has gotten some interesting updates recently, but unfortunately the game has mostly run its course with me already. Been trying to get him to give OMD2, AI War, or GW2 a try but no dice so far. Actually, I just came across Natural Selection 2, thinking of getting it, wonder if alice might find it interesting.
I'm all caught up with A Song of Ice and Fire now. I started reading through some books from my younger days to see if they've stood the test of time, chiefly books by Robert A. Heinlein. I found Citizen of the Galaxy to be pretty pleasant, but found that I didn't really like Stranger in a Strange Land. I did, however, seriously enjoy Starship Troopers and it has deeply informed some of my thoughts on the structure of society in general (made a big, interesting Facebook note about that too). Lately I started watching through Death Note again to kill time.
I started taking tri-weekly half hour walks about 3 weeks ago. Figured it was time to at least make a token effort towards a more healthy lifestyle. I'm able to gauge a little progress so far, so it's really encouraging.
Aside from that I've been bouncing between an assortment of games including Torchlight 2, Borderlands 2 (shout out to my old FFXI buddy Margulis, who hooked me up with a spare copy), Orcs Must Die 2, AI War: Fleet Command, XCOM: Enemy Unknown, and Dota 2. Been killing a lot of time watching through the 2012 Dota 2 International (actually, I wrote a huge post on my Facebook that I oughtta copy over to here at some point about how fucking awesome one of the matches was).
Alice and I made very quick work of Torchlight 2 and then quickly lost interest in it. We've been kinda floundering trying to find some other game to co-op in now that SMNC is basically dead. Payday has gotten some interesting updates recently, but unfortunately the game has mostly run its course with me already. Been trying to get him to give OMD2, AI War, or GW2 a try but no dice so far. Actually, I just came across Natural Selection 2, thinking of getting it, wonder if alice might find it interesting.
I'm all caught up with A Song of Ice and Fire now. I started reading through some books from my younger days to see if they've stood the test of time, chiefly books by Robert A. Heinlein. I found Citizen of the Galaxy to be pretty pleasant, but found that I didn't really like Stranger in a Strange Land. I did, however, seriously enjoy Starship Troopers and it has deeply informed some of my thoughts on the structure of society in general (made a big, interesting Facebook note about that too). Lately I started watching through Death Note again to kill time.
I started taking tri-weekly half hour walks about 3 weeks ago. Figured it was time to at least make a token effort towards a more healthy lifestyle. I'm able to gauge a little progress so far, so it's really encouraging.
Super Duper Update Part 2 - SWTOR
http://www.swtor.com/free/features
Look upon Bioware's works, ye mighty, and despair.
Callsign's been sending me several sad messages about how he was really excited in the days leading up to SWTOR going free to play. Then he sends me some messages this morning pissed at how the exp rate is half for free players. But that's only the tip of the iceberg--the SWTOR free to play model is riddled with mind-boggling shit like emotes and the ability to toggle off your helmet being options that require real money transactions.
Every so often I peek at the MoX Mumble server's user numbers and they're always pretty high, which I guess is good for them. I was actually so tempted to find someone to ask whether the latest patch and/or the free to play conversion has managed to wreck the game even further that I went and signed up for the MoX Facebook group again. I was really tempted to make a post to that effect, but was dismayed to find that I recognized virtually nobody from the group any more (think I recognized Clausy and Darkhorse, but that's basically it).
Actually, I thought I had more to say about SWTOR, but maybe not.
Oh, they JUST RECENTLY released Nightmare Mode Denova. It is now early November. 1.2 was released on 4/12/2012. Holy shitfuck that was about 7 months ago. Jesus tittyfucking Christ on a stick, that's outrageous.
I still get a weird number of hits on my Denova loot list page despite having it hidden on this blog except for direct linking.
Look upon Bioware's works, ye mighty, and despair.
Callsign's been sending me several sad messages about how he was really excited in the days leading up to SWTOR going free to play. Then he sends me some messages this morning pissed at how the exp rate is half for free players. But that's only the tip of the iceberg--the SWTOR free to play model is riddled with mind-boggling shit like emotes and the ability to toggle off your helmet being options that require real money transactions.
Every so often I peek at the MoX Mumble server's user numbers and they're always pretty high, which I guess is good for them. I was actually so tempted to find someone to ask whether the latest patch and/or the free to play conversion has managed to wreck the game even further that I went and signed up for the MoX Facebook group again. I was really tempted to make a post to that effect, but was dismayed to find that I recognized virtually nobody from the group any more (think I recognized Clausy and Darkhorse, but that's basically it).
Actually, I thought I had more to say about SWTOR, but maybe not.
Oh, they JUST RECENTLY released Nightmare Mode Denova. It is now early November. 1.2 was released on 4/12/2012. Holy shitfuck that was about 7 months ago. Jesus tittyfucking Christ on a stick, that's outrageous.
I still get a weird number of hits on my Denova loot list page despite having it hidden on this blog except for direct linking.
Super Duper Update Part 1 - Preface
So clearly this blog has fallen somewhat by the wayside, but I thought I might at least make a minor effort to bring things a little more up to speed. A lot of the info on GW2 that I've previously posted here is quite out of date and/or inaccurate, however I've chosen to just let them sit since there's now plenty of up-to-date and more oft-updated resources for many of the things I've covered previously. And what is relevant to be updated I'll cover in relevant posts to follow.
I have 4 big topics I'd like to address that I'm going to split into separate posts: where my characters are at in GW2, some writing about my goings-on/history on Jade Quarry so far (especially with respect to the WvWvW environment), non-MMO things I've been up to, and SWTOR.
I plan on tackling the last of those first, being that my impetus to write this is a result of having taken a look at the free2play matrix for SWTOR and being absolutely floored by how horrifying it is. Then a lil nostalgia led me to reverse my childish decision to leave the MoX Facebook group (though whether I may again remains to be seen).
On that same train of thought I'm going to cover my personal progress in GW2 last with a gigantic post about my characters in GW2 since that's probably what I have the most to write about, especially since I'd like to talk gearing and skill/talent builds.
So here we go.
I have 4 big topics I'd like to address that I'm going to split into separate posts: where my characters are at in GW2, some writing about my goings-on/history on Jade Quarry so far (especially with respect to the WvWvW environment), non-MMO things I've been up to, and SWTOR.
I plan on tackling the last of those first, being that my impetus to write this is a result of having taken a look at the free2play matrix for SWTOR and being absolutely floored by how horrifying it is. Then a lil nostalgia led me to reverse my childish decision to leave the MoX Facebook group (though whether I may again remains to be seen).
On that same train of thought I'm going to cover my personal progress in GW2 last with a gigantic post about my characters in GW2 since that's probably what I have the most to write about, especially since I'd like to talk gearing and skill/talent builds.
So here we go.
Thursday, September 13, 2012
Legendary Weapons: Clarification Edition
According to this post all of the steps and components to creating Twilight, a legendary greatsword (apparently there's another, Sunrise) are now known. Here's the gist of it:
-It's crafted at the mystic forge from Dusk, the exotic greatsword, and Gifts of Mastery, Fortune, and Twilight.
-These require an absolute minimum (not including the cost of purchasing any of the mountains of crafting materials you need) of 120g and 525000 karma.
-Each of the Gifts are created from combinations of other Gifts (which all also have ridiculous requirements) and certain rare materials.
-The only components of this process that are soulbound are the Obsidian Shards and the dungeon specific tokens required for the dungeon's Gift. All other bound items are account bound.
-The components which require some form of grinding include the dungeon Gift, Gift of Exploration (requires 100% map completion, note that the Gift itself is account bound), Bloodstone Shard (requires 200 skill points, but also account bound), Gift of Battle (requires 500 Badges of Honor from WvWvW), and the Obsidian Shards (soulbound and bought with karma).
There's another thread here compiling information on the other legendaries.
-It's crafted at the mystic forge from Dusk, the exotic greatsword, and Gifts of Mastery, Fortune, and Twilight.
-These require an absolute minimum (not including the cost of purchasing any of the mountains of crafting materials you need) of 120g and 525000 karma.
-Each of the Gifts are created from combinations of other Gifts (which all also have ridiculous requirements) and certain rare materials.
-The only components of this process that are soulbound are the Obsidian Shards and the dungeon specific tokens required for the dungeon's Gift. All other bound items are account bound.
-The components which require some form of grinding include the dungeon Gift, Gift of Exploration (requires 100% map completion, note that the Gift itself is account bound), Bloodstone Shard (requires 200 skill points, but also account bound), Gift of Battle (requires 500 Badges of Honor from WvWvW), and the Obsidian Shards (soulbound and bought with karma).
There's another thread here compiling information on the other legendaries.
Tuesday, September 11, 2012
Legendary Weapons: More Rumors and Speculation Edition
Back when I made this post I didn't have a lot of information on Legendary Weapons, so here's a few more notes to fill in some gaps:
-All legendary weapons are made from two "Gifts" + Bloodstone Shard + a specific exotic weapon.
-The Bloodstone Shard is, ironically, probably the easiest to get as it only requires 200 skill points.
-Many of the gifts are created from max level craft skills but are reportedly bind on account, which should mean that having tradeskills on multiple characters won't hinder creating the legendary for one particular character.
-The gifts also have some pretty obsurd requirements themselves (Gift of Metal reportedly requires 250 of orihalcum, mithril, darksteel, and platinum ingots), and each weapon requires at least one Gift that in turn requires a material bought from several hundred (500 apparently? I could verify this but I'm not logged into the game right now) of a certain explorable mode dungeon's token--so I was partially wrong about explorable mode dungeons not being endgame.
-It's not yet clear how exactly the required exotic weapons are made.
-It's not clear how much of the process requires stuff that is soulbound or if the weapons themself are souldbound. Obviously many of the crafting materials are not soulbound, however I'm aware that the explorable mode dungeon tokens (Tears of Ascalon et al.) are soulbound for sure.
Here's the current list of legendaries being tossed around the internet:
Frostfang (Axe): Gift of Frostfang(Jeweler) + Gift of Metal(Weaponsmith) + Bloodstone Shard + Tooth of Frostfang of Rage
Incinerator (Dagger): Gift of Incinerator(Cook) + Gift of Metal(Weaponsmith) + Bloodstone Shard + Spark of Rage
Sunrise (Greatsword): Gift of Sunrise(Armorsmith) + Gift of Metal(Weaponsmith) + Bloodstone Shard + Dawn of Rage
Twilight (Greatsword): Gift of Twilight(Armorsmith) + Gift of Metal(Weaponsmith) + Bloodstone Shard + Dusk or Rage
Juggernaught (Hammer): Gift of Juggernaught(Jeweler) + Gift of Metal(Weaponsmith) + Bloodstone Shard + The Colossus of Rage
The Moot (Mace): Gift of The Moot(Armorsmith) + Gift of Metal(Weaponsmith) + Bloodstone Shard + The Energizer of Rage
The Flameseeker Prophecies (Shield): Gift of The Flameseeker Prophecies(Armorsmith) + Gift of Metal(Weaponsmith) + Bloodstone Shard + The Seeker of Rage
Bolt (Sword): Gift of Bolt(Artificer) + Gift of Metal(Weaponsmith) + Bloodstone Shard + Zap of Rage
Maw of the Deep (Spear): Gift of Maw of the Deep(Leatherworker) + Gift of Metal(Weamonsmith) + Bloodstone Shard + Maw of Rage
Kudzu (Longbow): Gift of Kudzu(Leatherworker) + Gift of Wood(Huntsman) + Bloodstone Shard + Leaf of Kudzu of Rage
The Dreamer (Shortbow): Gift of The Dreamer(Jeweler) + Gift of Wood(Huntsman) + Bloodstone Shard + The Lover of Rage
Predator (Rifle): Gift of Predator(Tailor) + Gift of Wood(Huntsman) + Bloodstone Shard + The Hunter of Rage
Quip (Pistol): Gift of Quip(Armorsmith) + Gift of Wood(Huntsman) + Bloodstone Shard + Chaos Gun of Rage
Dragons Maw Torch: Gift of Dragon Maw(Unknown) + Gift of Wood(Huntsman) + Bloodstone Shard + Dragons Claw of Rage
Howler (Warhorn): Gift of Howler(Leatherworker) + Gift of Wood(Huntsman) + Bloodstone Shard + Howl of Rage
Frenzy (Speargun): Gift of Frenzy(Cook) + Gift of Wood(Huntsman) + Bloodstone Shard + Rage of Rage
The Minstrel (Focus): Gift of The Minstrel(Jeweler) + Gift of Energy(Artificer) + Bloodstone Shard + The Bard of Rage
Meteorlogicus (Scepter): Gift of Meteorlogicus(Armorsmith) + Gift of Energy(Artificer) + Bloodstone Shard + Storm or Rage
The Bifrost (Staff): Gift of The Bifrost(Cook) + Gift of Energy(Artificer) + Bloodstone Shard + The Legend of Rage
Kraitkin (Trident): Gift of Kraitkin(Leatherworker) + Gift of Energy(Artificer) + Bloodstone Shard + Venom of Rage.
-All legendary weapons are made from two "Gifts" + Bloodstone Shard + a specific exotic weapon.
-The Bloodstone Shard is, ironically, probably the easiest to get as it only requires 200 skill points.
-Many of the gifts are created from max level craft skills but are reportedly bind on account, which should mean that having tradeskills on multiple characters won't hinder creating the legendary for one particular character.
-The gifts also have some pretty obsurd requirements themselves (Gift of Metal reportedly requires 250 of orihalcum, mithril, darksteel, and platinum ingots), and each weapon requires at least one Gift that in turn requires a material bought from several hundred (500 apparently? I could verify this but I'm not logged into the game right now) of a certain explorable mode dungeon's token--so I was partially wrong about explorable mode dungeons not being endgame.
-It's not yet clear how exactly the required exotic weapons are made.
-It's not clear how much of the process requires stuff that is soulbound or if the weapons themself are souldbound. Obviously many of the crafting materials are not soulbound, however I'm aware that the explorable mode dungeon tokens (Tears of Ascalon et al.) are soulbound for sure.
Here's the current list of legendaries being tossed around the internet:
Frostfang (Axe): Gift of Frostfang(Jeweler) + Gift of Metal(Weaponsmith) + Bloodstone Shard + Tooth of Frostfang of Rage
Incinerator (Dagger): Gift of Incinerator(Cook) + Gift of Metal(Weaponsmith) + Bloodstone Shard + Spark of Rage
Sunrise (Greatsword): Gift of Sunrise(Armorsmith) + Gift of Metal(Weaponsmith) + Bloodstone Shard + Dawn of Rage
Twilight (Greatsword): Gift of Twilight(Armorsmith) + Gift of Metal(Weaponsmith) + Bloodstone Shard + Dusk or Rage
Juggernaught (Hammer): Gift of Juggernaught(Jeweler) + Gift of Metal(Weaponsmith) + Bloodstone Shard + The Colossus of Rage
The Moot (Mace): Gift of The Moot(Armorsmith) + Gift of Metal(Weaponsmith) + Bloodstone Shard + The Energizer of Rage
The Flameseeker Prophecies (Shield): Gift of The Flameseeker Prophecies(Armorsmith) + Gift of Metal(Weaponsmith) + Bloodstone Shard + The Seeker of Rage
Bolt (Sword): Gift of Bolt(Artificer) + Gift of Metal(Weaponsmith) + Bloodstone Shard + Zap of Rage
Maw of the Deep (Spear): Gift of Maw of the Deep(Leatherworker) + Gift of Metal(Weamonsmith) + Bloodstone Shard + Maw of Rage
Kudzu (Longbow): Gift of Kudzu(Leatherworker) + Gift of Wood(Huntsman) + Bloodstone Shard + Leaf of Kudzu of Rage
The Dreamer (Shortbow): Gift of The Dreamer(Jeweler) + Gift of Wood(Huntsman) + Bloodstone Shard + The Lover of Rage
Predator (Rifle): Gift of Predator(Tailor) + Gift of Wood(Huntsman) + Bloodstone Shard + The Hunter of Rage
Quip (Pistol): Gift of Quip(Armorsmith) + Gift of Wood(Huntsman) + Bloodstone Shard + Chaos Gun of Rage
Dragons Maw Torch: Gift of Dragon Maw(Unknown) + Gift of Wood(Huntsman) + Bloodstone Shard + Dragons Claw of Rage
Howler (Warhorn): Gift of Howler(Leatherworker) + Gift of Wood(Huntsman) + Bloodstone Shard + Howl of Rage
Frenzy (Speargun): Gift of Frenzy(Cook) + Gift of Wood(Huntsman) + Bloodstone Shard + Rage of Rage
The Minstrel (Focus): Gift of The Minstrel(Jeweler) + Gift of Energy(Artificer) + Bloodstone Shard + The Bard of Rage
Meteorlogicus (Scepter): Gift of Meteorlogicus(Armorsmith) + Gift of Energy(Artificer) + Bloodstone Shard + Storm or Rage
The Bifrost (Staff): Gift of The Bifrost(Cook) + Gift of Energy(Artificer) + Bloodstone Shard + The Legend of Rage
Kraitkin (Trident): Gift of Kraitkin(Leatherworker) + Gift of Energy(Artificer) + Bloodstone Shard + Venom of Rage.
Saturday, September 8, 2012
Guilds War
I want to write a bit about the paradigm shift of player community interaction in Guild Wars 2, and as someone who has had an administrative hand in guild and groups in nearly a dozen MMOs I have some advice for people trying to build a Guild Wars 2 guild. The "paradigm shift" I speak of is the fact that a single player (or, more specifically, their account) can be a member of multiple guilds. This isn't new to MMOs, except perhaps to one as "mainstream" as Guild Wars 2. Final Fantasy XI had linkshells, which was that game's equivalent of guilds, and you could have as many as you had inventory spaces for (since they...literally took up inventory space).
The thing I'm looking for and hope develops in Guild Wars 2 is the compartmentalization that occurred in FFXI. By either design or the game's social evolution, individual linkshells had very specific specializations. Players had their social LS, their ENM (endgame) LS, perhaps a Dynamis LS if their ENM one didn't also do Dynamis (or they might have had a separate LS just for Dynamis with the same members). I'm not yet committed to a guild (or circle of guilds) and so I'm trying to collect solid guilds, but whenever I see a recruitment message that touts that they intend to be super duper active in everything, PvE, sPvP, WvWvW, endgame, leveling, et al. all at once it's an immediate turn off. This is an old school mentality that comes from WoW-style MMOs where your guild was really your only social circle, so by necessity guilds had to do everything to attract members.
Anyways, to get back to that advice I referred to in the first paragraph. If you want to build a successful guild, start by doing what nobody else is doing: specialize. Pick the thing you like doing most, whether it be PvE, sPvP, or WvWvW and get the word out that your guild does nothing but that. Let's use sPvP as an example. Get the word out that your guild eats, drinks, and farts sPvP and discusses and engages in it ad nauseam. In time, wise players looking to play with others focused on sPvP and improve and talk sPvP will like the idea of joining a guild that does nothing but that. Players who would like to sPvP more but are stuck in ho-hum guilds where only one or two other people are sort of vaguely into it will eagerly jump on board as well. So far I've found guilds that sort of casually only do WvWvW and PvE, but I'd still like to find guilds actively committed to only doing them. I still haven't found a guild full of die-hard sPvPers which is frustrating because I want to do it more but can only take soloing through the server browser in small chunks, and thus I don't have anyone to talk PvP theorycrafting with at all.
"Representing" guilds is an issue that throws a kink into my desire for specialized guilds, as representing a guild for influence does encourage a certain amount of guild loyalty. Right now guilds really want you to represent them for influence, though I think this'll probably die off over time as guilds finish all the upgrades they want. Right now a lot of guilds are very adamant (or at least passive aggressive) about it; early on there's a lot of incentive for guild leaders to persistently ask their members to either exclusively or semi-exclusively represent them. I just had an officer from my WvWvW guild send me faux-sad tells asking why I wasn't representing. I had to explain to him that when I was in WvWvW, grouping with members from the guild, or particularly starved for conversation, I always represent the guild, and furthermore that in a game like Guild Wars 2 where you have a neigh-infinite choice of guilds a player is only holding themself back by sticking to one. As a guild leader there's two ways to ensure a steady flow of influence: either recruit like mad just for sheer numbers, which will maybe give a short term boost unless you can create a truly steady large community (which can happen, shout out to All Shall Perish), or do as I advised above. Like I said before, guilds used to be the only social circle a player has. Now you need to create the need or incentive for a player to choose your guild over others and right now I believe specialization is the best way to do that.
Fortunately for me, guilds are a very accessory part of GW2, so I've not urgently needed one for anything and have had the luxury of not being desperate to shoehorn my way into an existing community. I actually made my own tiny guild to invite a few friends I know who play and to dump small bits of influence into when things are dry in other guilds. Since I don't feel attached to any of them yet, I'd rather my influence be my own right now.
The thing I'm looking for and hope develops in Guild Wars 2 is the compartmentalization that occurred in FFXI. By either design or the game's social evolution, individual linkshells had very specific specializations. Players had their social LS, their ENM (endgame) LS, perhaps a Dynamis LS if their ENM one didn't also do Dynamis (or they might have had a separate LS just for Dynamis with the same members). I'm not yet committed to a guild (or circle of guilds) and so I'm trying to collect solid guilds, but whenever I see a recruitment message that touts that they intend to be super duper active in everything, PvE, sPvP, WvWvW, endgame, leveling, et al. all at once it's an immediate turn off. This is an old school mentality that comes from WoW-style MMOs where your guild was really your only social circle, so by necessity guilds had to do everything to attract members.
Anyways, to get back to that advice I referred to in the first paragraph. If you want to build a successful guild, start by doing what nobody else is doing: specialize. Pick the thing you like doing most, whether it be PvE, sPvP, or WvWvW and get the word out that your guild does nothing but that. Let's use sPvP as an example. Get the word out that your guild eats, drinks, and farts sPvP and discusses and engages in it ad nauseam. In time, wise players looking to play with others focused on sPvP and improve and talk sPvP will like the idea of joining a guild that does nothing but that. Players who would like to sPvP more but are stuck in ho-hum guilds where only one or two other people are sort of vaguely into it will eagerly jump on board as well. So far I've found guilds that sort of casually only do WvWvW and PvE, but I'd still like to find guilds actively committed to only doing them. I still haven't found a guild full of die-hard sPvPers which is frustrating because I want to do it more but can only take soloing through the server browser in small chunks, and thus I don't have anyone to talk PvP theorycrafting with at all.
"Representing" guilds is an issue that throws a kink into my desire for specialized guilds, as representing a guild for influence does encourage a certain amount of guild loyalty. Right now guilds really want you to represent them for influence, though I think this'll probably die off over time as guilds finish all the upgrades they want. Right now a lot of guilds are very adamant (or at least passive aggressive) about it; early on there's a lot of incentive for guild leaders to persistently ask their members to either exclusively or semi-exclusively represent them. I just had an officer from my WvWvW guild send me faux-sad tells asking why I wasn't representing. I had to explain to him that when I was in WvWvW, grouping with members from the guild, or particularly starved for conversation, I always represent the guild, and furthermore that in a game like Guild Wars 2 where you have a neigh-infinite choice of guilds a player is only holding themself back by sticking to one. As a guild leader there's two ways to ensure a steady flow of influence: either recruit like mad just for sheer numbers, which will maybe give a short term boost unless you can create a truly steady large community (which can happen, shout out to All Shall Perish), or do as I advised above. Like I said before, guilds used to be the only social circle a player has. Now you need to create the need or incentive for a player to choose your guild over others and right now I believe specialization is the best way to do that.
Fortunately for me, guilds are a very accessory part of GW2, so I've not urgently needed one for anything and have had the luxury of not being desperate to shoehorn my way into an existing community. I actually made my own tiny guild to invite a few friends I know who play and to dump small bits of influence into when things are dry in other guilds. Since I don't feel attached to any of them yet, I'd rather my influence be my own right now.
Wednesday, September 5, 2012
Guild Wars 2 Endgame: Karma Weapons and Armor and Legendary Weapons; also I bitch about Necromancer a lil bit
I've got a ton to write about and now I've finally got a good reason to get around to it. Two days ago my Necromancer, Desyrel, hit 80. Since then I've mostly been working on map completion and crafting while slowly collecting information on what comprises the endgame. Here's what I've learned so far:
-Explorable mode dungeons give tokens for corresponding sets of armor and weapons. The armor sets are all level appropriate to the explorable mode dungeon it corresponds to. The weapons are all several levels higher, starting at level 60 weapons from Ascalon Catacombs and then finally reaching level 80 at Twilight Arbor and up. Unless you are going for the asthetics, explorable mode dungeons are not really "endgame". So far I've finished Ascalon Catacombs and Honor of the Waves on exploration mode once each.
-The most readily available sets of level 80 gear are the Tier 3 cultural armor sets and the faction armor sets available from either the Order of Whispers, Durmond Priory, or Vigil depending on which you chose during the story; any of these sets are available for purchase with gold. I compared the Sylvari cultural set and Whisperer set last night and found they had the same stat values, however the Whisperer set was both cheaper and had slightly higher armor values.
-From what else I've been able to gather, the big armor items come from karma vendors that spawn at the ends of strings of events in the Orrian zones. These armor sets are referred to as the God Temple sets (this refers to said events)--there are evidently 6 sets amongst each armor class corresponding to one of the human gods.
--At this time I don't know which god corresponds with which set but I do know the names of the sets. The names of the armor pieces are Light/Medium/Heavy Arcon/Armageddon/Aurora/Mortal/Rubicon/Whispering X. If you want a sneak peak at the stats head on over to GW2DB and simply search for "light", "medium", or "heavy" and they all pop up in the item list (they're all ironically amongst the few items in the game that simply have the title of the armor class right in the equipment name).
--They all have rather hefty karma costs, as in 60k+ per piece.
-Karma "cultural" weapons are also available at similar karma costs to the armor pieces above from karma vendors in the race capitals.
-The super duper big ticket weapons are the legendary weapons. I don't know much about these aside from the fact that they require a max level crafting profession, some absurd amount of skill points (reportedly 200, remember that once you hit 80 you continue "leveling up" and getting skill points this way), and supposedly involve a lot of bind on account stuff to keep it from turning into a market game.
-All of the above, as far as I know (except explorable modes obviously), are doable solo. There's evidently no strict need for an endgame PvE guild.
Also, I've written and just now updated a fairly popular Necromancer Minion Master build. Check that bad boy out.
Right now I'm working on a zone a day for map completion and finishing up jewelcrafting and the story on my Necromancer while trying to decide which character I want to play second.
Necromancer is fun to a point but I feel that overall it's a weak class. I feel like it provides very little utility that isn't available to other classes, or at least I haven't completely found Necro's niche. I think that niche may be something like condition removal but that's only useful in some situations. Necro also feels pretty week in PvP; it can be VERY tanky in the right build and situation but often lacks the oomph to nail home kills on a consistent basis.
Death Shroud as a mechanic is very weak. All the abilities in Death Shroud are very marginally useful and while in Death Shroud you have no access to your slot skills. It's basically only incredibly useful as a tanking mechanic--and naturally in a game where tanks aren't a central mechanic I feel this further dilutes Necromancer's overall usefulness. It really needs some kind of tweak somehow.
-Explorable mode dungeons give tokens for corresponding sets of armor and weapons. The armor sets are all level appropriate to the explorable mode dungeon it corresponds to. The weapons are all several levels higher, starting at level 60 weapons from Ascalon Catacombs and then finally reaching level 80 at Twilight Arbor and up. Unless you are going for the asthetics, explorable mode dungeons are not really "endgame". So far I've finished Ascalon Catacombs and Honor of the Waves on exploration mode once each.
-The most readily available sets of level 80 gear are the Tier 3 cultural armor sets and the faction armor sets available from either the Order of Whispers, Durmond Priory, or Vigil depending on which you chose during the story; any of these sets are available for purchase with gold. I compared the Sylvari cultural set and Whisperer set last night and found they had the same stat values, however the Whisperer set was both cheaper and had slightly higher armor values.
-From what else I've been able to gather, the big armor items come from karma vendors that spawn at the ends of strings of events in the Orrian zones. These armor sets are referred to as the God Temple sets (this refers to said events)--there are evidently 6 sets amongst each armor class corresponding to one of the human gods.
--At this time I don't know which god corresponds with which set but I do know the names of the sets. The names of the armor pieces are Light/Medium/Heavy Arcon/Armageddon/Aurora/Mortal/Rubicon/Whispering X. If you want a sneak peak at the stats head on over to GW2DB and simply search for "light", "medium", or "heavy" and they all pop up in the item list (they're all ironically amongst the few items in the game that simply have the title of the armor class right in the equipment name).
--They all have rather hefty karma costs, as in 60k+ per piece.
-Karma "cultural" weapons are also available at similar karma costs to the armor pieces above from karma vendors in the race capitals.
-The super duper big ticket weapons are the legendary weapons. I don't know much about these aside from the fact that they require a max level crafting profession, some absurd amount of skill points (reportedly 200, remember that once you hit 80 you continue "leveling up" and getting skill points this way), and supposedly involve a lot of bind on account stuff to keep it from turning into a market game.
-All of the above, as far as I know (except explorable modes obviously), are doable solo. There's evidently no strict need for an endgame PvE guild.
Also, I've written and just now updated a fairly popular Necromancer Minion Master build. Check that bad boy out.
Right now I'm working on a zone a day for map completion and finishing up jewelcrafting and the story on my Necromancer while trying to decide which character I want to play second.
Necromancer is fun to a point but I feel that overall it's a weak class. I feel like it provides very little utility that isn't available to other classes, or at least I haven't completely found Necro's niche. I think that niche may be something like condition removal but that's only useful in some situations. Necro also feels pretty week in PvP; it can be VERY tanky in the right build and situation but often lacks the oomph to nail home kills on a consistent basis.
Death Shroud as a mechanic is very weak. All the abilities in Death Shroud are very marginally useful and while in Death Shroud you have no access to your slot skills. It's basically only incredibly useful as a tanking mechanic--and naturally in a game where tanks aren't a central mechanic I feel this further dilutes Necromancer's overall usefulness. It really needs some kind of tweak somehow.
Monday, August 27, 2012
What day is it?
I spent all of today thinking it was still Sunday. Such is the sleep-deprived gaming haze I've been living the last several days courtesy of Guild Wars 2.
The game is amazing, though far from flawless. Took my Thief up to 15 before I decided I needed a break and starting leveling my Necromancer instead, and I just kept going. Very close to 30 now.
There's so much I could write about that I'm having trouble calling into words because I'm pretty sleepy right now. I've been sleeping in 3-4 hour spurts every so often ever since Friday night. The new release, unemployment, wonky sleeping pattern, and generally being awake at night instead of daytime has created a perfect storm of temporal dissonance.
I did indeed make it onto Jade Quarry after putting it at the top of a list of servers I was shooting for based on a combination of GW2Guilds.org and the Asura Labs server poll for a high number of sPvP and WvWvW focused guilds. And it really shows, Jade Quarry is very rarely not utterly destroying the two other servers it's matched up against in WvWvW. Tentatively joined a guild called Elite Obsession that described itself as aiming for "competitive WvWvW", but I was slightly dismayed at the paltry 25-30 members. The guild leader said his goal is to have 100 members by Friday, which will be great if he can deliver. Plus since you can have multiple guilds (something that I haven't seen since FFXI) there's no harm in giving them a shot.
The game is amazing, though far from flawless. Took my Thief up to 15 before I decided I needed a break and starting leveling my Necromancer instead, and I just kept going. Very close to 30 now.
There's so much I could write about that I'm having trouble calling into words because I'm pretty sleepy right now. I've been sleeping in 3-4 hour spurts every so often ever since Friday night. The new release, unemployment, wonky sleeping pattern, and generally being awake at night instead of daytime has created a perfect storm of temporal dissonance.
I did indeed make it onto Jade Quarry after putting it at the top of a list of servers I was shooting for based on a combination of GW2Guilds.org and the Asura Labs server poll for a high number of sPvP and WvWvW focused guilds. And it really shows, Jade Quarry is very rarely not utterly destroying the two other servers it's matched up against in WvWvW. Tentatively joined a guild called Elite Obsession that described itself as aiming for "competitive WvWvW", but I was slightly dismayed at the paltry 25-30 members. The guild leader said his goal is to have 100 members by Friday, which will be great if he can deliver. Plus since you can have multiple guilds (something that I haven't seen since FFXI) there's no harm in giving them a shot.
Monday, August 20, 2012
Guild Wars 2 Character Planning
Finally sat down and read through all the skills on the Wiki to get at least a cursory understanding of the flavor of the abilities of the game. Did a little preliminary character planning as well, figured out what class/race/name combos I want to go with. Reusing a lot of names I used in SWTOR but I ditched a few I thought were lackluster and replaced others.
I really like a lot of the skills on Guardians, but at the same time I would like to start by playing a class archtype I'm less familiar with and tentatively settled on Thief after having also considered Ranger. Going to start with a Thief, Guardian, Necromancer, Mesmer, and Warrior. Aside from having decided to start with a Thief first, I've enjoyed playing tanky archtypes in PvP in the past so Guardian is a natural choice and Necromancer was lots of fun in GW1. The latter two are classes that Taugrim's done a lot of writing on so far so there will be a little less guesswork when I have time to play those classes. I'll add Engineer, Ranger, and Elementalist characters as I get a chance to.
I picked races whose abilities (though irrelevant I realize) complement certain classes at least thematically. I've got at least one of every race for the purposes of experiencing some of the differing stories but am planning to go with only one each of Asurans and Charr since I like their aesthetic the least. In the end my race choices are perhaps a little to stereotypical, but eh.
Meanwhile, I've still been half-heartedly trying to get HoM points but I'm past trying to force myself to continue for difficult statues at this point. Been trying to get through at least the first disc of Xenogears before Saturday too.
Brandon and I used to have an inside joke referring to Xenogears: Xenobeers, a game staring Gen from SaGa Frontier as he drinks and swash-buckles his away across the world/galaxy/universe.
Also, I'm now formally consigning this blog to Guild Wars 2 for the foreseeable future. As such I'll be adding a bunch of helpful links to the eponymous section of the blog.
I really like a lot of the skills on Guardians, but at the same time I would like to start by playing a class archtype I'm less familiar with and tentatively settled on Thief after having also considered Ranger. Going to start with a Thief, Guardian, Necromancer, Mesmer, and Warrior. Aside from having decided to start with a Thief first, I've enjoyed playing tanky archtypes in PvP in the past so Guardian is a natural choice and Necromancer was lots of fun in GW1. The latter two are classes that Taugrim's done a lot of writing on so far so there will be a little less guesswork when I have time to play those classes. I'll add Engineer, Ranger, and Elementalist characters as I get a chance to.
I picked races whose abilities (though irrelevant I realize) complement certain classes at least thematically. I've got at least one of every race for the purposes of experiencing some of the differing stories but am planning to go with only one each of Asurans and Charr since I like their aesthetic the least. In the end my race choices are perhaps a little to stereotypical, but eh.
Meanwhile, I've still been half-heartedly trying to get HoM points but I'm past trying to force myself to continue for difficult statues at this point. Been trying to get through at least the first disc of Xenogears before Saturday too.
Brandon and I used to have an inside joke referring to Xenogears: Xenobeers, a game staring Gen from SaGa Frontier as he drinks and swash-buckles his away across the world/galaxy/universe.
Also, I'm now formally consigning this blog to Guild Wars 2 for the foreseeable future. As such I'll be adding a bunch of helpful links to the eponymous section of the blog.
Jee Dubya Wun
So a few days back someone brought the Hall of Monuments Rewards to my attention, so being as I have tons of free time till next weekend I managed to do the impossible and get back into Guild Wars 1. Kind of.
The first thing that struck me booting up GW again was the name scheme, which brings back a lot of memories. At the time, when my good friend Nick, aka Spinky IV or Spinaci [Olive Garden] (OG REPRESENT), talked me into trying Guild Wars I had only played two other MMOs up to that point--FFXI and LotRO.
I'd spent my 2 year career in Final Fantasy XI as a bearded male hume called Kurohyou, which was my best attempt at translating "Pantera" to Japanese--I realized much later that "kuro" is actually black, but just "Hyou" would have been kinda lame anyways. Since all my GW characters all shared the surname Pantera, I ended up naming my Elementalist Nero for my old FFXI character.
During the Lord of the Rings Online beta I'd used the name Pantera, but shortly after release I was forced to change the name (the first twist of the dagger that wrecked my interest in that game). In my flustered state the only name I could come up with was the alias one of the creators of EliteMUD (which I'd spent a few years of my youth playing), Kurrelgyre. I ended up giving this name to my Warrior in Guild Wars. In retrospect this seems like a weird decision, or at least one I wouldn't have made now; since I'd used the name Kurrelgyre begrudgingly it's odd that I'd give it to my "main"--I was a WAR main in FFXI and it became my most played character in GW (and my first character in WoW, incidentally, though in every case they're much different from Warrior in FFXI).
Many of my other characters' names were references to my MMO past as well. Tek, Valencia, and Gravios were names of my mule alts in FFXI (Gravios was a further reference to a dragon in Monster Hunter). Desyrel was an alias I used in LotRO, and was the first seed of what would eventually grow to be my current general MMO naming scheme. Coming up on a lack of ideas, I named two after myself and my grandfather, then randomly went with Miang for one, likely with Xenogears in mind (which is interesting providence considering I've been replaying through Xenogears on emulator to pass time lately as well). Named one for Fargo, where I'd been living most of my life up until a year ago.
I nearly forgot how unilaterally awesome Guild Wars was/is though. It's an excellent prototype for what a game with horizontal scaling would look like. Even if I didn't love GW's PvP (which I do), there's plenty of PvE content on various levels that manages to be both challenging and rewarding, even it's as basic as pimping out a horde of Heroes.
Anyways, I'm shooting for 30/50 even though it's probably a little impractical. I managed to get 7+/50 pretty quick just on HoM statues I basically already had (which was enough to get the legacy armor pieces), but the item rewards end at 30 so I'm trying to get as far as I realistically can in a week. A lot of the statues are extremely difficult to get on short notice, so I'm aiming for as much of the low hanging fruit ones as I already have progress towards.
The first thing that struck me booting up GW again was the name scheme, which brings back a lot of memories. At the time, when my good friend Nick, aka Spinky IV or Spinaci [Olive Garden] (OG REPRESENT), talked me into trying Guild Wars I had only played two other MMOs up to that point--FFXI and LotRO.
I'd spent my 2 year career in Final Fantasy XI as a bearded male hume called Kurohyou, which was my best attempt at translating "Pantera" to Japanese--I realized much later that "kuro" is actually black, but just "Hyou" would have been kinda lame anyways. Since all my GW characters all shared the surname Pantera, I ended up naming my Elementalist Nero for my old FFXI character.
During the Lord of the Rings Online beta I'd used the name Pantera, but shortly after release I was forced to change the name (the first twist of the dagger that wrecked my interest in that game). In my flustered state the only name I could come up with was the alias one of the creators of EliteMUD (which I'd spent a few years of my youth playing), Kurrelgyre. I ended up giving this name to my Warrior in Guild Wars. In retrospect this seems like a weird decision, or at least one I wouldn't have made now; since I'd used the name Kurrelgyre begrudgingly it's odd that I'd give it to my "main"--I was a WAR main in FFXI and it became my most played character in GW (and my first character in WoW, incidentally, though in every case they're much different from Warrior in FFXI).
Many of my other characters' names were references to my MMO past as well. Tek, Valencia, and Gravios were names of my mule alts in FFXI (Gravios was a further reference to a dragon in Monster Hunter). Desyrel was an alias I used in LotRO, and was the first seed of what would eventually grow to be my current general MMO naming scheme. Coming up on a lack of ideas, I named two after myself and my grandfather, then randomly went with Miang for one, likely with Xenogears in mind (which is interesting providence considering I've been replaying through Xenogears on emulator to pass time lately as well). Named one for Fargo, where I'd been living most of my life up until a year ago.
I nearly forgot how unilaterally awesome Guild Wars was/is though. It's an excellent prototype for what a game with horizontal scaling would look like. Even if I didn't love GW's PvP (which I do), there's plenty of PvE content on various levels that manages to be both challenging and rewarding, even it's as basic as pimping out a horde of Heroes.
Anyways, I'm shooting for 30/50 even though it's probably a little impractical. I managed to get 7+/50 pretty quick just on HoM statues I basically already had (which was enough to get the legacy armor pieces), but the item rewards end at 30 so I'm trying to get as far as I realistically can in a week. A lot of the statues are extremely difficult to get on short notice, so I'm aiming for as much of the low hanging fruit ones as I already have progress towards.
Thursday, August 16, 2012
Jee Dubya Too
After toying with the idea for a few days, I've decided to pick up Guild Wars 2. Bought the game a few days back. This is despite not having followed it at all through development and beta testing and knowing very little about the game proper. I'm nervous about diving in not knowing much about the game's mechanics, but I'm hoping that it'll add some to the charm so I've been trying to stay at least a little in the dark.
I played the original Guild Wars and absolutely loved it, so I have faith that its sequel will deliver. I played it briefly in that nebulous period between FFXI and WoW. It's been ages now since I played it; I have this strange problem with Guild Wars where I can't get back into it whenever I try to go back. I'm not a big PvPer but of the MMOs I've played it was Guild Wars that had the PvP I enjoyed the most.
My primary concern right now is that I don't know anyone else who's planning on playing it, and this has proven to hamper my experience with other MMOs in the past. I'm fretting slightly over how much I should balance my attention between PvE or PvP too, being as GW was traditionally more of a PvP focused game (which is great, IMO MMOs need to pick one to focus on) and myself not having a strong taste for PvP. But who knows, I've played smatterings of PvP whether it be in the original GW, WoW, and SWTOR et al. in addition to arena style PvP a la MOBAs (LoL, HoN, Dota 2) and found some enjoyment.
I've been following Taugrim's amazing MMO blog more closely as GW2 approaches. I've used his guides as references for SWTOR before and it's quality stuff. He's generally more focused on PvP gameplay so I'm letting it be my introduction to GW2's PvP.
I'll mayhaps convert this blog to a Guild Wars 2 focus coming up in a few weeks; we'll see how things roll along.
I played the original Guild Wars and absolutely loved it, so I have faith that its sequel will deliver. I played it briefly in that nebulous period between FFXI and WoW. It's been ages now since I played it; I have this strange problem with Guild Wars where I can't get back into it whenever I try to go back. I'm not a big PvPer but of the MMOs I've played it was Guild Wars that had the PvP I enjoyed the most.
My primary concern right now is that I don't know anyone else who's planning on playing it, and this has proven to hamper my experience with other MMOs in the past. I'm fretting slightly over how much I should balance my attention between PvE or PvP too, being as GW was traditionally more of a PvP focused game (which is great, IMO MMOs need to pick one to focus on) and myself not having a strong taste for PvP. But who knows, I've played smatterings of PvP whether it be in the original GW, WoW, and SWTOR et al. in addition to arena style PvP a la MOBAs (LoL, HoN, Dota 2) and found some enjoyment.
I've been following Taugrim's amazing MMO blog more closely as GW2 approaches. I've used his guides as references for SWTOR before and it's quality stuff. He's generally more focused on PvP gameplay so I'm letting it be my introduction to GW2's PvP.
I'll mayhaps convert this blog to a Guild Wars 2 focus coming up in a few weeks; we'll see how things roll along.
Thursday, July 26, 2012
Memories of Memories of Xendor
I still think Darkhorse was the best guild leader I've ever had at present. It's strange to continue to find myself believing this given how abruptly my association with Memories of Xendor ended. He had the best combination of leadership, logistical management ability, and straight up player skill that I've ever had the pleasure to work with, and he complemented this by surrounding himself with incredibly competent subordinates.
Thinking on it just now, I believe that the slowly rising tension I had with the guild was the result of a feeling that I needed to continue to justify my position within the guild--which is probably why my formal removal of my officership was the last straw for me. Coming into the guild, and pretty much right up to 1.2, I brought and continued to bring a lot to the table: multiple high level characters, the bragging rights of my legacy level, and connections to other raiding guilds brought about by my voracious raiding appetite. I was fast friends with pretty much everyone in the guild and was quickly trusted council of the guild leadership. Darkhorse and I had even spent significant time leveling our alts together, both for PTS titles and for...more level 50 alts.
1.2 ended pretty much all of that. When I hit the legacy level cap there was no longer any excitement in continuing to play alts (even the legacy advantages offered by 1.2 couldn't rekindle my interest long enough to finish leveling my last two characters). Furthermore, with legacy level 25 being the max required for any of the advantages, having anything higher became less impressive and more laughable (and the fact that I still would have to shell out millions for legacy unlocks was a punch to the gut) especially since anyone who'd bothered to play consistently was already at 25. With new, difficult raid content guilds either didn't bother attempting it if they were casual or tightened up their rosters for in-house only raids, thus negating any advantage I could hope to leverage from having multiple characters. This was compounded by MoX requiring me to stick to one character for raids--and I got stuck with a class that under-performs.
Before the merger, the officer core was already sort-of bloated and became definitely so afterwards. Thus if nobody was questioning my usefulness as an officer and core raider, by then I certainly was and the stress accumulated from there. I could complain that Darkhorse did a poor job of listening and reacting to my concerns (which I'll insist was a valid complaint and perhaps one of Darkhorse's only weaknesses as a leader), but by then it was the result of a larger problem at work.
Every once in a while I dream of going back and joining MoX again, but the thought of playing the Old Republic again makes me physically ill. Damn shame.
Thinking on it just now, I believe that the slowly rising tension I had with the guild was the result of a feeling that I needed to continue to justify my position within the guild--which is probably why my formal removal of my officership was the last straw for me. Coming into the guild, and pretty much right up to 1.2, I brought and continued to bring a lot to the table: multiple high level characters, the bragging rights of my legacy level, and connections to other raiding guilds brought about by my voracious raiding appetite. I was fast friends with pretty much everyone in the guild and was quickly trusted council of the guild leadership. Darkhorse and I had even spent significant time leveling our alts together, both for PTS titles and for...more level 50 alts.
1.2 ended pretty much all of that. When I hit the legacy level cap there was no longer any excitement in continuing to play alts (even the legacy advantages offered by 1.2 couldn't rekindle my interest long enough to finish leveling my last two characters). Furthermore, with legacy level 25 being the max required for any of the advantages, having anything higher became less impressive and more laughable (and the fact that I still would have to shell out millions for legacy unlocks was a punch to the gut) especially since anyone who'd bothered to play consistently was already at 25. With new, difficult raid content guilds either didn't bother attempting it if they were casual or tightened up their rosters for in-house only raids, thus negating any advantage I could hope to leverage from having multiple characters. This was compounded by MoX requiring me to stick to one character for raids--and I got stuck with a class that under-performs.
Before the merger, the officer core was already sort-of bloated and became definitely so afterwards. Thus if nobody was questioning my usefulness as an officer and core raider, by then I certainly was and the stress accumulated from there. I could complain that Darkhorse did a poor job of listening and reacting to my concerns (which I'll insist was a valid complaint and perhaps one of Darkhorse's only weaknesses as a leader), but by then it was the result of a larger problem at work.
Every once in a while I dream of going back and joining MoX again, but the thought of playing the Old Republic again makes me physically ill. Damn shame.
Wednesday, July 4, 2012
Like a Boss
Got to thinking about SWTOR again. 1.3's out now apparently, and there's still, still, STILL no Nightmare Mode Denova. Holy shit, it's been almost 2 months now since I quit and that was several weeks into 1.2 and the original release of Denova and I'd already been sick of the instance by then, I can't imagine wading through that bore weekly still and waiting desperately for the day when they finally release a slightly difficult retread of the same instance.
It seems most of Helm of Graush transferred to a server named Prophecy of the Five. Poor ol' Darkhorse seems to have been forced to change his legacy and main's name to Moxboss. Tragic.
In spite of my previous post, I've actually started playing APB: Reloaded regularly. I've had to reinstall it twice and continue to tweak the settings to get it to a vaguely workable state, but whenever I'd stop playing it for a few days I would get this really peculiar craving to start playing it again. I found a pair of absolutely boss chicks to roll through bronze districts with (my actual threat keeps bouncing between silver and gold and finally seems to have stabilized at gold) and it's hella fun when the two or three of us are teamed up. I've been trying to talk alice, with whom I still occasionally duo in SMNC with, into giving it a try as well while we wait on Torchlight 2.
It seems most of Helm of Graush transferred to a server named Prophecy of the Five. Poor ol' Darkhorse seems to have been forced to change his legacy and main's name to Moxboss. Tragic.
In spite of my previous post, I've actually started playing APB: Reloaded regularly. I've had to reinstall it twice and continue to tweak the settings to get it to a vaguely workable state, but whenever I'd stop playing it for a few days I would get this really peculiar craving to start playing it again. I found a pair of absolutely boss chicks to roll through bronze districts with (my actual threat keeps bouncing between silver and gold and finally seems to have stabilized at gold) and it's hella fun when the two or three of us are teamed up. I've been trying to talk alice, with whom I still occasionally duo in SMNC with, into giving it a try as well while we wait on Torchlight 2.
Wednesday, June 20, 2012
Vi Sittar Har I Venten
I've recently gotten no less than three e-mails demanding that I TRANSFER MY CHARACTER NOW from Bioware. There's a lifeboat analogy there somewhere.
I played APB: Reloaded for a while last night. It was fun and I'd like to continue playing it but for three strikes:
-The game is optimized terribly. My computer is no powerhouse but I turned all graphical options to their minimum and went to lengths outside the game to limit performance hindrance, yet the game still has 3-minute long loading screens and rampant framerate drops. This game's been out for over a year and this is still apparently an issue.
-This is may be two points, but I'm combining them into one: the game apparently at one time had a tutorial zone which was evidently removed--though the game still assumes you went through it. There is nothing to tell a new player what's up, though I was quickly informed that I was leagues ahead of the vast sea of trainees having equipped my grenades and supply pack. An hour into the game it's easy to see why there's no tutorial zone however, as an hour into the game I'd seen pretty much the extent of the gameplay--there's little else to do but run missions all day for small pocketfuls of cash and rep.
-And the matchmaking was the last straw. I was actually on a 9 mission win streak when the matchmaking decided it'd be totally alright to put me alone on defensive missions against a group of 3 experienced players after I'd barely scraped through a previous solo mission against two fairly determined opponents. I play enough other games with shitty matchmaking to humor yet another.
So that's going far on the back burner as far as games I'd like to keep playing go.
I decided to learn how to jungle in Dota 2 in order to broaden my experience with the game beyond what I'm used to from my old HoN days. I briefly tried to get into jungling in LoL; I'm finding jungling is much, much easier in Dota. Learned all of the "jungler" labeled heroes that don't involve additional unit micro and am now wading into the ones that do starting with Lycanthrope. It's tricky. Need to find a better way to hotkey groups.
I played APB: Reloaded for a while last night. It was fun and I'd like to continue playing it but for three strikes:
-The game is optimized terribly. My computer is no powerhouse but I turned all graphical options to their minimum and went to lengths outside the game to limit performance hindrance, yet the game still has 3-minute long loading screens and rampant framerate drops. This game's been out for over a year and this is still apparently an issue.
-This is may be two points, but I'm combining them into one: the game apparently at one time had a tutorial zone which was evidently removed--though the game still assumes you went through it. There is nothing to tell a new player what's up, though I was quickly informed that I was leagues ahead of the vast sea of trainees having equipped my grenades and supply pack. An hour into the game it's easy to see why there's no tutorial zone however, as an hour into the game I'd seen pretty much the extent of the gameplay--there's little else to do but run missions all day for small pocketfuls of cash and rep.
-And the matchmaking was the last straw. I was actually on a 9 mission win streak when the matchmaking decided it'd be totally alright to put me alone on defensive missions against a group of 3 experienced players after I'd barely scraped through a previous solo mission against two fairly determined opponents. I play enough other games with shitty matchmaking to humor yet another.
So that's going far on the back burner as far as games I'd like to keep playing go.
I decided to learn how to jungle in Dota 2 in order to broaden my experience with the game beyond what I'm used to from my old HoN days. I briefly tried to get into jungling in LoL; I'm finding jungling is much, much easier in Dota. Learned all of the "jungler" labeled heroes that don't involve additional unit micro and am now wading into the ones that do starting with Lycanthrope. It's tricky. Need to find a better way to hotkey groups.
Monday, June 11, 2012
Build That Wall
So it's coming up on a month since I quit and Nightmare Mode Denova isn't even out yet? That's funny.
The longer I'm away from it, the more glad I am that I actually decided not to stick it out and give SWTOR a long term chance. What a train wreck.
Still playing lots of SMNC. Finally started learning heroes in Dota 2 as well. Playing through some of my Steam backlog as well to kill time to Torchlight 2.
The longer I'm away from it, the more glad I am that I actually decided not to stick it out and give SWTOR a long term chance. What a train wreck.
Still playing lots of SMNC. Finally started learning heroes in Dota 2 as well. Playing through some of my Steam backlog as well to kill time to Torchlight 2.
Tuesday, May 15, 2012
See You Space Cowboy...
I logged in for a little while to dick around this morning. Talked to the GM briefly, resolved some of the tension.
I logged on ~15 minutes ago like I said I would. Then I saw the edited doc on the Facebook group, the last little kick to the shorts that drained the last few drops of will I had to play this game.
I'm trying to find a reason to want to play now. I'm literally going down the guild list one by one trying to find someone I consider a loyal friend, someone I'd feel bad about just leaving behind, but nobody's name sticks out. All the old guys from Last Resort/Remedy I used to play with have long moved on. I no longer have any loyal ties to the half of the council I actually know.
Raid isn't even starting on time. Still. People are missing and there aren't even enough to fill up the raid now. Everyone's using Diablo 3 as an excuse.
Denova is a boring instance.
So I think it's time to close the book on SWTOR. I wish the best of luck to MoX in the future, it was fun for a little while.
I'll find another topic to temper this blog to eventually, but that's all for now.
I logged on ~15 minutes ago like I said I would. Then I saw the edited doc on the Facebook group, the last little kick to the shorts that drained the last few drops of will I had to play this game.
I'm trying to find a reason to want to play now. I'm literally going down the guild list one by one trying to find someone I consider a loyal friend, someone I'd feel bad about just leaving behind, but nobody's name sticks out. All the old guys from Last Resort/Remedy I used to play with have long moved on. I no longer have any loyal ties to the half of the council I actually know.
Raid isn't even starting on time. Still. People are missing and there aren't even enough to fill up the raid now. Everyone's using Diablo 3 as an excuse.
Denova is a boring instance.
So I think it's time to close the book on SWTOR. I wish the best of luck to MoX in the future, it was fun for a little while.
I'll find another topic to temper this blog to eventually, but that's all for now.
Monday, May 14, 2012
Can I get a little key light over here next time I do that?
So I took the last week off from SWTOR. It was fun, relaxing. Took some time to play other games. Tried to play a little Prototype, started a new character in Skyrim, played a lot of Sudoku to clear my head, played a lot of Super Monday Night Combat with some dudes from the /vg/ Steam group--that was a lot of fun in particular. I started reading A Song of Ice and Fire and following along, rewatching the first season of Game of Thrones. All the stresses from the last few weeks finally melted away a bit. Until today.
I thought, since I had spent the last week off that it was only fair that I try to get back into the swing of things before I make any final decisions regarding my subscription. The problem was, I had to really psych myself up to even log in, and even once I had I quickly began to get that deep, adrenaline-fueled pit in my gut telling me this was a terrible idea.
The funny thing is, even though I thoroughly enjoyed my time off I've been having this silly little recurring dream the last few nights where I log back in and everyone's like, "Hey, where you been?" and I'm like, "Oh you know, just needed a little time off to sort things out, no big deal." and we laugh about it, go right back to raiding, and everyone's friends again.
Didn't quite go like that. Actually, it was nearly the opposite; nobody acknowledged my presence either in game or on Mumble. All my characters had been demoted from Council rank to the standard Ops/Rated, which I could almost accept, but it was probably symbolic more than anything else; wasn't invited to raid, wasn't even asked to wait on standby. The paranoid, this-was-a-huge-mistake side of me suspects that my absence was spun in a negative light, the more logical side of me is just sure my membership in this guild simply just had that little of an impact.
I sent the GM a lengthy message last week detailing the crux of my issues. I never received a reply. Evidently it turns out he interpreted it to mean that I hated his guts (Update: Upon further reflection, this seems to indicate that, once again, my points were either misunderstood or just outright ignored.). I did not intend that message nor any of my previous blog posts to imply that, and for that I publicly apologize. Tonight's events, however, did seem to back up one of my conclusions in said message: that the guild now was not the same that I had joined before 1.2. The kicker, the hilarious irony, and the ultimate wound to my pride in this whole debacle is that in the week I've been gone they've completely cleared all of 16-man Hard Mode Denova.
That adrenaline-fueled pit has faded since I logged off to start typing this. I'm left just feeling depressed now. I plan to log in again for raid time tomorrow but it's purely to prove to myself that I have the willpower to do it even though I'm pretty sure it'll be another few hours wasted sitting on my ship with no reason to play the game. I genuinely want to not have to move on, but I don't hate myself enough to stick around when I'm not wanted.
It's like Birthright all over again. Actually, that gives me an idea.
I thought, since I had spent the last week off that it was only fair that I try to get back into the swing of things before I make any final decisions regarding my subscription. The problem was, I had to really psych myself up to even log in, and even once I had I quickly began to get that deep, adrenaline-fueled pit in my gut telling me this was a terrible idea.
The funny thing is, even though I thoroughly enjoyed my time off I've been having this silly little recurring dream the last few nights where I log back in and everyone's like, "Hey, where you been?" and I'm like, "Oh you know, just needed a little time off to sort things out, no big deal." and we laugh about it, go right back to raiding, and everyone's friends again.
Didn't quite go like that. Actually, it was nearly the opposite; nobody acknowledged my presence either in game or on Mumble. All my characters had been demoted from Council rank to the standard Ops/Rated, which I could almost accept, but it was probably symbolic more than anything else; wasn't invited to raid, wasn't even asked to wait on standby. The paranoid, this-was-a-huge-mistake side of me suspects that my absence was spun in a negative light, the more logical side of me is just sure my membership in this guild simply just had that little of an impact.
I sent the GM a lengthy message last week detailing the crux of my issues. I never received a reply. Evidently it turns out he interpreted it to mean that I hated his guts (Update: Upon further reflection, this seems to indicate that, once again, my points were either misunderstood or just outright ignored.). I did not intend that message nor any of my previous blog posts to imply that, and for that I publicly apologize. Tonight's events, however, did seem to back up one of my conclusions in said message: that the guild now was not the same that I had joined before 1.2. The kicker, the hilarious irony, and the ultimate wound to my pride in this whole debacle is that in the week I've been gone they've completely cleared all of 16-man Hard Mode Denova.
That adrenaline-fueled pit has faded since I logged off to start typing this. I'm left just feeling depressed now. I plan to log in again for raid time tomorrow but it's purely to prove to myself that I have the willpower to do it even though I'm pretty sure it'll be another few hours wasted sitting on my ship with no reason to play the game. I genuinely want to not have to move on, but I don't hate myself enough to stick around when I'm not wanted.
It's like Birthright all over again. Actually, that gives me an idea.
Sunday, May 6, 2012
Okay
Just logged in for an hour waiting for the "optional" raid to come together tonight only to be told I was benched for the 1 HM Denova boss they were attempting tonight (the tanks).
This is basically the second-to-last straw for me and SWTOR. I'm at that point I've been at in WoW et al multiple times, nearing the end of my cycle for an MMO, where I only log in to raid and at that end up raiding many hours of slow progress--which I'd normally be okay with if hanging out with guildies in the raids were fun and frankly the last few weeks have not been. Add to that the fact that SWTOR as an MMO is the floundering infant of a production staff that has refused to learn from the mistakes and successes of its predecessors in general. When the development cycle of the next 1.X patch is measured in months and basic features such as dual-spec are dangled in front of us as being beyond 1.3 I find myself having trouble caring more and more. I can almost sympathize with people who were disappointed ranked PvP didn't land in 1.2.
I'm told that the reason we've been doing 16-mans is basically political; in order to get Ghost Codex to agree to the merger, among the terms was that we'd be focusing on 16-man. These are terms that I do not like and it's worth noting that this was a decision made without consulting the current guild membership. This translates as struggling to get 16 people to pull off each boss' raid mechanics perfectly, which is an astounding frustration. Jumping straight into poorly-tuned 16-mans is stupid and a complete waste of time without spending time first accruing gear and experience in the 8-man; even if there's enough people sitting around to do 16-mans--that's two 8-mans that could be clearing every week.
Anyways, in other news I've been playing an awful lot of Super Monday Night Combat the last few weeks.
This is basically the second-to-last straw for me and SWTOR. I'm at that point I've been at in WoW et al multiple times, nearing the end of my cycle for an MMO, where I only log in to raid and at that end up raiding many hours of slow progress--which I'd normally be okay with if hanging out with guildies in the raids were fun and frankly the last few weeks have not been. Add to that the fact that SWTOR as an MMO is the floundering infant of a production staff that has refused to learn from the mistakes and successes of its predecessors in general. When the development cycle of the next 1.X patch is measured in months and basic features such as dual-spec are dangled in front of us as being beyond 1.3 I find myself having trouble caring more and more. I can almost sympathize with people who were disappointed ranked PvP didn't land in 1.2.
I'm told that the reason we've been doing 16-mans is basically political; in order to get Ghost Codex to agree to the merger, among the terms was that we'd be focusing on 16-man. These are terms that I do not like and it's worth noting that this was a decision made without consulting the current guild membership. This translates as struggling to get 16 people to pull off each boss' raid mechanics perfectly, which is an astounding frustration. Jumping straight into poorly-tuned 16-mans is stupid and a complete waste of time without spending time first accruing gear and experience in the 8-man; even if there's enough people sitting around to do 16-mans--that's two 8-mans that could be clearing every week.
Anyways, in other news I've been playing an awful lot of Super Monday Night Combat the last few weeks.
Tuesday, May 1, 2012
16-man Hard Mode Zorn and Toth Down
We just finished Zorn and Toth on 16-man Hard Mode. We've also done Colonel Vorgath, think I forgot to post about that. Also beat Nightmare Pilgrim tonight as well.
Tuesday, April 24, 2012
Rocket Boost Tweaked
This caught my eye in today's patch notes:
So now it's not useless, just mostly useless.
Legacy
- The Rocket Boost ability can now be used inside and isn't restricted by areas that do not permit vehicles. It cannot be used in combat or in Warzones.
So now it's not useless, just mostly useless.
Sunday, April 22, 2012
Anyways...
Well, yesterday's blowout is over and I've had some time to cool off.
Decided to sooth the embers by taking the MoX parser to the training dummy to compare numbers. I wrote down numbers at the time but didn't save them. The gist of the results are that between 4 characters and 5 specs, my Sorcerer had the highest sustained DPS. I interpret these results to mean I must be just terrible at playing Lethality Sniper; my Sniper (who is admittedly in slightly worse gear than my Sorcerer) was ~50 DPS behind.
Tested both Annihilation and Carnage specs on my Marauder and they both approximately matched my Sniper (with notably not-as-high-quality gear on my Marauder). There was something like a 10 DPS difference between the two specs with Annihilation being the higher of the two. This would suggest to me that Carnage is the "safer" of the two specs in terms of damage output, being that shorter fights and fights that require lots of target switching would seem to favor the bursty nature of Carnage as compared to the build-up style of Annihilation.
Threw my Mercenary into the mix just to confirm the degree of the nerfs and to see if it's even vaguely comparable to the others. It was indeed a ways behind.
Honestly, I ripped into the quality of Sorcerer DPS probably more than it deserved in my last post. It's safely tucked away in middle-tier. At least it's not Assassin or Operative or Juggernaut DPS, and it still has some handy utility...
...is what I'd like to say, but honestly even the occasional miracle-Extricate doesn't make up for how boring Hybrid spec is to play now. The spec is still the best by 2-3% (so the minmax monkey in me won't let me change specs) and has literally changed by 1 point (the point from Chain Lightning now goes into the first tier healing tree talent that improves Force crit by 1%). Hybrid now literally boils down to figuring out which is the lowest between the remaining uptime on Affliction and the cooldowns on Death Field and Crushing Darkness and getting ready to recast that spell while jamming your Force Lightning key. There's no finesse in managing Force any more since you're always nearly full on it and there's no judgment required in deciding what to blow your next Wrath proc on since there's only one ability that it's worth consuming for on a cooldown so long that only the worst of RNG will leave you fishing for a proc. They didn't fix the double dipping on Lightning Barrage and it's a good thing they didn't because that double dipping literally makes the DPS of the spec. If they hadn't nerfed Arsenal Mercenary: Revenge of the Tracer Missile into obscurity (holy shit that's an entirely separate rant) I'd almost rather be playing that.
AND THANKS FOR PUTTING ALL THAT ACCURACY ON OUR NEW GEAR BIOWARE, WAY TO GO.
TL;DR I'm no longer a searing-hot cyclone of rage, I'm just plain depressed.
Decided to sooth the embers by taking the MoX parser to the training dummy to compare numbers. I wrote down numbers at the time but didn't save them. The gist of the results are that between 4 characters and 5 specs, my Sorcerer had the highest sustained DPS. I interpret these results to mean I must be just terrible at playing Lethality Sniper; my Sniper (who is admittedly in slightly worse gear than my Sorcerer) was ~50 DPS behind.
Tested both Annihilation and Carnage specs on my Marauder and they both approximately matched my Sniper (with notably not-as-high-quality gear on my Marauder). There was something like a 10 DPS difference between the two specs with Annihilation being the higher of the two. This would suggest to me that Carnage is the "safer" of the two specs in terms of damage output, being that shorter fights and fights that require lots of target switching would seem to favor the bursty nature of Carnage as compared to the build-up style of Annihilation.
Threw my Mercenary into the mix just to confirm the degree of the nerfs and to see if it's even vaguely comparable to the others. It was indeed a ways behind.
Honestly, I ripped into the quality of Sorcerer DPS probably more than it deserved in my last post. It's safely tucked away in middle-tier. At least it's not Assassin or Operative or Juggernaut DPS, and it still has some handy utility...
...is what I'd like to say, but honestly even the occasional miracle-Extricate doesn't make up for how boring Hybrid spec is to play now. The spec is still the best by 2-3% (so the minmax monkey in me won't let me change specs) and has literally changed by 1 point (the point from Chain Lightning now goes into the first tier healing tree talent that improves Force crit by 1%). Hybrid now literally boils down to figuring out which is the lowest between the remaining uptime on Affliction and the cooldowns on Death Field and Crushing Darkness and getting ready to recast that spell while jamming your Force Lightning key. There's no finesse in managing Force any more since you're always nearly full on it and there's no judgment required in deciding what to blow your next Wrath proc on since there's only one ability that it's worth consuming for on a cooldown so long that only the worst of RNG will leave you fishing for a proc. They didn't fix the double dipping on Lightning Barrage and it's a good thing they didn't because that double dipping literally makes the DPS of the spec. If they hadn't nerfed Arsenal Mercenary: Revenge of the Tracer Missile into obscurity (holy shit that's an entirely separate rant) I'd almost rather be playing that.
AND THANKS FOR PUTTING ALL THAT ACCURACY ON OUR NEW GEAR BIOWARE, WAY TO GO.
TL;DR I'm no longer a searing-hot cyclone of rage, I'm just plain depressed.
Friday, April 20, 2012
FUCK
So, I really hate to do two really ranty posts in the same month, much less the same week, but I'm pissed enough off that I feel I won't really do myself justice unless I crystallize my thoughts right now.
As I write this, Memories of Xendor is attempting to defeat Kephess to clear Denova Hard Mode. As I write this, all 6 of my 50s are benched because Sorcerer DPS is fuckin' terrible.
It's a little bit of a slap in the face given my accomplishments. I've had 6 50s for some time now; two of them are absolutely geared to the teeth, three of them are pretty passable, one of them hasn't been geared at all for PvE. I'm amongst the first legacy level 50 players in all of the game, and the only one on Helm of Graush. I haven't missed a single mandatory or optional raid night. I've consistently performed well. In light of all of the above I've been in the guild 9 weeks and have already been essentially inducted into what could be considered the officer core of the guild.
But I still can't even get in on progression where it counts 'cause the class I picked got the shaft in 1.2. The DPS in the ops group right now is literally a Marauder, a Powertech, and two Snipers, with an additional Marauder also on standby. Two of them have been in the guild less than two weeks, one of those two I'm personally responsible for having recruited. The last sentence is irrelevant to the point I'm trying to make, but I'd be lying if I said they didn't escalate my rage at the moment.
Raid leader says it's because of the numbers. Which is kind of okay, I mean I can respect that. But I've been trying to decide since long before 1.2 and for a little while after which class to focus on. If I'd had the heads up that if I wanted to have a secure spot for progression I'd need to take the high numbers it would have been no contest--Sniper all the way (like I said, two 50s absolutely geared to the teeth). Instead, I stuck it out with Sorcerer for the guild because A) we literally have no other DPS Sorcerers and B) regardless of DPS, Sorcerer brings a lot of utility.
Foolish me.
Raid leader says it's not personal. But that's kind of the problem, as per my third paragraph. We're not shooting for world first or North America first. We're not even in competition for server first any more. This is for Empire-side server first. Our only competition right now is pretty much just Ebonlore, Catalyst, and Challenge Accepted, and none of them have finished the second boss on Hard Mode. They couldn't humor my shitty class for just one more boss? Or fuck, take any of the other 5? You've just sent the message that everything I do doesn't mean shit if I'm not playing the flavor of the month class.
So I'm only going to play the flavor of the month class.
And trust me, to the casual reader I understand how petty this sounds. I play this game for progression and it really means a lot to me, so please try to understand that being excluded therefrom, especially in light of the time and effort I've put into this game, is absolutely fucking frustrating.
As I write this, Memories of Xendor is attempting to defeat Kephess to clear Denova Hard Mode. As I write this, all 6 of my 50s are benched because Sorcerer DPS is fuckin' terrible.
It's a little bit of a slap in the face given my accomplishments. I've had 6 50s for some time now; two of them are absolutely geared to the teeth, three of them are pretty passable, one of them hasn't been geared at all for PvE. I'm amongst the first legacy level 50 players in all of the game, and the only one on Helm of Graush. I haven't missed a single mandatory or optional raid night. I've consistently performed well. In light of all of the above I've been in the guild 9 weeks and have already been essentially inducted into what could be considered the officer core of the guild.
But I still can't even get in on progression where it counts 'cause the class I picked got the shaft in 1.2. The DPS in the ops group right now is literally a Marauder, a Powertech, and two Snipers, with an additional Marauder also on standby. Two of them have been in the guild less than two weeks, one of those two I'm personally responsible for having recruited. The last sentence is irrelevant to the point I'm trying to make, but I'd be lying if I said they didn't escalate my rage at the moment.
Raid leader says it's because of the numbers. Which is kind of okay, I mean I can respect that. But I've been trying to decide since long before 1.2 and for a little while after which class to focus on. If I'd had the heads up that if I wanted to have a secure spot for progression I'd need to take the high numbers it would have been no contest--Sniper all the way (like I said, two 50s absolutely geared to the teeth). Instead, I stuck it out with Sorcerer for the guild because A) we literally have no other DPS Sorcerers and B) regardless of DPS, Sorcerer brings a lot of utility.
Foolish me.
Raid leader says it's not personal. But that's kind of the problem, as per my third paragraph. We're not shooting for world first or North America first. We're not even in competition for server first any more. This is for Empire-side server first. Our only competition right now is pretty much just Ebonlore, Catalyst, and Challenge Accepted, and none of them have finished the second boss on Hard Mode. They couldn't humor my shitty class for just one more boss? Or fuck, take any of the other 5? You've just sent the message that everything I do doesn't mean shit if I'm not playing the flavor of the month class.
So I'm only going to play the flavor of the month class.
And trust me, to the casual reader I understand how petty this sounds. I play this game for progression and it really means a lot to me, so please try to understand that being excluded therefrom, especially in light of the time and effort I've put into this game, is absolutely fucking frustrating.
Thursday, April 19, 2012
My Custom UI
Someone on my lil YouTube tutorial for Ginnai's parser asked if they could get a copy of my UI, so I went and uploaded the XML.
Download link: https://rapidshare.com/files/2468597129/Pantera_custom.xml
Download that file and then place it into: C:\Users\[Your User Profile Here]\AppData\Local\SWTOR\swtor\settings\GUIProfiles
You'll need to manually enter up to AppData on your Windows Explorer to get there (or if you're lazy like me just get to C:\Users\[Your User Profile Here]\ and then manually enter AppData).
Download link: https://rapidshare.com/files/2468597129/Pantera_custom.xml
Download that file and then place it into: C:\Users\[Your User Profile Here]\AppData\Local\SWTOR\swtor\settings\GUIProfiles
You'll need to manually enter up to AppData on your Windows Explorer to get there (or if you're lazy like me just get to C:\Users\[Your User Profile Here]\ and then manually enter AppData).
Wednesday, April 18, 2012
Hard Mode Colonel Vorgath Down
And that's 3/4. Put in a few attempts on Kephess to see what's new but didn't really work at it yet. I picked up the Campaign gloves but won't really be able to put 'em to use until I can get my hands on another copy of the mod and augment to go with 'em.
Hard Mode Tanks Down
Anyways, now that yesterday's emo episode is over, I ought to report that last night we downed the second boss in Denova on Hard Mode. Gonna work on the next boss later tonight. This makes us the farthest progressed Empire guild on Helm of Graush (there's already two Republic guilds that have cleared it out), and something like 33rd worldwide.
Tuesday, April 17, 2012
Rant Time!
Hey everybody, it's rant time! Yay!
So I appended a little checklist on to the end of my last post to keep track of everything I need and then checked the GTN for the fourth time to find some orange boots or gloves recipes. There weren't any, which begged the question: are there any orange boots or gloves recipes? Off to Torhead to manually search through all the Synthweaving recipes...
Why yes! There are! If don't mind getting (or already have) Valor Rank 60 for BM gear or already have the bind-on-pickup Exotech recipes.
Guess who has neither? Me!
So yeah, I'm officially sick of the design of itemization in 1.2. I'm about ready to give up on crafting and just gear out from tokens instead of bothering with this horseshit any more. I think it's stupidly unfair how much work you have to do to squeeze out a few more incrementally higher numbers just because Bioware has its head up its own ass about itemization.
What do I mean?
-The fact that I'm ripping item modifications out of Assassin gear to use because they still think Sorcerer's need Accuracy on their items
-Campaign gear cannot be RE'd for appearance without the Armoring slot still on the gear, meaning its a gamble between keeping the best gear available or gaining access to the appearance of the best gear available.
-Blowing hundreds of Black Hole Commendations on a chance to learn gear recipes.
-The sparse, easily accessible orange gear that can be critted as recipes rely on random world drops and crafting mission success rates, generally look like ass, and there aren't even accessible hands or feet recipes.
This isn't fun, it's just infuriating. Fun minmaxing is figuring out how to play better and selecting the right gear from an itemization pool that makes sense, not figuring out how to beat an itemization schema designed by retarded monkeys.
Did they not learn their lesson in making people open random boxes for PvP gear? Did they think we'd still enjoy gambling on reverse engineering for loot? At least random PvP boxes were something that affected everyone who PvP'd equally; this only affects the people who actually give a shit about playing at their peak. Furthermore, it just blows my mind how you could scrap together this system and then be too stupid to make sure there's enough recipes to make it work. In designing a system with the goal to allow players to wear whatever they want, they pigeonholed top tier, progression-focused players into wearing whatever shit-looking orange recipes are sparsely available. Oversight is not an excuse any more, this game's been live for 4 months.
Whatever, I'm just pissed I wasted the last 12 hours figuring out how to minmax gear that can't be minmaxed for a class that's low-to-mid tier DPS regardless of the effort I put into it, I'm sure I'll get over it.
So I appended a little checklist on to the end of my last post to keep track of everything I need and then checked the GTN for the fourth time to find some orange boots or gloves recipes. There weren't any, which begged the question: are there any orange boots or gloves recipes? Off to Torhead to manually search through all the Synthweaving recipes...
Why yes! There are! If don't mind getting (or already have) Valor Rank 60 for BM gear or already have the bind-on-pickup Exotech recipes.
Guess who has neither? Me!
So yeah, I'm officially sick of the design of itemization in 1.2. I'm about ready to give up on crafting and just gear out from tokens instead of bothering with this horseshit any more. I think it's stupidly unfair how much work you have to do to squeeze out a few more incrementally higher numbers just because Bioware has its head up its own ass about itemization.
What do I mean?
-The fact that I'm ripping item modifications out of Assassin gear to use because they still think Sorcerer's need Accuracy on their items
-Campaign gear cannot be RE'd for appearance without the Armoring slot still on the gear, meaning its a gamble between keeping the best gear available or gaining access to the appearance of the best gear available.
-Blowing hundreds of Black Hole Commendations on a chance to learn gear recipes.
-The sparse, easily accessible orange gear that can be critted as recipes rely on random world drops and crafting mission success rates, generally look like ass, and there aren't even accessible hands or feet recipes.
This isn't fun, it's just infuriating. Fun minmaxing is figuring out how to play better and selecting the right gear from an itemization pool that makes sense, not figuring out how to beat an itemization schema designed by retarded monkeys.
Did they not learn their lesson in making people open random boxes for PvP gear? Did they think we'd still enjoy gambling on reverse engineering for loot? At least random PvP boxes were something that affected everyone who PvP'd equally; this only affects the people who actually give a shit about playing at their peak. Furthermore, it just blows my mind how you could scrap together this system and then be too stupid to make sure there's enough recipes to make it work. In designing a system with the goal to allow players to wear whatever they want, they pigeonholed top tier, progression-focused players into wearing whatever shit-looking orange recipes are sparsely available. Oversight is not an excuse any more, this game's been live for 4 months.
Whatever, I'm just pissed I wasted the last 12 hours figuring out how to minmax gear that can't be minmaxed for a class that's low-to-mid tier DPS regardless of the effort I put into it, I'm sure I'll get over it.
Monday, April 16, 2012
Minmaxing Abraxane: 1.2 Edition
Some quick personal notes on BIS item modifications.
So I noticed the armoring on the campaign gear that include the set bonuses themselves have varying stats.Reportedly each armoring does need to stay with it's set piece (ie the head armoring requires an orange head piece to be slotted into) but until I see proof I'm going to at least make note of the BIS armoring as well. Nevermind, I already have the Campaign legs and will have to strip the mods shortly (I've got everything but the augment ready), so I'll know the answer to this conundrum soon. Yep, restricted to like set pieces.
Armoring: 49 Endurance, 68 Willpower
Available on:
-Campaign Force-Master's Headgear
-Campaign Force-Master's Lower Robe
-Campaign Force-Master's Vestments
Non-set Armoring: 49 Endurance, 68 Willpower
Available on:
-Black Hole Force-lord's MK-1 Headgear - 60 BHC
-Black Hole Force-lord's MK-1 Vestments - 60 BHC
-Black Hole Striker's MK-1 Boots - 50 BHC
-Campaign Force-Mystic's Boots
-Campaign Force-Mystic's Gloves
-Campaign Force-Mystic's Lower Robe
-Campaign Stalker's Handwraps
-Campaign Stalker's Legwraps
-Campaign Stalker's Robe
Important note: armoring, even in Black Hole gear, is restricted for use only amongst the same slot pieces ie armoring from boots can only be used on other boots.
Mod: 32 Endurance, 53 Willpower, 41 Power
Available on:
-Black Hole Striker's MK-1 Boots - 50 BHC
-Campaign Force-Master's Boots
-Campaign Force-Mystic's Lightsaber
Enhancement: 27 Endurance, 41 Power, 57 Surge
Available on:
-Black Hole Striker's MK-1 Boots - 50 BHC
-Campaign Force-Mystic's Gloves
-Campaign Force-Mystic's Lightsaber
-Campaign Force-Mystic's Lower Robe
-Campaign Stalker's Robe
Fuck, just realized this enhancement might be on gear sets for other classes too, but whatever, doesn't really matter.
Hilt: 49 Endurance, 68 Willpower
Available on:
-Campaign Force-Mystic's Lightsaber (This comes with all BIS item mods.)
For a full complement of mods and enhancements I will need: 250 Black Hole Commendations for 5 sets of Black Hole Striker's MK-1 Boots
Alternative: I will additionally do the Black Hole weekly and NM KP on my Mercenary (Cybertech) and/or Marauder (Artificing) to obtain the recipe for the relevant mod and enhancement.
Holy shitfuck, Black Hole Striker's MK-1 Boots have fucking everything I'll ever need.
Notes: Well, obviously, none of this has any crit on it. Comparing non-set pieces...
BIS Non-set pieces (note that these will have to be crit-crafted versions thereof):
Offhand: We don't know if these can be learned as recipes yet, but just in case...
-87 Endurance, 102 Willpower, 102 Power, 649 Force Power, 57 Surge - Black Hole Striker's MK-1 Generator (note that although it's called a Generator it's classified as a Focus)
Waist:
-For power: 81 Endurance, 94 Willpower, 41 Power - Campaign Force Mystic's Sash/Campaign Stalker's Waistwrap
-For crit: 81 Endurance, 94 Willpower, 41 Crit - Campaign Force-Master's Sash
Ear: This is kind of a tough call since between the two following listed there's a +18 Willpower, +22 Crit, -57 Alacrity difference between what I'm presuming is the BIS (the higher WP/Crit Striker piece, as opposed to the Force-lord's). For the sake of prioritizing crafting though, the second may be a better choice since it favors both DPS and healing.
-87 Endurance, 102 Willpower, 57 Accuracy, 71 Crit - Black Hole Striker's MK-1 Chip
-121 Endurance, 84 Willpower, 49 Crit, 57 Alacrity - Black Hole Force-lord's MK-1 Relay
Implant:
-87 Endurance, 102 Willpower, 71 Power, 57 Alacrity - Black Hole Force-lord's MK-1 System
Wrists:
-For power: 71 Endurance, 102 Willpower, 41 Power - Black Hole Force-healer's MK-1 Cuffs
-For crit: 71 Endurance, 102 Willpower, 41 Crit - Black Hole Striker's MK-1 Bracers
Black Hole wrists aren't RE-able
-For power: 81 Endurance, 93 Willpower, 41 Power - Campaign Force-Master's Bracers
-For crit: 81 Endurance, 93 Willpower, 41 Crit - Campaign Force-Mysrtic's Cuffs
Final thoughts: more evidence Bioware still doesn't understand the itemization of their classes. Most of the Assassin DPS Black Hole gear is top tier for Sorcerer DPS.
BIS checklist:
Item recipes:
-Mod: X (Voltaren - 50 BHC/attempt)
-Enhancement: X (Seroquel - 50 BHC/attempt)
-Augment: O
-Offhand: X (Seroquel - 50 BHC/attempt)
-Ear: X (Voltaren - 35 BHC/attempt)
-Implant: X (Lantus/Desyrel - 35 BHC/attempt)
-Wrists: X (Abraxane - 30 BHC/attempt)
Mainhand: X
-Recipe: O
-Crit:O
-Hilt: X (Campaign token)
-Mod: X (from Campaign saber)
-Enhancement: X (from Campaign saber)
-Augment: X
Offhand: X
-Recipe: ? (investigate; Seroquel)
-Crit: X
-Augment: ?
Head: X
-Recipe: O
-Crit: X
-Armoring: X (Campaign token)
-Mod: X
-Enhancement: O
-Augment: X
Chest: X
-Recipe: O
-Crit: X
-Armoring: X (Campaign token)
-Mod: X
-Enhancement: X
-Augment: X
Hands: X
-Recipe: X
-Crit: X
-Armoring: O
-Mod: X
-Enhancement: O
-Augment: X
Waist: X
-Recipe: X (Campaign token)
-Crit: X
-Augment: O
Legs: X
-Recipe: O
-Crit: O
-Armoring: X (Campaign token)
-Mod: X
-Enhancement: X
-Augment: O
Feet: X
-Recipe: X
-Crit: X
-Armoring: O
-Mod: O
-Enhancement:O
-Augment: X
Ear: X
-Recipe: X (Voltaren)
-Crit: X
-Augment: X
Implant: X/X
-Recipe: X (Lantus/Desyrel)
-Crit: X/X
-Augment: X/X
Wrists: X
-Recipe: X (Abraxane)
-Crit: X
-Augment: O
So I noticed the armoring on the campaign gear that include the set bonuses themselves have varying stats.
Armoring: 49 Endurance, 68 Willpower
Available on:
-Campaign Force-Master's Headgear
-Campaign Force-Master's Lower Robe
-Campaign Force-Master's Vestments
Non-set Armoring: 49 Endurance, 68 Willpower
Available on:
-Black Hole Force-lord's MK-1 Headgear - 60 BHC
-Black Hole Force-lord's MK-1 Vestments - 60 BHC
-Black Hole Striker's MK-1 Boots - 50 BHC
-Campaign Force-Mystic's Boots
-Campaign Force-Mystic's Gloves
-Campaign Force-Mystic's Lower Robe
-Campaign Stalker's Handwraps
-Campaign Stalker's Legwraps
-Campaign Stalker's Robe
Important note: armoring, even in Black Hole gear, is restricted for use only amongst the same slot pieces ie armoring from boots can only be used on other boots.
Mod: 32 Endurance, 53 Willpower, 41 Power
Available on:
-Black Hole Striker's MK-1 Boots - 50 BHC
-Campaign Force-Master's Boots
-Campaign Force-Mystic's Lightsaber
Enhancement: 27 Endurance, 41 Power, 57 Surge
Available on:
-Black Hole Striker's MK-1 Boots - 50 BHC
-Campaign Force-Mystic's Gloves
-Campaign Force-Mystic's Lightsaber
-Campaign Force-Mystic's Lower Robe
-Campaign Stalker's Robe
Fuck, just realized this enhancement might be on gear sets for other classes too, but whatever, doesn't really matter.
Hilt: 49 Endurance, 68 Willpower
Available on:
-Campaign Force-Mystic's Lightsaber (This comes with all BIS item mods.)
For a full complement of mods and enhancements I will need: 250 Black Hole Commendations for 5 sets of Black Hole Striker's MK-1 Boots
Alternative: I will additionally do the Black Hole weekly and NM KP on my Mercenary (Cybertech) and/or Marauder (Artificing) to obtain the recipe for the relevant mod and enhancement.
Holy shitfuck, Black Hole Striker's MK-1 Boots have fucking everything I'll ever need.
Notes: Well, obviously, none of this has any crit on it. Comparing non-set pieces...
BIS Non-set pieces (note that these will have to be crit-crafted versions thereof):
Offhand: We don't know if these can be learned as recipes yet, but just in case...
-87 Endurance, 102 Willpower, 102 Power, 649 Force Power, 57 Surge - Black Hole Striker's MK-1 Generator (note that although it's called a Generator it's classified as a Focus)
Waist:
-For power: 81 Endurance, 94 Willpower, 41 Power - Campaign Force Mystic's Sash/Campaign Stalker's Waistwrap
-For crit: 81 Endurance, 94 Willpower, 41 Crit - Campaign Force-Master's Sash
Ear: This is kind of a tough call since between the two following listed there's a +18 Willpower, +22 Crit, -57 Alacrity difference between what I'm presuming is the BIS (the higher WP/Crit Striker piece, as opposed to the Force-lord's). For the sake of prioritizing crafting though, the second may be a better choice since it favors both DPS and healing.
-87 Endurance, 102 Willpower, 57 Accuracy, 71 Crit - Black Hole Striker's MK-1 Chip
-121 Endurance, 84 Willpower, 49 Crit, 57 Alacrity - Black Hole Force-lord's MK-1 Relay
Implant:
-87 Endurance, 102 Willpower, 71 Power, 57 Alacrity - Black Hole Force-lord's MK-1 System
Wrists:
Black Hole wrists aren't RE-able
-For power: 81 Endurance, 93 Willpower, 41 Power - Campaign Force-Master's Bracers
-For crit: 81 Endurance, 93 Willpower, 41 Crit - Campaign Force-Mysrtic's Cuffs
Final thoughts: more evidence Bioware still doesn't understand the itemization of their classes. Most of the Assassin DPS Black Hole gear is top tier for Sorcerer DPS.
BIS checklist:
Item recipes:
-Mod: X (Voltaren - 50 BHC/attempt)
-Enhancement: X (Seroquel - 50 BHC/attempt)
-Augment: O
-Offhand: X (Seroquel - 50 BHC/attempt)
-Ear: X (Voltaren - 35 BHC/attempt)
-Implant: X (Lantus/Desyrel - 35 BHC/attempt)
-Wrists: X (Abraxane - 30 BHC/attempt)
Mainhand: X
-Recipe: O
-Crit:O
-Hilt: X (Campaign token)
-Mod: X (from Campaign saber)
-Enhancement: X (from Campaign saber)
-Augment: X
Offhand: X
-Recipe: ? (investigate; Seroquel)
-Crit: X
-Augment: ?
Head: X
-Recipe: O
-Crit: X
-Armoring: X (Campaign token)
-Mod: X
-Enhancement: O
-Augment: X
Chest: X
-Recipe: O
-Crit: X
-Armoring: X (Campaign token)
-Mod: X
-Enhancement: X
-Augment: X
Hands: X
-Recipe: X
-Crit: X
-Armoring: O
-Mod: X
-Enhancement: O
-Augment: X
Waist: X
-Recipe: X (Campaign token)
-Crit: X
-Augment: O
Legs: X
-Recipe: O
-Crit: O
-Armoring: X (Campaign token)
-Mod: X
-Enhancement: X
-Augment: O
Feet: X
-Recipe: X
-Crit: X
-Armoring: O
-Mod: O
-Enhancement:O
-Augment: X
Ear: X
-Recipe: X (Voltaren)
-Crit: X
-Augment: X
Implant: X/X
-Recipe: X (Lantus/Desyrel)
-Crit: X/X
-Augment: X/X
Wrists: X
-Recipe: X (Abraxane)
-Crit: X
-Augment: O
Sunday, April 15, 2012
Hard Mode Zorn and Toth Down
After several hours' worth of attempts we finally got boss #1 in Hard Mode down. Antimony got a recording of the win somewhere. Updated the loot list with what we saw drop. I won the roll on the Campaign legs token and as much as I'd like to keep 'em because Sorcerer Campaign gear looks sweet, it's realistically my duty as a Synthweaver to rip out the mods, stick 'em in another orange item that has an augment slot, and then RE the shell.
Normal Mode Donova Cleared
Just put the finishing touches on Normal Kephess. Dropped a pair of Black Hole Stalker boots that we decided to hand it off to a Cybertech to experiment to see if the item modification patterns could be learned. As suspected, the armoring could not be learned for a pattern but the mod could be (alas no luck this time). Presumably so can the enhancements.
Rakghoul Event on Tatooine
Those of us who logged into the fleet this morning were surprised with some super secret stealth news bulletin about a Rakgoul outbreak on Tatooine. Translation: surprise new daily area!
It seems that there's two groups of quests for Rakghoul DNA Samples, one batch of quests in the northeast of the Dune Sea followed by another set at the far east of the planet. The DNA samples which are used as currency for a vendor that can be found a little north of the Dune Sea event area (open your map and click the vendor dot on the left if you can't find it).
The main quests seem to give ~15 Rakghoul DNA Samples, but there appear to be other ways to get them. There's an additional quest to infect 10 players, but it's not clear how exactly you go about doing this. You also reportedly get 5 DNA Samples when your infection progresses to the point where you explode, but it's also not clear how this works.
But most importantly, the vendor has Black-Green color crystals! Gotsta get that shit asap. The samples aren't BoP and are possibly tradeable, so I'm gonna run 'em on several of my alts.
Update 1: Main quests give 10. It seems you get 5 samples every time you die while with the Feverish debuff? Which seems to progress from Lightheaded after a certain amount of time?
Update 2: There's three world bosses you can reportedly kill for a title, we're working on the one by the Sarlacc pit. The normal world boss is reportedly replaced with a level 50 infected version.
Update 3: Confirming the observations in Update 1; you can receive the infection from either an infected enemy or an infected player that blows up. You start with Lightheaded and after some time it progresses to Feverish. At Feverish you can either die or wait longer and you'll blow up and get 5 Rakghoul DNA Samples. The debuffs seem to bug out sometimes (it seems to for sure if you log out) and doesn't progress, in which case you can correct it by using the vaccine (which you can buy from the event vendor).
There's also another mini-quest line that starts at the news screens just outside the airport. From there you need to head north to find a crashed escape pod buried in the wall along the road running up the west side. Then go to a box of medical supplies at the north-middle-ish of Mos Ila. Then go to the kiosk near the speeder north of Mos Ila to start the quest to find 12 Stardream Wreckage pieces.
Update 4: The quest above ultimately rewards a Crimson Rakling pet (which is different from the Pale Rackling available from the event vendor).
Update 5: The color crystals are, sadly, not RE-able for a recipe.
It seems that there's two groups of quests for Rakghoul DNA Samples, one batch of quests in the northeast of the Dune Sea followed by another set at the far east of the planet. The DNA samples which are used as currency for a vendor that can be found a little north of the Dune Sea event area (open your map and click the vendor dot on the left if you can't find it).
The main quests seem to give ~15 Rakghoul DNA Samples, but there appear to be other ways to get them. There's an additional quest to infect 10 players, but it's not clear how exactly you go about doing this. You also reportedly get 5 DNA Samples when your infection progresses to the point where you explode, but it's also not clear how this works.
But most importantly, the vendor has Black-Green color crystals! Gotsta get that shit asap. The samples aren't BoP and are possibly tradeable, so I'm gonna run 'em on several of my alts.
Update 1: Main quests give 10. It seems you get 5 samples every time you die while with the Feverish debuff? Which seems to progress from Lightheaded after a certain amount of time?
Update 2: There's three world bosses you can reportedly kill for a title, we're working on the one by the Sarlacc pit. The normal world boss is reportedly replaced with a level 50 infected version.
Update 3: Confirming the observations in Update 1; you can receive the infection from either an infected enemy or an infected player that blows up. You start with Lightheaded and after some time it progresses to Feverish. At Feverish you can either die or wait longer and you'll blow up and get 5 Rakghoul DNA Samples. The debuffs seem to bug out sometimes (it seems to for sure if you log out) and doesn't progress, in which case you can correct it by using the vaccine (which you can buy from the event vendor).
There's also another mini-quest line that starts at the news screens just outside the airport. From there you need to head north to find a crashed escape pod buried in the wall along the road running up the west side. Then go to a box of medical supplies at the north-middle-ish of Mos Ila. Then go to the kiosk near the speeder north of Mos Ila to start the quest to find 12 Stardream Wreckage pieces.
Update 4: The quest above ultimately rewards a Crimson Rakling pet (which is different from the Pale Rackling available from the event vendor).
Update 5: The color crystals are, sadly, not RE-able for a recipe.
Saturday, April 14, 2012
Timesinking
Trying to decide what to squander my free time on now that 1.2's out. I figured I'd get back into PvPing, but I've been trying to on Lasix and every second I spend solo queuing drains my will to live so that's on the back burner until we have some actual organized guild PvP.
Then there's leveling Desyrel, which I'd like to do. This is partly hindered by the fact that doing so would also necessitate continuing my powerquesting guide, which I'm currently too lazy to want to do. Finally, I'm still actually quite enjoying Star Trek Online and it's not yet fully run its course with me yet. Basically I just need to figure out which of the two I want to do on a daily basis. Might compromise and do a level or so on Desyrel a day or somesuch.
Then there's leveling Desyrel, which I'd like to do. This is partly hindered by the fact that doing so would also necessitate continuing my powerquesting guide, which I'm currently too lazy to want to do. Finally, I'm still actually quite enjoying Star Trek Online and it's not yet fully run its course with me yet. Basically I just need to figure out which of the two I want to do on a daily basis. Might compromise and do a level or so on Desyrel a day or somesuch.
Denova Normal Mode Progression
Went back into 8-man Normal Denova with whomever we could scrape together; we've adopted an unusual raid schedule this week since the new stuff came out on a Thursday. First boss was already down from the 16-man we ran last night. Got up to and through several attempts on the last boss.
Second boss, the tanks, have some tricky mechanics but aren't really all that hard once you've learned to juggle them. For people just wading into it, it's important to know not to destroy the shield generators on the add phase and that Double Destruction must be dealt with by some coordination between two DPS and the tank. There's a lot more to it, but dealing with those two mechanics is a start.
The third boss is a puzzle boss and likewise pretty easy once you've got the hang of it.
The last boss was kinda fun and tricky. We got close several times and with a little cleanup (ie not raiding with several members in a time zone where it's 2AM) it'll be pretty simple to finish off.
Also, it's important to keep in mind that mid-way to the next boss after every boss there's a chest containing an additional 4 Black Hole Commendations. The lockout on the chest seems tied to the death of the previous boss. When we started and got to the chest between bosses 1 and 2 we were unable to open it; we surmised that the reason has to do with the instance resetting (similar to how the boss-loot boxes regenerate but are inaccessible for the pylon and council bosses in EV). Also, we had one member swap out for another after the second boss and the new guy we brought in couldn't access the chest after the second boss--furthermore after we discovered this we tried to bring back the guy we swapped out and he couldn't access the chest either. So if you're going to call it a night after one of the bosses and still want the additional loot, make sure you clear your way to the chest before you close shop.
Second boss, the tanks, have some tricky mechanics but aren't really all that hard once you've learned to juggle them. For people just wading into it, it's important to know not to destroy the shield generators on the add phase and that Double Destruction must be dealt with by some coordination between two DPS and the tank. There's a lot more to it, but dealing with those two mechanics is a start.
The third boss is a puzzle boss and likewise pretty easy once you've got the hang of it.
The last boss was kinda fun and tricky. We got close several times and with a little cleanup (ie not raiding with several members in a time zone where it's 2AM) it'll be pretty simple to finish off.
Also, it's important to keep in mind that mid-way to the next boss after every boss there's a chest containing an additional 4 Black Hole Commendations. The lockout on the chest seems tied to the death of the previous boss. When we started and got to the chest between bosses 1 and 2 we were unable to open it; we surmised that the reason has to do with the instance resetting (similar to how the boss-loot boxes regenerate but are inaccessible for the pylon and council bosses in EV). Also, we had one member swap out for another after the second boss and the new guy we brought in couldn't access the chest after the second boss--furthermore after we discovered this we tried to bring back the guy we swapped out and he couldn't access the chest either. So if you're going to call it a night after one of the bosses and still want the additional loot, make sure you clear your way to the chest before you close shop.
Friday, April 13, 2012
Updating the Loot List
I've updated the loot list (see links to the right) with what I've seen drop from the new content (The Lost Island and Denova) and will continue doing so as we continue progressing through it.
Thursday, April 12, 2012
1.2 Day/Nightmare Pilgrim
1.2's finally here, woo! Also, check out this slick promo for those of us who have been around since the beginning.
As expected, had to go through every one of my characters to set up the new UI and do some rebinding. Also transferred excess funds to Abraxane to buy some Legacy unlocks. DO NOT buy Rocket Boost it's a complete waste of 2-4.5 mil; it's a 110% speed boost (ie same as the highest level mounts) that can only be used out of combat and in areas where you can mount. So it's useless in PvP et al and anywhere you can use it you might as well mount up anyways.
MoX went through the first boss in Denova on 16-man Normal then shifted to work on Nightmare Pilgrim in a half-MoX, half-Ghost Codex 16-man raid.
Here are some of the essential quirks to Nightmare Pilgrim:
-Start with all DPS on the The Thing From the Stars (hereafter referred to as TTFtS), the reason why will be apparent as the fight goes on. They need to be killed at the same time.
-It's a pretty simple fight until TTFtS gets to ~50%. As TTFtS approaches 55-50% you'll notice two key things:
--First the Nightmare Pilgrim (hereafter referred to as NP) will do an aoe knockback and then put up a shield (he channels it), attempting to damage NP while this shield is up will instead deal damage back to you ie do not attack him while this shield is up.
--Second and at the same time, several members of the raid will receive a debuff called Bloodmark. Who receives the buff will be identifiable by a shaft of white light that comes down to the affected players. Players with this debuff will have massive damage inflicted upon them if they damage TTFtS.
--Thus as TTFtS approaches 50% all DPS should stop (or to be more precise, have everyone stop as soon as NP puts up his shield) and wait until Bloodmark is up (it should be up by the time NP stops channeling the shield). Everyone who receives Bloodmark should start DPSing NP, everyone else should resume DPS on TTFtS.
-Bloodmark lasts 90 seconds. As its duration is close to finished the above pattern repeats; NP knockbacks and shields, Bloodmarks go out. The rest of the fight is basically juggling this mechanic.
-There's some intense tanking mechanics to the fight as well, but I'm personally pretty oblivious to what the tanks were doing.
As expected, had to go through every one of my characters to set up the new UI and do some rebinding. Also transferred excess funds to Abraxane to buy some Legacy unlocks. DO NOT buy Rocket Boost it's a complete waste of 2-4.5 mil; it's a 110% speed boost (ie same as the highest level mounts) that can only be used out of combat and in areas where you can mount. So it's useless in PvP et al and anywhere you can use it you might as well mount up anyways.
MoX went through the first boss in Denova on 16-man Normal then shifted to work on Nightmare Pilgrim in a half-MoX, half-Ghost Codex 16-man raid.
Here are some of the essential quirks to Nightmare Pilgrim:
-Start with all DPS on the The Thing From the Stars (hereafter referred to as TTFtS), the reason why will be apparent as the fight goes on. They need to be killed at the same time.
-It's a pretty simple fight until TTFtS gets to ~50%. As TTFtS approaches 55-50% you'll notice two key things:
--First the Nightmare Pilgrim (hereafter referred to as NP) will do an aoe knockback and then put up a shield (he channels it), attempting to damage NP while this shield is up will instead deal damage back to you ie do not attack him while this shield is up.
--Second and at the same time, several members of the raid will receive a debuff called Bloodmark. Who receives the buff will be identifiable by a shaft of white light that comes down to the affected players. Players with this debuff will have massive damage inflicted upon them if they damage TTFtS.
--Thus as TTFtS approaches 50% all DPS should stop (or to be more precise, have everyone stop as soon as NP puts up his shield) and wait until Bloodmark is up (it should be up by the time NP stops channeling the shield). Everyone who receives Bloodmark should start DPSing NP, everyone else should resume DPS on TTFtS.
-Bloodmark lasts 90 seconds. As its duration is close to finished the above pattern repeats; NP knockbacks and shields, Bloodmarks go out. The rest of the fight is basically juggling this mechanic.
-There's some intense tanking mechanics to the fight as well, but I'm personally pretty oblivious to what the tanks were doing.
Tuesday, April 10, 2012
Itemization in 1.2
Wanted to call attention to this thread on the PTS forums by Georg Zoeller explaining precisely how itemization 1.2 works.
A few things I thought were noteworthy on a quick first-read:
-Black Hole gear cannot be reverse engineered for patterns (but Campaign gear can)
-Black Hole gear has no set bonus, but Campaign gear does AND it's the same as the current Tier 1 set bonuses
-Warzone Commendations can be traded in for Rated Warzone Commendations
A few things I thought were noteworthy on a quick first-read:
-Black Hole gear cannot be reverse engineered for patterns (but Campaign gear can)
-Black Hole gear has no set bonus, but Campaign gear does AND it's the same as the current Tier 1 set bonuses
-Warzone Commendations can be traded in for Rated Warzone Commendations
This Wait Is 1.2 Long
So no 1.2 today, despite the latest "official" rumors that it's due out this week. But that's alright, it'll give us a lil more time to test Ginnai's parser and the new content.
I hit level/grade/whatever 45 in STO and have been having fun with the STF missions meanwhile. My wife and I have been playing Wakfu in bits too.
I hit level/grade/whatever 45 in STO and have been having fun with the STF missions meanwhile. My wife and I have been playing Wakfu in bits too.
Sunday, April 8, 2012
Raid Parser Demo (Solo)
Recorded a brief setup-and-go demo of Ginnai's raid parser: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gP6j0lfxHq0
Friday, April 6, 2012
MoX Raid Meters
Ginnai made a post on the PTS forums formally releasing his raid-wide meters to the public: http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=394608
Edit: Find the actual parser on our guild website here.
Edit: Find the actual parser on our guild website here.
STO and Tera and Wakfu, Oh My!
Continuing my free-to-play MMO binge to kill time until 1.2: I discovered yesterday that Wakfu's already been out for a little while (since late February). Wakfu's a pseudo-sequel to an MMO called Dofus that's made by a French developer. There's also a pretty badass French cartoon based on Wakfu/Dofus that I've been slowly watching, so I've been looking forward to the US release of the Wakfu MMO for a while now--didn't realize it was already out.
But being as I'm still enraptured by STO and plan on playing the Tera weekend beta a bit with Callsign, it's gonna be on the back burner for a lil bit still. I actually managed to convince my wife to give it a try to tell me what she thinks since I won't have much time yet to play it. She seems to like it so far.
In other news, we raided up to a few attempts at the second boss of the new raid on the PTS last night. We didn't finish it off, but pinned down the mechanics on the first part of the fight. The first boss went a lot smoother when we stopped trying to move everyone around and had everybody who's on a particular boss stay in the same area and have only the tanks switch spots when they need to switch (so the tanks switch sides but each boss itself ends up staying in the same area). On the tank bosses we managed to figure out quickly that everyone needs to stand on the tank, and then hide under the shields when the adds show up (ie don't destroy the shield generator, either single target the adds down or AOE knockback them so they can be AOE'd away from the shield generator). Aside from that it's a matter of not-standing-in-fire and managing the dot that the lightning tank guy puts on the tank.
But being as I'm still enraptured by STO and plan on playing the Tera weekend beta a bit with Callsign, it's gonna be on the back burner for a lil bit still. I actually managed to convince my wife to give it a try to tell me what she thinks since I won't have much time yet to play it. She seems to like it so far.
In other news, we raided up to a few attempts at the second boss of the new raid on the PTS last night. We didn't finish it off, but pinned down the mechanics on the first part of the fight. The first boss went a lot smoother when we stopped trying to move everyone around and had everybody who's on a particular boss stay in the same area and have only the tanks switch spots when they need to switch (so the tanks switch sides but each boss itself ends up staying in the same area). On the tank bosses we managed to figure out quickly that everyone needs to stand on the tank, and then hide under the shields when the adds show up (ie don't destroy the shield generator, either single target the adds down or AOE knockback them so they can be AOE'd away from the shield generator). Aside from that it's a matter of not-standing-in-fire and managing the dot that the lightning tank guy puts on the tank.
Sunday, April 1, 2012
Super Denova
We finally got things together to try out the new raid on the PTS tonight. Bad news was I had to heal. I haven't raid healed since I played a Resto Shaman in WoW in WotLK like three years ago. I was a bit rusty.
Spent time trying to figure out Zorn and Toth on Normal Mode. Between me having to heal and Evo having got the wrong character copied over, we had some trouble with it.
Almost more importantly, we got to beta test Ginnai's damage meters. He's got a really slick interface that collects, parses, then displays the logs of everyone in the raid as their logs are generated. There is, of course, plenty of bugs to work out and it's far from finished, but it's already showing some interesting data.
Spent time trying to figure out Zorn and Toth on Normal Mode. Between me having to heal and Evo having got the wrong character copied over, we had some trouble with it.
Almost more importantly, we got to beta test Ginnai's damage meters. He's got a really slick interface that collects, parses, then displays the logs of everyone in the raid as their logs are generated. There is, of course, plenty of bugs to work out and it's far from finished, but it's already showing some interesting data.
Friday, March 30, 2012
Trekkin' Through the Weekend
I'm going to put the patch note review on hold for now; I got through all the class changes which was the bulk of what I wanted to comment on. The rest is a lot of bug fixes and notes about the new stuff that I don't really have much to say for. If 1.2 doesn't come out next week maybe I'll pick it up again.
The following is from a post I made on the MoX Facebook group after Darkhorse asked me to look into today's changes on the PTS (they added craftable versions of the PvP gear):
"So on the PvP vendors on the PTS you can buy both a Battlemaster and War Hero pattern set for 50k each (for either), gives you all the recipes for that set (just the 5 pieces, none of the accessories). The Battlemaster crafted gear requires rank 60 to wear and the War Hero gear requires 70. However, they only take a handful of white, green, and blue grade 6 materials so they're stupidly easy to make. Gonna be pretty easy to grind 'em till you've got crit crafted versions.
Bad news though, they're all bind on pickup."
In other news I'm giving Star Trek Online a try. It's a lot of fun.
The following is from a post I made on the MoX Facebook group after Darkhorse asked me to look into today's changes on the PTS (they added craftable versions of the PvP gear):
"So on the PvP vendors on the PTS you can buy both a Battlemaster and War Hero pattern set for 50k each (for either), gives you all the recipes for that set (just the 5 pieces, none of the accessories). The Battlemaster crafted gear requires rank 60 to wear and the War Hero gear requires 70. However, they only take a handful of white, green, and blue grade 6 materials so they're stupidly easy to make. Gonna be pretty easy to grind 'em till you've got crit crafted versions.
Bad news though, they're all bind on pickup."
In other news I'm giving Star Trek Online a try. It's a lot of fun.
Thursday, March 29, 2012
Comprehensive Review and Commantary on Patch 1.2 - Part 7: Bounty Hunter/Trooper
I've addressed some of the changes to Powertech tanking previously.
To distinguish the patch notes from my commentary, all the original patch notes are in italics and my own comments will be in bold.
Bounty Hunter
-General
--Ability Heat costs are now displayed in skill tree and trainer windows.
--Death From Above now has a 5-meter radius to bring its range in line with other Bounty Hunter Area of Effect abilities, and it now begins dealing damage sooner after activation.
---Basically they neutered its range. Its damage is still alright but it's much weaker as an AOE ability now in terms of its range.
--Hydraulic Overrides now has improved audio and visual effects.
--Incendiary Missile audio has been improved.
--Jet Charge now places a "root" visual effect on the affected target. *UPDATED 3/29*
-Mercenary
--Cure now generates 8 Heat (down from 16).
--Jet Boost now triggers snare visual effects on affected targets.
--Power Shot has been rebalanced. It now generates 16 Heat, has a 2-second activation time, and deals approximately 10% less damage.
---This is the most perplexing change to me out of anything in 1.2. In order to encourage a more varied ability usage they nerfed Tracer Missile (see further down), but they also gave Power Shot a corresponding nerf so it still does less damage than Tracer Missile. What they should have done is left Power Shot's damage alone so that Power Shot would be your main filler and Tracer Missile would only be used to keep up heat signature stacks. Basically, now the only difference in your ability priority is that you will use Unload on cooldown regardless of Barrage proc--but Barrage now procs much more often (see below) so it's not even really going to be a change. You still have to wait until Tracer Lock stacks up to pop your Rail Shot so that ability's priority isn't changing either. And the really stupid thing about this change in particular is that all it does is make leveling from 10 to 20 a living hell since you won't get Muzzle Fluting to get rid of the retarded cast time change until 15 and then another 3 levels to where the pushback reduction kicks in and makes it less painful to cast Power Shot.
--Tracer Missile and Fusion Missile's animations have been exchanged by popular demand from the community.
---Really? Seriously? Fuck you guys, the original Tracer Missile animation was awesome.
--Onboard AED is a new level 50 ability that allows the Mercenary to revive an incapacitated ally. It is usable in combat. *UPDATED 3/29*
--Power Surge can now be trained at level 46. *UPDATED 3/29*
--Arsenal
---Barrage: the chance to trigger this effect has been increased significantly.
---Heatseeker Missiles' damage output has been increased by approximately 10%.
---Jet Escape now reduces the cooldown of Jet Boost by 2.5 seconds per point.
---Muzzle Fluting no longer reduces Heat costs. It now reduces the activation time of Power Shot and Tracer Missile by .5 seconds.
---Power Barrier now provides 1% damage reduction per stack.
----A nerf to passive damage reduction, but honestly they should just get rid of this talent period.
---Tracer Missile has been rebalanced in order to encourage more active gameplay rotations. It now generates 16 Heat, has a 2-second activation time, and deals approximately 10% less damage.
----See above for why I think this "rebalanced in order to encouraged more active gameplay rotations" is complete drivel.
--Bodyguard
---Critical Efficiency now reduces the cost of Rapid Scan by 8 (down from 16).
---Cure Mind no longer reduces the cost of Cure. It now causes Cure to heal the target for a small amount.
---Hired Muscle now increases critical chance by 1% per point.
---Kolto Missile now affects up to 4 targets (up from 3), improving reliability in group and Operation situations.
---Kolto Residue now increases all healing received by 3% (down from 5%).
---Kolto Shell now builds 16 Heat when activated.
----This sounds really stupid to me also, since you have no control over when it procs.
---Supercharged Gas now vents 8 Heat (down from 16) when used and increases all damage and healing dealt by 5% (down from 10%). The shield applied by Kolto Missile now reduces damage taken by 5% (down from 10%).
---Critical Efficiency's buff description now properly refers to Rapid Scan. *UPDATED 3/29*
--Pyrotech (Mercenary)
---Prototype Particle Accelerator now requires Combustible Gas Cylinder to trigger. The chance to trigger this effect has been increased significantly but cannot trigger more than once every 6 seconds.
-Powertech
--Due to changes to the Powertech skill trees, Powertechs have had their skill points refunded.
--Quell no longer generates Heat.
---Talked about this briefly in the Warrior changes, but this is something that never should have cost resources to begin with.
--Shield Tech
---Ablative Upgrades: the absorption amount gained from this skill has been slightly reduced.
Empowered Tech is now a 3-point skill.
----It's not clear if this is a buff or nerf. Presumably the point change is to make room for the addition of Heat Screen (see below).
---Heat Blast is no longer limited by the global cooldown. Its damage has been reduced by approximately 15%.
----This sounds really awesome. A free heat dump with a little damage off the global cooldown? I'll take it.
---Heat Screen is a new 2-point skill that causes Flame Burst and Heat Blast to build a stacking buff that increases shield absorption.
----Now that I think about it, this may force more strict heat management by forcing a Flame Burst occasionally to keep stacks up.
---Oil Slick is no longer limited by the global cooldown.
--Advanced Prototype
---Charged Gauntlets now triggers from damage dealt such that the bleed caused by Retractable Blade can trigger the buff. It now has a visual effect.
---Kolto Vents has been replaced by Hamstring, which causes Retractable Blade to slow the target by 30% for 6 seconds.
---Prototype Flame Thrower now is granted a stack when Immolate is used. In addition, stacks make Flame Thrower immune to interrupt and at 5 stacks Flame Thrower will now slow the movement speed of targets by 70%. *UPDATED 3/23*
--Pyrotech (Powertech)
---Prototype Particle Accelerator now requires Combustible Gas Cylinder to trigger. The chance to trigger this effect has been increased significantly but cannot trigger more than once every 6 seconds.
----This basically kills off the 21/2/18 "Parakeet" build. I think this is indicative of a very bad design philosophy.
Trooper
-General
--Full Auto's attack animation now begins more quickly to improve reactiveness and faction balance.
---I may be wrong, but I never noticed that there was significant problems with this in the short time I've played a Trooper.
--Mortar Volley's animation has been updated. In addition, it now has a 5-meter radius to bring its range in line with other Trooper Area of Effect abilities and it now begins its damage sooner after activation.
---It now fires 5 rounds and without a startup delay.
--Storm now places a "root" visual effect on the affected target. *UPDATED 3/29*
--Commando
---Concussion Charge now triggers snare visual effects on affected targets.
---Charged Bolts has been rebalanced. It now costs 2 Energy Cells, has a 2-second activation time, and deals approximately 10% less damage.
---Cure now costs 1 Energy Cell (down from 2).
---Emergency Medical Probe is a new level 50 ability that allows the Commando to revive an incapacitated ally. It is usable in combat. *UPDATED 3/29*
---Tech Override is now trainable at level 46. *UPDATED 3/29*
--Gunnery
---Charged Barrier now provides 1% damage reduction per stack.
---Curtain of Fire: the chance to trigger this effect has been increased significantly.
---Demolition Round's damage output has been increased by approximately 10%.
---Grav Round has been rebalanced. It now costs 2 Energy Cells, has a 2-second activation time, and deals approximately 10% less damage.
---Muzzle Fluting no longer reduces Energy Cell costs. It now reduces the activation time of Charged Bolts and Grav Round by .5 seconds.
---Tenacious Defense now reduces the cooldown of Concussion Charge by 2.5 seconds per point.
--Combat Medic
---Field Training now increases critical chance by 1% per point.
---Field Triage now reduces the cost of Medical Probe by 1 (down from 2).
---Kolto Bomb now affects up to 4 targets (up from 3), improving reliability in group and Operation situations.
---Kolto Residue now increases all healing received by 3% (down from 5%).
---Psych Aid no longer reduces the cost of Field Aid. It now causes Field Aid to heal the target for a small amount.
---Supercharge Cells now restores 1 Energy Cell (down from 2) when used and increases all damage and healing dealt by 5% (down from 10%). The shield applied by Kolto Bomb now reduces damage taken by 5% (down from 10%).
---Trauma Probe now costs 2 Energy Cells to activate.
--Assault Specialist (Commando)
---Ionic Accelerator now requires Plasma Cell to trigger. The chance to trigger this effect has been increased significantly but cannot trigger more than once every 6 seconds.
-Vanguard
--Due to changes to the Vanguard skill trees, all Vanguards have had their skill points refunded.
--Fire Pulse's visual effect more accurately represents its functionality.
--Riot Strike no longer costs Energy Cells.
--Animation timing issues with Energy Blast have been addressed.
--The hit timing delay on Explosive Surge has been improved.
--Shield Specialist
---Ceramic Plating: the absorption amount gained from this skill has been slightly reduced.
---Counter Attack is now a 3-point skill.
---Energy Blast is no longer limited by the global cooldown. Its damage has been reduced by approximately 15%.
---Power Screen is a new 2-point skill that causes Ion Pulse and Energy Blast to build a stacking buff that increases shield absorption.
---Smoke Grenade is no longer limited by the global cooldown.
--Tactics
---Combat Tactics now triggers from damage dealt such that the bleed caused by Gut can trigger the buff. It now has a visual effect.
---Kolto Recharge has been replaced by Hamstring, which causes Gut to slow the target by 30% for 6 seconds.
---Pulse Generator now is granted a stack when Fire Pulse is used. In addition, stacks make Pulse Cannon immune to interrupt and at 5 stacks Pulse Cannon will now slow the movement speed of targets by 70%. *UPDATED 3/23*
--Assault Specialist (Vanguard)
---Ionic Accelerator now requires Plasma Cell to trigger. The chance to trigger this effect has been increased significantly but cannot trigger more than once every 6 seconds.
To distinguish the patch notes from my commentary, all the original patch notes are in italics and my own comments will be in bold.
Bounty Hunter
-General
--Ability Heat costs are now displayed in skill tree and trainer windows.
--Death From Above now has a 5-meter radius to bring its range in line with other Bounty Hunter Area of Effect abilities, and it now begins dealing damage sooner after activation.
---Basically they neutered its range. Its damage is still alright but it's much weaker as an AOE ability now in terms of its range.
--Hydraulic Overrides now has improved audio and visual effects.
--Incendiary Missile audio has been improved.
--Jet Charge now places a "root" visual effect on the affected target. *UPDATED 3/29*
-Mercenary
--Cure now generates 8 Heat (down from 16).
--Jet Boost now triggers snare visual effects on affected targets.
--Power Shot has been rebalanced. It now generates 16 Heat, has a 2-second activation time, and deals approximately 10% less damage.
---This is the most perplexing change to me out of anything in 1.2. In order to encourage a more varied ability usage they nerfed Tracer Missile (see further down), but they also gave Power Shot a corresponding nerf so it still does less damage than Tracer Missile. What they should have done is left Power Shot's damage alone so that Power Shot would be your main filler and Tracer Missile would only be used to keep up heat signature stacks. Basically, now the only difference in your ability priority is that you will use Unload on cooldown regardless of Barrage proc--but Barrage now procs much more often (see below) so it's not even really going to be a change. You still have to wait until Tracer Lock stacks up to pop your Rail Shot so that ability's priority isn't changing either. And the really stupid thing about this change in particular is that all it does is make leveling from 10 to 20 a living hell since you won't get Muzzle Fluting to get rid of the retarded cast time change until 15 and then another 3 levels to where the pushback reduction kicks in and makes it less painful to cast Power Shot.
--Tracer Missile and Fusion Missile's animations have been exchanged by popular demand from the community.
---Really? Seriously? Fuck you guys, the original Tracer Missile animation was awesome.
--Onboard AED is a new level 50 ability that allows the Mercenary to revive an incapacitated ally. It is usable in combat. *UPDATED 3/29*
--Power Surge can now be trained at level 46. *UPDATED 3/29*
--Arsenal
---Barrage: the chance to trigger this effect has been increased significantly.
---Heatseeker Missiles' damage output has been increased by approximately 10%.
---Jet Escape now reduces the cooldown of Jet Boost by 2.5 seconds per point.
---Muzzle Fluting no longer reduces Heat costs. It now reduces the activation time of Power Shot and Tracer Missile by .5 seconds.
---Power Barrier now provides 1% damage reduction per stack.
----A nerf to passive damage reduction, but honestly they should just get rid of this talent period.
---Tracer Missile has been rebalanced in order to encourage more active gameplay rotations. It now generates 16 Heat, has a 2-second activation time, and deals approximately 10% less damage.
----See above for why I think this "rebalanced in order to encouraged more active gameplay rotations" is complete drivel.
--Bodyguard
---Critical Efficiency now reduces the cost of Rapid Scan by 8 (down from 16).
---Cure Mind no longer reduces the cost of Cure. It now causes Cure to heal the target for a small amount.
---Hired Muscle now increases critical chance by 1% per point.
---Kolto Missile now affects up to 4 targets (up from 3), improving reliability in group and Operation situations.
---Kolto Residue now increases all healing received by 3% (down from 5%).
---Kolto Shell now builds 16 Heat when activated.
----This sounds really stupid to me also, since you have no control over when it procs.
---Supercharged Gas now vents 8 Heat (down from 16) when used and increases all damage and healing dealt by 5% (down from 10%). The shield applied by Kolto Missile now reduces damage taken by 5% (down from 10%).
---Critical Efficiency's buff description now properly refers to Rapid Scan. *UPDATED 3/29*
--Pyrotech (Mercenary)
---Prototype Particle Accelerator now requires Combustible Gas Cylinder to trigger. The chance to trigger this effect has been increased significantly but cannot trigger more than once every 6 seconds.
-Powertech
--Due to changes to the Powertech skill trees, Powertechs have had their skill points refunded.
--Quell no longer generates Heat.
---Talked about this briefly in the Warrior changes, but this is something that never should have cost resources to begin with.
--Shield Tech
---Ablative Upgrades: the absorption amount gained from this skill has been slightly reduced.
Empowered Tech is now a 3-point skill.
----It's not clear if this is a buff or nerf. Presumably the point change is to make room for the addition of Heat Screen (see below).
---Heat Blast is no longer limited by the global cooldown. Its damage has been reduced by approximately 15%.
----This sounds really awesome. A free heat dump with a little damage off the global cooldown? I'll take it.
---Heat Screen is a new 2-point skill that causes Flame Burst and Heat Blast to build a stacking buff that increases shield absorption.
----Now that I think about it, this may force more strict heat management by forcing a Flame Burst occasionally to keep stacks up.
---Oil Slick is no longer limited by the global cooldown.
--Advanced Prototype
---Charged Gauntlets now triggers from damage dealt such that the bleed caused by Retractable Blade can trigger the buff. It now has a visual effect.
---Kolto Vents has been replaced by Hamstring, which causes Retractable Blade to slow the target by 30% for 6 seconds.
---Prototype Flame Thrower now is granted a stack when Immolate is used. In addition, stacks make Flame Thrower immune to interrupt and at 5 stacks Flame Thrower will now slow the movement speed of targets by 70%. *UPDATED 3/23*
--Pyrotech (Powertech)
---Prototype Particle Accelerator now requires Combustible Gas Cylinder to trigger. The chance to trigger this effect has been increased significantly but cannot trigger more than once every 6 seconds.
----This basically kills off the 21/2/18 "Parakeet" build. I think this is indicative of a very bad design philosophy.
Trooper
-General
--Full Auto's attack animation now begins more quickly to improve reactiveness and faction balance.
---I may be wrong, but I never noticed that there was significant problems with this in the short time I've played a Trooper.
--Mortar Volley's animation has been updated. In addition, it now has a 5-meter radius to bring its range in line with other Trooper Area of Effect abilities and it now begins its damage sooner after activation.
---It now fires 5 rounds and without a startup delay.
--Storm now places a "root" visual effect on the affected target. *UPDATED 3/29*
--Commando
---Concussion Charge now triggers snare visual effects on affected targets.
---Charged Bolts has been rebalanced. It now costs 2 Energy Cells, has a 2-second activation time, and deals approximately 10% less damage.
---Cure now costs 1 Energy Cell (down from 2).
---Emergency Medical Probe is a new level 50 ability that allows the Commando to revive an incapacitated ally. It is usable in combat. *UPDATED 3/29*
---Tech Override is now trainable at level 46. *UPDATED 3/29*
--Gunnery
---Charged Barrier now provides 1% damage reduction per stack.
---Curtain of Fire: the chance to trigger this effect has been increased significantly.
---Demolition Round's damage output has been increased by approximately 10%.
---Grav Round has been rebalanced. It now costs 2 Energy Cells, has a 2-second activation time, and deals approximately 10% less damage.
---Muzzle Fluting no longer reduces Energy Cell costs. It now reduces the activation time of Charged Bolts and Grav Round by .5 seconds.
---Tenacious Defense now reduces the cooldown of Concussion Charge by 2.5 seconds per point.
--Combat Medic
---Field Training now increases critical chance by 1% per point.
---Field Triage now reduces the cost of Medical Probe by 1 (down from 2).
---Kolto Bomb now affects up to 4 targets (up from 3), improving reliability in group and Operation situations.
---Kolto Residue now increases all healing received by 3% (down from 5%).
---Psych Aid no longer reduces the cost of Field Aid. It now causes Field Aid to heal the target for a small amount.
---Supercharge Cells now restores 1 Energy Cell (down from 2) when used and increases all damage and healing dealt by 5% (down from 10%). The shield applied by Kolto Bomb now reduces damage taken by 5% (down from 10%).
---Trauma Probe now costs 2 Energy Cells to activate.
--Assault Specialist (Commando)
---Ionic Accelerator now requires Plasma Cell to trigger. The chance to trigger this effect has been increased significantly but cannot trigger more than once every 6 seconds.
-Vanguard
--Due to changes to the Vanguard skill trees, all Vanguards have had their skill points refunded.
--Fire Pulse's visual effect more accurately represents its functionality.
--Riot Strike no longer costs Energy Cells.
--Animation timing issues with Energy Blast have been addressed.
--The hit timing delay on Explosive Surge has been improved.
--Shield Specialist
---Ceramic Plating: the absorption amount gained from this skill has been slightly reduced.
---Counter Attack is now a 3-point skill.
---Energy Blast is no longer limited by the global cooldown. Its damage has been reduced by approximately 15%.
---Power Screen is a new 2-point skill that causes Ion Pulse and Energy Blast to build a stacking buff that increases shield absorption.
---Smoke Grenade is no longer limited by the global cooldown.
--Tactics
---Combat Tactics now triggers from damage dealt such that the bleed caused by Gut can trigger the buff. It now has a visual effect.
---Kolto Recharge has been replaced by Hamstring, which causes Gut to slow the target by 30% for 6 seconds.
---Pulse Generator now is granted a stack when Fire Pulse is used. In addition, stacks make Pulse Cannon immune to interrupt and at 5 stacks Pulse Cannon will now slow the movement speed of targets by 70%. *UPDATED 3/23*
--Assault Specialist (Vanguard)
---Ionic Accelerator now requires Plasma Cell to trigger. The chance to trigger this effect has been increased significantly but cannot trigger more than once every 6 seconds.
Comprehensive Review and Commantary on Patch 1.2 - Part 6: Imperial Agent/Smuggler
Operative is the other class I haven't played to 50, so it too will be a little sparse on commentary.
To distinguish the patch notes from my commentary, all the original patch notes are in italics and my own comments will be in bold.
Imperial Agent
-General
--Players can now "Crouch" (but not roll into cover) while immobilized.
---This is a desperately needed fix, and will make IAs and Smugglers harder to kill in PvP.
--Agents can no longer be pushed out of cover via the "cover integrity" mechanic, which has been removed from the game.
-Operative
--Due to changes to Operative skill trees, Operatives have had their skill points refunded.
--Backstab now has a 12-second cooldown and deals approximately 5% more damage.
--Hidden Strike now has a 7.5-second cooldown.
--Sleep Dart now gives an appropriate error message if used on Droids.
--Tactical Advantage no longer triggers a "grunt" sound effect when it occurs.
--Concealment
---Culling has been redesigned and is now a 2-point skill. It no longer increases damage dealt to poisoned targets, but increases the Energy gained by Stim Boost and the damage dealt by Laceration and Collateral Strike.
---Inclement Conditioning is now a 2-point skill.
---Flanking is a new 1-point skill located in Tier 3 of the skill tree. It reduces the Energy cost of Backstab by 5.
---Laceration now costs 10 Energy (down from 15) and deals approximately 10% less damage.
Meticulously Kept Blades no longer increases Energy gained by Stim Boost. This effect is now part of Culling.
---Waylay now increases the damage dealt by Backstab. It is now located in Tier 5 of the skill tree and requires Flanking.
--Medicine
---Medical Consult now also increases the duration of Tactical Advantage by 2 seconds per point.
---Medical Therapy now additionally reduces the Energy cost of Recuperative Nanotech by 2 per point.
---Patient Studies now additionally increases the speed at which Diagnostic Scan channels by 15% per point.
---Recuperative Nanotech has been rebalanced. It now has a 15-second cooldown, heals over 6 seconds, and heals for approximately 10% more than before.
----This sounds like a pretty big buff to Operative healing.
---Surgical Precision now additionally increases the maximum stack limit of Tactical Advantage by 1.
--Lethality (Operative)
---Corrosive Microbes now functions correctly.
---Lethality now increases critical chance by 1% per point.
---Razor Edge now increases Shiv damage by 4% per point.
---Weakening Blast no longer has an Energy cost.
---Lingering Toxins is a new Tier 6 skill that reduces damage taken from periodic effects and gives Corrosive Dart and Corrosive Grenade a chance to apply a weaker version of the same effect when they end (even if they are cleansed). *UPDATED 3/29*
---Vanish has been replaced by Escape Plan, which now additionally reduces the cooldown of Escape. *UPDATED 3/29*
-Sniper
--Due to changes to the Sniper skill trees, Snipers have had their skill points refunded.
--Shatter Shot now additionally inflicts trauma, reducing all healing the target receives by 20% for 9 seconds.
---This will be a very nice, very handy addition to PvP both as a Sniper and in terms of cutting down how powerful healers are.
--Marksmanship
---Imperial Assassin is now a 3-point skill that provides the same overall effect.
---Siege Bunker is a new 2-point skill located in Tier 6 of the skill tree that reduces damage taken from area attacks by 60% while Entrench is active. This change allows the Marksman to remain in cover more often in situations that force other classes to rapidly change locations.
----It sounds like this is meant to allow Snipers to use Entrench as a get-out-of-mechanic-free defensive cooldown, and while I understand the impetus (actually, I'm betting this is in response to a lot of people bitching on the forums) watering down boss mechanics that requires mobility waters down the game in general and is not a good direction to go. I would have rather see more stuff like Calculated Pursuit (or how it is now anyways)--ie talents or abilities that allow cover-only abilities to be used out of cover in order to keep using these abilities for a short duration while repositioning.
---Snap Shot's tooltip now correctly mentions that its effect cannot occur more than once every 6 seconds. Functionality has not changed.
---Sniper Volley has been redesigned. It now triggers from dealing damage with rifles and increases Alacrity and energy regeneration for 10 seconds. This effect cannot occur more than once every 30 seconds.
----Holy crap, a reason to take Sniper Volley!
--Engineering
---Calculated Pursuit has been redesigned. It is now located in Tier 4 of the skill tree and makes Overload Shot cost no energy for 6 seconds after leaving cover.
---EMP Discharge's range has been increased to 60 meters.
---Plasma Probe has been improved. It has new visual effects and now deals more of its damage in the first few seconds and snares affected targets. If the initial hit strikes a target affected by your Interrogation Probe, that target is stunned for 2 seconds.
---Stroke of Genius is now located in Tier 2 of the skill tree.
---Interrogation Probe's cooldown now resets if a target is defeated while under its effects. *UPDATED 3/29*
--Lethality (Sniper)
---Corrosive Microbes now functions correctly.
---Cull now costs 25 Energy (down from 30). The weapon damage component of this ability has been reduced by approximately 15%, but poison damage remains unchanged.
----Last time I talked to Ginnai about this he didn't think that it was a strong enough nerf to Lethality to be worried about it.
---Hold Your Ground's cooldown reduction for Cover Pulse has been reduced to 2.5 seconds per point.
---Lethality now increases critical change by 1% per point.
---Razor Edge now increases Shiv's damage by 4% per point.
---Razor Rounds now increases the critical chance of Cull and Series of Shots by 4% per point.
---Targeted Demolition now correctly requires Corrosive Grenade.
---Weakening Blast no longer has an Energy cost.
----Sounds like Cull will still consume Weakening Blast charges, so again it looks like there's not much of an appreciable nerf to Lethality.
---Lingering Toxins is a new Tier 6 skill that reduces damage taken from periodic effects and gives Corrosive Dart and Corrosive Grenade a chance to apply a weaker version of the same effect when they end (even if they are cleansed). *UPDATED 3/29*
---Vanish has been replaced by Hold Your Ground, which now additionally reduces the cooldown of Escape. *UPDATED 3/29*
Smuggler
-General
--Dirty Kick can now be used while moving.
--Players can now "Crouch" (but not roll into cover) while immobilized.
--Smugglers can no longer be pushed out of cover via the "cover integrity" mechanic, which has been removed from the game.
-Gunslinger
--Due to changes to the Gunslinger skill trees, Gunslingers have had their skill points refunded.
--Flourish Shot now additionally inflicts trauma, reducing all healing the target receives by 20% for 9 seconds.
--Saboteur
---Hot Pursuit has been redesigned. It is now located in Tier 4 of the skill tree and makes Quick Shot cost no Energy for 6 seconds after leaving cover.
---Incendiary Grenade has been improved. It now deals more of its damage in the first few seconds and snares affected targets. If the initial hit strikes a target affected by your Shock Charge, that target is stunned for 2 seconds.
---Pandemonium is now located in Tier 2 of the skill tree.
---Sabotage's range has been increased to 60 meters.
---Shock Charge now resets its cooldown if the target is defeated while under its effects. *UPDATED 3/29*
--Sharpshooter
---Burst Volley has been redesigned. It now triggers from dealing damage with blasters and increases Alacrity and Energy regeneration for 10 seconds. This effect cannot occur more than once every 30 seconds.
---Deadeye is now a 3-point skill that provides the same overall effect.
---Holed Up is a new 2-point skill located in Tier 6 of the skill tree that reduces damage taken from area attacks by 60% while Hunker Down is active. This change allows the Sharpshooter to remain in cover more often in situations that force other classes to rapidly change locations.
---Snap Shot's tooltip now correctly mentions that its effect cannot occur more than once every 6 seconds. Functionality has not changed.
--Dirty Fighting (Gunslinger)
---Bombastic now correctly requires Shrap Bomb.
---Hemorrhaging Blast no longer has an Energy cost.
---Hold Your Ground's cooldown reduction for Pulse Detonator has been reduced to 2.5 seconds per point.
---Holdout Defense now increases Blaster Whip damage by 4% per point.
---No Holds Barred now increases critical chance by 1% per point.
---Reopen Wounds now increases the critical chance of Wounding Shots and Speed Shot by 4% per point.
---Wounding Shots now costs 25 Energy (down from 30). The weapon damage component of this ability has been reduced by approximately 15%, but bleeding damage remains unchanged.
---Nice Try is a new Tier 6 skill that reduces damage taken from periodic effects and gives Vital Shot and Shrap Bomb a chance to apply a weaker version of the same effect when they end (even if they are cleansed). *UPDATED 3/29*
---Quick Getaway has been replaced by Hold Your Ground, which additionally reduces the cooldown of Escape. *UPDATED 3/29*
-Scoundrel
--Due to changes to the Scoundrel skill trees, Scoundrels have had their skill points refunded.
--Back Blast now has a 12-second cooldown and deals approximately 5% more damage.
--Diagnostic Scan's tooltip now displays the full amount healed over its duration.
--Shoot First now has a 7.5-second cooldown.
--Tranquilizer now gives an appropriate error message if used on Droids.
--Upper Hand no longer triggers a "grunt" sound effect when it occurs.
--Sawbones
---Emergent Emergencies now additionally increases the maximum stack limit of Upper Hand by 1.
---Healing Hand now also increases the duration of Upper Hand by 2 seconds per point.
---Homegrown Pharmacology now additionally reduces the Energy cost of Kolto Cloud by 2 per point.
---Kolto Cloud has been rebalanced. It now has a 15-second cooldown, heals over 6 seconds, and heals for approximately 10% more than before.
---Patient Studies now additionally increases the speed at which Diagnostic Scan channels by 15% per point.
--Scrapper
---Brawler's Grit is now a 2-point skill.
---Flanking is a new 1-point skill located in Tier 3 of the skill tree. It reduces the Energy cost of Back Blast by 5.
---K.O. no longer experiences a delay in its knockdown effect.
---Sawed Off now increases the damage dealt by Back Blast. It is now located in Tier 5 of the skill tree and requires Flanking.
---Sucker Punch now costs 10 Energy (down from 15) and deals approximately 10% less damage.
---Turn the Tables has been redesigned and is now a 2-point skill. It no longer increases damage dealt to bleeding targets, but increases the Energy gained by Pugnacity and the damage dealt by Sucker Punch and Flying Fists.
---Underdog no longer increases Energy gained by Pugnacity. This effect is now part of Turn the Tables.
--Dirty Fighting (Scoundrel)
---Hemorrhaging Blast no longer has an Energy cost.
---Holdout Defense now increases Blaster Whip damage by 4% per point.
---No Holds Barred now increases critical chance by 1% per point.
---Nice Try is a new Tier 6 skill that reduces the damage taken from periodic effects and gives Vital Shot and Shrap Bomb a chance to apply a weaker version of the same effect when they end (even if they are cleansed). *UPDATED 3/29*
---Quick Getaway has been replaced by Smuggled Defense, which additionally reduces the cooldown of Escape. *UPDATED 3/29*
To distinguish the patch notes from my commentary, all the original patch notes are in italics and my own comments will be in bold.
Imperial Agent
-General
--Players can now "Crouch" (but not roll into cover) while immobilized.
---This is a desperately needed fix, and will make IAs and Smugglers harder to kill in PvP.
--Agents can no longer be pushed out of cover via the "cover integrity" mechanic, which has been removed from the game.
-Operative
--Due to changes to Operative skill trees, Operatives have had their skill points refunded.
--Backstab now has a 12-second cooldown and deals approximately 5% more damage.
--Hidden Strike now has a 7.5-second cooldown.
--Sleep Dart now gives an appropriate error message if used on Droids.
--Tactical Advantage no longer triggers a "grunt" sound effect when it occurs.
--Concealment
---Culling has been redesigned and is now a 2-point skill. It no longer increases damage dealt to poisoned targets, but increases the Energy gained by Stim Boost and the damage dealt by Laceration and Collateral Strike.
---Inclement Conditioning is now a 2-point skill.
---Flanking is a new 1-point skill located in Tier 3 of the skill tree. It reduces the Energy cost of Backstab by 5.
---Laceration now costs 10 Energy (down from 15) and deals approximately 10% less damage.
Meticulously Kept Blades no longer increases Energy gained by Stim Boost. This effect is now part of Culling.
---Waylay now increases the damage dealt by Backstab. It is now located in Tier 5 of the skill tree and requires Flanking.
--Medicine
---Medical Consult now also increases the duration of Tactical Advantage by 2 seconds per point.
---Medical Therapy now additionally reduces the Energy cost of Recuperative Nanotech by 2 per point.
---Patient Studies now additionally increases the speed at which Diagnostic Scan channels by 15% per point.
---Recuperative Nanotech has been rebalanced. It now has a 15-second cooldown, heals over 6 seconds, and heals for approximately 10% more than before.
----This sounds like a pretty big buff to Operative healing.
---Surgical Precision now additionally increases the maximum stack limit of Tactical Advantage by 1.
--Lethality (Operative)
---Corrosive Microbes now functions correctly.
---Lethality now increases critical chance by 1% per point.
---Razor Edge now increases Shiv damage by 4% per point.
---Weakening Blast no longer has an Energy cost.
---Lingering Toxins is a new Tier 6 skill that reduces damage taken from periodic effects and gives Corrosive Dart and Corrosive Grenade a chance to apply a weaker version of the same effect when they end (even if they are cleansed). *UPDATED 3/29*
---Vanish has been replaced by Escape Plan, which now additionally reduces the cooldown of Escape. *UPDATED 3/29*
-Sniper
--Due to changes to the Sniper skill trees, Snipers have had their skill points refunded.
--Shatter Shot now additionally inflicts trauma, reducing all healing the target receives by 20% for 9 seconds.
---This will be a very nice, very handy addition to PvP both as a Sniper and in terms of cutting down how powerful healers are.
--Marksmanship
---Imperial Assassin is now a 3-point skill that provides the same overall effect.
---Siege Bunker is a new 2-point skill located in Tier 6 of the skill tree that reduces damage taken from area attacks by 60% while Entrench is active. This change allows the Marksman to remain in cover more often in situations that force other classes to rapidly change locations.
----It sounds like this is meant to allow Snipers to use Entrench as a get-out-of-mechanic-free defensive cooldown, and while I understand the impetus (actually, I'm betting this is in response to a lot of people bitching on the forums) watering down boss mechanics that requires mobility waters down the game in general and is not a good direction to go. I would have rather see more stuff like Calculated Pursuit (or how it is now anyways)--ie talents or abilities that allow cover-only abilities to be used out of cover in order to keep using these abilities for a short duration while repositioning.
---Snap Shot's tooltip now correctly mentions that its effect cannot occur more than once every 6 seconds. Functionality has not changed.
---Sniper Volley has been redesigned. It now triggers from dealing damage with rifles and increases Alacrity and energy regeneration for 10 seconds. This effect cannot occur more than once every 30 seconds.
----Holy crap, a reason to take Sniper Volley!
--Engineering
---Calculated Pursuit has been redesigned. It is now located in Tier 4 of the skill tree and makes Overload Shot cost no energy for 6 seconds after leaving cover.
---EMP Discharge's range has been increased to 60 meters.
---Plasma Probe has been improved. It has new visual effects and now deals more of its damage in the first few seconds and snares affected targets. If the initial hit strikes a target affected by your Interrogation Probe, that target is stunned for 2 seconds.
---Stroke of Genius is now located in Tier 2 of the skill tree.
---Interrogation Probe's cooldown now resets if a target is defeated while under its effects. *UPDATED 3/29*
--Lethality (Sniper)
---Corrosive Microbes now functions correctly.
---Cull now costs 25 Energy (down from 30). The weapon damage component of this ability has been reduced by approximately 15%, but poison damage remains unchanged.
----Last time I talked to Ginnai about this he didn't think that it was a strong enough nerf to Lethality to be worried about it.
---Hold Your Ground's cooldown reduction for Cover Pulse has been reduced to 2.5 seconds per point.
---Lethality now increases critical change by 1% per point.
---Razor Edge now increases Shiv's damage by 4% per point.
---Razor Rounds now increases the critical chance of Cull and Series of Shots by 4% per point.
---Targeted Demolition now correctly requires Corrosive Grenade.
---Weakening Blast no longer has an Energy cost.
----Sounds like Cull will still consume Weakening Blast charges, so again it looks like there's not much of an appreciable nerf to Lethality.
---Lingering Toxins is a new Tier 6 skill that reduces damage taken from periodic effects and gives Corrosive Dart and Corrosive Grenade a chance to apply a weaker version of the same effect when they end (even if they are cleansed). *UPDATED 3/29*
---Vanish has been replaced by Hold Your Ground, which now additionally reduces the cooldown of Escape. *UPDATED 3/29*
Smuggler
-General
--Dirty Kick can now be used while moving.
--Players can now "Crouch" (but not roll into cover) while immobilized.
--Smugglers can no longer be pushed out of cover via the "cover integrity" mechanic, which has been removed from the game.
-Gunslinger
--Due to changes to the Gunslinger skill trees, Gunslingers have had their skill points refunded.
--Flourish Shot now additionally inflicts trauma, reducing all healing the target receives by 20% for 9 seconds.
--Saboteur
---Hot Pursuit has been redesigned. It is now located in Tier 4 of the skill tree and makes Quick Shot cost no Energy for 6 seconds after leaving cover.
---Incendiary Grenade has been improved. It now deals more of its damage in the first few seconds and snares affected targets. If the initial hit strikes a target affected by your Shock Charge, that target is stunned for 2 seconds.
---Pandemonium is now located in Tier 2 of the skill tree.
---Sabotage's range has been increased to 60 meters.
---Shock Charge now resets its cooldown if the target is defeated while under its effects. *UPDATED 3/29*
--Sharpshooter
---Burst Volley has been redesigned. It now triggers from dealing damage with blasters and increases Alacrity and Energy regeneration for 10 seconds. This effect cannot occur more than once every 30 seconds.
---Deadeye is now a 3-point skill that provides the same overall effect.
---Holed Up is a new 2-point skill located in Tier 6 of the skill tree that reduces damage taken from area attacks by 60% while Hunker Down is active. This change allows the Sharpshooter to remain in cover more often in situations that force other classes to rapidly change locations.
---Snap Shot's tooltip now correctly mentions that its effect cannot occur more than once every 6 seconds. Functionality has not changed.
--Dirty Fighting (Gunslinger)
---Bombastic now correctly requires Shrap Bomb.
---Hemorrhaging Blast no longer has an Energy cost.
---Hold Your Ground's cooldown reduction for Pulse Detonator has been reduced to 2.5 seconds per point.
---Holdout Defense now increases Blaster Whip damage by 4% per point.
---No Holds Barred now increases critical chance by 1% per point.
---Reopen Wounds now increases the critical chance of Wounding Shots and Speed Shot by 4% per point.
---Wounding Shots now costs 25 Energy (down from 30). The weapon damage component of this ability has been reduced by approximately 15%, but bleeding damage remains unchanged.
---Nice Try is a new Tier 6 skill that reduces damage taken from periodic effects and gives Vital Shot and Shrap Bomb a chance to apply a weaker version of the same effect when they end (even if they are cleansed). *UPDATED 3/29*
---Quick Getaway has been replaced by Hold Your Ground, which additionally reduces the cooldown of Escape. *UPDATED 3/29*
-Scoundrel
--Due to changes to the Scoundrel skill trees, Scoundrels have had their skill points refunded.
--Back Blast now has a 12-second cooldown and deals approximately 5% more damage.
--Diagnostic Scan's tooltip now displays the full amount healed over its duration.
--Shoot First now has a 7.5-second cooldown.
--Tranquilizer now gives an appropriate error message if used on Droids.
--Upper Hand no longer triggers a "grunt" sound effect when it occurs.
--Sawbones
---Emergent Emergencies now additionally increases the maximum stack limit of Upper Hand by 1.
---Healing Hand now also increases the duration of Upper Hand by 2 seconds per point.
---Homegrown Pharmacology now additionally reduces the Energy cost of Kolto Cloud by 2 per point.
---Kolto Cloud has been rebalanced. It now has a 15-second cooldown, heals over 6 seconds, and heals for approximately 10% more than before.
---Patient Studies now additionally increases the speed at which Diagnostic Scan channels by 15% per point.
--Scrapper
---Brawler's Grit is now a 2-point skill.
---Flanking is a new 1-point skill located in Tier 3 of the skill tree. It reduces the Energy cost of Back Blast by 5.
---K.O. no longer experiences a delay in its knockdown effect.
---Sawed Off now increases the damage dealt by Back Blast. It is now located in Tier 5 of the skill tree and requires Flanking.
---Sucker Punch now costs 10 Energy (down from 15) and deals approximately 10% less damage.
---Turn the Tables has been redesigned and is now a 2-point skill. It no longer increases damage dealt to bleeding targets, but increases the Energy gained by Pugnacity and the damage dealt by Sucker Punch and Flying Fists.
---Underdog no longer increases Energy gained by Pugnacity. This effect is now part of Turn the Tables.
--Dirty Fighting (Scoundrel)
---Hemorrhaging Blast no longer has an Energy cost.
---Holdout Defense now increases Blaster Whip damage by 4% per point.
---No Holds Barred now increases critical chance by 1% per point.
---Nice Try is a new Tier 6 skill that reduces the damage taken from periodic effects and gives Vital Shot and Shrap Bomb a chance to apply a weaker version of the same effect when they end (even if they are cleansed). *UPDATED 3/29*
---Quick Getaway has been replaced by Smuggled Defense, which additionally reduces the cooldown of Escape. *UPDATED 3/29*
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