This weekend I have been mostly playing…..

Ive decided that every Monday will be this post.  This weekend I have been mostly playing: Lord of the Rings Online.

 

Since the free week we had a while back ive been pottering about Middle Earth a little.  As I said to Mrs B “Theres nothing actually wrong with the game, I never got burnt out with it, I just moved on to other games I had my eye on.  It seems to be the game I turn to when I get burn out from OTHER games.

 

Well the recent stoppage in playing has basically come about as im finding WAR less fun than I wanted it to be.  My subs have lapsed and will be staying that way unless something takes my fancy.  Again theres nothing WRONG with WAR really, if im in the guild group for RvR its fun, ill let it settle down a little then play some more I think.
Anyway back to LOTRO.  Having stopped before Moria was released I am a little behind the curve so to speak, I stopped with my Guardian at 46!  Well some mad levelling skills and a purchase of the Moria expansion now puts me close to 51.  The world itself is what keeps me hooked in Middle Earth, I love Tolkein.

 

So this weekend I managed to get Mrs B to play!  We dinged her Minstrel 44 and fired out some of the fellowship quests before she turned to make an RK last night.  I thought RK was the best way to entice her back and it seems to be working she hit level 10 in about an hour! That’s quick! I remade my champion and it mustve taken me 2 days to get that, maybe because I get distracted by anything shiny and run off to look at it though who knows.

 

The tank rot has set in with me again though.  I remember when I first started LOTRO I spent a little time umming over a champion or a guardian.  I picked Guardian.  I wish now I went for champ.  Right now I don’t think I have the want to tank again.  I play games to get away from stress and pressure.  If you need to know the instance inside and out to tank then is it fun?  Part of me says yes as you are still playing the game and tanking is actually (in my eyes) easier than anything else.  With a simple tank and spank mob you literally grab aggro, turn the mob and tank.  That’s it!  DPS needs to worry about tail swipes, cleaves etc but not me, as long as im doing ym job then fine.

But having to know the instance inside out is what gets me, I hate that feeling of not wanting to tank anything for anyone as I don’t want to make one mistake and be labelled a bad tank.

I think the test for me on this will be the 3 man instances, we can go in around 51/52 so if I can get Huns minstrel up then we can play with an old Kin mate who is about to see how my tanking goes.

 

So Mrs B hit 44 and 10

I hit 50 and 15.

 

Also hit Grand Master Farmer, just Supreme to go, no real point to it but it’s a good distraction.

Ho hum another reformat for me

Last night my PC got hit with a Trojan, having dealt with numerous of these over my time with computers it came as no shock and I moved into disaster mitigation mode.  

After yanking  my network cable out so I don’t have the chance of infecting the other machines on the network I set to work cleaning it off.

 

Except this one was a stubborn bugger, I got rid of the executable files but I could not for the life of me find the registry entry for it.  After attempting to have a system restore only for the little bugger to lock me up every time I open it I turned to the old fallback.  A reformat of my hard drive.

 

For most people this would be a big thing, you will lose all of your data including pictures and documents.  But im lucky, my PC is a gaming PC, used for ONLINE gaming only.  There are no single player saves, no soppy pictures, no documents for work or anything.  So I formatted and reinstalled XP, booted her up and got back to the grind of driver installation.

 

Within an hour of the reformat I was back on WAR (copied the whole directory across from Mrs Bs PC).

 

LOTRO I left downloading overnight and installed this morning, should be patched by tonight.

 

In a way im kind of glad I got hit with it, I really needed to do some housekeeping on my PC anyway, now I don’t need to… I got a whole new house!

Its Like Herding Cats!

The above is a term which is banded about a fair bit when talking about leading a PUG warband.  I have had some pain when IN a warband but have really refrained from leading one due to this fact.

 

Last night I logged into WAR and joined the alliance only warband who was busy pushing for zone locks.  We managed to take down Shining Way and we began to work on Reikland.  All of a sudden the WB leader disconnected and couldn’t get back in.  “You are now leader of the warband”  awwwww crap.

 

However it was actually ok, people listened, I shoved down waypoints in WARCommander and led our warband for a flank attack on an Order controlled Battle Objective which we eventually took from the warband defending.

 

We pushed into Reikwald but time was getting on for me so I had to leave them to it.  I hope we did smash Altdorf yesterday as we had all 3 forts going at once at one point.  Defence at Reikwald seemed light.

 

I also managed to push myself into Master Farmer on LOTRO, I really like the farming as a bit of a time waster, if you have 10 mins you can easily farm a field whilst reading the internet or listening to a podcast.  Its great.

 

Plan for today will be to totally finish the master level and maybe some more RvR in WAR.

Artisan Farmer!

Not a lot was going on in WAR last night, plus I was coming off early to go watch the Deadliest Warrior on TV so I spent a little time in LOTRO raising my farming skill.

I really like the crafting in LOTRO, its not as involved as some but it’s a lot better than most games.  In the case of farming I got some seeds, some water and some fertiliser and headed over to the farm fields.  First you must grow your crop, once done you harvest it.  Most of the time you will get usable crops and unusable crops.  The usuable you turn into the end product, the unusable you turn back into seeds…. What a cool system!

I pretty much always make a provisioner character of some description whenever I play these games and my guardian was no different.

I spent the evening growing Onions and managed to finish my whole level out and become an Artisan farmer, next up are Strawberry fields which I need special water and fertiliser for, methinks ill need to research where to get that from, ill try Bree.

 

Depending on whats happening in game ill either be playing WAR or LOTRO tonight, I would quite like to raise my crafting skills even further, but if theres RvR on the agenda then ill be doing that.

 

Rock on peeps.

Lack of updates due to holiday!

I had two weeks off of work and didn’t find the time to update any of this, well now is the time.

 

I rejoined The Merry Men briefly but have recently disbanded the guild completely.  Most of the TMM guys joined Rage another alliance guild. I was lucky enough to be offered co-GM of Rage so took the opportunity and so Hun and I both joined. I ran in a guild group last night for RvR and it was the most FUN ive had in Warhammer for a good while.  Group was: Zealot, Zealot, Chosen(Me), Blackguard, Sorc, Choppa.  Most of the time I was floating swapping guard amongst the squishies, once they were secure id join the train and we would drop targets.  AWESOME FUN!  This is what its all about.

 

Rage also left our old alliance, it was slowly growing stagnant and we all knew it was at an end, my only hope is that Delirium can find their way to this alliance too as they are the other main guild that was alive and I love those guys.

 

 

I have also resubbed to LOTRO and bought Moria.  It’s a great fun game, and im happily levelling my artefact weapon things.  It still looks as good as ever and I do enjoy it a lot.  Right now though im trying to find the best time to play as im now more engrossed in WAR.  I think the best bet is to play for a little when I get in then settle down after the kids are in bed for WAR.

 

Ill hopefully update more often now im back at work, I really should do this from home when I get in so I can include screens… ah well.

TMM transfer leadership :(

Its been a while since I did an update, that’s due to the sheer amount of work im cracking through at the moment.

 

However heres a few notes:

 

I transferred guild leadership over to one of my alts in Warhammer and joined another one of the alliance guilds, it may just be a case of the grass is greener but I miss The Merry Men already on him.  In the meantime ive been recruiting like mad and have gathered a few more guys to our banner, most are lower level but im trying.  If they all seem like they want to stay then ill probably transfer back.

 

Lost Vale was actually pretty good this week, we had an off tank for the first time which was so amazing to see the dungeon done with one.  Gorak was one shotted for the first time ever, so much easier, I still reckon its faster to single tank the whole thing but this way is safer.

 

Not done a lot else in gaming, haven’t played much WoW as a friend is using my account at the moment before he re-subs his own.

 

Ive downloaded the LOTRO client but not installed or patched yet, its free to play at the moment, ill try to get some time since it may still be worth a sniff.

 

Not played any more Runes of Magic, but this is F2P anyway and I can dip in and out as needed.

 

I also bought the new Blood Bowl PC game, I own Blood Bowl in its board game format and actually love the game to death, finally I can play a decent version of it online.

At the moment im playing with my Chaos team which is obliterating allcomers but my Warriors aren’t earning the SPP I want them too so most are lacking my fave skill, Block!

However im doing well having just won the first competition so carrying on.

Ive also got my human team side project, I really like the human team as you can really adapt depending on whom you are playing, against hard hitting teams, play the passing and running game, against the quick teams play the powerhouse.  Love it!

Borgeo’s Chosen Tank Guide V1.0

Borgeos Chosen Tank Guide – PvE

Hi guys,  first off why am I even writing this guide?  Well ive been a tank on most MMOs and have played a Chosen extensively as my main in this one and I have seen the occasional scrub tank.  This guide will be aimed at Chosen but im sure Blackguards and Black Orcs may be able to take certain things away from it.

 What is a Tank

A tank is, I would say, the most important member of the group, without a solid tank you will be going nowhere fast.  You have to be unselfish in that you must forgo seeing the “big numbers” for the greater good, that being the ultimate destruction of your foe(s).

Coming from Everquest I have the old school mindset of tanks that I am the leader, the pace setter and the mediator for the group.

The first thing I will say is that if you are going to tank anything, at least have the decency to check up on it first.

There is nothing worse than a tank whos first time it is in the instance who hasn’t bothered to even read up on anything to do with it, be it looking at a map, checking boss tactics or special trash events (LV)

Obviously guild and alliance runs are more forgiving on pace but a standard PUG who have done the instance multiple times will be looking for a tank who can accelerate them through it.

 What is my role

I apply these rules whilst tanking:

1)      Keep the mobs beating on me

2)      Stay alive or 1) goes out the window

That’s it, if the mobs are on you, you will win.

There are a few ways to sustain 1, and some to help 2

First off ill show you the new Chosen tank spec, this is a recent (as of last patch) spec which cuts away some of the talents from the corruption tree in favour of some discord.

http://www.wardb.com/career.aspx?id=13#7:128:7:128:9:512:25:8353:504::8362::::8371:8372:8373:613

(This is at RR0, at RR40 stick the point in quake, Im a biff and cant remember how to get the career builder to do it.)

Bit of a weird spec and only 8 points in our tanking tree!!!!  I can explain!

Back in the day a heavy corruption build was the way forward, Oppression mixed in with Crippling Strikes led to a lot of reduced damage however the bonuses no longer stack.

Therefore it was my decision to lose out on Oppression to keep crippling strikes and the bonuses to the Dread Auras.

A quick explanation of tree choices:

Crippling Strikes: I opted to keep this over Oppression as it appears earlier in the tree for a flat 25% reduction when I crit, I hover my crit around 10% when tanking so this is up more or less when it needs to be.

Mixed Defences:  Chosen are a parry tank at the end of the day, this is one of the better tactics we have, with this and suppression, your parry will be boosted very high.

Quake:  The staple crowd control knockdown, still too useful to pass up.

Tactics

Crippling Strikes: See Above

Mixed Defences: See Above

Menace: Tanking rule 1 applies here, more threat = more mobs beating on you!

Flawless Armour:  In the past ive lambasted this talent for not doing what the tooltip says.  Guess what?  Its fixed.  It is now a 10% decrease in chance to be crit.  The tooltip is still bugged but it works. 

The synergy between these tactic choices is immense, the only real downside is the lack of Power from the Gods which means you really do have to manage your AP.  However your morale choices cushion this a bit.

Morales

My choices for morales are the following:

 1: Inevitable Changing

2. Tzeentches Amplification

3. Sprout Carapace

4. Immaculate Defence

Now some of these are questionable over others so feel free to swap them out, in particular 2 and 3.

1. Take for the AP refill only, very helpful
2. Either Shield wall or this, however I prefer this as if you aren’t taking damage you aren’t getting the aggro from guard, id rather take a massive 8k heal as that’s more threat for me!
3. Again taken for the AP regen, however you might want to consider taking the 50% damage reduction instead
4. Quite simply the most amazing Morale ever.

Auras

I use twister to help me twist 3 auras constantly and I would recommend getting it as Chosen are ALLLLLLL about the auras.

The three I pretty much twist without change are:

Dreadful Fear: More Str for me, less for them

Discordant Instability: Resists buff/debuff

Dreadful Fear: Constant AOE damage = constant aoe threat.

Some may argue over using Corrupting Wrath but honestly its not worth it and ill explain why in a moment.

Tanking Stats

Of the normal stats only two are overly useful for the tanking Chosen in PvE.

Wounds and Initiative.

But Borg! What about the tanking stat!! Toughness! 

I say screw your toughness, it’s a great stat in RvR where your average person is putting out 250dps and you can reduce that by 100dps actually making a dent.

Against a boss hitting you for 5k, its not worth it, better off being at wounds cap and having enough initiative to not be crit than reduce his dps by 100 (when its around 2.5k already)

Other stats to stack:

A bit of melee crit for crippling strikes procs.

Block!  Honestly, ive currently got my block just over 30%.  Reason being is you want those mixed defences procs,  at least that way you can easily have 90% block+parry.

Parry: Anything left can go here.

 

How to Tank Trash

Im not going to teach you to suck eggs but ill let you know my rotation for Trash.  Most of the time ill take out Flawless Armour in favour of Power from the Gods, the extra AP is needed for holding aggro on Multiple mobs.

Ok usually I will target the mob I think I need to build most threat on, most of the time this will be the mob that needs to get burnt first.

Open with a taunt on this mob, wait for the whole pack to close distance then Quake, hit Blast Wave, and start cycling auras.  Hit challenge to hold them all.  Use Supression on the main mob, then tab through each hitting ravage for extra threat.  Refresh each AOE as they come up.

That’s really it.

 

How to Tank Bosses

Some bosses have crazy mechanics where you need to hold things back, but a basic tank and spank boss I use this rotation.

(Flawless Armour now slotted so low AP regen)

Open with Taunt, hit Blastwave then Supression.  If melee dps are in the group hit Tooth, if not wait out Supression again, keep cycling auras and refresh Taunt.  

The key thing to keep up over everything else is Suppression, an extra 25% chance to parry is huge.

Closing Points

The Key things in my mind when building a good tank suit is that you have enough HP to survive (aim for 10k with liniment as a base) and that you can become uncrittable with Flawless Armour.  Be sure to ask any Zealot you group with for the Init buff and not Str (doesn’t stack with aura anyway)

The main thing killing tanks in instances are crits, I used to get crit a lot!  And it was the crits taking me out when they shouldn’t, this puts undue pressure on your healers.  With this new spec ive been told its so much easier to keep my ass up.

Don’t get disheartened by the class and think that Chosen are useless tanks, ive solo tanked everything in the game so far (Sure Nkari isn’t dead yet but im still solo tanking her) so anyone saying Chosen are gimp tanks can go take a running jump.

Ill also add that the tank spec is god damn awful for PvP, get used to respeccing…..

Magus GO HERE!

I dont play aMagus really.  But those who do go here

Making too many plans makes me forget!

Rushing around trying to get a new Hockey stick for the tournament this weekend led me to forget about things I had signed up for in WAR.
Lets start over though, I eventually managed to get a new Hockey Stick and got home quite late.  I immediately jumped onto WoW and went on an Obsidian Sanctum 25 raid.

I must admit my DPS WAS lacking, I really think ill respec now.  Didn’t win anything but the fight….. god how easy, kinda disappointed with it really.

 

I then got reminded that I needed to go tank Lairs for our alliance.. whoops!

 

I got on in enough time to go to Tomb of the Sun.  We managed to down him (interesting mechanic, if your no good at jumping then don’t apply!) he didn’t drop a weapon anyone could use but the pocket item was kinda OP.  15 Secs where your opponent cant Block or Parry….. ouch!  Thank god I only PvE on my tank now!

 

Tonight im debating what ill be doing, Part of me wants to crack out some WoW but I need to go meet the Hockey team around 8.  Maybe I can play for an hour or two then head out.

 

We shall see.

Ding 80… again…

Well not so much again in WoW but again in the fact that im at level cap again.  Yay…….

Still once hitting 80 I worked on my hit gear (which actually involved dumping on a load of my level 70 raid epics again haha) and then went to heroic Utgard Pinnacle… what a way to learn a zone! Heroic!

Well I was top DPS, and second on overall damage (I was dead for the whole 3^rd boss) but won a nice staff.

My main aims are to level my tailoring so that I can make my own gear then just work on getting badges for other pieces.  As soon as my hit is capped ill look at trying to get a raid spot somewhere.

Im considering swapping out of Demonology too into maybe a destro spec again, ill do some number crunching to see how it stacks up.

 

Might not be a Lost Vale run tomorrow now as I have a hockey tournament all weekend.