Bloody Blorc

Felt like a bit of a change, again, so I’ve been playing my Black Orc the last couple of days. He’s only L40/R3X and the last time I had played he was specced for a great weapon, which sucked obviously thanks to no stats to support it. So this time I respecced for a proper tanky shield style and chucked my few renown points into defensive stats. I figured I’d be more useful if I played guardbot and got as much CC as possible, which turned out to be quite correct. I’m no big killer, but I’ve been able to make myself useful and the groups I’ve been in have worked out quite well... Apart from when facing the Order mega zergs, which apparently don’t exist! :P Yet somehow we had AAO all night in every zone yesterday, go figure…

Anyways, I think I am enjoying playing the Black Orc, they’re a pretty solid class, have some great abilities and look mean as foooooook. When it comes to fulfilling a PvP tank role, just looking at the CC options in my current spec I’ve got:

• 2x single target knockbacks
• AoE knockback
• Snare
• Morale single target root
• AoE root
• Knockdown
• Silence
• Morale AoE Silence

Then there’s a load of buffs, debuffs and more, which I must say is pretty damn good really. It is a bit of a shame though that it’s all wrapped up in the hideous plan mechanic that Blorcs and Swordmasters are lumbered with. It’s a system which will always feel like a hindrance rather than something enjoyable to use in itself. Though perhaps if the Blorc had all those abilities available all the time it would be a bit too powerful?

My Chosen in a relative spec has:

• Knockback
• Knockdown
• AoE Stagger
• Snare
• Morale single target root
• AoE root

Certainly it looks like the Blorc is some way ahead, even taking into account that the Chosen's AoE stagger is a particularly potent ability when used well.

Still, using the plan system frustrates me, but as the abilities go off and evil things happen, it pleases me greatly. Oh damn it Mr Blorc Designer Dev Type Person, I can’t work out if the class annoys the shit out of me or smothers me in waaaghy goodness.

/confused

Chosen Mastery Guide for the new 40

As a long term Chosen player, I quite often get people that are new to the career asking me how they should spec. I’m happy to offer advice of course, but I figured it might save me regular repetition if I wrote a little guide how to spec a Chosen. There’s no single and comprehensive answer to the question, because as well as the variables that level and renown throw at you, Chosen are also quite lucky in that they have a lot of viable specs. That said, like pretty much every career in WAR there are an awful lot of abilities within each mastery line that are utterly useless and it almost offends me that my computer is wasting electricity putting their pixels on my screen. :P But I’m not going to dwell on the crap bits, since there’s an excellent selection of decent abilities to choose from.

So moving on… I’m going to write this aimed at level 40/realm rank 40 Chosen and I’m only going to post specs that I have tried out and found useful. Also due to the death of wardb I couldn’t use a career builder to post links, so I’ve nipped onto the test server (because it cost me no gold) and screenshotted a few specs.

Oh and before I get into the specs, one other thing… You will notice that for the RvR specs I ALWAYS take Quake. In my opinion any Chosen not taking Quake for RvR is gimped. It is our single most powerful ability from an overall impact on the battlefield perspective. Yes the stagger will get broken by random AoE, but then if you’re warband is throwing down random AoE and neglecting to use staggers, then frankly it’s a crap warband. And yes, you can’t stop random PuGs breaking it, but then you shouldn’t be always playing near Puggies and if you are, well… how you spec is fairly irrelevant in general. Learn to make the most of Quake’s stagger and you will become twice as potent.

RvR Corruption/Discord (Hard as nails)
Right now I play a great weapon spec, but for the majority of the last year or so I ran with a shield and used an expanded (due to higher renown rank) version of this. It’s my all time favourite spec and without any doubt at some point I will go back to it. It works as an all round pain in the arse to kill and a bit of extra CC (Crowd Control) spec and I found it amazing for taking on multiple players at once, though it really comes into its own from RR50+ where you can get Mixed Defences too.

Key abilities:
Quake – obviously
Downfall – The extra knockdown is really handy and the ability I miss most when not specced (other than Quake)
Oppression – A personal 15% damage reduction from ALL sources and the armour increase make this better than crippling strikes for YOU, it has no effect on anyone else which is where crippling strikes is better. However in RvR Crippling Strikes works best when combined with Rending Blade and since you’ll nearly always have other Chosen nearby applying Crippling Strikes, it’s not essential for everyone.



RvR Dread/Discord (the cookie cutter)
This is probably the single most popular spec for Chosen and for good reason. It combines high damage when using great weapons, increased AoE damage, Quake’s stagger AND turns you into a Crippling Strikes AoE delivery system, which is of great benefit to your fellow Destruction players.

Key abilities:
Quake – duh
Crippling Strikes (tactic) – Anyone you crit will do 25% less damage
Oppressing Blows (tactic) – 15% increased crit chance with great weapons
Rending Blade – Every 5 seconds you can do a cone AoE which will most likely crit and apply Crippling Strikes.



RvR Dread/Discord (anti-magic)
I don’t play this spec very often, but I have tried it, it did work and I know quite a few people use it. The trick to it is combining Tzeentch’s Reflection with Hold the Line and getting your disrupt chance very high (80%+ is easy), since with Tzeentch’s Reflection active every disrupt you do will silence the enemy. Combine that further with Siphoned Energy and you can get a reasonable self heal in some situations, as well as a speed buff. What is important to remember however is because of immunity timers, the silence will not always work. This spec can work very well though as a guard for a bombing Sorcerer.

Key abilities:
Quake – yah rly
Tzeentch’s Reflection – Increased disrupt chance and silence for 10 seconds.
Siphoned Energy – Optional this really, but the aforementioned heals and speed aren’t bad.
Crippling Strikes – Don’t forget Blast Wave for AoE applications.
Dreadful Terror – Draining AP (Action Points) and giving them to your group, which is also nice for those bombing sorcerers.


PvE Dread/Corruption (Maximum Tank)
So this one is a pure PvE spec and needs little explanation. It combines Oppression and Crippling Strikes to provide a total of 40% extra damage reduction and then slaps on a 25% parry increase from Mixed Defences for 5 seconds after you block. Since in PvE you’ll block all the time, this means it’s constantly active.

Key abilities:
Crippling Strikes – Reducing damage taken.
Mixed Defences – Further reducing the damage you take.
Oppression – And yet more…
Downfall – Useful for knocking down certain mobs and for things like the Carrion Phase on boss 1 in Tomb of the Vulture Lord
Dreadful Terror – Nobody complains about extra AP in PvE.

So there you go, I hope it was helpful. These are certainly not the only ways to spec, but they are the ones that I like. Good luck and may your RAVAGE always crit ;)

Lokax posts an interesting idea on tanks

I was having a chat with Lokax the other night and he suggested some ideas of his about further defining the role of defensive tanks by using tactics to improve Taunt and Challenge. He’s got a quick post up on his blog Mmmmm Gud about the idea and I really think he is on to something good there. Go have a butchers and encourage further debate and discussion.

It links into something we were discussing at Gamesday about how it would be much better if Guard only worked if a tank was using a shield. It’s an idea a guildie of mine has often mentioned and when we were asked about our thoughts on it at the weekend (but this time it was raised by someone else) everyone thought it really would be an excellent change if it were to happen.

Further defining and rewarding tanks that play shield specs is something that would be good for the game all round. At present I am great weapon spec again, despite having been a shield tank for over a year and shield being my preferred play style. The problem is since the latest patch the loss in damage and gain in defence is just not worth it, particularly as by using a great weapon I barely lose any of my utility. I do miss my knockdown ability mind you, but the damage gulf really is so huge for a Chosen now that it’s just not enough.

So OI! Lokax! Take this idea further and post more pls ;)

Head Case

I can’t decide which helm I prefer the look of…

I quite like the Invader helm for its retro, classic Chaos styling, yet perhaps it is a little too simple.

The Tyrant helm is a real favourite with the dual horns and intricate carvings.

But there’s something brutal in a cool way about the Dark Promise helm.

I think it’s the different styled eye slot and the off balanced big horn of horniness. Plus it’s the only helm that’s actually in the right scale… So that’s what I’m wearing right now, but that Tyrant helm in particular is very tempting. Oh decisions, decisions!

I must say I still love messing around with the new appearance system; it’s bloody great to see everyone looking so different at last. After much deliberation, other than the helm (and I think I will use the sov belt in one Realm Rank's time) I’ve settled on this as my current look…

Oh so manly! :P

Chosen nudged towards using Great Weapons

Chosen got a broad sweep nerf in the 1.3.6 patch. The resist aura took a heavy hit and since almost every attack we use (certainly the ones worth having) all use spirit damage; it works out as far more than a single ability change. At first it seemed really OMFG bad, but it turned out my armour had bugged somehow and after I removed and re-equipped it all my damage went up a bit. However, having sorted my strangely bugged armour and put a load more time in I have discovered to my disappointment that it’s hit my sword and shield Chosen fairly badly.

If you are wearing lots of sovereign, or use a Great Weapon combined with top end gear to purely maximise your DPS then it’s still good, the damage is lower but not that much. But for a non sovereign shield using Chosen it’s lowered the damage just enough to blunt their edge and outside of CC and debuffs make them feel a bit puny. So much so in fact, that despite me being a huge fan of the sword & shield playstyle and the abilities and specs this allows you to use, I too have respecced and adjusted my gear for using Great Weapons. Instantly I’m back to having the same impact that I did without a Great Weapon prior to 1.3.6. Note that I’m not saying I used to hit as hard with S&B as I do now with a Great Weapon, but the damage was high enough before to feel more of a threat than you can now, it’s about overall impact in RvR.

It’s a bit of a shame really. I do think the resist nerf was a good idea, as its effect on everyone else’s damage was too high, it’s just a pity that the cost turned out to be my favourite playstyle being nerfed a step too far. There should have been something to compensate somehow. It does feel like Mythic either didn't quite get this right, or that they actually want us to be using Great Weapons.

Plus on a purely personal level it has ruined my solo roaming ability, at least until I get the hang of having less options and survivability. Still, it could be worse and I have enjoyed the change of playstyle more than I expected. Not gonna kid myself though, if we get a return to having multiple viable spec and gear options, then I’ll be respeccing shield straight away.

In other news... make sure you watch our new KF WAR vid. KILL FRENZY FRIED CHICKEN!

Sneak peak at new WAR armour graphics

This morning Mythic gave Kill Frenzy special access to the test server for a sneak preview of armour set and graphic improvements coming with the 1.3.5 patch. As you can see below, the Chosen set is quite striking!

I for one can’t wait to see this go live.

Chosen - should you go big hitty git or brick wall style?

I’ve just had another email request, but from someone who didn’t leave a name (Rivs was it you?), saying that they’re dusting off their Chosen and wondered how to spec these days. They’ve been told they should drop the shield and pick up a great weapon, but wanted my advice on this first. I started typing a response which got a bit long for an email, so figured I’d post it on here…
 
Great weapon spec will get you the big numbers and killing blows, but these days you can be just as effective and have more versatility with a shield spec. After a long time playing as just another GW Chosen, I went back to sword and board and tbh I have no plans on changing back to GW.
 
Damage wise you can still do quite well, simply because you can still stack a lot of strength. With my PvP shield gear and auras running (I twist strength, tough and resist normally) I will be running at roughly:
Str 770 (plus about 200 bonus attack power from items)
Tough 820
Wounds 9.5k
Uber skilled players aside, there is nothing I can’t kill 1v1 and I regularly take on multiple players at once on my own and win.
 
I’m at work so can’t link to a wardb spec, but my current spec is like so:
Mastery Points
Corruption – Oppression, Downfall & Mixed Defenses
Discord – Quake & I think the heal debuff aura, though I don’t use it that often unless there’s another chosen in my group.
 
RvR tactics
Rugged, Mixed Defenses, Power from the Gods, Warped Flesh (this is an amazingly good tactic for Chosen)
After the first couple of seconds in a fight you can easily have activated Suppression and Oppression (which you can keep up pretty much constantly), plus Mixed Defenses and Warped Flesh will also kick in. For me this means I’m now running at (from memory…) 34% block, 65% parry, have another 1k armour, have 15% damage reduction on ALL attacks and because of my high tough and armour, warped flesh will completely mitigate an attack every few seconds.
 
So in summary, I’m hitting very hard and am incredibly hard to kill. A GW spec Chosen can not get anywhere near my survivability. Having played both of the Chosen game style for long periods of time, I would say it does take more skill/practice/whatever to be dangerous with sword & board though. It is also much more gear reliant. It’s quite easy to get high strength and crit with great weapons and get those big numbers, but for a sword & board to get decent damage and defensive stats, you will need to be in a minimum of invader/warlord or tyrant/invader.
 
Having said all that, GW spec is still excellent and is certainly easy to do well with, but like anything takes practice and gear to become a proper PvP monster. You can put out some comedy slaughter though, a friend of mine runs with over 50% crit and around 1k strength. He’s an absolute bloody beast, albeit rather squishy if people actually target him.
 
Mastery Points
Dread - Rending Blade, Crippling Stikes and Oppresive Blows
Discord – Quake
Extra points into whatever you fancy.
 
RvR tactics
Rugged, Crippling Strikes, Oppresive Blows and Power from the Gods
Though a lot of people like to use focussed offense for even more damage, personally I don’t like the extra squishiness that this brings.
 
Oh one final thing, if anyone tells you to not take Quake, ignore them. Quake is the single most powerful ability we have. If used cleverly, even with PUGies and their stagger breaking crap, a 9 second cone AoE stagger can be used to shut down enemy healers for long enough to provide the difference in a fight. When soloing it’s the ability that gives you a chance of taking on multiple players, lets you catch kiters and makes you an all round pain in the arse.

Career Coaster

Many careers in WAR have been on a bit of a roller coaster ride since launch. They plummet into the foul depths of nerfdom, rocket skywards to bask in the light of an overpowered sun, only to go down faster than a skint chavette.

Right now with my Chosen I’m in sight of that overpowered sun, not quite getting a healthy tan, but I’m certainly catching enough rays to be very comfortable. I don’t think we’re overpowered yet, personal bias perhaps, but I honestly don’t think so. For me it’s more a case of paper scissors stone; Chosen are a stone and some people playing scissors seem to think that they should cut up everything easily... That and how the good players stand out and the bad ones are forgotten, with a class as popular as Chosen (they look awesome) there are plenty of good players to remember and the mass of crap ones (that’s you Mr Ravage Spammer) just meld into the nameless zerg. It’s when you fear the name of infamously bad players that you’ve got to start worrying about their career. That said, I won’t argue against those saying that a well geared and played Chosen is one of the better careers in WAR right now. However, it wasn’t always like this.

At launch we were excellent RvR Sword & Board tanks, but very poor with great weapons. Then we got nerfed in all manner of ways and combined with (at that point) many bugs, we became known as the worst tank in the game. Things changed over time and with the infamous Rending Blade buff we became overpowered killing machines. We were absolute bloody monsters for a month or two. Then it was Rending Blade’s turn to be nerfed. At the time it was a change I thought killed the spec, but to Mythic’s credit it wasn’t that long before I realised it was a sensible nerf and ate my words. Which roughly leads us to today’s Chosen. As mentioned above, with good gear, a decent spec and a good player, the Chosen is very influential on the battlefield. We can solo well, provide a wide range of group buffs and can contribute very well to both large and small scale RvR. Thing is, we should enjoy it while it lasts, because at some point the nerfbat will come swinging our way again.


Every career is on a roller coaster, but not everyone has a dramatic ride. You’d think that Bright Wizards, Warrior Priests, Sorcerers and Disciples of Khaine would be getting bored looking down at everyone by now. As far as I’m aware they’ve never been anywhere close to average, let alone sub-par. Where as many Marauders, Blackguard, Shadow Warriors and particularly Magus have already got off and strapped themselves into a new ride. Though experience tells us that what goes around, comes around. If you’re riding high, you need to be ready to fall. Look at Ironbreakers for example, still a solid class, but nothing like the invincible death machines they once were.

Every MMO I’ve played has taken us on it’s version of the nerf/buff roller coaster. From Ultima Online onwards (TankMage or MageTamer anyone?) it’s always been the same. I still have nightmares about Enchanters in DAoC... I suppose when you think about how every MMO seems to have this, perhaps its understandable that a game like WAR is not going to break the mould anytime soon. With so many careers and the focus on PvP combat, career balancing is not a job I’d fancy.


Plus we, as players, are so often blinded by the shortcomings of our own character, would we recognise a balanced game if we found one? We’d probably just whinge that everything’s too samey.

Classic vid doing the rounds again

This was made (not by me, I'm pony at making videos) after a well respected Chosen from the Tainted guild in our alliance was accused of aura exploiting. Made for a classic vid, some of the humour is a bit specific to Karak-Norn, but amusing none the less I'd say ;)

Chosen, great weapon tanks?

Something you can often see being discussed in Chosen class forums is what's better, great weapon or sword and shield. It seems that the majority of players believe that for most situations the great weapon wins. I'd agree too, sort of.

Sure there's loads of situations where you want to be using a shield and there's also plenty of decent specs you can go with, but most of the time (and with the right gear) you'd be better off with a variant of the cookie cutter Dread/Discord mastery spec.

Other than in Fortress or large keep battles (where every extra bit of survivability counts), we're just not really encouraged to use a shield. Unlike the other tanks, Chosen have no abilities that effect block and only have 2 things that even relate to block. Those being an aura with a heal proc on blocks and a tactic that boosts your parry if you block. The Corrupting Retribution aura is so poor it's barely worth having on your action bar, it is truely terrible. The Mixed Defenses tactic is good, but it's boosting parry, not block. Since parry only effects melee, it does not compare with abilities that increase block. Other tank classes all have ways of increasing block chance, which dramatically increases their survivability. Chosen do not have any.

We do however have ways of increasing our parry rate. Supression, a standard trainable ability has a mere 10 sec cooldown and increases our parry rate by 25% for 15 seconds. Also Chosen with great weapons can get very high crit rates, 30+% is easy to reach and with that spec it means you'll be reducing everyone with 30fts damage by 25% with every crit. Since that effect lasts 10 seconds and you'll crit multiple times within that 10 seconds, it's effectively a constant debuff. By stacking strength you can hit very hard for a tank, but you're still able to stack enough toughness and wounds to be difficult to kill. You are squishier of course, by not using a shield you probably missing around 30% block which reduces a lot of damage, but it is nowhere near as bad as people think. With 700-1000 toughness, decent armour value, resists and our parry buffs, a Chosen with a great weapon can still be a tough cookie indeed. BTW you don't need a shield to use the guard ability either.

As such in a lot of situations you might be missing the 30% or so block on frontal attacks, but you've gained a 25% damage reduction on everyone nearby and you're doing a LOT more damage. In this age of bomb groups, that's pretty damn effective.

So why did I only sort of agree?

Maybe I'm a mentalist, but it's a bit dull with a great weapon. Sure you get to see some big numbers, get to actually kill players, are not ignored by enemies, apply an awesome debuff and are generally a very effective uber killing bastard, but... (lol but he says :P ) I like having some of the other abilities that you can't get with a great weapon spec. Things like the silences from Tzeentch reflection (hitting that and hold the line for 85% disrupt and silencing anyone you disrupt is nice...), the stun from Downfall and of course Hold the line. It feels more sort of tanky, if you know what I mean. The problem is at heart we know it's just not as good. I think this is why I change between great weapon and shield specs every single week, like the littlest hobo I just can't settle down.

Perhaps we're meant to be great weapon tanks. After all, Chosen is the only tank without a block buffing ability and our most powerfull damage reducing ability is reliant on critical hits and is from the Dread (great weapon) mastery. Maybe Mythic are telling us something...

Embracing my inner git

Over the last few days I’ve had what could perhaps be an epiphany. I’m going green.

I’ve always liked my Chosen. It looks great, has a solid feel to it and performs well. It’s a good class and I’ve had a lot of enjoyment from playing it. Only recently I was saying how the Chosen would remain my main character and my Choppa would remain just an alt. Wrecka spec was great and all, but it never really grabbed me by the short and curlies. I’m not into playing a class or spec because it’s uber or the current flavour of the month, I just want it to be at least moderately competitive, have a cool appearance and most importantly be a good laugh to play.

As I posted before, this week I hit 40 on my Choppa, but decided to respec away from path of Da’ Wrecka. Sure Da’ Wrecka is the uber Choppa spec of Doom for large scale oRvR and it’s AoE damage in PvE is immense, but I just wasn’t enjoying it enough. No disrespect meant to the VAST amount of people using it, but I was finding it a bit boring. This led to me changing to path of Da’ Hitta and since I’ve had a bit of time off work this week and few evenings free, I managed to get a lot of practice in.

I’ve had an absolute blast.

It’s been immense fun and the playstyle instantly clicked with me. I’m still learning obviously, but already I’m very competitive and had some great fights against some decent players too. It’s not that the Da’ Hitta is stupidly uber or anything, but it seems to be the perfect spec for me. I think a lot of this is because it feels very similar to an Arms spec Warrior from World of Warcraft. I played a Warrior throughout my years in WoW and most of that time I was Arms specced. I went Fury at level 70 in the Burning Crusade, not because of enjoyment, but because fury was so dramatically superior for DPS. Even so, whenever I went PvPing I would respec back to Arms.

All of which gave me a bit of a dilemma. Do I carry on with Bootae (Chosen) as my main character, or switch to Gashface full on? A tougher choice than it may seem, since I've put a lot of time, thought and effort into Bootae's progression. After much pondering and several changes of heart, I've decided to switch to Gashface. I'll still be using Bootae for PvE with my LV group and log him whenever needed in RvR of course, but for general play I'm gettin' to da Choppa.

Chosen - Rending Blade nerfed, Dread mastery ruined again

- Rending Blade: This ability’s tooltip now correctly states that the ability is undefendable. Additionally, this ability’s reuse has increased and the cost has been lowered.

It's a 5 second reuse timer. Bah! :( 1.2 nerfed Chosen's single target DPS to the point of being useless, but with Rending Blade (if we specced for it) we had respectable AoE DPS and the range helped us deal with runners.

It made up for the nerf to Touch of Palsy, Cleave STILL not working and the weakening of all our other single target abilities. This 5 second has now basically killed the Dread tree again. :(

This post by Zaknarakh sums up the problems in each patch perfectly:
http://forums.war-europe.com/warhammeronline/board/message?board.id=choEN&thread.id=20

I don't expect my Chosen to be a top DPSer, but if I spec high in the Dread (DPS) tree, use a great weapon and build my armour up around strength, etc , then I expect my DPS to be pretty good. I have after all sacrificed a lot of survivability to do this and yes I know we're primarily a tank class, but we have the option to use great weapons for a reason. We don't want to go back to them being pointless and everyone speccing Discord again, but that is what's going to happen. Ravage is once again our only ability with any clout at all and that's not what it once was either. :(

What Mythic should have done to Rending Blade was just reduce the size of it's AoE effect to 20ft.

They also need to make Touch of Palsy worth using, it's our level 40 ability for crying out loud. At present as a Chosen you get "Ding 40! Uhm wtf is this shit?"

And for all that's unholy, why is Cleave, our undefendable skill, defendable? And why does it do a LOT worse damage than Ravage, even if you have full Dread and bugger all Discord?

Bloody hell :(

BTW I know I don't normally rant, so sorry :P

Pimped my Chosen, how about you?

I'm a big fan of the armour dye system in WAR. With every piece of armour having 2 different sections that you can change the colours of, it really does mean not everyone has to look the same. The clown vomit armour you had to put up with in Warcraft always pissed me off, it was ok once you had a full set of something and it was properly themed, but then you just looked like everyone else. Coming from games like Ultima and DAoC, I never understood why Blizzard made armour so restricted.

The other beauty with WAR's system is it's not just the customised armour colour to add character to your, uhm, character. You've also of course got guild cloaks and the wide range of trophy choices.

One of the things this is allowing me to do is as I build up a second set of Sentinel armour with different talismans (so I have a tanking set and a PvP set), I have them dyed differently. This way I don't have to check my equipment to see which I have equipped, I can tell soon as my character loads in. Simple little thing, but cool none the less. If I'm wearing Black/Red, then its PvP time :)

So come on my fellow bloggers, lets have a butchers at your characters. What sorta funky armour dye/trophy/cloak themed action you got?

Here's how Bootae looks at the moment:

Chosen gets some (sweet?) loving

It seems Mythic have made some amendments to the 1.2 patch. Quite a few classes effected too: http://herald.warhammeronline.com/warherald/NewsArticle.war?id=652

Chosen stuff being my main concern, lets have a butchers then...

Bug Fixes
· Mixed Defenses: Fixed an issue that made the parry bonus of this ability a multiplicative bonus instead of additive. (cool, BIG improvement to this tactic)
· Repel: Fixed an issue that limited the knockback distance of this ability. (YAY! About time eh!)

Balance Changes
All Chosen have undergone changes and as a result will need to reallocate their Career Mastery Points. Be sure to speak to your trainer right away to regain your abilities!

· Discordant Fluctuation: The base damage on this ability has been increased and will now deal Spiritual damage. The ability will not receive benefits from stats nor will it do critical damage.
· Dreadful Agony: The base damage on this ability has been increased and will now deal Spiritual damage. The ability will not receive benefits from stats nor will it do critical damage.
· Bane Shield: The base damage on this ability has been increased and will now deal Spiritual damage. The ability will no longer receive benefits from stats nor will it do critical damage.
(For all of the above 3 abilities we'll have to see this in action to judge, it might be a buff, might not)

· Touch of Palsy: The value of the barb damage has been increased and will now deal physical damage. The barb will no longer receive benefits from stats and will no longer do critical damage. (On the PTS prior to this change Palsy was god awful, I hope this fixes that. I would expect so as this appears to be Mythic's reaction to feedback on it)
· Tainted Wound: The base damage on this ability has been increased and will now deal Spiritual damage. The ability will not receive benefits from stats nor will it do critical damage. (another wait and see before judging)
· Hasten Dismissal: This tactic is now a level 35 Core tactic. It reduces Repel's cooldown by 50% and turns Repel into a long knockback. (this sounds awesome)
· Corruptive Power: This tactic is available at Corruption x11. All Corruption abilities cost 35% less action points. (this also sounds awesome)
· Baneful Shielding: This is no longer a valid tactic.
· Dire Shielding: This ability will also increase the duration of Bane Shield by 7 seconds.
(Nice one Mythic, merging those 2 tactics frees up a tactic slot for bane heads, which is only a good thing)
· Bane Shield: Multiple Chosen with this ability up will no longer prevent each other from dealing damage to the same target. (good good)
· Oppression: The disorient effect has been removed. This ability will now reduce incoming damage on the Chosen by 15% for 10s. The cost has been lowered on this ability. (woah massive improvement to this ability, corrupting is getting interesting...)
· Rending Blade: No longer requires an active aura to receive a bonus effect. The ability is now a Point-Blank Area of Effect ability that deals Spiritual damage. This ability requires a Great Weapon and no longer has a cooldown. (double woah, if this does respectable damage then Dread is looking much more appealing)
· Relentless: The cost and damage has been increased on this ability. (sounds good)
· Dreadful Fear: The cost of this ability is now free.
· Corrupting Wrath: The cost of this ability is now free.
· Discordant Instability: The cost of this ability is now free.
· Discordant Fluctuation: The cost of this ability is now free.
· Corrupting Retribution: The cost of this ability is now free.
(no such thing as a free lunch, but I'll settle for an aura)


This certainly appears to be a big buff for Chosen. If the damage, avoidance and mitigation improvements are more than just token increases, then for the first time we might have viable mastery specs that do not include Discord. I've had a bit of a play with potential mastery specs with these changes in mind and I can see some interesting Dread/Corruption specs I'm very tempted to try out. My only concern with them is not having Quake from Discord, it's such an awesome ability for RvR, I don't know if I'd like playing without it.

Lets just hope it's as good as it sounds :)

1.2 Patch notes are out!

You can find them over at Mythic's site here.

I'm just digesting them now, nothing that's immediately made me think oh bloody hell.
As you can imagine I leapt straight to the Chosen bits. Here's my thoughts on our changes:

The nerfed
Dire Shielding: This Tactic will no longer cause Bane Shield to stack when multiple Chosen in the same group use the ability.
This ability will now deal Spirit Damage. Additionally, the damage effect on Bane Shield will now only trigger a maximum of once per 2 seconds per character affected
I don't think we could argue that bane shield was a bit over the top. It was always going to get nerfed and there's no point crying about it.

Something that does hit us a bit is I noticed abilities that increase spell build up will no longer effect instants. I dropped Corrupting Horror a few weeks back when I changed to a Discord/Dread mastery spec, but when I did have it I have to admit I was kicking seven shades of turd out of healers rather easily.

Hate from auras which affect all group-mates will now be credited to the individual group members, instead of all to the Chosen themselves.
Threat generating from buff auras is no big deal anyway, so like whatever.


The buffs to mention
Blast Wave: This ability will now deal Spirit Damage. Additionally, this ability will no longer lower the target's resistances, but will instead lower the target's Wounds
Good move, since the resist reduction didn't stack anyway.

Discordant Fluctuation: This ability will now deal more damage. Additionally, the damage effect on Discordant Fluctuation will now only trigger a maximum of once per 2 seconds per character affected.
Increased damage is good. The 2 second thing is fine.

Corrupting Retribution: This ability will now heal for slightly more.
Dreadful Terror: This ability now removes slightly more Action Points from the victims.
Sounds good, I hope "slightly more" equates to a worthwhile amount.

Challenge: This ability no longer requires an enemy target.
This is more of an improvement than people may realise. Small time savers can make the difference in manic fights.


A lot of our stuff has been changed to spirit damage. I'm not sure how much of an effect that will have, only testing them out for real will say I imagine. Also it looks like auras turning off has been sorted out, lets hope it also fixes the times other than zoning. If so.. much rejoicing.


I'm generally of the opinion that Chosen are actually pretty well sorted. I read lots of whinging on various forums, how we can't compete with a squirrel in PvP, that we can't tank anything, blah, blah. Yet I and most of the other Chosen I know have all tanked in places like Bilerot and Lost Vale without difficulty (hell I've even had to step in after a Blorc died and succesfully tank LV bosses with a great weapon equipped). I've not had any problems in RvR of any real note, other than fighting Ironbreakers, but then we're all jealous of IBs :P Sure, ideally I would have liked to see the mechanic for aura twisting improved, the Corruption and Dread mastery paths made more appealing , and have an uber AOE knockback that does 12k damage added.. But like Snort has pointed out for Black Orcs the sky is not actually falling.

For now whilst I'll reserve full judgement until I get to try out the patch, all told I'm fairly happy with the Chosen patches. Could it have been better? Yes. Does it look like Chosen are shite? No. This of course won't be popular with a lot of people and I'm probably therefore a noob, moron, etc for doing fine with my class as is.

Choosing Chosen

I really like the Chosen class in WAR; in fact I’d say it’s my favourite PvP tank class from any MMO I’ve played recently. I like the fact that it’s not a class for personal glory; it’s all about working with your group and being a team player. I can charge straight in to the enemy, chuck on some of my funky debuffing auras, hit people with my 65ft range cone AoE knockdown (the Quake ability from discord mastery, it’s a must have IMO) and start messing with healers and squishy types. I create opportunities for my groups DPS, screw up the enemies healing and generally be a pain in the arse. I might not get the kills, but I can create the winning situation. And crucially, unlike the tedium of WoW’s protection specs, the Chosen remains dangerous enough that the enemy can't really ignore you.
1v1 I have a good chance against most classes, but I’ve got to be on the ball or I’ll pay for it. Also there are some classes that are nigh on impossible assuming an even skilled or better player. Ironbreakers are a real pain… But then all classes have their nemesis. Unless the class I’m fighting is very squishy fights can take a while, but that’s more fun than 1 shot instant kill crap.

Some of fights can be truly epic. I was scrapping a Rune Priest for literally 10 minutes recently; in the end we both saluted each other and went our separate ways, which was actually a kind of cool moment. Of course I realised after that I’d completely forgotten the whole fight to remove his blessings, doh :P

That said, I’ve been rather disappointed with great weapons. I’ve tried them in RvR a few times (with Dread mastery) and I just can’t get on with it. Mainly because the trade off between increased damage and survivability seems nowhere near worth it. In WAR shield blocking is a big deal, without a shield you take a LOT more damage. I did ok with great weapons fighting 1v1, but as soon as I got into warband+ RvR I got battered, it was like playing a squishy. Perhaps it’s a play style thing, or I need to dramatically change my stat balance to make the most of it. In fact I’m building a set of armour based around strength talismans to test this out a bit. I’m using the oRvR influence rewards as they’re all about DPS. The idea is to mainly use this set and a great weapon when a guild group is short of a DPS for an instance, so I could at least half fill the role. But I can’t see this

working for RvR at all.

Before the game released I was planning on playing a great weapon wielding Chosen, so I’d be interested to hear other Chosen player’s thoughts on great weapons.

Great weapons are my only real gripe with Chosen, I really hope they get improved somehow, but regardless it hasn’t diminished my enjoyment of the class to any real extent. It’s an awesome class to play, as long as you’re not too obsessed with epeen stato crap. Chosen also happen to look totally kick arse, which (if you’re a sad git like me) is very important.