WAR Choppa and Slayer Impressions

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The Dwarven Slayer and Greenskin’s Choppa bring a new twist to the melee damage game in Mythic Entertainment’s Warhammer Online. Where you have the Marauder and White Lion who can deal area of effect as a light melee, and you have Witch Elves and Witch Hunters who deal stealth strikes and high single target damage, the Slayer and Choppa each have a more random and more chaotic element.

In my recent hands on, I was shown the abilities of both classes and noticed that while the attacks always hit the intended target, they will sometimes hit an additional enemy or two.

When the idea was described to me, a class that deals damage that’s unpredictable, I got flashes of old Bright Wizards and DAoC’s Savage. The gamer in me took over and directly asked, whether this would be like the DaoC Savage all over again.

Hey, I had to ask right? It’s what a lot of us are thinking (are we learning from our mistakes?). In response, Adam began to tell me his scope for doing the class balance. He wanted the damage done to be consistent, but the randomness to come from the number of people hit. The damage itself from the beserk is more of a dealing damage between 4-6 (on a scale of 10) and not like the Savage and Bright Wizazrd or Sorcerer mechanics which were more like 1-10 where at worst you could either tickle someone for 200 damage or totally annihilate someone for 3000 and instantly kill them.

In terms of the different paths for the new careers, one will focus on great weapons and large hits with you using your bezerk constantly to deal out damage, another path will be more geared toward dual wielding and letting your character “go nuts”, with the final path being a mix of the two play styles.

As the new careers were explained to me, the White Lion and Marauder, two melee damaging careers already in the game, are light melee that use debuffs and specialty skills. On the other hand, you’ve got Witch Elves and Witch Hunters that are sneaky and more suited for single target attacks. Slayers and Choppas will just be physical damage with few “effects”, making them a whirling ball of damage. Adam likes the role and design of the two new careers, but the game is not finished being balanced, one thing learned from 10 years of making MMOs.

For my part, I greatly enjoyed the new ideas that these two careers will bring to the game, but I dobut from my first impression that they will do the job the devs want them to do. Being a line breaker would take a bit more than just some guy with no shirt on. Perhaps a Jump or dive bomb type maneuver would be better to vault them into the back lines to then start their mayhem.

So, what about the other major addition coming after the two new careers? Of course I’m talking about the Land of the Dead, the new dungeon being added by the developers with a scheduled roll out sometime in June. This new RVR dungeon unlocks with new PQ’s and level 20+ content to explore. Players will battle for control of the dungeon which has loads of traps and puzzles to solve. (I even was shown swinging blades that you had to use twitch skills to get past and traps in the floor that spit out poison darts, think Indiana Jones but with Orcs and dwarves thrown in) once your realm loses control of the temple, you will have to prepare yourself for RvR combat as hordes of your enemy pour in.

Dark Age of Camelot had a similar dungeon, Darkness Falls, that was like this. If that was any indication, you can expect a very well and balanced group that goes deep into the dungeon to be able to hold off attackers for hours if played right. I was told that you can even walk past a trap without it setting off, but then set it off intentionally as your enemies come up the hallway to deal damage to them. Nothing like dropping whirling 15 foot axes on your enemies to even the odds! For the player who always wanted to gank people while they were fighting mobs? You will have fun here too! Whetherr it’s a solo Witch Elf “skillfully” taking out a player six levels below her or a six man group of Order characters waiting for Destruction to come into the hallway and attacking them as they pull a respawn champion mob, you can have all your fun here!

New classes, new events, class balance patches, new content, new rewards and new forms of RVR. I would have to give this news a thumbs up as it’s adding a lot to the game without changing the fundamentals… bashing people’s faces. And let’s not forget this is all a FREE expansion.

You can follow the progress of the patches and updates on our forums here at mmorpg.com:

Mythic plans on unrolling in this format over the next 2 quarters:

• Bitter Rivals Bitter Rivals’ Live Event : completion allows head start access to the new Da Choppa and Dwarven Slayer careers. The event will also include the new Chaos-themed RvR Scenario, Twisting Tower.
• Two New Careers Join WAR (March): The Orc Choppa and Dwarf Slayer answer the Call to Arms
• ‘Call to Arms: Beyond the Sands’ Live Event (April):
• ’Call to Arms: Rise of the Tomb Kings’ Live Event (May): The race between Order and Destruction players begins to unlock the Land of the Dead for their Realm.