PVP:Yes | Distribution:Download,Retail | Retail Price:$39.99 | Pay Type:Subscription
Desktop Client | System Req:
| ESRB:T
WAR Choppa and Slayer Impressions
MMORPG.com’s Hasani Davis Sits down with Adam Gershowitz to talk about Mythic Entertainment's slayer, Choppa and the Call to Arms event bringing them into the game.
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.
Truth be told, I'm more excited about the Lands of the Dead expansion. While slayers may help continue to even out the Order-Destro balance, it's not like Order needs any more DPS. I'm also at a loss about how the slayer/choppa will fit into the overall strategy. It might be a good thing for other tanks/ melee DPS if these new classes can serve as "shocktroops," but I'm still not convinced they'll be able to break the frontline before getting shot to death.
Anyhow, a competitive raiding environment and a reason to lock down zones besides farming renown is just what this game needs. And the Khemri setting is very cool.
Can't Wait. Should be good times ahead.
Mythic cracks me up, they can't resist adding more classes even when it messes up the pvp balances. They ruined DAoC that way and will do the same with War.
At least Blizzard paid attention to the mistakes made by Mythic and have added new classes rarely. Even then they always have a spat of balancing complaints.
Mythic will never get the fact that complexity breeds chaos.
"the White Lion and Marauder, two melee damaging careers already in the game, are light melee that use debuffs and specialty skills"
LOL! What?
WLs are debuffers? What'? Their ONE single target sillence that is pet dependent? lol. And their only useful RvR specialty skill is getting nerfed in 1.2.
I'm rerolling a Slayer. Hopefully, they aren't as half-assed as the WL.
Its gonna be great, things are really looking up for this game!
hehe i will resub next summer i think :D
Darkness fall was great for DAoC and your realm really got something great from your RvR....
This dungeon will be great if done like darkness falls....which is how it seems at this points...the game is coming along but only time will tell...i know ill be back in march
I'm still going to wait a bit before I resub, to see how things really turn out.
I guess you haven't been paying much attention to WAR. These classes (although the Slayer was the Hammerer for a while) were originally in the game, but they were cut before launch. Now that they're returning, they're filling in the remaining gaps, restoring the balance more than disturbing it.
I think this is a GREAT ARTICLE... but then again I am biased.
as a fan I am excited about the expansion, and I feel the things in the game that are already imbalanced are so glaring and eronious they will be fixed. DAoC wasnt ruined because of class ballance... it was ruined because we as customers left because of the massive changes all at once that came with New Frontires. People claim ToA made them leave, but most people I know didnt leave until after their frustrations with the new pvp maps and new keeps made them feel un easy.
(and WOW came out)
Now 10 years later in hindsight, I actually feel the NF maps made the game beter, but it was just too much too fast. So in short, we doged them out for doing the right thing and for comming out with better content 0_o!
add a new map to wow and people cheer.
add new scenerio to WAR and people cheer.
Add a new map to DAoC pvp after having the same map for 4 years and people revolt.... go figure.
bet ya they wouldnt do that again.
I cant wait for this expansion , the new classes are just more melee that deal damage.
I will report more information as it is passed onto me. and you can check the mmorpg.com feature section for when I have something I will make sure you readers get asap!
Hasani
When a fan (your own words, though it's obvious) is writing articles for the "news" section, then it's neither news nor information. It's opinions, or even propaganda.
Run along, WoW fanboy...
I dont think that "linebreaker" thing will work - ok the moral 2 of the slayer is a PBAE knock down, but you have to reach the enemy line ... something like the WL Jump with a PBAE knock back whould be cool :)
But will a damage range from 4-6 attract enough players? Where are WE and WH 3-7?
I hope they will but some nice enounters into the new area. More of the quality of ToA (Phoenix Enc, 4.10 Enc ... ). They promised somthing like traps for LoTM, but i was only a generic dungeon with easy encounters (most of it) - so i hope the can now deliver somthing more challenging and not only Encounters with high damage mobs or where 70% of the fight depends on luck.
When a fan (your own words, though it's obvious) is writing articles for the "news" section, then it's neither news nor information. It's opinions, or even propaganda
Not sure why but after reading your post CNN and Fox news popped into my head.
The updates sound cool, I would like to try out the Land of the Dead. I think the game will still be like Super Smash Brothers or City of Heroes where you play and enjoy it a lot for a month then drop it and don't look back for a while.
I dont think ill be resubing at all even with this coming up.
I need a more creative outlet.
this game is for kids.
The argument that these classes are bringing things 'back into balance' is valid. The problem is that the balance is still so far out of whack it can't be brought back, just somewhat negated. These two classes were among the most desired when WAR first rolled out and when they were cut a lot of folks were very unhappy. Okay, maybe they revamped the both classes and made them more playable (the supposed reason they were cut in the first place was that they were dull..as per the Devs) but the end result is more subs. By adding classes, Mythic hopes to get some old folks who dropped their subs to come back and to hold onto a few folks that might be on the edge of leaving .
WAR can be a good game and I offer well wishes to folks who are enjoying it. This isn't enough for them to get me to re-sub though.
the reason why there is an imbalance is because classes were missing at launch. they are adding back in the classes that were supposed to be in the game from the start. blizzard would make you pay for that.
What they need to do is figure out a way to make more people play Order. If they can't do that, then they need to put in hierlings or henchmen or something to help balance out the population. Or maybe boost damage and hp for the under-populated side.
This is the same bs that was happening back in DAoC. It is a game-breaker and they still have not figured out a reasonable fix for it.
I have really one question.....
How are you going to get into this new dungeon if you hadn't got the numbers to take over objectives to open up the dungeon?
Run along, WoW fanboy...
LOL
A huge Boost to Inf/RP/XP for being outnumbered in RvR is all Mythic really needed . Some kind of patch counting how many of each side are in the RvR lakes and giving xpbonus for kills to the underdog.
You Get a kills when odds are 3/1 That kill should count as 3 times more xp. but it dosent work that way ,so the outnumbered side gives out more death lvling the overpopulated side faster, making the problem even biger.
My time playing Order was not all bad. even though on our server we were outnumbered it did not stop us from geting many kills and participating in RvR. Did we give out more RP then we got?
yes.
Your outnumbered 2/1. to kill a few of them feels very rewarding at first but in the end your just making them stronger, feeding them RP lvls.
the overpopulated side is lvling faster, not because of skill or smart tactics.
this was needed in the game at launch.
Yea, that would go a long way towards making the game better. Especially if they applied similar mechanics to scenarios (atm solo dps gets a HUGE boost to exp/rp). They mentioned introducing fixes to the whole PvK / avoidance pvp game, but I haven't heard much as to how they are actually planning to accomplish that. I just hope they get it right this time, as opposed to their usually shinnanigans. Some of the programming in that game scares me...(some parts seem to lack a basic understanding of math).
- All in all I'm not too excited about the new classes. They will probably be fun, and well thought out, if their release goes anything like the heavy metal release. However I don't foresee them effecting much, until Mythic starts addressing the fundamental problems with the game (crowd control, stacked scenarios, poor renown rewards / insentives, a borked endgame city siege mechanic, still buggy loot / drop mechanics).