Expectant

In 4 weeks time my wife is expecting a baby but that's ages away whilst today is the last day of March and I am expecting the Producer's Letter.

A lot has been "discussed" since the last letter, mostly within the Dev Discussions on the official forum. From February's letter and the forums the following could be on the agenda for today's (?) letter.

I hope there is a damn letter. Although it usually amounts to little, it is something. I am not going to start playing anything new, so it's WAR or bust for me, and whilst I am (thankfully) cleansed of hope for major changes, like a "new frontiers" campain, knowing that there is something going on in the background keeps me happy.

Dev Discussions
- Campaign Changes
- Keep Doors
- Physical Mitigation, maybe a reduction in how much armour is worth
- Doomflayer & Warpfored Nerfs. Post-80 gear nerfs
- Effective Level nerfs
- Scenario Line-ups
- Grovod Caverns Skaven Scenario
- Ironclad Scenario

Horde Scenarios

Live Events
- Maybe more news on Sigmartide. My idealistic hope is this will be an actual NPC War which is going on in on the side zones which we participate/RvR quest in. No chance. With Wood Elves and Beastmen as new playable races.

'Advanced Crafting'
- My fantasy here is something that can be crafted and slotted on armour and grants bonus similar to current set bonuses so you can customise your armour more. Who knows what's in store?

Dev says Nerf

In case you have not seen this already Steve Engle in his 'Physical Mitigation' thread on the offiicial forums has touched upon some planned changes to the 1.4 gear.


"Currently, the plan is to reduce your effective rank gain from one every renown rank gained to one every four renown ranks gained.

Note: This means the stat soft cap goes from 1550 at RR100 to 1175 at RR100.

Doomflayer sets will have ~ 233 less stats total on them in comparison to the current LIVE Doomflayer sets.

Warpforged sets will have ~365 less stats total on them in comparison to the current LIVE Warpforged sets.

Both sets are adjusted based on the Effective Rank they are intended for, which is now ~42.5 and 45."


He later added...

"SC weapons, any non-set Verminous Horde drops, and RVR purchased accessories will all receive attention as well."

I have put his quotes in italic to make it look like I am quoting from Joyce and not the Bioware Social Network.

WAR vs. Washing Up

Every time I log into WAR I have a great time. This could be just spending an hour putting some liniments onto the AH and tinkering with a different gear/renown/mastery setup, or full on epic RvR or City sieges.

Like the night before last, I was even more tired than is usual for me. My wife and I are trying new ways to get our 2 and half year old son to sleep better in the night in preperation for having another baby soon (very soon). This has been interesting but tiring so I logged in with the sole intention of playing some leechhammer.

Basically, I visit the AH and check liniment prices, then grab a load of ingredients, fly out to the most promising leeching spot and then alternate between roaming and making stacks of pots. I enjoy this. Do a bit of washing up. Wiggle the mouse a bit. Nice relaxing evening.

Destro however had different plans and were just locking down Eataine and an Altdotf defense was on. In the time it takes to say "Reikwald" a guild WB was up, I was tuned in and on vent, geared up and potted, and ready to go.

It was a City Siege with a twist. We spent too long getting our warband organised at the start of Stage 1 and then were outplayed as Des split up to cap multiple BOs at once. We were faced with killing Sappers for 20 mins or conceding stage 1. So we lost the stage but did manage 100+ kills to about 4 losses. Nice RP.

Stage 2 was a tie, but another 100 kills or so and a balanced fight. We were moving as single warband whilst Des were splitting up into groups and flanking us. It made for a really great fight. The stuff you pay money for.

Stage 3 was where it went weird. We got down 3 of their champs but couldn't take down the 4th, a Black Orc. His HP hardly shifted. That's when we realised we were up against 13 healers, including 10 DoKs. Shifting focus to the healers wasn't any better - we could only kill 3 or 4 before the others started rezzing up and the Black Orc would be back up at 100%.

The timer elapsed on the stage but we duked it out some more. Karl Franz and T'char went for a quiet cup of tea and wondered whatever happened to the Red Plague. We tried a few different things, like coordinating our CC and stuff, but we couldn't break through and our morale dropped a bit and people started dying. Both sides ended up with 400+ kills and 100,000+ renown for some ( for me!).

It ended on a slightly sour note for us that we could not break through their healing - lots of people blamed Doomflayer- but I really think a large part of it was losing all control of the BOs in stage 1 and giving Des the healing bonus. And of course facing so many healers.

It was an great evening though. The washing up did not get done.

1.4.1 was Kind to Me

1.4.1 has been very kind to me.

I am on the cusp of RR70 so have practically dropped straight into full lolSov. There was a big RR gap between old Invader and Warlord (from 55 to 70) and Warlord for Swordmaster's is crap anyway. +5% Block and +5% Disrupt set bonuses on Warlord are very low value when compared to +72 Tough and +72 Wound on Invader (go compare their RA cost). Why Knight's and IB's get +78 Wounds and +5% Melee Crit on their Warlord and SM got Block & Disrupt I'll never know.

Anyway, I had been faced with skipping most of Warlord and remaining in 4 Inv all the way up to swapping in for real Sov. Being able to skip Warlord completely has made me very happy.

I am also pleased that the increased Renown Gain now carries on post 80. I had been worried that I would hit a brick wall at 80/81.

When I resubbed in December I was RR53 and most of the guild I joined were 81 or 82. Now I am 69 whilst they are 84-87ish. I was 30 RR behind, now I am 15. I could see myself getting to 80 though just as they were getting to 90 and then never really catching up until they all got at 100. I am confident now that I can gradually keep on closing the gap.

There are many other things I like about this patch (loading times) and of course I recognise that real issues remain for a lot of players but, being selfish, 1.4.1 has been great for me. I am optimistic too about the Producer's Letter and will post my thoughts about that soon.