Wrath's Release Is Imminent

Well that's it, where do we go?

Stick to WAR, continue the leveling process up to 40 and get the gear maxed out until Mythic bring out an expansion?

Back to WoW, return to the addiction of grinding to 80, farming honor/arean points, raiding (in a successful guild for a change) and watch over WAR players running around at half my level?

I have finally ran out of money on my WAR account, just in time to make a quick decision on which I'd prefer to invest in.

I'll look at a few pros and cons...

I'm in a guild where I have some importance in WAR, I'm a Vault Manager, the guild's web designer (even though I'm not that great), I've met some great people already in WAR, I'm enjoying leveling up Thwomp greatly, I'm more into the RvR side rather than PvE aspect of the game.

WoW, I have 3 level 70s, one of them is well geared (in my opinion) and I do have a very vast knowledge of this class in particular, as well as the game in general. Some of the game mechanics for damage mitigation, threat generation, mana regeneration, etc, are not one of my strong points but I have experienced some of the numbers needed to optimize output of these stats. I've spent a good 2 years or so playing WoW, and enjoyed playing from when I first played.

WoW currently lacks what WAR has which benefits players like me greatly. I'm not great with finding groups to run an instance, since I prefer to either be head hunted, or be in the LFG queue and wait an hour or 2 before I am contacted. With the PQ system in place, and open parties, I can contribute to taking BO's, Keep's, etc without having to look for the group myself. It's a huge waste of time in WoW and I never liked it.

I'm not the highest level in WAR yet, not even close, but after a previous post about the Sovereign armor set for Black Orcs, which looks almost impossible to get after reading all of the requirements to get to that stage, it's orientated for a player like me. Even if I wanted to be anti social for many levels, I can still pick up my first armor set by nothing more than grinding to rank 40 and renown rank 37+ or something along them lines.

In fact, after writing this post, I've realised I've already made up my mind.

Thwomp will continue his crusade! I will more than likely not play WoW again until Thwomp is fully clad in full Sovereign and the guild rank is 40! Even then I may decide to level up an alt... or even taste what WAR has to offer on Order's side...

Thank you so much Mythic, you've converted me and I'm deeply proud you have... how many more can you convert?

Hold The Line!

I've been reading up on Hold The Line!

This is one of those abilities of mine that takes up a slot in my action bar, but is just about never clicked on!

Well after having a good inspection of the ability, it appears more useful that I first thought!

It clearly states that you (I) will increase chances to dodge (melee and ranged attacks?) and disrupt by 45% for 12 seconds.

12 seconds isn't that long, and it pretty much drains all of your action points. Read on with me...

You (I) will also defend all allies behind you up to 40 feet away, increasing their chances to dodge and disrupt by 15% as long as they remain at your back.

Allies may have this effect stacked on them up to 3 times.

So... Thwomp runs into battle with all the squishy healers and ranged guys throwing everything at Order, but Order are doing the same, leaving me to charge into melee! I quickly pop Hold The Line! and all of my fellow runts behind me (including the healers keeping me alive) won't be getting minced by all of the Bright Wizards flamey goodness, the Witch Hunters magic bullets or the Archmages... whatever it is they cast. Ok 15% isn't that much, but it's better than nothing right?

What if 3 Black Orcs ran up the field? Each of us would get 45% chance to dodge and disrupt, and as long as all 3 of us were close enough to the runts, they would get 45% too!

Hang on... am I reading it right?

Is it possible that 4 Black Orcs (Thwomp being one of them) run in, I stop slighty before them, they all pop Hold The Line! buffing me with 45% chance to dodge/disrupt for being behind them, and then I pop Hold The Line! to make me have 90% chance to dodge/disrupt?

Although Hold The Line! seems like a great ability when getting stormed or fighting a really immensley hard boss, it's not particularly that good for holding agro or dealing any damage back, since all you will be doing is Auto-Attack...

With everything said, is Hold The Line! really worth it? Can't it have a large cooldown, cost a set amount of AP but continue to have the same effects? Much like (I dread to say this) the Shield Wall ability for a Warrior in WoW? Although it won't be used very often, but it provides excellent protection for yourself and all the runts, which would make me use it more than 'never'.

WAR Dropout

I've been adding other blogs to the blogroll, and I have been using some of them from The Greenskin website, since that place is trusted and a top place to be!

I was about to add one called Bloghammer, until I read this recent post!

This is similar to how I felt about trying WAR, but now that I've started playing it, I'm more hooked on this than I was with WoW!

Ok I'm not the best player in WoW, as mentioned in a previous post, but I've found the game is repetative when compared to WAR. I've leveled 3 characters to 70... I am losing or have completely lost the motivation to pay the funds for WoW only to be in a similar situation as I am now.

WAR is new, Mythic have a lot to live up to with Blizzards huge game having such a massive impact. But Blizzard aren't delivering for me. One of my favourite battlegrounds was Alterac Valley. It was only a few months ago that Blizzard decided to move the Horde starting place back to balance it out... only 3 years to do that!!! That is extremely slack! At least Mythic are releasing fixes fast, and they offer a game that I've been looking for.

I'll go back to the WAR dropout...

He played WoW longer than me... 4 years is a long time to throw away on another game. I will almost definately not be doing the same.

Gear Increasing Levels

I have been reading my favourite Warhammer blog The Greenskin, and I've just read about the 'gear treadmill' (as Snafzg says). If I had enough time to devote to both leveling and RvR, I'd be blown away to see Thwomp sporting the Sovereign set which requires all of the previous gear but also rank 40 and renown rank 73 (at a minimum), at the time of this posting, he is rank 18 and renown rank 11. He's got a long way to go.

Thwomp is a beast in his current gear... but if he could get his hands on the sovereign set... I'd be ecstatic each time I logged in.
This is what an orc tank should look like!

Gearing up is something I've never really been up for in my experience of MMO's. My first experience of MMO's was Runescape... yes, laugh at me, I know you want to. I leveled to be a mage for a number of reasons. Firstly since it was the easiest way to get around the game teleporting and portaling others, but the problem with it was I was not set to be a 'Pure'.

A Pure was someone who was geared and skilled for PKing (player killing). They would outclass any other player who was maybe 5 levels above them which had a varing choice of combat specialties such as Attack, Defence, Magic and Prayer. I created my character (Cunning Git) in the hopes that I would be one of the highest rated mages in the game.

Who could ever be better than the legendary Zezima?

Zezima was one account, one character, and possibly 6 people playing. I knew the true best player in Runescape. Sadly he died. 'The Old Nite' was a great guy, I met him once (ingame) to do business.

My gear in Runescape was nothing special, I had rubbish gear for long periods of time. ocasionally daring the wilderness to get to the Mage Arena in deep level 55+ wilderness. Once I had 230k gold while running up to the Mage Arena to buy runes to further my Magic level. I stumbled upon a clan just outside the entrance. I could do nothing, they slaughtered me, mages binded me while rangers shot me down. It was at this point that I became less interested in Runescape.

I devoted a lot of time on my recent MMO choice, World of Warcraft. I have a Rogue, Warlock and Druid at 70. Both the Druid and Rogue are poorly geared, either Karazhan gear or lower. Wakeofdeath, my Warlock that I grew attached to as mentioned in one of my first posts is taking a time out from gaming. Wake has respectable gear for entering Karazhan and Gruul's Lair, it's entirely possible that he could perform well in Tempest Keep and Serpent Shrine Cavern.

Would my guild take me there? No... so I left the guild and have been working on my PvP gear, which isn't really that great, but who cares when it' going to be replaced in a few weeks. Who cares if Wake doesn't return to WoW?

We come to WAR... I've spent my time at work, creating and editing the guild website. I've started and enjoy writing this blog. I love playing the game. I love playing alongside my guildmates in WAR. Why should I be bothered if I never see Thwomp wearing the Sovereign set? Why should I be bothered if Thwomp isn't the toughest tank in the game? I'm not playnig it to be the best! I'm not playing it to laugh at players less geared than me. I'm not playing it to pass the time until another MMO comes out.

I'm hooked... I admit it... Why should I look for anything other than WAR?

I play WAR cause it's a fantastic game, I'd be more than happy to be sitting at level 40, renown rank 45 and equiped with full Conquerer (or the Black Orc equivalent).

Wake Sits And Has A Cuppa

As mentioned in my previous post, I'm a bit of a WoW player... for those interested, I'm a dirty fiendish Gnome Warlock on Kazzak EU named Wakeofdeath.

It is a pretty crappy name, but I couldn't think of anything at the time of creation, and with my unfortunate bank balance due to buying christmas gifts early this year I can't really afford a single penny towards the renaming charge...

With me struggling for cash, i've also not got the cash spare to pay for a WoW account as well as a WAR account... I've got WotLK on preorder, and I'm looking forward to the grind to 80, but i wanted to experience WAR before it's release, after all, there's about a month left til then.

My WoW account has been frozen temporarily, depending on how WAR goes, it might not become active for more than a month.

Best to see how the cash fairs up also. It's definately not over for Wake, he'll return and ruin Northrend!