[GW2] The Mesmer

Well seeing as everyone knows it is coming, I thought I'd jot down a few ideas about the form I think the profession is returning in.

It can be hard to define a profession that was previously built around 'punishment', but have it fit in a game where each profession has more versatility in the roles they can perform, oh and hexes are no more. Mesmers, more than any other class were annoying in the wide array of hexes they had, they might even have used some obscure, useless ones just to mess with my head because I could never remember what most of them did. So the basic mechanic of most mesmer skills is no more, what could they have in their place?

I'm going with the mechanic of 'if the enemy is doing X, then Y condition is applied and/or takes damage', and twinned with the more supportive mechanic 'if your ally is doing X, then Y buff is applied and/or gains health'. I like the symmetry, and it definitely makes for a much more complicated class, but fits with the goal of having the player actively looking at their surroundings and what the enemy and other players are doing than focusing on the UI. There could be some controversy with 'if the enemy is casting a spell, then they are dazed', which is in effect an interrupt, they said they were going to play down interrupts or rather the mechanic of an 'interrupt' is no more, but instead you need to daze, stun, knockback/down/up, so it is a distinct possibility.

What appearance would I give this profession, because I think more than 'mesmer' could fit that mechanic. Arenanet has talked about creating a wide range of archetypes in the game, so there is something pleasing to everyone. There is at least two commonly occurring classes in MMOs that prove quite popular, a martial-artist/monk and a bard/minstrel. It would be odd to see a monk return with limited ally healing, but I'll leave that right there. I'm more drawn to the bard archetype, for the reason that in GW1 most mesmers tend towards the theatrical! Although, bard is likely not the right word more a travelling performer, a player or a trouper. I doubt they would go the musical instrument route which I find a bit silly in most games, but rely on the power of voice, either beguiling enemies or empowering allies. I like the concept of paragon chants and the various names indicating what effect they will have, arias, choruses, ballads and lyrics.

The profession mechanic I'm leaning towards is 'Echo/Refrain', i.e. the player can choose to extend any of their skills for a longer duration. Did I mention I'm a big fan of paragons and looking forward to a potential revamp, so I may be a little biased. Illusions, seem to come up a lot as a suggestion but I don't think it is very likely seeing as it could prove very hard to create a workable mechanic around it. Conjure phantasm/nightmare are something that I'd rather see on a necromancer, like the shadow fiends they already have, and hopefully they'll get other more ghost like minions too. Illusionary weapons if implemented is going to be too like elementalists conjures, who can call a flaming greatsword down from the sky, which would be a hard act to follow.

I can understand why they are delaying the reveal of the mesmer class, the primary mechanics may still be up in the air, after they pigeonholed themselves by deciding against the use of hexes. Whether they are called curses, debuffs, etc in other MMOs, they are so widespread in their use that it's hard to imagine a class that probably should be using them but doesn't, well I gave it my best shot.

[GW] One Dervish Army

With the EotN bonus rep weekend in full swing I was up that way when I thought I'd give the norn fighting tournament a go. It was mostly to unlock Xandra, but I was making proper attempts to finish it too, it's always been quite challenging to me without resorting to some gimmicky builds or to fill the bar with PVE skills and even then it is sometimes hit or miss to take down Magni. As I was on my dervish I was just trying out a few things when I hit on the build below, which really highlights the strength of the new buffed dervish i.e. fitting so much ability into a single bar.

From left to right: condition removal, blind spamming, hex removal + heal, knockdown + weakness, enchant removal, damage + heal, IAS and anti-knockdown. I was tempted by Armour of Santity but Shield of Force is good to quickly block Magni just after he uses Purge Signet, giving time to blind him again. Even as broad as it is, it could still only complete about 2/3 of the opponents successfully every time, and Magni was about 50/50, though in more skilled hands it would probably be a better ratio, someone who'd have thought to move away as he cleaned off the conditions. Funnily enough Melonni uses the same avatar, and it was really hard to take her down, watching out for mystic regen, to remove it before it undid my efforts. One opponent really stood out, Kisai with blinding surge, which I'd call a hard counter to any melee, even with conviction blindness could not be removed fast enough, at least she only appears in the first round.

Dwayna Vs Dwayna

Tried it on my necro later using the build below, it is a bit hit and miss but it tore through any melee and made Magni himself trivial. Still the dervish build was probably better balanced, and didn't need no PvE skills. At the end the question I'm pondering is that the biggest criticisms that people thrown at the dervish revamp is that there are bars that do far too much for a single character, and I'd agree but whats a good way to temper this newfound resourcefulness without nerfing the class back to where it was with only 1 or 2 workable builds. How do you even balance a profession like that?

Easy Mode

Before energy was quite tight upfront, but now there is hardly any energy problems, so some kind of reversal of the mysticism change, maybe flash enchants could be excluded or the full energy is expended but the longer the player holds on to the flash enchant the more energy they get refunded when that enchant is removed. It would encourage the player to put them up before they plan to use them and hold onto them a while before tearing them down. The armour issue where having just 1 enchant will give the dervish an additional 10 (blessed) + 12 (mysticism) armour, maybe the mysticism buff could give say 1...2..3 armour per enchant, instead of removing it in PvP completely, but not expecting it to make a comeback.

Another criticism that tempered my enthusiasm for the class is that it's a bit mindless to play, sure the spamming and tearing down of enchants is a bit frenetic but it's fun where before it was clunky. Even as a less hardcore player these still concern me, and how it all work out in the end. A dervish was my first character, but I've played more of the game as a warrior, but looking to make a change. I was playing both a ranger and paragon recently, I enjoyed the ranger and the paragon too though the latter is in a similar position to pre-update dervish, but the dervish is appealing now, so that's where I'll be focused with one eye on a paragon update and the other on more dervish nerfs to determine the profession I'll be spending time with in the future. Even though my playstyle is casual, playing a class that might be conceived as easy mode or overpowered or even the reverse in high-end areas is enough to dampen my affections for a class, even to the point that I'd be anxious going into casual PvP because of the stick I'd get. Nevermind I can try to put all that aside and enjoy the class for what it is at the height of it's power, in a game where I find it hard to settle on one class.

A Crowning Achievement
(I've never known any other class to
combine slippers and a dress)

[Lotro] The Thorough

A while ago a deed popped up for my warden upon logging on, and I was left scratching my head what it was connected with, shrugging my shoulders I logged off again, it was one of those quick checking in moments to see if everything was exactly how I left it. It was only this week that I figured out what place the deed was connected with, the name hadn't rung a bell. I was playing through volume 3 book 2 on my burglar and journeying to the Eregion to be sent after a kidnapped dwarf gem-cutter. And the same deed popped up upon finding this place (no I didn’t quite catch the name again) with a 'frightened hero' out front, then it struck me that when I was here on my warden I didn't have the Eregion questpack, so I had missed out on a notable deed tied to the epic story because I didn't have access to Eregion.

Why was it so notable, well getting a fair warning from my less brave counterpart, this place is the best kind of place to explore. It consists of two floors that are connected via multiple doors, with some tricksy parts where some doors can lead to single rooms up above or down below and disconnected from the rest of that floor, rooms with multiple doors, that sort of thing. It's not too hard to figure out, what is hard is making sure you find all 23 places for the deed i.e. being 'thorough'. The simple strategy I used was to pick one floor and work my way around trying every door, then swap to the other floor and connect the dots and try to spot areas where a door hadn't been used, still the last 2 or 3 took a bit of retracing my footsteps to fully complete the deed.


That side-quest with its nifty title for a reward kept my attention for a lot longer than the actual quest, it perfectly suits my personality to explore every nook and cranny for something interesting but on balance the deed is catering more for an achiever than a true explorer who might find delight in spotting some attractive area but often there is little additional content or treasure for taking the time to explore everything that looks interesting, sometimes you might encounter a 'rare' mob because you are going off the beaten track where they are less likely to be killed.


I must admit if I wasn't playing my burglar I probably wouldn't have been so enthused for the actually deed, which is why I leaning towards making him my main for the expansion. My captain has been parked at the dwarven town in Forochel for weeks waiting patiently to enter the mines but I've been there before and know it to be crawling with dourhands, the combination of no stealth, slow killing, confusing passageways and multitudes of mobs is so unappealing I think he may be there for a few more weeks.

The exploration deeds in the game aren't particularly engaging, sometimes like in the Trollshaws where ruins are spread around canyons it can get tricky to work out how to get where you want to go. Secret deeds like climbing the two towers in Mirkwood or the fishing hole in Enedwaith (which I've still not found) are a little more interesting, but not quite up there with eating a piece of old cheese I found in the barrows. The seven swords deed in Angmar was good because there wasn't a quest for guidance, but finding some guys sitting on their own in random places about the landscape wasn't really fun, and then the rewards, a title that wasn't 'of the seven swords' and a 6-man instance that there isn't the slight possibility of getting a group for seeing as it was in East Angmar.The solution is in the game already, walking through the epic book instance you see ghostly scences but they don't give much info, unlike say the flashbacks featuring Gandalf beneath Dol Guldor, but what if they had a bit more drama to them to piece together into a narrative and give clues to where a secret cache might be hidden or how to find some concealed passageways. Something that could be missed if you are not paying enough attention and that need a bit of thought. There does seem to be some light on the horizon with plenty of accounts for GW2 of players going off the beaten track and finding all kinds of events, objects to interact with and not being led there by the nose. Likewise, The Secret World is looking like it will incorporate plenty of puzzling, the need to pay attention to surroundings and spotting clues, with some of the story being played out before the players eyes if they are actively observing. I tempted to give Rift another go, because I never got very far in beta and they seem at least to have things hidden off the beaten track.

Lotro: Legendary Trash

Having just dashed through a few levels towards 60 during the bonus XP weekend, I ended up with bags full to bursting, and one type of item in particular stuck out: legendary items. Over 30 of the damn things I have to flog. There is a few problems with that, I'm premium and only have limited AH slots (5 to begin), but did make a purchase of 5 additional ones to see could I move some of this excess stock faster. When I levelled my warden through Moria a year ago, LIs seemed to sell a lot better, but now it's hard to even get 80s for them. Sure there was a surge in prices with update 2, while LIs above 60 still sell for reasonable amounts, before 60 I couldn't give them away quickly enough. My captain alt is running out of vault space with the damn things. I don’t think I'd have it in me to deconstruct them for a measly 1 relic, if it was 4 or 5 tier 1s, I wouldn’t be complaining at all about it.

I wrote previously on the inventory minigame in Lotro and some improvements have been made, plenty of stuff stacks higher (including hope tokens in the next update, finally!), racial armour recipes have become multi-output. Legendary trash remains the biggest annoyance. I would replace all LI drops, dwarf-tools and khuzdul tablets with a single item, say legendary shards/fragments (stack to a 100 of course), and then all the player has to do is bring the right amount to the forge-master and get a level appropriate LI. Crafters could still make LIs but the recipes would have cheaper shard requirements, as they are adding their skills and materials to the pot.

One other point of contention needs to be rectified, just the whole notion that to make the perfect LI, dozens of other need destroying. No really, vendor 20 SMs for dwarf-tools, get lvl 55 LIs, kill one or two lvl 65 mobs, deconstruct, repeat dozens of times and see how many extraordinary relics you end up with, 1 if you are lucky. Sure there is probably better ways to get relics (tier 4 fused relics, as long as you deconstruct and get 2). Then think of the new addition of levelling a LI to 30 then destroying it for a legacy scroll. It's a wonder that any LI remain in Moria at all, by this stage players have stripped it halls clean of anything valuable like a plague of locusts that they typically mimic.

I'll just wait patiently for the LI update that works like the skirmish soldier setup, i.e. you pick the item type, then it's appearance, damage type, damage bonus, legacies, relics, hit construct and out pops a perfect weapon, no need to be levelled (no ranks/tiers). I would have it so the player only needs to acquire the legacy/damage/bonus scroll once, click on the scroll to permanently learn it (not needing to fill storage with a bunch of scrolls). Bye bye scrolls of empowerment. Not holding out hope because the biggest concern the devs seem to have lately is how to occupy players’ time more than any other. I recently thought about putting together a javelin that had mainly minor legacies, thought a moment longer, then shrugged and went to do something more fun.

Lotro: Orchalwe's Mission, the best quest-giver ever!

Having spent the last week playing through the new content in Evendim, thought I'd jot down a few impressions. Firstly since I was playing the content on my level 38 captain who had done a lot of the quests before the update and then went back and did the new stuff it might be a bit of a fractured experience than someone with a blank slate and I avoided doing chores for hobbits.

I started at the new quest hub at the colossus, which had the highlight of a quest arc that allowed the player to access the top of the colossus for probably one of the best vantage points in the game. Most of the quests were formulaic but there was a greater use of mini-instances, including a single named mob which has an obvious advantage of avoiding players queuing for the kill.

Moving on to Tinnudir, the player is introduced to Orchalwe, the main protagonist so to speak for the rangers’ storyline. He sends the player first to the 'twilight estates', then Ost Forod, across to the Eavespires, the Way of Kings and finally he joins the player for a trek through Annuminas.

The 'twilight estates' were unused points of interest before, now they form part of a quest chain that gives a bit of insight about each one. The mechanic that leads the player around through each one is a book that automatically bestows and completes the quests as the player works through them. Also there is optional quests to find along the way, which can all be turned in at the end of the journey and don't have follow-ups. It's a nice mechanic and hope to see it more often, it is a nice feeling to be given an item and go out on a quest rather than running out and back with errands.

Ost Forod has a new storyline about a pact between the people of that town and the rangers. Except the story is not that well written. Plenty of sour notes, such as being sent out to kill brigands who used to be described as people down on their luck resorting to plundering tombs. The quest describes the task as chasing them off to protect the 'good' people’s livelihood, except in reality it is kill 10 of them. The main story is no better, it first has the player make good on the rangers promise to supply the townsfolk, and then the second half has the player help the townsfolk fulfil their responsibilities of securing the northern areas. And the player is left to think no wonder the relationship broke down if neither side can be arsed to honour their side of the bargain. In the end this arc reaches a climax on the island of Rantost with the Thief-takers Bane instance, which is now soloable.

There is a short detour to the Eavespires, which I mostly skipped, and the tomb robbers’ story is continued at the Way of Kings, having escaped the carnage the player and rangers inflicted at Rantost they row south and land at the most bountiful tombs in the land and make pacts with the Angmarims. There is a design trend that is evident in at all the quest hubs so far, that of the quest wrapper i.e. one NPC gives an overarching quest that involves the completion of several other quests. It's a nice way of organising quest content for players but it's a little boring to have quests at every hub being doled out that way. On the plus side there is some nice tidbits of lore here and the mini-instances are well used again.

On to what is probably the highlight of the new content for me at least, Orchalwe's Mission. Instead of a whole bunch of NPCs clamouring for attention, there is one quest giver of interest (we'll leave aside those other two old quests that don't lead to much and still have their outdated rewards), who gives the player the ability to call Orchalwe. Orchalwe is a essentially a mobile quest-giver than travels with the player, doling out quests at specific locations and is also a dab hand at killing mobs too, in essence he is the best quest-giver ever.

Besides two quests he gives the player when first summoned, one of which leads the player to six targets spread around Annuminas, there are also 13 optional quests that are triggered in certain areas most of which coincide with the main quest but a few are out of the way. It is a real nice way to encourage the player to explore, I found all the entrances to the 3 instances which I wouldn't have known otherwise especially now with 'instance join' and completed two exploration deeds too.

There is a few negatives, Turbine didn't pay enough attention to the difficulty, most players should be able to take on 3 signatures mobs with Orchalwe and his imba heals, with maybe a few close calls and cooldown use, but there is a few sticking points with patrolling mobs, 4 or more signatures and fast respawns that are impossible. The best solution at present for what is supposed to be soloable quest arc, is let Orchalwe and/or your pet aggro the mobs, run to the quest item, activate it and run away again. Having died a few times trying to get past one point in particular with a named signature, it was particularly galling to find the waypoint is outside the city and ensures a long run back to the action. And finding all 13 optional quests is just crying out for a hidden deed or something, a real missed opportunity.Hope there is more quest-givers like Orchalwe in the future, it does make for a refreshing change, than suffering the useless lumps at say for example Ost Forod.

CoH: Hanging up the tights?

Can't believe it's been a month already, so much for MMO-playing goals. Had a busy month and didn't get to play CoH as much as I set out in the beginning, so much for getting a few characters to level 20. In the end got three characters to level 10-12, and that was only taking advantage of a big play session yesterday with double XP. Did get a little deeper understanding than my first impressions, but only just and kinda undecided if I'll be making a return trip,

One of the biggest problems I had initially was character builds, but since then it's only gotten better. I made a dominator with Earth/Fire powersets, going on recommendations on the archetype forum and had a lot of fun with that, the combination of control primary and damage secondary was a nice playstyle and those two powersets were fun. The brute I'd made without much imput was actually fun as well, though it's hard to go wrong with a high hp berserker. The defender I'd made first was actually starting to be fun when I got him a few more powers, though was having really bad endurance issues. I was just thinking of improving that by boosting stamina and reducing endurance costs of the toggle skills, by making some crafted level 15 enhancements and slotting at least two endurance reduction per toggle power. Didn't get time to test that out, but the fact that enhancements can improve a build like so is a nice feature.

Other than that, I really like the new 'Going Rogue' content and the choice between factions. Though a few of the storylines were a little hard to follow especially returning midway through an arc and trying to remember who Paulo was and why you had to 'kidnap' his father. I did read all the text and dialogue, but still ended up stumped in places, things just not making sense and some occurances were just unexpected, 'but didn't he just say...'. Most of the time it was fine, guess other games don't bother with complex scenarios and like to spell things out, so spoiled in a way. Anyways it was enough to keep me engaged even if it was just trying hard to remember who everyone and the organisations were, and if they were good or bad, or undercover or other.

A few things I didn't realise at first was how you can go undercover and do the opposing factions missions, seems it is as easy as just finding the contacts and accepting their missions, which is easier to do when you've played both sides and been shown where the contacts are located. The other thing that is really nice is that the storyline missions scale to your level when you accept them, I'm not sure how extensive this is but it is giving more options, without danger of outleveling content and being able to experience it all on one character.

So am I going back, not at the moment I think, even though I left plenty undone and mid-action, might give Champions Online a spin first, but done something completely different. On the whole I enjoyed the month playing at superheroes, even though I'm not subscribing for another month I'll be returning some other time to finish the 'Going Rogue' areas. Just in case I took pictures of my heroes, the Earth/Fire dominator is below, which I think is a really cool appropiately themed costume, though maybe a little unoriginal.

CoH: First Impressions

Having recently picked up a complete edition of City of Heroes: Going Rogue in a Steam sale, spent the last week getting to grips with it. It has not being an easy game to begin, but that's probably why I've stuck with it.

First off, character creation is vast and overwhelming and spent a good portion of playtime at the creation screens. A lot more time was spent outside of game on the forums trying to get a feel for what archetypes would be a good fit for me, and how to build them without ending up with a gimp character. The freedom is welcome but with very little in-game guidance it felt a bit daunting. I suppose the counter argument would be just going with the flow and experiencing the game with one character to make better informed choices with a subsequent character. Surprisingly I think Cryptic has the best solution for this when Champions Online goes free to play, to give non-subscribers a pre-set character that would be decent (I hope) for a particularly role and allow subscribers the full gamut of character creation. It's effectively a step by step tutorial on how to build a character for new players just trying out the game, then when they have the experience to fully understand the value of a more free-form character creation then they can subscribe.

For now my solution is to roll a selection of characters to level 20 and see how I feel about them then, it also fits in with my goal of experiencing the hero/villain/praetorian areas. Have picked a brute, defender, dominator and blaster, might add in scrapper and corrupter later if I have time or subscribe for another month, we'll see. But worryingly I already built a defender that was surprisingly squishy, will have to get a few more defensive powers on him to offset that, then again maybe a corrupter who has an inverse role (more damage than buffing) to defender might be a better fit.

I think the biggest difficulty initially was with questing, quest givers? Started in the villain area, worked through first contact (quest-giver), he introduced me to the next contact, when I was done with him I was at a bit of a loss. Maybe I missed something but it took a while to find the area to go next, found another slightly higher area first via the flying transports but what I needed to have done was to get on a boat to the next island. Then when I got there it was a while before I figured out the connection between the broker and the newspaper, I should pay more attention. The hero area I got dropped in after the tutorial had even less pointers, I had to work out the symbol for a contact to know where to go. On the other hand the newer praetorian area is much improved.

Despite these initial hiccups, I think I'm warming to this style of questing, where some contacts need to be found or you need to complete achievements before they will talk to you, oh and the mobile phone to call contacts and hand in quests is a nice idea.

The thing I've most liked about what I've played so far is the new area and the choices that must be made, either to favour the Resistance of the Loyalist faction, it is very nicely done and is definitely tempting to see both sides of the story. Already there has been a very tough decision, whether to take part in a summary execution or to stop it, took a moment of thought to go through with it and remain on the Loyalist side. And seeing as GW2 comes from the same stable I'm expecting similar moral choices, hopefully as good as this one, and better than the hospital versus orphanage choice that seems a bit simple in comparison.