The Podcast is UP!

Yes, yes, I know I'm late. :P

http://www.warhammeralliance.com/forums/showthread.php?t=303983

I fault the amount of time I have been spending in game PVEing my butts off with the AMAZING AND HIGHLY DEDICATED AWESOME FANTASTIC members of the best guild anywhere, EVER...

Cry Me a RvR!

Congrats on Guild Rank 37 and the shiney new mounts, guys... you SO deserved this. And the fighting afterwards with 31 of us was AMAZING (yes, that's right, I said THIRTY ONE!!) on our new shineys riding through KV and DW like we owned it. We gave Order a good whoopin' even with a good third of us not high enough level yet to get the bolster. :P

Every day I log on you guys amaze me just a little bit more. Every time I'm down or sad, you guys find a way to cheer me up (*coughDONALDcough*). Every time we lose we come back and win twice to make it up... I could not be more blessed to run a guild full of the most top notch people in this game. I am so proud of you, and I love you guys all so much... from the Unda'bosses and Vet'rins on down to the newest Initigit (and yeah, even you Occifer Sugarbawlz) YOU GUYS are what make this guild what it is, and you are the ones that keep it thriving.

I'm honored to be your GM, but really, you make my job easy. Congrats on all our successes, cause you guys are the ones that make them all possible.

o_O

So oi logz on ta dem WHA scribblebordz and wut do oi see? but scribblz from PhoenixRed askin' if oi wants ta do sumfin' call a "pod cast". Oi dunno wut dat iz, but oi'z finkin' it's gud...


Translation: Miss Vindaloo will be doing a WHA Podcast on 7/26th at 5PM EST. Subject matter TBA.


Stay tuned!

The current state of things: A drunken rant.

So ok.

I get it.

People are all pissypantsface about this new LOTD thing "killing RvR".

Guess what stupids?

IT DIDN'T KILL RVR. You know what did? Your LOOTWHORING.

GTFO LOTD and fight people in the rvr areas. Novel idea, I know... right?

I mean I know those new shinies are soooo hard to resist... but if all you're doing is sitting around waiting for zones to flip so you can get back to your PvE... who is the REAL problem? YOU ARE. Noone is making you stay in LOTD. Noone is forcing you to do the PQs or lairs. Noone is FORCING you to do anything. Why not get your asses into the RvR zones and keep the opposing side OUT of LOTD? Did that idea ever occur to you? Of course not... because there is the lure of the everpresent SHINEY that is luring you back, and your fevered eyeballs can't stand not to see phat loots pop up in a roll box on your screen for longer than 5 minutes.

IT'S PATHETIC, SO STOP IT. And if you're going to contribute to it, STOP FUCKING WHINING ABOUT IT BEFORE I FIND OUT WHERE YOU LIVE AND KILL YOUR FUCKING PETS.

I AM NOT KIDDING.

One more whine, one more OMGIQUITMYTHICSUCKS post... I swear to god I am going to lose it. JUST STOP. (And if you fucking quit the damn game, GTFO of the forums! You have ZERO reason to post there anymore outside of being a pain in the ass anyhow!!!!)

You know what's awesome? Beating the shit out of a group of Order with twice your numbers cause they're COMPLACENT and expecting PvE so they can get back to farming shinies. Guess what, toolbags? Not only did I prevent you from farming more SHINEIES, I also just FARMED you for renown!

This game has it's issues, but I'm pretty sure lately it's more the people PLAYING the game that are making it suck than anything else.

So oi'z been finkin.

Yeh, oi knowz datz a danjerus habbit. BUT. Oi'z com up wif dis oidea dat oi'z finkin' moit spel da end o'dem order-y types.

Ya see, oi'z gotz me sum new treds. Sum FANCEE stuff, loik wot dropz in dat Vale place. 'An so oi sez to meself...

"Self? Youse a sneaky lit'l tuff git. Youse ken plink dem humiez faces rite off dere bodiez! So.... why dun youse fin' sum uvva gitz wot ken plink jus' as gud as you ken and make up sum Plinkin' Waaaagh! Youse ken get some shamanz for heelz, and youse Plinkers can Plink an' Plink an' Plink till all dem order-y typez iz D-E-D DED."

So oi iz. Oi'z fin' dis one git name Graffbow, and anuvva git name Blanka whoze for Plinkin', and oi'z fin' some git name Trizz, and wun name Moar, and wun name Sweetummz (tho dun youse be askin' dis wun wot type'o name dat iz for a greenskin, coz oi kent tell yeh...) and we'z gonna call us Da Plink Squad.

So oi'z got ta go plan dis new Waaagh! Lotsa werk to do fer me!

So oi'z been heerin' awl deez gits iz quittin' da Waaagh...

...but Nim ain't no quitter, dere, dat you ken be shoor. Oi'z not quittin' till all dem hairy ol' stuntiez, and all dem poncey poin'y eerz, and all dem flowery smellin' humiez is D-E-D DED.

We'z gots sum new gits in da gild deez dayz.... Urp'z been findin' em lotz, so he getz ta take a bit of a break and oi getz ta get out and Plink lotz more. :D

RABBLERABBLERABBLE

Sorry it's been so long since my last post. The guild is ridiculously active, and I have had a ton of stuff to do in terms of logistics lately that I haven't had much time to post much. We're up to Guild Rank 33, and have 14 or so people on every night, and I have been coordinating pushes, and recruiting, and talking to diff guilds about joining our (now buzzing) alliance... I've just been utterly burnt out by the time I log off. ;)

That being said, its RANTING time!

I'm going to touch on a subject today that I have touched on once before, and that others have also discussed in their blogs, but in a somewhat more "specific" way.

Today, I'm going to talk about Warhammer Whores.

Let me start out by saying that I have a ton of respect for the girls out there playing who are trying to "break the mold" if you will. Girls who bring their "A" game every time they log on. Girls who push the envelope, and are determined to build their reputation on merit and skill... and nothing else.

I consider myself one of those types. I have never, ever in my MMO career taken a handout simply because of my gender. I've never flirted or led a guy on in order to get him to do things for me in game, or to get him to give me things I want or need. I get what I want myself, and I earn every last little bit of it. It is this way for me in WAR, as it was in WoW, as it was in Asheron's Call... as it is in real life. As a gamer, I rely on being female for NOTHING, as in a virtual world with imaginary races and environments, the gender of the person at the keyboard essentially means nothing at all. What matters is HOW you play, and HOW you apply your morals and values to your interactions with other players, regardless of THEIR gender.

This brings me to the meat of this rant.

I hate. HATE. HATE with all the burning, back loathing in my rotten little heart all those girls who do NOTHING for themselves in games, rely on males to CARRY them and provide them with everything they need, and give ME and the rest of MY kind the reputation THEY are building for themselves. Like it or not, we live in a world of stereotypes. They are there in the real world, and they are there in the virtual world of WAR. How you conduct yourself IN GAME is a direct reflection on what type of person you are in REAL LIFE... and guess what, sweetie? You behaving like a HARLOT on public gaming forums, in Region chat, etc. ad nauseum DOES reflect on ME.

I don't want to hear about your sexual escapades in game, or what they have earned you. And just so we are clear, this doesn't make me a "prude". It makes me a female gamer with a little self respect. Want to know why you have no information regarding my sex life so you need to resort to ad hominem attacks? BECAUSE THOSE DETAILS OF MY LIFE ARE NONE OF ANYONE IN THE GAMES BUSINESS. And guess what? None of that information about YOUR life is anyone's either.... and we DON'T want to KNOW!

You consider yourself "liberated" and "open about your sexuality"? Well let me clue you in on why you're wrong.

Liberated, confident women try to BREAK stereotypes, not feed into them. We don't WANT people to think we got where we are because we have tits and sound good on Ventrilo. We don't NEED the attention from people that you seem completely dependent on. Why? Because we aren't terrible, no-skill scrub assed players who have gotten everything they've ever had in a video game by making it blatantly obvious that they're desperate for male attention and completely lacking any kind of respect for themselves.

Anyhow, I'm done. I need to go see if my guildies need anything further from me (which they probably do... *sigh*) and then see if I can ninja-logoff and go lay down on the couch for some TV time while I wait for Clubbin to get back from errands and take me to see Star Trek!

Cheers!

10 Probing Questions

1. What is your current main character’s name (or names, if you play multiple games)? Explain how you chose the name.

I'm currently dividing my time between two mains:
R40 Squig Herder - Nimboo Paani
R40 Shaman - Urp Stinkbref

Nimboo's name was chosen to go along with my retired Zealot's name, following in Indian food theme. Her name was Vinda Loo, a spicy Indian main course, and his name, Nimboo Paani, is a delicious lime drink with rock salt in it.

Urp was named in the traditional Greenskin manner, however, his name is also in keeping with my Indian food theme in that it's what you do (and have) after a heavily curried Indian meal. ;)

2. What was the name of your very first character in an MMO? Explain how you chose that name.

My first toon's name in an MMO was Aliana al'Aqbar, and she was a melee swordfighter character in Asheron's Call. I chose her name because she belonged to a race called the Gharun'dim, who were a Middle Eastern desert-dwelling people, and I thought the name fit her ethnicity.

3. Have you kept a specific name through various games, or do you tend to change your naming habits based on the individual game?

I change my names based on who my character is and where he or she comes from... so I guess it depends on the game, since each game has it's own races and nationalities. I try to steer clear of "mundane" names, since I don't play an imaginary race in a fantasy game only to name my character something that I'd likely find in a phone book.

4. Do you ever reserve names, planning to use them for characters that you might play later? If so, what are they and why do you hold on to them?

I have, in WoW, after my toon was hacked and her name changed... just so I could get it back if I wanted to. I reserved my Choppa's name before they came out just in case someone else thought of it, so it wouldn't get swiped (I just thought Choplivva was a little to clever to let slip through my fingers).

5. Of the three common archetypes in MMOs — tank, healer, DPS — which is your current main character?

One is a healer, and one is RDPS.

6. What archetype was your very first character in an MMO? Why did you choose it?

Aliana was a melee swords(wo)man. I chose it because I decided after playing a caster class for a short time that I'd rather hack at things with something sharp.

7. Are you usually attracted to one archetype over another, or do you play them equally? Why?

It's dependant completely on the game I'm playing and how the mechanics work. In AC, I enjoyed MDPS. In DAoC, MDPS. In WoW I was a caster at first and then played a tank, and in WAR I prefer RDPS and healers. WAR is the first game I'd ever had any interest in healing.

8. What is your favorite feature from an MMO you no longer play?

I miss the penalties imposed on players for dying in PvP in AC. You had to have some kind of skill and know how to either defeaet your enemy or escape them with your life unless you wanted to lose half your money and your most valuable items.

9. Is there an MMO that you would play if it was free? Which and why?

Eh, WoW maybe, but it'd really just be another chat program for me. I don't have any interest in playing the game, just in keeping contact with people I used to play with.

10. How do you measure the success of a character in an MMO (total kills, titles accumulated, wealth, rare items collected, level reached, etc.)?

Depends on the game. In WAR I guess Rank first, then Renown Rank second. Gear kinda falls in with the Rank/Renown Rank thing, so I guess it's an indicator, but not of skill-- more of time spent. I guess time spent can equal experience witht he game, and therefore be somewhat of an indicator of skill, but I've seen plenty of folks in DP or Invader that were god-fricking-awful, so either way it's a bit of a craps shoot.

WCPI!

This week, the spotlight is on Lokax, over at Mmmmm Gud .

I just love his stuff. It's nice to be able to hit up his site for my husband's Choppa and check out some well thought out Theoryhammer or to read some of his comedic posts about the state of the game. This one especially hit home, since once I rolled Nimboo (and even moreso now that Urp is 40) my personality pretty much split into a Greenskin half and a humie half. ;D

Go check him out!

Finally... 40!!!

Congratulations to my little gitface Urp on hitting R40 this morning.

Tomorrow he will be in Bilerot and Enclave praying to Mork (...or is it Gork?) for some good Sentinel drops.

I am so pleased with my decision to reroll... incoming shaman buffs notwithstanding.

And thank you (that means <333333) to Thirteenmoons for the shiney bits you gave him today. He's wearing his new Waaaghat and it looks awesome on him. :D

OMFG 1.2.1

Squig Herder

* Basic Squig: Increases pet's Toughness and Wounds by the amount of Toughness and Wounds the Squig Herder has in item stats.
* Drop That: Fixed an issue with this ability’s tooltip.
* Gas Squig: Increases pet's Ballistic Skill and Weapon Skill by the amount of Ballistic Skill and Weapon Skill the Squig Herder has in item stats.
* Horned Squig: Increases the pet's Strength, Toughness, and Weapon Skill for 100% of the Strength, 50% of the Toughness, and 50% of the Weapon Skill that the Squig Herder has in item stats.
* Run Away: This ability no longer stacks with other movement increasing abilities. Additionally, this ability’s duration is now listed on the tooltip.
* Spiked Squig: Increases the pet's Ballistic Skill and Weapon Skill for 150% of the Ballistic Skill and 50% of the Weapon Skill that the Squig Herder has in item stats.


Shaman

* Big Waaaagh!: Reduced this ability’s cost, cooldown time, and range.
* Bleed Fer Me: Increased this ability’s damage.
* Brain Bursta: Increased this ability’s damage.
* Bunch o Waaagh: Increased this ability’s damage.
* Geddoff! : Increased this ability’s damage.
* Get'n Smarter: This ability will now also deal damage over time.
* Gork's Barbs: This ability has been redesigned, and now has an entirely new effect. It will now reduce incoming healing on the victim, and damage the person who healed them.
* I'll Take That!: Increased this ability’s damage.
* Life Leaka: Increased this ability’s damage.
* Scuse Me!: Increased this ability’s damage, and increased the amount that the victim's resistances that are reduced by.
* Shrug it Off: This ability has been redesigned, and now has an entirely new effect. It will now place a buff on the target that will restore their health if they fall below 15% Hit Points.
* Yer a Weaklin: Increased this ability’s damage.
* You Got Nuthin!: Increased this ability’s damage.


I'm impressed. Now if they can get these changes off without half of them being broken or breaking four or five other things per fix/change, I'll be a happy little gobbo.

And a funny story...

So I wanted to test out the new Squig Herder pet damage on the PTS. I was tooling around Dragonwake, but noone was really mucking about out there, so I killed some NPC's at CoF and tried to get a real feel for it. Spikey (which is the Squig I'm specc'd for) now does 328 dmg per hit with my current stats and crits for over 500. Nimboo was a grinnin' gobbo! BUT... he was a little bored, and wanted some REAL action.

So he went to Thunder Mountain to see what he could see, since one of the keeps was flagged and the place was about half Order controlled and half Destro controlled.

He gets to Bloodfist Keep and the first thing he notices is that the guards there are half stunties and half greenskins, which strikes him as a little odd, so he goes in further to investigate. As he enters the keep, he hears fighting up int he lords room, even though none of the doors are down!!

Now Nimboo, being inquisitive by nature and desiring to defend the Keep Lord from any harm, heads upstairs to see what is going on... and what does he find?

A R40 Knight of the Blazing Sun attempting to solo one of the champs in the lord's room! (GG Valria, by the by... exploiting into keeps on the PTS is still exploiting!)

So he summons his Spikey Squig and unleashes all his gobbo fury on the Knight, who runs upstairs. Oddly enough, none of the NPCs on the top floor attack the Knight at all, but Nim will not be daunted. The Knight attempts to punt him off the top of the keep, but he is saved by his fortunate position in relation to a battlement, and his Spikey Squig is still whacking away at the Knight, who is now hiding behind one of the pillars instead of attacking him (?????) it takes an inordinately long amount of time for the Knight to kill Spikey (which made Nim VERY proud of him, incidentally), so out comes Gassy Squig, who proceeds to fart green poopies all over the Knight, who is STILL trying to hide behind the pillar!

Unfortunately, he does not realise Gassy Squig just targets him and drops AOE and will move if he loses LOS, so with the help of Gassy and some shrewd movements, Nim vanquishes the exploiting Knight, gets 1700+ renown for killing him and a loverly 325 renown defense tick. :D

Short version: Nim is extremely happy with his new buffs, and his Squigs are happy too.

The downside to the abovementioned buffs? Vinda will likely be permanently retired. No fixes for Zealots = Vinda on the shelf unfortunately. I can't reasonably play a gimped toon when I have two that will likely be fully functional after 1.2.1. :(

Oi... Dis Keybord iz Stickee.... o_O

So dis silly humie name Rivs ova at Way of the Chosen gives me dis Shiney wot he call da "Sticky Keyboard Award". Sez sumfin' about ya gotta tell da gitz readin' yer scribblz who it wuz ya got dis Shiney frum, and den put up a link back ta dere scribblz... Den ya got ta do a cupple tingz:

(oiz gunna cut 'n' paste deez scribblz cuz dey too much fer me ta put heer wivvout messin' 'em all up)

1. When accepting this auspicious (aww-spishus?...wassat??) award, you must write a post bragging about it, including the name of the misguided soul who thinks you deserve such acclaim (a-claim? izzn't dat wut dem stuntiez call where dey dig fer shineys?), and link back to the said person so everyone knows she/he is real.
2. Choose a minimum of seven (7) blogs that you find brilliant in content or design. Or improvise by including bloggers who have no idea who you are because you don’t have seven friends. Show the seven random victims’ names and links and leave a harassing comment informing them that they were prized with Honest Weblog. Well, there’s no prize, but they can keep the nifty icon. (Shineys!!)
   
3. List at least ten (10) honest things about yourself. Then pass it on! (Aww... dey gots ta be 'onest?? :( )
   

Ok heer goez. (I'mma let da humie do dis scribbl cuz she ken do it betta den oi ken.)

1. Mmmmm Gud is a blog by Lokax on Karak Norn (EU) server. Now, I'd think it's obvious by now that I have a bit of a penchant for greenskins (ya think??) so of course Lokax was going to find himself on this list, but really and truly, the blog is so well written and informative I'd have been remiss not mentioning it here.

2. Breakfast at WAR is one of my favorites, done up by the Pancakez and Omelettez duo. Great posts, and a few chuckles thrown in. (I generally need to keep Urp from climbing into my lap begging me to read it to him...>.<)

3. Blame the Healer is another of my favorites, mainly because he discusses the game from a point of view I can relate to: that of a healer. Good stuff!

4. War Lady's View is another girl gamer blog, also featured in Urp's WCPI spotlight for this week. If you're into EU blogs, you gotta check this out.

5. Nosmo King over at Tooth Skinner posts some funny stuff about "back seat drivers" in WAR scenarios and in general puts out an entertaining and well-written piece of blogwork.

6. Although I'm Destro at heart (and always have been, even when I played Order), Maladorn over at WAR 'n Pieces offers a pretty objectve view of the game, even if he is a dirty Sigmar worshipping Warrior Priest... >.>

7. Spank the Tank is a great read, offering interesting insights from someone who's played both sides of the Order/Destro fence!

And now... 10 things you never wanted to know about me:

1. I'm a Navy veteran with 7 years active duty under my belt.

2. I have 46 hours worth of tattoo work. If I put on heels, I am 6'1" tall... and only weigh 129 pounds.

3. I am building a small Tyranid 40K army, but I've been slacking horribly on painting them because I spend too much time playing WAR.

4. I have a younger brother who used to model for Paul Mitchell.

5. I used to play concert piano and 2nd chair F Horn for the Southeastern Philharmonic Orchestra in Massachusetts.

6. I was in the Gifted program in school, went to high school every Wednesday in the 4th grade, skipped the 7th grade, and went to special "smart kid classes" at Milton Academy on Saturdays.

7. I recently got a wild urge to shave off all my hair to 1.5" at about 4am one morning after playing WAR for about 18 hours straight... and it actually looks damn good.

8. I make most of my own jewelry out of sterling wire, glass beads, and pieces of semiprecious stone.

9. I have an English Bulldog and a pink Siamese Fighting fish... both of whom love it when I read to them.

10. Recently I have become fascinated with traditional Middle Eastern music, and enjoy listening to it while I write.

Well, that's it. :D Hope you enjoyed the read.

WCPI Spotlight

http://jejebell.blogspot.com/

War Lady's View is an EU blog I checked out by following a link from Rivs' blog... and was I ever pleased I clicked the link. Really nice header, informative content... not to mention great to see another female WAR blogger around. Her latest post regarding the subject of males IRL playing female toons in-game gave me a good chuckle. :D Check her out!!

So oi heer dis blogfing...

...iz got deez scribblz bein look'd at by all sortsa gits... even sum poncey poin'y eerz and humies and such...

so if youse all dun mind, couldja put a scribbl on dis post heer so oi'z can start lookin' at yer scribblz too? oi'z wantin' ta add sum more scribblz to dat list ova on da lef...errr...righ... errr that side ova dere ---> wot shows da udder scribblz oi loikz ta lookit an' dat oi fink uvver gits shud lookit too.

tankz.

-Urp

oyeh. dat up dere is a scribbl uv Nimboo lookin' at sum stunty wipes wot 'e found sumwhere. i wuz finkin' youse mite loik it.

I should probably get some rest...

...but I felt like posting, so here I am.

I guess this is going to be kind of a State of the Game type post instead of the screenies I promised. I am still working on collecting more cool ones anyhow, so you'll just have to wait. ;)

Some things that are still broken with 1.2, and some things that 1.2 broke. Man... there are alot of 'em. I know I'm not the only one who is utterly frustrated with how things are now, especially from a destruction point of view. It's to the point now that I am truly dreading the day Urp reaches R32, and at that time will have to decide if I'm going to start work on another alt or continue up into the Tier I have been avoiding due to all the problems. So here they are, in no particular order:

**AOE - It's completely out of control for both sides, but moreso Order than Destruction due to the combination of the Wildfire and Fan the Flames tactics for Bright Wizards. I decided to lay Nimboo for a short bit today, and was running to defend the south keep in Black Crag when I was set upon by a small band of order, with one Bright Wizard. Now, not only did they have more than enough manpower (I think there were 5 of them, could have been more) to take me down, as I was by myself... but get this: The BW did not hit me with one single target spell. He ran up to me after tossing on his debuff and proceeded to AOE.

Yep. AOE'd me down... when I was by myself. WTF???

This sort of overpowered ability presents a number of problems. First, due to the tactic that BW's have that increases the radiius of the spell, if they are on a keep wall when they cast it, it can hit targets up to 110 feet away from the wall. Now, last I checked, the max range of RDPS abilities is... 100ft. So how is it you're supposed to hit hit the door, or try and kill the people AOEing you??

Oh wait... that's that other glaring issue with AOE as it is in the game right now... LOS.

You couldn't even hit the AOE'er if you WERE in range, because he is hiding safely and conveniently behind a battlement out of LOS of your abilities, yet he can easily cast RoF to his heart's content and never take damage but from his own Blacklash, thus making it impossible to stop the endless Rain of Fire dropping down on your head.

Then there is the stupidity of the overpoweredness of this ability from the other end. I know the good BW's (and Sorc's, tho theirs isn't nearly so ridiculous as the BW's) are frustrated with one button easy mode. They have made plenty of posts on the forums asking Mythic to please revamp their AOE, even including videos such as the one that shows a team of three Bright Wizards and a Warrior Priest AOEing down anentire Destro warband inside a BO from behind a pillar where they can't be seen. This sort of thing is not good for the game as a whole. It's boring for both the AOEspammers and the ones being subject to the spam, and it needs to be fixed, pronto.

Another problem is that AOE ticks are not supposed to crit... however, they ARE critting. And often. ONE TICK of that Bright Wizard's RoF today crit Nimboo for 2180. Is this balance??

**Cleansing Power - Warrior Priests are a little more difficult to convince that this ability needs a look, but I HAVE seen some of the more reasonable ones admitting it really needs to go. It works like this: whenever the Warrior Priest heals an ally with Divine Aid, Touch Of The Divine, Pious Restoration, or Martyr's Blessing, they will also be cured of 1 Curse.

One Curse? What's the big deal?

Well, you see, 1.2 changed alot of Sorceress' abilities to Curses. DoK's and Chosen attacks are, for the most part, Curses... and ALL the Choppas attacks are... you guessed it... CURSES. So with one Warrior Priest in the vicinity casting group heals, your team is basically completely immune to any abilities any of the abovementioned classes could use to damage you.

Even better?? IT IS A 3 POINT MASTERY SKILL TALENT. THREE POINTS. How on earth did this talent ever make it to the live version of the game??? Is this balance??

**CC Immunities - ...are just plain broken. Where are the Knockback Immunities, and why aren't they working? What happened to Disorients affecting instant cast abilitites???? Is this balance???

**Healing - Healing in WAR has also turned into mindless one-button spam... which is why I have shelved my Zealot for the most part (combined with the fact that the class is broken beyond belief, but that's not what this post is about, so I'll save you my rant on that one). The main problem? My AOE healing can not keep up with the incoming AOE damage.

I'll give you an example. My Zealot is in 3/6 Darkpromise 3/6 Sentinel. She has about all the crit she can get from gear (outside of the DP feet which won't drop), and some really nice jewelry pieces. Her Dust of Pandemonium (2.5s cast AOE Heal) hits for around 1200. Now remember up above there I mentioned I was crit on Nim today for 2180 by a tick of RoF... then imagine I'm trying to heal my team through multiple casts of RoF.

Given that healers are rather scarce in any MMO (and, it seems, especially in WAR) are you going to be able to stack your group with enough healers to heal through 1k+ damage per second from each BW (and lately, with everyone and their brother dusting off their R40 BW alts, that can add up to quite a number) in order to heal through that kind of damage with a 2.5 second cast that heals for 1200?

And why on earth are DoK and WP group heals healing for more than mine are, when they are supposed to be melee hybrids??

Is this balance???

**Resists - Nerfed to 40%... why even have them in the game at all? They're pretty well useless at this point. You can't stack enough to negate nearly enough of the damage being dished out from AOE these days to be able to survive without hitting the extremely low softcap. May as well stack Wounds and whatever else you need to be able to heal or do damage and be done with it, since Resists are pointless now.


Anyhow, these are my gripes, or at least the gripes I can think of right now. I'm about sick to death of the AOE-fest WAR has become and I'm really loathe to continue to pay for a game I'm really just not having fun playing. I'm not going to cancel just yet, because I still do love the game, but things really need to be set right, and fast. Most people aren't nearly as patient as I am, and since 1.2 basically broke the damn game, alot of people are logging on these days only to do PvE instances and then logging off. This really, really makes me sad, because I really wanted to see this game succeed... I just don't know what they can do at this point besides reverting stuff back to 1.1 and hoping people forget 1.2 ever happened.

Beet'n Feetz Troo Da Teerz...an' Sum Gobbo Fashun Senz.

So little Urp is now Rank 22. He is a little healing machine, too. Got his group heal, his little white Ridin' Wolf, and his last name.

Yay for Urp Stinkbref! (I've gotten more than a couple whispers from people chuckling at the name)...

So what makes Gobbos look so cool in purple, anyhow? I actually discussed this strange fashion anomaly with Narlgutz, a R40 shaman from Limitless who I'd conned into doing Bile and Enclave with us this evening (Thanks Narl <33). (Oh yeah, side note, and before I forget... Grats to Orcen on finally reaching R40 on your reroll... hopefully we will have better luck in Bile/Enc in a few days.) Narlgutz was absolutely in agreement with me that purple is far and away the best color for shaman. Neither of us could put a finger on why that might be... Personally I'm all about the purple on Nimboo too, ever since they came out with the Lich Purple craftable dye (yum).

So for a bit today, I'd like to put my complaints about WAR aside and focus on something GOOD about it instead. The actual LOOK of the game.

I was discussing this at length with my husband the other day and we both agree... the look of Warhammer Online is absolutely stunning. The characters look unbelieveable, very true to the tabletop models and extremely detailed. The castles and keeps and scenery are gorgeous. And the spell effects are awesome. (The green glowy of my Gather 'Round is almost peaceful, in a WAAAAAGH-y sort of way. ;) )

I was scuttling around T2 Dark Elf pairing today with some random PUG warband taking keeps and BO's and skirmishing with Order and we went to go take Cascade of Thunder. I really should have gotten a picture of it today, since now if I go near there I will turn to poultry, because I think it's one of my favorite keeps in any pairing. It's so pure and so damaged and broken all at the same time... the fountain and manicured paths outside so neat and tidy, while the polished white stone of the keep walls are broken and cracked. It has a lost innocence to it, which I think is what makes me like it so much.

Anyhow, I am still up from yesterday (couldn't sleep, so I got up and made pancakes and eggs and leveled Urp out of T2) but I'm getting a bit snoozy, so I will keep you all updated. I think the next post will be some screenshots of the game from various places... so I will play photographer a bit when I wake up. ;D

Git to Da Choppa! (yeah, yeah I know.. cliche...)

Meet Urp. :D

I finally get to play him now that the Choppas are running around AOEspamming willy nilly and cutting Order to ribbons.

I love Greenskins. Their personalities, their /specials, their appearance... everything about them. I could seriously run around on Nimboo for hours and hours and hours jumping in circles and never get tired of watching him scuttle about.

He hit Rank 12 tonight, leveled out of T1 (no more Nordenwatch :( ) and with spore laden, wide eyed anticipation, he will head out to the wilds of Ostland tomorrow accompanied by his brave and stalwart companions Ironyob, Bludgreeen, and Hasaan (the Choppas), Lode (the Black Orc) and Tired (the Squig Herder).

Aww, who am I kidding. They're going to mob out into the woods and participate in the rampant and wanton slaughter of various endangered species while swilling alcohol and screaming cusswords at the top of their lungs. Urp and Tired will more than likely spend the evening praying their large, angry companions don't get bored with tearing wood sprites apart and eat them just for something to do. *sigh*

I don't know why, but I really haven't had this much fun playing WAR in quite some time. In case you didn't notice (HURRHURRRHURRRR), the blog layout has changed. I'm in a green sort of mood, so there you have it... and with my Main more than likely changing to Nimboo within a VERY short period of time, I needed something more appropriate.

Now if I could only find someone to make me up a kickass greenskin header for mah blog to top it all off... any artists out there??

WCPI

Just giving a shout out to a few of my fellow bloggers tonight! (Pardon the links, for some reason I can't get them to show up right. >.<) Way of the Chosen is a blog by a fellow Destro player. His opinions, experiences, and thoughts can be found at: http://wayofthechosen.wordpress.com . Some wonderfully written articles to be found there.

Girl IRL is another great one, a blog I check daily for updates. She's also a winner of the WAR Blogging contest. Though she and I don't see eye to eye on 100% of topics discussed, I consider her to be a pretty cool gal and an eloquent writer, and I highly respect her opinions even if I don't share them. :D Find her blog at: http://girlirl.blogwarhammer.net

Blame the Healer ( http://blamethehealer.blogwarhammer.net/ )is another one of my favorites (mainly because I play... well... a healer. ;D). I absolutely love the video one post down from the current that shows what WAR would look like with antialiasing and bloom... though all I can think of at this point watching it is OMGSERVERCRASH! :(

Bedtime!

Miz V out. ;)

1.2 Musings, Zealot Related.

So after doing a bit of this and that trying to get a feel for how things work post-patch I have come up with this list of things that are still busted.

*My Dust of Pandemonium says it's a 2.5 second cast, but it's still a 3 second cast. Same with Elixir of Dark Blessings, which was SUPPOSED to have been fixed in 1.1. Seriously... what the hell?
*Veil of Chaos is still worthless and needs to be buffed more. 1/4 of a BW DoT tick is not worth the waste of a GCD. Either fix it for real or take it out of the damn game.
*Innate 10% base heal crit is still not registering on our character screen till renown points are put into +heal crit, at which time you will see it jump up 12%.
*It would really be amazing if my harbinger, you know, DID something outside of wasting a perfectly good GCD.
*Dark Medicine is still a retarded AP hog. Please set it back to it's original value and decrease the AP cost, or even leave it as it is and decrease the AP cost. As it is now, it is still the last possible HoT I use because it slurps up too much of my little yellow bar.
*I thought our big heal pushback was supposed to be lessened in 1.1? As it stands right now, if an Order player sneezes on the other side of the zone the spell gets set back. Fix pls.
*I still have the purple glitter graphics glitch on my offhand.
*Winds of Insanity now is utterly useless because you're now forced to just stand there as a bunch of angry red ping pong balls smack you upside the head and you can't move to get away from them.
*Drink Deeply was fine, now it's worthless.

So far after testing this is what I have found. I'll keep updates posted on what happens fix-wise, but from what I read on WHA we aren't even getting a glance for quite some time. This either means Mythic could give a shit, or that they acknowledge that we are so horribly borked that we need a total revamp and need a ton of time to do it.

/sigh

--Miz V OUT.

The New and Improved/The Flipside of the "WAR Gender Disparity"

So with 1.2 finally being released, I thought now was a good time to get off my butt and make a post. To start with, here is a recent picture of Vinda. You will notice something different about her... and not just the new headpiece. Vinda no longer worships Tzeench.

I can hear your jaw hitting the floor from my desk here in my living room.

"But... not worship Tzeench?! She HAS to worship Tzeech?! Why would she turn away from the god she has worshipped for so long??"

The answer is simple. Vinda has prayed to Tzeench every night... worshipped him devoutly and been a faithful follower... however, no matter how hard she prays, how many elves she eats for dinner or how many kittens she decapitates in Tzeench's name, zealots still remain broken. Thus, she has turned away from Tzeench and fallen into the loving (albeit rotten and pus smelling) arms of Grandfather Nurgle. It is her hope that perhaps Nurgle will appreciate her service more and sometime soon her tactics will work properly, and she will have more survivability than a piece of used toilet paper. Cutting the cast time on our group heals is all well and good (though it perpetuates Dust spammers, who I detest).... but what about balancing our survivability with our mirror class? What about making our Harbinger an integral part of our class like it says in the class description?? What about our role as the best single target healer in the game? As it is right now, a Shaman or DoK is far more desirable in a stacked premade. They can both put out more healing because they can live longer than we can... not to mention the DoK can potentially put out insane DPS as well...

Please fix us, Mythic. I love playing Vinda, but rerolling Shaman is looking better and better to me the longer you wait to fix things that were broken in BETA. :\

===========================================================
The Flipside of the WAR Gender Disparity
===========================================================

I've read a number of posts in a few different blogs regarding WARs supposed anti-female gender bias, and so I decided to write my own piece on it. Alot of you will not like what you read here, but I make no apologies. It's taken me some time to come up with what to write on this subject, and I finally came up with something cohesive enough for a post. If you don't want to hear what I have to say, read no further. You have been warned.

So, first a little background.

I am a 30 year old Navy vet. I'm educated and well read, and speak three languages. I'm an incredible cook. I'm heavily tattooed. I consider myself independant and "one of the guys"... as in, I can generally our drink, out cuss, and beat the snot out of most guys I meet these days. This is due to a few factors, the largest one being the absolute pussification of the modern male.

That's right, I said it. Men these days are absolute weaklings for the most part. They have stupid hair, wear girl pants, have no asses, and weigh less than I do... and I weigh in at a whopping 135. Not to mention they like stupid music, know more about clothes and shoes than I do, and are overly apologetic for everything they do that might somehow be considered offensive to anyone in the immediate (or not so immediate) vicinity. They have no balls, and no backbone. They play acoustic guitars (badly), and like terrible music. They wear scarves year round and basically look like homeless crack addicts. And for some reason, women these days actually are attracted to this wishywashy mealymouthed idiocy, thereby perpetuating it.

Now, I don't know WHY modern females like these sorts of guys, but I'm guessing it's that they're nonthreatening (I mean, who the hell could a beanpole in girl pants with stupid hair intimidate anyhow??). Personally, I find them to be disgusting. There is nothing on earth I hate more (besides maybe brussels sprouts, and even those are decent with enough butter on them) than someone who kisses my ass, and these types are just that. They have their lips firmly affixed to the ass of every woman they meet as soon as they open their mouths (while looking straight down at their shoes, of course).

Now, I don't blame the men for this. It's really not their fault. They have been conditioned and spoon-fed lies about what a real man is expected to be by the most despicable of all things... the epitome of evil... the bane of all that is good in this world:

The feminist.

That's right. The feminist. You all disgust me. You are the reason that men are wusses and I can beat the crap out of most of them. You are the reason that a girl can't carry on a conversation with a man without him yes'ing her to death while he stares intently at his shoes. And YOU (and the mealy mouthed cuckholds that follow you around with their noses in your fat behinds agreeing with every ludicrous thing that comes out of your slobbering pie holes) are going to ruin MMOs.

Let's face it. The majority of girls (not all, but the vast majority) of girls are not good at MMOs. They just plain aren't. Alot of them play to appease the men they're with, and that's really fine. There is nothing bad about wanting to do things as a couple and get into things your partner is into. It can be very healthy for a relationship for people to do things like play online games together. However, this does not mean that half the girls with virtual avatars in online games have any semblance of a clue as to what they're doing when they log on, and WAR is no different. Now, don't take this to mean that the glas I play with are slouches, by any stretch. These gals didn't get into some of the top guilds on Iron Rock because they're terrible... However, I think they would agree with me when I say that they are NOT the norm, as unfortunate as that may be.

The game has a rich lore which has been set in place for the last 20+ years. When this game came out, having done some research and read some books and familiarized myself with the lore, I was a little taken aback that Games Workshop bent their lore as much as they did to accomodate the minority female playerbase. In reality (and in keeping with the lore, if you wanted to be totally strict and not bend or break any rules at all) there should be no female Ironbreakers, Engineers, or Rune Priests. There should be no female Witch Hunters, Bright Wizards or Knights of the Overpowered Knockback... I mean... Blazing Sun. There should be no female Maguses (Magi?) and no female Warrior Priests. There should be no females anywhere in WAR at all with the exception of Witch Elves and Sorceresses... but they changed over 20 years of lore to accomodate people and make it possible for people to have more options for their online avatars.

And please don't even get me started on female Greenskins. There is no such thing as a female Greenskin. What would set them apart from the males? Boobs? Why would a greenskin who is SPAWNED FROM SPORES need boobs? Boobs are to nurse young. Greenskins don't nurse young, they're frickin killing machines. They have need of strong, thick bone structure and big muscles to swing axes that look like they tore the front fender off a dump truck and tied a handle to it. Their purpose in life is to tear things apart and avoid being eaten by any greenskins bigger than they are. That's it.

And Slayers... this argument is also ridiculous. There never has been (and thank the GODS there never will be) a female Slayer. First off, if a female dwarf were to break an oath a male dwarf would become a Slayer in her place to save her the shame because female dwarves are so revered in dwarven culture that they are not permitted to fight. And its not because they're weaklings, either. Dwarves are a dying race, for goodness sake. Letting the few females they have become Ironbreakers, Engineers and Rune Preists are putting enough of them in harm's way, thank you very much.

Now, I understand the concept of the desire to relate in some way to your virtual self. If you're going to play an MMO and have others see you online, you want what they see to represent you to a degree. It's why I feel more of a relation to my Zealot than I ever felt with my Rune Priest. However, riddle me this:

If you consider yourself to be a strong, "liberated" (lol) woman, why wouldn't you want your avatar to be physically strong and intimidating in appearance? What is wrong with playing a male toon as a female? Quite frankly, I feel as though the people who complain about there not being enough female avatars in WAR are sexist themselves. Games Workshop not only bent alot of their own lore to accomodate players, they damn well broke alot of it into little pieces. It is YOU, not Mythic and not GW, that is limiting your character options. YOU choose to cut your choices down to a fraction of what is available to you, and cry and whine and moan that more exceptions and allowances aren't made, and honestly, I think it's utterly ridiculous.

First off, this game does not take place in the real world. Your social standards and expectations do not apply here. You are trying to apply modern human social mores to a game that takes place in a medieval timeframe on an imaginary alternate plane of existance. This other universe contains completely different societies than the real world, and completely different races with completely different values. It would be like discovering life on a distant planet and trying to force how we think and act on the native inhabitants. It just DOESN'T WORK that way.

Second, the female character options you DO have available to you are some of the most chaste and respectably dressed women in any MMO I have ever come across (with the obvious exceptions being Sorceresses and Witch Elves, however, if you were to visit your local S&M club how they dress really isn't all that far off from the stuff they're into). The vast majority of your options are not scantily clad harlots, they are, in fact, fine representatives of strong, valiant females.

For example, this was my character from Beta. Her name was Ygrid:


She looks tough, and no-nonsense... and she looks like she could beat the everloving crap out of anyone who pissed her off.

However, I play Destruction now, of course. I decided recently that I would like to try out some melee DPS.

So, this is Bjarn...


...and this is what Bjarn can do in a scenario:


TL;DR version:

There is nothing wrong with a female playing a male character. (In fact, two very well played Chosen on my server are played by females... Hi Burghur and Ducatii!! <3) Not enough females open themselves up to the option due to some feeling of entitlement that they should just be able to play any class they want as either gender (even if the race doesn't HAVE genders!!) and rather than try out a class they're interested in the mechanics of, they cry about how they can only ever possibly play a class with a female option. To them, I say knock off the sexism, honey. You're being just as biased against males as you're saying the folks at Mythic/GW are against females. You are the one limiting your play options, not the company that wrecked alot of their own storyline to accomodate you as much as was within reason.

--Miz V OUT.

ACK! Sorry for not posting...

...but so much has been happening the last few days.

Let's start with the small stuff. (You'll see why it's the "small stuff" when I get to the "big stuff")

Fost has decided that he has too much IRL stuff going on to really run the guild effectively (which I can understand) and has passed the reigns to me. Soooo basically I'm the broad-in-charge of Cry Me a RvR now... and just as this happens, the "big stuff" hits.

Iron Rock was opened for server transfers... INCOMING server transfers. And I don't know why or how, but two entire servers worth of people transferred, as a group, to Iron Rock over the last few days.

This means a few things.

1. The need to organise. Fast. We spent the last couple months playing against superior numbers of highly skilled Order... and now the odds are more even. Fortunately, the new Destro brought a lot of high RR skilled players who were already organized... which only makes us stronger.

2. This now makes Iron Rock a High/High population server, which means lag lag lag... CRASH in large scale battles. Hopefully Mythic will fix this soon before too many people get frustrated enough with it to leave. We need a server upgrade... pronto.

3. Epic RvR battles. I have never seen huge, crazy clashes like the last two nights. SC pops have been constant even to the early morning hours.

4. Order complaining they're now outnumbered, which is a gross exaggeration of course. (Full/Full means just that, guys... unless you're all on your T1 alts at prime time, in which case you're idiots. :) ) Oh, and fighting a defense capped fort?? Amazing fun. :D

We have seen the streets of Altdorf twice in two days. Both nights we capped all three zones to forts and Order could not seem to divide their defense enough to hold us off. Their defense seemed to be a bit aimless, with people all trying to rush to forts, noone bothering to patrol the roads, no groups camping our WC... nothing... plenty on the border of the fort areas, though, getting ported back to their camp over and over. Was fun farming them for those of us too late to get in to storm the castle.

Overall, I think this change is good for Iron Rock. The Destro is great. Organized, friendly, and driven by a desire to kill Karl Franz, which is EXACTLY the adrenaline shot we needed.

Miz V out!

Stolen from Girl IRL's Blog: Seven Favorites!

Just out of curiosity, post your thoughts on each of these.

• Favorite Zone
• Favorite Race
• Favorite Career
• Favorite WAR Feature
• Favorite Skill
• Favorite Scenario
• Favorite Live Event

My takes:

* Favorite Zone - Chaos Wastes. It’s exactly how I pictured it after reading Gotrek and Felix and I absolutely love how they portray it in the game.

* Favorite Race - Greenskins, hands down. I LOVE the gobbo special. Actually wish I’d rolled a shaman instead of my Zealot. They are so much more entertaining. Oh well… I’ll have a R40 shaman once they release Choppas… those ‘Zerking buggers are going to need healers while the level up!

* Favorite Career - Squig Herder. I’d switch to my R40 SH in a heartbeat if my guild/alliance wasn’t so short on healers.

* Favorite WAR Feature - I love how responsive the UI is since they fixed it. I also love healing in this game… it’s so much more dynamic than any other game I have played.

* Favorite Skill - Lots ‘o’ Shootin’! (SH R4 BS Morale ability). 2400 damage to anything withing 30 feet of my target?! Yeah, I’ll take that. It’s especially fun if you coordinate with a Sorc and another BS SH and unleash hell all at the same time. >:)

* Favorite Scenario - I like Battle for Praag alot, and Caledor Woods. I really like any scenario I’m with an alliance premade in, though. We rarely lose.

* Favorite Live Event - I think Night Of Murder is more fun than the last one. I still need to do that quest a few more times to max my inf, though. I keep forgetting to pick it up whenever I’m RvR’ing. (Not that it matters… a Zealot with the title Master Assassin? Eh…

PUG No More

I am never.... ever... .PUG'ing on ANY of my toons ever again.

I swear there should be an IQ test to play WAR after the mess almost a full WB of PUGs made of a keep attempt tonight.

I've always been pretty stuck on guild or alliance groups, mainly because I'm used to playing with my guild/alliance and I know what to expect from them. I know the healers will heal me (or res me ASAP), I know the DPS is top notch, I know the tanks know where they need to be standing and what they need to be doing. PUGs are a crap shoot. Half the people in them generally think you're elitist for trying to direct them and don't bother listening anyhow, and the others just plain have no idea what they're doing whether they listen or not.

Note: Do not take this to mean ALL PUGs are bad. It's just that if I do find a good one, they are generally recruited into my guild and then they aren't a PUG'er anymore. :D

So I got to wondering what goes through the average bad PUG'er's head, and came up with these:

"Defend the BO? Psh. What about that IB running by solo? MUST CHASE HIM DOWN WITH 12 OTHER PUGs AND KILL HIM. Who cares if Order gets the BO back??"

"Kill... squishies? You mean IBs, SMs, and KotBS, right?"

"God I'm sick of those healers complaining that a White Lion is in the back lines killing them all. They need to shut up and heal me!"

"Stupid elitist healers won't res me on the bottom floor of this Fort with Order in the Lord's room. What a bunch of asshats."

"Who cares if the Black Orc in the group has more healing AND damage than I do? I'm 1337 DPS! YOU CAN'T TELL ME HOW TO PLAY!"

"Taunt the Lion? Why? It doesn't do much damage..."

"Oh GOD... there are 4 Order players in this Keep defending. Too much trouble for a full warband. Let's go RvE in a different zone instead."

"Order has 85 VPs in Praag... who cares if they are going to take that last keep without help on defense? You guys are such asshats for not coming to assist with the group and a half of Order capping BOs in TM. My groups RvE is being disrupted by these Order interlopers! HOW DARE YOU CARE ABOUT ZONE CONTROL?!"

"What do you mean, stand on the bottom floor away from the Lord's AOE and out of range/LoS of the opposition's DPS and spam group heals?? I can do that???"

Feel free to add your own. :D

-Miz V out!

And So It Begins/Against the Grain

So after laying around in bed tonight for a bit, unable to sleep, my husband and I got into a conversation about our new Greenskins. He's really excited about his Choppa and I LOVE gobbos, so I'm actually getting pretty pumped up about playing a shaman. We lay in bed for over an hour talking about the patch and then started bouncing Greenskin names off each other.

Now here is where I am going to go against the grain for me.

All my toons... every one of them... is named after Indan food. It's like a trend with me. I have Vinda Loo, Chana Daal, Masoor Daal, and Tikka masala, who was goign to be my new shaman.

However, for some reason the first gobbo I ever rolled I thought had the best gobbo name ever, even though it went against my naming principles.

The name in question?

Urp.

Yes, Urp.

Last name? Stinkbref.

So after a bunch of discussion, my husband and I agreed that we are going to roll as TEEM GREEN. Here are our rules:

1. All greenspeak all the time. Use the mod if you have to. Yes, we realise we are not on an RP server. No, we don't give a flying fark at a rolling donut what you think about it.

2. Characters must be appropriately named.

3. You must be Green if you want to roll with TEEM GREEN. No stupid 'umies or pointy-eerz allowed. You can't fool us by dyeing your armor, either.

Off to get started on little Urp. I want to get him to R8 or so so he has his big 'eal for T1 scenarios. :)

--Miz V out.

Zealot Patch Notes/Musings

Bug Fixes:

* Ritual of Lunacy: The build up for this ability will now be correct. Additionally, the effect from this ability should now last for the correct duration. The tooltip for this ability will now reflect that only one Ritual may be active at a time.

* Ritual of Innervation: This ability's tooltip will now reflect that only one Ritual may be active at a time.

* Ritual of Superiority: This ability's tooltip for this ability will now reflect that only one Ritual may be active at a time.

* Suppress the Fragile Unbeliever: This Morale ability will now do the correct damage, and the damage will not be defendable.

* Mark of Remaking: The tooltip for this ability will now show the correct amount of Toughness given.

* Leaping Alteration: This ability's leaping effect will no longer cease to jump to new targets after healing the caster. In addition, this ability may now be cast directly on an RvR-flagged ally while the Zealot is not flagged (and doing so will flag the Zealot for RvR, as with all other direct heals). The subsequent leaps of the ability will only affect RvR-flagged allies if the Zealot is RvR-flagged themselves.

* Tzeentch's Talon: This ability's tooltip effect has been updated to more accurately reflect what the effect does. Additionally, fixed a typo in this ability's debuff text.

* Daemon Spittle: This ability's damage will no longer stack with itself, and will only be defendable when it initially hits the target.

* Aethyric Shock: Fixed a typo in this ability's tooltip.

* Dark Medicine: Fixed a typo in this ability's tooltip.

* Mark of Vortex: Fixed a typo in this ability's tooltip effect icon.

* Embrace the Warp: This ability will now reduce the damage from all attack types.

* Mark abilities: The effect tooltip for Mark abilities will no longer state they reduce cooldowns by 50%.

Balance Changes:

* Manipulation: This ability will now deal Corporeal Damage.

* Dark Medicine: This ability will now heal slightly more initially, and slightly less over time. The over-time portion will now last 5 seconds.

* Dust of Pandemonium: This ability will now cast faster and heal for a higher value.

* Veil of Chaos: This ability will now absorb more damage.

* Ritual of Superiority: This ability will now absorb more damage.

* Tzeentch's Shielding: This ability will now absorb more damage.


Ok, I am officially psyched.

And I officially need to start busting my ass to get my stupid RR up and get my Darkpromise boots out of Vale. I need to get my heal crit up to a respectable level so I can make better use of the Witchcraft tree. Yay for AP hog Dark Blessing being adjusted to a level that might make it useful!!!

Shields buffed makes me happy. And FINALLY Embrace the Warp will work on non melee damage. Buff to Dust? KICK ASS. Not to mention the list of what, 15 fixes to the Zealot class overall??

Miz V is very, very happy tonight... not only about the Zealot stuff, but about this:


White Lions:

Fetch: Range reduced to 65 feet. 30 second cooldown.

BAHAHA I guess the Fetch-bot WL's will either have to finally learn how to play their class or just plain reroll. No more Fetching from 150 feet for you!! :D

-Miz V out!

Choppa Conundrum

So my husband will be rolling a Choppa when they come out as his second class to get to level 40 Destro side.

This leaves me in a a bit of a conundrum.

I plan to help him level, but I don't really have any interest in rolling a Choppa for myself. I have my BG, but that's not going to really do much but add some DPS and something tougher for the mobs we will be grinding to beat on. Pretty much leaves me with one option: Leveling another healer.

So, after some consideration, my little behbeh Shammie, Tikka, will be more than likely the next toon that sees R40. This is not only for my husband, though... it's for the 3-4 other guildies that plan on either rolling them as alts or as their new mains. I have a feeling there are goign to be 12 million Choppas and no healers to keep them alive in scenarios, and I'm not wanting to roll another Zealot, for obvious reasons.

I thought initially about rolling a DoK, but for one, I'm not sure how their meleehealing will work with a Choppa mainly because Im not sure how the berzerking damage will work. For two, I really, truly hate the look of DoK's. It's not the armor, cause that's alright... its the utter androgyny. If I'm rolling a female toon, I like her to look female. I don't want the only way people are able to tell my character is a girl is when she's standing next to a male toon and they can see she is slightly shorter. My Blackguard is fairly androgynous also, but she's fully encased in armor so it doesn't really matter quite so much in her case.

I guess I just figured if you're going to go androgynous, may as well go asexual... and so little Tikka will get the attention he richly deserves (since gobbos are so damned cute).

I know for sure three people that are going to be rolling Choppas, and from what I understand they won't be out till around March, so I suppose I'll work on my Blackguard till then and switch to my Shaman once the event begins. Will be interesting for me I think (even though it's another healer) because of the Gork and Mork mechanic. I'm not used to having the ability to affect my heals through use of damaging spells.

If any of my readers plays a shaman, could you give me some insight on the class? What are your strengths? Weaknesses? How dependent on damage are you to put out good healing numbers?

Post!

-Miz V out.

Pink Panties/Why Quit?

Now, normally I only post WAR related stuff here, but I thought this story was worth mentioning. Read on:

NEW YORK — Women throughout the world — 13,000 at latest count — will be sending Pramod Mutalik a pair of pink panties for Valentine's Day. But these undies won't make his heart go pitty-pat.

Mutalik is the leader of Sri Ram Sena (Lord Ram’s Army) — an extreme right-wing organization in India that purports to be the “custodians of Indian Culture.”

Members of Mutalik's group are suspected of being behind a widely publicized incident last month in which a group of men brutally attacked women in a bar in the southern city of Mangalore — beating them, and kicking them when they fell to the ground. Mutalik was arrested in the attack, but he was released on bail.

Just last week he was quoted as saying, “Valentine’s Day is definitely not Indian Culture and we will not allow celebration of that day in any form.”

India's Minister for Women, Renuka Chowdhury, has called the Mangalore attack and other actions by the Sri Ram Sena a symptom of the "Talibanization" of India. The Sri Ram Sena, like the Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan, often takes justice into its own hands and prosecutes people according to its own cultural and religious beliefs.

“It is regressive and patriarchal like nothing else we’ve seen in a long time,” says Isha Manchanda, one of four young Indian women who have banded together to fight back — with pink panties.

They've founded a Facebook group called the ‘Consortium of Pub-going, Loose and Forward Women,’ and a blog called The Pink Chaddi Campaign, and they are asking women all over the world to send pink chaddi’s — panties — to Mutalik. The group has over 13,000 supporters so far.

The Consortium sarcastically says it wants Saturday — Valentine's Day — to be “the day in which Indian women’s virginity and honour will self-destruct unless they marry or tie on a rakhi, a bracelet that signifies two people of the opposite gender are brother and sister. Walk to the nearest pub and buy a drink. Raise a toast to the Sri Ram Sena.”

“The response has been amazing," Karishma Upadhyay, another founding member, said in an e-mail to FOXNews.com. "The media has been very supportive and people from across the world have joined the group. There are collection points in three or four cities across India.”

Manchanda echoed Upadhyay’s sentiments. “The response to the Pink Chaddi Campaign has been phenomenal! We’re constantly getting calls from all around the country from people who want to help collect the underwear.”

Upadhyay said she feels secure when she goes out because “It is very safe for women to go to pubs in the larger cities. It is not uncommon to see groups of women in pubs in Mumbai or Delhi.

"But in smaller towns and cities, parties like the Sri Ram Sena, Shiv Sena, or Bajrang Dal clamp down on activities that they think are against the ‘Indian Culture.’ Which is pure B.S.”

The government has condemned the attacks that fueled the chaddi campaign, and has called the Sri Ram Sena a threat, but Upadhyay doesn’t feel that their efforts are enough.

“The government says that they are ‘investigating,’ but no action has been taken against the perpetrators,” she said. “It is important to nip such actions by political parties in the bud.”

A third founding member, Ratna Appnender, sees the Sri Ram Sena as only part of the problem. “I feel Mutalik’s group represents the growth of right-wing conservative politics and its impact on society," she said.

"It is a minor aspect of the larger issue of growing religious and cultural fundamentalism in India and in the world.”

Visit the Pink Chaddi Campaign's blog here, or click the link on my Blogroll:

http://www.thepinkchaddicampaign.blogspot.com/


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Ok, now for the WAR stuff.

So lately I've seen a few posts on WHA by people letting the server know they're quitting. Now, I understand the frustration of the bugs and the aggravation of how long it's been taking Mythic to fix things... but really, how is quitting the game helping?

First off, the game is *still* only about 4.5 months old. There are going to be bugs. There are going to be glitches and problems. The game will not ever be perfect. These things take TIME. Think about the amount of problems the game has at present. Now consider the number of people Mythic actually can afford to employ to fix them, and do the math. Then factor in how long it took WoW to stabilize when it first came out. Even within the whole first year things were iffy... crashes, server queues, bugs, glitches, world geometry problems, class imbalances... all plagued WoW just like they plague WAR.

Second, think in terms of what else there is to play right now. WoW? Sure, if you like mindlessly grinding PvE bosses and lackluster PvP. EVE? Steep learning curve, and though it's a great game it's not a true MMO. CoV/H? Don't even get me started. Or maybe AoC? Don't even get me started. XBox? Too limited on player interaction. Really, if you want a PvP based MMO, WAR is the best out there, bugs or no bugs.

Third, why not just have FAITH? I hate to repeat myself, but the game has only been out for a scant 4.5 months. In terms of MMOs it's still in it's infancy. Have a little faith that the dev's and people working on the game ARE working on the game. It's their job. They're not "neglecting" your class because they want to spite you... they're prioritizing. I play a zealot. We're bugged for sure. Some of our abilities don't work as they should.. and others don't work at all or are pointless to bother wasting a GCD on. Does that mean that after T4 endgame is fixed and the rest of the content cut from beta is released that they plan on leaving my class how it is? Highly doubtful. They know what the problems are. They WANT their game to succeed, if only from a financial standpoint. If you don't want to believe that they really do genuinely care about their game (which I DO believe they do...) then at least take some solace in the fact that they will focus on fixes to avoid having their cash cow turn into hamburger.

Fourth, what good do these posts really do? Are you looking for attention? Are you trying to demoralize the people who are staying? Do you want other people to see your post and say to themselves "Hey... that guy's quitting. This game sucks. I'm quitting too."? This is how servers eventually die. People hear the negative attitudes of others and adopt them as their own, or use them to bolster their overly high expectations for a game so young. So in short, stop with the posts. Noone needs to read your gripes on the forums for a server that so recently had such population issues Destro side. We don't need more lemmings following the Quit Train. Keep that shit to yourself.

I guess I just want to say, stay positive FFS. These things take TIME. Even WoW, the so-called "greatest MMO of all time" went through the same thing... and the only reason WAR is having so many issues with retaining people is that they have a four year old, (at least semi-) polished MMO to fall back on.

I dunno. I'll be proud to still be here a year from now when all this crap is fixed, if for no other reason than to say to the people who quit and come back when the grass is greener that at least I stayed through the hard part while they wussed out. ;)

Miz V out.

So Miz V is a Serious Slacker...

...and has not been posting here as often as she should.

Mostly it's because from the time I log in to the game till the time I log off, the oRvR is NON FRIGGIN STOP lately.

<3 my server.

I promise I will get back to my regularly scheduled postings, but lately with oRvR lasting well into the early hours of the morning and my issues of late with insomnia (it is 7:20 in the morning and I haven't been to bed yet... yesterday I took a nap at 4pm after being up since the day before) I haven't had the energy to put a lot of thought into a solid post, and for that I do apologize.

Please stay tuned and don't give up on me! I promise I'm not this boring when I have some sleep. :P

--Miz V

Where Did They Come From?!!/Omega Alliance Welcomes Nexus

This is a video of Japanese hornets... it reminded me of Destruction's performance on Iron Rock over the last couple days. I don't know how, but we managed to take inferior numbers and couple them with superior skill and tactics and we are giving Order a run for their money.

:D

HAPPY VINDA

In other news, Nexus is under new leadership and has joined Omega with Cry Me a RvR and ScM.

Bigger things are coming. <3

--Miz V

Omega Alliance/We Ain't Dead Yet!

So this is what happens when Destro finally gets pissed off enough to work together.

That's a screenie of a premade vs premade scenario we were in tonight with ScM, the other guild in our alliance... I have a number of them from tonight that look alot like that, but I don't need to post them all... you get the point from one.

Tonight, Destro had more cohesive unity than I have ever seen. No more bickering and fighting... people have realised we can't afford it if we want our server not to die. It was amazing.

First, we took back Chaos Wastes. We camped their warcamp for an hour or so before they called in reenforcements. They drove us back to our warcamp. We called in reenforcements... and people... actually... CAME. We drove them out, back across the wastes to their warcamp again, then proceeded to farm them for another solid half hour while capping the rest of the BOs and turning the zone back over to Destro.

Then we went to Praag. We had a warband vs their warband. The fights were friggin epic. We had a 10 minute bloodbath at healing boon before we finally wiped them out. Absolutely amazing.

Then, I get a tell from an old and dear friend who is dropping his R40 RR57 WH and rerolling Destro on Iron Rock, and another tell from another dear friend saying that he and 6-8 of his best people are coming back to the server and want their guild to be absorbed into ours. They bring with them two tanks, five healers, and some DPS. Cry Me a RvR is now no longer going to need to recruit. We will be full... all with good, active players who know how to kick ass and take names.

Much respect to all the Destro and Order who fought tonight. The battles were incredible, the cohesion Destro side was mind bogglingly amazing, and I am SO SO SO proud of us all.

<3

Miz V

IC Falls/Fortress Door Nerfs are...

...absolute and utter bullshit.

It took Order less time to get through the first door of the Forts than it did for them to get through the regular keep doors. I agree the door HP needed something of a nerf, but now they're roughly the thickness and protection of wet cardboard.

I'm not really sure what this patch was hoping to accomplish. Destro is hopelessly outnumbered by Order on Iron Rock. Tonight it was roughly 4:1. So basically, the number of defenders is capped, but the number of attackers isn't. This mean that tonight we had over 125 Order attacking the fort and only 50 defending. That is supposed to be balanced?

I guess all I really want to say with this post is, there needs to be a way to truly balance things. Somewhere between what they were and what they are now. Rewarding a zerg to this extent with basically a free city cap is not the way to keep people playing this game. Winning or losing in these cases is entirely based on realm population. If you're not on the zerg side, you won't win, ever. It's not like you can outsmart them or outplay them, you just get rolled over repeatedly, and I gotta say from the viewpoint of someone who has had the crap kicked out of her for the better part of the day, this crap has sapped all the fun right out of this game for me.

Things that need fixing:

1. Fortress doors need a buff again. Not to where they were, but somewhere in the middle.

2. Defenders need more of a reward for defending. Not only did I barely get any renown for fighting for 6+ hours, I then had to sit in boring, repetitive PQ's with R32 loot bags farming the same mobs over and over. The whole time I was there I only saw one gold bag drop. Also, people who do win bags most times can't get them due to bad sportsmanship from Order AOE'ing/DoT'ing people trying to get the chest. (Yes, I know you can get the chest from a distance. No, it doesn't matter.)

3. Something needs to be done about City PQ queueing. There were 5 PQ's running in the city tonight. Only one of them had Order vs Destro. Other than that, there were 2 running with all order no Destro, and two vice versa. At least if we had Order to fight it would have taken a bit of the monotony out of it...

4. Level cap on forts needs to be R40. Period.

5. Once the fort attack starts, there needs to be a cap per server based on how many defenders there are on the attackers... NOT the other way around. Meaning, if by a certain time after the fort pops, there are (for sake of argument) 100 defenders, the attackers should be capped at a reasonable amount. Do you really expect defenders to hold a fort against 3-4 times their numbers? Perhaps there could be another timer saying "You have X:XX to get to XYZ Fort!" before it stops and the cap is set?

Just to clarify, since we lost our city in the 4:1 zerg today, that means that now we won't see Sentinel drops for a while? Since the city resets to Rank 1 and all that? Cause if that's the case, that's just dandy. So much for gearing up tanks we desperately need.

Guide to Making Dyes (If You Are So Inclined)

This post was originally a response to someone in another blog asking if dyes were craftable. I wrote this up as a little guide to help people who are actually interested in procc'ing multiple dyes either for guildies or as a means of income. I hope it helps anyone who might be interested. :D

(Vinda is a 200 Cultivator and a 75 Apothecary)

Dye Making Made Easy... Sort of...

Dyes require three materials to make, two of which (the Mortar and Pestle and the Fixer) can be purchased from any crafting vendor.

The tricky part is getting the Extracts. There are currently five types of extracts in the game for five different color dyes:

*Honeycomb Extract - Golden Yellow Dye - Seed level 1-25
*Resinous Brown Extract - Scorched Brown Dye (Which is actually a very nice dark maroony red) Seed level 50-75
*Verdant Leaf Extract - Verdant Green Dye - Seed level 100 ONLY - These extracts are very rare and hard to proc!
*Blue Bottle Fly Extract - Seaguard Blue Dye - Seed level 125
*Fiery Red Ant Extract - Red Gore Dye (PINK! lol) - Seed level 150-175

The way to produce the extracts is based off two procs. First, you must grow a seed of the appropriate level of plant for the dye you wish to make and hope that a Hybrid Seed procs. You will know this happens when you produce an Arboreal Resin (which is used as an apothecary Stabilizer) and a new seed with a slightly different name.

I set these seeds aside till I am done growing all the seeds I have for the dye I am attempting to produce (put them in the bank) and continue growing the normal seeds till they’re all gone and I’m only left with the hybrids.

Then I take the hybrid seeds and grow them, using the highest level soil/watering cans/nutrients I have available. (I have a R40 Squig Herder alt who is a butcher and my husband is a scavenger, so I am never low on high level mats) and pray for as many procs as I can get. The hybrid seeds can proc multiple Extracts from a single seed. Also, the Extract procs are considered what is called a “Special Moment” (epic proc) and will always proc the original type of hybrid seed back to you. I have procc'ed STACKS of a single color extract from one base seed! Also, using high level mats also increases the chances of procc'ing another hybrid seed back to you even without procc'ing an extract, so regardless, the higher level the mats are, the better.

Generally I am making the Scorched Brown, since that seems to be a popular color. I use a hybrid seed of the appropriate level (50-75), 153+ soil, a 162+ watering can, and a 162+ nutrient in order to proc 2 extracts per seed. (If I have higher level mats available I use them as well, but the 160ish level stuff is usually what I have the most of on hand.) I have gotten up to three extract procs from one seed using level 200 mats.

***Broken Things:

1. Seeds can also proc Fixers that you can’t buy from a vendor. They are rumoured to be intended to allow you to proc different color dyes, but currently this does not seem to work. Supposedly once this is fixed, Black Dye will become craftable.

2. Occasionally while I’m making dyes, I will get a message in my chatbox saying “You have made something better!” but nothing out of the ordinary actually happens. I’m not sure if this is a different color dye available as a proc that is broken or if it is intended for us to be able to create multiple dyes from a single extract as a proc.

Anyhow, sorry for the wall of text. I know that one of my darling Clubbin's greatest complaints as an apothecary is the need for so many stabilizers for making high level pots so having me as a cultivator with all the resins I proc is very helpful to him… and you don’t need to be an certain level to max out your crafting (like in WoW, which was one of the things I hated about the crafting in that game) so leveling a cultivator on a low level alt with the express intent of growing mats and making dyes is not beyond the realm of possibility.

BE... AGRESSIVE! B - E- AGRESSIVE!

Oook.

After spending the evening skirmishing in Caledor, I'm noticing a really stupid trend.

Now I'm not sure how it is on other servers, but what the hell makes people so afraid to die?

It's an MMO. A video game. A virtual world. You're not REALLY dying, you instantly resurrect. And in Caledor, given that most of the skirmishes are centred around that one centre BO, you have literally a 5 second walk back to where all the fighting is. So what's the deal?

I mean, I could go into some psych-rant about how we're raising a nation of pussified girly-men these days, but I'm not even sure if that's it. People just seem to have this insane and idiotic sense of self-preservation almost when it comes to their virtual avatar. We have people here and there that will run in and push the line, but those people are few and far between. Mostly, those poor folks are the ones getting slaughtered while the entire rest of our group hides out of range, shivering in their Bloodwades at the thought of their character potentially having to res at the warcamp 100 yards away. If you roll a melee class, hiding back with the healers on the opposite side of the bridge from the fighting NOT DOING ANYTHING is NOT your job.

As some of you may know, my husband rerolled on Iron Rock with me as a Black Orc. He's the agressive type, and has no problems either running into their lines and wreaking havoc or peeling some Order WH off me if need be. It's a great thing to have your big, green, muscular protector sitting three feet from you... not having to hit the Vent button to communicate makes his reactions even faster. Orgrune and Deathwed, two of our other tanks, are also aggressive, and know how to perform their roles similarly. I don't die much in our premades with them around, and we have no problem pushing Order all the way back to their momma's house if necessary.

So what gives? What's the deal with almost everyone else? Why are you so afraid to die? I mean, you rolled MDPS, so doesn't that imply, by the very nature of your toon, that you're supposed to be... I dunno... melee'ing? I have no problems healing the HELL out of some tank or marauder or witch elf that is trying to gank squishies or harry healers.... which leads me to one of the problems I think is the culprit.

Healing.

What is the deal with people thinking they can only heal within their groups? Sure, its easy to spam group heals, but if you see someone in the warband losing HP and you have the chance to save them, why not do it? My husband (who will from this point on be known as Clubbin, as that is his Black Orc's name) performed a bit of a test tonight.

I decided to take a break from the game for a bit. He had died twice in the time it took me to log off from getting no heals whatsoever. So, he ran in again, hit Hold the Line!, and started backing up. Now, he has a little over 10k HP with no procs or buffs, and he's a BLACK ORC.... and I watched with my mouth hanging open as he walked backwards all the way back to the middle of the destro group, surrounded with his own Realm-mates, and not one of the other 5 healers remaining in the group so much as put a HoT on him. Like... NO green text whatsoever. You know how long it takes for RDPS to chew through a 10k HP Black Orc? A friggin while. And not one, single, solitary heal. Not even a piddly insta-HoT. Nothing.

So I guess this blog is really just to simply say... STOP IT.

If you are an MDPS player:

STOP being a lame-assed pussified jackass and go kill squishies. Go harry healers. Go smash that Bright Wizard in the face. That Archmage over there? Picture him as made of glass. KILL KILL KILL. And while you're at it, see the Ironbreaker? Unless he's in the back bothering squishes... LEAVE HIM ALONE.

If you're a healer:

Heal everyone. Yes, yes, I know. Spamming group heals over and over and over again makes you have REALLY big scenario numbers, but you are NOT being effective... and NOT helping anyone outside of yourself and the other 5 people in your group. Heal proactively. Heal dynamically. Keep all your Sorc's HoT'ed and all your MPDS pushing the line healed, whether or not they are in your group or the one two rows down.

People need to start performing their roles properly or go play some other game where other people don't rely on you to perform a certain task.

-Miz V OUT.

Introducing: Miz Loo/Order Fort Attempt on Super Bowl Sunday!

I finally got a good screenie of Vinda in which she is not either dead or my UI is blocking things or she's at a funny angle. ;D

Had some great oRvR tonight. Order (either intentionally or accidentally, not sure which) capped Caledor and found themselves at Fell Landing. There was a decent amount of them, but also a decent amount of us... surprising it being Super Bowl day and all. As soon as they popped the fort I'm guessing the phone chain started Destro side.

"Dude! What are you doing??"
"Watching the Super Bowl, man, what do you think I'm doing?"
"Order's at Fell Landing! Get your ass online!"
"Oh, shit! Hey guys, I gotta get on the computer for a bit and dork it up!"

Hehehe...

Apparently Blood Pact and Co. had a big group at their WC and kept them from getting out into the zone for about 25 min or so, and wasted alot of their timer. We had a TON of people there by that point and they didn't even get the first door down by the time the timer ran out. >.<

However, as I'm blogging this, they just capped DW again so I gotta go and help cause were back defending again. ;) Yay renown!

N'Kari down, 100% legit!

After a few nights of her bugging out and continuing to channel even if we used the stones on her, Ulath (<3) told us that if you reset the instance and reform the group every few attempts it will keep her from bugging, so long as a different person is leader.

So we did it... and... WE DID IT. The 6 boobied beeyotch is DOWN.


"And what were the loots??" you ask, trembling with anticipation.

Blackguard chest. They really REALLY need to fix this crap. :( TOKENZ PLZ!

Customer Satisfaction.... Guaranteed?

Every so often I peruse the VNBoards so wee if there is any game-related info leaked there before I see it up on WHA. Perhaps it's just that I'm only noticing it now, but it seems as though there is alot more complaining about the state of the game there from people who admittedly already quit than there is an actual sharing of useful information.

I'm wondering if these people are just a vocal minority or what? I can't seem to find anyplace that might indicate what WAR's subscription numbers are like. Last I heard it was something like 800k, but that was a bit ago.

Personally, I think people have awfully high expectations for a game that's only been out for just over 4 months. My instinct is telling me that these are people who started playing WoW 2 years after it was released and didn't have to deal with the rampant crashes, bugs, pathing problems, imbalances and world geometry issues that plagued that game just after it came out and for quite some time afterwards. Not to mention that having a 4+ year old "polished" MMO (WoW) available for these hypersensitive whiners to fall back on really only increases the QQ'ing, as no MMO still in it's infancy as WAR is can possibly be completely bug free. They weren't playing WoW when there were 45 minute server login queues, frequent crashes, or when mages could two shot people and had so much CC they were nigh unkillable. They weren't there for the 30+ crashes the night of the AQ gate opening event (with less people on the screen than your average fullscale RvR battle).

Now please don't take this to mean that I believe that WAR is perfect. It definitely has it's issues, but none of them are anything uncommon in a new MMO. And just because what YOU want to be fixed NOWNOWNOW doesn't happen to be at the tippity top of Mythic's priority list doesn't mean that there won't be patches in the future to resolve the issues most important to you. Human beings can only work so fast, and there are only so many people Mythic can employ at once to make their gaming experience as positive and bug-free as possible.

I'd like to get some comments here from people sharing their REAL thoughts about the game. Are you enjoying it? Do you have faith that Mythic will fix the issues the game has, even if it takes time? Do you feel there are glaring class imbalances, pathing/world geo/bug issues that make the game unplayable, or do you adapt for now with the assumption these things will be taken care of? Do you like the look of the game? The mechanics? What do YOU think should be mythic's fix priority? Exploits and cheating or overall bugs? How do you feel the game is, overall, given that it's only been out such a short amount of time?

Civil conversation and insights are not only welcome, but encouraged. Now post!