Heh.

So... If you'll remember my earlier post about wanting a new monitor... it was written around election time:

Welcome to Nerdom folks. 

Thats an LG 26".. and man is that thing awesome; runs at 1920x1280 and is insanely bright and has just awesome clarity (5000:1 Static contrast ratio).  To the right of it is Jill's 19" Wide... she got the Acer 22".

So thats the latest edition to "The Beast"... suck thing about computer hardware is that it's always improving.. but right now I'm running:

E8400 Core 2 Duo 3.0 Ghz (OC'd to 3.4 Ghz)

Corsair 4GB DDR2 1066 

XFX 8800GTX 768Mb x2 (SLi Config)

Seagate 250GB 10K HD's (Raid)

Quite the little beasty IMO. 

Blackguard Suggestions

Ok... so now the newness has worn off and it's, yeap, suggestion time for the Blackguard!

PvE - even though I really don't care, nothing thusfar is wrong with this class... in fact, for AE Farming, it might be a little OP'd. Me and Carlton were taking between 11-13 lvl17's last night (lvl16 BG, lvl14 DoK) and usually ending the fight with 75%+ HP's... that'll be even easier tonight with 15-Hate cost CAE AE damage.   DPS, for sustained fights (Champs+) is a little bit low... and I noticed last night that I looks like the Knockdown's duration, increased by hate, doesn't work on mobs.. I'll test this later tho. 

RvR - Different Story: the BG has a place, but the survivability of other tanks really isn't there... and I can't really figure out why. Keep in mind, I've got pretty aweful gear atm. I've got 61% Mitigation from Armor atm, 197 Toughness (with no Chosen around)... and marginal Magic resist (23% Elemental, 19% Corp, 21% Spirit) unbuffed. 

 

Keep in Mind too; I'm the almight lvl17... I'm missing a good 55%+ of the skills I'll have end game.  Still, you can start to see glimpses into problems the class is going to face later on. 

Survivability - Very low for a Tank, and all the gear that I have has stacked wounds (at lvl17 I've got about 4K Hps... which is close to my 22 Chosen)... so I know it's not that. I think it's the lack of self buffs, like the Chosen or the BO, that effect survivabilty. While those classes get the buffs baseline... BG's have to spec into their defensive tree for them, and it burns a tactic slot. Armor doesn't appear to be an issue (61% Mit), but I think we lack a defense (like the chosen) to remove Armor Piercing benefits.

DPS - Single Target DPS is... marginal. The DPS experienced at lvl11 in T1 isn't the same as now, and healers have more tools to keep themselves up. Pitiless Strikes kind of feels like a regular-damage wise - hit... Monsterous Rending is nice for boosting your Damage in scenarios, but really it does little to bring someone down single-target wise. The 25% armor penetration is marginal at best, especially at 40AP per use. 

So now we actually lay into the Suggestions (!!) Phase =)

• Make Hateful Strike baseline (no tactic) apply a toughness buff at 15% / 30% / 50% based on hate. Move "Unstopable Fury" (anti-dispel) to the Tactic's place in the defensive tree
• Remove the 5sec Cooldown on Feeding the Weak. If the heal seems too much, make the augmentation a 'Remove Armor Penetration' self buff based on Hate (30h-25%, 60h-50%, 90h-75%) to increase survivabilty. 
• Change Murderous Wrath (25% armor ignore) to a Hate based Mechanic (30h-25%, 60h-50%, 90h-75%)... this could be made a Tactic for balance purposes (testing) http://wardb.com/spell.aspx?id=9323
• Change Elite Traning (Anguish / Anti-Magic tree) to:  For 10 seconds, your elite training allows you to weather the magical onslaught of your foes, increasing your magic resistances base on your hate:  30h-10%, 60h-20%, 90h-30%, Then make that duration effected by Pitiless Feeding (+10sec Duration)
• (*Bug Fix*) Make Monsterous Rending effect targets up to 15ft away (instead of no range, as it is now)
• Change Blade of Rhuin - Remove block Pre-Req: You slice into your enemy, hitting for 100 damage and cripple them based on hate:   30h -200dmg / 5 sec, 60h - 575/ 5sec. (no 90Hate... 15 hate cost)
• Mind Killer - Increase the amount of the debuff by 100%, increase the AP cost to 40AP. 

I'd really like to see the Anguish tree get some nice Magic-mitigation based off of hate... it's the Anti-magic tree.. it should give casters and healers and "Oh crap" feeling whenever they see a Blackguard running at them; kind of the way it gives tanks the "Oh crap" feeling whenever they get a Armor-Removing MDPS on them. 

OMG!

I'm about to make a non-WAR Related Post?! OMG! (Don't worry... I'll follow it up with some BG goodness or something. 

So this weekend was awesome. For those of you that don't know or read Jill's blog... we went on a Marriag

e retreat this weekend with our Church's (North

 Metro) Newlyweds group that Jill and I are involved in to Gatlinburg, TN. We had such a great time together.. and it was really nice not having cell phones, computers, etc.. Which is pretty crazy for me to say:

We went over a series called iMarriage, by Andy Stanley, and integrated it slightly with themes from the book 'Love & Respect'. iMarriage is all about controlling the "big / Capital I's that individuals can bring to a marriage"... basically, saying to keep putting yourself-first under control, and mainly be concerned with the needs and desires of your spouses above your own; and then relating that to biblical themes. It was really and eye opening series, with the first portion talking about "Expectations" vs. "Desires".. and how many times your desires will creep to expecations without you even knowing it; then your significant other is 'obligated' to simply maintain the status-quo on these expecations to simply 'break-even'... and in a relationship like that there's no real room for growth (spirtually, emotional and affectionatly as a couple). 

This really was an eye opening concept (Desires vs. Expectations).. because items do tend to slowly creep from one category to the other. The seri

es also covered getting more deeply connected with your spouse as well as the role that we play (bibically) in the relationship.. we, as spouses, are supposed to convey to our significant other the same type of unselfish reverence and grace that Christ conveyed to us...and that by being reverent, respectful and loving to our husband/wife, we are therefore doing God's will and glorifying him. 

Man that was a mouthfull. 

It was a really great and eye opening series; and I'm so thankful that we were able to be involved in it. 

The other really great thing was just hanging out with other people at the Cabin and in Gatlinburg. We watched the SEC Championship with everyone (well, we were cooking dinner) on a big projector... made dinner for everyone (Lasagna was awesome! Everyone loved everything Jill made)... had some really great discussions(The guys breakout session lasted longer than the girls!).. lost track of time and Stayed up till 3am talking, walked around Downtown Gatlinburg and took pictures of Mullets... lots of fun stuff. 

I also found the most awesome Spice ever..... Paula Deen's Butt Massage. 

Jill probably gave a better account of it, head over to her blog and check it out =)

Blackguard!

Been a while since I posted; sorry =/

So, with the conclusion of the 'Heavy Metal' Event... and the introduction of 1.06 patch, the fury of a legion of Blackguards has been released on the world of Warhammer online! I was pretty stoked... I'd been waiting for the BG for about 2years now; its the class I wanted to play from the get go; then it got cut from production at the last minute. 

It's a "Hate" based class that's the Mechanic mirror of the IB, and role mirror of... the SM I guess.  Listed as an offensive, Anti-Magic tank, the Blackguard is designed as a caster killer.. with interupts, debuffs, disorients; you've got a lot of skills to knock casters out of a fight quick, coupled with high Magic defenses. 

First Impressions: The first night with the BG sucked. Bad.   There were only Knights of the Blazing Sun (Anti-Melee tank) in senarios... so we were getting rocked. The BG ISNT geared to tanking down other tanks; we've got very few skills oriented towards penetrating defenses. Also, I was trying to play it like an ironbreaker, and I was hoarding my Mechanic (Hate).

You can't play these things like an IB... you're missing 40% of the class if you try and hoard hate, unless you're building it for some defensive positioning. Hate doesn't augment most skills in a super-meaningful (read: dmg output) way... it augments secondary effects such as Crit-Chance debuffs and knockback ranges. Your high DPS skills (Pitiless Strike - 90 Dmg delve @ lvl11 + Tough debuff) cost hate to use... so if you're not spending hate, you're not shelling out the numbers you should.  It took me a solid night to get use to doing that.... cause its totaly opposite of a IB. 

Duoing with CJ on a Dok... and he's really getting the hang of a DoK too (which, to be honest, is my favorite class in the whole game. It doesn't work with our setups... but the DoK is just an amazing Machine of a class) adn we're able to take down just about everything. So that leads us to a short story....

I'm lvl11, he's lvl10... We start heading off to the Docks in Nordland, we've been just free roaming... kicking butt and taking names of solo's and trios for a little bit. We get to docks... 2 KotBS and 1 Shadow Warrior... Drop all three like bad habits. So we decided to take docks.. took like 2 minutes. 

So we're chillin, waiting for the 5minute timer to roll up so we can get our second round of Renown and Xp for 'defending' the Docks. I was trying to get out of my combat stance, so I was switching weapons in and out... going from shield + sword, to Halbred, back to shield.. so while I'm swapping in and out... in Rolls order in all their glory.  Initially.. 3 KotBS, 1 WP, 1 WH, 1 SW. 

Yeah, 6v2. 

So fight starts... first target was the WP... I start hitting and I see all this crap rolling across the top of my screen. I noticed we're having a little trouble getting this WP down... I mean, we dropped him, but it took a solid 15sec. Moved on to the WH.. she was like, lvl4, so she took like 10 sec... moved to a KoTBS.. and I finally paid attention to the message at the top of the screen

"You must have a melee weapon to perform that ability!"

Yeah. I didn't have a weapon equiped... my character is 'effn PUNCHING for 1-4 damage per hit.  In WAR, you can't swap weapons in and out during combat... so I'd have to wait until me and CJ were out of combat for 8 seconds. (Thank god the DoK's covenant still procs on Punches... let me do about 60 dmg per punch every 2 to 3 punches). So basically I'm there just absorbing damage for Carlton via guard... and my DoT styles, for some reason, were still applying. 

So, by sheer luck.. the SW is an idiot... and punts me, and Carlton, out of the fray. At this point it was about 2v2... (1 got killed while I was punted by my DoT's.. so 1v2 technically) me and CJ get punted pretty far, in roughly the same place... and there was just enough time, before the SW got back in range, for me to pop a weapon in my hand. 

2 More add in on the fight... 1 KotBS and 1SW. 

the rest of the fight took a solid 20 seconds. we ROCKED the two SW's left, then the KotBS tried to get away, but didn't. Swinging with a weapon instead of punching really helps. 

After we'd realized what just happened... me and Carlton laughed for a solid 3 minutes over Vent. We'd just taken 8 people... of which most were between lvl7-9 (WP was lvl10)... with me not having a weapon equiped for 90% of the fight. I mean... not only did we survive 8v2, which is a feat in itself.. but we did it without 1 of us having a dang weapon. 

If I was anyone of those 8 people... I woulda just quit for the night. 

In Short... the blackguard is really growing on me =)  I've just gotta get it out my mind.. 1) I'm not an IB, 2) I'm not designed to kill everything 3) I work EXTREMELY well with a DoK ;P