cabalofwar

Lordy Lordy!!!

2009-02-21T17:08:00.000-08:00

A funny thing about life is that there is often good buried in what seems only to be bad. Well, except for in the heart of my witch elf, hehe. Last weekend I was struggling through a winter cold, and my wife was not feeling well either as she was fighting a lesser version of the tummy yucks which has been circulating locally. Together, this illness combo meant that I had an unusual amount of time to spend at the keyboard. Although I started the weekend at level 37, by soloing through the quest content in Thunder Mountain and Kadrin Valley, I was able to charge through the last few levels and finally hit level 40!!! It's a rather strange thing to see your XP bar just go blank, and it caused me to confront that perennial question faced by all who reach the peak... Now what?!?

Here is my answer, and I'll introduce it with another question. Are you still looking for something useful to put in that tome tactic slot? One of the easier tactics to obtain will come in handy for all of the battlefield objective and keep taking that is in my future. The name of the tactic is Boon of Tenacity, and to get it you need to complete 4 of 6 Manly tactic fragments in your Tome. The 4 easiest are the ones I did, and they are:

Kill Lodwig Falkenheim - Level 17 - In Ostland 56, 24k
(D) Kill Sea Anvil Slayers - Level 12 - in Barrack Varr 11k, 49k until you have 20x Slayer Scalps - Afterwards turn the scalps in to Reezel in Barrack Varr 33k, 60k
Interact with Stonesmith Supplies on the broken bridge in Kadrin Valley 29,40k. Surrounded by Level 40 Order Dwarfs.
Kill Drakk Cultist - Level 35 - Located in Thunder Mountain 17k, 5k

(this info, along with the steps to many other tome tactics, can be found here)

Cough Cough Cough Cough

2009-02-09T06:25:00.000-08:00

I dinged 39!! woot. Well, I was happy until I then announced to the the alliance that I dinged 40. I was sooo excited to almost be 40, that I projected to everyone that I was 40. You ever have the feeling after sending an email that you wish you could pull it back and not have it sent? Well, that is how I felt when I posted "Ding 40" in alliance chat. Which was quickly proceeded by me saying "39". and then some gratz and then some what?!? and then some I take my gratz back with many laughing at me.

Oh well, so be it. at least my evening / next day couldn't get any worse, right? That next morning, I look outside to see snow. about 6 inches. Go get snow blower. Start it up, hmmm. doesn't want to run. crap, get shovel and clear the driveway, and sidewalks to the front door by hand. thank you to the kind person that cleared the main sidewalk in front of my house. Hmm. can't get any worse, cough cough cough cough.

Off to work and it actually was pretty uneventful, except for the occasional cough which was occurring more and more often. I thought to myself, is it true, people are avoiding me now? hah, can't be.

Boss says to me - "I need to talk to you, but only after you stop being so sick, come back in a week." ok, so people are really avoiding me. can't get worse?

Well, the end of the work day finally occured, but that doesn't mean the end of my day.... nooooooo. I have class and it goes until 9:10pm. And to let everyone know, I have a professor that actually said to the class, "I have a lot of complaints in the end of class surveys saying that they don't like me talking all of the way to 9:10pm. So I am going to try to not go that late today." I have to say, at least he doesn't go beyond 9:10pm.

So there I am in class coughing and feeling miserable. I get out my mucinex DM and hope for the best, since I know I will be in class until 9:10pm. I cough my way through class. Some nice person gives me a halls defence drop - do I really look that bad? do I really sound that bad? Well, I know at this point that I really do feel that bad.

at 9:07pm, the class is over and the professor says, " look I finished 3 minutes early" - great, I high tale it out of class so I can get in my car for the 20min. drive home. I just hope I get home before I pass out.

I get home at 9:30pm, say hi and goodnight to my wife, take some medicine and fall to sleep, hoping to not die. My wife choses to not sleep with me but to sleep else where in the house, hoping to not catch what I had. Can't blame her. I then have probably the worst nights sleep I have had in years, rolling and sweating, and aching, and - oh oh - I hope I don't have the flu.

My wife walks into the room the next morning and looks at me and says, honey, you have the flu. Could it get worse? probably not, but do I have to say that I didn't eat for 36 hours, and I slept for 30 of those 36 hours. I ran a fever and did little but try not to think about how miserable I felt.

So, to this point, I haven't taken a stride back into the game, since I didn't get a chance to do so before I logged after saying ding 40. Which was the beginning of a very long unlucky streak.

-Z
(btw, ding 39.5 last night)

Give me that

2009-02-01T06:50:00.000-08:00

So, everyone raise your hand if you have been in a pug that had someone that rolled need on every drop, no matter what the item drop was?

So there was Cabal, out running Bastion Stair, trying to get influence. We started as a single group but as we got further along we picked up new people, not from the guild. Everything was great, we were mowing down the mobs and getting some loot.

Before I go on with this story , I need to clarify something about the Cabal guild. Cabal's unwritten rule is to roll need on items that only you can use. If you have an alt that could use the item, then you can roll need if no one else in the group (war band included) could use the item. This is all based on the Cabal honor code that all guidies have to follow. Basically, our honor code states, respect your fellow guild mates, your fellow alliance mates and your fellow destruction comrades and your enemy.

You might ask, what? Respect your enemy? You have got to be kidding.

The Cabal believe in killing your enemy at every chance you get in the fastest manner possible. BUT, don't disrespect the guild by being disrespectful to others around you. This basic concept includes the idea of not taunting your enemy. (of course, mythic messed this up by making one of the tasks in the live events boast and toast your enemy, so we modified the honor code to reflect that if the game makes you do it, you can). Treat others with respect. A good motto to live by.

So what happened that night? Did I say that we were actually getting loot, because you know what? We were not getting loot. Nope, someone we will name JoeTheNeedGuy was getting all of the loot. There we were, running through the dungeon when one guildie, Stone, said, "I think JoeTheNeedGuy is always rolling need." Stone and the rest of us watched him need on everything. So Stone, being the polite person that he is, said in warband chat, "What are the rules for rolling on items?" ... no response .. and then Stone proceded to ask at least 3x more. each time, no response, with the JoeTheNeedGuy continuing to roll need.

In the end, it was stated in chat that it is not ok to roll need on everything. The person stopped and we walked away from the encounter with a sour taste in our mouth but also some sense of satisfaction.

-Z

Needle in a haystack

2009-01-31T12:43:00.000-08:00

A small group of us got together last night... Molzie, Quinte our DOK, and Firefly our esteemed level 40 Shammy....

Most of us were just grinding out quests and scenarios shooting for that magic number 40. We played a couple of scenarios but after Serpent's Passage popped for the fifth time it was time to move on.

We decided to hit some oRVR lakes and do the quickie "Scout the Battle Objectives" quests in Kadrin Valley.

That's when we found the proverbial needle in the haystack... While tromping through Ice Hearth crossing- the underground/tunnel battle objective I saw a quick glimmer of red. It was the top of an order toon name.

"Hey... there's order here- let's get em!"

We were pretty evenly matched, well maybe not - We had a Chosen, Marauder, DOK and a Shammy. They had a Warrior Priest, Bright Wizzy, and a Swordmaster. We definitely had the advantage on the healing side- but they had more DPS.

Molzy, Quinte and I focused on the Bright Wizzy.... while their swordmaster attempted to do something to Firefly.

"Fire- you ok back there?", I asked...
"Not a problem- keep going", was the reply.

We took out the bright wizzy then went to town on their warrior priest. Had to say - we didn't quite have enough burst damage to overcome his HOT's but eventually got him down. Finally, we cleaned up the Swordmaster... By this time the Bright Wizzy had released and came back took one look at the tide of the battle and ran away...

Was a lot of fun... got the adrenaline going ... and we were thirsty for more.

We roamed the zone some, finishing up quests - and ran into the same crew again at the Hardwater Falls- took them out again - though to be fair they had some PVE mobs hacking them as well...

The third time- well now they had eight.... We didn't last long... Though we had a little trouble picking targets so didn't quite get the focus fire going...

We went to the Chaos Wastes to do the same thing ... a quick run through the scout the battlefield objectives quests and looking for small groups- but all we heard were the zombie crickets...

And that's the issue... I am working on grinding up to 40 so I can do the end game content.... If that end game content is playing WarHammer Othello and running from Battle Objective to Battle Objective to do RVE and avoiding fights then I'll be quickly looking to level an alt. While the Zerg may be the quickest way to gold loot bags- It's not that much fun..

On the other hand, if we'll be able to run around a zone and fight battles like this one- I'll be hooked.

Others have commented on this.. even on this blog.... And I'm pretty sure that Mythic is aware of the issue and is actively trying to correct it.... The zone domination mechanic is an attempt to make it so folks will stay and defend.

Some of it is a level 40 population issue... Don't know that there are enough folks who have "reached the end" to turn away from the gear grind and do PVP.

Some of it is an ignorance issue- not in a degrading way- but those who didn't play games like Dark Age of Camelot in the past don't know what they are missing when it comes to PVP.

Either way - I'm in the "give it some time" camp... there are definitely issues here but they aren't insurmountable... the little bit of RVR goodness we had last night is enough to see the potential that awaits.

-C

Run Forest Run... and yodel while you're at it...

2009-01-27T15:00:00.000-08:00

As I'm nearing the magical 40 I've started to think about how to template out my lil bastion of chosen goodness.

A review of his stats showed me that he was lacking.... well just about everywhere - but particularly in the resist department.

Blame the healer to the rescue!

I have to give a shout out to Dont as he recently posted a walk through to obtain the Winds Impervious Set guide.

I can't begin to do the work he did justice... so head over to his site and check it out....

Needless to say the full set of jewelry (Crow Caller Chain, Obdurate Seal,Wordbreaker Band) give a total of 371 to all resists, +12 to Wounds, Toughness and Initiative, as well as chance to reduce an attackers resistances and drain a little bit of Morale.

Pretty much looked better than the resists on any piece I had so I went for it.

Off to Thunder Mountain I went to grind on some Magma Crawlers. I put in the Map Monster Mod which was a huge help. Basically it let me set a way point on my map so I could travel to a specific location. Don't know why- but it takes me forever to translate x.y coordinates in my head. Whereas, setting the coords in Map Monster and toggling my map is a lot easier.

Anyways- off I went and surprisingly had farmed the 5 poison glands in less than hour. One piece down 2 to go.

The Obdurate seal was pretty easy- kill a scorp in Caledor- go to Dragonwake ... so.. we ... can .. run all the way back to Caledor. Have to agree with Dont- I don't see a better way to do this....but all I could think of was Forrest Gump running across the country..... Anyways found the second scorp... got him down to 10% and I was down to 10% - 2 more swings should do it.... and he got 3 in and I died.... bah... as they say Stupid is as stupid does....

Round 2- brought Tylia and Molzie for some help. We grouped and went after the first scorpion. Unfortunately, even though grouped only Tylia got the necessary drop. We waited around for a good 30 mins for the mob to re pop without success. So off Tylia and I go over hill and dale to kill scorp no 2.

I thought Dont's writeup of the Wordbreaker Seal was interesting... and it even had a video. Why a video- wouldn't a map be better? Not in this case... I felt like the little mountain climber guy on the Price is Right.

To get this ring you go into Cinderfall and climb a ridge after ridge of mountains (Aim for the 2 lava pools) to literally the maps end... honestly how do people find these things? A yodelling we went and due to Dont's good directions (and multiple viewings of the video) had no problem.

Have to say - it was a lot of fun.

Thanks again Dont

-C

Say no to Spam...

2009-01-26T17:22:00.000-08:00

At first I didn't realize it.... but I do it..... Spam of course.

In my case it's the number 5 key on my keyboard which is where my Ravage skill lives.

As a Chosen one of our highest damage attacks is Ravage, it's also an absolute AP drain.

Note: I say our highest damage attack - a Chosen is a tank with a nerf baseball bat- as we don't hit for much. Even when specced for damage we cannot keep pace with the MDPS toons out there... Though our big two handers look really, really cool.

Depending on the situation, on average, if I Blast Wave (to lower resistances), switch auras to Corrupting Wrath (to decrease toughness), knockdown with Downfall, Taunt, then hit Ravage I'll be lucky to get 300-400 damage with my one hander for 3 hits before the mob gets up...

By then, I'm nearly out of Action points and anxiously watching for my Morale 1- "refill my AP please' ability to come up... (Inevitable Changing). Of course there are tactics to help too- Chaotic Advantage will refill your 75 points of AP when you parry.

Meanwhile I sit there pounding on the 5 key as soon as any AP regenerates. When PVP'ing I do use my snares, and other abilities- but Ravage has been my mainstay and I'm realizing I need to try a different tack...

Frankly, the inspiration for this came from this post on the WHA boards. Response no. 4 is what caught my eye.

So, for the past few sessions I've been focusing on not using Ravage except for the following conditions:

- The mob is nearly dead and I need a finisher

- My Morale 1 is available and I can pop it if needed

My new rotation goes like this:

- Blast Wave

- Bane Shield

- Seeping Wound

- Tooth of Tzeentch (I may skip this when soloing)

- Withering Blow

Needless to say I no longer have as much of an AP problem and mobs seem to be falling just as fast....

In that quest for 40 I've been focusing on PVE- will have to try this in PVP and see how it goes..

Meanwhile- say no to Keyboard Spam!

-C

I <3 iTunes

2009-01-25T17:46:00.000-08:00

Thought I let all of those that use iTunes that we now have our Podcast up on iTunes, so, put everything down and go check it out.

-Z

Carrot on a stick....

2009-01-25T17:21:00.000-08:00

Ahhh.... to be level 40.... thick in the middle of tier 4 I dinged 36 yesterday while grinding out quests all night. Have to say - like the proverbial carrot on a stick - the focus / drive has been to level to 40 as opposed to PVP'ing.

Like Molz- I've been questing in the Greenskin Zone for tier 4. I've wrapped up the Cinderfall quests and have moved on to the East side of Thunder Mountain. Quests were all packed nicely together - 3 hours or so and I had them done.

Level 35 brought the advent of Bane Shield to my Chosen, Kiehl..... wow what a difference - have no idea if its any good in PVP but for ginding mobs it's been awesome.

By setting up the Baneful Shielding tactic, Warped Flesh, and Backlash tactics combined with twisting the Dreadful Agony and Corrupting Wrath auras mobs are going down like butta...

Wish I could say I figured this all out on my own - but I need to give credit to Chris over at the Way of the Chosen. It's his post here that gave me the idea.

Thanks Chris...

Back to the grind....

-C

Adventure me Silly - its Bastion Stair

2009-01-24T23:29:00.000-08:00

Well, I am back from a short time away. I had limited access to a computer and went through a horrible withdrawal from not playing the game. Let me just say that it would be great to be back, except now I have some silly cold that is keeping me down.

I had been meaning to write about my first trip into Bastion Stair (BS) for some time now, so I guess now is as good as ever.

A group of us entered BS, most of us having never run through BS. Erena, Firefly, Clivus, Allar, Arl, Quinte took our first trip. While most people that are doing BS at this time, are trying to get the influence you need so you can get the gear with the correct wards, our main goal was to hang out and to learn what this new dungeon has in it. In addition, we were just hanging out with some friends. Needless to say we had a great time.

The details are now a little sketchy, so a high level overview is about as good as it is going to get. The majority of us had never been in there so our great hosts from Cabal guild, Arl and Allar, gave us our first tour into BS. For this little adventure, since we didn't have a full level 40 group, we headed into the lower level wing. The group was a mix of levels from low 30s to 40 (2 of them).

The first step into this was to start heading down stairs, lots of them. As we made our way down the stairs we worked on the first PQ slowly gathering influence. I have to say, even with our smaller numbers we were successful, with no hint of coming close to wiping, even with our lower level group. I would probably mostly attribute this to the amount of healers we had.

So shortly after we went down the steps, we caught up with Sanjiyan from Teef of Gork in our alliance came along with a second group. Siezing the opportunity to be able to do the entire wing, we formed a warband. With tihs larger group of just more than 3 groups made it extremely easy to clear the mobs of this one wing.

But unfortunately, we couldn't do the final instance, since we didn't have the influence to get into it. So our adventure ended with us fighting our way back out to the top of BS. It was getting late, so we decided to call it a night. And our adventure into the final instance of that wing will have to be another story some other time.

-Z

Episode 3- It's Sexcellent!

2009-01-15T23:49:00.000-08:00

On this show we go in depth with one of Cabal's famed players, E, on Witch Elves and Witch Hunters.

Using his soon-to-be patented 'E' scale where 5 E's is, of course, sexcellent, E takes an in depth look at these mirrored classes.

Show notes:

How do you like your foul?

Update

- Open RVR - joining the Zerg

- Order versus destruction - who has the better players?

- January is Age of Blogging month: Post and Sign up

Best Git ---> E! joins us for an interview

- Healing in War- what its like

Witch Hunter Versus Witch Elf

- Looks

- Mechanics

- Spec trees

- Crits!

- Procs

- A Witch Hunter Just jumped me what do I do?

- Witch Hunter/Elf PVP strategies

- Overall who is more fun to play?

Check it out.

Link to mp3