Welcome to Idle Hands, my weekly segment where I discuss conversions, painting, and strategy for the Warhammer tabletop game… THIS WEEK Schools (almost) out for summer, and we’ve had a surprisingly mild winter here in North West Arkansas. I’ve been told that typically the winters here are bad however, there was only a single snow day this year and that was only barely. So, it’s busy here. We’ve got graduation to deal with and taking care of the kids that are almost finished with the year, so I’ve had less and less time to work on the minis, but I have managed to get a little in. And with the shift in focus, I’m actually more motivated than ever before… CHAOS THEORY Since I made the switch from WoW blogging to Warhammer a few things had to change. Obviously, in place of my old Business as Usual segment I’ve started Idle Hands where I talk about the modeling projects I’ve been working on throughout the previous week. But, there’s still plenty of blogging opportunities within the hobby, Chaos Theory will be a new segment where I discuss strategy and tactics for Warriors of Chaos. It’s also quite likely I will have guest posts from some prominent WOC players when able, this will not be a regular weekly segment, but will go a long way toward a comprehensive guide for WOC players that I want to put together and offer here on the site. So, keep your eyes peeled there’s a lot of exciting additions coming in the near future… UNHOLY CONVERSIONS With the shift in focus, I find myself a lot more excited about working on my army again. And with all of the bits I’ve collected over the past few months I had plenty of conversion possibilities. And believe me, the tourney list presents ample opportunity for conversion… The Pleasure Seekers My primary redirectors, five Marauder Horsemen of Slaanesh with a Musician. These guys are equipped with Throwing Spears and Flails, so they can hit a flank or redirect like a champ. I’m learning to love a unit that I’ve largely ignored since getting back into the game. These along with my Warhounds are quickly becoming all stars in my army. I’ve written some fluff for these guys that I’ll have available once I’m finished writing all of the companion material that goes with the army (yes, there’s going to be some solid fiction to accompany my guys in their gallery). The Seekers seemed like a natural mount for these devotees to the God of Excess. I had a unit of them laying around from the Daemon army I mentioned above. I also decided to make them all Eunuchs, I used the Marauder head that normally has a top knot. I cut that away and filed the head smooth, I also decided to use Daemonette arms to replace the left arms of each Marauder, along with the Standard that came with the Seeker unit. This will be one of...

Welcome to Idle Hands, my weekly segment where I discuss conversions, painting, and strategy for the Warhammer tabletop game… THIS WEEK There’s a lot going on lately, first and foremost there’s the baby. That’s probably the biggest factor these days for me, as anyone who’s had a child I’m sure can relate to. In addition to this, school is almost over. I’m looking for a job now, frankly subbing really isn’t going to cut it next year. I’m also working on getting back into college, I want to finish my degree so I can start looking for a full time teaching position. So, things are busy – and I’ve been rethinking my army strategy as a result. Over the weekend, I attended a small tournament at T Shirt Explosion. I didn’t quite have all of the stuff I wanted to take, it was a 3000 point game. I got about 3 hours of sleep before I had to pack up and leave (unfortunately I’m about an hour/hour and a half from the shop). I went double Hellcannon, hammer and anvil style. Things didn’t go my way though really, I was not awake. Even remotely, I almost fell asleep at the table at least once. I had fun, but I’ve decided I’m not going to another tournament until I’m sufficiently prepared. Obviously, the sleep issue is easily corrected. My father lives about 5 minutes away from the shop in question, so I could easily sleep there the night before the games in the future (which is what I did for the Shiloh Slaughter a few months ago). But there’s other things that I can improve on and with the baby coming these are necessary changes really. CHAOS THEORY First, I need to just focus on one force. I need a list that should be ready for competitive tournament play, not just a fun themed army. For that, I turned to Hinge’s Ramblings on the Chamber of the Everchosen forums. If you’re not familiar, Hinge is a seasoned tournament goers, and a well respected Warriors of Chaos player. His list revolves around multiple small units rather than Horde tactics. This play style favors mobility and coordinated attacks between multiple smaller units against single targets. For me, this is a more comfortable style of play. More like what I’m accustomed to from my old days playing Dark Eldar. I have most of the models for this list already, and I’ve started working on the remainder already. My goal is to get this list of models together and painted. After that, it’s all about getting in games outside of tournament play, I need the practical experience. Keeping the static list will help a lot in terms of real time play, I’ll have less time considering what particular units and more time to consider my options tactically. The list is also flexible enough that I can sub in a unit now and again whenever I want to try something a little different. And with the...

“Well, no, what I actually wanted to be when I grew up was still alive.”

Welcome to Veni, Vidi, Vici – where the topic is war on table tops… RETURNING FROM THE GREAT WAR Long ago, Plutarch and Suetonius recounted the tale written by Caesar, as he returned from the city of Zela and his little war on Pharnaces II of Pontus. There, Caesar famously was quoted as saying “I came, I saw, I conquered” thus ensuring no Italian would be quite so quotable until the Godfather was released in 1972. But recently, a local man returned from abroad, he recounted his experience in Italy and a new perspective on gaming. When I first read his post on the Hogs of War forums Monday, I was taken aback. I was moved, and left thoughtful. So no, I couldn’t write my normal weekly update. Not for lack of anything to write, but because frankly I was taken with the words from sirhelnor, and I’ve spent the past couple of days reflecting on them , so (with his permission) I decided to offer those words here for you, and to respond in kind. So, without further ado, here is the original post taken from the forums, it reads: “I have had the privilege to spend the last four months in Rome, Italy and have been able to experience not just the culture of the italian people, but their war-gaming culture as well. I thought maybe I’d share some thoughts about both american and and italian wargaming as i have experienced them. apologies for the length and rambling if you’re against those sorts of things. Warhammer in the US seems fundamentally dedicated to the tournament circuit. I know there have been some discussion about it dying out now that GW has pulled it’s support, but that’s never going to happen, the culture won’t allow it. Games in general are constant tweaks of “all comers” lists, trying to get the most powerful cost efficient army on the board. Loopholes in the rules are actively sought out to be exploited to one’s advantage ( i remember a particular match in canada in which a Tau player was claiming to move his hammerheads in 12″ circles, returning to their point of origin and thus without physically moving in space they were still able to fire and had their cover saves). The more prominent figures in the hobby often come off as elitists. Lately i’ve been listening to 40k radio, and one of the guys honestly said that if a player came to the table with an unpainted army or a few proxies, he would refuse to play him and tell him to go home. (now i know these guys aren’t necessarily supposed to be role models, but they are some of the major voices for the hobby. most people that fit the demographic he described are relatively new ones. not exactly an inviting statement. hell, i still have to do both and i’ve been playing for two years). Other personalities such as [certain individuals on certain forums] openly hurl insults at...

Welcome to Idle Hands, my weekly segment where I discuss conversions, painting, and strategy for the Warhammer tabletop game… THIS WEEK This is going to be coming in a bit late, actually a day later than I’d originally intended. Sorry, I got side tracked and before I knew it, it was Tuesday and I hadn’t written anything… Anyhow, I’ve been hard at it. I’m working on finishing my Khorne force so I can focus on Nurgle army. Though I have been cheating a bit, see I’ve hit a few road blocks along the way and ended up working on stuff originally intended for the Nurgle force. Not that it matters, it’s all going on the same shelf anyway. One of the things I’ve been doing is making a whole helluva lot of bases. With my cork technique I can create a lot of individual and unique bases on the cheap. But to fully kit my Khorne forces (and later my other armies) I needed to devise a true assembly line method for getting these things together. Here’s a sample of some of the bases I put together this week, though really this represents only an afternoon of what I eventually produced… So, I’m doing matching bases for my Warriors and Marauders. This can be tedious, likewise I decided to add some filler to the Warriors of Khorne at the last minute. It didn’t take long, but it did require me to get creative. But the biggest diversion of all was a second Finecast Hellcannon, I lucked into this one. I found it on eBay for $5 shipped! Yes, you read that right. There is not a zero missing. My hopes weren’t high to be honest, but it ended up being in better shape than the one I previously paid retail ($60) for, with only minor problems that were very easily fixed in a matter of minutes. I made him a little different from the first, but more on that a little later… UNHOLY CONVERSIONS The big reason I’m pushing to finish and start on the Nurgle forces are the Dragon Ogres, no I didn’t buy some of the oop metal ones. I’m converting them using Dark Elf Cold Ones and Ogre Kingdoms Bulls and Ironguts. Initially, I’ll be doing 8 of these, 3 with Great Weapons and 3 with Extra Hand Weapons. Each of these small units will have an additional Champion similarly equipped. This will give me real flexibility in how I use my DOs, I can field a single large unit (with whatever weapon choice I want in the front rank) or I can do two groups equipped differently. And then of course, I can always just field one unit up to 4 of whichever I prefer (AHW or GW). I knocked the bases out first, having the “rock” established already means I can post the dragon bits as I need to, giving it a more natural look, and allowing the unit to rank up better. I did...

Welcome to Idle Hands, my weekly segment where I discuss conversions, painting, and strategy for the Warhammer tabletop game… THIS WEEK So, in the past couple of weeks I got a few pieces done, despite all the real life craziness. Unfortunately, that progress ate through a chunk of my supplies so I had to make a run for more. I decided to take the opportunity to pick up a few things to experiment, namely the Milliput and Ceramacoat. I grabbed a few things not pictured below, a Pin Vise and of course some Green Stuff. I’ll be using the Milliput of course along with the GS in some conversions that require a bit of sculpting (more on that next week), as for the Ceramacoat, these are 2 oz bottles of paint for $1.25 each. I’ve picked up 2 shades of grey that I’ve since used to good effect painting stone on my bases. A great and cheap alternative to my normal GW paints (over $3 for 0.41 Fl Oz) in an easier to manage bottle. I’ll be talking a little more about alternate paints in the future, as well as the new GW line of paints. So check back later for more on that… UNHOLY CONVERSIONS Armed with an array of freshly arrived bits I attacked my unit of Warriors, I’m using 25 in my Khorne force. I decided to convert the command group fairly extensively, I even ended up doing a completely new Battle Standard Bearer from scratch. I ended up much happier with his look in the end than the previous incarnation, which I was never fully satisfied with. Here’s how they turned out before primer and paint (I’ve included a list of the parts used below). Exalted Hero (BSB) Warrior Champion of Khorne Musician Standard Bearer And here’s a group shot of the first rank. Conversion Overview: + Exalted Hero: Legs are from the Chaos Warrior model, with the torso from a Chaos Knight. The head is from a Chaos Knight, with the horns replaced by a pair from a Bloodletter of Khorne. Left hand/standard arm is from a 40k model with a Marauder shoulder plate, the icon is from a Bloodcrusher of Khorne. Right arm and shoulder from a Knight. Chains from the Chaos Lord on Manticore model, and the cloak is also from a Marauder. +Warrior: pretty standard but with a knight shield and a Marauder Horseman head. + Champion: using Warrior body, Bloodletter Champion head and Knight axe. Also has a small Khorne symbol from the Blood Crusher sprue on his right leg. + Musician: used the Champion body (I’ve only gotten about 10 boxes of Warriors, so I totally don’t have enough of these Champion bits laying around – I also do not understand sarcasm). Right arm however is Blood Crusher musician arm/horn with a Knight Shoulder plate to cover the joint. + Standard Bearer: Again, pretty straight forward, though I did do some mild shaving on the arms to achieve a more...

NSTK-ites can confirm I haven’t been in-game lately – pretty much since dinging 50 and finishing my Jedi Knight’s story, in fact. I also haven’t said much about the game at all, as the 3 of you still reading this blog can attest to. So after posting it in the officer forums to let them know first, I can in fact confirm that I canceled my SWTOR subscription (and exactly 1 day before it was set to auto-renew, too). Rather than re-explain it all, I’ll just repost here the relevant portions what I posted there.

Surprising absolutely no one, since I haven’t been on in how long? I pulled the trigger and canceled my subscription today. No single big reasons, just a lot of small ones rolled into one.

 

• I dinged 50 on my JK, but can’t make the times for the PvE endgame groups and have no desire to do the PvP endgame, so after finishing his story, he’s basically done
• No interest in leveling another Republic character – doing 90% of the same exact quests doesn’t appeal to me, even with the different story
• Just not really that invested into the Imperial side, either; no desire to level there

So basically with nothing to do on my one endgame-level character, and no desire to level any further alts, there was no point to keeping my subscription around because nothing sounds fun in-game anymore. So I canceled.

And that’s that.

Welcome to Idle Hands, my weekly segment where I discuss conversions, painting, and strategy for the Warhammer tabletop game… THIS WEEK Well, there’s been more than a little bit of excitement this week. As I mentioned earlier, we found out that my wife is pregnant. The resulting mania definitely reduced the amount of time I had to devote to the hobby, but I have managed to get some work in here and there. So, sit back and enjoy… WET PAINT Since I’ve been waiting on some models and bits to finish my Khorne force, I decided to continue working on some of the other stuff I’ve got for my Nurgle force. For starters, you may recall my scratch built Nurgle Sorcerer from a previous post. Well, he got a fresh coat of paint. I also started working on my first character, Archaon the Everchosen. Really just need to finish his shield arm and a bit of touch up work for him. But the big thing I did was work on my first Finecast piece, the Hellcannon. I did some experimenting with it and I’m pleased with the results. BOARD With all of the excitement this week painting just wasn’t going to happen for any prolonged period of time, additionally I’ve been waiting on some bits to finish off the army (so I can stop using proxies for my warriors, and sorcerers). So, building on the success of my Hellcannon, I decided to turn my attention to my display board. This is a Battle Foam X Board, a light weight plastic kit that so far has proven perfect for my purposes. The price is a bit of a let down, but you get a quality item for the price. It’s sturdy and can be disassembled and tucked away in it’s own carrying case for storage and travel. I used 2 varieties of cork to create the stone mass at the back of the display, I went with a pretty generic approach to the board on purpose. My goal, is to have a board I can use for various armies (different chaos gods, empire, ogres, etc) with a few removable terrain pieces added as needed for each army on display. The board itself is 18×24 with a usable space of 15×21, this could be tight for some people. I could certainly see some armies, large hordes such as Skaven or Orcs and Goblins, even some 40k forces having a tough time getting everything on the board. For me, as a fantasy Chaos player though I’ve found it should be little trouble. In fact, the only real complaint that I have is the usable surface. The texturing is nice, but I really don’t like the “hill” terrain that’s part of the surface. If I want hills, I’ll make my own (and did) but it was a little annoying building “around” those land features on the board. Here’s a quick shot of my Khorne force in progress, the Bloodletter statues toward the back help...

We interrupt your regularly scheduled blog for an important announcement. GOOD NEWS EVERYONE Well, first let me say I understand I didn’t make my normal post this week. I pride myself on my regularity, with regards to posting. However, the real world had different plans this week and I was side-swiped by fate. What happened, well to answer that I need to give you just a little bit of background info first. About seven years ago, my friend John married my cousin Heather. At the wedding, I spotted this little woman and before the summer was over, we were married. We’ve been inseparable since. We’ve literally spent a total of maybe two weeks apart since then. Well, the marriage between John and Heather didn’t last, and in fact about three weeks ago we were getting ready for his wedding, this time to a woman named Joye. John and I joked, I told him that I didn’t need anymore good luck from him, so he had to stop getting married. He laughed back, and said “be careful, I’m up to eight kids now. Being around me apparently gets you pregnant”. That’s what we in the writing business call foreshadowing… See, Brandy was feeling sick before we left for the wedding. She didn’t think much about it, I’d been subbing a lot at the Elementary school just before Spring Break, so no telling what I brought home with me. I ended up feeling a little under the weather myself, we just wrote it off as a bug and went about our business. That is until 2 and a half weeks later, when she still wasn’t better. I took her to the doctor only to find that we almost received the worst April Fools joke of all time, my wife is pregnant. I’m going to be a father. We’re both very happy, we’re just glad the news didn’t come over the weekend when we both would’ve been a little suspicious. As for the rest, well it looks like the baby is due around November (my wife’s birthday is the 2nd and mine the 11th of November) so, I’m guessing the baby will drop somewhere in the middle. We traditionally celebrate both our birthdays together around then actually, so I wouldn’t be surprised. The funny thing is, if the baby does come in November, that will make something like 13 November birthdays in my family. We seem to like the winter months apparently, as you can imagine Tuesday was spent making the round of the doctors office, calling friends and family, and snuggling with my mom to be. It should go without saying at this point, that making my weekly post kinda fell to the wayside. Rest assured, I’ve got the skeleton of a post that I started this week, and I’ll have it along with new stuff for next week, barring anymore bizarre real world upheavals. Thanks for reading guys.  

Welcome to Blasphemous Rumors, where I discuss the latest rumors to come from the gaming circle… READ ME FIRST I’ve been reading a lot of different sites lately picking up bits and pieces of rumor from places like Warseer, Chamber of the Everchosen, and various blogs. I tend to think that most of what I’m posting in this rumor list is pretty reliable, however as is always the case with these types of rumors I suggest you take it with the requisite grain of salt. I’ve spent the past couple of weeks rounding up what I considered to be the most reasonable of the rumors, and have sorted through, editing it to make it a bit more palatable. I have left out some very obviously ridiculous rumors, I’ve also tried to avoid adding my own speculation and guesswork based on these, tempting though it may be. For now, I just wanted to present an easy to read summary of the most popular (and likely) rumors I’ve found. If anything, I hope it will make for interesting reading while we wait for the new Empire book and for more solid details on the Chaos changes. Enjoy! ——————————————————- LORDS & HEROES Chaos Lord Price reduced by 15%, same state line. 100 points of war gear, 50 points of Gifts. Same mount options. MoT makes him a Sorcerer up to level 2. Has a couple of new as yet un named abilities. Stat wise remains the same. Other Marks are suggested to be different for Lords as well, Slaanesh giving ASF instead of +1 Init for example. Also, the Lord comes with two as yet unnamed Specials. First Ability: Re-roll all Panic, Fear, Terror tests for any friendly in LOS. Second Ability: Must declare and accept challenges if able, may never flee as a charge reaction. Daemon Princes Still no equipment, and 100 points of Chaos Gifts to choose from. There have been some stat changes however, most notably they have a 4+ Armor Save and a 5+ Ward base. Rumors suggest a properly configured Khorne DP is curb checking Vampire Lords without breaking a sweat, they also suggest you’re not likely to see a DP in sub 2K games as the cost is prohibitive. Sorcerer Lord Still the only option for a level 4 Sorcerer. Also, TZ mark is cheaper on Sorc Lord with a different effect. ——————————————————- CORE Chaos Warriors Expect a 3 point price drop per model but be prepared for a drop in a stat (supposedly lower initiative). Have to purchase Chaos Armor again at 2 points per model. Chaos Marauders Price per model has gone up, and no longer able to receive Marks. I expect to see less Marauders and more Warriors in the future. ——————————————————- SPECIAL Chosen Price dropped to that of Warriors +1 ppm and have the same statline, but of course with special abilities. Forsaken Same points cost, d3+2 attacks, base Str 5, Ld 5. Now they follow Skirmisher and Scout rules. Chaos Chariot Remain...

It has been a plain ridiculous amount of time since I last blogged, for which I have received plenty of well-deserved flak, but such is how matters worked out, and it was probably for the best anyways. Perhaps it would have been better if I had been a bit more persistent with the whole thing, but I simply haven’t been terribly enthused about anything WoW related (or MMO related at all, for that matter) in a while, and writing without any motivation beyond “because I should” is just horrid. On the other hand, when you have a topic which truly interests you, which gets your brain racing in a dozen different directions trying to speculate, math, or reason out the possibilities… well, in such a case, writing is easy. The hard part in such a scenario is not how to start, but when to stop, and when you find yourself in such a situation, you generally welcome it… as I do now.

What, may you ask, has finally given me this sudden impulse to ramble?

No, it wasn’t the press release from last week which detailed Blizzard’s ingenius plot to merge Farmville, Pokemon, Kung Fu Panda, and, of course, Warcraft, to concoct a product which could rival crack or nicotine in terms of addictability (which isn’t a word, but should be).  For those who follow me on Twitter, you’ll know I’m actually pretty pleased with how Mists of Pandaria looks and I have few, if any, complaints. My largest concern isn’t that the expansion will be awesome, but rather that subsequent patches during the expansion’s life cycle may not live up to that initial joy. As I would argue was largely the case with Cataclysm, but that’s neither here nor there.

No, I wasn’t in the first wave of MoP beta, unfortunately, although such a thing is just a matter of time.  I did do the Annual Pass immediately, in combination with my account being open since January 2005 (which is crazy to think about, but another topic for another time, perhaps), so I’m not too concerned this time around.

No, it wasn’t some shocking Death Knight revelation any of the actual beta testers (curse their souls; unconcerned I may be, but jealous and envious of those with access all the same!) discovered. DK wise, things appear pretty much as expected, from what I read, which isn’t shocking – we didn’t get any drastic changes (beyond the ones inherent with the talent reform), as most of our mechanics stayed roughly the same, and our new abilities are all pretty unambiguous in their effects, so no real surprises there. If you’re happy with your DK now, you’ll likely be even happier in MoP. We didn’t get anything likeable taken away/nerfed (in usability; numbers are rather pointless to consider at the moment), and got plenty of quality of life improvements, on top of some new toys to play with. Which isn’t to say I won’ t spend some time during beta talking about Death Knights – I almost certainly will – just that I see little to talk about as of yet, and thus will hold off till we see a bit more/things develop/I get beta access.

The reason for this entry?

Warlocks, of all things. Crazier still, it’s about the potential of Warlock tanks – beyond the rare gimmick encounter like Illidan. The very, very real potential.

First off, before one entertains this possibility (and subsequently sees how amazingly close to reality it amusingly is), it has to be determined: beyond the game letting you queue as it, what does it take for a class to be able to tank?

Personally, I would break it down into seven different, but essential aspects.

• Crit Immunity
• Mitigation/Damage Reduction
• Health Modifier
• Avoidance
• Taunts
• Threat
• Cooldowns
• Gear Scaling

I don’t believe it’s necessary to expound on what I mean by each of these (or why I view them as necessary to the basic WoW tank design). They’re all pretty self explanatory, and I assume most people would likely agree with what I have listed. Sure, some might combine some categories (threat and taunts, perhaps), but that doesn’t change the points themselves. You need all eight of these available to you in order to be able to viably tank. Missing one doesn’t mean you can’t tank a specific encounter – there are plenty of fights where taunt is never used or cooldowns are needless. But to be able to tank any current content available to you, to be able to be a main tank, to be able to reliably fill the “tank” role in your raid during progression… you want all seven. You need them.

And every single tanking spec has them… as, in beta, does Demonology.

• Crit Immunity? Metamorphosis – specifically, Nether Plating.
• Mitigation/Damage Reduction? Metamorphosis – specifically, Nether Plating in combination with Glyph of Demon Hunting.  More on this later.
• Health? Grimoire of Sacrifice.
• Taunts? Metamorphosis – specifically, Provocation and Soul Shatter, the latter in combination with Glyph of Demon Hunting.
• Threat? Metamorphosis – presumably only with Glyph of Demon Hunting.
• Cooldowns? Unending Resolve, Twilight Ward, Dark Regeneration,  and any of the tier three talents.
• Gear Scaling? Metamorphosis – specifically, Glyph of Demon Hunting.

“But wait”, you might say, “Metamorphosis is a cooldown! That’s like saying a Rogue can tank with evasion up! True, perhaps, but meaningless if they can’t do it 100% of the time!”

Wrong there on two accounts; first, that even if a Rogue could have evasion up at all times, they could tank (they miss several of the aforementioned criteria – most importantly threat/taunts), and second, that Metamorphosis is a cooldown – in MoP, it no longer is (the catch being you need Demonic Fury, Demonology’s new secondary resource, to use many Metamorphosis abilities… but even that is solved by the introduction of GoDH, which lets you sustain yourself limitlessly).

Now, the attentive amongst you may have noticed I left out Avoidance.  This is the only area where Demonology lacks, and that is easily remedied with a simple passive/glyph/whatever which converts Haste Rating and Crit Rating to Parry Rating and Dodge Rating. An easy, elegant fix. Not only does it solve the lack of avoidance, it improves gear scaling (so you care about more than just mastery/hit/expertise) and would help tone down the spec’s damage (which, even with how GoDH affects mastery, could be a bit on the high side for a tank, at least in PvP). So simple, and I’m sure it’s something Blizzard has thought of – if that’s all that the spec ends up lacking, then it’s an easy matter to remedy.

And the fact of the matter is that, [i]yes[/i], that is all the spec lacks! It has everything covered, and by everything, I don’t just mean the essentials – it has interrupts, it has self-centered AoE, it has a gap closer, it has plenty of ranged abilities (but, to be clear, due to how GoDH affects Demonic Slash, you would need to be meleeing – or, at least, in melee range – most of the time, which is for the better. It would keep the spec balanced with that of other tanks), and so forth. It has unique (to the group of tank) mechanics with pets and with spells like Archimonde’s Vengeance. It could work.

Some have asked me why monks don’t interest me terribly, and it’s largely because there’s nothing all that special about them. Yes, they are a new class, and they have their unique attributes, but nothing totally out there. Nothing which just screams “you have to try this to believe it” or “no other class plays like this”. And, for the record, there’s nothing wrong with that. Monks are a very well designed class, simply not a revolutionary one. This is quite unlike Death Knights, who were something else at the beginning – in terms of raw power, yes, but more importantly in terms of mechanics. The first dual resource system (aside from energy and combo points, which was and, for the most part, still is quite simplistic), multiple specs that could tank, specs that could tank or dps, dps that could dual wield or use a 2 handers, pet or no pet depending on your preference, wild talents like Unholy Blight (never forget!), starting at level 55 with a unique beginner area, runeforging (which had more promise then than now), and so forth. Considering how explosive the introduction of DKs were, it’s likely for the best that Monks aren’t quite as overwhelming, and I see nothing wrong with those who choose to play one – merely explaining my lack of desire to do so.

Demonology Warlocks, on the other hand? [i]That[/i] is something crazy. Turning a pure into a hybrid, adding a role to a spec (the opposite has been done, sure, but not this)… it’s never been done. Yet the best part about it is that it fits! It makes sense. The tools are all there; it’s simply rearranging them, if you will, and fiddling around some numbers.  This is on top of the fact that Demonology in general – tank or dps – seems to be getting a much improved rotation and general flow-of-combat.

I’ll cut myself off now, but do expect more on this subject (assuming Blizzard doesn’t pull a 180). If there was anything to truly get me back to my theorycrafting roots, it was this. If there was anything to get me to test like crazy in beta, it was this. If there is anything which will have me blogging and posting feedback each patch, it was this.

Yes, I am excited and, even if you have zero care as to how this experiment turns out, you should be to. Why? Because it shows Blizzard taking a risk, innovating (in a way)… particularly when they don’t actually have to. It says a lot, and gives me a tons of hope for how the rest of MoP turns out, this gem aside.

Not to mention the practical benefits of quicker LFR queues, less gear competition (if your co-tank is now a Warlock instead of another plate wearer), and so forth.

It has been a plain ridiculous amount of time since I last blogged, for which I have received plenty of well-deserved flak, but such is how matters worked out, and it was probably for the best anyways. Perhaps it would have been better if I had been a bit more persistent with the whole thing, but I simply haven’t been terribly enthused about anything WoW related (or MMO related at all, for that matter) in a while, and writing without any motivation beyond “because I should” is just horrid. On the other hand, when you have a topic which truly interests you, which gets your brain racing in a dozen different directions trying to speculate, math, or reason out the possibilities… well, in such a case, writing is easy. The hard part in such a scenario is not how to start, but when to stop, and when you find yourself in such a situation, you generally welcome it… as I do now.

What, may you ask, has finally given me this sudden impulse to ramble?

No, it wasn’t the press release from last week which detailed Blizzard’s ingenius plot to merge Farmville, Pokemon, Kung Fu Panda, and, of course, Warcraft, to concoct a product which could rival crack or nicotine in terms of addictability (which isn’t a word, but should be).  For those who follow me on Twitter, you’ll know I’m actually pretty pleased with how Mists of Pandaria looks and I have few, if any, complaints. My largest concern isn’t that the expansion will be awesome, but rather that subsequent patches during the expansion’s life cycle may not live up to that initial joy. As I would argue was largely the case with Cataclysm, but that’s neither here nor there.

No, I wasn’t in the first wave of MoP beta, unfortunately, although such a thing is just a matter of time.  I did do the Annual Pass immediately, in combination with my account being open since January 2005 (which is crazy to think about, but another topic for another time, perhaps), so I’m not too concerned this time around.

No, it wasn’t some shocking Death Knight revelation any of the actual beta testers (curse their souls; unconcerned I may be, but jealous and envious of those with access all the same!) discovered. DK wise, things appear pretty much as expected, from what I read, which isn’t shocking – we didn’t get any drastic changes (beyond the ones inherent with the talent reform), as most of our mechanics stayed roughly the same, and our new abilities are all pretty unambiguous in their effects, so no real surprises there. If you’re happy with your DK now, you’ll likely be even happier in MoP. We didn’t get anything likeable taken away/nerfed (in usability; numbers are rather pointless to consider at the moment), and got plenty of quality of life improvements, on top of some new toys to play with. Which isn’t to say I won’ t spend some time during beta talking about Death Knights – I almost certainly will – just that I see little to talk about as of yet, and thus will hold off till we see a bit more/things develop/I get beta access.

The reason for this entry?

Warlocks, of all things. Crazier still, it’s about the potential of Warlock tanks – beyond the rare gimmick encounter like Illidan. The very, very real potential.

First off, before one entertains this possibility (and subsequently sees how amazingly close to reality it amusingly is), it has to be determined: beyond the game letting you queue as it, what does it take for a class to be able to tank?

Personally, I would break it down into seven different, but essential aspects.

• Crit Immunity
• Mitigation/Damage Reduction
• Health Modifier
• Avoidance
• Taunts
• Threat
• Cooldowns
• Gear Scaling

I don’t believe it’s necessary to expound on what I mean by each of these (or why I view them as necessary to the basic WoW tank design). They’re all pretty self explanatory, and I assume most people would likely agree with what I have listed. Sure, some might combine some categories (threat and taunts, perhaps), but that doesn’t change the points themselves. You need all eight of these available to you in order to be able to viably tank. Missing one doesn’t mean you can’t tank a specific encounter – there are plenty of fights where taunt is never used or cooldowns are needless. But to be able to tank any current content available to you, to be able to be a main tank, to be able to reliably fill the “tank” role in your raid during progression… you want all seven. You need them.

And every single tanking spec has them… as, in beta, does Demonology.

• Crit Immunity? Metamorphosis – specifically, Nether Plating.
• Mitigation/Damage Reduction? Metamorphosis – specifically, Nether Plating in combination with Glyph of Demon Hunting.  More on this later.
• Health? Grimoire of Sacrifice.
• Taunts? Metamorphosis – specifically, Provocation and Soul Shatter, the latter in combination with Glyph of Demon Hunting.
• Threat? Metamorphosis – presumably only with Glyph of Demon Hunting.
• Cooldowns? Unending Resolve, Twilight Ward, Dark Regeneration,  and any of the tier three talents.
• Gear Scaling? Metamorphosis – specifically, Glyph of Demon Hunting.

“But wait”, you might say, “Metamorphosis is a cooldown! That’s like saying a Rogue can tank with evasion up! True, perhaps, but meaningless if they can’t do it 100% of the time!”

Wrong there on two accounts; first, that even if a Rogue could have evasion up at all times, they could tank (they miss several of the aforementioned criteria – most importantly threat/taunts), and second, that Metamorphosis is a cooldown – in MoP, it no longer is (the catch being you need Demonic Fury, Demonology’s new secondary resource, to use many Metamorphosis abilities… but even that is solved by the introduction of GoDH, which lets you sustain yourself limitlessly).

Now, the attentive amongst you may have noticed I left out Avoidance.  This is the only area where Demonology lacks, and that is easily remedied with a simple passive/glyph/whatever which converts Haste Rating and Crit Rating to Parry Rating and Dodge Rating. An easy, elegant fix. Not only does it solve the lack of avoidance, it improves gear scaling (so you care about more than just mastery/hit/expertise) and would help tone down the spec’s damage (which, even with how GoDH affects mastery, could be a bit on the high side for a tank, at least in PvP). So simple, and I’m sure it’s something Blizzard has thought of – if that’s all that the spec ends up lacking, then it’s an easy matter to remedy.

And the fact of the matter is that, [i]yes[/i], that is all the spec lacks! It has everything covered, and by everything, I don’t just mean the essentials – it has interrupts, it has self-centered AoE, it has a gap closer, it has plenty of ranged abilities (but, to be clear, due to how GoDH affects Demonic Slash, you would need to be meleeing – or, at least, in melee range – most of the time, which is for the better. It would keep the spec balanced with that of other tanks), and so forth. It has unique (to the group of tank) mechanics with pets and with spells like Archimonde’s Vengeance. It could work.

Some have asked me why monks don’t interest me terribly, and it’s largely because there’s nothing all that special about them. Yes, they are a new class, and they have their unique attributes, but nothing totally out there. Nothing which just screams “you have to try this to believe it” or “no other class plays like this”. And, for the record, there’s nothing wrong with that. Monks are a very well designed class, simply not a revolutionary one. This is quite unlike Death Knights, who were something else at the beginning – in terms of raw power, yes, but more importantly in terms of mechanics. The first dual resource system (aside from energy and combo points, which was and, for the most part, still is quite simplistic), multiple specs that could tank, specs that could tank or dps, dps that could dual wield or use a 2 handers, pet or no pet depending on your preference, wild talents like Unholy Blight (never forget!), starting at level 55 with a unique beginner area, runeforging (which had more promise then than now), and so forth. Considering how explosive the introduction of DKs were, it’s likely for the best that Monks aren’t quite as overwhelming, and I see nothing wrong with those who choose to play one – merely explaining my lack of desire to do so.

Demonology Warlocks, on the other hand? [i]That[/i] is something crazy. Turning a pure into a hybrid, adding a role to a spec (the opposite has been done, sure, but not this)… it’s never been done. Yet the best part about it is that it fits! It makes sense. The tools are all there; it’s simply rearranging them, if you will, and fiddling around some numbers.  This is on top of the fact that Demonology in general – tank or dps – seems to be getting a much improved rotation and general flow-of-combat.

I’ll cut myself off now, but do expect more on this subject (assuming Blizzard doesn’t pull a 180). If there was anything to truly get me back to my theorycrafting roots, it was this. If there was anything to get me to test like crazy in beta, it was this. If there is anything which will have me blogging and posting feedback each patch, it was this.

Yes, I am excited and, even if you have zero care as to how this experiment turns out, you should be to. Why? Because it shows Blizzard taking a risk, innovating (in a way)… particularly when they don’t actually have to. It says a lot, and gives me a tons of hope for how the rest of MoP turns out, this gem aside.

Not to mention the practical benefits of quicker LFR queues, less gear competition (if your co-tank is now a Warlock instead of another plate wearer), and so forth.

Welcome to Idle Hands, my weekly segment where I discuss conversions, painting, and strategy for the Warhammer tabletop game… THIS WEEK Hi again everybody, I have a confession to make: I got less accomplished this week than I’d like. I know, horrible – I know. Really, it’s not quite so bad as it sounds. Mainly I’ve been bogged down with the pre Spring Break busies at school. That, and my own extra curricular activities. The short of it is that I really only finished one thing. But damn, what a thing it is… WET PAINT Last week I introduced you to my Warshrines, the first being pulled by Juggernauts. This week I finish off the Warshrines of Khorne with another example being pulled by Bloodletters. At any rate, I’m pleased with the way these two turned out, and they should be an unholy terror on the battlefield. Painting these wasn’t as hard as I’d expected, though picking out nails/rivets is always a pain. For that reason the first shrine proved to be the bigger challenge in terms of painting. When it came time to glue everything together though, the second shrine was actually kinda a pain in the ass. Two of the four Bloodletters just did not want to cooperate, unfortunately they we’re both on the same side so they had to work if it was going to look right. In the end patience and more than a little ingenuity prevailed… And a final note on the shrines, I’ve had the good fortune to receive my first commission for two Warshrines of Khorne! I was surprised and very excited by the prospect, hopefully I’ll end up doing some more commissions in the future, I’m going to be putting some things together and putting them on eBay soon as well, so be ready for that! A Positive Note on Indecisiveness: Initially, my wife wanted to play Daemons but changed her mind, after I’d dropped a bill on minis. Her loss was my gain though really, since it offered me quite a few bits and outright models to use for conversions in my Warriors of Chaos armies. UNHOLY CONVERSIONS Despite appearances, I actually did get some stuff done this week. For starters, I got my remaining Khorne Warriors started on their base colors, they shouldn’t take more than two or three days to finish once I get the time. The Marauders are a hair from being halfway finished. Which will technically complete the army, but I’m beginning to give the Tzeentch part of the army a rethink, for starters I’m strongly considering repainting the Warriors of Tzeentch. Likewise, I’m giving my Sorcerers a rethink as well (did I mention I juggled a few things and decided on not one, but 2 Sorcerers on Disks?) But let’s forget about Khorne for a second, let’s consider Thunderdome… With the Khorne contingent nearing completion I’ve started giving some serious thought to my Nurgle force. It’s an odd one for me, because frankly I’ve never been...

Now to do everything else.

The character shown there is Fortress (or as I say when I’m saying it out loud, THE INDOMITABLE FORTRESS EPSILON), and he, along with Doc, leveled by finishing up a bonus quest on Corellia. I promptly finished up in that area then Fleet Passed back to buy craptons of new ranks of skills, a new speeder, and to gear up T7 for the inevitable story quest in which I am stuck with T7 for some reason. (That’s literally all I know about it thus far.)

So, Onward

I’m tempted to just skip the rest of the non-Jedi-Knight-story parts of Corellia, but I know 1.2 is bringing new Corellia dailies, and I’d wager those would just require the planet to be completed, so I’ll end up doing these quests eventually.

Also need to take a look at the Belsavis dailies, now that I can do them, and start gearing up, even though I likely won’t be able to run Ops with my guild until early June due to schedule shenanigans – right now the weekday Op group, which would normally be ideal for me, runs on the same nights that I play L5R, while the weekend Op group is out of the picture because weekends are the only time I get to spend time with my girlfriend (at least for a couple months until we move in together).

Fort also has some crew skill work to do; slicing is (of course) maxed and bioanalysis is a mere 4 points from cap, but biochem is sitting at 280, mostly due to a lack of … some specific part, I don’t remember what one.

But beyond that?

Alts, Alts, Alts, Alts

Lots of alts. I may not be as much of an altoholic as Psynister, but thanks to the measly 8 character slots per server, like him, I’m feeling a need to actually plan my Legacy. At this point, there’s only two things set in stone: Fortress, who’s level 50, and Jentra, my zabrak Jedi Shadow, who is 46 and right behind him. That leaves me six slots, which right now are being used for:

• Vormav, chiss bounty hunter, probably my first “serious” Empire alt – need to talk to the dudes in Mongbat about getting him joined up.
• Shepard, human trooper, but probably not for long – though I will keep him around to squat on that name forever before I get around to playing a trooper because it is GLORIOUS.
• Kyzur, my very first character, who I don’t have a real urge to play but I haven’t had the balls to delete yet.
• Rolento, a cyborg gunslinger – again, mostly sitting on the name at this point, as I plan to reroll him once I unlock some further legacy stuff.
• Two empty slots.

I feel cramped already. I really hope that Bioware determines the requirements for further slots because I pretty much want to unlock all the things.

Here’s hoping.

Welcome to Idle Hands, my weekly segment where I discuss conversions, painting, and strategy for the Warhammer tabletop game… PLANS It’s been pretty busy here, and with the Khorne force getting closer to completion it’s time I started giving some serious thought to the other three gods. Now, my entire Chaos army is going to be Khorne themed in terms of paint. But, I’ve decided to make the non Khorne units have silver (Chain Mail) accents and for Nurgle in particular I’ll be using a Bronze in place of the gold (Tin Bitz). I’ll also be doing different colored standards and cloaks, the traditional sickly green for Nurgle, blue for Tzeentch, and Purple for Slaanesh. My goal is to make the units recognizably different while maintaining the overall cohesion in terms of color scheme. I’m going to be doing some really wild conversions soon, especially for the Nurgle division of my Army. I’ve got a couple of Hellcannon’s planned that should be pretty gruesomely impressive. Similarly, I’ve got my 50 block of Warriors to consider. I’ll definitely be doing some filler for this unit, and I’ll be using some models from Avatars of War to varry things up, likewise I’ll be using some models from these guys elsewhere in the army (my Chosen unit for example). So keep your eyes peeled, and if you have any suggestions please let me know. WET PAINT So, I know I didn’t post anything last week. And you’re probably thinking I’ve been sitting on my ass doing nothing, but I’ve been sick and things have actually picked up at work. Even so, I have managed to get quite a bit done, in fact I’m way ahead of schedule and the Host of Skulls is almost ready for play. First, my Knight unit was completed. May I present, the Silver Skulls of Khorne… The more observant may notice the embroidered Khorne symbol on the standard, this was achieved by adding a hand painted Khorne symbol in several layers before going over the entire standard in black, then dry brushing in Fortress Grey, and washing with Badab Black. Here’s a couple of closer shots of the Champion, I think he turned out pretty good honestly. I could even see using him as an Exalted Hero on mount at some point. And just today I finished my unit of Ogres, that’s a total of 24 Str 4 attacks from these guys, you do not want to be on the business end of this unit. The Ogres were created using Beastman Minotaur bodies and Ogre heads. I actually received some Ogre bits with the abortive giant order on ebay, the back rank are Mournfang heads while those from the front came from Ogre bulls. The Mutant is of course decked out with armor scavenged from the Daemon Prince model. But now, for the part I’m really proud of… My Warshrines of Khorne… Since this pic I’ve finished some touch ups on the model, adding some yellow highlights to...

Welcome to Idle Hands, my weekly segment where I discuss conversions, painting, and strategy for the Warhammer tabletop game… THE ABODE OF RAVENS – EXPANDED In the game of Warhammer, there are large armies and then there are truly large armies. Myself, I just like to have a taste of everything Chaos has to offer. So, it is with this thought in mind that I decided to make four 2500 point lists, each dedicated to a different Chaos God. Each with a different mix of models and some different abilities, the idea being that eventually I want to have a not only four separate armies but a diverse bag of tricks that encompasses the length and breadth of the Chaos Army book. Obviously, I can’t take every conceivable option, ideally I want to have at least a little bit of everything and I want to try to optimize it as much as possible. I want each army to be fun, to play a bit differently than the others, and look good while doing it. Here’s what I’ve come up with… THE FOUR LISTS AND THEIR CAPABILITIES I’ve ordered these in alphabetical order, by deity (Khorne, Nurgle, Slaanesh, and finally Tzeentch). The Khorne army is what I’m working on right now, though it’s led by a Tzeentch Sorcerer on a Disk it packs a pretty mean melee punch. I wanted this list to be solid, with little fat and less reliance on Sorcery, the Sorcerer will be using Shadow for Buffs and Hexes. The Nurgle force is all about blunt force trauma as well, the Sorcerer providing some serious oomph as well as some regeneration for the massive block of Warriors. Trolls and Hellcannons should harry the flanks until the Warriors can close in and begin the butchery. Marauders are here largely as shock troops. The Slaanesh force is a very mobile army, Warriors maintain a solid line acting as an anvil while Marauder Horsemen direct traffic. The rest of the army is purely hammers, striking the flanks of any enemies that get tied up with the warriors. The Tzeentch force is a deathstar army, plain and simple. 2 Small but hard units of Warrior Halberdiers protect the flanks of the Chosen unit (30 strong) while I position them for a killing blow. The big block of Marauders acts as Warriors do in my other lists, don’t let them fool you – Marauders kitted out like this have proven to be a pretty major speed bump. The Warshrines help to make the Chosen unit that much more of a powerhouse, while the Sorcerers offer significant spell power during the magic phase. KHORNE 2493 pts, 94 models, 8 units. 1 Fus Ro’Dah, Sorcerer Lord of Tzeentch (Level 4 Upgrade, MoT) + Disk of Tzeentch ■ Enchanted Shield ■ Dispel Scroll ■ Talisman of Preservation ■ Bloodcurdling Roar ■ Third Eye of Tzeentch 1 Khaas the Insane, Exalted Hero of Khorne (BSB) (Halberd, Shield, BSB, MoK) ■ Biting Blade ■ Dragon Helm ■...

Psynister left his tags open for the Sixth Meme which has been floating around the WoW blogosphere (and now is somewhat making inroads into the SWTOR blogosphere). That’s good enough for me – I fall into “everyone who hasn’t been tagged yet.”

The basic premise is easy…

• Go into your image folder
• Open the sixth sub-folder and choose the sixth image.
• Publish the image! (and a few words wouldn’t hurt, though I dare say I couln’t stop a blogger from adding a few words of their own).
• Challenge six new bloggers.
• Link to them.

The problem lies in the fact that I apparently have the most disorganized approach to screenshots ever: one big folder, ordered by timestamps and game (which happens automatically thanks to Fraps). However, my Fraps folder is the sixth one in my general images folder, so I guess it kinda counts! So, let’s see what we get:

Dinging in space. Well, that was boring. Let’s try sixth from the bottom.

Lord Scourge, talking about… well, who IS he talking about? Spoilers! Okay, let’s try something else – I enlarged my Fraps folder until the icons are in rows of six, and picked the sixth screenshot of the sixth row.

One of the walkers on Hoth, seemingly wearing sunglasses – this one’s stationed outside Aurek Base.

Well, that could’ve gone better. Ah well. I’ll redo Psynister’s tagging: if you haven’t been tagged yet, consider yourself tagged now.

Welcome to Idle Hands, my weekly segment where I discuss conversions, painting, and strategy for the Warhammer tabletop game… THE WARHOST OF THE EVERCHANGING Last time I introduced you to some heroes in my new army, the conversions worked nicely I’ve begun working on the rest of my 2500 point force. However, I have made a few notable changes to the roster since then: first, I dropped all of the Magic standards in the army. I realized I had a lot of points tied up there that could be used perhaps a little more wisely. Second, I dropped 3 models from each of my units of Warriors. These free points allowed me to add a second Warshrine to the roster which will add a little extra punch as well as make my more dangerous units (the Ogres, Knights, and Marauders) that much more dangerous. The core of my army now looks like this… 13 Chaos Warriors of Khorne (Halberd, Shield, MoK, Musician, Standard Bearer) + 1 Champion of Khorne (Halberd, Shield) * Battle Standard Bearer goes with this unit. 14 Chaos Warriors of Tzeentch (Shield, MoT, Musician, Standard Bearer) + 1 Champion of Tzeentch (Shield) 49 Chaos Marauders of Khorne (Great Weapon, MoK, Musician, Standard Bearer) + 1 Chieftan of Khorne (Great Weapon) 5 Warhounds 5 Warhounds 5 Warhounds Warhounds are ultimately cheep and can help immensely with deployment. They are admittedly weak and limited, but they definitely serve a purpose and at their low cost of 30 points per unit of 5, it’s hard to pass them up. These changes bring my total number of units up to 11, which puts me in a very comfortable place when it comes to deployment. UNHOLY CONVERSONS A lot of models on the slab this week, my Marauders are coming along. The filler is assembled, this week I’ll be priming a lot of models now that I’ve got green stuff filling done on my Ogres. But, for now let’s focus on the models that make up the Core of my army. Moksha’s Kinslaughterer’s (50 Marauders of Khorne) Unfortunately, there aren’t actually Great Weapons for the Marauders, so I had to convert flails by adding axe heads to each in place of the chain. One problem I have with such large blocks of models, is that it looks a little boring, and it’s even more boring to paint because you’re then painting 50 of the exact same model. To break up the units appearance as well as the painting I decided to add some filler, a Giant and 2 converted Ogres. As you can see, the unit looks a lot more interesting (and a lot more scary). Which can sometimes be a pretty potent psychological weapon on the tabletop… The Executioners (Warriors of Khorne with Halberds) They’re ready for paint, I’ll be doing the shields separately to make painting a bit easier. WET PAINT I messed my back up this week, so I haven’t really felt like getting out and priming anything. Add...

So let’s talk Legacies. We’ve been accumulating that Legacy XP, dinging those Legacy Levels, but what are we going to get for our time invested?

First up, a little video review of what we’ve been told is upcoming (details, as always, are subject to change, but this is straight from the horse’s mouth, where in this case “horse” means “James Ohlen”):

The textual portion:

The Legacy System actually allows each one of your new characters to join a family tree, and all the characters within that family tree gain benefits. It’s going to unlock abilities and powers that you normally wouldn’t have access to.

 

The video itself isn’t a big revelation, per se; there’s really only a few things to actually see:

1. An almost-certainly-not-final graphic depicting a family tree being formed (specifically the Vizla Legacy, which seems to be missing its namesake).
2. A character fighting two droids, who was confirmed later by Daniel Erickson to be a Miraluka Sith Warrior.

What I find most interesting about that latter part is that it shows up while James Ohlen is talking about “abilities and powers you normally wouldn’t have access to.” Well, yeah, I suppose a miraluka (the blind, Force-using Republic-only race) having access to the Sith Warrior (an Empire-only class) would be different, sure.

But enough rehashing. Let’s talk things I’d like to see. My blog, my wishlist – after the jump.

I don’t have a huge list, but they’re all things that would make the replay experience valuable for me – and since BioWare is betting heavily on story, I’d say you’ll see more things that encourage replay and the level-up game rather than things that impact endgame.

But First, Groundless Speculation

First, a question of implementation. It’s been mentioned before that you’ll have a “family tree” setup (including relations like “family friend”), but how does that tie into the system of legacy levels? My guess is we’re going to see something like skill trees. Each Legacy Level will probably give you a choice of Legacy Perk, and the implementation of Legacy Perks will require certain relationships in the tree.

The other alternative is that each level adds a new “slot” on the family tree, but in that case, why would you continue to gain levels about 8? Legacy is server-constrained and capped at 50, and you can only have 8 alts on one server. Clearly there’s some reason BW’s concerned about the rapid growth of Legacy Levels, since they recently nerfed the amount of Legacy XP needed past 50.

This “Legacy Perk” idea forms the basis of a lot of my wishlist, and if the final Legacy System is nothing like it then you can probably throw a lot of my ideas out the window, but I have a feeling this is going to be close to the final implementation.

Cross-Faction (or Same-Faction) Race Swapping

It’s all but confirmed by the Miraluka Sith Warrior, but since race is so cosmetic anyway, adding this would be trivial. Even for some of the choices we don’t have it makes sense – how many twi’lek trooper NPCs are there? Answer: on the Republic side, a heck of a lot. Using the speculated perk system above, perhaps you get things like the following:

• Blue Bloods: If you have a Chiss in your family tree, you can choose Chiss as a race when creating a Smuggler or Trooper.
• Peace is a Lie: If you have a Miraluka in your family tree, you can choose Miraluka as a race when creating a Sith Warrior or Sith Inquisitor.
• I’m Not Bald, I’m Aerodynamic: If you have a Rattataki in your family tree, you can choose Rattataki as a race when creating a Smuggler, Trooper, or Jedi Consular.
• Sweet Ink: Your Republic Zabrak characters can use Imperial Zabrak tattoos and coloration, and vice-versa.
• Just What We Needed, More Aliens: If you have a Mirialan in your family tree, you can choose Mirialan as a race when creating any Imperial character.
• Redeemed by the Light: If you have a Sith Pureblood in your family tree, you can choose Sith Pureblood as a race when creating a Jedi Knight or Jedi Consular
• Taking Up Arms: You can choose Twi’lek as a race when creating a Trooper or Bounty Hunter.

New Races Altogether

Probably the biggest shot in the dark, and also cosmetic, but how about new races? We know the animations transfer to non-player races – look at the Rodian smuggler trainer outside Fort Garnik, or Ashara Zavros doing anything. Their two biggest concerns seem to be that playable races need to (1) be humanoid in shape, and (2) speak Basic. That unfortunately does rule out Wookiees and Rodians – no Rodian in the game speaks Basic outside of rare oddities like the Jedi Knight trainer on Tython, and Wookiees are physically unable to do so – and some others, like Ithorians – my goodness, that head. They also seem to need to allow some degree of customization; it’s a running joke between Xindrola and I that every Kel Dor in the game is played by the same Kel Dor, because their models are identical. but it does open up some other possibilities.

• Snips - You may choose Togruta as a race when creating a character of any Force-sensitive class.
• You’re a @#$#ing Cat - You may choose Cathar as a race when creating a character of any Republic class.
• Heart of Steel - You may choose Droid as a race when creating a character of any non-Force-sensitive class. (This is highly unlikely for many, many reasons.)
• Sullustans - You may choose Sullustan as a race when creating a character of any class. (This is incredibly unexciting.)

And that’s just the beginning. There’s also the Sarkhai (Nadia Grell’s race), Mon Cals (VICTORY OR NOTHING), and more. I’ve actually heard this brought up in guild chat, and there’s one race everyone can agree they’d roll an alt of: Ugnaughts Voss.

Ability Swapping

You know what would make the Consular more interesting? Not throwing balls of dandelion fluff at people. I kid, I kid. But let’s face it – Telekinetic Throw, Telekinetic Wave, and Disturbance really lack the oomph of Force Lightning, Chain Lightning, and Lightning Strike.

And while Mortar Strike and Death From Above are both really cool, you know there’s bound to be someone who’d rather have the other faction’s version, even though Mortar Strike would look super-ridiculous coming from a blaster pistol (more than it does from a blaster rifle, even).

How about some tradeoffs? Obviously the few abilities that are functionally different would probably be exempt from this (Unity and Sacrifice come to mind), but many abilities are simply rebranded. This could complete the image from the “race-swapping” perks – if your Sith Pureblood was redeemed and is serving as a Consular, perhaps he still can’t help but throw lightning. Or perhaps a Miraluka Sith Warrior still uses some of his Jedi-learned abilities, despite serving the cause of the Empire. You could swap abilities one-for-one, or you could swap abilities in packs.

If you really wanted to get ballsy, you could allow access to your mirror class’ proficiencies. After all, they certainly drop even for the opposite faction – I get sniper rifles all the time, even though only companions can use them, and I’m sure the Empire is just as inundated with blaster cannons. This seems unlikely – weapons are a large part of class identity – but I’m just throwing it out there.

Examples:

• Lightning Does Strike Twice (Consular):Your telekinetic powers use the animation of the corresponding lightning power. (The inquisitor version: Pushing You Around)
• Rocket Boots (Trooper):Your Mortar Strike uses Death From Above’s animation. (The bounty hunter version: Heavy Ordinance).
• Shout, Shout, Let It All Out (Knight): Your Blade Storm uses Force Scream’s animation. (The Sith warrior version: Speak Softly And Carry A Big Lightsaber)

New Abilities Altogether

I’m really racking my brain trying to figure out what brand new abilities you could get access to from the Legacy System – after all, the exact wording was “abilities and powers you normally wouldn’t have access to,” but that doesn’t rule out new things altogether. The only idea I had:

• Distress Beacon: You can summon one of your family members as a secondary companion. They are not controllable, scaled to your level, and will assist you in combat automatically based on their class, advanced class, and specialization. Lasts one minute.

There are lots of times I’ve wished I could have two companions, even just for one fight – maybe calling in Kyzur to heal Fortress & Kira while tackling a tough foe. What if you could briefly summon a family member to assist? Obviously, they’ve got their own stuff to do, so they won’t be able to hang around to permanently replace your companion, but I think it could be a fun combat cooldown.

An Heirloom-Style XP Gain Feature

As much as I like the story, the actual leveling process in SWTOR is a bit of a slog sometimes. That’s just MMOs for you. To speed up the process, World of Warcraft implemented heirloom gear – bound-to-account gear that you could mail to your characters which gave them scaling stats and a stacking XP bonus for each piece worn.

This is not the way I’d like to see this go in SWTOR. While an XP-boosting feature would be nice, I don’t want it to take the form of mail-able gear. This creates several problems – having to mail gear around to alts of the same type, having to have multiple sets of gear when (at least in this game) very few classes share each type of gear (specifically: 2 per faction), cross faction mail would have to be implemented, and it encourages not taking upgrades. No thank you!

Let’s just have stacking XP bonuses. Maybe investing 1 perk in XP Boost gets you a 5% gain on all XP, 2 gets you 10%, 3 gets you 15%, and so on. It doesn’t need to be anywhere near the mindboggling leveling speed of WoW’s heirlooms, but a way to boost XP gain would be a nice mechanical benefit for altoholics.

And That’s Just The Beginning

I’m sure, if I really thought about it, I could come up with some off-the-wall stuff I’d like to see in the Legacy System. (A crafting perk that lets you access your family member’s craft skills! The ability to link family trees between players (though that could create its own tensions in real life)! Shared family vaults!) The above is just some things I think are more realistic than some of the crazier ideas… although the Droid idea is pretty wacky.

So, go nuts: what would you like to see in the Legacy System when it debuts next month?

(Disclaimer: All of the article below is based on my experience leveling a Sentinel. YMMV, as always.)

The Jedi Sentinel can be an interesting class to level, especially when it comes to picking a skill spec. The three skill trees all say “Damage,” which doesn’t tell you a whole lot, but after reviewing the talents, you can get the gist of them:

• Watchman does its work in Juyo Form, lights things on fire, has Force Leap with a shorter cooldown and minimum range of 0, and is capped off with a 5(!) Focus ability that hits like a train. It also has some minor self-heals from its talents and from Zen. Watchman seems to be the “traditional” leveling tree, mostly because of these self-heals and ease of play (at least until 40, when you’re trying to figure out how to shoehorn Merciless Slash into your priority list, but that’s another topic entirely).
• Combat focuses on hitting more often thanks to Ataru Form (both in the sense of bonus accuracy, and in terms of Ataru Form hits), contains an attack that lets you momentarily pierce all armor and is capped off with a Slash replacement that… causes you to do more Ataru Form hits. Really, the entire thing’s built around maximizing Ataru Form. Even its Zen ability is based around Blade Rushing more (or Slashing more, prior to 40). Combat also, notably, has exactly zero survival tools outside of a way to avoid some AOE damage – it is the “glass cannon” spec. Unless you’re towing around Doc or using one of the tanks, or wearing some extremely good armor, it can be a mite tricky to level as Combat.
• And then there’s Focus, the shared tree – although there are minor differences between the Guardian and Sentinel version of these. Focus seems like a real oddball at first – its work is done in Shii-Cho Form, which (thanks to talents) lowers a number of cooldowns, it has multiple talent boosts to Master Strike and Force Stasis, and it picks up some bizarre talents in the form of Zealous Leap (basically Slash on steroids with a 10-meter range) and Force Exhaustion (a DoT + progressive slow that ends with a big hit). When in Shii-Cho Form, Zen is similar to Combat’s Ataru Form Zen, but with a slight difference: Slash is completely free, and also cleaves a nearby enemy. Its survivability comes from the inherent damage reduction of Shii-Cho Form (which increases from 3% to 7% when talented) as well as reducing the cooldown of Guarded By the Force to 1 minute.

Focus is easily one of the odder trees – it discards some abilities you gain from being a Sentinel (like Juyo Form) and focuses on things present for JKs from early levels, while also adding strange new abilities like a second leap and a DoT. So what’s the big deal? You might want to think about leveling as a Focus Sentinel. Why? More after the jump.

Now, keep in mind this only applies to Sentinels (and, I suppose, their Marauder cross-faction ilk). The Guardian version of Focus lacks Blade Focus, and has somewhat less need for innate damage reduction due to wearing heavy armor. For the most part, however, this advice should be transferable – just remember that I really don’t know anything about Jedi Guardians because I haven’t leveled one. (Yet.)

So what are the pros and cons of leveling Focus? Pros first:

• Innate damage reduction. Watchman offers 1% heals when your burns tick, and an extra 1% for you for the six ticks of Zen. Combat… hopes and prays it can kill everything quickly. Focus starts with 3% damage reduction, jumps to 5% somewhere in the 40s, and ends up with 7% damage reduction by level 50. It’s at least as hardy a spec as Watchman (or more so, in my personal experience) – handy if you want to level with a companion whose name isn’t Doc.
• Highly suited for AOE. Mobs rarely come alone in SWTOR. Yes, Watchman has 2 talent points at the bottom that make Force Sweep and Cyclone Slash cheap and dirty. We’ll be taking those first as Focus. They pair nicely with talents like Felling Blow and Singularity, which turns your Force Sweep into such a monster that you’ll be hitting it in single-target combat too. There’s also Shii-Cho Form’s Zen effect, which gives you six free Slashes that also cleave a second target for 100% damage (and, once properly talented , turns Slash + Zen into a focus-generating machine – yes, you are refunded a Focus per Slash, despite not spending any!)
• Simple and satisfying. Simply put, if you like simply killing the shit out of things, Focus will be nearly as good a tree for you as Combat or post-40 Watchman. Everything in Focus’ PvE arsenal is based around two simple concepts: hitting like a truck, and making other things in your ability list hit like a truck. Additionally, it’s not a complex tree to play – only Combat is simpler, within the same class, and there aren’t really any timers to monitor or random events to watch for – the procs such as Felling Blow and Singularity are predictable as they come, so you really just need to focus on hitting the big-damage buttons until everything is dead.
• More Master Strike, more often. I dunno, it’s just a personal favorite of mine. It might not be worth using on bosses (it’s seemingly not for Combat, and Watchman only uses it under specific circumstances), but it’s just fun.

And the cons:

• Lack of endgame/party play preparation. Granted, this may not matter to you. Right now, Watchman – as DoT-based specs tend to do – is mathing out as the top DPS spec for Sentinels. The argument could be made that leveling as Watchman would be the best way to get used to Watchman to perform better in operations. The truth of the matter is, though, that without a combat log it’s still not 100% certain who’s on top – hell, the Watchman/Annihilation community is even split over whether their top-level talent is worth a point – or whether that matters to you.
• No self-heals. Focus’ survival ability is very passive – Shii-Cho damage reduction – and doesn’t have the self-heals of Watchman in Juyo Form. Its only other real boost is a cooldown reduction on Guarded By the Force. Of course, on the flip side, that damage reduction is always there, while Watchman is dependent on crits for its healing–and while you’re able to guarantee six critical ticks with Zen, you have to have the Centering available to do so, and you need to have six ticks of burn damage ready to apply. It’s probably six of one, half-dozen of the other.
• Not a lot of cool visuals. Watchman lights people on fire regularly, leaps like a bunny, and their top-tier talent looks like you’re whacking someone with two bolts of lightning. Combat is simply a flurry of blows – you are the fastest thing with two blades. By contrast, Focus seems almost methodical, and a lot of time is spent using a lot of the same abilities you’re used to before you ever turn 10 – Slash, Blade Storm, Force Sweep, and so on. Zealous Leap looks neat, but it’s very similar to Force Leap in terms of appearance. If you’re one for consistency, this might be okay, but if you need some visual variety in your attacks, this might not be the tree for you.
• The Singularity/Felling Blow combo is probably due for a nerf. I understand it’s supposed to hit hard, but seriously, this is the hardest hitting thing in my arsenal, and I can pull it off every 18 seconds. Call me cynical if you wish, but it seems too good to be true.

Enough With the Bullet-Point Shenanigans, Show Us Some Skill Specs

Alrighty then, insistent reader, you asked for it! I’ll start with the first talent point, then jump a few levels at a time. This is, as with most things I write, solely for PvE – a talent spec suitable for leveling by questing and running Flashpoints.

Levels 10-11: Oh no, where do I put my first talent points

In Watchman, interestingly enough. 2/2 Quick Recovery is simply too good to pass up, at this point or any point, giving you a cheap and easy tool to use on groups. At 12 you’ll get Cauterize, and you can also use it if you like because at this point in your career, you really don’t have anything else to spend the focus on.

Levels 12-22: In which very few things are put onto bars

Now we’ve got skill points in Focus. You’ll get a few important things during these levels that you will promptly ignore as PvPe Focus: Juyo Form, Leg Slash, and Crippling Throw. You’ll also get the occasionally-useful “oh shit” button of Call on the Force (which you will actually find in your abilities under “Heroic Moment: Call on the Force”) and your very important interrupt. Additionally, if you’re following this build, at 22 you will also pick up Zealous Leap. Here’s a guide to using Zealous Leap: use it whenever you’d use Slash, then resume Slashing. ZL costs the same thing as Slash, but hits harder (although it doesn’t have an increased crit chance). Starting next level, the advantage of this is that you’ll also proc Felling Blow, increasing your chance to crit with Force Sweep by 100%.

Levels 23-31: The why-can’t-I-Force-Sweep-more-often blues

Just kidding. If you could Force Sweep more often with our current talent build, it might be all you ever did. In terms of talents, this is one of those periods of time where you’re just making things better – Slash and ZL hit harder, Force Stasis can’t be pushed back, Master Strike is uninterruptible, and you now have both Felling Blow and Singularity. Unfortunately, the only thing you have to activate Singularity is Force Stasis, but it’s really, really nice when you do – Force Leap into a group, Force Stasis one of them, then Force Sweep to do  major damage to anyone around you. Proceed to beat in the faces of everyone who challenges you. As for abilities, a few important ones come in this range.

I mentioned Force Stasis; that’s at 24. Speeder piloting follows right behind it at 25! Not combat-related, but a cause for celebration on every character. You also get Pacify at 26. There’s very little not to like about Pacify – one-minute cooldown, 1-focus cost, and the target has a 90% drop in melee and ranged accuracy for 6 seconds. It’ll save your ass against elites, and while it no longer works on Operation bosses, I’m happy to report it at least still applies itself onto Flashpoint bosses. PACIFY ALL THE THINGS

Pommel Strike at 28 is the perfect follow-up to a Blade Storm or a superpowered Force Sweep. Disable Droid, also at 28, the only thing we get as far as long-term CC. Sorry.

You get Force Camouflage at 30, which gives you 5-seconds of near-perfect stealth and 30% increased movespeed. It also drops some of your aggro in combat, but it won’t remove you from an aggro table like a Shadow’s Force Cloak, so don’t expect to reset that pack of mobs you just aggroed.

Levels 32-42: Planning for the future, then getting there

Here’s our build at 42 – Force Exhaustion, finally. Force Exhaustion can be used to build stacks of Singularity, just like Force Stasis, but without that pesky need to be channeled. You’ll want to be using it whenever you are able to ZL or Force Leap, so as to maximize your Force Sweep damage.

By now the number of new abilities has slowed down, but all the ones you get are at least kind of important. Cyclone Slash, your other AOE, comes along at 32 and (thanks to those initial two talent points) it also costs 1 focus. Still, Force Sweeping, then spamming Cyclone Slash rarely ever seems more efficient than just single-target-attacking everything after a Sweep. It does, however, look pretty cool.

Opportune Strike is available at 34, which is sort of like a weaker Pommel Strike that you can only use on slowed or immobilized targets. Given that many of a Sentinel’s abilities don’t actually do this, you probably won’t find a use for it until 42, when you can use it on Force Exhausted opponents. Free damage is free damage.

Guarded By the Force is another fantastic ability you get at 38, but it comes with two caveats:

1. Don’t put it somewhere where you’ll accidentally hit it all the time and get your fool self killed, not that I know anything about that, and
2. You have five seconds to kill whatever it was that made you hit this button, so do not waste them.

Finally, you get Awe at 42, in which you look so awesome that you confound everything around you for 6 seconds. Once per minute.

Levels 43-50: The home stretch

Here’s the build as you round the corner into 50. I personally suggest hitting up Defensive Forms first, for that additional 2% damage resistance, then filling out either Dual Wield Mastery or Focused Slash based on preference. Remember, once you have Focused Slash, your Shii-Cho Zen will cause your Slashes to give you 1 free Focus per Slash. You also get your last 3 abilities during these levels, and each one is fantastic.

The first, at 44, is Inspiration. This is, basically, Bloodlust. It requires 30 Centering, much like Zen. If you’re in an Ops group, save this until your op leader calls for it.

The second, at 46, is Dispatch. I’d have to check, but I think Jedi Knights take longer to get their “execute” ability than anyone else. At any rate, enjoy using this – it’s got a focus cost of 3, cooldown of six seconds, and a range of 10 meters, and is the only way Sentinels will ever throw a lightsaber besides Crippling Throw.

The last, at 50, is Valorous Call. Instant 30 stacks of Centering, usable every 3 minutes. Not a whole lot more to say about it.

And that’s that

Now you’re level 50! Go respec into something else, or keep being Focus if you like. Maybe you’d like to light things on fire, or pummel everything into submission. Or maybe you just like being … Focused.

In which case, that’s okay too.