So I had a blast chatting with the LOTRO Reporter folks last week, their latest episode (episode 15)  is posted on their website. We covered a bunch of different topics but a good bit on Wardens and how I got started with them, Legendary Item legacy pool discussion, beta in general, and also my experiences in Beta.  Certainly if you’re not listening to their podcast I definitely recommend it, as they always have lots of good information.  Plus it is a good distraction as you wait for the servers to come up for Mirkwood!

Also, they’re the founders of the Cor Pethroni kinship over on Brandywine which is a kin for anyone who wants to hang out with some of the podcasters and bloggers.  I’ve got a couple toons over there and it is a fun group to run with.

You tend to think a lot when a friend confronts you on a truth, you appreciate it but it also gives you a sense of distance. Its hard to deal with at time even it was after your time. It hurts but you dont know why. You thought you where over it but it pokes holes in your shields and makes you vulnerable. All of a sudden your back to square one where you thought you where at the end game. Those pieces you move appear to be illusions in the mist. The game is never one with winners, only survivors. You try to roll the dice and move forward, proving inside that you just might be the warrior. But there is always that one fighter that can take you down. How do you step up if you are so afraid? How do move on past this battle? The fact is you cant. You have to sit there and fight it. You have to deal with the tears and the pain all over again. You would think you would easily be able to deal with it, but your not. Your forced into a heavy relization that no matter what you learn in this game, your never better, maybe wiser and always know what to do different but this game has trump cards and tricks up its sleeve, its never safe to relax, your afraid to be the fool. But once you enter this game, that is all you become. The fool. Never the warrior. You are now the jester.

Welcome back to the game.

-Spooky D. McGee

Many thanks to Azz for writing up this detailed explanation of Barad Gularan (BG) as this is still probably my favorite instance in all of LOTRO.  I highly recommend running this instance, and if you can do it at 50 it is a really good preparation for Moria instances.  There’s a good mixture of tough mobs, tricky bosses, and the end boss Udinion can be a very challenging fight.  It requires quite a bit of coordination, knowledge (which Azz has provided), quick reflexes, and a little luck (or just not bad-luck).  You may have also have noticed this is the sight of my kin’s epic battle with Amarthiel in these screenshots.

Full article over at Casual Stroll to Mordor.

Also, if you haven’t already check out the guest-writer’s blog – The Wizzard of Azz.

spotlinks.wordpress.com/

IMDB link  http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1355260/

IMDB ratings   (awaiting 5 votes)

Release Date : 2009 (USA)

Genre : Drama

Plot : Vicious criminal Brad Mayfield (WWE star Kurt Angle) takes pleasure in kidnapping, assault and deranged murder. It is up to Officer Dan Burk to stop his lust for blood. The stakes of the game quickly rise when Burk becomes romantically involved with a beautiful woman who happens to be Mayfield’s next victim. When Burk’s girlfriend and his daughter are kidnapped, the case goes from just a job to a race against time to save his family..

Direct Download Links

megaupload.com

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=NI247DQO

uploading.com

http://uploading.com/files/3f17722e/Up.heLL.vmt-endgame-xvid.avi/

storage.to

http://www.storage.to/get/pVcQK5rK/vmt-endgame-xvid.avi

megashares.com

http://d01.megashares.com/?d01=b95c84f

So I’m quoting this link from Casual Stroll to Mordor, but I wanted to comment on a couple  questions in particular as I agree with them there wasn’t anything real exciting:

WarCry {Ez0}Honvik: 5. Why is the new Raid Armour Purple and not Teal? (someone in my Kin asked me to ask that)
ZombieColumbus: In the past, we have gotten burned by giving out the best possible gear our game could generate with the initial release. This immedietly makes itemizing further instances impossible. The advantage of holding back like this, is that the jump between our subsequent raid sets will be more noticable.

WarCry Validor-SoG: Hi, Could you please confirm if we are to see Teal Armour sets and 1st Age Weapons in the next book update?
Jalessa: You may see incomparable rewards through completion of hard-modes for the Dol Guldur instances. However, level 65 first age legendaries will not be available immediately with launch of Siege of Mirkwood. We plan on introducing them in a future update.

So the take-away here is that there is better raid gear coming, although honestly it really couldn’t get much worse   It is encouraging that there are incomparable (orange) drops in Hard-modes!  Will be curious to see when we get access to the new gear and 1st ages…

Full transcript is over here.

I didn’t get too much of a chance to test this out during beta (although I did notice NPCs and my soldier being a little squishy) but there have been some pretty significant changes behind the scenes on how tanking will work.  Now I don’t so much mean the agro part of it but the mobs you’re trying to tank have been changed.  They hit harder and crit for higher percentages making it more important to keep them on the appropriate person.  To help combat this, Guards, Champs, Captains, and Wardens all get bonuses to their crit defense as a passive skill however they are not all equal as the bonus is tied to the class, the stance (for champs), and the size of your shield: (Dev Diary Here)

• Guard with Heavy Shield = 10%
• Warden with Warden Shield = 9%
• Captain alone/with shield = 3%/5%
• Champs Glory Stance = 3%
• Champs Ardor Stance = 1%
• Champs with shield (Heavy/Normal) = 5%/2%

So, looking at this your best statistical tanks will be Guards, then wardens, then heavy shield wielding Glory stance champs.  And from the comments on the beta boards, fervor tanking champs get hit REALLY hard and are not viable options.

I really like this change as again, it makes the game more complex – you can’t just toss more DPS on the fight to win it.  This was one of my biggest issues with most of the Moria content, you could out dps any content and not have to really think too much about it, not to mention some fights were just pure DPS races.  You’ll need to have a tank and work together to make sure that tank keeps agro – minnies, RKs, and hunters will most likely get hit very hard.  I think it also helps champs define their roles a bit better – if they want to tank, they need to trait and equip for it.

I knew some of the information but couldn’t figure out a way to explain it – SneakyHobbits does a really good job of breaking it down.  Check it out over here.

Champions announced yesterday their upcoming Nemesis dungeon. This is a new lair for end-game players who are members of UNITY. It seems pretty interesting, and it ties more of your characters personal villian into the game which is nice. I’m still not seeing a hell of a lot of end-game available to me yet in game, which is still my biggest disapointment with the game. I want to have something to strive for in a game, and CO doesn’t give me that in the slightest. I’ll keep chugging away at the game, and will cap out soon I hope. I just got done with all I possibly can on Monster Island, and have to do the Lemuria Crisis now (if I can find an instance with more than just me in it…).

So now that the NDA has been lifted, I can share a little more openly on my thoughts for this expansion.  I mainly focused on the warden and skirmishes but didn’t do any group instances or the raid.  I did work through a couple of the questing areas in Mirkwood and overall really enjoy the zone.  It is quite big and there’s a very good set of quests through there.  So I’ll try to cover the areas that I saw and what I focused on.

Skirmishes

By far, this is THE feature that makes the expansion for me.  These are all sorts of fun and provide a good option for alternative experiences.  One option that I haven’t seen talked about as much is that in addition to the normal skirmishes there’s a “survival” mode which really are lots of fun.  Basically you’re in a losing battle and try to last as long as you can – basically a skirmish made especially for us wardens   I really enjoy the mark system and I think it is a good balance of the rewards.  Without skirmishes there’s no way this counts as an expansion, but with this system in place and them using it going forward in the Epic line it is really exciting for the overall game-play mechanic.

Combat Revamp

This was a bit of a roller-coaster but overall I like the new feel.  Wardens are basically a tad faster on the gambit builders but I didn’t feel as much of a difference on that toon as I did on my captain.  Power was a bit of a concern with the new system but I think you just need to adjust a bit with the new flow.  The weapon normalization is rather disappointing as I would’ve liked some options for my toons.  Essentially now classes will use the weapons that they (or their race) get bonuses for.  I really don’t like the fact that a dagger hits as hard as an axe – I really was hoping they would’ve kept the DPS the same but changed the variance such that a dagger does more constant damage but the axe can have bigger crits.  The other good news for wardens is that the spear bug is fixed, and I honestly don’t see a reason to use any other weapon due to the DoT proc potential.

Character stat Changes

One issue that hasn’t been discussed as much (that I’ve seen) is that incoming melee damage is now capped at 15% (equivalent, it now is a rating).  In addition some items/traits have been reduced to be not as effective.  So essentially it is possible to hit that cap and we might need to re-consider our traits (again).  Tanis on the LOTRO boards posted another good analysis of the builds during beta and I’m sure he’ll update that again (if he hasn’t already).  The main difference is that innocence, zeal, and discipline are no longer as dominant as they used to be.  I’ll have to play around a bit more and see what Tanis has to say after some more data.

Also, stats have some different impacts on toons as Will now effects outgoing healing potential – which unfortunately doesn’t apply to us wardens.  And you’ll see a pretty good morale boost as our vit now add +5 to morale per point as opposed to +3 currently.  Other classes get other similar bonuses, but I forget what they all are.

Character progression

Across the board, this was the MOST disappointing part of the expansion – if I remember there was only 1 skill mildly useful (minstrel dread removal now applies to the whole group) but otherwise most people won’t even buy it.  I know I won’t buy my captain skill (withdraw isn’t even on my toolbar).  Now wardens (and hunters) did make out better as we get a port but this is a very cheap skill as well since the Moria port was just a purchased rep reward.  No trait progression, no class traits, no new legendaries, nothing for progressing to 65.  This part of the expansion is really hard for me to swallow – I just don’t like getting 5 levels for no reason at all.

New Armor Sets

So Az beat me in posting pictures, but mine are a little different in that you’ll notice you can now zoom in on the dressing room.  So I won’t post the individual pieces (go to Wizard of Azz for those shots) but the final looks.  Also in doing a little stat comparison – here are the numbers between the Mirkwood set compared to my current armor (4 spear-hurler, 6 piece shoulders, and the helm from the mirrors instance)

Total Difference (Mirkwood – current)

• Armor – +352
• Radiance – +100
• Might – +1
• Agility – -121 (holy cow this will hurt)
• Fate – +30
• Will – -57 (not liking this either)
• Vitality – +16
• Morale – +201
• Power – -49

So there are some nice boosts, but overall nothing terribly exciting for me.  I have mixed feelings about the look, but the set bonus is horrible.  And I think this sentiment is pretty much across the board – the set stats are underwhelming and the set bonuses are worthless.

On the plus side, I absolutely LOVE the look of the head and shoulders of the 3 piece set!  And the ranger hood is full of win

Summary

For the most part, when it comes to Mirkwood I’m looking forward to it for the skirmishes, epic story line, and the new zone BUT the lack of real character progression in both skills and equipment is a HUGE letdown.  Also the new stats and such are another hit for us and will take some time to get used to.  This feels very similar to the re-vamp with Moria so I’m sure we’ll get used to it, but it will be a bit hard to get used to at first.  It is almost like we’re being moved to 65 to force us to get new weapons and armor to replace mistakes they feel they made with those initial sets.  I think I’ll hold off on being totally let down until we see the next step of this progression – notice the armor set is only purple compared to the teals we now have, so we might get something better quite quickly.

Enjoy the snaps, and I’ll see ya in game!

So I’m pretty behind in a lot of this, and others have done a pretty good job of covering the latest news, but I did want to summarize a bit on things in a brief manner.  Also, I was in the beta and I will be posting my thoughts on other items here as we go.  I will also post my thoughts on beta in general as I’ve been in quite a few of them.

Latest WarCry Dev chat (Link)

A couple of notable things on the good side first :

• the minstrel heal root is going to be fixed
  • About time!!
• the level 50 class quest items (CD/Uru items) will be barterable from skirmishes
  • Love this change
• More cosmetic items as skirmish barter items
  • I have snaps of my first item I’m getting on live…
• Reforged 2nd age axes for Wardens are coming

But on the bad side:

• no new traits or legendaries with the expansion.
• Traits will be capped at 10 for the foreseeable future
• wardens confirmed to not getting any sort of agro “catch-up” if we die
  • not really a surprise – but I did like the response, basically “you’re doing it wrong”

The first 2 on the bad side for me are really bad.  Sadly I knew this was coming as I was in beta, but I was really hoping this would get addressed and we’d see something better.  There’s really no excitement for me to level my toon other then the content.

Developer Diary on the new raid cluster with Mirkwood – Link

Developer Diary on the combat changes – Link (more in my upcoming beta post)

New Lorien Gold Leaf quests are coming with Mirkwood! – Link

New version of Cstats is up, which will allow for better parsing taking into account DoTs – Link

Suntem in anii ‘80 intr-o Africa de Sud turbulenta si in pragul colapsului. P.W.Botha se mentine cu ultimele resurse la presedentia statului in timp ce Congresul National African este pe punctul de a porni un razboi civil si de a anula prin forta apartheid-ul. Un companie miniera pe nume Consolidated Gold este de parere ca afacerile merg cel mai bine intr-un stat stabil, astfel ca il trimit pe Michael Young sa gestioneze situatia si sa aplaneze rivalitatile. In fruntea unei echipe extrem de eficiente, Young construieste punti de comunicare cu liderul Congresului, Thabo Mbeki, si cu profesorul de filozofie Willie Esterhuyse. Vor putea oare valorile umane sa fie mai puternice decat ura si violenta celor convinsi ca sunt abuzati si redusi la stadiul de animale incapabile de gandire? Sau se va darama totul in rafale de mitraliera si cladiri

Joseph Moshe

Today, the MSM are not talking about this case any more. Yesterday, they wanted us to believe that Joseph Moshe was a nutcase and a terrorist, arrested for threatening to bomb the White House. Interesting detail about his arrest (the “Westwood standoff”) was that he seemed to be immune to the 5 cans of tear gas and 5 gallons of law-enforcement grade  pepper spray they pumped into his face. He very calmly remained in his car, as the video footage of his arrest shows.

Professor Moshe  had  called into a live radio show by Dr. A. True Ott, broadcast on Republic Broadcasting claiming to be a microbiologist who wanted to supply evidence to a States Attorney regarding tainted H1N1 Swine flu vaccines being produced by Baxter BioPharma Solutions. He said that Baxter’s Ukrainian lab was in fact producing a bioweapon disguised as a vaccine. He claimed that the vaccine contained an adjuvant (additive) designed to weaken the immune system, and replicated RNA from the virus responsible for the 1918 pandemic Spanish flu, causing global sickness and mass death.

Sources tell us that Bar-Joseph Moshe made no threat against the President or the White House. He did not mention any bomb or attack. He then proceeded to inform the White House he intended to go public with this information. When he noticed men in suits in front of his house and feared that the FBI was about to detain him, he packed some belongings into his car and, him being a dual Israeli citizen, tried to reach the Israeli consulate located in close proximity to the federal building where the standoff took place. The FBI and the bomb squad prevented him from reaching it. Who is this man? His profile on biomedexperts.com says he is a plant disease expert with many publications on his name involving the genetic manipulation of virii. Photographic evidence that Moshe is who he says he is can be found here.

Joseph Moshe was soon after his arrest sent or let go to Israel. Nothing has been heard from him since. The Secret Service was not the agency involved in the surveillance of Moshe at his home in California. This was done by the FBI, who had orders to detain or arrest him. Mounted on top of a large black vehicle used in his arrest was a microwave weapon that possibly damaged the electronics in Moshe’s car as well as any communication devices he had which might have been used to contact the media or others who could help him.

Moshe did not suffer the same effects of the gas and pepper spray that others would have because he had built up an immunity to such weapons as a by-product of his Mossad training. Moshe was not handcuffed because he was not placed under arrest.

Does this sound like an insane conspiracy theory? Sure it does. Due to the scarcity and anonimity of the sources we would dismiss it as exactly that, if it weren’t for some uncomfortable facts: Baxter Pharmaceutical has been caught, red-handed, in spreading a live, genetically engineered H5N1 Bird flu vaccine as a lethal biological weapon all over the world, destined to be used for human vaccinations. This happened just a few months ago. And only luck prevented a global catastrophe of epic proportions.

Baxter International Inc. had mixed live, genetically engineered avian flue viruses in vaccine material shipped to 18 countries. Only by sheer luck, a Czech laboratory decided to test the vaccine on a dozen ferrets, which all died in days. The World Health Organization was notified and catastrophe was averted. This was clearly a deliberate act on Baxter’s part, because they adhere to BS3, bio-safety level three. Baxter admitted a “mistake”. Such monumental screwups are totally impossible at that level. Many safety systems would have needed to be sabotaged, many key personell would have needed to be bribed. It simply can’t be done without direction from the inside. They did not send out the wrong vial – they produced dozens of gallons of biological-weapon agent (genetically engineered live H5N1 / Bird flu virus), then sent it out as a “vaccine”.

Baxter knew full well that their vaccine was lethal, because the year before they had tested it on a few hundred homeless Polish people – dozens died as a result.

Where’s the meat? Well – Baxter is now being sued for the deliberate, repeated contamination of vaccines with biological weapons designed – by them – to mass-murder people. Here is the complaint (PDF). By some kook nutcase? Not likely – Jane Burgermeister is an experienced, respected journalist. She is not the only one suing Baxter for planning and executing a plan for global genocide: Other are filing complaints as well. Read a well-researched complaint here (PDF).

Motive? The latter complaint alludes to it. Have you heard of the Georgia Guidestones? An enormous monument loaded with Masonic symbolism costing millions of dollars, it has been erected by unknown, powerful elites (multimillionaires with the clout to erect monuments wherever they please, obviously) around 30 years ago. It gives an “alternative ten commandments”, of which the first is the extermination of six and a half billion people from the face of the Earth. Half a billion will remain. This is the number of people the planet can sustain indefinitely, so that the descendents of the Rothschilds and Rockefellers can live in peace and affluence indefinitely. Slaves are needed to produce that luxury, but 500 million will do just fine. But how does one go about killing off most of the world?

“Vaccinating” the planet with a bioweapon with near-100% mortality would do the trick. Baxter would provide both the bioweapon as well as the vaccine against it to “civilized” Western peoples. Result: We can plunder Africa, we have no more competition from SE Asia, the oil is for our taking and only Western and perhaps Chinese sheeple remain.

Rockefeller said this in 1994 at a U.N. dinner: “We are on the verge of a global transformation. All we need is the right major crisis, and the nations will accept the New World Order.” PNAC said something similar right before 9/11.

———-

Most americans would remember the scenes from this event..moshe completely surrounded by cars and being sprayed with tear gas and pepper spray..the story behind the story has come out now..i have wanted to do this story for while but now believe its a relevant time to present it “the vaccine is a bioweapon”..and after seeing what merck did..i dont doubt his claims!

Where is he now?

The latest diary from Zombie Columbus (ZC) goes into more detail on how you’ll get into Skirmishes and the mechanics of it.  Essentially once you complete the tutorial, you can join a skirmish from anywhere in Middle-Earth assuming you’re not in combat nor in another instance (I wonder if housing counts) and returned to that same point when you finish.  This is really slick – no more horsing around (literally) to do a quest and should allow for everyone to join from where-ever they are if you’re in a group.

The panel is shown which has quite a bit of info on it:

• Pull-down level selector which has an impact on the skirmish marks awarded
• Difficulty pull-down
• fellowship size
• These 3 all combine for a percentage of skirmish marks awarded so you’ll know how many you can expect
• For the skirmishes themselves there’s a bunch of info there too:
  • a ring indicates you have a daily quest available for that one
  • A red exclamation point shows you haven’t done that one
  • if it is greyed out it doesn’t conform to one of your options – mouse over it to see the conflict

Once you create that skirmish, everyone in your fellowship will get a pop-up UI showing all the information about the skirmish and the option to “Travel Now.”

ZC then goes on to tell us about the death penalty in skirmishes and instead of dread essentially for each out of combat rez or retreat the amount of skirmish points available will drop.  This does NOT effect the daily quest reward, just the other rewards in the skirmish.

The panel for stat-tracking is shown and holy cow there’s a TON of stuff there.  Basically you’ll be able to track everything and brag how awesome you are to all your friends   This will also be available on My.Lotro, which explains the lotteries as they want to further stress the system to make sure it is ready.

Like I’ve said before, skirmishes are shaping up to be THE feature of the expansion and in my opinion easily justify the cost of the expansion on their own.  The Join feature is all full of win, and I like the death penalty – although I’m curious about item wear still.  I do like the tie to MyLotro as hopefully it will really open things up on that site and hopefully drive Turbine to some love for kinships

Full post here.

I’m glad to see a pretty continual stream of information from the Turbine staff (still not the topic I really want) and the MyLotro site has seemed to provide a pretty good mechanism for them to do it.  These two were posted over on A Casual Stroll to Mordor with a pretty good breakdown of the news.  Two main pieces of information – one concerning horses which I think the CStM folks covered pretty well but it is the other piece that was more interesting to me.

This piece comes from Orion on his blog, Orion’s belt where he discussed the issue of completing the epic quests.  Previous diaries have confirmed that Volume 2 Book 9 will use the skirmish technology such that you can choose the group size (or solo) that you want to complete the book with.  When this announcement was made, I was really hoping they could apply that to the Volume 1 content as well, which was agreed might be an option down the line.  Here’s my post on that topic – Made of Lions forum comments. However, Orion’s looking at another system all together where you can basically “super-size” your toon such that you can handle group content – more power and more morale is added to your toon for that quest.  This almost strikes me as similar to some of the Moria session play sequences where we played as a dwarf who had similar skills but much higher morale and power.

So to me it seems like Skirmishes are the methodology for the future but to make them work retroactively is challenging and that’s why Orion (or whichever did the work that Orion posted) came up with their idea as the content and mobs don’t change we’re just given a boost.

Overall, I really like the concept here – catching up on book quests can be a HUGE pain.  I’m currently doing it on my warden in Volume 1 and solo’d up to 7.8, but then needed help.  I duo’d up through book 12  and I believe that’s where I needed a couple others to help out.  I’m currently at 14.1 and will probably need a few to knock out books 14 and 15.

I’d much rather them do things this way as opposed to what they did with Book 1 in that they made it super easy.  Now I understand that having book 1 be as hard as it was off the bat probably wasn’t the best idea – what I mean is that I’d prefer that they continue to have challenging content with an option to complete it on your own if that’s your preferred style.  For on level and on-time content I don’t think these changes should apply but for content that’s a book or two (or in this case an expansion or 2) behind it should be modified such that it is easier to catch up.  They’ve done a good job of allowing “catch-up” points such that you could start a current book without completion of the previous one in many cases, but you’re still missing out on content.  And in most of these cases, we’re not doing the quests for the loot – we’re doing it to get caught up on the story so there’s really not any gameplay impact to others that did the content right off the bat.

So kudos to Turbine for not only looking at this problem but providing a few ways to help mitigate it.  I don’t want a solo MMO, but if you’re rolling an alt, or just get behind, these methods will make it much easier to catch back up with friends or just other players.

I usually try to avoid meta-topics when it comes to WoW mainly because I generally don’t have the first hand experience to base my opinions on, but occasionally a topic will crop up where even my outsider perspective is worthy to share. Tonight I’ll attempt to share my feelings and speculation on the direction Blizzard is heading with WoW.

Okay, now that that is out-of-the-way, let’s get on with it.

While hard mode has been wildly successful, it’s starting to cause problems with how the end-game systems have played out. Blizz has accelerated the iLvl tiers for these modes to make them worth doing for the hardcore raiders while keeping the normal modes accessible for the larger population of WoW.

With each major content patch it seems the gap between normal and hard mode grows larger and larger. As this gap grows larger, it puts many “middle-road” progression raid teams in a hard position where normal mode isn’t challenging enough and hard mode is just too punishing. In this situation morale and motivation suffers from raiders burning out on running the same “faceroll” content and can’t find the motivation to keep throwing themselves at a brick wall.

Hopefully Blizzard rethinks making hard modes a UI toggle and brings back variable triggered hard modes ala Ulduar, but otherwise I think they’re on the right track. Changes such as top-level head/shoulder enchants becoming BoA are a godsend to those of us with alts at max-level without the time nor drive to grind out reputations.

There’s also the plan to allow BoA items to be transferrable cross-faction which will help some folks out, but I’m holding out for cross-realm BoA transfers to become available. My character slots are 100% horde on Cenarius and I don’t plan on creating an Alliance alt on Cenarius unless they increase the character limit per realm. (Pretty please Blizz!)

Yet I forsee one more aspect that Blizzard could continue to make the game more rewarding for the time invested: BoA emblems. Currently this would be difficult to implement since emblems are currency, but I see an easy work-around that currently exists in the game that could be modified to allow for this. Create a new BoA item that can be purchased by emblems and then be redeemed for emblems via a vendor.

You can already purchase BoA items that can be redeemed for honor, so it shouldn’t be difficult to expand this idea for emblems. This would make life much easier for those of us with multiple max-level toons, but don’t have the time to gear each toon up.

One could argue that you should have to invest that time on gearing up alts, but let’s think of the benefits of allowing BoA emblems. Raid teams wouldn’t be burdened with gearing up other people’s alts and should the need arise for toon swapping, toons being swapped in would be on average better geared.

Then there’s the issue of tanks and/or healers that have DPS alts that have all their BiS equipment, but are constantly called upon on their mains to run something. Now instead of feeling like they’re wasting their time and not getting anything out of running the same content, they can still gear up that DPS alt.

I can only think of one downside to this system: lack of familiarity with your alt geared through BoA emblems when running high level content. Even then, the downside isn’t that big, especially if you are consistently running high level content, it wouldn’t take much time to acclimate.

So are there any other possible downsides to allowing BoA emblems? There might be, but I honestly can’t think of any others and whatever downsides there might be are greatly outweighed by the benefits of such a system. Perhaps even the downside I did present could be dealt with only making base level emblems BoA and not the current tier of emblems.

Either way, I hope Blizzard is thinking about this and decides to implement it. It sure would make my life trying to gear up my DK for tanking a lot easier

Episode VI-I -End Game: Download

Interest in this seems to have dwindled. Umineko isn’t serious business any more?

Edit: Ignore previous faggotry, I might as well finish doing this.
Also, plz2more comments. This place is so ronery ;_;.

So MMORPG.com had a chance to interview both Jeffrey Steefel and Aaron Campbell on the upcoming Siege of Mirkwood expansion.  I was pretty excited when I read the first 2 sentences regarding the interview and who was in it – but sadly this is a total fluff interview.  There’s absolutely nothing new and they’re still focusing on the same topics as before – Skirmishes, raids, combat, and legendaries.  The level cap isn’t mentioned at all nor anything on what new traits, skills, etc we’ll get with Mirkwood.

I don’t know which is more frustrating, Turbine not talking about this HUGE aspect of the game, or websites with interview opportunities not asking these questions.  I understand that Turbine might not want to talk about it, but at least in your article mention that there were certain ground-rules or something to the effect that you’re just not trying to spit out the same information we’ve seen countless times.

Here’s the article link – if you wish to read it.

So I’ve tried to write my blog so far as a collection of thoughts and ideas for fellow wardens – this post will be for those grouped with us wardens.  This is both a what to do in a group (with a warden, and some are just good general practices) and what drives me batty.  I’ll start with a few general thoughts and then some class specific ones.

• yes, we are tanks – and can be very good ones at that
  • but a quick check of traits isn’t a bad idea – traiting full spear line is not a good sign for tanking
    • You should see the fist line (main threat line) or shield line (defensive and healing buffs)
• There are some wardens out there who haven’t grouped much before even at 60, so you might be well served to check to see how much they’ve tanked
  • if they haven’t tanked much – if might be good to have either a champ or guard as backup
• we don’t have a quick snap agro skill – so it will take a little longer to pull agro back to us
  • also, it takes us a little longer to get the initial agro – but once we have it, rarely do we lose it
• It might not be bad to check out this post of mine to see our various skill icons and animations
  • Warden skills and icons
  • for example, If you see us crouching down – we’re getting ready to ambush, so let us pull
• as with all tanks, it is usually better to let us do the pulling
  • granted, there are some cases where root pulls are best
• decide on roles up front – we can interrupt, remove corruptions, and tank
  • but it is usually optimal to spread those duties out or at least have back-ups assigned
• Picking (and actually assisting) a main assist for DPS really helps out
  • you should be doing this anyway
  • This will make a HUGE difference if you’re in a PUG.
    • make sure the display is enabled by the group leader
    • and that folks have it turned on in their UI options
• In my opinion we make better main tanks then off-tanks
  • ward+guard or ward+champ is a LOT of fun
• many of us (myself included) enjoy tanking lots of mobs, don’t worry we can handle it
• we scream – seriously we’re very loud so you might want to turn down your combat sounds
  • best all time for me was 2 wardens, 2 captains, and a minnie in war-speech

Class specific

• Captains
  • For the tactics buff, I’d ask the warden.  I usually prefer parry (hardest avoidance to cap) or power for longer fights.
  • silence really sucks for us (can’t taunt, nor use gambits with taunts in them) – so Muster courage is greatly appreciated
  • please don’t use your snap agro skills on a mob we’re tanking – save them for the mobs beating on the squishies
    • it just makes it hard to tell if we lost agro or if it will be coming back to us
    • the only exception to this is when you plan to ping-pong agro (turtle fight for example)
• Guards
  • put your protection on us and you’ll get our block/parry responses – and there will be quite a few
  • No sense in fighting for agro – decide up front and either tank or go into overpower mode
    • see the 3rd comment on captains
• Champs
  • Use your Ire skills to transfer threat as needed
  • Communicate concerning interrupts as we can both do them well, but only one usually needs to
  • watch your initial DPS, but once we have good agro feel free to open up
  • champs and wardens are pure AoE fun!
  • see the 3rd comment on captains
• Burgs
  • Enrage (I think that’s the skill) can be helpful to dump more agro to us
  • You can get a conjunction in even when we ambush – just get it off before our daze wears off
  • call out conjunction attempts as we do have some gambits with a chance to stun, which grant conj. immunity
  • Any debuffs are always welcome
  • share the fun (sharing stealth) allows us to insta-ambush
• Loremasters
  • wounds (disarms especially) and stuns suck – so help us out when you can
  • we’re very power hungry, so be ready
  • debuffs are your friend
• Hunters
  • watch your initial DPS – once we lock agro you should be good to go, but don’t go all out at the start
  • keep an eye out for poisons
• Minstrels
  • Be mindful of over-healing, as we do have a bunch of HoTs and our morale will constantly fluctuate
  • Call to Greatness gives us a nice defensive buff and threat bonus – good to use on start of boss fights
  • If we get low on power we might suggest you not heal such that we can get to 50% morale and regen power
• RKs
  • Your HoTs are a nice pairing with ours
  • Using your “do not fall” skills are great for bosses with big nasty dots (thinking Forges here)
  • Watch overhealing
  • see 3rd note for Minnies

I’m sure there are things I’m forgetting, or that I don’t know as I haven’t played all the classes at high levels – feel free to comment or email anything I’ve left off.

I also re-found this link to the lorebook on a similar topic – warden entry.

Another trailer has been posted, this time from the Nazgul perspective.  Totally different feel from the Galadriel one but still very impressive.  I’m really getting excited for this content!

Oh, and I really want that mask!

Una Pelicula De Alex Jones Que Habla Sobre los Diseños de Dominio Mundial y las Tecnicas de Manipulación y Control Utilizadas por la élite del Mundo Comandados por los Carteles bancarios internacionales, los linajes reales europeos, el vaticano y diversas sociedades secretas y masónicas.Inumerable Cantidad de Personas Odiaran El Nuevo Orden Mundial Y Moriran Protestando Contra El,H.G Wells

Todo con el Fin de Obtener Control Total Sobre el Ser Humano y Establecer un Sistema Mundial de Gobierno, Economí­a y Religión.Gracias a las Personas Que Subieron la Pelicula Y Por Subtitularla.

Parte 1

Parte 2

Parte 3

Parte 4

Parte 5

Parte 6

Parte 7

Mirar El Resto De La Pelicula (Aqui)