Warhammer Online Origins

[Requiem]

Special thanks to Casper & Skozat for the vids and write-ups!

Originally Posted by Skozat

Origins was AWESOME. Well, I only went Saturday for the dealers room and somewhat to look at miniatures games and the art room. WAR was also really awesome. The only available terminal when the RvR stuff was going down was for order, but it was still a blast. I played an Ironbreaker for 2 scenarios and an Archmage for 1 (changed characters). Both were a lot of fun.

Ironbreakers are hard as hell, I speed bumped 5 order players for about 30 seconds in Nordenwatch by using my defensive abilities to their fullest. I also loved rolling into a huge battle and doing the AoE taunt and watching the enemy players suddenly not hurting any of my guys at all. 3 guys were pounding on a runepriest that I was taking half damage for and giving tons of defensive bonuses for being my protection target and I had taunted them so that they were not hurting him him at all. Hilarious.

Archmage (mirror of the Shaman) was a little more complicated to play, but really rewarding. The nuking/healing style was really hectic, constantly changing my offensive target as need be and my defensive target to whoever needed health, but it was also really fun. That and my cast times kept changing so it was hard to get a casting rhythm down. Being able to turn a fight between 2 individuals severely in my side's favor was really cool. Damage was about on par with a tank. Being able to detaunt a target to make them deal 50% less to you for 15 seconds as long as you don't attack them made it really easy to sit there and heal myself until an ally got around to dealing with them or if I just needed a break to heal myself.

Then I played PvE for nearly 2 hours (coming back later for an hour of that). Played a shaman a little, a zealot to level 4, and a sorceress to level 6. Did the PQ in the dark elf lands that summons up a gold dragon as the PQ boss and managed to beat it with a group of other players. Managing the dark magic meter was really fun. I helped the guy from warhammer info take a bunch of pictures of my screen, so the specifics for that should appear soon. Basically it drains away constantly and 1 spell I had increased it, so it's a bit of a juggling act that you can get into a rhythm with to keep your dark magic at where you wanted it because when it backlashed you had to start over (not a big loss). I let the backlash/crit chance creep all the way up when fighting the dragons since it wasn't going after me and my natural health regen with the disciple's added help was plenty to heal the backlash damage. Backlash chance increased much more rapidly than crit chance though, with the last level being 100% backlash chance and a huge extra crit chance.

Also talked to Mythic staff and they said that guild beta was scheduled to start in the next week.

Originally Posted by Casper

When I first got my hands on the game, they were doing scenarios. I grabbed the first available pc and it was a Shadow Warrior. Trust me, this was far from one of my first choices I wanted to play, but it was really fun none the less.

The SW had two stances on the bar, Scout Stance which increases your ballistic skill, and Assault Stance which increased your strength and weapon skill. You had your basic ranged abilities like a shot that does x damage, a shot that does x damage over time and so forth. A couple of the spells I used as frequently as I could was Takedown and Throat Shot. Takedown does damage and reduces targets run speed by 40%, very useful for keeping the distance. Throat Shot did damage and silenced the target for 5 seconds, helped out a lot for keeping those zealots from healing the tanks and melee dps. I also got to use the rank 1 & 2 morale for SW. Rank 1 morale was a big damage shot that was instant cast and knocked the target back several feet. Rank 2 increased your damage by 100% for about 10 seconds as best I can remember. I stayed in scout stance most of the time and I came in 2nd overall in total damage.

The next time we played, they changed the game to the starter areas so we could do some pve. My buddy wanted to try out the Black Orc so we did that first. The BO seems pretty cool. He has a combo builder type system where your abilites unlock another tier of abilities and lead to a finisher. For instance, your first abilitiy is Clobber which does basic damage. Then, that unlocks another ability and so forth until you can use a finisher. The BO does decent damage, so don't worry. Basic abilities were a direct damage ability, a throw weapon ability, and a damage over time ability.

Then, I got to try the class I was most interested in, Shaman. I really love this class. You have 2 meters, one for healing, one for damage. When you cast a damage spell, your healing meter goes up 1 point, to a max of 5 points. At 3 points, your healing meter starts to glow green. This means your heal cast time is greatly reduced. If you get 5 points, your heal is instant. This makes the Shaman incredibly versatile. I easily took on 3 equal mobs and came out in good shape. The basic abilities were Brain Bursta, a damage spell, Gork'll Fix it, which healed some instantly, and the rest over time, and Life Leaka which did damage over time.

Also tried a Disciple of Khaine and Warrior Priest for a bit. They played pretty similar (yeah I know ) . Both had a couple of basic melee abilites and a heal over time. Then they get an ability which damages the target, and increases a stat of your defensive target. Didn't get to play them very much, but seemed interesting also.

I'm sorry I couldn't remember exact numbers and everything of the spells, it's hard to concentrate with all those people around. In closing though, this was my first hands-on of WAR, and the bad thing about it is I'm not in Beta! The build was not the current one, but it is still very nice. It runs so smooth and looks great even without the lighting effects and such. I was wearing a shirt that read "Will Beg For Beta" on the front, and "WAAAGH" on the back. I talked with an EA Mythic guy named Gary quite a bit, and he was really nice and helpful. I didn't win one of the 30 slots for the beta drawing, I thought my shirt would cement me in! He said if it was up to him he would've got me in, but it's all good. At least I got to taste it, now my hunger is stronger for WAR!

Public Quest Video


DoK Video


Shaman Video


Black Orc *NEW*

[Sykotic]

Nice work fellas!

[Icecold]

Good Job guys!

[Showtime]

Dang next week guild beta things are finally rolling
Great write ups thanks guys

[Ocec]

fun!

[Atmat]

very good , thx for sharing Mr
Requiem.
/OFFTOPIC/
Now i know where i have seen your name
befor

Its a RO Monster called Requiem

[Requiem]

Videos up, I might try clearing those up tomorrow. Youtube can be a bit nasty with their video compression, especially with vids that are a blend of similar colors.

Digg and comment if you want!

[Lethos]

Still, great job! Well done mates.

[Requiem]

I'd like to thank community member Casper from the Legion of Steel Guild for helping to provide this in depth preview of the Shaman career. Again, huge thanks to the Legion of Steel for helping to provide this guide.

w00t! Read more: [WHA] - The Shaman Preview - Warhammer Forums

[Atmat]

i realy like the skill names :O,
and thx for the link ,shamy sounds like fun

Extra Special Mushrooms

lol nice :d