War Hero!

Tonight I finally hit Valor Rank 70, also known as War Hero. I'm pretty proud of myself, being such a latecomer to SWTOR PVP and all. I'm also growing rather fond of the small PVP community on my server, The Progenitor - there's one big and a few smaller Imperial PVP guilds that run premades, and one larger Rep side guild that's constantly causing me a headache with their really tough premades.

I'm always queuing solo for Warzones so it's always a gamble who I'll end up with and who I'll be fighting against - but it's part of the fun. I don't know what I'll do once we get Ranked Warzones, since you can only run those in a premade group of 8. Maybe I'll just have scout for an Imperial premade that's missing a sillykickass lil healer.

Oh and here's a little video of me running around like a headless chicken healing in Voidstar like a boss:


Happy PVPing!

Outlaw's Den Chests

Outlaw's Den chests, or How to Gear for Level 50 PVP in SWTOR

SWTOR's Update 1.2 brought several changes to PVP gearing, one of them being the Recruit set - a blue, unmoddable and ugly set of gear that you can buy for credits at level 50. The stats are poor, but the set is nevertheless a must-have for entering level 50 PVP because of the Expertise stat, which both increases your damage dealt and decreases the damage you take - without it you will get steamrolled in less than 2 seconds (after which it's often customary to proceed to the forums to complain about unbalanced PVP). You can buy the Recruit set at your faction's Fleet, it costs about 10-30k credits per piece, but you know what's awesome?

You can get the complete Recruit set for FREE.

Outlaw's Den is a small free-for-all PVP area on Tatooine, you get a vector quest pointing you there at level 40, but you can enter it as soon as you set foot on Tatooine for the first time, which is around level 25. The nearest outposts are Outpost Salara for Republics and Outpost Zaroshe for Imperials. The reason Outlaw's Den is interesting is that there are chests scattered along the outer walls of the area, containing around 2k credits (a nice sum for a lowbie), 20 Warzone Commendations and, if lucky, one random Recruit piece for your class.



I've noted 7 different spawn points for the chests, they're usually located along the edge of Outlaw's Den or in/around the small huts near the zone exits. I thought of making a map with all the spawn points, but instead of looking at one (or counting coordinates) it's really just fastest to hop on your speeder and do a quick ride around the area - it's really that small. You get flagged for PVP once you enter Outlaw's Den, but I've met another player there only once (we just /waved at each other, and went our separate ways).

So, now that you know you can get the Recruit set for free on Tatooine, you have no excuse to turn up in MY warzones wearing lvl40 greens and zero Expertise. And if you're not into PVP, those Recruit pieces are still better than the lvl40 greens you are wearing when you hit level 50. Get the free gear, your groups will appreciate it.

Now, back to the match

I had a tiny tiny break from SWTOR, since my SWTOR subscription ended on Monday and it took a few days for the free 30 days from the Legacy Promotion to apply. I've been slowly playing Knights of the Old Republic, a game that I somehow completely missed when it was first released back in 2003. I've been enjoying it immensely (especially since it's such a lore boost to SWTOR) and I really want to finish it soon.. but right now I need my quick SWTOR Warzone fix.

 

I've now managed to complete the Battlemaster armour set for my Imperial Agent (Operative), and I'm sitting at around 1000 expertise (the PVP stat in SWTOR). The difference to when I first started out in level 50 PVP is enormous, I no longer feel like a wet tissue, I can pump out some pretty sweet heals and even get a few kills every now and then. I'm also very happy that Bioware were quick to fix the issues I ranted about in my last PVP post - the Warzone atmosphere is much better again since people have an incentive to stay until the end.

 
Duel of the paint cans - a common sight when Operative healers are about

In a previous post, Cithryth asked me about how the healing feels like, so here's my 5 eurocents (we don't use the 1 or 2 cent coins here in Finland, the smallest is 5):

Operative healing is very powerful, and I really like the mobility of it - in Warzones I can even run like a headless chicken around my team, spam my AoE heal and my instant heal-over-time and my instant miniheal and get some crazy healing scores. I can usually survive for quite a long time - and even longer if I'm lucky enough to get Guard from a friendly tank. My strongest heal has a longer cast time so I have to stay still to use it, meaning I'll get focused very soon unless I position myself carefully. But if there are any Sorcerer healers around, enemies usually tend to focus more on those and ignore lil me... until I stab them gently between the ribs and sprint away while throwing stackable HoTs on myself and my team-mates.

I also like the resource mechanics of Operatives - instead of the huge "mana pool" that most healer classes have in other MMOs, I have a very small range of Energy that regenerates really fast (unless I spam my skills so that it goes close to 0 and then it regens super slow). But I really think it beats having a huge pool and then just slowly watch it go down and hoping the battle will end before you go OOM.

The only real downside is that Operative healing is pure Health Bar Whack-A-Mole. Sure it's hectic and fun, since I have to make quick decisions about which heal to use so I won't run out of Energy, but the reality is that I watch the red bars go down, I apply the appropriate heal skill and hope they go up. There's no shield, bubble, buffs or other utilites I'm used to having as a healer in other MMOs. I can crowd-control droids, but all my other CC abilities have a very short range and duration. But hey, at least I have stealth and I can Vanish if I get focused!

That PVP rant

I didn't even try PVP in SWTOR until my third character (the Gunslinger), but by then I had already had enough of the repetitive planet quests and wanted something else to fill the gaps between class story quests. I would never class myself as a real PVPer, I just like to hop into a Warzone and fool around for 15 minutes, but strangely enough I was soon hooked to running Warzone after Warzone, because they provided an exciting distraction from grinding quests, teams were usually pretty decent and the rewards were good.


Crazy gunslinger guy, riding a speeder like a boss.

I also found that I became a vastly better player after getting my butt handed to me over and over - I had to learn which abilities I could use to counter this class and that effect, how to cap and hold objectives using my wits instead of brute force.. and the hardest of all, learning not to use knockbacks to throw a Huttball carrier over my team's goal line. Usually I had a good time, because even the short chats I had with my team during WZ matches was more social interaction than I encountered while out questing.


However, last week's Patch 1.2 brought some unexpected changes to PVP, namely severely decreased rewards for the losing side - before 1.2, even if your side lost the Warzone match, you still got a decent reward for your effort and time spent. Post-1.2, you don't get ANYTHING unless you gain at least 3 medals during the match. This is problematic for several reasons:

Medal farming is deleterious to team play and completing Warzone objectives. Of course there are always kill farmers and those that "derp in the middle", but it's much worse now since everyone wants to ensure they at least get their 3 medals. If the opposing team is better organised and wearing vastly better gear, it can be a real struggle.

Team imbalance no longer ends Warzones - enjoy that 8v4 for the next 10 minutes, since half of your team quit after the enemy's first capture or score. And why wouldn't they, since there's no penalty for leaving and the rewards for losing are hardly worth the time anyway, so and it's often a better option to just quit a losing WZ and re-queue for another.

Late joiners don't always have enough time to gain enough medals, even if they contributed to objectives. If you end up in a WZ that's halfway done and your team is obviously losing, you might as well quit and re-queue.

Warzone medpacks and adrenals have become unsustainable - their costs were doubled in 1.2 (from 10 comms to 20) - do you want to spend that 20 comms you got from the last WZ lost to buy ONE medpack or ONE adrenal? Or save it for Battlemaster gear?


Before someone raises their voice about medals being much easier now - yes, it's really easy to get over 10 medals now if you know what you're doing (and if you really decide to farm them instead of completing objectives), but sometimes you just end up ganked so badly (hello 8vs4 matches) that even if you want to stick to the end you don't earn enough medals and you get zilch for being a punching bag for 15 minutes.


My baby consular (lvl10), bravely holding a turret in Civil War. Gave me a chuckle when a lv14 BH tried to take it, but I just circled around the turret healing myself, so he gave up and ran away.

(For the record, I mostly play sub-50 PVP, since I enjoy it better than the expertise/gearfest that is lv50 PVP. I win more often than I lose.)

I wouldn't otherwise even write about this subject (since I'm a casual PVPer at best, always queuing solo), but I'm just disappointed now that after finding and enjoying a new side of the game, it's suddenly been made unnecessarily grindy and unfriendly. The rewards system before 1.2 worked just fine, and the only addition it really needed was a function to vote kick AFKers. I just hope Bioware will wake up and make SWTOR Warzones worth playing again, instead of encouraging people to quit matches until they land in a winning team.

(in before "baaw entitled carebears, L2P or GTFO")

Delving Deeper

One part I hadn't yet explored in LotRO was the Delving of Frór, the labyrinthine dungeon inside Ettenmoors that houses several raid-worthy bosses as well as the chance to run into hostile players while farming for valuable spirit-stones.





Started with the Rogmul fight, which took a few tries to get him down. It got especially exciting since we were expecting creeps to sneak up and gank us anytime.


Tree boss. We ran into creep players here, they were waiting for us on the other side of the boss and his adds, so we had a burglar HIPS-pull the boss while the whole group rushed over to spank the poor creeps.



Finished with the drake boss. Nom nom, delicious tank!

Moors

Lately, as I've sometimes done the last ~weeks before new content updates, I've spent in the Ettenmoors, doing, zomg, PEE VEE PEE. If you've ever had the joy of sitting next to me while I'm getting ganked and are forced to listen to me whine and utter curses when the it's always just me screwing up... well, yeah, me and disappointments don't go too well together ("but I waaaaaaaa~nt him dead, waaaaan~nt"). But Monsterplay in LOTRO is fun, because I get to be this big pretty orc who throws fiery arrows at those disgusting princes on their white horses.


Meet my beautiful Blackarrow: Villemon, my endless source of amusement. He's purple. With manboobs and great hair. Playing Monsterplay (which our tribe calls affectionately 'perseily') is really therapeutic. What's more fun than seeing someone you really dislike on the other side and then light their ass on fire? Why, of course, seeing a friend there and doing him the same!



I also feel that there are more funny personalities behind monster faces than heroes. Whereas freep raids tend to be rather dry, the humour on creepside is often much more, uhm, down-to-earth, and I've often almost rolled off my chair /giggling late in the night. Besides, it's just so much more rewarding to play creepside, knowing that you're always the underdog and one of them would easily be match for 4 of us. When you do get them down, it just feels so good.


I've been a couple times to the Moors with my Lore-master again to finish Rank 4, but it's not nearly as fun as with my dear Blackarrow. The LM is easily the most hated class on the Moors, because everything they do is designed to be as annoying as possible. Luckily my computer lags so horribly when playing freepside that I'm not often tempted to join. Creeping is so much better.