Doomflayer and Warpforged armour graphics

Well the PTS came up, I managed to take a couple of screenshots then my client crashed and I can't get logged back in as the test realm is full. So you will get the graphics today and time (and the PTS) permitting tomorrow I'll grab screenshots of the full stats for both sets for reference again.

One key thing, the sets DON'T come with belts or back pieces. The rr98 belt is actually the same style as the Warpforged so we can assume it goes together (graphically), but I didn't see a belt that went with the Doomflayer set in my backpack so the Black Orc looks a bit slimmer than normal.

I like the Warpforged set and even the Doomflayer set looks nice however the helm I don't know if I love or hate. I love how it's a big, clunky bit of metal with spikes and bits welded on, but I can't seem to shake the image of a droid from Star Wars when I see it. I think playing around with some dyes could net some interesting results, but in the meantime here we go.

Doomflayer (no belt, no cloak)

Warpforged (with rr98 belt, no cloak)

Quick summary of Borc changes in the 1.4 notes

So the patch notes are now up. I'll quickly summarise any changes that affect Black Orcs for ease of reading:














As you can see, Black Orcs didn't even need a tool tip change this time, we didn't get any item changes and certainly no ability tweaks which is a bit disappointing for potentially the biggest WAR patch yet. Oh well, there's always 1.4.1 but at least we know we're balanced.

No changes so far for Black Orcs in 1.4

I took some time out to go through each individual action and compare it to live. Since the only template available is RR70 and I'm RR80 on live I had the free mastery point so I didn't get exact results. But all damage was within a couple of points so I'm taking that as they mastery point. If the PTS has no sneaky Black Orc changes then at least I now also have a base level of damage to compare things to which is always useful.

There's still a lot of time to go until 1.4 so there might be changes coming yet other than being a bit bigger. I have to admit I'm not even seeing any tool tip changes this time so don't hold out for marauder/magus/engineer sweeping changes for us but I'll keep people updated as and when the new builds arrive.

(oh and the DPS sets will be posted up later on today.. ish)

Keepers Set for Black Orcs

For once my set I'll be showing is actually a set. I never even knew this existed until recently when a guild mate was on the "gather all armour sets" grind and pointed it out to me, so the pair of us did a few runs down in Saccelum Dungeon and got my set (easier with an actual DPS to rip through the mobs). This is what the set looks like and the stats can be found at the WARdrobe at the moment. It's a fairly basic looking set, only three pieces however the hands are quite decent with the extra arm guard on the left piece.

We did it gitz... WE'Z DA BIGGEST!

From the PTS.... Black Orcs are now bigger than the Choppas!!! You can click on the picture for a bigger view. Middle is a Choppa and Chosen and the two at either end are a RR80 Black Orc and Tier 3 Black Orc, as you can see there's no difference in size based on renown, well if there is, it's not noticable. Still not complaining.



As a side note, I've not found any Black Orc changes other than the size and Save Da Runts (our guard now requires a shield). Not much time to check out more but will have a look tomorrow proper. Also I have to say this before I get too carried away.... This is only the PTS, it may change, they may remove the size difference so lets not get too excited.. ;)

(Edit: Added a Chosen into the mix for the size difference now so you may want to force a refresh of the site, holy crap we're massive! Although the Tyrant Black Orc doesn't look as big, he was slouching at that point as the chosen stretched up, trust me, it's noticable)

Antiquated (Ancient) Set for Black Orcs

The Antiquated set from Land of the Deads Tomb of the Vulture Lord is a green repairable set. Once repaired it becomes Ancient (piece name). The actual set itself doesn't offer any set bonuses but does feature Strength, Toughness and Initiative as the primary stats, it's basically a T4 Surveyor set and is fairly decent to use but will quickly get replaced as it's rank 40 gear (primeval for example is much better). The set itself though replicates the Conqueror gear so it's good if you want to have some of the same appearance as it, the shoulders and helm tend to be popular. Anyway, if you want to find any of these on the Auction House, just search for "Antiquated".

Five things you didn't know about Black Orcs

Here's five things you may, or may not know about Black Orcs in Warhammer Online.

1) T'ree Hit Combo #1: It hits five times, not three. It's meant to.

2) T'ree Hit Combo: #2 It's one of the only actions that has fluff in the tool tip as well 'As Da' Big Boss would say, "Countin' is for Stuntiez" '

3) We are the only tanks that can do corporeal damage and have ailment actions

4) Our collectors edition head (the metal face plate) will be the same colour you choose for the metal bits when you create the Orc (so you can have a red or gold face plate for example)

5) We can use hammers, but none we can use actually drop from mobs or quests.

A proposal on how Mythic can make Black Orcs da biggest.

So I'm beating this subject to death again, only this time I will offer a solution. Adding character changes as they level up can already be done as can be seen by the Magus disk and the White Lions pet so we know this is a possibility already to put in but the question remains, that if Mythic decided to put it back in, how could they? This is where I attempt to answer that.

First of all, lets give Mythic some money out of it. There will be a WAR booster pack out which would add to all classes and races a way to customise your appearance further depending on your renown rank, this is achieved through the use of special 'dyes'. If you have the collectors edition you know about the head dyes which give you the special faces, this would act the same way, allowing you to apply a new change to the character.

For Black Orcs I would propose the following.

Upon achieving renown rank 20 you get a mail in the post from a Sneaky Git letting you know that there is an old warboss in a zone that is ready to get a good kicking and this would be a great chance to push yourself up the ranks in Grumlocks Waaaagh! So off you trot to the location, find the Orc and give him a hiding he wont forget, seeing that you're a much tougher Orc than he is, he gives you some fungus beer and a leg of ham and slips off into the distance admitting that you're much bigger than he is. This beer can be used in the special dye slot to increase the size of the Black Orc by 1% It's not a lot but still, you're not yet a tough Black Orc like Grumlock. Also the leg of ham, if used in the special dye slot will darken your skin a bit.

Once you get to RR40 another mail appears again from the Sneaky Git. This leads you to a quest to complete involving blowing up stunties, much hilarity and then defeating another bigger Orc in a headbutting contest. Upon completion of this you receive another pair of dye items to use which increases the size of the Black Orc to 3% above base size and the other will darken your skin further, also you receive quite a large trophy to proudly wear showing you're bigger than other Orcs.

This process repeats itself at RR60. A quest which sends you off to take some Elf ears and track down an Orc which has betrayed Grumlock in exchange for his own pile of shinies from the High Elfs (which in reality is just a load of shiny stones). Once this is done, you will again receive the two dye items which once used increases the size of the Black Orc to 5% of the base size and darkens the gnarly green hide of your Black Orc even more. Along side this though you are granted a Shield, this has no stats and is bound to player, in fact it's a unique skin for the appearance system, it turns the shield into a High Elf shaped/design but with Orc glyphs and no doubt some extra spiky bits attached to it. Again, this shows off you have achieved RR60 if you want to use the appearance.

Guess what happens at RR80? The sneaky git reveals himself to be Gazbag who has been watching you. Having defeated an old Warboss in the orc lands, a warboss in the stuntie lands and a warboss in the elf lands it's time to head to the Empire and lay down Grumlocks law on a warboss which has had a siege set on Praag for months now without progressing and in fact is getting fatter, lazier and his boyz are getting more and more worthless as each day progresses. So a quest is set forth to get them sorted for Grumlock until you draw the ire of the big, fat warboss. Again, once you defeat him you feel the power of the Waaagh and as all Orcs do when they defeat a bigger Orc they themselves become bigger. The dyes you receive this time increases your size to 7% of the base, make you even darker and in addition you retrieve a choppa which is in fact the Runefang which was lost to a great Waaaagh many centuries ago. Again, this is only appearance, and not effect.

Finally, when all appears to be settled down, Grumlock calls upon you at RR100. The Skaven have used some evil ratty magic to enslave one of Grumlocks trusted Black Orc bosses. You have to go down there, break the enchantment (and a few skaven skulls), upon doing this the boss wakes up and realising that the only way to redeem himself to Grumlock would be to give you a solid beating takes you on at a fight. Once/if/when you defeat the boss (it doesn't have to be easy, just a challenge for a solo player) the now beaten boss, hands over a chunk of warpstone, a cooked rat and a massive, black warpstone enchanted two handed great choppa. The warpstone will increase the size of the Black Orc to 10% over the base, the cooked rat will darken the skin further and the great choppa is a unique appearance for great weapons.

And that's that! It doesn't need to go further, it can be expanded to other races and classes (dwarves get longer beards and more gnarled looks, Bright Wizards may gain more burn marks or flames erupt around them (oooh particle effects) etc etc). You also don't have to use each item, it's simply there if you want to you might like your skin the current colour so there's no need to change it, your size might not appeal to you and you may like the appearance of other items better. Whatever your choice though it's that. A choice, you're not forced to buy it as it offers no in game advantage and even if bought if you dont like the look of being bigger and darker, well heck, you don't need to use it!

I'd pay for it for sure.

Again, making Black Orcs da biggest again.

Someone sneakily asked in the RvR pack Q&A about Black Orcs getting bigger again and got the following response by Andy at Mythic.

"Appalled wrote...

Thanks for the thread Andy, I have one question and one only that keeps me awake at night;

Will the Black Orc be the size of an enraged Choppa by the time this RvR pack comes out? If not, have MYTHIC begun to put serious consideration in to this community request so that we are in accordance with the lore? (Get what I did there? :P)"

I've been trying to convince the Art/Production team to do this for over a year now. I'll keep hammering away at them.

I also just noticed on Erknuffels blog he asked the same question when getting a chance to speak to the devs at Gamescom

http://erdknuffel.de/2010/08/interview-von-der-gamescom-teil-iii/

Erdknuffel: Do you have any plans on making the Black Orc da biggest Orc again?

Andy: Well if it’s up to me: yeah, because that’s something I’m constantly bugging these guys about. So Carrie, the community really wants for the Black Orc to be the biggest Orc, because it matches the lore.

Carrie: I think we can look into that.

The hope is still alive fellow Black Orcs! Don't let our Waaaagh go un noticed!

I've also updated the original request post with the new Bioware site instead of the GOA and old Mythic forum stuff

http://mmmmmgud.blogspot.com/2009/03/waits-jus-minute-us-black-orcs-are.html

Also feel free to post your support on a fantastic YouTube video that was made @ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3uKCc4NSrkE

Alternatively, if you have a blog or website and you'd like to support our plea then pelase rip my "Supportin' Black Orcs" tag to the right there and post it somewhere

Changin' da plan

So we get a new ability in 1.3.6 known as "Changin' da plan". Here's the details straight from Mythic.

Black Orc:

• A new ability, "Changin' Da Plan", is now trainable at Rank 3. This ability will instantly shift you from No Plan into Da Good Plan, or from Da Good Plan into Da Best Plan, or from Da Best Plan into Da Good Plan. It is off of the global cooldown, and has a 5 second cooldown of its own.
  

To add to this, Mythic have stated it won't cost any AP.

So what to make of it. Well it's something which isn't a nerf lets put it that way. It does seem a very clunky way of handling things, adding an extra ability for us to fit onto overloaded action bars. Removing it off the global cool down is good but certainly not a huge advantage as the game is fairly unresponsive at the best of times, let alone in laggy situations where it won't actually help (and possibly will end up making you change plan when you don't want as it queues your actions all over the place).

I am thinking of ways to use it already and can skip out parts of a rotation now, a lot will involve timing and proper use of CDP will make a Borc more effective, however bad use of it can cause more problems than it's worth and possibly you gain it too quickly where you will still be getting the hang of using the plan mechanic leading to over complication.

Is it good? Yes for the simple reason that if it's bad we don't NEED to use it.

Is it a fix? No. The mechanic is still horribly broken with poor game response, bad action design, ill thought out combinations and our CC is still on cool downs which limits the effectiveness of changing plans if you activate it too early leaving you with the choice... Use another ability or wait for the cool down and lose precious damage.

I'm still trying ot think of a better way to run the mechanic within the limits that Mythic would put in, but it's harder than thought. I do love Bootaes idea of adding in the effect of the tactic which grants 0/+10/+20 crit depending on the plan, however I would drop that to 0/+5/+10 and also add the same rate to be added for Block and Parry (after all we're tanks).

Surveyor set for Black Orcs

The Surveyor non-set comes from Mount Gunbad. It's repairable green items so fairly easy to get (I got most of them from a drunken naked war band.... and bought the rest for a few silver). It's a decent looking set, and the shoulders are often known as the coat hanger shoulders. It's a nice looking set, you can find repeats of the set items throughout the early stages of tier 3 so if you like the look there's a fair chance you can pickup the bits without having to bother going into Mount Gunbad. As an added bonus I included the Surveyor one hander and two hander weapons (didn't find the shield, but if I do I'll add the picture to this post). It does come pre-dyed in green and black. Trophies on shoulders not included....

Da Toughest - A Guide to the Black Orc Tanking Mastery

DA TOUGHEST

In the second part of my guide to Black Orcs I'll be discussing our primary mastery - the tanking role. We have a whole tree dedicated to this known as "Da Toughest". It features our self heal bellow, aggro generating attack and a few defensive abilities. I'll look at typical mastery builds and mastery rotations. This is just a guide to the tree and some builds and rotations around it, specific guides on roles such as the ORvR tank will feature as a seperate guide. Warning, this is a LOT of text (over 2,500 words).

Overview

Da Toughest is our tanking tree, featuring defensive abilities and tactics. Each point in the mastery tree increases the effectiveness of abilities from this tree. The purchasable actions and tactics in this tree are geared more toward PvE tanking rather than anything of great value to RvR. There's a few key points to know about Black Orcs and PvE tanking though. You have to keep in mind that we're not 'technical' tanks like Black Guard or Chosen, we dont have mass amounts of parry and no way to drop our chance to be critically hit. What we do have though is a decent block rate which can be increased by a large amount (at a cost of threat generation and AP) and a vast amount of wounds. Finding the right balance between your wounds, armour, chance to be critically hit and defenses such as block and parry is half the battle. I tend to make sure I'm well stacked on wounds with a low chance to be crit, your healers should be able to keep you up, if not then dropping a bit of crit reduction for more block/parry might be the best option (and a bit of praying).

A key stat that Black Orcs lack in however is parry, we have no real natural way of increasing it other than one tactic which is quite weak (and even then it's 0/5/10% depending on the plan you're in). What this means is that Black Orcs are vulnerable to cleave attacks as they cannot be blocked, only parried. If you struggle on a boss with cleave attacks then there's no harm in seeing if a chosen or black guard can take over the tanking duty for him, it might be easier until you can start stacking Parry through renown.

1. Action Breakdown
2. Tactic Breakdown
3. Rank 4 Morale
4. Builds, Tactics and Morales
5. Rotations

Action breakdown

I'll break down each action that comes under Da Toughest mastery, I'll list plan, action point cost and if it's a low, medium or high damage action.

Clobber (first plan - 35 AP – Low Damage)

Our basic threat generating ability. Causes a decent chunk of damage and increases threat on our target. It costs 35 Action Points (compared to every other tank other than Swordmaster who does the same or more damage for 30AP, and the SM does spirit damage with his). This should be used a couple of times upon engaging a boss before starting your rotation and is a good, solid ability in PvE. Sadly not great in RvR due to needing to slot a tactic to turn it into a morale drain attack, combined with the high AP cost, spamming it will drain your AP very quickly.

Tuffer 'n nails (second plan – 30AP – Low Damage)

This action increases our armour by 990 for 20 seconds, it's not on a cool down but is in our second plan. A great action to use for PvE tanking.. IF you don't have any armour potions or a DoK with the armour buff covenant on due to the fact it doesn't stack which is disappointing. In all honesty though the buff you get from it is better than the covenant or the armour potion so should be used. It's cheap as well for one of our actions so fits in nicely, plus smashing a shield into someone's face is always good for a laugh.

Right in Da Jibblies (second plan - 35 AP – Medium Damage)

Quite possibly the most iconic action from a Black Orc. Kicking someone right in da jibblies causing a decent amount of damage and a reduction in weapon skill. Excellent in small scale for taking on melee DPS to reduce armour penetration (the bane of a tank).

Savin' Me Hide (third plan - 0 AP – Medium Damage)

My favourite RvR ability. Increases your toughness but importantly reduces the incoming magic damage your group receives by 20% for four seconds. This is a great ability in large scale RvR where bomb groups rule the roost. The four seconds could do for being a bit longer due to it only being 20% and Black Orc abilities having a hidden cool down due to the plan mechanic. I would recommend this and Not In Da Face as two essential RvR actions. Put this as your third plan and your group will love you.. For four seconds.

Ya Missed Me (25 AP – Low Damage)

Now we look at the purchasable actions. Ya Missed Me is the first action you can buy. Upon blocking you can deal a chunk of undefendable damage to a target and reducing the physical damage done by 20% for 10 seconds. This is great in PvE encounters but also very handy in small scale RvR (scenarios, 6v6 etc) where it will proc off a guard if you block it and can then dish out de-buff to any target you want. Not as much use in large scale RvR due to the single target nature of it but if the enemy has a melee focus or a super slayer then you can neutralise them. What is important is that this action is not bound to a plan so you can use it and retain the plan you are in without stepping ahead or back.

Can't Hit Me! (15 AP/Second – Medium Damage)

Can't Hit Me! is the ability other tanks want and immediately believe that it makes Black Orcs the best PvE tanks in the history of ever. "OMG you can get 100% block permanently".. WRONG! CHM is a fantastic action but it's certainly not an ability to trivialise PvE due to a couple of drawbacks. The first is that it drains AP. Black Orcs have a higher than normal cost for abilities so when you get out of AP, it is more of an issue. The second problem is that the threat generated is very low, you will only be dealing around 120 damage upon blocking so you can only spam it up once you have a large amount of threat (imagine 240 threat compared to 1000 threat from a choppas auto attack crit). It's great for emergency situations or for holding large numbers of mobs but remember you cannot block a cleave so it won't help on a lot of bosses. It is however essential for PvE tanking for a fall back and to keep up when you're at the last few percent of a boss when your threat should be high enough.

Down Ya Go (Third Plan – 0 AP – High Damage)

Our only knock down appears at the top of the toughest tree. 20 second cool down and a 3 second knock down... Not great, but it does have the single biggest base damage of any black orc ability. I have seen 2k+ crits on this with a two hander however the fact it's on a 20 second cool down, is the third plan and the knock down is only three seconds does limit it as a crowd control action. If you're speccing into the tree fully it's worth it as a burst damage ability and in small scale it's nice to have for neutralising someone for three seconds so they can be focussed down.

Tactic Breakdown

Less Stabbin' Me (3 points in Da Toughest)

The first purchasable tactic you can get is Less Stabbin' Me. I actually think this is overrated and used a bit too often. People see the 10% increase to parry and block in the last plan and get blinded by it. This tactic gives 5% increase to parry and block in second plan and the afore mentioned +10% in the third. The problem is, you don't hold yourself in a plan for long as you're debuffing the target, hitting things, trying not to get hit and building threat. It's pointless in RvR and in PvE the tactic slot would be better suited for an 'always on' tactic for tanking.

Stop Hittin' Da Runts (7 points in Da Toughest)

Now THIS is a must have tactic. 40 AP every time a bellow goes off (normally 25% of the time on a hit). It works in a fantastic combo with Can't Hit Me and Da Biggest bellow which can proc on multiple targets almost giving you 50% extra block for a longer duration as your AP will be regenerating when the bellow goes off. It also lets you keep spamming the rotation as you shouldn't have any AP issues. If you're taking any points in Da Toughest then you could do a lot worse than take Stop Hittin' Da Runts.

Mor' Hardcore (11 points in Da Toughest)

Dear Gork.. What a dreadful tactic for 11 points. Right in Da Jibblies and Savin' Me Hide will now knock back targets a medium distance. Two main problems here though. Medium distance is actually pathetic compared to any other type of knock back that tanks have (Black Orcs have the shortest distance of knock back available). And the second problem is that Right in Da Jibblies is on the second plan along with our base knock back so there's no use in having two knock backs on the same plan when you can only use one anyway. Seriously, this is one tactic I have NEVER taken and in its current form NEVER will.

Rank 4 Morale

Can't Touch Us

Group Members within 100 feet gain 200 Action Points and absorb 4500 damage over 15 seconds. This is basically a very weak version of the Zealot Rank 4 morale Tzeentch's Shielding (250 Ap and 5400 damage over 20 seconds). It's also an exact mirror of the Swordmasters morale 4. Basically it looks nice for extra support in a war band but as ORvR Black Orcs tend not to spec into Da Toughest for war band action it's of limited use and I certainly can't justify the 3 mastery points you have to spend to get it. It's a common trait amongst Tanks, the rank 4 morale in the defensive tree just doesn't seem worth the points. Honestly unless your war band requests you to spec into it then don't bother.

Builds, Tactics and Morales

One of the great things about Black Orcs is that a lot of the actions you use are not in the actual mastery tree so you can actually perform most roles without having to respec too much but you do still need a build. I'll do each build for 25 mastery points and point out where you can put the other points once received. All builds feature PvE tanking as a feature but some (particularly the ORvR and Skirmish specs) will also feature in other trees with different builds

PvE Tanking Build

Fairly obvious build. The spare points including those from renown ranks can pretty much go anywhere but I find popping them into the brawler tree will at least help Skull Thumper and Da Biggest bellow while Arm Breaka is handy if you find yourself doing some RvR. Tactics and Morale are straight forward as discussed above.

Turtle Build

Turtling is all about survival, losing group utility, damage and general usefulness to become an immovable object. It's not a whole lot of use but some do enjoy playing it. Extra mastery points I'd split between both trees as you'll absorb more damage with Rock 'Ard, heal more with You got Nuffin' (which is now a group heal, not the anti de-taunt as shown) and if you use the toughest bellow as a turtle then the extra points will help to heal. Stop Hittin Da Runts can be useful as well if you want to slot that instead of the You Got Nuffin, especially if you want to spam Can't Hit Me. I've included both in the build so you can swap them out depending on the situation.

ORvR Build

AoE and survival is the biggest thing in large scale ORvR. The more damage and debuffs you can do while staying alive the better. Depending on tank numbers and what they're specced for (example being Chosen with crippling strikes) you will likely have to be either spamming Hold The Line or hitting the ORvR rotation. Spare points are just that, put them anywhere that you feel like though I'd recommend keeping them to the Boss spec or Toughest. Putting them in Brawler will just spread it out too much. I have to admit however that I feel a good solid ORvR build is based more in the Brawler tree, but this works if you wish to keep a single spec.

Skirmish Build

Skirmish is what I call the Toughest build that is most effective with for Scenarios/6v6 or small roaming groups but with the PvE aspect of the tank still attached (again it saves a respec). It's also effective in ORvR however you do lack Big Brawlin' which is great (more in the boss guide). Spare points go in brawler to get Arm Breaka and Not in Da Face. Tactics can vary if you want to use a two hander, I'd then slot in Dat Was Great, Stab You Gooder or Stop Hittin Da Runts depending on how you feel and how your group is composed.

Rotations

PvE Tanking Build

Your basic toughest rotation for PvE tanking involves two toughest abilities and one from the brawler line.

Clobber >> Tuffer 'n Nails >> Skull Thumper >> Clobber >> Right in Da Jibblies >> Skull Thumper

Clobber is a no brainer, until you have a decent level of threat up then use this in your first part of the rotation. Once you hare happy you have enough threat then start swapping in Wot Armour? to help the group DPS. You can then move onto Tuffer 'n Nails which will give you a nice armour buff and lasts long enough that you can swap in Right in Da Jibblies when the second plan comes around again. Skull Thumper, although it's a brawler ability there's no decent third plan from the Toughest that you will use in PvE. Use Skull Thumper as this will do damage every time someone crits, so if you have a crazy Witch Elf, Sorc or Choppa with a huge crit build you will actually gain extra threat and damage done to them. Skull Thumper features more in the "Da Biggest" section. Of course, during this rotation you will keep Ya Missed me up on the target when it appears, as this does not break your plan you do not need to worry about it causing any interference with your rotation.

Turtle Build

Turtling is an incredibly boring way to run as an RvR tank, in fact it offers little to no group utility, probably won't earn you any friends but you will be incredibly difficult to kill.

Rock 'Ard >> Tuffer 'n Nails >> Savin' Me Hide >> Can't Hit me for 5 seconds if under attack

Add in Can't Hit Me as often as possible and you will be a solid rock, just that though.. A rock, you wont be hitting anyone, you won't be doing anything and in fact you'll be a big, immobile blob of worthlessness.. Not Orcy as not enuff fightin'. This is more like Stunty fightin'. Note though that Rock 'Ard is in the Boss mastery tree so I'll discuss that more in that part.

ORvR Build

The next rotation is for the ORvR build. Catching as many enemies out and helping your allies is the aim here.

Wot Armour? >> Big Swing >> Savin' Me Hide / Not in Da Face

The whole aim of this is to cause debuffs and disorients with Big Swing then follow it up with damage mitigation or unstoppable buffs if facing low numbers of casters. You should be in the middle of your war band doing this to the enemy unless the healers aren't staggered (chosen AoE normally) in which case feel free to disorient them, just be careful you don't break any staggers that are incoming. Though as stated on the top of the guide, I'll actually be doing a guide just on the ORvR Black Orc.

Skirmish Build

Skirmish Build is what I basically use as a term for a spec that you can use in PvE tanking and also in Scenarios or small scale stuff. I'll do the rotation for RvR as the PvE tanking is the same as the standard rotation above.

Wot Armour? >> Right in Da Jibblies >> Down Ya Go! >> Wot Armour?/Arm Breaka >> Trip 'em Up >> Savin' Me Hide / Shut Yer Face / Not in Da face

The Skirmish rotation does vary depending on what your facing and if you have the extra mastery points from the renown rank, for example I really wouldn't bother with Savin' Me Hide if you're not facing any casters or they're not overly powerful or blowing the crap out your group at that point in time, instead Shut yer Face on a healer would be fantastic as would Not in Da Face to increase cool downs (and gives unstoppable to your group for four seconds).

Primeval (Priceless) set for Black Orcs

Part two in the Non set sets... This is the Primeval set which drops in the Tomb of the Vulture Lord as repairable purples known as Priceless .... It's the same models as the Invader set but it does have a melee crit bonus on the shoulders instead of a block bonus that normal Invader has so works out well if you have a spare armour piece and want a bit more power. Plus, the shoulders are arguably the best in game for any class.. I mean, a Rat Ogres skull on one shoulder and every spiky bit you can find on the other.. What's not to love about them?

Any fellow bloggers know how to contact Mythic for a couple of interview questions?

Subject says it all, even if you're not a blogger any idea?

I'd like to send a few questions off to Mythic about Black Orcs and I'm looking for a way to contact them or some of the guys over there. Since I have a European account I can't use the forums to PM Andy or James there (and I dont think they would pay too much attention to a trial account PM'ing him) and I'm not even sure who does what on the team anymore (maybe a who is who for the website would be good Mythic?)

Not sure if I'm even wasting my time or possibly there time but if you know, then drop me a comment or you can send me an email by clicking the orange link to the right hand side there in the "Wot's dis all about?".

Even better, if you are Mythic then let me know if it'd be ok, or if it's best just to wait for producers letters etc

Precursor set for Black Orcs

So I've decided on a little project as I get scarily close to realm rank 80. To collect all armour sets which you don't often see such as the green sets, repairable sets and basically to look for interesting models and skins, hopefully the odd unique one as well to tart around in :)

So here's the first one. The Precursor set for rank 39. Simply a green set, nothing special on it but the artwork is nice enough, though can be seen throughout the game. You can click on each picture for bigger examples. I left the trophys on simply because I couldn't be bothered to take them off so the twin daggers on the shoulder at the left hand side are from Land of the Dead and the Stags skull on the right side of the picture is from the Hunters Vale live event.

Black Orc questions from the recent Q&A

I need to get me going to the European one if it happens again to ask some solid Black Orc questions. Last one (and maybe only ever one) I was on holiday :(

Anyway, thanks to Gaarawarr for posting the transcript.

Q – Are you looking into making the Black Orc Boss tree more attractive?

Nate - For the Black Orc and the Swordmaster, our intention is really getting the career to feel overall top to bottom like it’s a little smoother. Whether that’s something to do with the mechanic or how the abilities interact with the mechanic, I’m not sure yet. But we want to get the career generally not feeling so step-stop, step-stop as it does currently. That’s our priority more-so than singling out a specific mastery tree.

Well it's a start. I'm not expecting much, if anything as this has been the first mutterings of changes to the mechanic since they last mentioned it wasn't totally going to be re-written. I'm wondering if it wouldn't just be easier for Mythic to re-write the mechanic than to work on the existing one. It absolutely MUST be resilient to high lag situations so we're not locked out of plans or spamming one button because the game doesn't realise we've changed plan and then jumps us ahead two. I'd actually like to sit down and design a mechanic, just to see how it would work.

Q – When you use Not in Da Face you get a 4 second immunity to your group and Savin Me Hide gives your group 4 seconds of reduced magic damage. It was said in the past that those durations would be increased. Are we going to see those adjusted?

Nate - It’s possible. They’re both pretty powerful effects, obviously specifically the CC immunity is really strong. We don’t want those to get too out of control so that they’re up all the time, but it’s certainly a possibility.

So keep the CC immunity timer which also has a great base effect (single target CD increase but ability has a cool down) as it is and increase Savin Me Hide's 4 seconds to something of substance (10 seconds?). Savin Me Hide has a hidden cool down of around 7-10 seconds depending on lag due to it being on the last plan so it's not spammable, plus you have to drop defences on your war band (no Hold the Line), find a target that isn't a tank so you might actually not be blocked or parried, go through the first two plans and then drop it on the third, rinse and repeat. If it's too good then nerf it, but I don't see anyone complaining about it as it stands, if anything it's almost under looked due to the stupidly low 4 second duration

Q – Any plans on increasing Black Orc group utility?

Nate - As I mentioned earlier, in our view, some of the bigger problems with the Black Orc and the Swordmaster are general smoothness of playability and that’s what we’d like to look into first.

OK, so we wait for the class playability before any other changes. So 1.3.6 is out the window as it's too short if they're just looking right now. 1.3.7, 1.4? Who knows. On the upside it means I won't hold my breath for patch notes expecting some wonderful work done on the class, downside though is that we'll get the little nerfs here and there and no doubt be waiting six months until we hear anymore about this. I'll put this bet out (and going by my track record of predictions which is dreadful, please don't put money on it) and say that the Black Orc and Swordmaster mechanics/playability/ability interaction or however you want to call it won't be changed within the next 6 months. In fact I'm putting a post in 6 months which will pop up reminding me to either eat my hat or to look smug on me rock. It's not that I don't think Mythic don't want to do anything, it's just that BOBs and SM's are so poorly played it's not worth the resource for Mythic to fix the classes when the game revolves around Chosen/Knights, Sorcs/Bright Wizards, Choppas/Slayers, DoKs/WPs. Those are the best in archetype for each side, both mirrors and both head and shoulders above respective classes.

Black Orcs got nuffin'

I had a mini rant about this a while ago but didn't go into too much detail, so bear with me on this one....

So Black Orcs and Black Guard have a little tactic which allows us to ignore detaunts, it's gud. It lets us be a pain to healers and it gives us something different from the Chosen.

So mythic remove it from Black Orcs and give us a group heal tactic...

Uhm.

Wut?

Balance Changes:

* You Got Nuffin': This Tactic will now heal group mates whenever your War Bellows trigger.

Yup, they changed it to a group heal. But not just any group heal, it's a group heal which does a whole 300 health over 10 seconds (and it doesn't proc multiple times so it's basically on a 10 second cool down).

THIS IS POINTLESS.

All I'm asking is the reasoning behind this. Again I go back to communication issues with Mythic. They have changed something, given no reason for it and no matter what feedback will be submitted on it it will not be changed. It's one of these changes that are set in stone. I've almost gotten to the stage of giving up on feedback since nothing ever seems to change unless it's a huge public outcry.

So here is my request since we have no communication channels with Mythic.

DEAR MYTHIC.

PLEASE CAN YOU GIVE US THE REASONING BEHIND THE CHANGE TO THE BLACK ORC TACTIC "YOU GOT NUFFIN'" AND REPLACING IT WITH A TACTIC WHICH HAS SO LITTLE IMPACT IN RvR THAT IT WILL NEVER BE SLOTTED.

I know the chances of a reply are less than slim to none but since I'm a paying European customer I have no way to post on the official forum which is frequented by the developers so I have to resort to this.

A guide to Black Orcs - Part 1

"Armed and armoured to fight in the thick of melee as a warrior and tanker, the Black Orc matches physical hardiness with a down and dirty brawler’s fighting style that makes him the heart of any war band. With choppa and shield in hand, he can face down any foe unshaken. However, it is his unique approach to fighting that makes him as deadly with his fists as with either of those tools. He’ll knock you down so you can’t fight back, and then kick you while you’re down. There’s no honour among Greenskins, and there’s no such thing as a fair fight – and that’s the way he likes it!"

Black Orcs are the Greenskin army tanks. Huge, hulking and green they are an instantly recognisable sight on the battlefield and are (in my opinion, which may be biased) the best 'feeling' class in the game through looks, abilities and background. People may laugh at you if you charge in with a chosen screaming about change for the raven god as a Chosen.. People cheer when you charge in as a Black Orc screaming "WAAAAAAAAAGHHH!".

This first Black Orc guide is not about how to level up your Black Orc, or where to quest and what loot is best, that may come later on; this is simply an introduction, to give a bit of background and understanding to our class and mechanic. We are huge, lumbering Greenskins, encased in metal with spikes sticking out from our armour. We have vast amounts of hit points and toughness and although we lack the technical skills such as high levels of parry, block and reduction in being critically hit that the Chosen or Blackguard have, the raw survivability stats can make the Black Orc a formidable foe in RvR.

The Black Orc - sometimes known as a Borc or Bob (Black Orc Brawler/Boss) - has two class mechanics, Bellows and Da Plan so lets look at those first.

Bellows :

Bellows are self buffs. You get a choice of three, all of which do different things. The difference with a standard buff though and bellows is that all bellows are based on procs (when there's a chance that something will happen rather than a guarantee). Two of the bellows (Biggest and Toughest) are a 25% chance of activating when hitting something and the last (Greenest) activates when being hit (again a 25% chance). We’ll look at each type of bellow individually.

Da Biggest: This is the bellow from the brawler tree, it’s a stat stealing proc which has a 25% chance when you hit a target to steal a random stat (other than wounds) from all enemies within 30 feet of you. Since this is a steal you and your party within 100 feet gain the stat you’ve stolen for 10 seconds. This does unfortunately mean that sometimes you will steal ballistic skill from a warrior priest but other times you’ll steal strength from a slayer. Fully specced at rank 40 in Brawler and you’ll be stealing 120 points where a rank 40 without any brawler points will steal 75. This is an excellent bellow for threat as well as the de buff that the mob receives will take a decent amount of threat from you and when you’re AOE tanking a big swing can be enough to de buff multiple targets keeping them locked on you.

Best Use: Da Biggest is the RvR bellow of choice due to the de buffs and buffs provided.

Da Toughest: Toughest comes from the toughest tree and is a self heal bellow. This heals the black orc between 300 and 480 wounds (depending on how much you have in the toughest tree) when it procs. There is a 25% chance upon hitting a target that this will proc however it’s on a 10 second cooldown which means at best you will heal yourself every 10 seconds and at worse it could be every 20 seconds or so. This is commonly used in situations where you are without a healer or you need a fairly constant trickle of health. It’s not the best for PvE tanking due to the low proc rate and low health regained (and lets be honest if you need to rely on 480 health every 10 seconds then you have issues with your healers. Even in RvR tanking the heal is minimal so it adds no benefit to your war band or scenario group (providing you have healers).

Best use: Solo grinding, duels or scenarios where there’s no healer.

Da Greenest: Coming from the boss tree this is a situational bellow. It relies on you getting hit for it to proc (25% chance) and it will give you and your group within 100 ft a resist buff or armour buff for ten seconds depending on what hit you. This sounds like a great bellow other than the crucial fact that tanks are generally the last targets on the battlefield to be targeted so your bellow doesn’t help as much. Add in the fact that most people will be or are already close to hitting the soft cap on resists and the buff doesn’t add as much protection as you’d believe. It’s certainly not as useful as the biggest bellow, however it can be good for keep sieges or battlefield objective defences where you will be in the front line hopefully buffing yourself and your group as you get assaulted.

Best Use: Situational defences where tank walls are formed up or high lag situations where you can't do much other than hold the line.

So to summarise, in almost every situation it’s best to use the biggest bellow to not only buff yourself and group but also to debuff your enemies. By all accounts play with the other bellows and see if any of them fit other situations not described but you can’t go wrong with more stats!

The Plan Mechanic:

The plan mechanic is the basis of how we attack our enemies. There are three levels of plan, No Plan , Da Gud Plan and Da Best Plan. Most of our actions fit into one of these three and can only be used after the previous plan has been activated. This leads to chains of attacks which grow in power as they get to the end of the chain before resetting back to the first plan. Actions in our last plan cost no Action Points and are generally the most powerful abilities we have.

However there are downsides to the mechanic. The nature of the mechanic means you lose a lot of flexibility in your attacks - you cannot guarantee to be able to use the attack you want to use as you may be in the wrong plan, that archmage might already be out of range by the time you get to the plan which lets you snare, silence or knock him down. Although the last plan is no action point cost, it’s offset by the first two plans being higher than average costs. These two disadvantages are by design however one which is not by design and which can be critical is unfortunately lag. In high lag situations the games takes a long time to realise what plan you are in, this unfortunately can mean that in mass RvR you are stuck spamming first plan attacks until the game realises you’re in the next plan. The Black Orc can be very frustrating to play and is not an easy mechanic to understand compared to the hate of Black Guards or the auras of the Chosen, however work with it and understand the limitations and you can play the Black Orc well.

Summary:

With the Black Orc you don’t have a one button killing machine, you have to deal with a complicated mechanic and rely on procs for any of your buffs. You need to plan ahead and know what you’re doing. A Black Orc has to be in control of the battlefield or at least know what will be happening in advance, he cannot react to it as quickly as other classes so you lose a lot of effectiveness. However if you master this and have confidence in your abilities to understand the battle then you can be a key piece in a warband. Think of yourself as a rock. You might not be the most flexible, but as an almost immovable object you can get the rest of the world to adjust to you.

Black Orc questions from the blogger meet

Big thanks to the bloggers who asked all the questions at the meeting. Some great info about there. I am loathe to link to one blogger over the other so I just suggest you visit Gaarawarr, Mykiel, ShadowWAR and Werit to see all the details. For now I'm going to just put the questions that were relevant to Black Orcs up and then have a small rant after each one.

Q) Is there any chance of a tank on the Order side getting a tactic where they can’t be detaunted?
A) Probably not…seeing as we just removed it from the Black Orc.

No actual reason given yet for the removal of an ability from the Black Orcs. They may have replaced it with a crappy group heal, but no-one will slot it so they have basically flat out removed an ability and given us nothing in return. Bad form Mythic, if you're going to remove tactics from a class, then you would be wise to remember that you promised to COMMUNICATE with your COMMUNITY better - currently you've not communicated with the Black Orcs since justifying the toughest bellow úber nerf.

Q) Is the Black Orc mechanic going to be reworked at any point in time?
A) No, they’re not going to be totally reworked. They are a little more limiting than we originally wanted, but I don’t have an answer (other than that) for you right now.

The problem is, every Black Orc and Swordmaster knows our mechanic is broken to pieces. Mythic seems to know it's broken despite putting on the worst attempt at political speech I've seen in a while "a little more limiting". A little? A LITTLE? Do they even play these classes in any high lag situations to know how impossible it is? The concept of the mechanic is fine (there I said it) the execution of it however is not. The most effective fix barring a total reworking of it (which will not happen in the next few years lets just put it that way) is to change the locations of some abilities on the plans, at least that will stop it being a limiting factor rather than a tool to work with.

The more I read the answers to those two questions (and although one wasn't directly about Black Orcs we were rather brutally mentioned) the more I believe Mythic is completely detached from the class. The longer it goes without help from our developers the less people will play the class which in turn leads to less developer support. This is the sort of situation which makes people leave the game when they realise that all the hard work put into the character is basically a waste of time and the pleas for help are met with an apathetic or negative attitude to the class from the developers.

Da biggest?

With the rumblings about Black Orc size starting once more I found this little movie over at the excellent looking Da Blog (Hungarian Waaaaaaaaaaagh to you over there, sadly I can't read Hungarian but the blog itself looks impressive). It's not in Hungarian but I'd like any Black Orcs and anyone else with an interest in the lore and background of Warhammer to watch and do your thing at the end of it.

Go forth and be da big WAAAAAAAAAAAAGH

Support your Black Orcs, put the image on your forum signature, blog or anywhere else