Changing da plan - A guide

So after a few weeks of 1.3.6, the biggest change to the Black Orc mechanic since launch has been used, mind you it's the only change to the Black Orc mechanic since launch so that's not saying much about the worst designed and badly implemented mechanic in the game. Thanks for throwing us a life line after nearly two years!

Anyway before I rant more about it, Mythic have mentioned in the past that they are looking at the mechanic and how it works in the future so maybe we'll see something come of it.

Well back onto "Changin' Da Plan". How does it work after testing? Overall it's not too bad, in fact it can work very well but also leads to over complication. I actually know of Rank 40 Black Orcs that haven't bothered with it as the mechanic and finger fiddling is enough for them without adding in another one. However I would recommend that all Black Orcs pick it up and use it as much as possible to learn the benefits of the new action.

Key points to remember about CDP.

+ It costs no AP
+ It's off the global cool down
+ In combination with Big Swing you can 'preload' to the third plan
+ You can step back to second plan when in our third plan

- It's not just to preload a plan
- It has a 5 second cool down which cannot be removed
- It can complicate a rotation
- Accidental use can cause problems

Preloading
The act of moving up plans to second or third after using Big Swing in preparation for combat is known as Preloading. Prior to engaging in ORvR I'll often setup a big swing or knockback if near a cliff face (I still gloat to this day about my preset aoe knock back killing four order that had come out of hunters vale near a cliff in Dragonwake and slid down the side of the terrain face taking fall damage).

However talking to some fellow Black Orcs and they tend to use it to setup moves at the start but then it gets lost in the shuffle of combat. Setting a rotation in your head is potentially the best you can do rather than trying to hit it in the middle of combat without thinking ahead. You can also preload third plans by using Big Swing to move straight onto it, letting you smack a target down straight away leaving them open for the melee dps to rip them into pieces.

Rotations (and stepping back)
Rotations pre 1.3.6 were fairly standard you could easily sit spamming three different actions but now with Changing Da Plan it can complicate things and lead to more actions being used.

Two example rotations are below:

ORvR (preloaded onto plan 2) - If on healer attack duty
Big Swing - Not in Da face - CHANGE DA PLAN! - Big Swing - Shut Yer Face - Wot Armour? - Big Swing - CHANGE DA PLAN! - Big Swing - Savin Me Hide - Wot Armour?

Single Target (example in PvE)
Wot Armour - CHANGE DA PLAN! - T'ree Hit Combo - Follow my lead - Right in Da jibblies - CHANGE DA PLAN! - Trip Em Up - T'ree Hit Combo

As you can see, CDP isn't always used when it's on cool down for the simple reason that it can sometimes break a better rotation. For example in the Single target rotation we actually change off the third plan away from t'ree hit to use a snare, even in PvE. The reason for this is actually straight forward. When you reach the third plan you actually have a 1.5-2 second cool down left on T'ree Hit and using another 3rd plan ability might not add much more damage. If you change down to second plan and immediately use Trip Em Up you will be ready for T'ree Hit again straight away. One great little unintentional boost that T'ree Hit now has is that it because it's a channeled skill which takes exactly as long as the cool down on CDP.

Lag does play a part in this though, so be warned that changing plans in heavy lag can take a few seconds to register leaving you wasting cool downs. Experiment a bit in each situation you're in to find your lag level and how you feel with a long rotation. It's not about memorising one rotation for each situation, it's about using a base rotation and swapping out actions for each situation. For example you probably won't bother too much about Trip Em Up on a slayer but using big swing may prove to be efficient if you don't have action point management issues.

Conclusion
So in conclusion. Changing Da Plan can be a very powerful tool, though can also be used poorly causing more issues or not using it to its full potential. If you've never used it, or are unsure on using it, please take the time to play around with some low damage champion mobs to find a rotation you like. Get used to using CDP in non dangerous or crazy situations and that will get you more comfortable in using it.

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).

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.