Wyvern

It's dead Jim...

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/th...sid=1&pageNo=1

Well Penny Arcade has now posted there thoughts:

http://www.penny-arcade.com/2010/7/9/

Well no real change people over at the Blizzard, forums users are still pretty much against this, with a few supporting it.

The blues have mostly been quiet with the exception of deleting a few posts or closing threads that contain posts that should be in the main thread.

A lot of players are stating they are cancelling (never can be sure on this one, I would love to know for sure how many people have really quit).

There was one poster who states that the actual people with Blizzard are not happy with this and it is being forced by the Activision side, but of course that is impossible to confirm.

All reports indicate this is going ahead regardless.

As for me well my play time with WoW had decreased before this fiasco, though I still occasionally raided with the guild, I was getting excited over Cataclysm, but that has diminished greatly.

My views on this whole thing are simple, I do not believe I will get stalked or harrased because of this, that being said I do not like it, my name is my name, I will choose who knows it and who will not.

So just a quick update this article:


Pretty much shows WoW is locked into going forward with this.

http://news.softpedia.com/news/Blizz...m-146720.shtml

What is intresting is there seems to be some internal debate as whether Blues will still be using their real names:

http://www.wow.com/2010/07/07/rumor-...-appear-on-th/

Well I can tell you that some of the best contributers of the forums have already stated they will not be using the WoW forums once this goes live, this includes MVP posters,

I have never seen so many people in one thread agreeing to how much they hate this idea, yeah there are few that support it, but overall there are literally 1000s of posts against it (the main thread has well over 20,000 posts and most are negative).

For my part I'm in the very wary category I haven't cancelled yet, but yeah I'm not happy, and if they push this RealID thing much further I will definately quit, I would like the choice who gets to know my name.

It's rather sad too, as they have just announced some rather major and (in my opinion) intresting changes to how the talent trees will work and what base line abilities players will recieve (ie Ret Pallies will recieve Divine Storm at level 10).

Oh this is truley epic...

http://wowriot.gameriot.com/blogs/Am...nction?gr_i_ni

Just a little update from the offical forums.

The threads where this message was originally given to the players has "broken records" as being the fastest growing threads, we are talking over 4000 posts in several hours in one thread, the bulk of which are negative responses.

I really would love to be a fly in the wall at the Blizzard HQ for this one.

I can't even imagine who thought this was a good idea, or that the resulting backlash wouldn't be horrific.

They are a lot shorter than the HEAT story lines.

Overall I didn't mind it to much (though a bit more depth would have been nice), what bothers me the most is that the widows and the soliders have the same story, to me that doesn't make a lot of sense.

This video always seemed appropriate to me, song and the first 20 seconds.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PH1e7...next=1&index=6

Siphon Life is one of Dark Melee's strongest attacks, while it can be used as a psuedo heal, you probably are going to get more milage out of it by slotting it and using it as an attack and thinking of the health it gives back as mearly a little bonus.

You guys are not helping my decisions to eliminate powers :P

Well keeping in mind I'm learning my way around Widows myself, here are my thoughts:

1) Powers to be avoided - you may have seen my post with a similar question regarding Night Widows. In all honesty there doesn't seem to be many that you actually want to avoid, just decisions on what fits what you want to do. I'd say CT:O is not really necessary (though more useful earlier on), Confront certainly doesn't seem to be necessary. If one of you is playing a Night Widow you probably be better keeping to the melee attacks and only picking up one or two ranged attacks if any, and the opposite would be true for the Fortuanta (sticking more to ranged/control and less melee).

2) I believe the Fortuanta is going to be better overall at AoE, the Night Widow seems to be all about taking down targets fast, but one at a time, that being said Night Widows can do some nice AoE, Spin out of Hide is a beautiful thing.

Regardless, from what I've seen any combo of NW and Fortuanta is going to be deadly, double the leadership powers and mindlink either way. I can't really imagine a disadvantage to any combination, except if you both choose the same type and you end up facing mobs that are particularly resistant to your type of damage (be it leathel for NW or Pyschic from Forts).

Thanks for the tips.

Yeah I see so many potentially good powers for NW that I just want to make sure I'm not skipping any gems (which seems very possible) or accidently picking up some poor choices (seems less likely).

Anyway I'll try a few different things with the build.

On a side note, VEATS really feel like a proper super hero (villan) AT to me. Good offense in one area (be it ranged or melee) ok in the other area of offense, decent defenses, nice buffs/debuffs for teams that you don't have to be to active about maintaining.

Overall just feels like a solid AT design for a superhero game.

So Crab is just about finished, and so looking for a new AT to start and I started playing with a Widow and I'm enjoying it so far.

Closing the gap to 24 and I think I'm going to go with a Night Widow build initally, however after playing around with Mids for a bit I have discovered I'm having a hard time deciding what not to take.

First question I guess is what is an optimal attack chain for a Night Widow? Does it include Slash, which seems to be, if nothing else, a very nice opener on a single hard target?

Also looking at the two first ranged attacks, Poison Dart and Mental Blast, it would seem that in the long run the -regan would make the poison dart more useful overall or is mental blast better than I think it is?

These are the powers that I'm thinking of not taking on my Widow:
Confront (heh)
Either Posion Dart or Mental Blast (only taking one)
Swipe (Really not sure if I need this in my attack chain or not, especially early on)
CT:O (using it till 24, then plan to drop it)
TT:L (I think Mind Link has this covered well enough)
Dart Burst (While it looks somewhat useful, it looks like a more skippable power)
Build Up (Think I'm going with Follow up instead)

I'm on the fence with:
Smoke Grenade
Pyschic Scream
Elude (I kind of want this just because it's Elude, but it will probably be one of my last choices)

About the only Pool Powers I know for sure I'm taking is Fitness, though I'll probably try to fit hasten in if I can.

Any thoughts on those? Big mistake skipping any of them?

Going with Mu Mastery on my crab, ball lighting adds nicely to my aoe attack chain, mu lighting gives me another very nice single target attack, I'm on the fence for the Electrifying Fences (I know it could add more to my AoE goodness) and the Striker (not sure I really want one of those creeps following me around :P)

Ok well here is my opinion:

First the arm attacks generally just aren't worth it. I grabbed one earlier on to simply help me with an extra single target attack when a mob closed in, but I later dropped it when I got my pets. I probably would have been better of grabbing one of the rifle powers from the solider set (specifically burst and/or heavy burst) but I really didn't want to bother with the rifle anymore, however if drawing out your rifle on occasion doesn't bother you, grabbing both burst and heavy burst will probably be more effective in killing things.

Regarding the armors, wolf armor simply isn't going to add much to your surviability. The extra resistance is worth next to nothing, and while the extra status protection could be useful, your near scrapper level resistance with crab armor and fortification, unless you plan on PVPing (something I think crab would not excell in, though I could be wrong) your not going to get much bang for you buck grabbing and certainly not slotting the wolf armor. Also slotting crab armor isn't going to get you much either. You probably would be better off grabbing either TT Assault and/or TT Leadership over Wolf Armor, as this will buff you, and your pets solo allowing you to kill things faster (the ultimate defense) and of course will make you even more valuable in teams.

Regarding CT: Offensive, I personally didn't take it, though I do wish I could fit it in, I went with TT Leadership instead, again because it buffs my pets (and team members) grant it running all the toggles can be tricky earlier on, but once I got stamina slotted and endurance reducers in my attacks and toggles I really haven't had any issues (except against the Mu, but thats a different story). Having said that I don't think CT Offensive is a bad power and I wouldn't tell you to drop it out right, but make sure you consider the benefits of your alternatives.

For me Aim fell into the same category at CT: Offensive I wish I could get it in, but with my particular build I just couldn't quite fit it in, but I'm not going to tell you to drop it.

I wouldn't bother putting an endurance reducer in Combat Jumping, it's pretty cheap as is.

Your pets are pretty weakly slotted, they won't be useless, but if you can find someway to get them some extra slots it would go along way to boost just how good they can be. The Disruptors in particular (Call Reinforcements) do nice damage, I do mainly use the spiderlings as fodder though (hey why should I take the alpha strike).

Another power you may want to consider is hasten, though again it can be tough to fit in, but getting your pets back out faster is always nice, especially solo.

Before I get into any build or power specifics could I ask what your main goal is with your crab? Teaming? Soloing? Little bit of both?

Main reason I ask is because depending on what your doing you are going to find very little need or use out of the arm attacks and especially Wolf Armor.

I have to admit I originally intended to skip the spiderlings, and ony grab the disruptors at the very end, but then I got talked into grabbing them right away and trying them out.

I'm glad I did, I use them to soak alphas, distract the enemey and, as mentioned, they are sturdier than I would have thought, and the disruptors do even better damage and can hold a foe or two.

Couldn't imagine skipping it, heck I didn't skip any of the leadership powers on my crab, they add so much for so little.

Yep at 24 I went Crab and this is basically how my build looked after the respec (minus slotting):

Villain Plan by Mids' Villain Designer 1.704
http://www.cohplanner.com/

Click this DataLink to open the build!

Level 23 Natural Arachnos Soldier
Primary Power Set: Crab Spider Soldier
Secondary Power Set: Crab Spider Training
Power Pool: Fitness

Villain Profile:
Level 1: Channelgun -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Crab Spider Armor Upgrade -- Empty(A)
Level 2: Longfang -- Empty(A)
Level 4: Combat Training: Defensive -- Empty(A)
Level 6: Swift -- Empty(A)
Level 8: Suppression -- Empty(A)
Level 10: Tactical Training: Maneuvers -- Empty(A)
Level 12: Venom Grenade -- Empty(A)
Level 14: Health -- Empty(A)
Level 16: Tactical Training: Assault -- Empty(A)
Level 18: Frag Grenade -- Empty(A)
Level 20: Stamina -- Empty(A)
Level 22: Mental Training -- Empty(A)
Level 24: Fortification -- Empty(A)
Level 26: [Empty]
Level 28: [Empty]
Level 30: [Empty]
Level 32: [Empty]
Level 35: [Empty]
Level 38: [Empty]
Level 41: [Empty]
Level 44: [Empty]
Level 47: [Empty]
Level 49: [Empty]
------------
Level 1: Brawl -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Sprint -- Empty(A)
Level 2: Rest -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Conditioning
Level 6: Ninja Run
------------

You can see I kept grabbing the Leadership powers from the Solider, but grabbed the attacks and armor from the Crab set.

Also be aware that if you decide on a crab there is a difference in the venom and frag grenade, if you grab it from the solider section you will be firing it from your gun, if you grab it from the crab you shoot it from your arms.

Basically as soon as you talk to the arbiter at 24 you will automatically have to respec your character.

This time however you will have new powers to choose from, basically the Bane or Crab powers (or you can go back and pick the same wolf powers as well) and the powers you can choose from start at level 1.

So for instance for your level 1 power you can pick Single Shot/Pummel from the Solider set, Channelgun /Slice from the crab set, or Bash/Mace Beam from the Bane set.

However once you've chosen Bane or Crab you are locked into that, and cannot pick from the other set, either your a Bane or you are a crab. You will still be able to pick powers from the Solider set regardless.

Word of advice if you are considering trying both playstyles be aware that once you pick Crab powers you are stuck with the arms, even if you later go back and change to a Bane (or Huntsman).

How is the combo of Earth / Fire if I may ask?