Children of the Khorne

Yeah, ummm...

2007-10-10T06:03:00.000-07:00

Not been in a Warhammer mood lately. In fact, I've been in a Hellgate mood. It's due out October 31.

As you may be aware, preorders get into the beta, so I have a pretty good idea of what's going on in the game and it is pretty fun. It's better than WoW's cartoony graphics at least. The site may make the migration to become a Hellgate fansite.

In minor news, I cancelled my WoW account and don't really have much desire to return in the near future. The game is two years old and I have no real desire to keep on activating Seal of Command and Judging it on things.

Waaaagh!

2007-08-27T05:36:00.000-07:00

I feel as headmaster of Children of the Khorne I should mention that it's not a foregone conclusion that I'm going to play a Chosen.

I've got it narrowed down to a tanking class at least. There's a chance (based on server pop issues and such) that I'll go Order, in which case I'll play an Ironbreaker or a Knight of the Fruity Breastplate.

In the event I play destruction, I might play as the Chaos Chosen, but I've also been thinking about the Black Orc.

The thuggish Orc tank sounds like a laugh factory. With abilities such as "Get Outta my Way!" What's not to love about this guy? Near as I can tell from what (little) information Mythic has released, Orcs are 1-on-1 tanks which specialize in stuns. Chosen have an AOE debuff aura or some such.

So what do you guys think? Given the choice, would you go Black Orc or Chaos Chosen?

Ballistic: Death Knight vs. Chosen

2007-08-06T04:19:00.000-07:00

Blizzard has announced their new Expansion, Wrath of the Lich King (WotLK)

The company which snootily declared that Hero Classes would never be put into the game have added one, and not just any Hero Class, but the Death Knight. We also hear announcements of siege weapons, destructible buildings, and a world PvP zone.

World PvP? Yes, that thing Blizzard said was impossible, and all but proved was impossible in the last expansion. To be fair though, Blizzard did at least try, and PvP now is lightyears better than when playing 72 hours straight wouldn't even net you a blue item. In this next incarnation Blizzard may even get it right. But I'm betting that some other company not only gets it right, but gets it better.

But why suddenly would the Death Knight, a class which they are on record saying was 'too hybrid' to be realized, suddenly get added in the game? And why this sudden need to create World PvP where before it was a bad influence? I'm pretty sure the reason for both starts with a "W" and ends with an "r".

The Death Knight class is the trump card of Blizzard. The ultimate fan-favorite class, probably more beloved by lore-nerds than the Paladin. It won't matter what the 51 point talent in retribution talent is, because every ret pally is going to be shooting for a Death Knight to call their own. 2h tanking? How does it get any better than that if you were a retn00b?

But it also proves just how seriously Warhammer is being taken. More specifically, this is a shot across the bow of the most popular class in Warhammer (based entirely on a cinematic I realize).

In a roundabout way, Blizzard has stacked up the Death Knight against the Chaos Chosen. Now I would do a meaningful comparison of their skills and arrive at a final conclusion as to which class was better (and given the name of this blog, the result would be a foregone conclusion) but the Chaos Chosen DOESN'T HAVE ANY FRIGGING SKILLS REVEALED YET, AND THE DEATH KNIGHT DOES!

Based purely on that one fact, until Mythic makes with the info, I'm gonna say the Death Knight wins.

Waiting for info..

2007-07-31T05:40:00.001-07:00

The news front is quiet. If you saunter over to the www.warhammeronline.com and check out the latest video blogs, you'll see pretty much everything we know up to this point.

The new public quest system sounds interesting. You run amok doing quests and kill a boss, but the whole thing is very world-oriented (all the stuff that Blizzard said was impossible).

I think a lot of us are up for a change. WoW's big problem is that the nine classes map down into three classes - with one mapping to tank, one to healer, four to DPS, and three hybrids.

Hybrids really have to pick one role, and there isn't going to be much real versatility coming from them. A hybrid can't fill in for tanking unless they are spec'ed and geared for it in a raid. Healing is a bit more lax, but still requires gear and without a spec you can't last long enough for the big fights. But hybrids want to DPS anyways (like everybody).

Playing WoW I realize more or less that everybody was sold a bill of goods. I think as time goes on we will see the numbers of warriors and priests increase in terms of the total population, with DPS increasingly being casters like warlocks or mages.

Hopefully Warhammer can live up to the promise of being able to log on anytime and get stuff done, regardless of whether or not you have the x number of each of the three real classes. As to addressing the 3-class problem, Warhammer does do that by only having 4 options for each race. There are thus 3 tanks, 3 healers, 3 ranged DPSers, and 3 melee DPSers for each faction.

Ideally, classes would all be dps/tank or dps/healer, such people would have a much easier time of getting a group together.

NO GIRLS ALLOWED!

2007-07-05T20:33:00.000-07:00

Latest word is that there will be no female Chosen. More accurately, twelve year olds will not be able to log in as their Chosen female warrior and masturbate furiously to her dancing.

I applaud this decision. Being a Chosen of Tzeentch is about being a large monstrous bad guy, not about getting some twelve year old kid to nut.

News on our dumbass alter-egos

2007-07-02T10:37:00.001-07:00

News is out from Mythic on the Knight of the Blazing Sun class. Despite looking like total fruits, they are supposed to be crafty fighters who use battle commands to help their class. They also appear to be immune to taunt effects.

http://www.warhammeronline.com/english/gameInfo/armiesofWAR/Empire/Careers/KnightofhteBS.php

Based purely on aesthetics, these guys are fucked. My Tzeentch-obsessed Chosen is going to be wearing shirts made from their ridiculous helmet plumes.

Mounted Combat!

2007-06-19T04:45:00.001-07:00

Hoo, been awhile since we had a post here! But that's what happens when you have a blog dedicated to a game which isn't out yet ;-)

Anyways, in scanning the forums, there appear to be some murmurs that mounted combat will be in Warhammer. We know already that certain classes are always mounted, but up until now it was thought that we would have the WoW style of being mounted only for the speed increase.

WoW's system certainly grows on you - mounting up in PvP becomes a tactical decision, one where very easily you could be overwhelmed and unable to respond. However, it's always kind of annoyed me. Riding a horse has always afforded advantages in combat, especially medieval combat. Hell, Warcrafts 1, 2, and 3 also believed this, as knights were far greater than footmen.

The fear, of course, is that mounted combat will become the only kind of combat that there is, meaning they basically gave a speed increase to everybody. But still, I think that mounted combat would be a welcome addition to MMOs.

Beta!

2007-05-31T11:48:00.000-07:00

Beta signup is here (h/t to several people)

https://betacenter.eamythic.com/signup.php

I signed up this morning. You should too!

I would be stoked to get an up-close look at the Chosen of Tzeentch.

Defender!

2007-05-21T19:01:00.000-07:00

"A lot of the way the Chosen will play is… he is a tank, obviously. He’s going to be very defensive-minded, very defensive-oriented."

This line has gotten some attention in the Chosen forums, with lots of guys saying 'I don't want to play a Chosen now'. I dunno, this isn't really a surprise to me. There's nothing wrong with being defensively oriented.

Personally, I like being able to take a lot of damage. If I can solo NPCs and stand an even chance in a 1v1 fight with most stuff (even just most melee stuff), I'll be happy.

Mythic is on record saying they want all their classes to be able to deal damage on some level. I'm excited to see what the skills are for the Chosen.

Okay, not Friday...

2007-05-18T05:33:00.000-07:00

New Blizzard game is being announced tomorrow.

My odds on what the game will be:

Starcraft MMO - 55%
Starcraft RTS - 40%
Diablo 3 - 5%

A short entry...

2007-05-15T04:41:00.000-07:00

Haven't seen any new info, figured I'd mention a few things.

First, big news is that Blizzard is announcing 'something' this Friday. Leading guesses are Starcraft 2, Diablo 3, or World of Starcraft. Diablo 3 would be an odd duck to put out there, a singleplayer/multiplayer game which would compete with WoW (and Hellgate).

Starcraft 2 would be a megahit with South Korea and sell pretty well in the US. As for World of Starcraft...well, it would probably do well, but I'm less than enthusiastic about that one.

In truth, I'm less than enthusiastic about Blizzard products in general. In case you haven't figured it out yet, I play a Ret pally in WoW. A few months ago the lead class developer revealed it was a solo/questing/grinding spec. A solo spec, in an MMO?

Although to be fair, a lot of the problem isn't Blizzard's fault. Their products have always attracted 'bnet kiddies', basically jerks who argue that there is only one approach to every situation. It is common in all their games.

Which brings us to the latest batch of bnet kiddie: the Holy Paladin player. Largely these are guys that played as DPS at release, snoozed through some 40-mans and collected raiding gear, and having 'conquered' their class, they decided to roll a healing class. Maybe they played as druids or priests, and got frustrated because they kept dying. Maybe they were Horde players who, convinced that paladins were the reason they lost AV, decided to roll one to 'show' the alliance what it was like to deal with them.

These new paladins level up to 70 (or 60) and after spending a month or two running 5-mans and raids meet with success. They attribute this success to their leet healing prowess. But something gnaws at them. They wear plate. Their heals don't draw aggro. heals that crit don't cost mana. They have 12 seconds of immunity. In short, their job is easy. Other healing classes have more trouble than they do and aren't as durable. Sure, they have AOE heals and HOTs, but that would require tradeoffs holy paladins don't want to make. Lastly, they start to realize Holy pally healing is boring as dirt.

Then they decide to visit the Paladin forums for their first time. They start to see a lot of posts from ret paladins asking for a DPS increase, or more often increased support abilities. They decide that these guys just don't know the true power of the Paladin, so they decide to write long instructional manuals for ret paladins about how OUR JOB IS TO HEAL. (the last part is always written in caps). But why do they care, when they've never touched the ret tree? Well, the reason is because they want to convince themselves that they aren't overpowered, or that they care about class balance. If ret pallies could DPS, paladins would be unstoppable! Their constant berating feeds into Blizzard's own intention to not give ret the few little nudges it needs.

After another month or so of playing, having left his mark on the forums by sticking his finger in the eye of ret players, the Holy paladin starts to lose interest. He doesn't admit it, but pressing one of two (okay, technically 3) healing buttons on a target over and over again gets boring. Done right, nothing ever even has interest in him. He starts playing another class and begins to level it up. The Holy paladin gets less and less play time and eventually is no longer his main.

And meanwhile, the guys spec'ed Ret still have fun playing the class. Over time, they quit, but not because they are bored, but because something so damn fun is treated as a freak and an accident which gets no development support. It is always degraded. But it is still fun.

Which is why, looking over the Warhammer classes, I decided that Chosen was the way to go. There's no way in hell that some fly-by-night cleric wannabe is going to fuck this class up. Get enough of the Holy losers together in the warrior priest class and bad things will happen. But the Chosen will always be a melee monster. Nothing more will be expected of him.

Skill Info (but not for us :( )

2007-05-07T19:11:00.000-07:00

(hat tip to Hammer of Sigmar for the info!)

Check it out here:
http://www.warhammeralliance.com/forums/showthread.php?t=11862

The good news: Some skill info has been leaked.
The bad news: Chosen skills are still unknown

The classes leaked are the Magus, Bright Wizard, Zealot, and Warrior Priest. The Warrior Priest looks pretty damn awesome, with his rage bar for healing and whatnot. Almost makes me want to play one as a paladin done right.

But not to worry, We all can see past their cheap bling to what really matters: thick armor ;-)

As they are chaos affiliated, here is the Chaos Zealot's info. It seems to be very shadow-priest like, but one thing troubles me. This class looks like it could be subverted for full-time healing rather easily. Harbingers seem to have ancillary benefits, but I'm not sure that those benefits outweight just having a zealot out of harms way converting AP into health.

The moral of the story: stay away from healing classes (unless they have a rage bar).

Zealot

Abilities

Mirror of Madness
Action Points: 100
Range: 0-100 ft
Description: Damages the target

Tzeentch's Restoration
Action Points: 100
Description: Heals your entire group

Ritual of Exhaustion
Action Points: 100
Description: Dark ritual that causes harbinger bearer to regain AP 20% slower, but groupmates within 60ft 10% faster

Demon Spittle
Action Points: 130
Range: 0-100 ft
Description: Damages your target over 10s

Elixer of Dark Cleansing
Action Points: 100
Range: 0-100 ft
Description: Removed 1 harmful effect from an ally

Ritual of Fragility
Action Points: 100
Range: 0-100 ft
Description: Dark ritual that reduces armour of harbinger bearer, increasing the armour of groupmates within 60ft

Golden Eye of Tzeentch
Action Points: 140
Description: Your chance to disrupt hostile magic is increased by 75% for 10 seconds

Ritual of Lethargy
Action Points: 100
Range: 0-100 ft
Description: Ritual that increases cooldowns of harbinger bearer, reducing cooldowns of groupmates within 60ft

Dark Medicine
Action Points: 100
Range: 0-125 ft
Description: Heals the target

Tzeentch Shall Remake You
Action Points: 50
Range: 0-10 ft
Description: Resurrects the target

Ritual of Exsangination
Action Points: 100
Description: Dark ritual which deals damage to the harbinger bearer, and heals an groupmates within 60 feet for a portion of the damage

Tzeentch's Cordial
Action Points: 130
Range: 0-125 ft
Description: Heals target, then heals them over time for 10s

Morale

Dark per___?
Range: 0-100 ft
Description: Damages your target and all enemies within 35ft over 10s

Eye of Sheerian
Description: Heals your entire group over (x) seconds

Reckoning of Tzeentch
Description: Resurrects up to 2 dead allies within 40 feet of you, but only with 1hp

Reversal of Fate
Description: Deals slight damage to all enemies within 25 feet, slightling healing all allies in the area

Tzeentch's Plan
Range: 0-100 ft
Description: Target and all enemies within 25ft of them regain AP 20% slower for 15s

Coils of Tzeentch
Range: 0-100 ft
Description: Snares your target by 20% for 6s

Phylactery Eye of Tzeentch
Description: Deals damage to the harbinger bearer, and heals you for a portion of the damage dealt

Tzeentch's Talon
Range: 0-100 ft
Description: Target's armour and resists are reduced by 35% for 6s

Cower Before Tzeentch!
Range: 0-100 ft
Description: Target is detaunted, hating you less and reducing damage they deal to you by 30% for 9s

Quelling Mists
Range: 0-100 ft
Description: Deals damage to your target

Tactics

Insight of the Schemer
Tactic Slots: 2
Description: Increases your Intelligence

Gift of the Daemonic Prince
Tactic Slots: ?
Description: Damage caused by your ____ Of Daemonic Fury is increased 20%

Touched by Tzeentch
Tactic Slots: ?
Description: Your melee attacks have a chance to cause additional corporeal damage

Chaos Bearer
Tactic Slots: ?
Description: You regain AP faster for each mark of chaos that you bear

Warping the spirit
Tactic Slots: ?
Description: You are healed when your harbinger dies

Masterful Recreation
Tactic Slots: ?
Description: Tzeentch Shall Remake You will also heal the target resurrected

Overwhelming Despair
Tactic Slots: ?
Description: The Daze effectiveness of your harbinger is increased by 5%

Swift Changes
Tactic Slots: ?
Description: Your group's intuition is increased

Violent Deformation
Tactic Slots: ?
Description: Damage caused by Tumultuous Warping is increased by 20%

Tzeentch's Wrath
Tactic Slots: 3
Description: Any time you are hit in melee, there is a 25% chance your attacker's Strength and Toughness will be reduced for 12 seconds

Brittle Vitality
Tactic Slots: 3
Description: Ritual of Exsangination deals 10% more damage, but ritual of fragility drains 15% less armour

Relentless Concentration
Tactic Slots: 3
Description: Dark ritual durations are increased by 25%

The Hand of Destiny
Tactic Slots: ?
Description: When harbinger bearer dies, your group is healed. Cannot occure more than once every 20 seconds

Hastened Instability
Tactic Slots: ?
Description: The cooldowns on abilities granted by your marks of chaos are reduced by 15% but cost more AP

From cool concept to cool in-game graphics!

2007-05-07T14:36:00.000-07:00

If you haven't already, saunter on over to the Warhammer online main page for a view of how the Chaos Chosen class got from concept art to in-game.

For people behind a firewall who can't watch, the jist of the video is the following:

1) Chaos Chosen is based on the Chaos Warriors with a Tzeetch flavoring (eyes, bird-type stuff)
2) The Chaos warrior looks really cool moving around.

The pre-alpha footage of a Chosen showed him running around with a 2-handed axe. Will Chosen be 2h friendly? initial signs point to yes, but my guess is that the class is for tanking first and foremost.

In other news, Mythic announced their intent to delay the game until 2008:

"...when we looked back at our work on the Dwarf and Greenskin pairing, we could not say the same thing. While these areas were good, they were not great and glorious. We have always said that WAR was going to be great and we will not settle for anything less. So the team has gone back to our initial pairing and conducted an intense review of their work. They have implemented new ideas and applied all that they have learned over the past nine months. What has already emerged from this dedicated time of focused polish is nothing short of spectacular. In the Dwarf and Greenskin zones there is now more war, more Warhammer, and more of what makes WAR great.

By extending our development time, we’ll be able to do these in-depth reviews several times prior to launch to ensure all areas of WAR benefit from the experience of ongoing development. EA is totally supportive of our decision and are behind us 100%. We all believe WAR will be the next great MMORPG and being part of EA affords us the time we need to make it so. It is EA’s ongoing commitment to quality that will allow us, and other EA studios, to deliver great games, now and in the future."

Verry Interesting. One hope for any Chosen player is obviously that the other classes and areas are good. Who the hell wants to be one of a million armored Chaos warriors? (Well, I do, but that's besides the point).

I can totally see a lot of enthusiasm for Chaos and Order. Humans by and large are the most popular class to play as, and in one of the wisest decisions on record, Warhammer will have both factions have humans. This should deal with the faction imbalance problem hopefully. (That and the fact that this time the Orcs don't have backs curved like an elephant's dick.)

It is good to hear the Mythic guys being up-front about everything. I think their style of development is refreshing, given the development style many MMO players have been dealing with.

OMG, Chosen of Tzetne...Tzenaf...OMG!

2007-05-03T16:03:00.000-07:00

Hey everybody!

Welcome to Children of the Khorne, The ONLY resource for the Chosen class of Warhammer Online!

And yes, I know that the Chosen are devoted to Tzeentch, but that is not important. And his name isn't as cool as Khorne.

But what would make a man devote a site to a class which doesn't even exist yet, in a game being released a year from now? Put simply...I think the Chosen are neat. I think deep down in all of us there's somebody longing to encase themselves in heavy armor. Or to be honest, deep down in all of us there's somebody longing to sit down in front of a PC and play as the Chosen class in Warhammer Online.

Admit it, you were thinking of doing it yourself, that's why you're here.

Now what does a Chosen boast, over say, an Orc Choppa? Well...um...technically we don't really >know< anything about either class skill-wise. Role-wise, a Chosen is going to be a DPS/tank, with a focus on 'tactical' advantage in order to please Tzeentch and gain Dark Gifts. A Choppa is going to be pure melee DPS, focusing on doing damage like a fury warrior.

The final deciding factor? The armor a Chosen wears is really, really really cool looking.

Check back later as this site gets updated. As info comes out on the Chosen, we'll post it here for consumption. I also may on occasion rail against Blizzard, since that is what I am contractually obligated to do in order to maintain an MMO website.