“Excelsior Ward Dungeon” – The Tomb of the Vulture Lord

Hazah! Last dungeon analysis post, ye need read no more of stuff you know after today! So for today I write about ToVL, and I put the wards in quotes because the truth is that you do not get any wards from Tyrant gear and in fact the dungeon requires Greater Wards (the same as Lost Vale). However, I personally do not believe that a six man of people wearing Conqueror/Sentinel gear could beat this dungeon – I really believe its ward requirements should be upped to Superior required, and the gear offers Excelsior wards. Why is the gear unwarded you ask? Well back in olden days when the King instance actually required wards (sorta…) Mythic did not want players to potentially PvE their way to Sovereign gear, meaning you could do Bastion Stairs to ToVL and get the wards required for the King instance, meaning you would never have to RvR. This was to force people to participate in the city siege and therefore RvR in order to acquire the wards for the King instance. Oddly enough the Warlord fights were… PvE anyway, so technically someone could just sit outside the city until it hit stage 2 and then go PvE the Warlord instances. Now that the cities are changed and a warband of RR0 players could probably kill the King (assuming there is no opposition) I see no reason for Tyrant gear to not be given the wards it is due. And if you’re wondering why I arbitrarily give it Excelsior wards, its due to the stat similarities with Warlord gear; Darkpromise is to Invader as Tyrant is to Warlord. Make sense? Ok!

Before I jump into my post on ToVL I would like to ‘briefly’ throw around some sites for you to clicky on.

• First off we have the changes being made to tanks and the new armor sets thread. Several points here – first off I like the changes being made to guard requiring a shield, this is a good step for tanks and will truly force players to choose between tanking and dpsing. Secondly we have the fortitude stat which I am none too fond of. I know Mythic is trying to up the TTK, but on tanks? Really? They’re hard enough to kill as is, why make them harder? Last off we have the two new armor sets Doomflayer and Warpforged, presumably the former is RR81-90 and the latter RR91-100. My only beef with this is why is practically every armor set in the game Destruction themed? Redeye – Goblin tribe; Bloodlord – Khorne, Chaos God of Blood; Darkpromise – Slaanesh, also Chaos God; Carnage, Havoc, Mayhem, Ruin are all just synonyms of Destruction; Decimator, Obliterator, Devastator, Annihilator are all just forms of Destruction; and arguably considering that all the campaigns take place predominately on Order territory ergo they are defensive campaigns then one can assume that Conqueror, Invader, and Warlord are Destruction conquering and invading Ulthuan/The Empire/The Dwarf lands. I guess Order has the Keeper set, we are Keepers of peace -shrugs-. Its clear that Mythic has a fascination with  Destruction.
• Next up we have the PTS feedback thread. Now I did not attend because it was not in my time-frame, but from what I heard from people attending and what I have read thus far it seems that the zerg will prevail once again. I heard of nothing but being camped in keeps, making it impossible to protect resource carries to upgrade keeps. On the forum it would seem predominantly Destruction loved the changes (since they were the ones on the offense) and Order which was outnumbered and on the defensive disliked the changes. Personally I find respawning in the keeps a plain stupid idea. You want people to go to the keeps instantly? Then put a quest giver in the warcamp that teleports people to the keep so long as the doors are up (like the mirror in the LoTD warcamps). At least when you were spawn-camped in warcamps you had multiple avenues of entering the RvR lake, now you’re just stuck in a keep with 5x wounds debuffs.
• Finally Waaagh.de has some screenies of new mounts. Interestingly enough the concept art for these mounts existed in like 2007 so I am guessing Mythic is starting to dig up old stuff that was never implemented instead of actually crankin’ the brain machines and making up new stuff.

Ok onto the Turkey-fight!

RR 60-70

Tomb of the Vulture Lord (ToVL)

ToVL was released during the Rise of the Tomb Kings live event in June of 2009 along with the Land of the Dead new PvPvE zone, making it among the newest content in Warhammer (the only thing newer is Hunter’s Vale). It is clear that a lot of thought and innovation went into designing this dungeon; however, clearly it was never fully thought out as it is littered with bugs, and I’m not talking about the scarabs. Once again apologies for the lack of screenies.

Superior Ward Dungeon – Lost Vale

Lost Vale is technically speaking the last dungeon in Warhammer that offers a warded set, and in many ways despite its bugs it is among the best designed dungeons.

RR50-59

The Lost Vale (LV)

I apologize in advance for the pictures – my computer wiped so I lost all my screenies and had to do an impromptu run today but only got through two wings so had to steal pictures of someone else’s middle wing.  Also I tank on an Ironbreaker so my angling on the screenies is even worse =\.

Greater Ward Dungeon – Sigmar’s Crypts and The Warpblade Tunnels

So with this pair of dungeons I begin the T4 break-down by wards the gear provides (not wards the dungeon requires) since this is more or less how to judge the divisions of the further dungeons. Once again I apologize for not writing about the Destruction counterparts because although I have done them in the old city when you could do the enemy instances, I am by no means an expert and defer that write up/analysis to someone more qualified. I may briefly allude to them, but by no means do I intend to go in depth regarding the Destruction equivalents.

RR40-49

Sigmar’s Crypts & The Warpblade Tunnels (Sigs & WBT)

Now it is important to realize that these are in fact three different dungeons – Sigmar’s Crypts, and two different sets of Warpblade Tunnels full of Skaven to kill (so after wards you can go play one wearing your new Sent Gear).

T4 Dungeon – Bastion Stair

We return to the wonderful world of dungeons in Warhammer Online. Today we descend/ascend the stairs of Bastion Stair (its not called that for any reason, its got tons of stairs…). This dungeon strikes a particular chord in my heart as I spent probably more hours here farming my Bloodlord gear than the guy who made the dungeon. In many cases Bastion Stair is like Mount Gunbad, but more like its neglected step-sister, which I shall prove in my 8-step analysis.

T4 – RR32-39

Bastion Stair

Like Mount Gunbad I shall mess around with the order of today’s menu for easier digestion. Unfortunately I’m low on boss pictures because my hard-drive wiped and goodbye screenies =(

T3 Dungeon – Mount Gunbad

Today we descend into the Night Goblin infested Mount Gunbad!

Tier 3 – RR22-31

Mount Gunbad

Running through the Badlands we enter the Night Goblin lair of Mount Gunbad, one of the primary Night Goblin communities and by no means an ally of the Bloody Sun Boyz. Today we serve our seven course meal out of order to ease the digestion of that which is consumed!

T2 Dungeon – Altdorf Sewers

Today I shall delve deep into the Skaven infested sewers of Altdorf. Kill them in T2, play them in T4! Mythic’s new Order! For those looking for an analysis of the Destruction equivalent, the Sacellum, I refer you to the wonderfully presented material of Thehealeroftru on his blog.

T2 – RR12-21

The Altdorf Sewers

Tier 2 gives us our first dungeon with an armor set, and this one is located in the very heart of Altdorf. We descend deep into the scum infested Sewers of Altdorf to battle the Skaven for the first, but not last, time!

T1 Dungeon – Hunter’s Vale

Before I jump into my ‘regularly scheduled programming’ I quickly turn your attention to the September Producer’s Letter. Personally I find it another disappointment – no new information, just a rehash of what we already knew, aside from the information of the PTS going up in October. I guess Carrie spends too much time playing Minecraft to write something informative; at least she could have changed the verb tense to show that the awards for the anniversary were already sent, not will be sent.

Anyway, on to the dreadful discussion of PvE! Don’t worry this is actually leading to something from the innovative mind of yours truly. So I want to go tier by tier in this analysis – actually more like renown bracket by renown bracket which is really how the games progression is measured anyway. What I’d like to do is look at a few aspects of every dungeon and use this information. So what I’ll be rating dungeons on are a few different aspects: time commitment, layout, design, boss mechanics, loot mechanics, lockouts, and as a side dish – lore. Thats right, if you’ve studied etiquette then you’ve got yourself a seven course meal on your way. Sit up straight, no elbows on the table, and never blow on your soup!