backseatdev

A hot topic for the PvE crowd is Tomb of the Vulture Lord (TOVL) purging. Here are my thoughts and experiences with TOVL and purging.

TOVL is the most difficult and buggy instance in Warhammer Online. It is frustrating and time consuming to complete and the drops are rare or even non-existant if you are unlucky enough. Shout-out to my group which is aiming for 0/10 on the chest drop this week.

Purging is when someone invades your instance. It can be a group or a single person invading. If your group dies either from them or from the fight you may currently be in the middle of, you are kicked out of the instance. The purge lasts 30 minutes then you can move on and continue your frustrating PvE session.

As it stands now, almost all purges I see/hear about are single people just wanting to wreck a groups night. Probably because someone single purged them and they vow to get back at them.

In general, I believe purging is pretty universally hated. Many people schedule PvE around working schedules and adding delays often overlaps the amount of time people have or wrecks one of their only weekly timeslots for the people to get together.

When I first heard about the purging mechanic, I thought it sounded really cool. In practice however, every experience I can recall was negative and frustrating. I suppose I am someone that likes to keep PvE and PvP seperate. If I schedule/plan some PvE time I want to get it done as quickly as possible and get back to PvE. Having things that drag it out, without really having a good fight is frustrating.

How would I fix purging? Assuming removing purging completely is not an option, I would suggest the following changes:

• Max of 1-2 purges per lockout. No more then 1 every 2 hours
• Increase the rewards for both sides. Maybe some good talismans
• You can only purge with a 6man group and can only purge 6 man groups
• Shorten the timer for a purge. Have it be a quicker fight and be done.

Mythic came out with some long awaited improvements to the zealot class today, but how they decided on these changes leave me completely baffled.

I played a zealot for the first year after release as a primary character and off and on since. Gear and damage kept getting better and higher and the zealot seemed to fall way behind other healers in terms of survivability.

I have threads up discussing zealot issues with the zealot community. (Like the one here: http://forums.warhammeronline.com/warhammer/board/message?board.id=chaos_zl&thread.id=3037 )

Survivability issues are the primary concern and include a lack of some of the tactics given to our mirror class the Rune Priest (ie. Ancestors Echo), and an AE detaunt which other healing pairs and even a lot of DPS get. Gear is also a big concern as almost all the pvp healing zealot gear comes from PvE. In general, a big lack of mitigating damage for the class. No other zealot that I have spoken to has complained that any of our heals heal for too little. It is being able to survive to cast them that is the issue

Compounding the puzzlement is the choice of spells. The instant spell, flash of chaos is already more effecient, reliable and mobile then the large single target heal we have, so how can it be underperforming but the other one be ok?

Additionally Flash of Chaos and Leaping Alteration are also the two biggest reasons zealots jump out of groups to heal and rake in renown. Which is great, but it gives the class a bad name, and builds a bigger divide between organized groups and zealots and really it sets the community against us when we want valid changes.

It really isn’t a bad change, I look forward to it, but it makes me wonder if Mythic really does read the Zealot class forums. It will be nice to have those spells heal for more, however, I equate this to Mythic handing us $10,000 when we are dying of thirst in the desert. It makes you feel bad for needing to ask for more, but Mythic, do you have any water? We need to survive, not more money.

ps. Transference is way overpowered. I once saw a zealot in group vs group combat do almost 1000 damage every 5 seconds with it. No other class on destruction can do that kind of spike damage in a 5 second interval. I would completely understand if this needs to be mirrored to Rune Priests or simply given to them and taken away from zealots as a buff to destruction.