I had a great time in Warhammer. It was, by far, the best PvP community I've played in. People were, for the most part, much more mature than in other games. People understood the meaning of the word respect and appreciated those who played for the challenge and competition rather than just playing to win.
This movie captures some of the closer fights I had that did not make it into other movies.
The main difference between WAR PvP and WOW PvP is the pace of the fights. Things are much slower in WAR. There really isn't much in the way of "quick reflex" skills needed for the game. There are a few situations, knockdown on spell casts but there just aren't that many quick skill reactions involved in the game. Sorry, but that is truth. The positive thing about WAR is that it does take some time to kill someone, so you actually have a chance to execute strategy before you get CCd and instagibbed as happens in WOW quite often.
In order to execute strategy in WOW, you must have survivability via talent build AND gear. Gear is absolutely essential to actually *play* your character as it should be played in WOW. That was not the case in WAR where the gear gap was much more lenient to the undergeared.
The first thing I noticed coming back to WOW was how fast the PvP was compared to WAR. You really need to think and react fast to changing situations. WOW PvP takes more skill. Unfortunately, gear differentials ruin it's overall balance.
Perhaps, someday, somewhere, some game will get it completely right.
WOW Feral Druid PvP movies INC, but for now my WAR farewell movie:
As I mention in the movie there is no real pre-set strategy that you can use against a Witch Hunter. There are just too many things that can happen in this fight to change it's dynamic. Does the WH get the opener on you? Or do you get the first shot in? Does the WH play aggressively or do they play cautiously?
There is no pre-set strategy but there are guidelines to how you should react to different events.
You should always try to prevent the opener or at least initiate combat with the WH before the opener. If you can get a throwing weapon in before the opener it will give you a head start on rage, and this is important because our knockdown goes a long way to helping us win this fight.
Use your detaunt if you get opened on. What usually follows is Pistol Whip and you can save some damage to yourself if you get the WH detaunted right before PW.
Keep your eyes and ears open for Repel Blasphemy and Disarm. To counter you can detaunt and charge away. Always protect your charge with Shrug It Off to keep the WH from snaring you with Snap Shot. If you can't run off Repel Blasphemy, then do your best to get to the Witch Hunter's back (something you should always try to do anyway).
Whatever damage you can do with AoEs while staying out of the reach of the WH the better. The range on our AoEs allows us to melee-kite to some extent. Also, by keeping your distance or using the dreaded S key to backup you help to prevent the WH from getting to your back. Of course, a good WH will recognize this early and try to use Feinted Positioning to land Pistol Whip but, again, any free damage you get is good.
Scratch and claw to survive until your knockdown is ready. The knockdown is almost always a key factor in winning a fight against a WH.
IMO, this fight is the Witch Hunter's to lose. A WH with good gear and a solid build and strategy is going to win this fight more often than not if they get the opener. And, even if they don't get the opener a good WH can still beat you. Due to the amount of anti-melee abilties they have, they are in the driver's seat. You have to stay alert and look for any mistakes or openings that they might give you. If they don't give you any openings you have to do your best to stay alive, which includes kiting if possible. Once you get enough rage for your knockdown, it is possible to turn this fight around.
An important thing to remember here is to not get discouraged and frustrated if you get faceplanted a few times by Witch Hunters. Look upon them as a challenge. There is no glory without overcoming challenge.
This movie (watch in HQ) covers the Choppa versus Slayer matchup. The two Slayers featured in this movie are Zulbin and Ghaern. Zulbin is the current number one renown Slayer on Iron Rock and Ghaern is considered by most to be the best 1v1 Slayer on Iron Rock.
The first three fights in this movie are against Zulbin. In each of these fights he is using a Trollslayer build and thus has Rune of Absorption. I am, as always, using a Da' Savage tree build. So, I have Furious Choppin. I am not using Wot Rules in these first three fights.
In fights against Slayers where I don't have Wot Rules my general strategy is to debuff and then use Furious Choppin early. If the Slayer is starting the fight with zero rage then you want to use Furious Choppin early since this is the safest time to use it against a Slayer. The only way a Slayer can stop the heal is with their knockdown and that only becomes available to them when they have red rage. The other advantage of using Furious Choppin early is that if you get into an extended fight you will be able to use it more than once.
After using Furious Choppin I will kite until I have red rage so I have access to my knockdown. Many Slayers make the mistake of not using Rune of Absorption early. If they don't use RoA early and try to save it then they will almost always lose since when they do try to use it, I will be able to interrupt it with my knockdown. You see this strategy play out exactly as such in the last two fights with Zulbin.
If the Slayer is not starting out the fight at zero rage and already has rage built up, then you should wait until after you get knocked down before using your Furious Choppin as demonstrated in the first fight of this movie.
The next two fights are part of a dueling series I had against Ghaern in Chaos Wastes. In these fights I am using the same build as the fights against Zulbin and Ghaern is using a Giantslayer build with Power Through. This allows Ghaern to spam his exhaustives and, in particular, spam Spellbreaker once furious. You wouldn't think that a non-Trollslayer build Slayer could beat a Savage build Choppa, but I did lose this series of duels. The pure damage a Giantslayer can put out is very impressive and in several of the fights he was able to overwhelm the healing I got from my Furious Choppin. The thing that won him most of the fights was that he was able to dump all of that damage and then follow it up with his knockdown.
This series of duels against Ghaern is the reason why I changed builds. I decided that being able to dump damage with exhaustives and still maintain the ability to do an early knockdown was just too good to pass up. However, instead of going down the 2Hand tree like Ghaern did I was going to couple it with Furious Choppin for the heal. Thus was born the build that you see me using most often in my movies.
The last fights in the movie are with the Furious Choppin/Wot Rules build. The strategy now is to debuff, use Furious Choppin early, spam whatever exhaustives you have, and then use knockdown as necessary if they live through the inital damage burst. This build and strategy is extremely powerful against Slayers. The only counter they have is to use a mirror build and the same exact strategy. If they don't then you end up with fights like the last three in this movie. Blow outs.
Both Zulbin and Ghaern ended up moving to this build and strategy. The last fights I had with both of them were mirror fights that came down to the last blow. Unfortunately, I was not able to fraps the fights as I was having some performance issues for a month or so.
In conclusion I find the Choppa versus Slayer 1v1 matchup to be relatively balanced if the fight is ended before morale can be built, after which the Choppa has the advantage in my opinion. Also, I feel that Choppa is a better overall oRvR solo career than the Slayer. There are three main reasons why I feel that is the case.
Dat Tickles! is superior to Untouchable, which grants 5 seconds of defense.
In terms of group play, I consider Choppa and Slayer to be in the same equivalence class. The reason why Slayers did not gain the notoriety of Choppas is because whatever a Slayer could do was simply overshadowed by what a Bright Wizard could do in terms of group PvP. Hopefully, that dynamic will change.
This movie contains some clips of my R30/31 Choppa doing some oRvR in T4. It is part of an unfinished project from earlier in the year. Rather than destroy the clip, I decided to upload it in case anyone was interested in seeing what things were like for in the early 30s.
All clips are 1vNs except for a single 1v1 fight against a Witch Hunter. All opponents are R40. No commentary, purely for entertainment.
by Oozo
