Analysis of a Deck: Ninja (Dragon)

Posted by on Jul 7, 2012 in Blog, Featured, Guides, The Secret World | 0 comments

Since I haven’t made much progress in understanding character builds, decks and the ability wheel, I need to slow down for a while and study. And why not do that by just analyzing the deck I am using, pre-made by FunCom: “Ninja”. It’s a melee build using blades and elemental magic for some ranged abilities and to spice up things. And by spicing up I mean synergies, something, the designers of “The Secret World” have declared as basic principle behind the creation of the abilities for player characters.

“The Secret World” organizes character abilities in a wheel, consisting of 3 sections with 3 weapon/school types each. For each weapon type, there are 2 inner and 6 outer groups of 7 abilities each. Add 3 more groups with miscellaneous abilities. This adds up to 9 * 8 + 3 = 75 groups or 75 * 7 = 575 abilities. Getting all skills of an inner group will cost you 19 ability points. All skills of an outer group will cost you 169 AP. That’s a total of 9975 AP.

To say the least, this is overwhelming. There are already a good number of guides out there, but I am still far away from really understanding what’s going on. Let’s start with a quick overview of guides & tools: The most comprehensive guide is Yokai’s guide to build mechanics and build philosophy. It’s still a lot to digest. There’s Seki’s “Weapon synergy and build discussion”, which will go away once the TSW boards are reformatted. You’ll find a copy of the post here. There’s also a nice calculator at Bad Omens.

Now we will take a look at the abilities being used for the deck. The damage amounts are taken from an empty build, most of them will be higher when more skill points are added. Please ignore them for now, the actual damage is secondary.

 

Active:

Delicate Strike: Builds 1 resource for each equipped weapon. A single target attack that deals 48 physical damage.
Resource Builder, buffed by “Delicate Precision” passive to increase penetration chance.

Clearing the Path: Consumes all Blade Resources. A PBAoE attack that deals 57 physical damage. This attack penetrates any Afflicted targets it hits.
Blade PBAoE finisher, exploits Afflicted status

Blaze: Consumes 3 Elemental Resources. A single target attack that deals 164magical damage, or 181 magical damage to Afflicted targets.
Elemental single target resource consumer, exploits Afflicted status

Surging Blades: A column dash attack that deals 58 physical damage.
Utility: gets you to your target fast, and if you do it right, away as well.

Flashpoint: A single target attack that deals 35 magical damage. The target also becomes Afflicted with a damage over time effect that deals 20 magical damage every second for 5 seconds.
If the target is already Afflicted, it will cause 5 enemies in a 5 meter radius around them to become Afflicted with a damage over time effect that deals 20 magical damage each second for 5 seconds.
Single target, exploits and triggers Afflicted.

Ice Manifestation: Places a manifestation at the targeted point that lasts 9 seconds. Every 3 seconds it will hit up to 5 enemies in a 5 meter radius, dealing 40 magical damage. Affected targets will also be rooted to the ground for 2 seconds.
Targeted AoE, crowd control.

Four Seasons: A channelled attack that deals 31 physical damage each hit. The damage dealt increases by 5% for each hit, and all hits will penetrate. The last hit will cause the target to become Impaired and unable to act for 3 seconds. This ability has a 15 meter range.
Single target attack, triggers Impaired and Afflicted, the later because it’s buffed by Incision.

 

Passive

Fortunate Strike: Whenever you attack an Afflicted target, there is a 10% chance you will perform an additional hit that deals 21 physical damage.
Exploits Afflicted.

Aidelon: “Blaze” has a 100% chance to critically hit Afflicted targets.
Exploits Afflicted.

Twist the Knife: Whenever you penetrate you also gain 1 stack of a beneficial effect, which increases all damage dealt by3% for 10 seconds. This effect can stack up to 3 times.
Triggered by Penetrate. 

Incision: Whenever you penetrate, you also cause the target to become Afflicted with a damage over time effect that deals 10 physical damage every second for 3 seconds.
Triggered by Penetrate, triggers Afflicted.

Sudden Return:  Whenever you penetrate, you also perform an additional hit that deals 18 physical damage.
Triggered by Penetrate. 

Delicate Precision:  Increases the Penetration Chance of “Delicate Strike” by 10%.
Self explanatory. 

Flight of Daggers: Whenever you attack, you build a Flight of Daggers counter. When the counter reaches 5, you will hit up to 3 enemies in a 5 meter radius around you, dealing 46 physical damage. Affected targets also become Afflicted with a damage over time effect that deals 10 physical damage every second for 5 seconds.
Triggers Afflicted.

 

Summary

The key to this build lies in the passive ability Incision and the active ability Clearing the Path. Incision causes affliction with the first penetration and Clearing the Path penetrates everything that’s afflicted. Thus, as long as you keep up with time-outs, your target will remain afflicted and penetrated a lot.

This deck gains even more by abilities exploiting the constant affliction and high rate of penetration. Blaze and Flashpoint are active abilities which benefit from the target being afflicted. Fortunate Strike and Aidelon are passives which benefit as well. Additionally, Twist the Knife, Incision and Sudden Return all amplify the effects of penetrate.

 

Conclusion

By analyzing a single pre-made deck, we’ve seen how well 7 active and 7 passive abilities can interact with each other. Writing this article was an exercise for myself to learn how this interaction happens and I think I know much better now what to look for in other builds. It will still be a challenge to come up with a build of my own, but the first step is done.


© Disclaimer: The Secret World
"The Secret World" is a registered trademark of Funcom GmbH. All logos, images and names are intellectual properties of Funcom GmBH unless otherwise noted. This site is not endorsed by or affiliated with Funcom GmbH.


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The Secret World Beta Weekend

Posted by on Jun 18, 2012 in Blog, Featured, Guides, The Secret World | 0 comments

I went into this beta weekend for “The Secret World” expecting to collect some material about the mechanics of the game. Last time I played I hadn’t touched tradeskills and didn’t pay to much attention to combat and or skills in general, either. Guess what? I didn’t get around to gather more facts. Instead I solved puzzles, listened to voice overs and pushed dialog buttons to take in more and more of the great story this game is telling their players.
Savage Coast

Competing secret societies are meddling in the world’s affairs, fighting each other and common enemies. Powerful mega corporations and powerless and corrupt political organisations are players as well. It’s never really clear if you fight paranormal activities or you are looking at failed experiments of the other involved parties. It isn’t clear if the experiments have failed, either. Chaos is introduced, just to learn how the system reacts. Every conspiracy theory is true, the water supply has been messed with, and they are ready to attach a tracking device to your spine anytime.

That’s what differentiates this game from all other MMO’s. The setting is unique and the story is unique. Do not approach it as a hack and slash game, don’t ask about the endgame. Sit back and enjoy the show, push that dialogue button again a few more times and pay attention. Take copious notes. You may need that information, or it hides yet another conspiracy.

There are more differences to other MMORPG’s. The game doesn’t have any classes nor levels. Only skills and abilities. These will improve over time and more abilities can be added. Your class is determined by the abilities you choose. Of interest is the fact that you are allowed to put only 7 active and 7 passive abilities into your hotbars. Skill levels replace classic levels, but with much more granularity, since those levels exist for almost ever type of equipment, weapons, talismans, belts and rings.

Other reviewers have complained about the quality of combat. I didn’t pay much attention, I just played. There is PVP, but I haven’t checked it myself. I’m just not interested in it. I still need to explore tradeskills. The basic mechanics are there, but what you can do with the items you collect isn’t fully clear, yet.

There will be another beta weekend starting this Friday, lets find out if I’ll collect more facts about the game or get lost in the content.


© Disclaimer: The Secret World
"The Secret World" is a registered trademark of Funcom GmbH. All logos, images and names are intellectual properties of Funcom GmBH unless otherwise noted. This site is not endorsed by or affiliated with Funcom GmbH.


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Welcome to Kingsmouth

Posted by on May 13, 2012 in Featured, The Secret World | 0 comments

Welcome to Kingsmouth, Solomon Island.
Where SUMMER RECREATION is written in all capital letters. Come and join me for a quick tour through town.
Welcome Sign, Kingsmouth, The Secret World

 

Lets go down to the harbor, busy for fishermen and tourists alike.

Kingsmouth Harbor, Solomon Island, The Secret World

 

Learn of our local mining history at the museum.
Kingsmouth Mining Museum, The Secret World

 

Lets stop for a meal or for a quick coffee at Susie’s Diner.
Susie's Diner, Kingsmouth, Harbor, The Secret World

 

Visit the historical residence of the Priest family.

Historical Priest Home, Kingsmouth, The Secret World

 

Main Street invites for arts & crafts shopping.

Main Street Shopping, Kingsmouth, The Secret World

 

Visit the local Sheriff’s station for advice how to deal with the zombie population.

Sheriff's Station, Kingsmouth, The Secret World
I had fun playing this weekend’s “The Secret World” open beta. I didn’t really follow the game until recently some fellow blogger mentioned it. Also, my Twitter feed was full of beta anticipation since at least Wednesday. Here are just a few impressions from playing the game for a few hours.

The game did surprise me with its looks, with great background music and a beautiful user interface. Strangely enough I was impressed by the splash screens, which start out black and white and slowly add color. A simple effect, easy to implement, but a nice impact for me.

It also helps that one of the first voice actors I meet in the game is Catherine Taber, well known as Vette from SWTOR. Which makes me wonder, how much value and recognition voice actors will add to MMO’s in the future. The first set of quests led me to Kingsmouth, on an island off the New England coast. As you can see in my picture tour, it’s wonderfully set, recreating the Eastern seaboard feeling.

The game mechanics promise to be interesting, since the game doesn’t have player levels, only skills. The consequences of this aren’t fully visible, since the beta players didn’t get to far into the game.  There are plenty of quests, classified as story line missions, action missions, investigation missions and some more. During the quests you will discover various puzzles, finding a path through a maze of lightning fields, finding hidden switches, etc, etc.

One other thing is worth mentioning. The area doesn’t seem crowded, despite the claim of 1 million beta signups. There wasn’t any server selection during character creation and there wasn’t any visible division of zones into multiple instances. I’ll see if I can find out more about it next beta.

Of course, this being beta, there were bugs, we’ll have to see how agile (there’s a pun somewhere) the development team is in fixing them. But in general I was surprised finding such a nice game. However, I am not really a fan of horror settings or events in the present. But this game might convince me.


© Disclaimer: The Secret World
"The Secret World" is a registered trademark of Funcom GmbH. All logos, images and names are intellectual properties of Funcom GmBH unless otherwise noted. This site is not endorsed by or affiliated with Funcom GmbH.


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Vanguard and I

Posted by on Apr 13, 2012 in Blog, Featured, Vanguard | 4 comments

I feel the itch. Now that free-to-play has been announced for the game, it looks like a couple of former players are already returning, in hoping the community will grow quickly. There’s been some activity among the bloggers regarding Vanguard, too: Ardwulf’s Lair has a couple of articles and Bhagpuss @ Inventory Full has some honorable mentions as well.

I have to say, I’d like to return, too. A few days ago, I signed up for another Vanguard trial. This screen shot is the result of 2 hours of playing a bard. Vanguard is one of the MMO’s I regularly go back to, when other games turn sour on me. I just love some of the games mechanisms: You’ll eventually have to decide if you want to skill up one weapon over the other: long- or short sword, piercer or a mace. At some point you won’t have enough skill points to keep them all maxed. My bard can “compose” his own songs. In combat there are skill combos and situational abilities I need to act on.

I am usually not much of a trade skill kind of guy, but I often do the basics and come back to it every now and then. The trade skill sphere has some interesting concepts. Your trade skill level is independent from your adventuring level. You can only advance through work orders, which will not produce any usable goods. You can make usable items, but they won’t advance your skills. You have your won set of trade skill gear and tools. The same is true for harvesting.

The game has a third sphere, diplomacy. To make it short, I’ve never been using it much, but it does have its own rewards.

The world of Telon is huge. Three massive continents offer enough room for content, cities, dungeons and places to just go Ooooh and Aaaah. You can have flying mounts and you can build your own ship to travel oceans and rivers.

Vanguard is certainly old school (now without corpse runs), but you will respawn elsewhere and have to run back, if you want to continue working on your current goal. Mobs will respawn on your way, if you don’t hurry or if you were in way to deep into a dangerous area. Grouping is often recommended.

There’s more to the game, like nice race and class selections or meaningful NPC factions. But I’ll leave that for another time, to be discovered as I get further into the game.

 

 


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WTF, Taris?

Posted by on Mar 11, 2012 in Blog, Featured, Star Wars: The Old Republic | 0 comments

A few days ago I finally managed to get my Sith Marauder to Taris. I had some trouble at first getting oriented at the landing site, but nothing really to post about. A few initial quests yielded me some decent amounts of crystals to artifice and things looked good. Until I arrived at the “Border Assault Post”.

Damn, I’ve seen that place before. It looks just like one of the Republic outpost on Taris. And as it turns out, the whole map is identical to the Republic map. Which shouldn’t be much of a surprise, since it’s the same world and both sides are competing for this world. However, all the quest hubs are now in use by Imperials instead of the Republic and there are different mobs throughout the area. No pirates, like on the Republic side, and the Cathar and the Taris Militia are exclusive to the Empire map.

I just got quests leading me into the starship Endar Spire, but I fear the story which presents itself there will be very different from the Republic one. Just like the other quests throughout Taris. It’s not just a different point of view, the events in the stories differ. Which annoys me to no end. I’ve seen a few story elements within class quests which just didn’t fit together with other class quests. Most obvious to me is the complete absence of the Twi’lek matriarch of the Consular line within the Jedi Knight quest line. Or the differences around Nem’ro the Hutt between the Imperial Agent and the Bounty Hunter quests. Nemro’s located on the left side of his palace for IA’s and on the right side for Bounty Hunters. He’s got lieutenants for the IA where there’s just a single accountant around for BH.

This really makes me wonder, if I should head over to some SWTOR role playing sites and check out hat they have to say about the poor development of lore. In the end, it’s just another piece of the puzzle that is Bioware. I keep noticing issues where I keep thinking that they went designing the game all by themselves as a company who makes single user games, without much consultation of experts from the MMO world. They could have learned a thing or two. And somewhere down the road, when they finally notice the errors of their ways, they will have to create some very clumsy stories and explanations to make the lore between the classes and the factions consistent.


© Disclaimer: Star Wars: The Old Republic
This site is not endorsed by or affiliated with LucasArts, BioWare, or Electronic Arts.
Trademarks are the property of their respective owners. LucasArts, the LucasArts logo, STAR WARS and related properties are trademarks in the United States and/or in other countries of Lucasfilm Ltd. and/or its affiliates. © 2008-2011 Lucasfilm Entertainment Company Ltd. or Lucasfilm Ltd. All Rights Reserved. BioWare and the BioWare logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of EA International (Studio and Publishing) Ltd. You may not copy any images, videos or sound clips found on this site or "deep link" to any image, video or sound clip directly.
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The Moat Around World of Warcraft And How Bioware’s SWTOR Gets Around It

Posted by on Jan 5, 2012 in Blog, Current Games, Featured, Rift, Star Wars: The Old Republic, World of Warcraft | 0 comments

Investor Warren Buffet has coined the term economic moat as an almost insurmountable advantage of one company over another company in the same industry. Typical names that come up in this discussion are Coca-Cola and Wal-Mart. Any new company that wants to compete with these two is looking at a very long time with minimal income before they will be able to come even close.

Does this mean World of Warcraft has a moat? You bet. Just look at all the features it offers and how many of them new games like Rift or Star Wars had implemented at their release date. Here’s an incomplete list:

  • Dungeon Finder
  • Raid Finder
  • Extendable User Interface
  • Accomplishments
  • Guild Perks
  • Plethora of Pets
  • Flying Mounts
  • WOW Armory
  • Class Balance
  • Economic Balance
  • In Game Events

Of course, at first, this list doesn’t look to bad, but these features have to be implemented, tested and rolled out and balanced. How hard will it be to implement a cross server dungeon and raid finder for SWTOR? It’s my gut feeling, not backed up by many facts that they’ll have a harder time to do that than Rift.

While playing Star Wars, of course I notice issues where I can clearly say, that Bioware will have to either take some lessons from Blizzard or learn them the hard way. For instance I am not sure, if the economy around the Galactic Trade Market will ever become viable. The auction interface is certainly not up to it. The bigger problem there will be the underlying supply and demand of raw materials and finished goods. I can see for instance that there’s far more metal for armor and arms available than there are crystals for synthweaving and artificing. It is open where it will find a balance, but I question if the Bioware designers have put much thought into the subject. But that is part of the moat I described.

Having said that, Bioware might not need to conquer the moat, simply by building their own castle. Bioware’s loyal customers are RPG fans who’ve kept their distance to MMORPGs. But the way it looks, with Bioware’s story driven approach and a lot of voice acting, that barrier is torn down. The ingame chat has certainly seen its amount of WOW comparisons, but they’ve actually died down relatively fast. Thus, Bioware isn’t taking away much of WOW’s market share. Bioware is expanding the market. Something everybody in the industry will be grateful for.

 


© Disclaimer: Rift
© Disclaimer: Star Wars: The Old Republic
This site is not endorsed by or affiliated with LucasArts, BioWare, or Electronic Arts.
Trademarks are the property of their respective owners. LucasArts, the LucasArts logo, STAR WARS and related properties are trademarks in the United States and/or in other countries of Lucasfilm Ltd. and/or its affiliates. © 2008-2011 Lucasfilm Entertainment Company Ltd. or Lucasfilm Ltd. All Rights Reserved. BioWare and the BioWare logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of EA International (Studio and Publishing) Ltd. You may not copy any images, videos or sound clips found on this site or "deep link" to any image, video or sound clip directly.
Game content and materials copyright LICENSOR. All Rights Reserved.

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