Slow and steady

For the next few months my blog is going to be like a ship drifting around in known seas while awaiting orders from the admiral. Where the known seas are mmos I have played, the orders being GW2 beta access (crossing fingers) and the admiral being ArenaNet. So until I get to play GW2 I will post about general mmo related topics. Hopefully I’ll get into the beta, but might have to wait for release if I’m unlucky.

Happy gaming folks and see ya in GW2.

I wish SWTOR was better. I'm quitting.

So this turned out be longer than I intended. Adding a TL;DR

• I’m quitting SWTOR to play Rift
• I might be posting about Rift
• I’ll certainly be blogging about GW2
• SWTOR left be disappointed, which is a shame
• Too many flaws in the game/ gamedesign
• SWTOR got infected by the EA syndrome, being pushed out far too soon

I have come to the conclusion that SWTOR isn’t the right place for me. I am simply not enjoying the multiplayer content as much as I preferred. So I am ending my subscription. But what does that mean for the blog? Well to be honest I am a bit unsure. But one thing is certain. I will stop posting SWTOR stuff. At the moment a friend and I have returned to Rift. And I must admit that Trion did a great job making the game enjoyable. Bioware could learn much from them. As for the blog I might start posting a little bit about Rift, but first I gotta spend much time learning everything there again. My next real blog project is going to be GW2. I am hoping I will get beta access and if I get I will start posting as soon as the NDA gets lifted. I am looking forward to GW2 since it’s going to be a great and innovative game. Arenanet are really breaking many parts of the classic MMO mold which is hopefully making it a great game with a new touch.

Well back to SWTOR. The leveling and story content is fantastic and definitely something I have enjoyed. The problem is, however, that behind this part of the game is a weak MMO. Sure, people might say that MMOs have their problems at launch and SWTOR has much more than WOW had at launch. But let’s get honest. That’s several years ago. Rift had a much better launch than SWTOR so BW kinda left me disappointed. So what’s actually wrong with SWTOR? First of all, the client runs poorly on my computer. It’s not one of the high end machines but it runs Rift, EVE and plenty of MMOs without bigger problems. The ability delay and low framerate makes it hard to enjoy the game, especially when pvping. The huge loading time doesn’t make it any better. Really BW, is that the best you could do? In a game with everything sharded into oblivion it takes more time to load a zone in SWTOR than it does to load the entire world in Rift or one of the continents in WOW.

Common Scoundrel PVP specs

I have made a small collection of PVP specs I have seen at the Scoundrel forum (and Operative forum) plus the one I am going to try myself. Going to post the Scoundrel versions but of course they are also available for operatives. The specs are often found in many variations so feel free to tailor them towards your needs.

Scrapper

The Scrapper spec is the heavy burst spec that makes everyone cry at the forum. The burst was insane (at least before the nerf) and are perfect specs for those who want to take out a vulnerable enemy fast. Full scrapper is also the most common PVP spec for scoundrels. There are 2 common ways to go:

Scrapper with heals - 07/31/03

http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#701McbZMIRRdkrbfzZh.1

The first one is the spec Envii often uses. It is a fairly normal Scrapper spec that offers extra healing powers for situation where it’s needed.

You can see it in action by one of the most skilled Scoundrel players here: http://www.youtube.com/user/Kutsmuffin

Offensive Scrapper - 03/31/07

http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#7010cZMIRRdkrbfzZhr.1

Much like the first scrapper spec, but it got slightly more dmg and lower cooldown on Dirty Kick. With the nerf to K.O. this spec really shines since you can almost always open up with the Shoot First -> Dirty Kick stunlock. For even more damage you can move the points from Survivor’s Scars to Browbeater.

Click "read more" for the rest of the specs.