I'll chop yer head off!

I'm back! But to be honest, i did not miss WAR *that* much while i was gone. I played some good old fashion RTS games online like Age of Empires III and had a blast. Usually that's a bad sign... but today i logged onto the EU Public Test Server to check out the Choppa: It was fun! So i guess I'll stick to WAR for the moment. ;) I never leveled an alt in WAR so far, therefore i hope my Choppa will entertain me until the majority of the endgame, especially capitol raids, improved. Tho i guess when Lost Vale is fixed, that will keep busy for a little while. On a sidenote, if you're thinking about leveling an(other) alt, do it with the upcoming wave of Choppas when they go live. On the PTS atm its (obviously) mostly Choppas/Slayers, but doing PQs and fighting against hero mobs you start thinking: Just oooone tank would be so nice. ;)

The Choppa uses a berserk mechanic, which is quite fun. The longer you stay in combat, the more damage you do.. BUT once enraged to the maximum, you'll die rather quickly if something is hitting you. It happed frequently to me that i died as you really go bersek mode and forget to unload the rage once in a while. The Choppa does an insane amount of damage - at least from my perspective (did not play any DPS before in WAR). With rank 8 i was critting for around 220 damage already. The first "cool" attack skill animation will come with rank 8, when you get Can't Stop Da Chop - you do a kind of jump attack that is really fun to do. I did not take the rank 18 template you can create but started to level a new Choppa, I'll write more about it once i gained some more skills. But one thing is clear, the Choppa is a glass-cannon while enraged and best in combat while not attacked.

I only played a short amount of time but already found a bunch of bugs (2H Choppa weapons labeled as right hand, death respawn pop-up shows 1sec too early, etc.). After i send in a suggestion (to show the different colored mounts in the pens where you can buy them) i even had a CSR talk to me about it on the PTS, guess GOA takes the recent concerns about EU customer service and feedback (we can't access the "official" US forums where Mythic handles feedback atm) seriously and tries hard to give the playerbase the impression they're heard and do make a difference. Many EU players atm are concerned if their feedback or bug reports make a difference at all.

It's not only the new classes on the PTS, but also a bunch of other things. Some of the UI improvements are really good. Group/warband members now got a green gem icon which makes them much easier to spot. The zone maps now have arrows at the sides so you can access the connected zone easier. The new party/warband/open group UI looks promising and hopefully will make it easier for people to find groups as the current non-existent LFG system really needs improvement. The new mailbox UI now got the possibility to send several attachments with one mail. I just hope someone will take over the old zMailMod and throw together the other features of this mod to use with 1.2 version. I took butchering on my Choppa to check out the new apothecary mats and will post more about it soonish.

Downside for the PTS atm: The EU Character Copy is offline and will stay like this for the near future as GOA wants to test tier 1&2. Therefore i was not able to copy my rank 40 main over and eg. sit on all the new mounts yet. I also would like to test the crafting changes more, but can't do that as much as i want without the resources or the funding.

One promising thing: Looks like Mythic fixed the Super-Screenshot or what its called. When i used that option, i created screenshots around 8-11MB. The screenshot is also taken without the UI (even when you have it open), althogh names, etc. do show. Would be great if Mythic at least adds a checkbox if you want the super-screenshot to be "clean", without any names, target arrows, UI, etc. So i can configure that myself. Higher quality screenshots are very much appreciated tho.