Well it has been a couple of exciting weeks for both the WAR and WOH Community.  Both are moving forward giving some details on the short and long term plans.

Starting off with Wrath of Heroes it has been announced that Beta 6 starts today, and this period of testing will help select the last 5 of the 10 heroes that will be released when Open Beta finally hits.  Who the first 5 are we currently do not know, but looking at those heroes not present in Beta 6 one could guess that 5 of them are in the starting line up.

We here at WAR Stratics have taken the time play each and every hero when the chance has come up, however were not able to breakdown each and every Mastery for those available though.  Those available for Beta 6, for the most part were looked at and we came up with some good combos, and team makeups that were not the standard cookie cutter makeup that most generally felt was a guaranteed win.  Once you have slammed Bax with with an almost 400 Point Crit with Korith you will know what I am talking about.

The starting lineup is pretty solid, and when you mix in the second string (purchasable via gold) we have 10 heroes that can form many different combinations that you can play all night long with.

We wanted to take the time and give a little background on the Beta 6 Starters.

Korith The Shadow Warrior – Is a hard hitting beast of a machine that was quoted in Playboy as saying “Don’t go to a hooker when all you need is a hug”.  This is so very true when dealing with Korith.  Yes one must invest in his Mastery in order to bring the pain, and his bomb shot is a reduced range compared to his other attacks, but when utilized properly, you will make people cry.

Aessa The White Lion – Is a sexy little number that likes long walks on the beach, is a Vegan, and I can’t forget to mention that she is an Aries.  Her true potential unlocks when you begin to invest in her Mastery.  She has the ability to reduce the damage she takes from her guard damage, while at the same time offers up a pretty nice tactic that is a must needed purchase for any hero one decides to play with.  With the tactic slotted, once crit she cannot be crit for another 10 seconds.  This adds a true level of survivability that one cannot dismiss easily.  You do want to keep her in arms reach of other members of your group, because if you don’t she loses her basic effectiveness for what she was built for.  Her damage output is not something to overlook either.  With the ability to increase her crit rate every time a group mate is damaged and add in the fact that her attacks cannot be dodged, makes her that much more appealing of a choice to run with.

Gromki The Rune Priest – Or should I say Ruin Priest, because once put in front of a player that understand how to use him, Little Whiskey (that is his street name) can ruin someone’s day.  Heal and armor debuff are just 2 items in his arsenal, and his bag of goodies just gets better when you invest in his mastery.  Now he is not much to look at, but that’s what Internet Dating is all about.

Ilyana The Sorc – The Official Victoria Secrets Meth Angel has the ability to but out a good amount of sustained single target damage.  Group her with other Dark Elves and her damage output is increased per Dark Elf in her group.  Break open her Mastery and you can offset her mechanic (Crit Chance increase) to where it only has a 50% chance to drop.  She doesn’t wear a lot of clothes so you want to keep her back some, for if you don’t she will get eaten alive.

Zathis The Assassin – This guy was made fun of a lot as a kid, and was probably the victim of getting his head flushed in a toilet more than once.  All of this taught him to do what he does well.  Stealth, Armor ignore when striking from behind, damage procs that should not be ignored.  Unlock his Mastery and he gets an added root to the target he ambushes, not just when he does it from stealth.  He can also increase the amount of damage procs he gets off which is a very nice added benefit.  The only downside to running Zathis is that a swift backhand to the face and he goes down fast.

Moving on to Age of Reckoning James Casey has put out a new producers letter

covering some plans for the future.  1.4.6 is coming and it’s main purpose is to fix bugs within the game.  This was a request by the community, and items originally coming in 1.4.6 have been pushed back to 1.4.7.

Lead Content Developer Keaven Freeman has been hitting up the forums, working on discussions for 1.4.6, and changes to WAR.  Slowly but surely is he narrowing down the suggestions from the community and working to created more focused lines of discussion based off of community feedback.  With Forts reintroduced he and his team have already been working on correcting issues that players have been experiencing.

As for 1.4.7 James Casey mention in the Producers Letter,

“Dynamic Objectives system for the next patch. This system is designed to provide objectives that will tie into the campaign based on dynamic variables. An example of this would be that as forces draw together and engage in the lake, a new objective will spawn that will provide resources or rewards to the warring parties. The goal is to give more fun and rewarding things to do that revolve around small to medium scale skirmishes.”

What this means exactly, we are not completely sure, but it does sound interesting.

James Casey also spoke of a live event,

“As well, we have a new Live Event type encounter in the works that will pop up in a later patch and evolve over time. We’ll have more information about this as we move forward, but the operative word here is demons.”

This has our interest peaked as we wonder if it will be a persistent evolving event, or if it will be available for a short time, and each time it activates it will have changed.  With the emphasis on “Demons”, I am hoping that it is something that I can experience full time.  We also wonder if it is another way of Monster play.  It would be pretty neat to play Bloodletters one week, and the next week being able to play a Daemonette.  We won’t know the exact details until James let’s us in on the info, so I guess we will have to just wait and see where it is going.

Once again thanks for the time, and make sure to pay attention to @WAR_Stratics on twitter this weekend for your chance to win a 60 day WAR Game Time Card.

Peace,

Mykiel