Vampire Cards!

Got today finally my Vampire: the Eternal Struggle cards I ordered in last week. :)
I had idea about making Giovanni Bruise/Bleed deck, besides having a Potence and Dominate disciplines I felt many Necromancy cards would allow them to become very versatile deck. So far I've had Harbinger of Skulls Shambling Hordes/Toolbox deck and Followers of Set Stealth Bleed with awesome twists with corruption counters, so I feel excited to try my hands on combat where Giovanni vampires can hit hard and bleed harder.

But here's the deck:

Deck Name: Giovanni Potence/Dominate
Author: Salsa
Description:
Using KoT Brujah, LotN Giovanni and 2x 3rd ed. Tremere Antritibu Starter decks for following deck. And few rather common necromancy cards

Crypt (12 cards; Capacity min=3 max=10 avg=6.17)
================================================
 2x  Francis Milliner     6  pre vic NEC POT      Giovanni:4
 2x  Guillaume Giovanni   9  obt CEL DOM NEC POT  Giovanni:4
 2x  Lady Constancia     10  AUS DOM FOR NEC POT  Giovanni:4
 2x  Margaret Milliner    5  dom for nec pot pre  Giovanni:4
 2x  Nunzio Giovanni      3  nec pot              Giovanni:4
 2x  Primo Giovanni       4  dom nec pot          Giovanni:4

Library (90 cards)
==================
Master (14)
 1x Dominate
 1x Giant's Blood
 1x Golconda: Inner Peace
 1x KRCG News Radio
 1x Morgue Hunting Ground
 1x Necromancy
 2x Path of Bone, The
 2x Proxy Kissed
 4x Vessel

Action (16)
 1x Chill of Oblivion
 8x Govern the Unaligned
 2x Graverobbing
 5x Harass

Equipment (3)
 2x Bundi
 1x Sengir Dagger

Action Modifier (11)
 3x Bonding
 5x Call of the Hungry Dead
 3x Conditioning

Reaction (12)
 6x On the Qui Vive
 6x Redirection

Combat (30)
 6x Brute Force
 5x Immortal Grapple
 3x Relentless Pursuit
 6x Slam
 5x Taste of Vitae
 5x Torn Signpost

Combo (4)
 4x Spectral Divination

Created with Secret Library v0.9.4a. (May 17, 2013 19:31:53)

If you familiar with the game you can always tell and mention what you think from this deck, so far my problem is lacking amount of Group 4 and/or Group 5 Giovanni vampires which could allow better combat modules.

Salsa

My thoughts: Neverwinter

It's been about 2 weeks from the Neverwinter's official open beta release, and I missed a week due my London exploring. I had to take day more so I get my mind back on the game and get ideas worth of writing.

Neverwinter is MMORPG using Dungeon & Dragon's Forgotten Realm setting. At the start I would've been imagining a gameplay quite similar to Neverwinter Nights which is about using dice roll and original's PnP RP's rules, but no. Game literally says "screw it" and brings a combat which is about aiming, reacting and moving. This is something that might scare people out from even without trying the game, so far I've been enjoying fast combat speed with Guardian Fighter class: charge in, make few swings to kill smaller mobs, stun big one from doing strong blow, block it's next attempt and re position yourself to finish it.
You're always doing something in combat and that's great! In normal MMOs I kept avoiding a combat because I felt it boring and dull to use tab-key to target, press certain buttons at certain order and finish a mob.

Game has quite good variety content to offer at basics, but game is mostly about questing and dungeon-crawling, you'll do most of your quests during leveling in solo-instances which are very easy at the start but turns to be much more difficult as your progress, so saving any early gotten potion will help you in your future battles. :)

Besides that you can also level up yourself by doing skirmishes which are short 5 man instances with some sort of loot in the end and doesn't offer too much mind to find way till the end. Dungeons in other hard are about hour lasting dungeons with really difficult bosses inside, at lvl ~35 there was a dungeon which was nearly impossible to after several attempts and good coordination, in other hands, loot is pretty good in those instances. 

For Player vs. Player action there's Domination matches which requires your group to control 3 objectives and reach to the point cap before the enemy and this is the place where in my opinion game's combat mechanics shines. Running, aiming, managing a good movement to keep yourself in better place than enemy offers truly amazing combat and fun. And even in PvP you're offered with loot after end of the round which makes playing PvP rewarding alongside the normal special currency non-sense. 

Lastly there's a Foundry, every player after lvl 15 have access to create their own quests to the game and create nearly any quest they want. From short solo dungeons to epic and long quest-storyline what takes multiple players to win. That's up to us, players who are creating all that content available to other players. Foundry itself is really powerful tool even tough being easy to use, I'm still trying my hands and trying to create quest by my own so I'll see if I ever get anything done.

Foundry isn't so easily exploitable, quests doesn't offer extra exp after completion and only lootable chest you can drop is special quest completion reward chest which offers a loot. but decided by Cryptic. Players who can enjoy a storylines of others get's most out from Foundry however.

Game is still in open beta and I wish to see more from end-game content soon as I get there myself, but so far game seems to be promising, expect literally overpriced Zen store, some goodies would be fun to have but not necessary at all. So I'll see how game ends up to be in much later. I recommend if you're not afraid from whole different combat but you can also enjoy from Forgotten Realms in world what's much more than just dice rolling. :)

Salsa

Back from London

I was in London from Monday to Friday. It was a trip organized by school where I am studying right now and it was awesome (plus cheap) opportunity to get to London and see what that city had to offer. Five days went really quickly and I didn't found myself shopping too much really. Only things I grabbed with me was Munchkin and Warrior Priest miniature from Games Workshop store. :<
Anyways, I'm working on Neverwinter topic and hopefully get it out soon, it have been really exciting to play it so far. Content made by users and action combat instead of tab-targeting have been way much more fun. :)
Back to work!

Salsa