Friday, November 02, 2007

WoW - Races: Orcs and Trolls

Now that I've gotten your attention (maybe :P @ Jen).
The orcs are well thought of as the mindless green vandals of Azeroth. In a way they are, some of the in game jokes go thus "It's not easy being green" and "Orc smash.." you can see why. They are not native to Azeroth having been brought through the dark portal to wage war on the humans, they are a proud race and rebelled against their masters led my the might warchief Thrall. It is said they have no empathy for other races now this isn't true, hey if they attack us we'll stomp them into the ground and then lay siege to their town.. They fight not for the sake of conquest, but the right to survive on their new adopted homeworld. Alas orcs aren't the most skilled builders so orc encampments tend to look like a battle has just occurred which is kind of handy sometimes as it means if they are attack they don't really need to re-build that much..
The orcs have a few special traits specific to themselves,these are as follows:
Blood Fury - Increases your attack power by a small amount, but in doing so reduces and healing done by spell, bandage or potion on you by 50%, this effect lasts 15 seconds and the attack power increases as you gain levels. You have to activate this trait as it's not an automatic or passive ability, most people I know have it dragged onto a toolbar on the screen so for ease of access.
Hardiness - passive or automatic, this ability means you have a 25% change to resist a stun and knockout effects, be it from a warrior's charge or a creature hitting you.
Command - another passive ability, this one is useful really only for hunters - Your pet close range attack or melee damage is increased by 5%, which is a fair amount really.
Weapon specialization - axes, again a passive skill, you gain +5 points to your skill will axes. You can't wield every weapon in the game, for most of the classes available to the orc race this is useful specialization. Every time you use a weapon against a creature in the game you have a chance, this is dependant on a number of things, not limited to your level and the creature your trying to kills level, to gain 1 additional skill point for that weapon upto 5x your current level i.e. for every level you gain, you can get 5 more skill point on that weapon. I can see you thinking but WHY is important, the more skill you have with a weapon, the more chance you have of doing more damage to the creature your killing, it affects also the chance you have of scoring what is known as a critical hit where you can do upto twice your normal damage which with some weapons is a lot.

If you decide to choose the orc race, you can choose to be either of the following:
A hunter, a rogue, a Shaman - the truest an orc and be to their origins, a warlock or a warrior.

You will always start off in the area called Durotar, well actually you'll start in the valley of trails which is hidden away in the middle of Durotar . Your home city is orgrimmar where you'll find your mighty and proud warchief Thrall sitting on his throne. You have to walk everywhere to start with but there are rewards for getting to level 40, the ability to get and ride a mount, no not a horse, an orc on a horse looks silly, no you get a nice riding wolf available in a lovely choice of colours.

Now on to the other race, the trolls. They populate various places such as the islands of the south seas, they are renowned for their barbarous and superstitious nature, that and their pretty much total hatred of all other races.
Of course one tribe is different, they overcame this when they encountered Thrall and his orcish army, they had been exiled for their ancestral lands in stranglethorn vale, nearly destroyed by an nasty band of murlocs - vile creatures, the saying is the only good murloc is a dead one, Thrall saved them and in return they swore an oath of eternal allegiance to Thrall and his orcish horde army.
They are led by a cunning shadow hunter named Vol'jin. They made their home in southern durotar, in a village named after their fallen tribal elder Sen'jin.

The darkspear trolls have a few special traits specific to themselves,these are as follows:

Berserking - active - Increases your attack speed by 10% to 30% depending on your overall health, the more badly hurt when you activate Berserking the bigger the attack speed boost, this effect lasts 10 sec.
Regeneration - passive - A 10% health regeneration bonus, 10% active in combat, your health regenerates faster than other races, help you recover quicker from battles.
Beast Slaying - passive - A nice 5% damage bonus when you kill animals or beasts.
Throwing Weapon Specialization - passive - +5 to Throwing Weapon skill - what can I say gives you a boost to thrown weapons, helps rogues and maybe hunters.
Bow Specialization - passive - +5 to Bow Weapon Skills, a definite bonus if your a hunter, or anything apart from a priest who can't wield a bow at all.
You start in the same place as the orcs and share many of the start quests of the orcs too. Although you home city is Sen'jin village your made welcome in Orgrimmar.
You don't share everything with the orcs however you get to ride around on what looks like Barney the Dinosour, better known as a raptor, I want one but can't have one as I'm not a troll but you can get one if you have the required reputation more on that later..
Like the orcs before hand you get to choose to be one of the following classes:
A hunter, a mage, a priest, a rogue, a shaman or a warrior.

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