Chaos Chosen

[Isak]

"My name? Long ago, such worthless details fell from memory. I know only the lust for glorious battle - for blood, for victory! I seek only the Eye of Tzeentch - his favour, his grace, his Dark Gifts - that through them, I may be remade - reborn! Why do we raid your lands? Why do we burn your homes? Why do we flay your flesh? To serve the Lord of Change and his magnificent designs."
- An unknown Chosen of Tzeentch



A Chosen Champion of Tzeentch is a sight to behold - warped by the blessings of the dark gods, these hulking behemoths have the power and size to match even the mightiest of mortal creatures. Their thick Chaos armor can ward off the most punishing of blows, while the fell weapons they wield can cleave the heaviest of defenses. However, these "blessings" come at a price - the Chosen is beholden to Tzeentch, and must constantly strive to earn his favor. For the Chosen of Tzeentch this means more than mere slaughter and death. In order to earn the grace of the Changer of Ways, the Chosen must apply guile and trickery as much as brute force. Only through careful planning and deliberate carnage can a Chosen of Tzeentch truly find the favor of their god.

The Chosen of Tzeentch Specialty
Tzeentch expects his Champions to be both ferocious warriors and cunning tacticians. As a result, Chosen who excel in these areas are granted profane rewards. These Dark Gifts allow the Chosen to manipulate the ruinous power of Chaos itself. While this provides them with ever greater strength, it also continually strips away any remnants of humanity that may still reside in the dark recesses of their memories. These Dark Gifts supplement the warrior?s awesome martial skills, increasing their durability, strength and even allowing them to harness the Winds of Magic.

Playing as the Chosen
Above all else, as a Chosen Champion, you will seek the esteem of Tzeentch. Yours is an arduous path, forever seeking out greater glory in the eyes of the Raven God by playing a crucial role in his terrible schemes and cruel manipulations. Encased in a blasphemous panoply of heavy armor, you will endeavor to place yourself on the front line of every battle, where you will bring to bear the power of your Dark Gifts against your foes. You will also often be called upon to protect the insignificant or the weak, not as an act of compassion, but rather in service to the inscrutable machinations of your treacherous god.

Fighting the Chosen
Only death - either yours or theirs - brings any hope of respite from the fear and confusion that the Chosen inspire and the devastation they wreak on the battlefield. The best choice is almost certainly to do anything and everything you can to eliminate the Chosen from the fight as quickly as possible. They are devious and manipulative, and it is unwise to give them any opportunity to use their Dark Gifts to guide the course of a battle. Since they are most dangerous at close range, wise groups will focus magical and ranged attacks on them early in the fight. Failing that, your only hope is a focused, heavy melee attack ? though it will certainly be a race against the dark and creeping terror such close proximity to the monstrous Chosen will instill in you and your allies.



* * *


The Look of the Chosen
# Ornate and brightly adorned heavy armor made of strange, curving components decorated with the colors and marks of Tzeentch.
# Uses heavy shields bearing the crest and symbols of the Raven God.
# Wields massive melee weapons that crackle with ruinous power at high levels.
<a href="http://www.warhammeronline.com/english/gam...eers/Chosen.php" target="_blank"><a href="http://www.warhammeronline.com/english/gam...eers/Chosen.php" target="_blank"><a href="http://www.warhammeronline.com/english/gam...eers/Chosen.php" target="_blank">http://www.warhammeronline.com/english/gam...eers/Chosen.php (http://www.warhammeronline.com/english/gameInfo/armiesofWAR/Chaos/Careers/Chosen.php)</a></a></a>

[Remick]

Is there anywhere someone could find more technical information on this class yet?

[Socrot]

Think sorta like a mixed Paladin/Champion...so I'm guessing..

[Cillbo]

We need to wait for the NDA to go away.

[yashiro]

yeah, then you can ask me, I will gladly tell.

[Senjak]

Let it begin! Questions from a not-yet-participant in Beta.

The auras, what with lasting 12 seconds after it goes down/switches looks... this looks like pally or minstrel land. Anyone playing feel like that?

I was going for Chosen but if Im constantly going to have to twist auras then... probably not.

[Cillbo]

Chosen have good defenses, medium damage, and auras. They have a knock back swing and grapple for CC. Now, I never played a Champ/Paly, so I'll tell you what I know about auras. They have a resist debuff, several stat debuffs, and a group heal that casts a hot if a member of your group blocks or parries. There is another, enemy cast time increase, that may, or may not be in at launch. I think that's all. If you want to run with one aura, it's persistant. You can twist two or three. Two is fairly easy, but three is hard, at least for me. I don't remember the holdover timer, but it's 8- 12 secs.

PvE on a Chosen was fun. Typical tank, but with a few tricks. I don't really want to comment on RvR right now because I'm not a fan of melee combat in general. Although, if I go with any melee class, it will be a chosen.

[Overking]

Chosen is like a Skald with a real damage output.

[Rardac]

Kinda what I was hoping for...I really enjoy(ed) playing my skald...

[Gisli]

You might also consider a Marauder.

[Rardac]

Well, it was a toss-up, but the poll made me pick one, so I went 'heads-Chosen'...:rolleyes: Of course, I'll have to see what they're like in-game. Thanks for the suggestion, tho.

[Zetras]

One more thing about the auras, they have a positive effect for your group and a negative effect for any nearby enemies. The resistance aura made a definite difference in RvR so far, it looks like Mythic made tanks relevant again for RvR instead of just seige mules. I had a blast with mine and he held up well in the battles. Now I've only gotten to renown rank 7(rank 10 career) so hopefully the abilites will scale well for end-game RvR.

[Qizarek]

I just hit Rank 10 and renown rank 7 as well...incredibly fun! I found a few dwarves near impossible to kill...and there was one White Lion that I couldn't bring down solo...but holy cow was it fun doing massive RvR again that wasn't a 5 on 5 instance! :D

[Senjak]

Here are some discoveries and musings on the nature of Auras.

1. Starting up an aura triggers a 4.5 second Aura cooldown. It does not trigger a 1.5 second Global Cooldown for other abilities.

2. Non-aura abilities trigger a 1.5 second Global Cooldown which Auras obey.

So if you hit an aura you can immediately hit an ability and get them both into one cooldown. So in PvE you can get into a rhythm of

Have starting Aura up
Pull
As mob gets to you hit Aura then Ability (Tooth of Tzeentch is a nice start)
Aura CD 4.5 secs
GCD1 1.5 secs

Ability 2 (Seeping Wound is a good second)
GCD2 1.5 secs

Ability 3 (Ravage)
GCD3 1.5 secs

Auras come off cooldown
Aura again, ability again, 4.5 second rhythm starts over.

This method will let you twist three auras but it can be pretty daunting the more abilities you get as several different things have been happening

1. Despite the ability queueing there just _feels_ like a slight delay after hitting the aura, the GCD doesnt flash on the other abilities but maybe its latency delay or purely psychosomatic but we may not be hitting those cooldowns as cleanly as other classes.

2. Sometimes that rhythm gets stuck and Seeping Wounds gets hit way before its 9 second dot time clears up, reducing its value by far too much.

3. Knowing that you have to keep auras going and getting the right order on the fly has been hard to master as too often an aura will get hit that is the current, persistent aura up which starts its 12 second drop timer while a different aura is winding down too.

4. Even if you dont have an aura up it appears as if the last aura that was active will have the hilighted icon border signifying that it is active. A bug, surely, but annoying.

Just random thoughts. How are you all liking Chosen so far?

[Rusby]

I am enjoying Chosen so far. At first I tried Squig Herder but then decided to roll a class with more survivability. I debated for a while if I should roll Black Orc, but in the end I decided to go with the class I found to be more "evil." I've noticed Chosen/BO both have similar +15% damage tactics in their teens, so I imagine both classes are similar. I'm thinking the BO may be a tiny bit better in 1 vs 1, but Chosen may be better in group RvR due to auras. I could be wrong. *shrug* :)

I really like being able to adapt to different RvR scenarios, whether it be big or small scale. Fighting spellcasters? Throw up +resists. Fighting melee? Throw up strength aura, etc. Pretty cool.

[Senjak]

Originally posted on WarhammerAlliance.
In an effort to help the Chosen community let's all share our techniques, maybe you will see something you like or something you can use to refine how you work it.

My technique :
Hotbar one, three nearly identical pages. On slot 1 is an aura, on slot 2 is a macro similar to this :

/script SetHotbarPage(n,x)

Where "n" is the Hotbar and "x" is a page on that hotbar.

The first two macros on the first two hotbars each step up the hotbar page 1, the last macro changes the hotbar page to the first. I have mine set to bar pages 4 through 6, looking something like this :

Page 4 : /script SetHotbarPage(1,5)
Page 5 : /script SetHotbarPage(1,6)
Page 6 : /script SetHotbarPage(1,4)

The first button on each page is an aura, the second button is the corresponding hotbar changing macro. So hitting 1 then 2 will fire an aura and step to the next page with a new aura.

Thats just the first step, the really important part is getting the timing down for which this addon helps me immensely :

http://war.curse.com/downloads/war-a...gcdisplay.aspx

which will display a cooldown timer for you that can be moved and resized with the normal UI layout editor. This will (by default) check the spell in slot 24 and sends that abilities cooldown timer to the displlay. My window is just to the left of my toon and reset to a green color to stand out. So now I know that if the cooldown isnt going off (in it's highly noticeable location with resizeable text and it's .1 second ticking cooldown timer) it's time to hit 1 and 2 again to fire a new aura and advance the hotbar page to the next aura.

Thanks to Aiiane from the UI forum for furnishing the hotbar page change macro and writing the GCDisplay AddOn.

Your turn!

[Korinthos]

Definately a fun character class. Looking further to continued info and strategies. The game has so many different ways to play and adventure.

[Rimalder]

I'm sure other players have noticed this, but I wanted to see if there was any pattern to it.

Sometimes when I activate one of my morale abilities, I notice an extra icon appears with a "bonus" spell. For example, after using F9 to execute Demolishing Strike, sometimes a secondary random spell shows up that I can activate using Shift-F9 (it might be a heal, group heal, AE magic attack, or single target magic attack).

Is there something specific I can do to make this happen with more predictability?

[Monstein]

I'm sure other players have noticed this, but I wanted to see if there was any pattern to it.

Sometimes when I activate one of my morale abilities, I notice an extra icon appears with a "bonus" spell. For example, after using F9 to execute Demolishing Strike, sometimes a secondary random spell shows up that I can activate using Shift-F9 (it might be a heal, group heal, AE magic attack, or single target magic attack).

Is there something specific I can do to make this happen with more predictability?

Do you have a chaos healer, I can't spell right now, in your group when this happens?

[Rimalder]

Do you have a chaos healer, I can't spell right now, in your group when this happens?

I'm going to say yes. These bonus spells seem to only happen when I'm in a group. That sounds like a clue.

[Jalec]

its a buff from the zealot. when he marks you depending on the mark you also get a spell of some sort.

[Xahadume]

My main so far is a chosen (Xahadume) but I am only two days into playing so far. It seems that when I try to twist auras that there is an animation for each aura that slows down the combat. It feels like I lose a chance at a swing by changing auras. If I am in a heated battle exchanging blows with a dwarf it seems like I have lost swing opportunities by trying to twist in auras. Especially when trying to twist in three. I have sometimes changed auras only once or just left the one I had running if it was appropriate. Am I looking at this wrong, do I still get all the swing chances despite the animation of switching auras?

Senjak do you mind explaining those macros a little more please? What is a hotbarpage or what is the difference between a hotbarpage and a hot bar number?

[Gisli]

I'm guessing that changing your aura triggers the Global Cooldown (GCD). If so, then yes, in practice you lose a swing. Same thing happens to Marauders when they switch arms.

[Drakhon]

The GCD does not prevent auto-attacks, if that's what you mean.

If you mean abilities, then you can use an attack ability immediately following an Aura but not an Aura immediately following an attack ability. The more technical way of putting it is that Auras do not trigger the GCD (they have their own 6 second Aura-only cooldown) but they do abide by it when it has been triggered by something else. There may still be UI issues with this, but they are just the display, not function.

[Lef Grebo]

Benn playing a Chosen as my main and liking him so far. The most frustrating thing I see thow is grouping with other chosen and they are not using any auras!!!!

WTF!

[Senjak]

Senjak do you mind explaining those macros a little more please? What is a hotbarpage or what is the difference between a hotbarpage and a hot bar number?

Sure. Let's say you have two hotbars up by using the UI interface from the main menu. It seems like (anyone feel free to retort if any of this is slightly off) the second hotbar is just another page of the original bar, in that if you use the up and down arrows on the right end of the hotbar it will give you different pages of a completely new set of 1-12 buttons, the up and down arrows will cycle through five different pages.

The macro

/script SetHotbarPage(n,x)

Where "n" is the Hotbar and "x" is a page on that hotbar will set the specified hotbar to a specified page as if you had used the arrows to cycle up or down. Note also that while the arrows will cycle through 5 pages the macro will give you more pages, I can confirm using the argument

/script SetHotbarPage(1,6)

to switch hotbar 1 to a 6th page that was inaccessible using the up and down arrows.

So what I currently have is three different pages, with a macro on each page to advance it up to page 2, page 3 then back to page 1 so each time hitting "3" (in this case just where the macro happens to be on the hotbar) will cycle through three nearly identical hotbars. A different aura is on "2" of each page and Ravage is on button four of each page so hitting in fast sequence 1, 2, 3 will activate an aura, switch hotbar 1 to the next page and then use a ravage while wrapping all of that into a single cooldown.

Admittedly it's a little annoying and easily mistimed in the heat of battle. Until level 37 when we get the tactic that removes the ap cost of auras I probably wont bother twisting much.

Hopefully that makes it a bit more clear, let me know if that just dug the hole deeper.

[Rardac]

The macro

/script SetHotbarPage(n,x)

Where "n" is the Hotbar and "x" is a page on that hotbar will set the specified hotbar to a specified page as if you had used the arrows to cycle up or down.

What I'd like to know is how do I find out more of these type of commands. Is there a single source anywhere?

Thanks!

[Senjak]

That one was asked for in the UI forums of the warhammeralliance boards. Dont know of a list of such commands, those boards might help with that. : )

[Rimalder]

Benn playing a Chosen as my main and liking him so far. The most frustrating thing I see thow is grouping with other chosen and they are not using any auras!!!!

WTF!

Lef,

While I won't defend the forgetful Chosen, I can provide a possible explanation. When zoning into a new area or scenario, the aura still appears highlighted on the hotbar but is not actually active. The player usually needs to reactive the aura after zoning.

[Jesin]

yup, had this happen to me a few times when I was respawning from death in a scenario... Would be like it is glowing and LOOKS like it is going WTH!!?!?!