Azeroth vs. Tyria part 6: A True Warrior FIghts With Whatever's Available

Still have three more known professions to cover and eventually whatever the super-secret eighth one ends up being, but I figured I'd take a quick break to cover something else. Certainly not because anyone on the team's too lazy to have finished their notes, no... I'm certain that the ranger, elementalist, and thief articles are complete and they don't need me to cover for them at all. We'll just consider this a slight break to allow them to start, er finish going over their articles for any last minute changes.

A few weeks ago I started this whole Azeroth vs. Tyria series with a wall of text about how attack skills in Tyria were tied to your weapons. Using an axe gives you different abilities than a greatsword and so on. Plenty of variety here, but you can see the horizon for learning new skills. There's only so many weapons your profession lets you wield, right?

Let's say we've got two trained warriors sitting in a bar. The first guy says, "Okay, I've worked with all of my weapon styles now. I know how everything works and how to chain everything in the most efficient manner. I've got combat in the bag." In this case, he'd be correct... right up to the point where the other warrior clocks him over the head with a barstool because he figured out how to use environmental weapons.

The name environmental weapon makes it kinda obvious where you find these things, but it doesn't really tell you what they are. To most of us from Azeroth, the only time we interact with the environment is either when there's something glowy for us to mine/herb/search or when it's actively trying to kill us like in every dungeon we've ever stepped foot in. Weapons hanging on the wall, braziers full of coals dangling from chains, or even something as simple as a mug of beer on a bar - as far as all of us were concerned, these might as well have been either painted on or nailed and bolted down. We couldn't use any of these things if we wanted to, so for the most part you just learned to ignore all of it.

Tyria's a bit different though. If I'm walking along and I see a boulder lying on the side of the road, I can go pick it up. When I do that, whatever skills I would've had available from my weapon are now replaced with a different set for what I'm holding (the boulder). Now some items are going to be fairly simple in how you interact with them. Not much I can do with a rock other than bash someone with it or hurling it at a target. An elementalist on the other hand sees different possibilities. He could use his magic to hurl that boulder into the air, then bring it crashing down on his foe like it was a meteor. Depending on the item and who's using it, you may see vastly different uses.

Some are a little simpler than others though. Barstools are meant to be broken over someone's head. Jars of bees are meant to be thrown at someone; I can honestly say I never thought I'd see the day when bees became artillery. Powder keg is meant to be carried over to a target and then set off. There's even wooden planks you can take from fallen Oakhearts (picture a treant), so you can smack someone around with a stick for a different effect from hitting them with your sword.

There's some skills for the different professions that create these environmental weapons. Elementalists can make Bows of Frost, Fiery Swords, and Lava Axes which can all be picked up by their party members and used against the enemy. There's also some items you can use that, while they're not weapons per se, they do give you new skills to use. If you pick up a rabbit for example, you could use it to get a speed boost. Not entirely sure how shaking around a bunny makes you faster, but I've learned not to question some of these things. Most of them make a bit more sense though, like a bucket of water letting you put out fires or a bag of feed letting you feed animals. Rather than these things just showing up in your backpack when you start a quest, you'll have to go over and pick them up to use them.

I saved the best for last though: siege weaponry. Like in Wintergrasp or Baradin Hold, we'll have access to different weapons we find in the environment like mortars and cannons. Most of us are used to seeing these in PvP only, with the sorta exception of Flame Leviathan in Ulduar and Gunship in Icecrown Citadel. For the most part though, if you stuck to killing dragons and the like, you didn't work much with siege weaponry. In Tyria we'll be seeing a fair bit more though. You'll still being seeing siege weapons in the PvP areas of the world too (I'll get to those when I have more information), but the monster-hunting crowd will get to play with them as well. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy fighting with sword and axe just as much as any warrior. There's just something really satisfying about using artillery on an enemy. That and looking at the size of the dragon in this video, a little extra firepower probably isn't a bad idea.

Whole video's good, but skip to about 1:40 if you just want to hear about siege weapons

I'll try and wrap things up here. All these posts me and the team put up about the weapons each profession gets to use? Don't take those as your checklist of things to learn. If you want to be the best at what you do, be prepared to use the tools around you. That's not to say that you'll always want to drop what you're doing and use any weapons you find around you. Just like how you'll want to use the weapon that's best for each fight, you have to learn what those environmental weapons are capable of and when it's appropriate to use them.

Most importantly of all though, if you don't know how to use environmental weapons, you'll never make it in Keg Brawl. Honestly that should be motivation enough for all of you to figure out how to use these things, but if it's not, that just means more brew for me. Gotta love a group that plays games built around a keg of ale. It's almost enough to make me go with the Norn. Almost.