WAR: The Good, The Bad, and The Greenish

The Black Orc: Simply Smashing... Literally


By Brock "Brokain" Ferguson

OI! So's yous wants to clobbah stunties, eh? Well, do yous has wot it takes to WAAAAGH! wit' da Bloody Sun Boyz?!

Sun Tzu wrote the Art of War. Miyamoto Musashi wrote the Book of the Five Rings. Morglum Necksnapper didn't write anything at all... but he was quite the philosopher.

"The only good stunty is a dead stunty; and the only thing better than a dead stunty is a dyin' stunty wot tells yer where to find 'is mates."

So what do the three have in common? They were all masters of their art. Sun Tzu, a successful General for the Ancient Chinese state of Wu. Musashi was arguably the most famous and successful swordsman in feudal Japan. Necksnapper was a successful Warboss and of course, a Black Orc.

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'ere are my friends. 'Da Biggest, 'Da toughest, and 'Da meanest

The Black Orc is the Tank class for the Greenskins. As the goblins will tell you, "Dey da biggest, dey da meanest, and dey do one fin’ right, right well". They take damage. Lots and lots of damage. There's nothing tricky about these guys. See the target, attack the target, kill the target, move on to the next target. There's no special positioning, no set up, and no running up from behind to get an advantage. Just good old fashioned knock down, drag out fighting... which works well for Orcs as they really don't fight any other way. With the proper gear and the right Career Mastery set up, a Black Orc literally is an unstoppable killing machine requiring the attention of at least 2 or more players to bring them down. (depending on class and level, but minimum 2 from my RvR experience... unless it's me. Then a stiff breeze or a brand new level 1 character will work.)

It's important to remember to properly choose your name during creation. There has not now, nor ever will be, a Black Orc who ascends the ranks to be a Warboss who was named "Tim" or "Kermit". No, they all have names like "Ironhide" or "Neckbreaker" or "Smasha'". Taking in and following this important fact, I named my Black Orc "Broksmash". Not original or brainy, but then again, neither are the Orcs.

The Black Orcs solo extremely well, with relatively little downtime. If you can set it up to max out your damage, you'll be even better as you'll move quickly from target to target. Even when Broksmash wasn't fully geared up with armor, I was taking on sometimes three guys at a time with more adding on and no chance to rest. The only time Broksmash was even close to being in trouble was when I wandered into an area that was re-populating. I took out seven equal level mobs over the course of about three minutes, non stop. I ended with fifteen hit points left. Brocksmash was an unstoppable machine and the only thing that could make him better is if I could get two rocks into his hands.

In RvR, the properly played Black Orc can be a giant pain in the ass to the opposing team. He takes most damage pretty well, and usually has enough time to spot the offending party causing said damage and stomp them into the ground. Since you'll most likely take your biggest hits from the mage classes, your ability to soak up the damage allows you to (most of the time) take down the casters before they snuff you out. Black Orcs are not as indestructible in RvR as they are in PvE, but they're still damn tough. I liken it to Marv from Sin City when he's in the electric chair and, right after that first round of massive voltage, he looks up at you and says "Is that all you got?" While in RvR, it goes without saying that your best friend is a healer. They'll have an easier time of healing you though, based on your ability to take the punishment which may make you their best friend as well.

Your Black Orc only gets better when you start up the Paths of Mastery. This seems like a redundant statement, but trust me, it's not. Your Paths of Mastery augment your already unstoppable nature even more than one would expect.

The Path of 'Da Brawler is all about upping your DPS and enhancing your ability to dish it out. You do more damage, fights end quicker, you get on to more killing. Stacked with tidbits that increase the damage on some of your current abilities and tactics that increase your crit chances, etc, you'll quickly grow to love being a killing force.

The Path of 'Da Toughest is all about outlasting your opponent. If you's da last one left standin’, den you's gets to kill more stunties! This path is tailor made for tanks. With abilities that increase your armor for a certain amount of time, knock down your opponents, and tactics that increase your toughness, a Black Orc that masters this path will be able to quote Jack Burton, and say "...give me your best shot. I can take it!"

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'hoo's da Big Boss,eh? WAAAGH!!!

The Path of 'Da Big Boss is about group buffs and assisting the team. This path is for the Black Orcs that want to lead not just the charge, but the group. These abilities augment your group tactics and abilities because "if all da boyz is tough den we'z gunna win!"

All in all, the Black Orc is just a fun class. With abilities like "'Da Gud Plan" (described as "hit 'em") which leads up to "'Da Best Plan" (described as "hit 'em again!") you can't go wrong. Of course a little "Right in 'da Jibblies!" doesn't hurt much either... well, not you anyways. If you like tanks, chances are you'll want to WAAAGH!!! with this class.


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Last Updated: Mar 29, 2016

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