The Elves of WAR: Meet the White Lion
Filed under: Fantasy, Classes, New titles, Previews, Warhammer Online
Massively continues it's pre-NDA blogging of the Elves of Warhammer Online with a look at the High Elf melee dps career, the White Lion. Wielding a ferocious axe and bonded with a lion for life, this pet class is fierce, able to take on two enemies at once or harass RvR opponents mercilessly. The White Lion can follow one of three specialty tracks, the path of the Hunter, Axeman or Guardian. Each path goes with its own special abilities and enhanced pet buff.Like all WAR careers, the White Lion receives basic abilities that span across all three paths, but by putting mastery points in a particular path, they increase the effectiveness of that path's basic abilities and can unlock additional skills, tactics and morale abilities.
The Path of the Hunter focuses equally on the White Lion and his pet. The accompanying pet buff, Trained to Hunt, grants your lion a high damage attack, an AE attack and an attack debuff. It also buffs the pet's autoattack and crit rate while giving you and your lion a chance to proc a DOT on your enemies. Highlights in the Hunter tree include Pack Hunting, a career tactic that increases your autoattack speed by 50% while you have Trained to Hunt active on your pet and Pounce which sends you leaping 20 feet in the air, inflicting damage when you land to all in the area. This is an excellent path if you want you and your pet to be strong and effective in most situations.
The Path of the Axeman is for those of you who want your lion to keep the attention of enemies while you position yourself to the side or behind them to do bigger damage. This isn't to say the lion is going to tank instances, but it will handle single mobs well in solo quests and Public Quests. Trained to Threaten is the pet buff that compliments this tree. It increases your pet's Toughness and Initiative while boosting your chance to crit if you are behind the mob. Additional abilities gained include Threatening Distraction, a career tactic that reduces the White Lion's hate generation by 75% and Cull the Weak, a high damage attack that can be used by the White Lion if the mob is under 50% health.
The final mastery tree is the Path of the Guardian. This one is for those who want go face to face with their opponents while their pet aids them in DPS. Trained to Kill is the pet buff that increases your lion's Weapon's skill and your own toughness. It also grants the lion some impressive DPS specialty attacks including one that has the lion rearing up on its hind legs and shredding the opponent with its front claws for impressive damage. Other highlights in this tree are Brutal Pounce, granting your pet's next attack extra damage as well as a stun component and Stalker, a career tactic that reduces your lion's threat generation by 75%.
Though there are specialty paths for the White Lion, they only enhance what the White Lion and his pet can already do. You will still have access to all three pet buffs regardless of what Path you specialize in. And by the time you hit the level cap of 40, you will have enough points to max out one tree, while investing a short way into the second or you can spread out your points out among all three.
No matter how you tailor your White Lion's abilities, it's an enjoyable career with a strong pet and unique abilities. The weakness of the class is that without your pet, you are not very effective, but together, you will be a force to be reckoned with in the war against the forces of Destruction.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Syl said on 5:39PM 8-10-2008
one of the class I want to play, sounds nice :)
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goatguy400 said on 11:09PM 8-10-2008
Eh.
I was really hoping for some more in-depth details about this class. This seems like more or less a regurgitation of what the official WAR site says about the class, but with some added specifics about skills.
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Larry-Steve said on 7:03AM 8-13-2008
I'm sure they would give you more if they could, as I can't either, the NDA is still up and probably won't be lifted seeing as the game is going to be released so soon.
Lol, I found it ironic that in every path your Pet comes into play. It's either you and he are balanced, he's the tank and you're DPS, or you're the tank and he's the DPS. I'm obviously using 'tank' and 'DPS' in relative terms. Anywho, it's ironic to me b/c a number of the pet classes in DAoC could completely forsake their pets, their supposed class-defining ability, for personal DPS that yielded better overall gains. Now, if you want to be a class that has a pet, you MUST use the pet. Good idea really, but the dependence on an AI pet still bugs me. They had some major issues with pets in DAoC. Hopefully they've been ironed out over the years.
I actually do like what I'm hearing and reading about the class, and it has definite potential as my main, but I'm slightly concerned as to what it has to offer its group. We see the synergy b/t master and pet, but what does that translate to in group terms for RvR? Will some of the buffs b/t the pet and master transfer to the group? Will the pet be able to tank (I know Massively has expressed doubt, but there is an NDA still on...) for the group IN RvR?
I'm just concerned that the class will be nice and good and balanced and all that jazz, but if they can't get a group b/c they can't contribute anything but DPS, it might be a lonely road for our White Lion. We'll have to wait and see...
Tim said on 11:40AM 10-02-2008
The part about not being effective without your pet is for someone who is not speced out right. My pet is usually off running around or dead and I still eat through other players. I am usually the highest or in the top 3 on total DPS in scenarios. As long as I have a good healer I am unstopable and can usually take 2 or 3 even lvl players on at a time and survive.
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