I may be in Mexico for a week, but don’t think that’ll prevent me from posting! I’m making a concerted effort to post regularly here, you realize. :)
Since, however, my internet connection here is painfully slow, I haven’t played WAR in a couple of days and I’m starting to feel the first pangs of withdrawal. Well, it’s either that or a hankering for another piña colada… Nonetheless, I thought I’d post about something a little more general since I’m away from the game for a few more days.
As a perennial reroller, there’s a problem that crops up for me on a regular basis when playing MMORPGs. Moreso than many other players that I know, I tend to roll pretty much every class in the game at some point or another, and play them to a reasonably high level. I consider myself a jack-of-all-trades when it comes to both gaming and my day job — dilettante is such a harsh word, don’t you think?
I’ve tried to keep my urges to play everything in WAR to a minimum (though I appear to be rapidly failing in this endeavour), ruling out pure healing classes as I don’t think they really fit my playstyle. I’ve always been attracted to DPS classes and hybrids off-the-bat, and that is probably reflected in my choice of a (current) main, the Warrior Priest. The other alts I’ve spent the most time leveling so far in WAR are (from highest to lowest level) a Swordmaster and White Lion (both in T3), and now a Knight of the Blazing Sun (currently rank 13), followed by a whole whack of other classes all in the rank 8-11 range. Whenever the PvE going gets tough, I tend to take a break and play an alt to spice things up. I don’t have the single-minded devotion many players have, who seem to be able to focus on a single class unswervingly, all the way to the level cap. The only time I ever did that was with my first character in DAOC, a Shadowblade, but even then I had some lowbie alts by the time he hit level 50.
The alt dilemma
My current dilemma is probably one that many WAR players on the Order side are facing (actually, I’d bet that Destruction players face the same conundrum, though I don’t have as much experience on that side of the fence.) I want a heavy melee/tank class in WAR, but I can’t decide which one. Having such an appealing — not to mention relatively well-balanced — selection is making life difficult. I’ve almost caved in and gone solely with cosmetic reasons for selecting a heavy tank class to play. Sigh. I was holding off on making a final decision until the Knight of the Blazing Sun was released, and now I have to figure it out before I lose my shit and end up leveling all three. :)
So, I started off with my Swordmaster, playing him to a point where I realized that (a) his armor wasn’t really going to get much better looking (sigh), and (b) his AE damage may be fun, but doesn’t really do a whole lot to win scenarios (though it sure holds aggro well in packs of PvE mobs.) Then I played an Ironbreaker for kicks to the T1 level cap, realizing after a few levels that they were also a pretty damned good class, if a little on the stocky side. Of course, I’ve documented the non-meteoric rise of my Knight of the Blazing Sun, whom I’ve been quite satisfied with thus far, though I’m concerned that the class may be up for a nerf or two when the next class balancing patch rolls around (see my previous post about this from a few days ago.)
I’ve been reading the KotBS forums over at Warhammer Alliance pretty regularly for the last little while, and I jump into the Swordmaster and Ironbreaker ones as well, though not as much. While the signal-to-noise ratio in the forums is a touch on the high side (official forums, Mark, please? kthx), it’s still probably the best non-blog source of game and class information at the present time. This helps researching the tank classes when I can’t play the game for whatever reason.
The tank comparison
What I’ve distilled the differences down to so far is what follows (based on my limited play of each class and whatever digging I’ve done beyond that, obviously.) I’ve done my best (worst?) to keep this at a high level and not to delve into numbers or heavy specifics of each class, and I’ve ignored shared tank abilities and attributes like the common rank 30 AE root, Taunt, Guard, Juggernaut, or various shared Order melee tactics.
| Swordmaster | Ironbreaker | Knight of the Blazing Sun |
|---|---|---|
| Advantages | ||
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| Disadvantages | ||
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Disclaimer: The table above is entirely subjective. I haven’t played any of these three classes to anything past Tier 3 and any further experience is based on my watching the way they’re played from my T4 character. If it’s off-base or totally innacurate, let me know and I’ll make corrections as needed. I hope it’s not, though. :)
I’m hoping my experiences with these classes, even in the lower tiers, will help folks who are in the same pickle as I am make an informed decision. Do you have any feedback on my comments, or suggestions to add to the table above? Let me know and I’d be glad to update the information I’ve listed.
