Class Info from FoH.

[Balandar]

Fires of Heaven, an EQ guild has posted a fairly long article on Priests and Warriors and Stances.

This is the first in a series of stories that I will be writing to introduce World of Warcraft character classes. I have chosen this format to give the readers a bit of a feel for the world. This short story represents the Warrior and Priest class of the World of Warcraft. It is worth mentioning that the underlying point of the story is to demonstrate one thing: Good and Evil don't make their homes within the player based on their race, but rather, what that player's mindset is in regards to the gameworld. Evil and good, after all, are relative...

Wonder if this means that some guild leaders are already in the Beta of WoW?

[Balandar]

The hulking Orc hovered above the bodies of the fallen. It would be a successful ambush, led by Warlord Aesma, Fury of Orgrimmar. Surely he would receive a feast in his honor, and perhaps someday, a monument to reflect upon his greatness; a symbol of power and fear for all of Orc-kind to see and honor.

As it turned out, one among the Humans that lay before Aesma and his clan was an outcast High Priest of Stormwind. The Warlord’s Shaman was quick to identify the figure as High Priest Shar Drakowen. Rumors had circulated amongst the Orcs that one among the Humans had been banished from Stormwind because of an immeasurable cruelty towards the muddled races - those non-Human and thus, impure. It was said that Drakowen and his followers wandered the hostile territories of Kalimdor, brutally exterminating all forms of life that had the misfortune of crossing their path. A glorious victory for the Horde, indeed.

Aesma began to rummage through the caravan, claiming first right to any treasures that may have been stowed within the wreckage. The Orc lord was stopped short, however, when he heard a faint whisper coming from the direction of the High Priest’s broken body. Aesma shook his head in disbelief. Could it be possible that the High Priest survived the surprise attack by the mighty Orc clan? It would be impossible, he thought. The High Priest had been asleep when they had attacked, caught completely off guard. Aesma would take no chances. He drew his war hammer and turned toward the body of Drakowen. As he approached the figure, he noticed that the Priest was attempting to speak … The Warlord’s men noticed slight apprehension in Aesma as he had approached the corpse and quickly took to arms. The mighty Warlord raised his fist and commanded the men to stand down. One mortally injured Human would not and could not pose a threat to the Fury of Orgrimmar. He could barely hear the words coming from the High Priest but identified them to be Orcish. Upon one knee, Aesma sank down to the bloodied and beaten body of Shar Drakowen. Still, he could not make out the words. He turned his head to face the High Priest… a mistake he would regret until the end of days.

Drakowen’s eye shot open, looking straight into the eyes of Aesma. “I claim dominion Orcling…. Today I drink in your agony…” Aesma felt his consciousness slipping, fading... He had lost control over his own body and could only watch in horror as to what would happen next. The powerful Warlord stood up and turned toward his horde. With a few mighty sweeps of his war hammer, twelve of his own were quickly dispatched. The remaining Orcs fled, running for their lives, hoping to escape the enraged Warlord’s vengeance. As the Warlord’s rage died down, he began to regain control of his body. His state of consciousness only lasted a minute, though, as he was quickly entranced by the High Priest, who was now standing proudly, a grin drawn wide upon his face. Drakowen slowly began to raise his fallen comrades, drawing intricate runes in the air over their bodies. One by one the men stood up, regaining consciousness… regaining… life. All hope was lost for the Orc. There would be no feast, no celebration in his honor - he would die here, disavowed by his own, at the hands of the Humans, whom only moments ago were corpses piled at his feet.

Drakowen had completed the final resurrections and was now walking towards Aesma. He circled the entranced Orc. Was he laughing? Aesma had never encountered such cold cruelty, something he once thought impossible considering his own upbringing. The High Priest began to speak. “I am not going to kill you Orcling. Your life will serve a far greater purpose than your death ever could. You will run back to Orgrimmar. You will tell your filthy brethren what transpired here today… For the rest of your days you will live as an outcast among your own kind… dishonored and despised… “

“Tell them I come for them, Orcling… I will drink in their agony and pain as I have in yours… the torment shall be divine…”

____________

This is the first in a series of stories that I will be writing to introduce World of Warcraft character classes. I have chosen this format to give the readers a bit of a feel for the world. This short story represents the Warrior and Priest class of the World of Warcraft. It is worth mentioning that the underlying point of the story is to demonstrate one thing: Good and Evil don't make their homes within the player based on their race, but rather, what that player's mindset is in regards to the gameworld. Evil and good, after all, are relative...

The Priest

This is not the Everquest Cleric you know and loathe. "There will be no complete heal chains in the World of Warcraft." That was one of the first things said to me last Friday as Jeffrey Kaplan (Tigole) and Rob Pardo (Ariel for those of you that know your Legacy of Steel history) demonstrated the Priest class in action. And what a show it was...

The World of Warcraft Priest shuns plate armor and instead opts for cloth. What they lose in defense, however, they make up for with some new abilities that definitely differ from any traditional cleric roles found in many other MMORGs. Most notable is the ability of the World of Warcraft Priest to use mind control on their foes. The Priest can mesmerize/entrance enemies and can also use a spell/ability to dominate the will of others. A Priest, however, is not the Enchanter of the World of Warcraft. Their crowd control ability is strictly limited. The Priest can only mesmerize one opponent at a time. Additionally, when using their Dominate ability, the priest falls into a sort of stasis or trance, unable to move or cast any spells, but instead possessing their target. When Dominating, the priest gains whatever abilities their opponent may have within their arsenal and moves/functions within the body of the enemy. Of course these spells can be resisted and the duration on the Dominate ability is still being tuned.

Naturally, the Priest shines in groups but is also able to solo with some success. Aside from different types of heals, which would fall under Holy Magic, the Priest is also able to make use of Shadow Magic. These would be Damage over Time and possibly some Direct Damage spells. Additionally, the Priest has a self rune type spell that they can cast upon themselves that allows the Priest to channel their magic through melee attacks more efficiently. This is basically a form of insurance for the Priest, allowing them to make certain their spell is cast without delay. It should be noted that spell casting classes (Priests/Mages/etc...) will be able to channel through melee normally, but the use of Holy Word Shield is a spell intrinsic to the Priest. How channeling normally works in the World of Warcraft is as such: As you begin to cast a spell you bring up a casting time bar. If you are hit while casting the spell, it does not interrupt the spell but rather it delays the casting bar for each hit that is taken by the spellcaster. There are, of course, abilities that NPCs and players alike have that can interrupt a spell outright (bash, stuns, special strikes, counterspells, etc…).

These abilities, of which I've barely touched on, as well as the ability to resurrect players at later levels and myriad other abilities and spells, are sure to make the Priest a very popular class within the World of Warcraft.

Now my personal opinion of the Priest is simply this: They kick ass. As we were porting around the world (which I will discuss in some depth in a future update - and no, it most certainly will not be so easy for the players to move around the world, we cheated) the guys (Jeffrey and Rob) put the Priest through its paces. We visited a hostile Ogre outpost where the Priest Dominated an Ogre or two and showed off some fancy moves while in the body of the fatties. They showed off some of the spells I mentioned earlier, healing, nuking, dotting, and falling back on the Priest's staff, administering some good old fashioned beatings. I also got to see some of the Priest's sight abilities, akin to Everquest's Bind Sight line - excellent utility spells for scouting and detecting some of those ambush traps I will undoubtedly be setting up to kill you in... Rule #1, never foolishly run up to a pile of gold conspicuously lying on the ground. Now I don't know if I can actually put gold or lewtz on the ground in the PvP areas, but I'll be damned if I don't try. You've seen the rule now, we both know you're not going to listen to the rule, which will inevitably result in me wearing your ears around my neck, pinned to my 'Necklace of Greedy Fool's Ears.' Don't be that guy...

The Warrior

Where to even begin? As many of you know, this is the class I play and have played for the past 5 years in Everquest. Comparing the two Warrior classes, Everquest versus the World of Warcraft, is like comparing your skinny cousin with the bad acne to Superman. World of Warcraft has a definitive advantage over Everquest, in that the classes are not as watered down and diluted, allowing for much more power to be allotted to individual classes. Sure there is another Tank class (The Paladin and to a lesser degree the Shaman and Druids can do some light tanking, but I digress) but he does not totally usurp the Warrior class, and in Warcraft our friend the Warrior is pissed off and packing something I like to call 'the pain.'

The Warrior is a class with depth. Aside from being a master of weaponry and armor, they are able to fight in three distinct stances (I was told that this may very well change, either reducing the number of stances or increasing them - it's in Alpha still people!). Additionally, a warriors special abilities come from two pools.

First are the abilities the warrior may draw upon from becoming enraged, known as gaining 'Rage.' Gaining Rage is essentially the reverse of the Spellcaster's mana bar which exists in Everquest and other MMORGs. A warrior starts at zero Rage and gains Rage totally dependant upon the stance they are in and the actions they take while in the stance (more on this to come). Rage decays when the Warrior is not in battle, resetting to zero when the Warrior is at peace (think Hulk).

The second pool with which they draw their power from are their shouts. As a warrior levels and gains power, they also gain the ability to perform shouts. Shouts can have various effects on the warrior, their group, or on the enemies they fight. One shout may increase the overall damage of your party, bolstering their spirits and weapon speed, while another shout may cause the warrior's targets to flee (something that could be very useful to the soloing warrior who gets more than he can handle while adventuring). No, you will not be able to 'twist' shouts - these are not Everquest Bards.

Naturally the warrior gets a taunt ability. Taunt in the World of Warcraft requires the use of Rage, has no effective Cooldown or refresh, and adds/builds up hate towards the Warrior instead of the train wreck which is taunt in Everquest. Speaking of Everquest, EQ Warriors should pay close attention here, if you're playing World of Warcraft, you will encounter a strange and new sensation while playing the Warrior. Once the initial shock wears off, you will realize that when you press 'Taunt' it actually taunts your opponent – it does not fail and end up doing absolutely nothing – it is always building up hate, so long as you have the necessary amount of Rage built up to make use of the ability. It's like reinventing the wheel, or as I like to call it, COMMON SENSE. Certainly high DPS classes can overaggro if they are not careful, but the World of Warcraft warrior is well equipped to deal with the absent minded mages and rogues of the gameworld. Hallelujah!

Stances

The Battle Stance: When taking a Battle Stance, the warrior is a balanced fighting machine. In this stance, the warrior gains Rage from taking damage/hits and dishing out damage. As the Rage bar builds up, the warrior is able to perform special moves and abilities which cost a certain amount of Rage. Intrigued? You should be. These abilities are many, and can range from a simple extra attack at early levels, such as kick, to as Tigole said, 'AE Whoopass' which is the Whirlwind ability, gained later on in the Warrior's life. A side note here, in Warcraft you won't ever have 5 mobs messed/crowd controlled in your camp in a normal adventure group. The warrior is meant to dish out the AE damage, taunts, shouts; trying to keep some control of the chaos which will inevitably find you and your friends. Which stance you use will be totally dependant on the situation. With all that said, the Battle Stance is something Warriors will probably use most often when soloing.

The Defensive Stance: If you're going to be tanking in your group or raid, you're going to want to be in this stance. While in the Defensive Stance, the Warrior gains Rage from taking hits. With that built up Rage, they are able to perform various abilities that bolster their defenses. Some of these abilities substantially reduce the damage taken by the Warrior, while others empower the Warrior's shield with various attacks and strikes that can cripple their enemies.

The Berserker Stance: My personal favorite and one that probably most closely resembles my style of play. In the Berserker Stance, the Warrior gains Rage from dishing out damage. As the Rage builds up, the warrior is able to unleash devastating attacks upon his opponents. The aforementioned Whirlwind being one of those abilities, Cleave being another, which allows the warrior to exert such force upon their enemy that their weapon hits and damages the poor ###### standing next to the recipient of the Cleave. The saying, "I'm gonna hit you so hard your baby's mamma gonna feel it," comes to mind... To the Warrior in a Berserker Stance that's not an empty threat, that's a promise. Believe it...

With all of these abilities and powers, and from what was shown to me in gameplay, the Warrior will be an amazing and fun class to play. Definitely another class which I will use to kill you with...

I've only barely scratched the surface of what the Warrior can do in World of Warcraft, but I am quite certain it's more than 'press 'a' to attack, 'taunt,' and '/disc defensive,' for their 3 minutes of glory.

[Balandar]

Summary

Priest Summary

- Priests do not use plated armor

- Priests can mind control one enemy at a time

- When possessing a player, the priests fall into a trance and can use the abilites of the possessed unit

- Mind control can be resisted

- Priests can cast Damage Over Time spells

- Priests may also have Direct Damage spells

- Resurrect spells come at later levels

- Priests can solo to a point. Cast possess in a field of Ogres and you will be the ogre.

- Priests also act as sights. Meaning that they can sense traps and ambushes.

Warrior Summary

- Weaponry and Armor Mastery

- Three fight stances that might change as it still is in alpha

- Two pools that act as mana (Rage and Shouts)

- Shouts can either buff you, your party or scare away baddies

- Taunts always land if you have enough rage

- In the Battle Stance the warrior gains rage from taking damage and dishing out damage

- In the Defensive Stance the warrior gains all his rage from taking hits

- In the Berserker Stance the warrior gains all his rage from the damage he deals.

General Summary

- Spell casters will be able to channel through melee

- When casting a spell, a casting time bar appears, if you are hit while casting the spell, the spell will still be casted, but will be delayed

- Bash, stuns and the like will stop the cast of spells all together

- Warriors and Paladins will be the 'tank' classes

- Shaman and Druids can also do some light tanking

[Uglutz]

Zug-Zug!!!