Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning Class Guides – The Chosen: MMOGrindHouse.com

Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning Class Guides – The Chosen

Wednesday, July 8th, 2009 · Filed Under age of reckoning, the land of the dead, war online, warhammer asia, warhammer build guide, warhammer job change, warhammer online

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Hailed as one of the best MMORPG, WAR (Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning) focuses on Realm versus Realm (RvR) feature where players defend their homeland, conquer realms and fight against the opposing army.

The following guide discusses what players need to know about the Chosen Class. The Chosen is the male warrior of Chaos and their allegiance belongs to the army of The Raven Host. This guide is created by Hexmaul.

The Chosen: A Beginner’s Guide to Control

Version 1.20 Updated 10/14/08
Current Patch 1.02

Contents
Section 1:The need to know
Section 2:Tanking-A Guide to being beaten up! Productively!
Section 3:Chosen RVR-Manipulation and Direction
3-A: On the Offense!
3-B: Defense! *stomp stomp* Defense!
Section 4: Abilities and Use
4-A: Core Abilities
4-B: Career Abilities
Section 5: Tactics, Career and Core
Section 6: Renown! The spoils of WAR
Section 7: Final Commentary and Credits

Credit to the amazing community here at the warhammeralliance forums for their constant sharing of information on the class and advice. It is through you and for you that I’ve compiled this guide to the Chosen. I hope this contribution helps keep the spirit alive. Any additional information and suggestions to the class guide would be well received and added in with credit due to the poster providing it.

I thought I might shed some light on the Chosen class as I know them so far in play testing and research, and submit a guide for a powerful tanking force on the battlefield. The Chosen are, in my opinion, designed from the ground up to be a powerhouse defensive character with the ability to disrupt and control masses at once with their abilities. But that is really only half the battle to be truly effective on the battlefield. The other half is having the drive to see those openings, those weaknesses presented to you and use them to direct the flow of any fight to your advantage.

More on that later though. First, let’s touch up on the basics.

Section 1: The Need to Know.

As you probably know if you’re reading this thread, there are three distinct paths to consider for your potential Chosen’s career.They are:

Dread- A pure offensive tree, focusing on improving damage with greatweapons (2handers), critical chance, and adding additional abilities for the more aggressive minded.

Corruption- The tanker’s choice, this tree is full of abilities to further strengthen your staying power in combat, long duration stuns, and should draw the attention of those looking to be a sword & shield tanker.

Discord- A tree full of abilities to counter enemy abilities. It includes healing debuff aura’s, aoe knockdowns, as well spell disruption abilities. This tree is made for people who want to insure they have a trick up their sleeve for any offense targeting them.

Now, as you know, renown aside you have 25 points to play with amongst these three paths. The choice you then must make is dependent on your choice of playstyle. Decide on what you want your strengths to be, and pick abilities and tactics that further strengthen what it is you want to excel at. Most career builds tend to focus on one tree with another tree as a minor supplement to the main tree’s ability and tactic choices. It’s important to note here, that while there are a number of very powerful and useful tactics in each tree, you have a core set of tactics in addition that are rather potent in their own right. It’s my suggestion to browse over the core tactics and find what you can’t live without, or what you would want for a pve and rvr setup and plan what career tactics you buy accordingly to how many open slots you have left to play with.
(In addition, I think it’s important to note here that using the wardb.com career builder, as well as the in game career training that you have to spend a point to buy abilities on the tree. You do not receive the ability simply by gaining enough ranks to light up the tier it is attached to.)

I can’t say I’m knowledgeable with the playstyle of a 2hander focused Chosen. I don’t like it in comparison to sword & shield setups. That doesn’t mean I have anything against the decision to specialize in greatweapons.There are already a number of heated discussions on the topic in the Chosen forums, and I’ll leave that subject to be debated there.

That said, I do have experience with the sword and shield focused play style, and this guide is devoted to detailing out what I’ve found to be effective in both pve and rvr situations.

Section 2: Tanking-A Guide to being beaten up! Productively!

To begin with, I want to describe the sword and shield playstyle to better explain how it works within Warhammer online. Unlike most MMO’s, a shield does not add additional armor to your character’s armor rating. Armor rating is exclusively what you have equipped on your character’s body. In that regard, you will notice that for the Chosen, most pieces of equipment have armor ratings comparable to what your chest piece has. Far more than most traditional mmo’s or rpg’s in general would grant gloves, shoulder pads, helms etc. This means that a 2hander wielding Chosen is entirely capable of matching the armor class of a defensive sword/shield equipped Chosen.

That said, you may be asking yourself. “Well, why not use a greatsweapon Hexmaul?” The difference is that the greatweapon only grants the ability to negate attacks with parry, which to my knowledge is only capable of triggering in response to melee based attacks. A shield on the other hand, in addition to the same parry chance, has the ability to block ALL types of attacks at a significantly high rate. Yes, spells, special abilities, auto attack strikes, arrows, bullets, knives, pointed sticks. All of it. As far as block chance goes, properly equipped currently my Chosen is enjoying roughly a 19% block rate against incoming attacks. This is what makes a sword & shield setup shine, essentially a 1/5 chance that each attack directed at you will simply be blocked. With renown point upgrades, I’m confident that my example block rate could be at least 12% higher if you include the Defender tier 3 renown ability.

Now, a 1/5 chance to block still leaves a reasonable chance to take a hit, and that is where armor rating and toughness come into play. For a sword & shield setup, these stats are king. As toughness reduces the dps of all damage received, it is key to keep this stat as high as possible. At time’s I’ve vouched to take a piece of armor with lower armor rating than what I had currently, simply because it granted a substantial amount of toughness.

Finally, wounds. What tank would hold their head high without an impressive amount of hp after all? Hp is important, yes, but not so much as it was in other games within the mmo genre. In previous games, HP defined the tank, followed by armor, and then any additional threat mechanics or boosts. However, it’s my opinion that while a solid hp pool is important, it’s priority has shifted with the mechanics in play for tank types. With that in mind, I’ve set a series of priorities as far as tanking potential is concerned that I think works well for the tank oriented Chosen.

Block>Mitigation>Health

The reason behind this is the way damage is or isn’t taken. In most games, block chance was a somewhat common chance, but not very often. In that setting, hp and armor was king as I mentioned, and was more or less solely the reason that character could tank to begin with. Here however, the block rate is at such a high percent chance to successfully negate an attack, and any attack for that matter, that it has become an absolute top priority for any aspiring tank in my opinion. The higher your block rate, the more damage you negate entirely, and the more it takes to even hit you much less bring you down. So with that in mind, it is my strong suggestion that your shield be the first piece of equipment you upgrade at any opportunity to do so.

After your shield comes Mitigation. This is achieved through Armor and Toughness. Now Chosen benefit from wearing heavy armor, and lots of it. No other armor type will match the armor rating you will achieve as a tank. And our armor comes in all flavors of stat bonuses, and this is where you further define yourself as a tank. It’s very important to make sure that what your wearing grants you the most armor and toughness possible for you within your range of options. If those renown boots have somewhat more armor than what you have now, but significantly less toughness or none whatsoever, I would lean toward passing on it. After all, what you need to do your job is lowered dps on you from your opponents, and that’s exactly what armor and toughness does. It’s also important to note that toughness reduces the dps from all sources, not just direct melee. That means in raising toughness, you’re raising your spell damage mitigation as well.

Finally, Health! Yes I remembered! Health comes most noticeably with levels, and at max level you will have more health than those you’re protecting at a base level, and any extra wounds you can get to increase that is all the better. I would not take wounds over armor or toughness, but if it comes with those stats or I have the option of trading a minor amount of toughness for a significantly higher amount of wounds in an armor slot… Sure, I’ll take the wounds. But only in those cases. Mitigation and avoidance is the name of the game here, and I promise you we do it well. Wounds have become a topic of recent debate on the Chosen forums, with the current state of toughness and how it determines damage received, and many Chosen are now opting to focus on wounds for certain high damage situations where dps is coming in large blows versus longterm smaller damage. Time will tell if this setup is superior, or viable as the game and levels progress, and I’ll do my best to make sure this guide reflects the best possible methods of stat stacking.

Now then.. The boring tank mechanics lecture is over! You made it through the novel so far and if you’re reading this now I appreciate your endurance, you have the strong will to push through! That’s the makings of a fine tank personality! On to the good stuff, the tactics, abilities and strategies specific to Chosen.

Section 3: Chosen RVR-Manipulation and Direction

The Chosen have a role as a tank class unique to them in my opinion within the game. Our abilities focus on not only single target control, threat and damage abilities, but also area effect abilities as well. These include our various auras, ranged knockdowns, area effect bursts around us, etc. The trick, the real challenge is to not only use them, but use them in a way that makes your opponents close to you regret it, and those at a distance very inclined to keep their distance. Your job is to make it very clear that where you are is the last place they and their party want to be, and make it clear that they have to get through you to get to the people you intend to protect.

To accomplish this, first and foremost you need to see what you’re facing and decide on the aura’s that will benefit you the most in the encounter. Is it a melee heavy group? A strength/toughness combination would likely be best. Casters mostly? I would use resists/backlash aura’s. If it’s a mix of both, in my opinion you can’t go wrong with resists/toughness. The beauty of the aura system is that in most cases, what protects you the most from your opponent will usually debuff their strengths against you. What’s a caster to do against a Chosen who has increased his resistances and guaranteed retribution damage against all spells, while lowering the caster’s resistances in the process? How much damage is that melee dps class going to do to you when you’ve increased your toughness and strength, while decreasing their toughness and strength in the process? These are the basic tools of the trade, linked into a mechanic called twisting.

Twisting is simple in concept, but can prove difficult in practice. The idea behind twisting is to keep two aura effects going on yourself at all times. The way this is accomplished is built into the mechanics of the aura’s in that they persist 12 seconds after the aura is canceled or a different aura is activated. But their cooldown time is 4.5 seconds. What this means is you can keep alternating two aura’s as they begin to fade in their 12 second lingering duration, and keep them going on you at all times. Now there is a lot of debate on the practicality of this technique and how much benefit it really gives. I’m not going to say there’s a right or wrong here, if you don’t want to do it, don’t. It won’t necessarily cripple your ability overall. I do when the situation calls for it. Generally speaking, I tend to leave toughness on all the time until I get into direct combat, and after identifying my primary threats, I twist a second aura with it to counter my opponents. This technique becomes even more viable later with one of our core tactics which makes aura’s have no AP cost whatsoever.

Now that aura’s have been covered, its time for tactics! The fun stuff!

I’d describe the job of a Chosen in RVR as a mix of flailing hooligan, unwavering guardian, and tactician all in one armor clad package. Regardless of the job variation mentioned previously the ultimate goal is to prevent your opponents from doing their job by doing your job. Block those close quarter fighters from getting where they need to be. Knock that pesky healer to the ground, or bat him away entirely. Charge those casters and keep them focused on you and not the members of your team that can burst damage them into the dirt. Snare, stun and cripple the tanks that are doing all they can to make it to their team members in time. Be aggravating, persistent and relentless. Remember, every enemy player you goad into a death wish of killing you is -not- killing anyone else, and that is exactly what you want.

Section 3-A: On the Offensive!

Don’t let anyone by you without a snare, a dot, or any other horrible affliction you can bestow upon them when charging at an opposing enemy charge. If any one of them turns to take you on in retaliation that’s one less member who is a threat to your team. Remember, you can take the punishment, they can’t.

Give the enemy tanks a reason to pay attention to you! Keep their toughness and resistance down with your aura’s, nail them with snares stuns and cripples. Anything to make them deal with you. The more you have their attention, the less likely that tank is going to notice the Marauders, Witch Elves and other nasties of destruction going by.

Don’t be afraid to go to great lengths to stand out as a tank. Dye your armor ridiculous colors if you have to. The more people are looking at you the more they’re inclined to attack you. If you charge into battle as the bright yellow and pink herald of tzeentch I promise you the enemy attention is going to be on you for standing out like a sore thumb, and just think how easy the more squishy players on your side will be able to find you like that too!

Change your aura’s to suit the strengths of your team when a mass battle erupts! Lower the toughness of your enemies when they’re dealing with melee dps, drop their resists if your team is mostly casters. Reduce their healing by 25% if you spec’d for it when their health starts to drop.

Ambush, Ambush, Ambush! Wait behind rocks, buildings, cliff sides, anything that can block their line of site to you where you expect them to have to travel. Once your victims come through, find the squishy and lay into them. You’ll be amazed how many places you can hide simply because many players do not look behind them much or at all.

Timing is key. It’s very easy to get in a no cooldown ability spamming fest when fighting someone, but knowing you have the ap to land a stun against that opponent in the key moment is just as deadly if not more so in the right moments. Don’t be afraid to have reserved AP in the middle of a fight. Having the use of your abilities when your opponent is all but empty can make the difference in a victory or death.

Standards! No, not the moral variety, the flag kind! Chosen make, in my opinion, the best possible standard bearers. With our aura active prior to deploying the standard, your group can enjoy both buffs while the rest of your allies receive the banner bonuses. Don’t be afraid to bring a banner out in the scenario battles either. 30% ap regen can make or break a stronghold defense team’s ability to hold off an enemy attack.

When on the offensive with a fellow tanker, don’t be afraid to pop guard on each other. At 21, and with a guild chosen at 20 with me, with guard up we stood fighting at the enemy flag stand of Pheonix Gate for 8 minutes straight supported by a single lvl 16 shaman. With our combined mitigation and guard spreading the damage it went on forever, and proved to be extremely effective in tieing up an entire team against us and allowed for many flag captures during that time.

On the subject of Guard, at any point that you’re attempting to capture an objective that requires an uninterrupted channeling to achieve, it’s in your best interests to drop guard on your current defensive target. The damage they receive can and will stop your capture, and that can make a huge difference in the outcome of scenarios and objective capturing.

Realize that your ability to completely negate and reduce the damage that is directed to you is such that you can survive dropping into the midst of a large group of enemy players and cause all flavors of havoc, while still having the staying power to make it out too. Disrupt those pockets of enemies that are on the edge of charging in. The fact that they aren’t just means they already are unconfident in their success in doing so, and startling them with a quick aggressive maneuver into the midst is often enough to send them running. Especially if you kill their weaker members in the process.

Section 3-B: Defense! *stomp stomp* Defense!

Now for the moments that sword & shield Chosen really shine in.

Try to be the team leader out there. Granted there’s no military Barrett on your head, but know that you are the front line. Melee dps need you to keep their attention to get in there and do their job. Caster classes need you to play linebacker and make sure they stay safe. Healers know your guard ability can make them nigh unkillable on the field. And everybody loves a free buff or two from your auras. They need you up front, which tends to make your routes and attacks lead the rest into joining. Understanding this, call out incoming, keep people from overextending if you see it starting to thin out too much on your front line. Guide them to fall back if the situation calls for it. After all, a successful push against the enemy is inevitably going to lead you to their safe haven of guards and that is always a losing battle. Call out to fall back and lead them away from their safety into their doom.(Having said that, the above does not translate into dictate everyone’s job to them in all caps. I see too many tanks trying to tell everyone else how to do their job as part of a group or raid, and more often than not it is them who are lacking in their ability to perform their own duty as a tank. On that note, the highway to no heals is to detail a healer’s job to a healer. Don’t do it unless it’s very apparent that they are not watching you on the brink of death -if- they should be.)

Don’t be afraid to negate doing damage so that you can use hold the line as long as you can. If the situation calls for it, for example a heavy enemy advance, or bolstering a front line of your own, right down to a guarded retreat. Hold the line has many, many uses. Our damage isn’t our strong point, eating and negating their damage is.

Guard the squishies. If you don’t have a guard target, find one.Guard the Healers if they’re being targeted, and in most cases even if they aren’t. You want them to know you’ve got their back when it gets rough, and in doing so they’ll be more inclined to keep a close eye on your health. But don’t be afraid to guard melee dps, offensive casters, even other tanks! Use it at any opportunity on the most logical target.

Snare anyone that even looks like they’re trying to run past you to someone else. A snared dpser is just a walking target for casters to kite and kill while you keep them slowed and helpless to the damage.

Repel repel repel! Use it, love it, use it more! This ability is king for singling out enemies from their group, knocking overextending keep defenders into a sea of angry from the ramp, sending poor fools to fiery deaths in lava and pits. The list goes on. Just be sure you don’t knock someone to safety or into someone who’s hurting on your side.

And finally, the most noble of moments we evil incarnate chaos warriors will ever truly have, charge in to your death if it means the difference in saving your team. If you can prevent that scenario capture point from falling into enemy hands long enough to have it captured to your side, or for reinforcements to arrive and protect it, go for it! Fight them with all you have and keep them locked down until you die. I promise it will take them quite a while to do that.

Section 4: Abilities and Use

I’m going to make it clear that my personal experience with the abilities available to a Chosen extends to rank 24. Anything beyond that level I will admit is a mix of speculation, combat theory, past mmo experience extending to the release of everquest, and heavy research into the Chosen’s abilities as a whole. Any input into the rest of the abilities, both theory or more so beta experience with the template characters would be greatly appreciated to add in this guide.

The Chosen seem to start out a bit lack luster with the first few levels of skills. I was a bit uncertain of my choice as a tank until I reached level 7 and obtained my first true threat management ability Taunt which I will get to in a bit. For those in the early steps of the Chosen class, stick with it! It gets drastically more powerful and fast after that point.

Anyway, Onward to the abilities!

Section 4-A: Core Abilities

Throw Axe-This is an excellent utility ability and is very under-used in my opinion. It’s perfect for harassing an enemy front line, weakening a fleeing enemy you can’t quite catch, and pulling general mobs to your party.It can be used on the move too! It’s real potency though is it’s ability to be a ranged finisher. This is what you spam on that pesky enemy you have just about dead as he’s fleeing to the guards. It has a chance to deal a lethal blow to the victim if they’re around 10-15% health. I’ve had it happen myself quite a few times and each time was extremely satisfying. After all, no one likes losing a kill they almost had.

Enraged Blow-Your bread and butter aggro gaining attack and your first melee attack with no cooldown. In the early days, this unfortunately isn’t enough to hold aggro against heavy dps casters in my experience. It can and will make for annoying situations in the early public quests for example. It won’t be long though until Taunt, and this skill does work exceptionally well as filler threat management between Taunt’s 10 second cooldowns. Endure for now, and consider it a damage ability for the most part.

Dreadful Fear-Your first aura, and a very good one too! This is an excellent tanking aura choice as it increases your strength and more importantly decreases the enemy strength, which lowers the damage they deal to you in the process.Any melee dps will love you for buffing them with it. No reason to have this inactive at any point in a fight until you get your next aura. I think its important to note here that auras will aggro enemies you haven’t hit yourself within the range of the effect since it will debuff them. If you’re aiming to skirt past a few mobs unnoticed I would turn any aura you have on off first.

Seeping Wound-This is going to be a very often used ability. Hotkey it somewhere convinient. It makes for an excellent opener until you get Tooth of Tzeentch, which I tend to use first and then this after it. This particular ability also has a career tactic associated with it which causes it to damage anyone healing the target with the dot on, which is all the better if the enemy you hit with it is a healer! One of the many control abilities a Chosen has available.

Corrupting Wrath-Your second Aura, and once again a very good one too. This is the definite tanking aura, as you always want as much toughness as possible when taking on a heavy damage dealing opponent. In the case of melees opponents this aura combined with Dreadful Fear makes for a very good damage mitigation combo as it increases your damage absorption and lowers their damage potential. In addition, it’s a perfect choice for helping your more squishy allies survive longer with the added boost to their toughness too!

Ravage-Your second no cooldown melee attack ability! This one will quickly become your attack of choice for general dps use. It boasts higher damage than Enraged blow, and does spiritual damage instead of physical to boot with only a 5 AP cost increase versus Enraged Blow. To my knowledge, being that it deals spiritual damage, it negates any armor absorption though toughness still applies as always.

Tooth of Tzeentch-Now your damage will shine more than before. This attack triggers damage to the opponent on your next attack, as well as the next attack made by your party members within I believe a 5 second window from the time you strike your opponent with it. I noticed in RVR that this ability flooded my target with damage numbers with my group focus firing them once it was applied. It also has proven to be a valuable threat management tool, and a consistent opening attack for me in combat shortly followed by seeping wound.

Discordant Instability-Your resist aura, at long last you’ve come to the anti caster aura brand. This is a standard choice for me in any mass combat situation where I’m expecting or am already recieving enemy caster fire. This along with our toughness aura makes a huge difference in your survivability versus the glass cannon casters. A definite core use Aura along with the previous two.

Taunt-Now you’re in business tank wise! This is the end all of any threat issues you’ve had up to this point. This ability pulls aggro to you causing a pve target to ignore all other players threat for 15 seconds or three hits to you, whichever happens first. It has a 10 second cooldown and a very low AP cost at a meager 20 AP. I’ve found this ability to be an excellent pulling tool as it insures the mob gets to me without any trigger happy dps drawing aggro before it arrives, and at the range this ability allows it’s highly likely the 10 second cooldown will be over by the time it hits you 3 times. It’s vital to use this ability along with smart positioning and distancing yourself and the mob from your party so that it has to run a reasonable distance to reach anyone that may aggro it. Doing so gives you precious extra seconds should it still be on cooldown before that party member is in trouble. In addition, should the cooldown be up and Taunt is usable, its ideal to use it in my experience as the mob is about half way to the person aggroing it so that you stall the target as much as possible to guarantee Taunt will be off cooldown by the time it reaches you and the three attacks occur. It’s very useful in rvr and pve for the 30% damage increase it grants you, and I find that I get the greatest use of the bonus damage against players who aren’t directly attacking me to ride out the full 15seconds of bonus damage.

Cleave-Another melee ability with no cooldown, cleave is a unique attack. In it’s previous version it acted as an armor debuffer, now it has evolved to be very potent. It’s current form has shed it’s armor debuffing feature in trade for an undefendable attack. This is the ability to use against enemy tanks to negate their ability to block, and it works wonders being spammable to boot. Unfortunately it also has an increased AP cost of 40, making it more costly than either of your other spammable attacks thus far. I keep this hotkeyed but I only use it over Ravage if my opponent has a shield to block my abilities with, otherwise it’s Ravage all the way.

Dizzying Blow-Your first snare ability. This is the point in your Chosen career when you no longer have to lumber around behind your target unable to catch up. Certainly not a main dps ability, it does a fair amount none the less as well as snaring the target by 40%. This is more than enough to keep up with them easily, and since the cooldown is shorter than the duration of the snare, you can keep your target locked down with snare constantly. Definitely an ability worth having in an easy to reach hotkey

Guard-Now you have the ability to truly protect an ally. This is one of the defining features of a tank class, allowing the tank to take 50% of the guarded target’s damage in their stead, and in pve granting the tank 35% of the target’s threat. If you’ve still had any aggro issues with healer/dps classes up to this point, Guard them, and you should have little to no issues with it from there on. Use this ability constantly in any rvr situation. Protect the dps casters, the healers, the melee dps…guard another tank! Also, and this is something I haven’t confirmed, but I’ve read accounts that the damage recieved through guard can be blocked. If this is true or patched in the current state of the game I’ll need to test to be sure. If anyone can confirm this I’d be very grateful.

Hold the Line!-This is the ability that really takes a bit to master, but can greatly turn the tides when used properly. It has no cooldown, a 12 second duration, and a cost of 20AP/second to use. Activating it grants a 45% dodge and spell disruption rate to the Chosen, and a 15% rate to allies behind him within 40feet. However, for the duration of the effect you cannot attack and using any ability will immediately cancel the effect. Since the benefits to allied players stacks, should it happen that 3 tanks use it at once, the combined stacked bonus for those behind them would total 45%. This is the ability to use to guarantee a full charge makes it to the enemy, and to bolster your own front line against an inevitable charge of enemy players.

Discordant Fluctuation-Another Aura to add to your list, making a total of 4. This is when your arsenal of aura abilities really becomes whole, as up to this point there wasn’t any complimentary aura for our resist aura. The two combined are a solid choice to twist against a caster, as it lowers the damage you take and backlashes with damage against your opponent just for casting. For heavy discord focused Chosen this aura will be even more powerful in situations against magic users.

Withering Blow-Another melee strike ability to add to your arsenal, this attack unfortunately has a 10second cooldown associated with it, and is not quite as potent as the previous melee abilities gained so far. However it does drain AP from the opponent, and it should be noted that this ability has a tactic associated with it within the dread tree that grants the Chosen 40ap when it hits. With the AP cost at 35 in it’s current state, that makes it not only a free attack, but grants 5 free AP for using it. Arguably worth it depending on your career build, whether or not to invest in that tactic for Withering blow is a matter of personal choice.

Repel-Finally a knockback! No more being taunted by that engineer smiting you like a golf ball away from the front line. Repel is without question one of the most useful abilities for a Chosen going for a tanker setup. This gets that melee dps off your healer, this knocks that tank out of your way, and makes for wonderful amusement in general. And all for 35 AP, with decent damage just to sweeten the deal. This ability also has tactics applied to it, one within the corruption tree which reduces its fairly hefty cooldown time from 20seconds to 10, as well as reducing its cost from 35AP to a meager 20AP. The other tactic does not require any career points spent, and grants a 10 second buff to the Chosen that reduces the armor penetration of enemy players attacking him by 100%. Many sword & shield chosen pick the career tactic for this particular ability and with good reason too! To gain a reduced cooldown and a reduced ap cost in a single tactic for something as useful as Repel is a bargain in my opinion. *You should know that repel has a very small arc as far as airtime goes for a knockback, and any incline or bump in terrain behind your target will stop them from going any further. It’s best used to knock your opponent downhill or off objects like keep ramps and high rises in terrain.*

Juggernaut-Pop this when that bright wizard has you locked down, or when you find yourself spammed with snares holding a flag or objective item. Since it carries a huge cooldown, it’s best in my opinion, to wait until your enemies use their cooldown hold/snare abilities and then pop this to insure you don’t have any more hold abilities waiting on you.

Blast Wave-This ability in my opinion includes both offensive and defensive uses. Offensively, it provides an option for complete aoe damage around you, as well as a very very strong resistance debuff to cripple your opponents against your team’s caster types. Defensively, the enemy knowing you can and will use this against them in close quarters is one more reason for them not to close the distance. And that is a pretty big distance to stand back, a reasonable 30feet from the Chosen. Even without having any points in discord, this ability is by far worth using. The quickened discord tactic further improves this already impressive ability by reducing it’s cooldown by an additional 5 seconds, bringing it from a base 15second cooldown to a 10second cooldown.This makes for an excellent aoe taunt ability providing you have a discordant aura up, as the debuff provides a lot of threat. Without the resistance, backlash, or discord career 25% healing reduction aura active it will simply do a low damage aoe, and the effects of the debuff do not stack with our resistance aura.

Corrupting Retribution- Another career point free aura to add to the arsenal. This particular aura grants our first and only ability to heal ourselves by negating damage through defending against attacks, which we do quite well with our shield. This ties in well to the playstyle of a defensive tank Chosen in theory, however the benefits to using this aura over some of our previous aura choices is debatable. Having playtested this aura in rvr and pve situations, I really cannot recommend it to be used outside of novelty or minor healing boosts to solo pve grinding. In it’s current state there are plenty of other aura’s that trump the minor benefits of this ‘healing’ aura. Given that it heals over time, the small bit you do get from this aura triggering isn’t going to be noticable against any dps that would be considered threateningly strong.

Challenge- A directional aoe version of Taunt. While costing 10AP more than the single target Taunt, for a total of 30AP, it certainly pulls it’s weight for the additional price. Using the same 15seconds or 3 hits mechanic as Taunt, it reduces the damage of the enemies you taunt by 30% instead of increasing your own damage against them for the same amount. This gives it a tactical use in reducing the damage of whole groups of opposing players and mobs alike. However, as the mobs are forced to hit you which will break the 3 hit limit very quickly I expect the full benefit of the damage reduction will see its potential reached in rvr where you can taunt one group and then face a different one to maximize the full 15 second debuff effect. It’s important to note the cooldown on challenge is 30 seconds, so it will need to be used wisely to keep that from being an issue when things go wrong.

Sever Blessing-This is pretty straight forward.It deals some damage and removes a blessing from your target if they have one. This is your answer to any healer you’re facing getting his health back from any kind of heal over time. Spam it on them constantly and they’ll die quickly. An excellent anti-healer counterpart to our healing reduction aura.

Dreadful Agony-This is a pure offensive aura. Granting no benefit to the Chosen or friendly units, it effectively makes you a walking dot to all enemies within your aura range. While the damage it deals isn’t tremendous, it is damage none the less. Even canceling the aura immediately would allow the damage to tic 4 times within the 12 second lingering effect of the aura. For 20ap spent, the damage/ap ratio isn’t bad at all, especially since it acts as a fire and forget dot lasting as long as you allow it to for the 20AP cost. The downside to this is as I mentioned earlier, it does nothing to benefit the Chosen or his allies stats in any form and takes up a slot in your aura twisting that otherwise could benefit your survival. It’s because of this that actively using this aura over the more defensive aura choices available at this point in your career may not be advisable for pure staying power in heavy combat. It’s ironic that heavy combat is where this aura would do the most possible damage. This aura will shine in flag defense, with a damage tic every 3 seconds, it will make it nigh impossible to pick up any flag based objectives in scenario’s and so on.

Suppression-This attack is unique amongst your core abilities in that it increases your damage negating ability considerably in using it. While its damage is not as high as some of the other core attacks which boast instant cooldown, non-physical damage, and undefendable properties, it does come with a free buff. Suppression grants you an additional 25% boost to your parry chance, which lasts for 15seconds. There is also a core tactic available for use with this skill which adds a bonus effect of lowering your opponents ability to defend against attacks by 10% for 10 seconds, which may add further interest into this ability for some players. The real beauty of the ability is that the cooldown to use it again is only 10seconds, leaving a 5 second window for you to use it again to keep the parry bonus active on yourself. An all around excellent ability for any breed of Chosen, giving the greatweapon focused players an increased damage negating chance, and those with a shield an even greater ability to entirely stop incoming damage from melee sources.

Petrify-Commenting on this ability is difficult given that the range is not listed. However, as a tank, any ability to hold even a single opponent in place is a huge tactical advantage. Petrify holds four at once! There are so many uses for an ability like this in defending your back line, saving your healers, stopping enemies low on health from running in time. The list goes on and on. Petrify only costs 30AP for all its power but shares the highest cooldown of Chosen abilities, along with Juggernaut, at 60seconds. It goes without saying to use this when you need it and to hotkey it somewhere that it won’t be accidentally triggered in times of panicky button mashing.

Bane Shield-A self buff damage shield for 10 seconds. While dealing a good amount of spirit damage per hit received for the 35AP cost, the duration in comparison to the cooldown makes this ability another tactical choice of when to use it to its full potential. Also, this is reactive to melee damage, so keep that in mind when in combat. There are two tactics that will further increase the effectiveness of this ability. A tier 3 corruption career tactic Dire Shielding (which curiously can be gained well before Bane Shield) that allows the effect to benefit friendly players within 30 feet, and a core tactic Baneful Shielding which increases the duration of the damage shield by 7 seconds.Whether or not two tactics are worth it to bring this ability to its full potential is a matter of personal taste. I won’t be using either in my tactic sets. As of now, it seems that many Chosen are reporting the damage Bane Shield delivers is often 50% or less of what the tooltip damage indicates. Still worth using, but I thought it was worth noting none the less.

Touch of Palsy-The final core ability for the Chosen, and well worth the wait. Touch of Palsy acts as an ‘or else’ snare ability, limiting their movement through threat of damage instead of slowed movement speed. Lasting for 10 seconds, the effect will trigger every half second the target is in motion for a maximum potential of 20 damage tics. With the cost at a surprisingly low 30AP, and a 20 second cooldown, the over all potential for this ability is amazing. Use it before that opponent starts to run for safety, use it in combination with Repel to knock an opponent away and punish them with damage if they try to run back, use it against classes that rely on positional attacks to make them think twice about skirting around you or their opponent to get their full damage. The list goes on and on.

Currently it appears a good number of our abilities, both core and career, are relying on Int as a parent stat to determine the success of the attack. For example, blast wave seems to benefit more from Int in regards to the debuff applying to opponents. It’s my hope that this will be fixed in the near future, but in the mean time I’ll do my best to document which abilities are having that situation applied to them as they are now.

Section 4-B: Career Abilities

Since I’m making this guide primarily for the sword & shield setup, I’m not going to be detailing the Dread Tree as it doesn’t have a lot to benefit a defensive damage mitigation setup in my opinion, with the debatable exception of Relentless for a burst-ish damage option. However, high damage isn’t the focus of a pure tank type, and simply being a juggernaut of defense will allow you to deal overall a surprising amount of damage nonstop. Also, discord offers a tremendous bonus to spell disruption, resistance and counters which are just as important as being able to soak up melee easily.It is that reason that I suggest the Corruption & Discord career trees for a pure tanker to invest in.

I want to also make it a point to mention again that when designing your career build, you should know that simply reaching the tier an ability is on does not give you the ability. You must reach the tier and then spend an additional point to buy the ability by clicking it. Many players new to WAR make this mistake when designing their build on the wardb.com career tool.

Corruption

Corrupting Horror-(Tier 5, 6 points to obtain) This is another aura that is purely offensive. It grants no benefits to the Chosen or friendly units directly but does slow your opponents ability build time. Instant abilities become 0.5 seconds, 3 second heals become 3.5 seconds. This aura is made for skill push back and nothing else. Whether or not it makes the cut in a career build is purely player preference. Perhaps twisted with the 25% reduced healing effect of Discordant Turbulence would make for an anti-healer combination, but I won’t be taking this aura in my career build as the benefit of increasing ability build time isn’t as high a priority as soaking damage is to me.

Downfall-(Tier 9, 10 points to obtain) A major tool in single target control for the Chosen. For 30AP a melee target can be knocked to the ground for a considerable 4 seconds, with a 20second cooldown attached to the ability. This will be a key skill in minimizing potential threats, stopping spellcasts and heals, stopping inbound melee dps going for your less armored allies, etc. The main reason I like this skill so much though is the ability to open up an opponent to 4 seconds of unanswered damage, which translates to even more staying power as a tank. 4 seconds of no incoming damage while being able to continue beating on your target is huge. Well worth the investment in my opinion even if Downfall is as far as you go in Corruption. For a tank, any abilities that completely ceases incoming damage potential is an excellent choice.

Oppression-(Tier 13, 14 points to obtain) Oppression is the only other ability that requires a shield outside of Hold the Line, and the only career ability that will increase your armor. It has a prerequisite of a successful block or parry, and boasts a tremendous boost to armor when used in addition to moderate damage. In addition, the opponent takes a debuff which increases their build time by 1 second for 10 seconds while you enjoy a whole 20 seconds worth of extra armor. All this for the cost of only 30 AP. It’s important to note here that the buff duration is exactly the same as the cooldown set at 20seconds which combined with the already high block/parry chance of a sword & shield setup guarantees a lot of use out of this ability. Oppression is the pinnacle of the Chosen’s tanking offensive ability line up in my opinion. Much like Blast Wave, this ability requires a corruption aura to be active for the build time debuff to take effect.

Discord

Discordant Turbulence-(Tier 5, 6 points to obtain) This is the only real offensive aura available to a Chosen to combat enemy healers (excluding seeping wound as it needs an additional career tactic to backlash against healers). The aura itself once again grants no benefit to the Chosen or allies directly, but instead reduces all healing effects on enemy players within the aura range by 25%. This makes it an excellent control debuff, and arguably the only career aura worth the investment. Many heavy discord Chosen take this aura in their line up to focus more on anti caster abilities.

Quake-(Tier 9, 10 points to obtain) My favorite of all the career abilities available to a chosen and also the single most expensive to use, sporting a massive 45AP cost. Quake is a monster knockdown ability, boasting a 65 foot range directional attack that deals low damage but knocks all enemies within the effect down for 2 seconds, with only a 20 second cooldown. The tactical use for this ability reaches to all corners of offense and defense. From holding chokepoints, to halting advances, knocking down enemy front lines in a full charge and stopping casters behind a wall of tanks. Creativity in using Quake is going to make the Discord focused Chosen very hard to counter.

Tzeentch’s Reflection-(Tier 13, 14 points to obtain) Another tool in the anti-caster line up of the Discord focused Chosen, Tzeentch’s Reflection grants the Chosen a 25% spell disruption chance as well as a huge boost to willpower for 10 seconds. During this time any spell disrupted will silence the offending caster for 3 seconds. With a low AP cost of only 20, but a fairly high cooldown rate of 30seconds, this ability should be used wisely against enemy casters to maximize it’s benefit and avoid being without the extra protection the ability provides when it’s needed most. Stacked with the disruption bonus of Hold the Line, your base disruption chance would be an impressive 70%, which amounts to a 70% silence chance against enemy casters.

As you can see there are many options and specialties available to the Chosen deciding to tank, all depending on what abilities and tactics you want to make your methods of tanking the most successful. Some Tanks prefer to focus very heavily in one tree, taking most and sometimes all of the available abilities and tactics with enough points to increase another tree in a minor way. Others mix their Focus into two careers, picking specific strengths from both to maximize their favored abilities. It all boils down to the playstyle and method that suits you. There is no “Best” build, there is only the best suited to you. It’s because of that reason I’m not going to list prebuilt career sets here. I’m not trying to play your character for you after all, just help explain the various aspects so that you can customize your own Chosen to your own methods!

Section 5: Tactics, Career and Core

Tactics are a tricky subject to really offer advice for. I’ve found through talking to my friends in beta, outside of the game, and reading the forums that everyone has their own ideas for what tactics are worth taking and what tactics aren’t. The reason for this is the same reason I mentioned above: everyone’s “best” is unique to them. I would suggest using the wardb.com career tool, and exploring the various tactic sets you can create with the core tactics and any tactics you have in mind to obtain in the careers and see what works best for you. Obviously there are some tactics which are not counter productive to tank focused Chosen, and I could explain all the reasons why, but reading the details of the tactics should be enough.

I can offer this advice though. As I mentioned earlier toward the beginning, pick out the core tactics you really can’t live without first and then decide on your career tactics knowing how many slots you have open to accommodate them. This will keep you from having wasted points if your tactic setup doesn’t allow you to use all your tactics at once if that is your intention.

Section 6: Renown! The spoils of WAR (clever eh?)

Ahh Renown points. The fine tuning of any warhammer character. This is really where you get to set your strengths and weaknesses as you see fit. There are all kinds of combinations you can do, a wide variety of stats you can enhance, and the choices are hard to make. Do you spread your renown out over many stats to increase your overall ability? Or do you focus on a few stats to make yourself exceptionally strong at one thing? This choice I leave to you. Just remember what tanks do well, and what they don’t do well. Avoid things like dodge bonuses and such, leave that for the high dps dodge based melee types.

Section 7:Final Commentary

Without a doubt I can say that the Chosen has to be one of the most complex classes I’ve ever played in an MMO. I believe their potential as a tank is tremendous, and I hope that reading this guide I’ve put together here will help those unsure if the class is for them or not and better understand what we do and how we do it. We are the front line, we are the wall that defends our allies, and the head of the charge when we attack the enemy lines. Our abilities extend to combat opponents of all types, and given the proper player skill, quick decisions and the right abilities we can do our job in nearly any situation.

In doing our job, we in turn rely on those we protect though, so having a dedicated team to back you up is just as essential. (I know, this is starting to sound like one of those good moral endings to the old G.I.Joe cartoon right?) My point is to surround yourself with people who know they’ve got someone keeping them covered who will keep you alive to do the job. Make healer friends to patch everyone up, keep some heavy dpsers around to finish the job when you hold down the fort. You’re not a one man army, but you are a solid wall of angry and when push comes to shove..we’re the ones who shove back harder.

“For Chaos! For Tzeentch! We are the Chosen. Go forth and annihilate those who stand in our way! “

-Hexmaul

Image Source of the Chosen: WAR Official Site

Source: Warhammer Forum

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