The Witch Elves are the melee DPS class of the House Uthorin Army, army of Dark Elves. They join the army to prove themselves worthy as the brides of Khaine, the Elven God of War and Murder. They are lethal female warriors using agility and poison coated daggers to swiftly kill enemies and they should not to be underestimated.

The following guide is written by Nymeria.

Nymeria’s Guide to Playing a Witch Elf

So you call yourself a Bride of Khaine?

Nymeria’s comprehensive guide to playing a Witch Elf in Tier 1 RvR

Ah the Brides of Khaine….the Maibd…the Witch Elves. These deadly beauties are agile fighters who use cunning and martial prowess to decimate their foes in close combat. This translates into a class that takes skill, awareness, and patience to play correctly. A well played Witch Elf can dominate her opposition.

I have had a lot of success playing my witch elf and I believe that it is attributed to my playstyle. When I play I aim to maximize the efficient use of every tool in my arsenal. Because of this mentality, I always make sure to understand my class very well. Along with making me a successful Witch Elf, this also helps me provide unbiased and well thought feedback.

A few days ago I sat around and brainstormed how I could help other new Witches be successful. I came up with an idea of writing a guide about how I played my elf. This will begin as a list of abilities along with their effects and how to use them to their full potential in Tier 1 RvR. I hope to expand this to include higher tiers as I level, strategies, and what stats work best.

Please note a few things, though:

• Please provide any suggestions you have! But provide them in a constructive manner. I’m providing this information to help other players. If you’re going to provide your own, please keep in mind that you’re helping and not detracting.
• This is not the be all end all of ways to play your witch elf. This is only the way I play my character, which works very well

Now since that’s all out of the way, let’s move on to the nitty gritty of the guide.

I. Ability Overview

Builders: Abilities in this category are ones that build blood lust each time they are used. In tier 1 you will have three builders

• Slice The first ability you will receive. Slice is both your most damaging and most costly ability. This one is best to use on squishies like Bright Wizards. After running a combat log parser (thanks Worldgorger!), I’ve found that Slice is my best anytime builder. It’s got a 129.79 damage/activation ratio making my mainstay.
• Agonizing Wound A cheap ability that’s very good to use against high armored targets, mostly the tanks and Medium armors. If you play your cards right and your target is attacking someone else, it’s not hard to stay behind them.
• Envenomed Blade I generally use this ability when I know the fight is going to last longer than normal (ex the target’s getting heals). I generally don’t pay too much attention about keeping it three stacked. Not too spectacular in my opinion, but if you’re going suffering, you’ll want to get used to keeping this one stacked.

Finishers: These are your abilities that spend all of your current blood lust points. The more points you spend, the more powerful the ability becomes.

• Puncture Your first finisher and the only DD one you’ll have until 12, so get used to it. This bad boy does a good amount of damage and you will see yourself tear right through your victims. I personally always wait to get the 5pt. This is because finishers cost less AP when you have more blood lust eventually making it free at 5pt. Also, I see no reason to waste the chance to cut someone harder. The only time I break this rule is when I judge that a softer finish will take my target out.
• Heart Render Toxin This ability is a tricky one. It decrease the target’s wounds by an x amount. That’s decreasing their max hp by x * 10. If you use it on a target that’s already damaged and is receiving no heals, the effect is absolutely worthless. You have to think about it when you use this ability. For instance, using this ability on a tank being healed would be effective. Also using this on a healer would be too. Finally, it can do a TON of “damage” if you use it on a max health target.

Kisses: Abilities in this category aren’t damaging and affect your character in positive ways.

• Kiss of Agony What an amazing ability! A chance to deal considerable damage, increase my chance to crit the opponent AND decrease the chance they won’t be crit. I keep this up all the time.
• Kiss of Death Yet another great ability. Same chance to deal damage to proc and also debuffs heals done by the target. Use this on any healers you see and you’re surely going to mess their day up.

Utility: Abilities in this category aren’t damaging and affect your character in positive ways.

• Feinted Positioning In tier 1 you’re only going to be using this ability for one reason and that’s Agonizing Wound. Whenever you’re facing a heavy armored target, pop this and for the next 10 seconds spam agonizing wound like it’s your job.
• Enchanting Beauty Enchanting Boo..erhm. Forgive me. I’ve been staring at my Witch Elf’s back side for far too long today. *Ahem* Enchanting Beauty is an ability you should be using all the time. Bind this to something you can press quickly and easily, as this should be used whenever you’ve got multiple enemies near you. 50% damage reduction that affects everyone in a 30 yard radius is HUGE! Realize that ANY reduced damage is more time for you to kill your target and get the heck out of there. USE THIS ABILITY OFTEN!
• Throwing Dagger It doesn’t look like it does much, but I constantly spam this ability whenever I’m not in range. An enemy just rooted you? Chuck daggers at him until your back in range. Someone’s running away? Chuck daggers and slow them down. Running to engage an enemy? Chuckity chuck chuck chuck some daggers at ‘em. Maximize the damage you’re doing by using this ability whenever you’re out of range.

Stealth: These abilities are used when coming out of stealth.

• Vehement Blades You get this ability at level 10 along with your stealth ability. Yeah, it’s kinda late in the game for T1, but it still falls into the domain of my guide. Basically walk up to someone when you’re stealthed, use this ability, and you’ve got a nasty upper hand on your opponent. The damage it does is great. I’m always amazed at seeing how much health people lose when I have this on them. A fun thing to try is having two witches apply this onto a target. Kiana and I have dropped quite a few WPs quickly this way.

Protip: When you’re target is a caster, look around and see if there are any melee around them. Instead of reaping only half the benefit, put it on the melee character and jump on the caster afterwards. That way you’re maximizing your ability’s yield.

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The Disciple of Khaine is the support melee class of the Dark Elves. Disciples of Khaine are marked by Khaine, who is the Elven God of War and Murder, and they use Soul Essence in order to cast healing spells and they wield either two blades or a blade and a chalice. Their allegiance belongs to the House Uthorin Army.

The following guide is written by Ayetalam.

Healing in the name of Khaine: Disciple of Khaine guide

First, I would like to say that there is a lot of opinion here when it comes to abilities, tactics, and masteries. They are by no means definitive or the only way to play. This is just how I see the class, and how I plan to play it based on my experiences.

The Mechanic: Soul Essence (SE)
I will first begin with the mechanic, a quick overview of how it works, and what affects it and what does not. When you are out of combat, it regenerates at 50 Soul Essence a second till it reaches 250. Our Soul Essence has a cap of 250. Now in combat, it does not regenerate, it requires you to Melee or use your Blood Offering spell to convert AP into SE. Do note, supplication does NOT allow you to stand back and heal. Its for oh moments, or if you are doing a long push with no out of combat moments to let it regenerate. All your damage abilities with the exception of a few unique ones, generate Soul Essence. All your heal abilities and beneficial effects, with the exception of Covenants, use Soul Essence. You need to keep a good balance between your Damage spells and your healing. The mechanic is not effected by damage output or the speed of your attacks. The only thing that generates SE are your abilities that state they generate SE. It is a simple and straight to the point mechanic, but it also allows of to have some of the best damage and healing combo in the game because our two different aspects drain from different pools of power.

Basic Information:
The disciple wears Medium Robe armor. This is an armor inbetween melee dps and tank. But its not enough to tank a Hero level mob alone, or even with healing. You can only use Swords and Chalices as your weapons and you do Dual Wield. In my opinion Dual Wielding two swords is more beneficial than Sword/Chalice. Being that because a chalice gives very little healing over a sword and you lose DPS. As a Disciple your job is to maximize both Damage and Healing at the same time. In scenerios you damage should be roughly around where your healing is. If you do nothing but heal, you are wasting your class and are not using it to its full potential. Roll and Shaman or a Zealot if you want to just heal and do minimal DPS, this is not the class for you. Your job as a Disciple is to do as much damage and healing as you can. It is why we get abilities that allow us ot heal from our damage abilities, or to transfer stats while doing damage, and so on. I have played on order and faught Disciples that did minimal damage and just healed, they were killed left and right, and did not benefit the fight because they were just getting killed. Our biggest healing ability acutally based on your damage that you do with the ability. Please play the class properly, or you will surely have a very uneventful time playing your disciple.

Abilities:
I will put the abilities in order of receiving them from the trainer. I will have a masteries section after this explaining the masteries, the abilities you get from them and my thoughts on them. Here is the breakdown of your spells: You have damage abilities that generate SE. You have heal abilities and beneficial spells which use AP. Then you have Covenants which are like auras that affect your whole group. No cast time, no mana cost, stays up till you turn it off. You also have your stat transfer and dots and fight control abilities. I will be only going to level 20. Firsts thats as far I have gotten so far, and I don’t want to give speculative information on abilities I have no used yet.

Starting Abilities (Level 1):
Fist of Khaine This is your ranged attack that all melee users get, but ours is different from others, its a spell, because it is modified ot generate Soul Essence for us, while other melee classes just get a damage bonus if they hit from behind or the side. Very useful when chasing.

Restore Essence This is your first heal, it does a small heal, then puts a HoT on the target. You will be using this a lot, since we dont get a direct heal until our level 20 AoE heal or our level 8 Rank 1 Morale ability.

Cleave Soul Your main damage ability for a while. Does direct damage and generates soul essence. Will be used a LOT.

Blood Offering Converts 30 AP to 30 Soul essence every second for 5 seconds. (total of 150 AP to 150 SE) This is very inefficient and is used only in long pushes where you run low on SE, or you need emergency SE for a heal. Its not meant for standing back and healing.

Flee An ability all classes get, drains all your AP and SE, and makes you sprint for a while. It does drain your SE to 0.

Trained Abilities
Consume Strength Transfers an amount of strength from your enemy target to your defensive target (which can also be you). Useful early on, but I seem to have less use for it in higher level battles. Its helpful, but in the mix of battle, its kind of hard to throw one in when you are trying to stay alive and 48 strength is less beneficial than your other abilities.

Soul Infusion Your second heal. This one is a pure HoT. Its quite powerful too, so you will be using it a lot in combination with Restore Essence.

Covenant of Tenacity Gives your entire group an armor buff. This helps early on int the game, and in PVE situations, but once you get your other covenents, they are better for RVR. I rarely use Tenacity after I get my second Covenant.

Lacerate This is your bleed ability. It puts a Cripple effect on your target that opens up a few possibilities later on with other abilities.

Consume Essence Does a hit that heals your group. I haven’t used this much because it doesn’t heal for much, and does not do good damage, its more of a PVE hit, where its just to keep people topped off. After getting rend soul, this feels even more useless to me.

Terrifying Vision This is you detaunt, Amazing in PVP because it lowers the damage the target does to you by 50% for 15 seconds. Only 1 target can be detaunted, but it helps if you ahve multiple people on you.

Divine Favor This is your first Morale ability, its a direct heal for a good amount. This is a good Oh button, or if you got a lot of health to catch up on. Used quite a bit.

Rend Soul This is your most powerful ability. Its a damage ability that uses up you Soul essence. Its channeled and usees 25 SE per second for 3 seconds. With every hit, it heals for 250% of the damage done to your defensive target. It is a very powerful ability, but it has a chance to be interupted because its channeled. Its different from a normal channeled ability. A hit doesn’t always interupt it, and you can move while channeling it, so you can be chasing someone and using it. This ability allows you to tank mobs much much powerful than you and stay above 50% health, and lets you take on 3-5 people at a time in PVP for small range of levels (it doesn’t scale very well at higher levels because it depends on damage). This ability is also depnedant on armor. So if you use it on a tank, it actually heals for less because you do less damage. It is one of your main abilities. It is buffed by your Healing tree (Dark Rites) instead of Torture or Sacrifice. Very unique ability and one of your most powerful.

Flay The first ability that takes advantage of Crippling. It does a small amount of damage, but if your target is crippled, to does a 40% snare on them. So this is comboed with Lacerate. Snares are snares, always useful.

Stand, Coward! Your rez ability, rezes someone with 20% health. This actually builds Essence. So its good to resurrect people when you can, but you can not ressurect while being hit.

Dark Blessings Your first tactic, but its not that great, its useful for a little while till your next good one. Increases all heals to you by 10%. Which always helps.

Essence Lash Does a damage in a cone 45 ft infront of you. Useful when you have a lot of people on you to use while you wait for other abilities to go off cooldown. Situational Use.

Rampaging Siphon This is a rank 2 morale that does Damage and then heals everyone in an AoE for the amount of damage done. But it takes a while to build up rank 2 morale, so its not that spamable, but it does help when doing group fights.
Divine FuryI personally dont like this one. It increases your damage by 25% but decreases your healing by 20%. I don’t like this tactic, it kind of diminishes your healing powers. Even though it increases damage, your healing goes down, and as a Healing archetype and someone that needs to keep a close balance between damage and healing. I don’t agree with this tactic and on my testing disciple, I didn’t even purchase the ability.

Covenant of Vitality Your next covenant, and a far better one for PVP and overall use. What it does is every hit has a 20% chance to do spirit damage and then heal you for the amount of damage done. Really helpful in tight situations cause it lets some people give them a tiny bit of self heal. It procs quite often.

Khaine’s Blessing The next big tactic. It granst you the proc that anytime you have a critical hit, you get a 20% attackspeed increase. This helps a LOT and is a great tactic in battle.

Patch Wounds Just a Hex removal ability, Uses soul essence.
Steal LifeA rank one morale, that puts a dot on the target, andheals the defensive target for 50% of the ticks. It gos in the same slot as Divine Favor, and I personally prefer Divine Favor because its a direct heal. I already got plenty of bleeds and hots, a direct heal is more beneficial to play.

Alignment of Naggaroth Increases Spiritual resistance. I am a bit hesitant of it. All it odes is increase resist against damage spells from healers. Its really not beneficial to me. I prefer Khaine’s Blessing over this.

Covenant of Celerity Your best PVP covenant there is. It Gives everyone a 20% chance to apply a DoT on the target and snare them by 20%. There is a 3 point tactic in Torture (3 Points to get to it, 4th point to get it.) That increases the damage of the bleed, and 60% snare. Whichwill be a very good tactic for RVR.

Discipline Increases your willpower. For now I dont see a use for it, but maybe at higher levels when we have more tactic slots, it can be helpful.

Khaine’s Embrace Aoe Heal, your first normal direct heal, and your first AoE normal heal. Will be used a lot, thats for sure.

Focused Mind This is really a good Morale. It removes all Status effects, snares, charms, disarms, and roots, and all your abilities will build faster and not get setback. This is Rank 2 but really its well worth having on your bar for PVP.

This is as far as I’m going since this is as far as I’ve gotten at the time of writing this guide. I will hopefully update it as I got up.

Combat Masteries:
Now before I go into this, want to say again that this is all based on my style of play and my plan for doing my masteries. This is not hte only effective way by any means, and I don’t want this to stop others from trying their own specs. This is purely my own speculation. I wil explain all the trees and how I view them. Then you can decide.

[INDTENT]Torture Spec Analysis:
[Work in Progress]

Dark Rites Spec Analysis:
[Work in Progress]

Sacrifice Spec Analysis:
[Work in Progress]

Builds:
[Gathering in Progress...:P][indent]

…[Will add this a little bit later. So much information to analyze and enter, so many specs that are very viable and lots of editing]…

Strategies:
One strategy I use is constantly alternating between Cleave Soul and Lacerate whenever they are up and Im not using other abilies. Use Rend Soul as much as you can (even if it gets set stopped, it is a channeling ability but has a 50% resist to canceling it), it heals you and does damage, and then use your snare to keep them from running. We keep lacerate going so we can snare anytime. Use you Divine Favor and Rampaging Soul whenever you can, until you get the other morales.

The above strategy is for Torture speced DoKs. Once you get the Bloodthirst tactic, put it on your bars and use Covenant of Celerity. It will give everyone a dot and a snare on a 20% chance on every hit. Its really nice and procs a lot, including from your Fist of Khaine long range “throw” ability.

This strategy and spec allows you to heal while damaging, but also allows you to do some solo fights against multiple people. Early levels I have been able to take on 3-4 people at a time and come out with more than 50% health. No longer true at higher levels, but it lets you survive a lot longer. And if you are with a tank or someone else thats taking damage. Target them and rend soul, it will heal them very well.

Make sure you know who your defensive target it is. In a fray of battle you sometimes forget youhave someone else targetd and try to heal yourself, failing to do so. Usually you pop you HoTs on you in big battles to keep yourself alive a bit longer.Right now I can’t get into a deep strategy because its beta, things change, and we are low level, we still have many new abilities to come, and nothing is final.

There are cons to this spec. If you are being constantly damaged or spiked, you will not survive and you cant heal very well. So you have to be careful on how much attention you get for yourself. Try to let the tanks get some of the attention first, then rush in helping him. Then if you start taking damage, target yourself and help yourself out. Torture is very powerful but can lose if you get targeted by a few ranged classes or melee classes.

Donated Strategies (Thanks to all those that provided them):
The first is a strategy for Sacrifice spec disciples provided by disquette.

Quote:
Alrighty, I’ll help out on the sacrifice spec DoK.

The sac DoK has some tremendous differences from the one you listed (torture spec I’m guessing?).

The keystone of the sacrifice DoK is a tactic callend “Empowered Transfer” (I think). This ability makes your Consume Essence heal your defensive target for 150% of the damage you do with each Consume Essence hit.

As a result, you can now use melee hits as your primary healing technique, rarely if ever using Rend Soul (I took it off my hotbar for the past couple weeks). The idea in combat is to hit your enemy with Consume Strength and Lacerate first, because the first increases your strength (if you’re the defensive target), and the second decreases your opponent’s toughness. Both of these crank up the damage of your Consume Essence, which means cranked up healing amounts. The other thing this does is put two cripples on your target. Some of your other abilities are only usefull when your target is crippled, so even if one of those attacks is blocked/parried, the target is still crippled and therefore ready to be snared, etc..

Also, it’s important to note that because heals from consume essence are based on damage, willpower doesn’t help you. For this reason, you’ll want to use the tactic which adds 25% to all damage done and reduces all heals by 20%. Since your consume essence attacks aren’t classified as heals, your health returned goes way up with this tactic.

This is also going to be, in my opinion, the premier PvE solo’ing spec for DoK’s, and perhaps for the PvE solo game as a whole. To give an idea of the power of this style of play, fully sacrifice spec’d, I was able to solo higher-level champion mobs without casting a heal spell a single time – without a problem. The health returned from your super-charged Consume Essence, when you’re stacking strength and buffing/debuffing as necessary, is incredible. As another indication, I was able to solo-tank a hero mob indefinitely with this spec (but I did need heals for this). I didn’t kill it because hero mobs have a disgusting amount of health, so after 5 minutes of combat to verify that I could stay alive as long as I wanted, while outputting good dps, I simply let it kill me.

On the flip side, RvR isn’t always fun as a sacrifice spec’d DoK. If your side is winning, you are a terror on the battlefield and the scoreboard afterwards will show it. If you have a tank to guard you, you will wreck lives. If you are running solo in a PUG, and the other group is better, you’re toast. It’s completely unfun in these situations as a melee healer (DoK/WarriorPriest), and especially so as a sacrifice spec’d one (Grace spec for the Warrior Priest mirror mastery).

To recap how to play a sacrifice-spec’d DoK:
- Use Empored Transfer and the 25% additional damage tactic.
- Stack up your Str gear, and make PvE your biznatch
- Always keep your Toughness up as well – with a few exceptions all classes get a lot of utility from this
- Love PvP when things are going well, hate it when they’re not. DoK’s are affected by bad pvp and ranged stand offs a lot more than other classes. Witch elves get stealth and marauders get tentacle-pull to help with distance standoffs. DoK’s get…. the shaft.

Class combos:
I think the best synergy class for a DoK is a Witch Elf. A Witch Elf has abilities that benefit from cripple, do their own cripples, and has a lot of similarities to abilities the DoK has, minus hte healing. Another combo is with any tank, because they can keep you protected by taking half the damage you take, and you can heal them with your heals and Rend Soul. Most combos with ranged classes do not fare well, so I don’t think they will work at as well.

A helpful note from Duty:

Quote:
Originally Posted by Duty View Post
Just a short comment I’d like to add:

In my MDPS Guide I say healers are your best friend. For a DoK, TANKS are your best friend.

Your AoE heals combined with the majesty and greatness of:
Guard and even on top of that Covenant of Tenacity and even further…stacking plenty of toughness…makes DoKs VERY difficult to kill. The covenant adds about 20% physical damage reduction, and Guard is basically 50% damage reduction when you’re AoE healing as much as you do.

I played a Black Orc for a while with my DoK friend, Sindal (who, you watch, will become known as the best DoK in Warhammer!), and we would go into 7v2s and easily win. You just have to watch getting hit with knockback out of Guard range, and morale abilities that pierce through Guard like it’s not there.

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The Magus of Tzeentch is the ranged DPS class of the Raven Host Army, army of Chaos (corrupted Humans). The Magus rides the flying disc of Tzeentch, which can also cast offensive spells on its own, and can summon one fiend at a time.

The following guide is written by Igneus.

Magus Guide by Igneus

Before I even start, I’d like to politely ask anyone who feels about whinning, arguing that Magus is useless, explaining why we suck or just trolling to take it to another thread. This is intended to be a guide for people who want to play a Magus, as he currently is.

Thank you.

Edit : In case someone decides to skip this first paragraph, I will simply ignore him and just use the report button. Since Mods already took action and this has been moved out of the flame war area (Magus forums), I decreased letters to normal size

A) Personal Introduction

(This is mainly a who are you and why should we read this guide thing, feel free to skip)

I am someone who you could call a hardcore gamer. In fact, until WAR released, I was kinda over my hardcore days. Just took what you could call a break from RL for 3 weeks.

I have been playing MMOs for ~10 years. List is pretty long so I will forget some for sure : Ultima Online, The 4th Coming, some crappy Korean things I cannot even remember, Knights Online, World of Warcraft, Guild Wars, Dungeons and Dragons Online, Lord of the Rings Online, Eve Online, Tabula Rasa, Age of Conan and now Warhammer. Had some experience with EQ 1 and Daoc as well but not much, so I am not counting them.

In the ones I played “seriously” I was in what could be considered top guilds. Best example was Nihilum in WoW.

As a player, I am inclined to play the “strange” / “utility” / “debuffing” casters in most games, with Healers and Glass Cannons being the other choices.

Currently I have a Rank 40 / RR 31 Magus, a Rank 25 / RR 18 Sorcerer and a Rank 11 / RR 10 Disciple of Khaine at KEP (Core – European server). I actually have lots of fun and success with all of them, but Magus is the one who I liked most. In fact I shelved my Sorcerer to play him.

Typically, I will solo Quest or grind PQs and I join scenarios with premade parties most of time. It is often a full party but I tend to join just with 1-2 rl friends of mine (Chosen and Shaman) from time to time as well.

B) My Opinion on the Magus class

This is highly personal and I am sure many people will disagree. Still, it is needed to explain how I view this class in general in order to continue. Once more, please, if you want to argue feel free to create a new thread. I am not going to answer anyway.

I believe that Magus is a difficult class to play with lots of potential. He is also one of the classes where spec does matter a lot. One could say this is not a class that everybody can play at a level even close to its potential.

To give an example, if the same guy puts same effort into playing (let’s say) a Sorcerer and a Magus, he will play the Sorcerer to (again let’s say) ~70% of his potential but Magus to 50% of his. However, if someone manages to play a Magus to his full potential, in my opinion, he offers more than most other classes at same levels.

Also, it should be noted that Magi are late bloomers. We require many of our abilities to actually do what we are supposed to do. Best example is the Demonology tree that simply is bad at RvR until Rank 30 (or even 31) and becomes extremely good in an organized party after that point.

C) Class Mechanics

Magus is a RDPS class. This is same category with Sorcerer and Squid Herder. I am not going to compare the effectiveness of the three classes, just point their role.

Sorcerer is all about nuking. He has stronger nukes and a mechanism that really boosts them. He is the most squishy of the three and the less versatile.

Magus is what Mythic calls a Defensive Ranged DPS class. This definition has caused many discussions (and flames). In my opinion, it is better to call him a utility DPS caster. He can do good damage (do not expect to see Sorcerer numbers or Witch Elves bursts in most cases), he has some versatility, good survivability and lots of offensive utility (debuffs and Crowd Control abilities).

Squid Herder is a skirmisher. He is really versatile, has abilities that can be cast on the move and all. I am not really an expert on this class, no more info here.

The tools Magus gets are :

i) Direct Damage spells.
ii) Damage over time spells.
iii) Area versions of i and ii.
iv) Crowd Control abilites.
v) Debuffs
vi) Buffs
vii) A Pet Turret.

While the pet is supposed to be the defining element of the class, most of people (including myself) do not find it defining, at least in its current situation. I prefer to call our CC abilities and our debuffs class defining, when comparing us to other RDPS classes. Just think of it, is is much more possible to hear a “nice Chaotic Rift” or a “wow, this purple debuff boosts my DPS by ~20%” than a “Nice Turret” comment.

Our AoE Dots are also a class defining thing. People argue about their strength and usefulness but the fact remains that we have some of them, more than anyone else, and they can boost our damage to really high levels. More on their usefulness later.

D) Class Masteries

Not getting into the specifics here, just explaining what each mastery is about:

1) Havoc

This is a mastery focused on long range (100 feet with the exception of Bolt of Change at the amazing 150 feet) spells. It has a mix of DD and DoT abilities. With the exception of Tzeentch’s Firestorm they are single target ones, with a tactic that turns some of them into AoE. Generally this is a tree focused on damage and not CC/utility. Perils of the Warp and Withered Soul are exceptions but one is a mastery skill and the other does not become useful until Rank 40.

2) Changing

This is a mastery focused on medium range (65 feet with the exception of Indigo Fire of Change at 100 feet) spells. It has a mix of DD and DoT abilities as well. It is kinda balanced between single target and area abilities. This tree has a good number of strong CC/utility, including Glean Magic, Warping Blast and Surge of Insanity.

3) Demonology

This is a mastery focused on close range (30 feet generally) spells. It has mainly abilities that deal their damage over time. All the abilities of this tree are Area Affecting ones. When it comes to utility, this tree has the strongest CC move in Warhammer ( Chaotic Rift ) as well as Daemonic Infestation. Also, this tree has abilities that buff the survivability of Magus (and the party in the case of the corporeal resistance buff).

E) The Abilities

Going to list and analyze a bit abilities by spec and rank here. Mastery ones included.

E1) Core Abilities

All Magi get those and they will get to max level without putting any points to any mastery.

I) Flee
All get this. Use it to flee or even to just run faster when you cannot mount but remember that you will stay without AP and with morale degenrating for 10 seconds. You can cancel the effect earlier and drink an AP pot however.

II) Daemonic Maw
At low levels this is actually nice DPS. I remember using it when I had a mob meleeing me in T1. Later it is not so good but it has a slow side effect. It is a 40% snare (like most in Warhammer) that is spammable. The main disadvantage is that it requires you to be meleeing, removing any defensive uses from it. It is still nice in CTF scenarios to suicide stop guys running after the FC.

III) Strengthen Thrall
Have used it like 5 times in 37 Ranks. Demons do not often get aggro at first place.

IV) Horrifying Visions
Nice detaunt. Keep in mind that it will break if you attack the target but not if the dots you have applied before hand tick on him.

V) Tzeentch’s Grasp
Old good PBAoE Root.

VI) Daemonic Armor
Really strong ability. It increases our armor by 100% or so. This brings our mitigation from armor to Medium armor levels (40%). It is a huge boost so remember to keep it on. It is not interrupted as easy as tooltip suggests, I am recasting this with mobs on me all the time. At both RvR and PvE it is a good idea to recast this whenever you have time, even if you have charges left.

VII) Resummon
This ability makes demon turrets much less clumsy. It is also best way to use instability. The problem is that it has some bugs. From time to time it will not work at all (this is rare). Most of times I cast it however, while it works, the demon seems to remain at his old position graphic wise. This could use a fix.

VIII) Instability
Really strong AP Denial ability. It is great to use at choke points or to combine with roots, stuns ect. Its problem is the general clumisness of Demons.

E2) Havoc abilities

I) Flickering Red Fire
Also known as FRF, this is main Havoc nuke. It is kinda weak, doing less DPS than other nukes (hint : Doombolt) and less than our changing nuke as well (Rend Winds). Still, it is spammable and with a relatively small casting time (2 seconds). The advantages of this spell come from tactics. It can hit a second target and can also become undefendable (=cannot be blocked or disrupted). Especially the undefendable thing really boosts this ability’s DPS at 40 when 20-30%+ disrupt chance and capped (25%) block chance are / will be common.

II) Summon Pink Horror
First Demon pet we get. This is the Havoc Tree Demon, so, as expected, his abilities are 100 feet ranged. His DPS is nothing special. At level 37 with a Havoc spec he was hitting for 35 or so on mobs of my level. His first ability does some nice damage, while the second one applies a -5% crit debuff. It is not game-breaking but 5% crit is relatively hard to get in this game so you should not ignore this.

III) Baleful Transmogrification
Instant, no Cooldown single target DoT with relatively good damage. Due to the ammount of DoTs we get, you will probably not use this a lot unless Havoc specced. It has the same problems that most of our DoTs have. Long total duration and bad scaling with intelligence. In fact, these two may be related.

IV) Surging Violet Fire
Starts out as a pretty weak instant nuke every 10 seconds. However at high levels (37) you can change its cooldown to 3 seconds, making it a really good spell. It is also possible to buff this further to hit a second target, get a 50% life leech effect or get a +50% damage to its criticals. I do not think those are good options for tactic slots in most cases however.

V) Perils of the Warp
Mastery ability, requires 5 points into Havoc. This is actually a pretty strong ability. It punishes enemy casters for casting. It can kill Bright Wizards, especially when their combustion happens to proc as well. It is also a serious problem for most of the healers who use fast casting spells.

VI) Bolt of Change
Mastery ability, requires 9 points into Havoc. Our strongest nuke. In fact this has highest base damage in the game AND is undefendable. It also gets 150 feet range, being good to kill runners. Its only issue is the long (for a nuke) cooldown. It should be the first spell you use whenever it is on CD as a Havoc Magus.

VII) Tzeentch’s Firestorm
Mastery abiltiy, requires 13 points in Havoc. Pit of Shades wannabe. Channeled AoE that does good ammounts of damage and scales extremely well with Intelligence. I would love a side effect for it but it is still a useful spell for a Magus that deep in the Havoc tree.

VIII) Withered Soul
Most of people will think / tell you this is a worthless ability. Its damage is bad and disrupts “are not that common”. I beg to differ here. Disrupts chance at higher levels are really high. I myself have over 10% at rank 38, without even trying. In a month or two, there will be a great deal of rank 40 people with ~30% disrupt chance. Add the fact that they can get it even higher with abilities like Hold the line!, and you begin to understand how useful this is on assist targets.

IX) Mutating Blue Fire
Another nice ability. High Direct Damage, nice DoT component. Too bad we get this so late (Rank 35). This is the second ability to cast whenever it is on CD as a Havoc Magus.

Remarks on Havoc :

It is not strange that most people consider this to be underpowered. From its abilities, only Baleful and Perils of the Warp are obtainable and actually good at “low” levels. Surging Violet Fire needs the cooldown reduction tactic, Withered Soul needs enemy to have high disrupt chance, Flickering Red Fire needs both the undefendable tactic and enemy to have high disrupt/block chance and Bolt of Change, while good anyway, is not enough to make this tree viable.

At Rank 40 however, I consider this to be a nice tree and 100 feet range are allways an advantage for the solo Magus who joins PuGs.

E3) Changing Abilities

I) Rend Winds
Nice nuke. Better DPS than FRF (comparing them either at 25 each or at 40 each) and lower casting time. It hits 3 times, so it is really good for interrupting. It also can become undefendable.

II) Glean Magic
This boosts the DPS of someone casting spirit spells a lot (~20% if specced into changing). It is AoE and it also does some weak damage over time. Since both us and Sorcerers do (partly) spiritual damage, this is actually a pretty strong debuff. Do not use this for DPS though, it is not worth it.

III) Summon Flamer
This is my least liked pet. While a Magus with 65 feet range on most abilities is something acceptable since you play as a skirmisher, a stationary Demon with 65 feet range on his spells is hard to use effectively. Its DPS is nice however, if you manage to use him in RvR or just for PvEing as a Changing Magus.

IV) Surge of Insanity
This is one of the Magus highlights. We get it early, it does relatively high damage and is an AoE interrupt. Its main advantage however is its Cooldown. 10 seconds is really low. Also, this will not trigger or be affected by any immunity timers.

V) Pandemonium
One could call this ability class defining. It is a AoE DoT hitting for ok damage. It can also become endless (=50% chance to reapply itself when it is over or dispelled) by a tactic. While many people argue that DoTs are useless, I find that being able to take down 15-20% of the health of a large number of enemies in a 15 seconds period by casting a single 1 sec cast spell is a good option in most of cases. Yes, it can be healed. Yes people will have HoTs on them. But it is still a good part of their health and this game is full of periodic damages that will tick. Even if it just ends half countering a HoT, it is a nice thing to do, since you can often apply Pandemonium on 5-10 guys with one 1 second cast while the enemy healer (if not WP) needs five-ten casts (=7.5-15 seconds) to apply his HoTs to all targets you are hitting.

VI) Warping Blast
Another great spell. Same damage with Surge of Insanity, same cooldown, same casting time but this time it is a single target knockback. The uses of a knockback can be offensive and defensive, especially when you take the ground (hint : Lava) into account. Root + Knockback is one of the best self defense options as well.

VII) Seed of Chaos
Mastery ability, requires 5 points in changing. Frankly, I do not like this one. Its damage over time is much less than Baleful, it is not spammable and the AoE at its end may be nice but it is often hard to predict where this specific guy will be in 15 seconds.

VIII) Indigo Fire of Change
Mastery ability, requires 9 points in changing. Strong single target channeling ability. Should note that this is our highest single target DPS and that it actually has a range of 100 feet despite being in Changing. The Demon it spawns is a joke however and it is actually bad in PvE since it is uncontrolable and will aggro random things.

IX) Dissolving Mist
Mastery ability, requires 13 points in changing. Strange spell. It has some great uses but they are situational. It is perfect at Scenarios where you have to use something. It just does not allow enemies to use it for 30 seconds. It is also extremely good at keep sieges, not allowing enemies to ram down the door and all. Other than that however, it just takes too long until it is upgraded to its high damage level. I have not yet understood exactly how big an area it affects, but it is more than the area that appears on mouse over for sure.

Remarks on Changing :

This is probably our easiest to use spec. It does not require a high level or much support to be effective, it has a nice combination of single target and aoe damage, some strong CC and utility and since it is middle range it is skirmisher friendly. I suggest that new Magi use this to RvR at the beggining.

E4) Demonology abilities

I) Infernal Blast
This is a really strong Cone DoT. It hits hard and hits many targets. Should be the first thing you do in many cases as a Demonology Magus/

II) Daemon Lash
Our Spammable (Frontal) AoE. Deals relatively good damage. In fact it is best thing to spam on someone who is meleeing you as a Demonology Magus. It’s only issue is that it has some bugs that make it not hit anything from time to time, depending on the terrain.

III) Summon Blue Horror
This little guy puts out some serious AoE Damage. You will notice it yourself at PvE easily and it is true for RvR as well. I consider this to be our “best” pet.

IV) Daemonic Infestation
Either tooltip is wrong or spell is bugged. It does knockdown but for 1 second, not 2. Anyway, it is a useful spell, especially since you can set it anywhere before even the battle starts. During battle and especially on targets like the enemy caster group, this will usually be reduced to an AoE interrupt like most of AoE CC abilities because of the way CC and immunities work in Warhammer.

V) Agonizing Torrent
Mastery ability, requires 5 points in Demonology. Good damage, low casting time, this is the main reason Demonology is so good for grinding. At RvR, it kinda needs Chaotic Rift to be used and still has some issues because of its casting time and the fact that after the Chaotic Rift you will often get knocked away, either interrupting or wasting this.

VI) Aegis of Orange Fire
Mastery ability, requires 9 points in Demonology. Godly spell. It is an emergency button, a survivability buff and an “I win button” against Witch Hunters. It is also great at PvE for AoE grinding, just like rest of the tree is.

VII) Demonic Resistance
Our only group buff. It is not a bad one. Yes, if there is a Shaman in party, he gives same ammount to all resistances but in the typical case in which you are specced Demonology and he is not specced full Da Green, your is still a nice buff. The main issue is that Zealot’s marks (and I do not mean the resist one only) seem to replace / get replaced by this. I guess this is a bug.

VIII) Chaotic Rift
Mastery ability, requires 13 points in Demonology. I cannot really explain how strong this ability is. Even if a Magus could only do this, once per 20 seconds and die, doing zero damage, this would be enough for me to bring him into my premade. Since the description confuses some people, it is a PBAoE spell, with 65 feets radius, that pulls everything to you. In other words, anything that you could hit with rend winds will be knocked to you and slowed. I know that this sounds like a death sentence, since pulling 12 guys can get you killed easily. This is not a solo ability however. Its best use is in a party, with Guard on you, a Chosen Knocking them down after the Rift, 2 AoE Damage Dealers (Marauder / Sorcerer or a second Magus) going full damage and 2 Healers (one should be shaman for instant resses since the Magus WILL die from time to time) to watch over you.

IX) Warpfire
Cannot really say much on this, since I hit 40 last night and I have not really tried this yet. I suspect that it will be often a better option, compared to Agonizing Torrent, after Chaotic Rift – Tzeentch’s Grasp – Infernal Blast since even if you get knocked (or die) you will deal some of the damage. Of course, best way to do this is by casting Agonizing, pulling people to you, rooting them, casting infernal and activating warpfire but this cannot allways be done since many times I actually have to run on Mount Disk towards enemy groups, otherwise they just flee.

Remarks on Demonology :

This is a great tree for AoE PvE and organized RvR. It is the strongest tree a Magus has and it will remain so even if Changing and Havoc get huge damage increases. It is kinda sad, but I would say that if Chaotic Rift was given as a 13 point ability to any class in game, this class should spec for it, it is just the best single ability a premade RvR party can get.

F) Tactics

This is pretty basic, but there are 3 types of tactics. Career, Renown and Tome. I will talk only about the Career ones here. We get some Career tactics from being Chaos (shared between all Chaos classes), some from being a RDPS career (all RDPS get those), some from being a Magical RDPS (shared by us, Sorcerers and Bright Wizards) and some Magus specific. I will just list and explain / generally evaluate tactics here. Specifics will come in the section of this guide concerning Specs, since what tactics you choose depend generally on the spec you are using. The only one that you should generally use with almost every spec is endless knowledge.

Tactics’ List

I) Warped Flesh
Chaos Tactic. It is in fact a nice one for a large part of the game, since it procs an “ok” damage shield on you. It is not really good at 40, you have better options.

II) Devour Energy
Caster tactic. It is allways a good choice for group PvE (read : When you are not tanking yourself and/or have a healer). I do not usually run out of AP in most RvR situations and the in the ones I run out of it (Demon Lash spam after Chaotic Rift, Infernal Blast and Agonizing / Warpfire) I have more important tactics to bring. This could be different for a changing Magus who spams DoTs but I doubt this is a good choice even in that case.

III) Infernal Flesh
Magus tactic. Useless. 1600 Health is nice but demon survivability is not an issue. Probably Mythic had the idea of a Magus who uses his Demon to tank or something.

IV) Tzeentch’s Warding
Chaos tactic. Good one for RvR, since it buffs the most useful resistance (for Destruction) currently in game. Some will argue that corporeal is more important, but Order will usually get your corporeal really low anyway through acid bomb and boiling blood.

V) Fiery Winds
Mastery tactic, requires 3 points in Havoc. Cannot really say I like this one. One extra target for the two most used Havoc spells is good trade for 1 Mastery point but 10 feet is really a small distance. Will give it a try with my fourth tactic slot sometime soon however.

VI) Infernal Pain
Mastery tactic, requires 3 points in Changing. This is actually a nice tactic for low rank Changing magi. I used it until I got endless knowledge and again at 20-22. Respecced to Demonology about there. The problem is that if you stick with changing you will soon get Endless Pandemonium which is generally a much better choice. I cannot think of a R40 spec using this one.

VII) Chaotic Attunement Mastery tactic, requires 3 points in Daemonology. This was a great tactic before introduction of resummon. Currently, resummon is a cheaper way to bring your pet with you, costs less AP and can be done on the move. The only advantage this has is the fact that it does not bug (look on resummon), but I hope this gets fixed anyway.

IX) Endless Knowledge
Caster tactic. Have never removed this from my first tactic slot since Rank 19, on either my Magus or my Sorcerer. It is a really big DPS boost. That does not mean that it is required in all specs. For example, I am considering skipping it for even more survivability for my Chaotic Rift spec.

X) Unearthly shriek
Magus tactic. Seems good on paper, but it is not really. 15% is a low chance, since our Demons are not exactly machine guns and they need to actually hit someone while he is casting to make this worth it. Would be a nice tactic for a Havoc Magus (mainly) if chance was higher, but not in its current condition.

XI) Backlash
Chaos tactic. It is good for AoE grinding, if you have no survivability issues (=Have a healer or mobs just do not hurt). Nothing special otherwise on a Magus.

XII) Changer’s Blessing
Mastery tactic, requires 7 points in Havoc. By its own, this is a weak tactic. It can, however, be used together with other ones, changing this to a life tap from two targets every 3 seconds. While this would be pretty strong, I do not think that it is worth the three tactic slots.

XIII) Endless Pandemonium
Mastery tactic, requires 7 points in Changing. This is a great tactic, one of the first to pick for Changing specs. Pandemonium is one of our best DoTs and this makes it last more.

XIV) Daemonic Contract
Mastery tactic, requires 7 points in Daemonology. Really big toughness boost. Useful both for PvE and RvR. Daemonology Magi should definately have this.

XV) Sleight of Hand
Caster PvE tactic. Its uses are apparent, I used it in some of the (few) instances I have done. I do not find it really needed in most cases however.

XVI) Chaos Unleashed
Mastery tactic, requires 11 points in Havoc. No Havoc Magus should play without this, enough said.

XVII) Wild Changing
Mastery tactic, requires 11 points in Changing. No Changing Magus should play without this, enough said.

XVIII) Daemonic Contract
Mastery tactic, requires 11 points in Daemonology. I have not tried this a lot. It is good for PvE but current clumsiness of pets in RvR hurts this, especially since Daemonolgy Magus tend to have some AP issues anyway, especially if they resummon their pet as well.

XIX) Flame’s Kiss
Magus tactic. This is (or actually will be) a treasure for both Havoc and Changing Magi. Undefendable means that a spell cannot be disrupted or blocked (resists and toughness still apply). At lower levels, disrupts and blocks may be a rare thing. At 40 however, there are many items giving a flat +disrupt chance. For example I have 2 Rank 33 trinkets giving +2% disrupt each and saw a blue staff on AH giving +6% disrupt by itself. You can easily understand that many players will have extreme disrupt chances soon and this will make this tactic a requirement for most Magi, since it will boost our DPS a lot.

XX) Close Quarters
RDPS tactic. I use this on all my tactic sets as a Demonology Magus. The damage boost is huge and I need to get into 30 feet to do my damage anyway. Could be used by a changing Magus in some cases as well I guess, but not by a Havoc one.

XXI) Lasting Aegis
Magus tactic. While Aegis is a great spell, I do not find a 33% duration boost to it to be worth a tactic slot, sorry.

XXII) Redirection
Magus tactic. Strange one. I do not have enough disrupt chance to use it for AP regen and AP is not usually an issue in most cases. Would be interesting to check this with better gear however.

XXIII) Surging Power
Magus tactic. While all three spells are highlights for their respective trees, a 50% damage increase to their criticals is not worth a tactic slot in my opinion.

XXIV) Swift Flames
Magus tactic. Great one. Reduces the Cooldown of our instant nuke from 10 to 3 seconds. It still is not our best option DPS wise, but being able to chain it with any spell every 3 seconds makes for some nice small bursts. This is one of the best things a Havoc Magus can pick in my opinion.

XXV) Daemonic Mending
This has to be a Mythic’s joke. “Let’s make the last tactic Magi get a completely useless thing!”. No other comment.

G) Morale

Again, the basic things first. At Morale Levelss 1,2 and 3 we get some spells (two for Levels 1 and 2, one for Level 3) shared by all Casters (Bright Wizard, Sorcerer, Magus) and one that is Magus specific. At Morale Level 4 we get one spell shared by all casters and three Magus specific that are at the end of each mastery tree.

Generally, you will mostly be using Morale Level 1 and 2, with the occassional Level 3. Level 4 simply takes too long to become availiable, so generally it is not worth to spec for L4 Morales.

Should note that Morale abilities do flat damage. That means they are not influenced by your +DPS or by enemy’s toughness / resists. They can still be disrupted / blocked. I am not sure if they can crit. I have never seen one crit, but have heard people claiming otherwise.

To the list :

Level 1 Morales

I) Mage Bolt
Instant nuke. It is harder than any other nuke we or other casters get. You will use this a lot, both in PvE and RvR.

II) Misdirection
Defensive Morale. It reduces all incming Magical damage by 50%. It redirects half of incoming direct magical damage (single target nukes) back to the caster. It is really strong and I have been using it for my CR spec lately.

III) Grasping Darkness
The Magus specific Morale. My personal favorite of this Level. It slows enemy target by a lot (60% while most snares are 40%) for 6 seconds and deals about 75% damage of the Mage Bolt, over the same period of time.

Level 2 Morales

I) Siphon Power
Steals a large number of AP and reduces target’s Intelligence. The problem is that usually I want to AP drain enemy healers, not enemy Bright Wizards, so the 2 effects of this spell do not work together really well. Other than that, it has its uses but I find it subpar with the other 2 options for this level.

II) Focused Mind
You become immune to many effects, important ones being Silence, Root and Snare and your spells cannot be interrupted or set back. They also build 50% faster. This is indeed a nice one but it has two problems. First is that it does not make you immune to Knockbacks, knockdowns and stuns, which are really common ways to interrupt you. Second is that unike Sorcerers and Bright Wizards, Magi do not have many 3 second cast spells. On spells with less casting time, this Morale is (at least partly) “wasted” since even if you bring your Rend Winds casting time to 0.5 second, you still are affected by its Global Cooldown. This affects less a Havoc Magus however, since he has two 3 second cast spells and a 2 second cast spammable one.

III) Roiling Winds
Again my personal favorite is the Magus specific Morale. I need to check this but I am almost sure that this procs five times (0,1,2,3,4) for a total of 1500 AoE damage. It works wonders combined with a Daemonology spec (Roiling Winds just before rifting) and it is good with a Changing one as well.

Level 3 Morales

I) Scintillating Energy
While this is really strong on theory, I have never seen the stun work. Other than that it is same damage with Mage Bolt. It must be bugged, unless I have a really bad luck with unstoppable.

II) Conduit of Chaos
Magus specific (well Sorcerers get it with a different name).AP free spells for 10 seconds. This is actually good both for PvE and (in some cases) RvR. I would not pick it for RvR if Scintillating was not that bad however.

Level 4 Morales

I am not really experienced with those so I am not going to write much.

I) Unleash the Winds
The base one all casters get. It is actually good as well because of the Knockback.

II) Soul Leak
Mastery Morale, requires 15 points in Havoc.

III) Daemonic Scream
Mastery Morale, requires 15 points in Changing. Seems to be the “best” we can spec for.

IV) Firewyrm of Tzeentch
Mastery Morale, requires 15 points in Daemonology. Looks really cool but it is absolutely worthless. Cannot even solo a R40 mob and it is uncontrolable as well…

Note : While I am not generally going to ask for tweaks in this Guide, I have to say that I find the Level 4 Morales to be really bad. This is not Magus Specific. It takes a long time to build that much Morale and it requires either a zerg situation or a somehow unending fight. They should really be “I win” buttons to make them worth saving for, or even more speccing fore. Doubling their damage would be a good way to solve this.

H) Leveling Specs and Tips

In most other games, for many people leveling is the boring process of reaching the “end game” where you can actually play. This is the greatest advantage Warhammer has in my opinion, since I enjoyed my leveling that much that I could do it again. Main reason for that is that you are not forced to just questing / grinding all your way up to 40 but you can actually just RvR your way there.

I decided to mix both aspects of the game, as I suspect most players are doing. There are some bad news and some good news for guys who want to do this. Starting with the bad.

Magus’ Masteries are not equally viable for either PvE or RvR. For large parts of the game, some masteries are just bad for one or the other aspect.

The good news, on the other hand, is that you can easily respec since it costs almost nothing and that you always have at least one strong option so I am going to list what specs are good for PvE and RvR through your leveling and explain why. This is my personal opinion but I think most people agree generally. To the specifics.

I) Tier 1

This is generally the worst part of any caster’s life. All RDPS get their root at 10, so until then our self defenses are minimal. Things tend to be even worst for the Magi since a large part of the skills we get at those first levels focus arround our three pets. That means that, since you will only be using one of them at a time, a large part of your skills will be wasted.

The good thing is that 1-10 does not take more than a few hours and that a Magus can actually do relatively well in PvE for those few levels. Just summon a Pink Horror (Change to Flamer after you get him), pull with FRF, Glean Magic, Rend Winds, Infernal Blast, Demonic Maw to death and repeat. Just skip the abilities you do not have at lower levels, it will still work. Try to set up your demon at a position where you will pull more than 1-2 mobs to get the most out of him.

RvR at those levels is nothing impressive for you as well since your abilities are not enough and you lack most important ones. Simply nuking is never a good option for a Magus and you are forced to do that at those ranks. Still, if you have a good healer, Infernal Blast and Daemon Lash is a nice thing to do. Otherwise find a nice spot and nuke. Even Glean Magic is not something really important since most enemies lack resists.

II) Tier 2

Things get more interesting here, as you slowly get your important abilities as well as your first tactics. The mastery points you get at this tier are not enough to get anything gamebreaking, so I suggest you just stick with Changing for both PvE and RvR, since they are the strongest and most useful ones generally. That means that you should focus on using changing abilities (like flamer instead of other daemons) but the difference is not really big yet.

For PvE, after getting Daemonic Armor, things become much easier. I remember that I was able to kill 3 enemies of my level even before getting Pandemonium by putting Glean Magic, Baleful and Infernal Blast on them all, rooting them, running a bit back and killing them one by one with Rend Winds. After getting Pandemonium things get even easier since it does good DPS on many targets and benefits from Glean Magic as well. I suggest you pick the first changing tactic (Infernal Pain) as soon as possible and using it until you can get Endless Knowledge and together with Endless at 20.

For RvR, these are actually nice Ranks. Through them you will get some of your most useful spells, like Surge of Insanity and Warping Blast, as well as your main AoE DoT, Pandemonium. Using same Mastery and tactic choices, you can deal some serious damage that is still relatively hard to heal since healers lack AoE heals until level 20. Just make sure you try to interrupt, knock and root people as much as possible and rely on Rend Winds for single target damage and you will do well.

III) Tier 3

Things start getting trickier here. PvE and RvR ask for different specs and you actually need to start focusing on a mastery in order to be succesful.

For PvE, at 21 you can spec Demonology and get Agonizing Torrent. Combine it with Warped Flesh and Endless Knowledge and you can begin learning why leveling a Magus is easier than leveling any other class. Just do AoE pulls in your quests and kill as many mobs as possible. If you feel like grinding for an influence reward, just find a nice Public Quest with a long phase 1, set up your Blue Horror, pull 5-6 mobs with whatever way works with you, cast Agonizing Torrent, Glean Magic, Infernal Blast, (maybe) Pandemonium and spam Daemon Lash. Can make even bigger pulls if you feel like risking it a bit and using your Root and Daemonic Infestation to buy you some time. This is simply the best PvE spec you can have for rest of your ranks up to 40. At Rank 26 you can get Aegis of Orange Fire as well which really boosts your survivability and helps a lot with killing. I recommend skipping Daemonic Pact until you get your third tactic slot.

For RvR, I will split this tier into 3 zones :

a) Ranks 21-24

At those Ranks, you can have the first mastery spell of any tree. Generally, Agonizing Torrent is bad for RvR (for now) and Seed of Chaos is “ok” but not something that will change your gameplay. So I actually propose you spec Havoc for these levels. Perils of the Warp is a really strong spell. In fact it is one of the strongest abilties any class can get at those Ranks. Just focus on applying Perils on every caster you see and using your typical CC as much as possible. At these levels you will be in Tor Anroc probably, so avoiding close range specs is wise, unless you have a reason to do it.

b) Ranks 25-28

You can now pick the second spell of any mastery tree. All three second mastery spells we get are pretty good. However Daemonology is still a weak choice for RvR and Havoc, as I have said earlier in this guide, does not shine until much later. So, in my opinion, best thing to do at those Ranks is to focus on changing. Indigo Fire of Change is actually your best DPS at those ranks and Endless Pandemonium is a pretty nice tactic. Just remember that, while it can make you top the DPS easily, just spamming DoTs is not really a good option as a Magus. You should use Glean Magic + Pandemonium + (perhaps) Seed of Chaos on a bunch of enemies and then focus on interrupting, knocking and dealing your single target damage through Indigo Fire and Rend Winds.

c) Ranks 29-30

Could skip this last level zone to be honest and talk about it in next tier, but for a Magus playing with friends (or a guild premade or something), it is actually worth it to spec for Chaotic Rift as soon as possible. At Rank 29 you can get (just) Chaotic Rift by going full Daemonology. Then you should add all the other useful things, including Agonizing, Aegis and Daemonic Pact as you continue leveling. The idea behind RvR with Chaotic Rift is the following. Focus on survivability stats (Wounds, Toughness, Initiative) and abilities (Misdirection, Aegis) as much as possible. Get a dedicated healer and if possible a tank to guard you as well. Move in, towards enemy caster group and make sure you catch most of the healers otherwise it is a bad rift. Try to keep enemies there (that Tank friend can actually help a lot) and help the Sorcerers and Marauders AoE them to death. You will die a lot at first tries until your party learns how to do it but once you learn you will probably love it.

IV) Tier 4

For PvE nothing really changes. Daemonology remains the best choice and at 32 you will be able to spec like this. You can actually use CR to aggro mobs and close quarters increases your damage done a lot.

For RvR, by now various specs and tactics are viable so I am not going to go into details in this section of the guide. After 35 I find all 3 Magus’ specs to be nice, with Daemonology being the best for premades for sure due to Rift.

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The Engineer is the offensive ranged DPS class of the Dwarven Oathbearers Army. Because Engineers are the masters of technology, they use grenades, guns, blunderbusses, artillery bombardment, and other gadgets against enemies. Some of their devices can also be traded and used by other allies.

The following guide is written by Givionte.

Givionte’s, So You Want To Be A Dwarf Engineer? Guide

Version 1.0 Last Updated 9/01/08

Welcome to Givionte’s career guide for the Dwarf Engineer class, updated 8/19/08. Whether you are a new engineer, or an experienced vet, I hope this guide will be helpful in not only showing you what this class is all about, but as a reference point when you are working on spec builds, and for planning different strategies.
Please note, this guide was written in closed beta, and is the most up to date information currently available. The Engineer class like many are constantly changing in beta so this guide will see many changes in coming weeks, so do not expect many things below to stay the same here anytime soon. I will update the guide as soon as anything changes in beta (that is not protected under the NDA). In the future I will add links to the Wardb for engineer gear sets, more information on the effects of different skills, and more commentary on the masteries (once they settle down after the revamp in a few weeks).

Table of Contents

1. 1. About The Engineer
2. 2. Core Abilities
3. 3. Core Morale Abilities
4. 4. Core Tactics
5. 5. Career Masteries

1. About The Engineer

From Armies of War…

An explosion is the ultimate form of mechanical advantage, so it’s no big surprise that the skills of the Dwarf Engineer extend well along these lines. From guns to grenades, he is a deadly ranged combatant who will pelt you with lead from afar and blast you to bits as you close in. He excels when fighting multiple opponents, as many of his explosive attacks are capable of devastating enemies who pack too closely together. The Engineer offers an outstanding blend of flexible firepower which makes him a truly deadly and clever combatant.

Engineer Specialty

The only thing more deadly than a simple bomb is a complicated one, or at least that’s the way an Engineer sees things. Using nothing more than the odds and ends they have at hand, Engineers can create a broad variety of useful objects with various purposes and functions. Some of them are even safe enough to give to others. From grenades of various types to mechanical weapon upgrades, the engineer and his allies can use these devices to significantly enhance or supplement their own combat power.

Playing as an Engineer

As an Engineer, the heart of your job is to rain destruction on the heads of your enemies. Like other ranged combatants, you prefer to avoid the frontline. However, unlike most other ranged classes, you reach the peak of your power at a relatively short range. You must maneuver wisely, positioning yourself so that you can strike at your target without exposing yourself to their attacks. You are a capable melee fighter, and you can strike at extended range, but your best attacks – grenades, blunderbusses, artillery bombardment, and more – require a closer position.

Fighting the Engineer

Perhaps the best way to deal with an Engineer is to fight him from afar. If you can effectively out damage him at long range he will be at a serious disadvantage. If you must get in close, be prepared to kill him quickly. Unlike most other ranged attackers, the Engineer loses little in terms of effectiveness in close quarters. He is certainly more vulnerable than a career designed to engage in melee, but this vulnerability does not make him easy meat.

Engineer Look

• Encased in light weight armor (loaded for bear with tools and widgets)
• Armed to the teeth with guns and grenades (and assorted other gadgets)
• Wields spanners and engineering hammers in melee

From WAR Players Guide…

Engineer: The “Shooter/Hybrid.” “The Engineer is the type of guy who brings a gun to a sword fight.”

Engineer Summary: The Dwarfs first discovered the secrets of black powder, and no one can rival them when it comes to putting it to good use. Armed with guns, grenades, and gadgets, the Engineers often prepare traps and ambushes throughout the battlefield before the fight begins, and then quickly dispatch any surviving enemies from a safe distance.

Engineer Mechanic: Crossbows were good and fine, but nowadays, a gun is better – and if a gun is good, then an automated self-aiming gyro-mounted gun turret with a cyclic grenade feeder and napalm cannister is even better yet! An Engineer has gadgets and gizmos to suit any situation, and is virtually an entire battle line on his own.

Important Skills for the Engineer:

Ballistic Skill – Increases DPS damage, and lowers enemies chance to block or evade. Also increases gun
autoattack damage

Initiative – Increases your chance to evade attacks, detects stealthed enemies, and lowers your chance to be
critically hit.

Weapon Skill – Increases your chance to parry attacks, and penentrate your opponents armor

Wounds – Increases your HP

Ballistic and Initiative were once thought to be the most important skills. Recently testers and dev’s even,
found out weapon skill also increases your armor penetration using guns as well. Ballistic is arguably the
most important skill for the engineer, but many other skills effect the class in different ways, so it is worth
experimenting.

2. Core Training

Core abilities can be learned at any Career Trainer, which is located in any chapter location, and also located in Altdorf. Find a Career Trainer on your mini map while in a camp or city.

Each ability costs a small amount of money to be able to learn. Once you learn an ability, it will automatically increase in power as you level, so you will not have to relearn again.

Core Training – Abilities in order by level available

Gun Blast – Level 1 – The bread & butter of this class, you’ll use Gun Blast in nearly every situation in the game, it’s the most powerful non mastery gun ability. Only downside is the slow “cast” time
Spanner Swipe – Level 1 – Early on in level, you will use this skill all the time since you are always in melee range. In later levels, this skill is fairly useless, though the snare does give you a small chance to escape in melee range, but requires using another skill to ail the enemy.
Flee – Level 1 – The “Oh Crap” spell, or “I can’t afford a mount yet” skill. All classes have this ability.
Flashbang Grenade – Level 2 – Flashbang is a spammable grenade, which does very quick damage in a short amount of time, and can slow down a caster significantly.
Gun Turret – Level 3 – This is the famous turret the Engineers are known for. The Gun Turret does single target damage, and does it fairly well. A turret boosts our damage output a lot.
Field Repair – Level 3 – Heal your turret, mainly useful for PvE, where you can control the turret a lot easier.
Friction Burn – Level 4 – The lead-in to to Spanner Swipe, the DOT stacked with other Engineer DOT’s can be quite powerful, but obviously this is only useful for NPC’s.
Acid Bomb – Level 5 – A powerful point blank AOE debuff, this skill can be very useful if used in rotation with other grenades.
Bombardment Turret – Level 6 – A single target turret, with a chance to toss an AOE grenade. If you go down the Grenadier path, Bombardment is the only turret you will ever need.
Addling Shot – Level 7 – Detaunt, use it, it works, and will save you countless times in PvE.
Blunderbuss Blast – Level 8 – Weak AOE with a cast time. This currently is a skill I will not even place on my skill bar, its that bad.
Incendiary Rounds – Level 8 – A great DOT skill, and will be regularly used. Won’t make a tank flinch, but can assist in bringing down a caster or melee dps down.
Fragmentation Grenade – Level 9 – Point blank AOE DOT. The DOT is pretty powerful, and I have seen pretty good success with this grenade.
Flame Turret – Level 9 – This turret has a cool fire effect, and will intimidate the enemy fairly well. It also puts out some pretty good damage. Every engineer will have fun with this turret.
Barbed Wire – Level 10 – One of only 2 skills we have to snare or root, but the chance of it working is not very great. My thought is, if you have to use this skill, well, you might as well expect to die, it means you are already in trouble.
Hip Shot – Level 12 – A nice instant, which gets even better with some tactics, morale, and other abilities later on.
Slow And Steady – Level 18 – You can improve your gun shots a bunch with this skill, but you get a perma snare while “buffed” with it. Word is it this skill might be on its way out the door. It probably won’t be missed.
Land Mine – Level 20 – The land mines do great damage, and there is a chance of a long knockdown. It’s not very reliable, but if defending, it is worth placing down.
Self-Destruct – Level 25 – Works as intended is the best way to describe it. It don’t matter what mastery you use, the Self-Destruct will come in handy.
Signal Flare – Level 30 – About the only use for this skill is for capture the flag scenarios to mark the enemy, and improve the chances he will go down.
Pepper Bomb – Level 35 – The damage is not too heavy, but silencing can work wonders if timed right.
Focused Fire – Level 40 – This will be an extremely important skill for Rifleman. It does lots of damage in a a few seconds. Focused Fire will get tons of use, and deservingly so.

3. Core Training – Morale Abilities by level available

Morale Abilities are obtained at the Career Trainer as well. You can only have 1 of each rank morale on
your bar at a time. These abilities are your most powerful, and choosing when to use a morale is an
important decision in every battle.

Point-Blank – Level 8 – A powerful basic rank 1 morale gun shot. It works great as a rank 1 morale, because it is a quick shot when you need it, but don’t have enough morale to do a cannon smash or Rank 4 nuke.
Unshakable Focus – Level 12 – You can get some huge numbers by using this with High-Explosive Ammo, but I don’t ever feel it is worth using if you didn’t go down the Rifleman mastery.
Concealment – Level 16 – Saves your butt for 7 seconds, but its difficult to want to choose this skill as a dps class and as a Rank 3, when Cannon Smash is so much cooler, and very powerful.
Focused Mind – Level 20 – A decent rank 2 morale, it can give you a nice little boost during close combat.
Explosive Shots – Level 24 – This Rank 3 morale does put out some good damage, and is fun to use in big packs of players. You can weaken a group fairly easily with this ability.
Autoloader – Level 28 – Engineers rarely run out of Action Points, so I don’t recommend this Rank 1 morale, unless you go into the Tinkerer line and drop turrets like a madman.
Armored Plating – Level 32 – I like to use this Rank 2 in dungeons, when there are multiple mobs, or adds. The damage saved really adds up after 20 seconds.
Cannon Smash – Level 36 – Awesome! Not only does the explosion look very powerful, but the damage is extremely powerful, and the armor reduction and knock down on top of that make it a great choice for a Rank 3 morale.
Hail of Doom – Level 40 – An AOE which does as advertised. Enjoy watching the scrolling combat text when attacking a mob with this Rank 4 morale.

Breakdown of Morale choices by rank…

Rank 1
Point-Blank Concealment Autoloader
Rank 2
Unshakable FocusFocused MindArmored Plating
Rank 3
Explosive ShotsCannon Smash
Rank 4
Hail of DoomScattershot*
Artillery Barrage*
Fling Explosives*

*Denotes skill that requires mastery points to learn See Section VI through VIII for these morale abiltities

4. Core Training – Tactics by level available

Tactics are learned at the career trainer. Depending on your level, you can only have a certain amount of tactics
on your bar at a time. You can have multiple tactic bars, and switch between each of them when out of combat.

Stoutness of Stone – Level 11 – This tactic is not for an Engineer, and no reason to use it. It is rare I get stunned or knocked down.
Expert Skirmisher – Level 13 – Ok tactic, but usually I can find something better to place on the tactics bar.
Reinforced Casing – Level 15 – Turrets need all the HP they can get since they are super easy to take down, so if you go down the Tinkerer path, this is a good tactic choice.
Stubbornness – Level 17 – Gives decent resistance to corporeal, but I prefer my tactics to improve damage or abilities, not keep me alive slightly longer.
Steady Aim – Level 19 – A great tactic, will give a good boost to the ballistic skill.
Hand-Crafted Scope – Level 21 – If you have a real fast gun, this can come in handy in situations where you don’t expect to be in close range.
Ancestral Inheritance – Level 23 – Who needs armor, I carry around grenades on my shoulders and wield a gun!
Clever Recovery – Level 25 – I rarely, if ever have a problem with AC.
Concussive Mine – Level 27 – If you use lands mine quite a bit, this tactic can be quite fun.
Pierce Defenses – Level 29 – Considering we are supposed to be the class defending, this tactic won’t ever be really useful to us.
Steady Hand – Level 31 – Considering I rarely get set back, not sure if it is really that useful for Engineers.
Rune of Forging – Level 33 – This works well in RvR and PvE. Definitely a good tactic to put on the short list.
Proximity Alarm – Level 35 – Comes in handy in scenarios where you might be the one defending a flag. Those pesky Witch Elfs can take down a Engineer easily if caught off guard.
Tangling Wire – Level 37 – A sweet tactic that makes Barbed Wire more viable. This is one I put on at least 1 of of my tactic bars depending on this situation.
Coordinated Fire – Level 39 – This is good for capture the flag or murderball scenarios, but that’s about it. Place it on a tactic bar for scenarios.

5. Mastery Training

Engineers, like all classes, have 3 mastery lines available they can use to differentiate themselves from
other Engineers, and to compliment their favorite playstyle. Each mastery specializes in something the
others do not, and will boost any core skills under that path. You can have points in multiple masteries, so it
is worth experimenting with different combinations.

Engineer Masteries Summary:

Path Of The Rifleman This path focuses on long-range attacks, and taking your time with carefully aimed
precision shots. A master of this path prefers to stand back away from the hectic front lines of battle, and
dispatch his enemies quickly and cleanly from behind defensive cover.

Path Of The Grenadier This mastery is primarily focused on grenades and bombs, powerful explosives
which may be quickly tossed into the middle of a fray to wreak havoc on enemies. While their effective
range may be shorter than a gun’s – after all, Dwarf arms aren’t exactly build to throw for distance -
grenades make up for this through sheer stopping power and swift arming times.

Path Of The Tinkerer A specialist in this path is concerned mainly with his deployable contructs,
preferring to fight from near the safety of his turrets while he lays out his foes with swings of his heavy
steel wrench. Master tinkerers have also been known to use additional deployable devices above and
beyond turrets as well, and many are the Engineers who’ve been banned for life from a blacksmith’s forge
after trying to test and improve the heat thresholds of land mines.

Path of the Rifleman Breakdown

Skills Boosted Under this path:

Gun Blast Hip ShotGun Turret Incendiary Rounds Focused Fire
Mastery Path, Start from Bottom to top…

Scattershot – Like all Rank 4’s, it does heavy damage but you have to debate whether it is worth having compared to the core Rank 4 morale you get for free.
14
High-Explosive Ammo – This buff to your gun skills is pretty awesome, and is a skill you need to use everytime it pops up.
12
Quick Reloader – Meh, not anything worth having.
10
Snipe – Strong, with a longer cast, but with High-Explosive Ammo, its worth having.
8
Hollow-Points – If you are going to get Snipe, then it is a no brainer to get this tactic.
6
Crack Shot – This shot does good damage, and the disarm will make a marauder or witch elf cry, so yes, it is worth it.
4
Stopping Power – As noted, a short distance. I don’t think it is strong enough of a tactic.
2
1

Path of the Grenadier Breakdown

Skills Boosted under this path:

Flashbang Grenade Bombardment Turret Pepper Bomb Acid Bomb Fragmentation Grenade
Mastery Path, Start from Bottom to top…

Artillery Barrage – Like all mastery rank 4’s, you have to decide whether you want this pretty nuke over the Core morale.
14
Phosphorous Shells – Awesome channeling nuke, that does superior damage. If you go Grenadier, this is the obvious, must have skill.
12
Bandolier – We don’t have problems with AC, so no to this tactic.
10
Concussion Grenade – A good grenade to mix in with the others, but its knockback is nothing special.
8
Throwing Arm – If you are going to be a grenade throwing machine, this tactic is a must have.
6
Fire Bomb – It’s not too powerful, but is worth getting only so that you don’t get bored spamming the same grenades over and over.
4
Extra Powder – This benefits the 2 skills a little, but questionable if worth it.
2
1

Path of the Tinkerer Breakdown

Skills Boosted under this path:

Spanner Swipe Friction Burn Land Mine Blunderbuss Blast Flame Turret
Mastery Path, Start from Bottom to top…

Fling Explosives – Nice self AOE, this is probably worth puring the points in Tinkerer for, but the rest of the line cant match it.
14
Bugman’s Best – It’s effect does hardly anything, don’t waste the point on it other then to have a unique skill to get stares and oohs and aahs.
12
Tracer Rounds – Nice tactic actually, the crits can fly when using this tactic. Hard part is trying to stay within 20 feet, that is hard to do, except in PvE, but too many crits, and you could easily get aggro.
10
Steam Vent – Does wonderful damage, and when combined with Self-Destruct, the damage can be massive.
8
Runes of Warding – It’s ok for PvE, don’t know if it makes it worth going down this path for.
6
Ammo Compartment – If you are dropping turrets and using heavy AC skills, you might need this, but I just don’t see that happening.
4
Well-Oiled Machine – Instant turrets are awesome, and this is the only reason I ever put points in Tinkerer, to get this one awesome tactic.
2
1

This will get you started with the Engineer class, but there is much more to learn. Soon, I’ll have some links to some strategy and tactic guides for those who want to push their Engineer to the max, or how to best play them in RvR or PvE.

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The Sorceress/Sorcerer is the ranged DPS class of the Dark Elves Army (House Uthorin Army). The Sorceress specializes in using the Dhar (Dark Magic) to inflict a huge amount of damage to enemies but it also harms the Sorceress in return.

The following guide is written by Ayestes .

Ayestes’ Guide to the Sorceress

I) Introduction to the Author
II) Formatting and Version
III) Mechanics and Basics
IV) Abilities
V) Morale Abilities
VI) Masteries
VII) Tactics
-Agony
-Calamity
-Destruction
VII) PvE
IX) RvR
X) Mastery Ideas
XI) Suggestions & Bugs
XII) The Last Stuff

Helpful Link
Curse Database

I) Introduction to the Author

Age 22, Male, currently enrolled in college for Computer Science (BS).

Played MUDS (Tempered Steel & Forsaken Lands) for a long duration, Diablo 2, World of Warcraft, EVE, Tabula Rasa, and now WAR. I’ve been in closed beta for quite awhile now (since mid-summer 08 or before maybe?) and began wanting to play the Shaman to heal. As time progressed I loved the Shaman but ended up loving the Sorceress even more. I had a lot of fun with the career even while it was considered weak and unplayable. I’ve put in countless suggestions and bugs concerning this career and have enjoying being a factor in it’s current incarnation. I will most certainly be playing a Sorceress come release.

II) Formatting and Version

Guide Version (0.5.2) Beta 10/25/08 (Quick Fixes)
Updated to Game Version 3.3 Beta

So there are things you can ignore. Suggestions to Mythic, BUGS, TODO, and maybe a few other things are probably not a big part of this guide. I wanted to throw out a few suggestions to what you guys think and some noteworthy bugs. They aren’t all the bugs or all the suggestions I have rather the important ones. Some parts of this guide may not be finished and I apologize as I haven’t had the time to do it yet or are simply waiting for some changes I cannot disclose.

Beware I’ll likely go through this often and change things. I don’t know if I plan on making you aware of these changes. There are times I’ve been a little… shall we say tipsy while creating this so if something doesn’t make any sense don’t hesitate to point it out. If you disagree that is great, please inform me of how you can use something effectively or something I can do to improve my play.

III) Mechanics and Basics

The Sorceress is a Magic DPS archtype. Note that there is a difference at least to Mythic in comparing a Ranged DPS and a Magic DPS especially when it comes to morales and tactics that each of them receive. The other big fundamental difference is one uses physical damage and the other uses primarily magical damage. The Sorceress uses primarily Corporeal and Spirit damage. More often then not your big spells will consist of Corporeal although the Sorceress is pretty well balanced in using each damage type so it’s only a slight edge.

Specifically the Sorceress is the unofficially named the Glass Cannon type. It’s mirror is the Bright Wizard for the Empire. This gives us a mechanic in our case called Dark Magic. Simply put you build this mechanic while you are casting spells. Each spell gives a varied number of Dark Magic depending on the spell. As you build in Dark Magic depending on the level you are at you will gain a bonus to critically hitting the opponent as well as a bonus to your critical damage. The side effect is the higher your Dark Magic level the higher chance and higher damage of a backlash. A backlash can only occur upon casting a spell of which builds Dark Magic which is the majority of spells in your arsenal. There are three ways to dispose of Dark Magic. The most common will be Dhar Wind . This ability returns your Dark Magic to zero upon use. Another method is to just not cast anything for a moderate amount of time. The least desired method is death. I can assume you would much rather use the first two. There is a chart below as to what the levels are.

Dark Magic Table (Pre 1.0.6)

You should notice that it’s an exponential growth. As you approach maximum Dark Magic you will deal an exponential increase in damage. You will also take an exponential increase in damage. If you simply sit at high Dark Magic levels you absolutely will kill yourself off. You will take damage very, very rapidly. So there are two ways to deal with this. One is to pace yourself and use Dhar Wind whenever you reach 70+ Dark Magic. The other is to receive healing. I won’t lie to you, your damage is much higher at high levels and your burst damage is all the more feared. You can gamble a little with it if you need to finish someone off in RvR but without a healer I would advise you get rid of that Dark Magic as soon as the globe turns redish. (71+ is where I see a red tint)

Don’t take this as necessarily gospel rather as an introduction to the mechanic. It is very advantageous to take a gamble for that extra damage. You can do much more damage at the higher levels and taking a few backlashes is often a good idea to output that extra damage before dropping down.

I myself like a less self-damaging approach. I’ve lived for an entire scenario without a death without scraping more then two hots by a Disciple. In that particular situation I had to minimize the self damage at all costs and I did that by running below 70+. In other words, that would be a very sustainable area to deal damage without injuring oneself too often.

It is a gamble in the end since you are chancing extra damage while you are chancing damage to yourself. If you bring yourself too low without a healer some Witch Hunter or Shadow Warrior could virtually one-shot you. You could very likely be doing some impressive damage though in return. You can go a little more wild too with Absorb Vitality and a lot of Wounds gear. It’s very situational. I would recommend jumping above 70+ in situations to kill someone off or extremely close match ups but that’s not always the case. I just prefer to stay above half health personally although I know for certain other players don’t mind getting low and letting loose all that extra damage.

Now this mechanic makes it so that your base damage is a little lower then most. No one thinks it impressive when you are at low levels of power. Bouncing between low and moderate levels of Dark Magic is optimal for natural DPS. If you can afford a few heals then your damage output will be the highest in the game. This is at a great price even with healing however. Causing constant damage to yourself along with having the absolute lowest armor type of four in the game (Cloth) makes you the squishiest there can be. Base toughness values are pretty low as well making any enemy target see you as a target that makes their numbers look huge and mobs burn through your health quicker then anyone would ever expect.

Early on while leveling in your career you will have access to very scarce crowd control options making your character the most vulnerable career type in the game along with the Bright Wizard. As a Magic DPS it’s natural that Melee DPS will absolutely destroy you if they contact you and have a massive advantage against you. The only chance is to catch them off guard at range and fully concentrate on them and even then it’ll require careful use of crowd control. Tanks mostly harass you – although if you ignore them they can cause immense damage as well. Generally you can destroy a Tank around your strength especially if you catch them at a range. Tanks do not have options to catch you if they aren’t within melee already. If they have support however then you are going to need to look for your own support as well. Ranged DPS have an advantage against you simply because you are weak to Physical damage. They will typically out damage you in a standoff but it’s generally pretty even. Melee Support is a monster truck. Unless you have the strength to break their heals they are extremely tough to beat without assistance. You can best one but it’s best to keep away and kite as they share the same weakness as a tank and have difficulty catching you. I’m not sure whom has the exact advantage in this case though. I’ll have a more detailed analysis on RvR in another section. Just remember that your fragility is your downside and if you can keep yourself from ever taking damage from an opponent in the first place then all you have left is your strengths.

Advice on Attributes

Whether it’s renown points, armor, weapons, or some other methods of gaining power through attributes you will always be striving to better yourself. What does a Glass Cannon Magic DPS do? Damage. What improves damage you may ask… it’s Intelligence. It is the single simple key to improving how much damage you deal. When it far outmatches an opponents toughness then even your minor skills do impressive damage. Of course other things that factor into improving your damage are valued as well. Any bonus to crit is of course helpful especially at high Dark Magic. Any bonus to mastery levels is probably highly valued as well. Anything that increases damage is a number one priority in my book.

Now then there is your defensive stats. Armor, Resistances, Toughness, Wounds, Initiative, Willpower and a variety of other methods of gaining protection. Above all Toughness, Wounds, and Resistances are likely the best way to protect yourself. If you can find a decent Armor value (on Cloth) then by all means that would be the best defense since Order primarily consists of Physical Damage. Wounds is very effective in reducing the percentage effect of backlashes on your health as well. Backlashes do not scale with hp and rather scale with level. So the more Wounds gear you carry the longer you could gamble your damage at maximum Dark Magic without a healer. Toughness on the other hand is only extremely effective in large amounts and in no way slows down Backlashes. So be wary of that.

Resistance choice is fairly difficult. Bright Wizards pride themselves on Elemental damage and Corporeal damage. Engineers do a fair amount of Corporeal. Shadow Warriors do Elemental and Corporeal but they can choose to ignore your resistances. Nearly all the melee classes do some form of Spirit damage from light to moderate. So it’s up to you and how the game progresses to see what types you should specify.

Initiative is much better then Willpower simply to reduce the chance you are crit. The bonus dodge is helpful against the Engineer and Shadow Warrior. Willpower give s you disrupt. While disrupt is highly useful as many, many careers have magic effects this is very undervalued stat and you should probably choose all others before it.

If it were me, usually Intelligence, Wounds and Toughness are more then enough to concentrate on. As the game has matured, I’ve even dropped Toughness. Of course nabbing any +% crit is important as well. Often my Intelligence is double, triple, or even higher then that compared to my other stats. It really makes me a Glass Cannon but I can do some impressive damage in return especially with Dark Magic amplifying it.

Willpower and Weapon Skill are very, very neglable considering at Rank 40 it requires 50 points of each to net yourself ~1% disrupt/parry. You are much better off stacking Initiative or even Toughness. Better yet just do Resistances and Wounds.

IV) Abilities

Dhar Wind

Your Dark Magic dump. It’s damage isn’t particularly great, although it is nice when Gloomburst is on cooldown as another 1s cast ability. It’s primary weakness is that you have to be standing still to cast it and it’s fairly meager damage. The damage is undefendable so you can pierce crazy defended tanks with it. Be wary of the cast time – you can’t expect to spam your Surging Pain for example and clean up your Dark Magic.

Doombolt

The primary skill used for damage comes at a hefty cost. Not action points however, cause that is dirt cheap in terms of the amount of damage. A 3 second cast can be difficult to pull off on some targets especially in RvR. If you are getting hit in melee you better find a way to prevent setback or you will suffer trying to cast this spell. Also watch for when people pull out of LoS. May as well cancel it at that point and reposition or retarget. With all it’s downsides however it hits extremely hard compared to most spells and it comes without a cooldown allowing it to be chain cast. With Agony powered up this is a spell to fear getting hit with and is probably the single most efficient spell to spam while at maximum Dark Magic if you wish to gamble your health due to it’s long cast time. This spell can be used to create some powerful combos with other morale, masteries, and core abilities as well and is the standard nuke you will use throughout your career as a Sorceress. One additional note is this is the most efficient AP nuke you have both in temrs of raw AP and Total AP Drain.

Chillwind

So a nine second dot does have it’s disadvantages in that it’s duration is so low. It’s less AP efficient then Doombolt and costs you half the time to setup – although you can move during the global cooldown. It does wonderful damage for a DoT though, especially powered with Calamity. It’s also extremely safe to use at low Dark Magic and powerful once you built it up. I use it primarily as I move around positioning myself – although I’m careful when I need to mind my Dark Magic. Spam casting it can destroy you if you do this at high Dark Magic levels. It’s very useful with Grasping Darkness to AP drain and debuff the enemy as well. No matter what the spec a DoT has it’s uses. From using it as a primary source of damage with Calamity to simply throwing it beforehand while getting into position as Agony it is your staple DoT that lasts forever (well 9 seconds of it anyway).

Gloomburst

A spell laced with Dark Magic. It oozes Dark Magic into you and is a very quick cast with a high damage per second. It also leaves you .4 seconds of freedom to move (with global cooldown) but you are more likely to simply chain a spell right after it. Taking it as a 1.5 second cast spell its a little above Doombolt in damage, hits the target instantly, and skyrockets your Dark Magic. Without healing, Dhar Wind might be the next cast if your Dark Magic is brought to Tier 4 or 5. Combined with Doombolt this makes an extremely low level efficient combo. Doombolt ? Gloomburst hits at nearly the same time for a decent chunk of health. Use it pretty much anytime the cooldown is up unless your worried about Dark Magic.

Shroud of Darkness

Defensive spell plain and simple. Use it anytime you are being attacked by magical damage or anticipate it. Bright Wizards, Archmages, and Runepriests do it primarily. Most non-siege AoE is magical as well. A lot of melee classes are sprinkled with Spirit damage types (Swordmaster, Warrior Priest, Witch Hunter and White Lion) and the Engineer carries a lot of Corporeal. The Shadow Warrior comes with Festering Arrow and Flame Arrow but they can take a tactic to negate resistance – but throwing up a defense doesn’t hurt I guess if you know if he doesn’t have it as undefendable. You can save it for the Bright Wizards or simply chuck it out whenever one of the above engages you. It’s a powerful effect and is not to be taken lightly. It single handedly allows you to beat Bright Wizards one on one and allows you to stick your nose out in a zerg without dying a horrible death. Against anything your own rank, this increases your resistances by +22.5% in each catagory often netting 30% protection against each form of magic damage if your resistances were already 25%.

Dread Aspect

Smart use of this ability can keep you alive especially coupled with healing. Doesn’t prevent setback however so you can either make the choice to escape or cast at a reduced pace of damage. Use it on Shadow Warriors or Bright Wizards trying to pick you off. Be wary though – if you have Stricken Limbs or Grip of Fear do not use Dread Aspect immediately against a Witch Hunter whom has revealed themselves or a White Lion whom has pulled you to him. The exception is if you have to use Grip of Fear and the attacker is under heavy damage himself, in which use Dread Aspect so Grip of Fear doesn’t break. You have to entirely prevent the damage first and foremost – if you do not have access to that then Dread Aspect should be your last choice. Should be more then capable of keeping you alive with support however. One trick you can attempt to use in a close fight is to Dread Aspect them and charge a Doombolt face to face with a melee. During the cast time you take 50% less damage and any bit can help in a duel. Remember you don’t have to be facing the target to use it.

Surging Pain

A PBAoE nuke. Tread carefully however as this can earn you a quick death by spam casting it. Maxing out your Dark Magic in 5 or less casts coupled with using it every 1.5 seconds earns you A LOT of backlash damage. It’s damage isn’t exactly incredible either. Use it sparingly when surrounded by enemies (you probably should be getting the heck out of there too!) unless you have some very capable healing support. I have used it in particular moments I know I’m going to die – but don’t always give up hope and kill yourself off since a heal can be just around the corner. Combined with Piercing Shadows it can do some impressive damage but the cones do much higher damage so be sure to use them first. Pit of Shades and Shattered Shadows are so much safer to use though so don’t TRY to use Surging Pain.

Frozen Touch

One of the best buffs in the game. Gives your entire group extra damage including you. It’s fairly simple to use just keep it always up and try to catch your group entirely with it. Can be dispelled but is fairly easy to recast and since the Action Points regen in 2 seconds you should always have it up before battle. In case it’s not clear, this will trigger upon any successful cast of an ability including any DoT. It will not however trigger upon each tick of a DoT.

NOTE: Currently make sure in RvR that you gain the Bolster buff before casting it as it’s level doesn’t increase until that is cast.

Word of Pain (Pre 1.0.6)

A lot of people love this ability to death. I have a different take on it. I do see it’s uses for preparing a target for burst damage or destroying targets on the run, but after that I don’t use it. The Willpower debuff is to say the least pathetic and the fact that it takes it’s damage at minimum 13s to come through with a x3 stacking is a long time in RvR. Maybe I’m too spoiled at the higher levels where combat feels much faster and CC can change the day at any given time. Honestly, whenever I try to use it the target usually gets away or is killed prematurely. Even then it’s damage is honestly NOT that impressive without Calamity specialization. I do more damage with a Doombolt ? Gloomburst combo then I do with x3 Word of Pain. That’s not to say it’s not useful! If for some reason it all does follows the plan I can set up some very impressive simultaneous damage with x3 Word of Pain. It’s main use to me however is when I’m chasing someone with instant cast spells since it can be used while moving. I’m not impressed with this spell in its’ current form but it can be used well especially if you build your Dark Magic up quickly afterwards.

Shattered Shadows

Once you get Pit of Shades this spell loses a fair bit of use but it does get used in between the castings of Pit of Shades. It’s long cast time prevents it from being a rapid use spell and makes it difficult to position correctly in RvR sometimes as you have to guess where the target will be in 3 seconds. It does less damage then Pit of Shades per second as well. It’s useful in between castings but it’s not your gospel AoE. Also, be careful with the 80 range as you do have to stick your neck out in front of a group if there is a standoff to use it. It’s a fairly large chunk of AoE burst when used properly.

Obsessive Focus

Consider a 1.5s global cooldown (I know it’s 1.4s, just simpler). You lose 1.5s worth of time (you can move while using it thought) to cast this spell to gain +10% damage. You should make up for that in 15 seconds worth of DPS. I know you can’t quite make it that simple and there are other things to take into consideration but, the point remains that this ability should only be used if you can focus for nearly the full duration or you are setting up for some powerful burst damage. It’s not worth using regularly however at least in my practice. If you can prove me wrong please do so, I can’t figure out the right way to use it.

Grip of Fear (Pre 1.0.6)

Absolutely essential escape ability. Some may cry it breaks too much or is not long enough. I don’t find that being too much of a problem since if the target is under attack they usually are being killed and 5s is more then enough time to get 3s of distance and turn around to use another spell. One thing to notice is this is a Hex which means things that require Curses (see skill below) cannot be used on this. While escaping to your party make sure you use this skill and don’t look back. As far as I know this doesn’t break during your dots and rather when they are cast but I could be wrong. If someone could verify it that would be awesome.

Arctic Blast

The 2s cast on this spell hurts is more then anything – the curse component isn’t so bad. Makes it very difficult to use in PvE though. Use this snare to assist someone’s escape (like your healer buddy!) or when the target is dilly dallying on his way to you. Chillwind is the easiest curse to throw on them beforehand but make sure you look across all your spells like Ice Spikes, Vision of Torment, and Absorb Vitality since they are curses too. The best way to use this in a solo situation is to have them cursed and then after you Grip of Fear them take 2.5s worth of steps away and turn around to whip this at them so it breaks and they are snared to boot. I actually don’t use this much in practice other then solo situations and in aiding an ally. Another method of using this is casting Shades of Death or Chillwind after you let loose with with the spell. Since it has a time before it reaches the target, using any Curse after you use it allows it to trigger the snare.

Ice Spikes

The first cone ability is unique in that it’s not of the Destruction line but rather the Calamity line since it’s a DoT. It ticks for a little over 3/5 of what Chillwind does and costs the same. If the target is in range you may as well cast it although you probably can find something better unless your Calamity. If there are two or three in range you should cast it. If there are any more… you probably should not be where you are without support or at least hope to be lucky – but cast it anyway since it’s fun to see all the pretty numbers. Pretty effective in combination with Infernal Wave when you get a little close to a group of people. Do not go trying to use this spell past Tier 3 as the amount of CC controls increase dramatically and you will find yourself dying while using it’s short range more often then not.

Infernal Wave

Ah the direct damage cone ability. This makes it so you have two of them which is very handy when you are in range. Make sure you use this far before you consider using Surging Pain but you should probably use it after Ice Spikes. It’s somewhat okay at quick instant cast damage but in comparison Impending Doom carries almost twice it’s damage and even Gloomburst does plenty more. Make sure you use the cone AoEs when you can and don’t forget about them for your AoE. Before Pit of Shades they are extraordinary useful and retain most of their power even after the fact being instant cast on the move. This has incredible potential for a quick burst damage cast even on a single target.

Daemonic Chill

A blessing/augmentation to accompany Frozen Touch. These two give you a signature of sorts in a group since anyone will know when you have given them these buffs. The damage isn’t all so great (even with Calamity) but it’s something at least and is pretty much free to cast. It’s most effective on tanks since you will be beaten down relatively quickly if this starts to cause a lot of damage to someone while a tank should survive with their toughness and wounds. At the very least it’s dispel fodder.

Frostbite

The almighty 1s instant -travel disarm. It’s what separates us from the Bright Wizards in my opinion. Use it intelligently but use it often. Witch Hunter just pop up on you with Sudden Accusation? This is the answer. Then nuke his face while hopefully you have support to take care of him. Shadow Warrior trying to pick you off? Warrior Priest feeding off the damage into healing? Tank disrupting your healer? It has many, many uses and my favorite of all of them is defending the healers or other Ranged DPS in the zerg by making them regret ever attacking. Watch out for it’s cooldown however it’s 30s of weakness once you don’t have it not to mention the cast time can delay you a fair margin.

Pit of Shades

This makes us the queen of AoE for Destruction. It’s a GTAoE of doom. Positioning it correctly is key but it’s fairly simple – catch as many as you can with it. Preferably somewhere you are sure they will stick around; the middle of a melee conflict, keep doors & hallways, or in the path of resistance. To use it most effectively build up to maximum Dark Magic and then cast it. You only suffer the chance of a backlash once right at the beginning of the cast and gain the benefits of super powerful crits throughout the channeling. Afterwards, your Dark Magic will likely be dropping back to safe levels. In a sense it’s the safest way to use maximum Dark Magic there is although you are still likely to take a bit of damage. This is one of our defining abilities and should be used often when there are groups to AoE and the reason we should always place high in scenario for damage. Currently this scales at a rediculous rate and is extremely potent against anyone with low Toughness.

Reckless Gathering

Oh such a wonderful ap recovery ability. 3 seconds and you regain 210 AP which is nearly full (out of 250). Keep in mind though you cannot be taking damage while using it or you will suffer the knockdown! While repositioning in RvR combat you probably won’t be out too often, but in a focused attack such as killing off a tank you might run a fair bit low. Often it’s all you need in RvR to keep your action point flow enough to where you never will run out. Remember it’s considered “burst dps” while you have action points, and “sustained dps” while you are out just scraping for action points. This ability helps you keep in the “burst dps” phase for as long as needed in RvR only costing you 3 seconds of recharge time. If you would ever need more we have Devour Energy and Recover Energy to pick from as well – making action points one less thing you have to think about. A common trick is to use it while moving netting you a free 70 AP without a chance to be knocked down.

Vision of Torment

Just as a delayed nuke it’s a little weak. The damage is far less then half of what Chillwind provides at the same cost, although it’s effect comes in 5 seconds rather then 9. Also quite a bit weaker the Impending Doom in a straight comparison. What it’s used for is Action Point denial. With Grasping Darkness you can effectively bring someone into “ap lockdown”. It works best on people with cast times, such as Support Casters and Magic DPS. You don’t use the Action Points until you’ve cast a spell – if someone is low on action points and combined with casting a spell they have no ap regeneration. Combined you can lock out someone from casting spells. It’s only really effective against someone standing through your nukes… such as a healer however. Also, 30 AP loss over 5 seconds is very meager and will only effect them if they are spam casting at zero action points – likely need to be affected by Grasping Darkness during this cast. I only use it on any support or if I’m deep in Calamity.

Stricken Voices

Such a wondrous ability. AoE silence for 5 seconds. Dirt cheap at 25 action points. Only problem is the cooldown and 2s cast time. You will probably use it on that pesky healer healing themselves or others. You will probably use it on the Bright Wizard attacking you. Of course, if you can catch multiple healers under the effect then do so as soon as you think you have a chance at killing someone while they are silenced. I can only imagine what this could do in coordinated battles although the range of 80 makes you exposed and warns them of the possibility. Using this on a single target is viable as well as a ranged silence. Such a tragedy one has to wait until rank 40 for it…

V) Still to come: Morale Abilities

VI) Tactics

Dark Blessings

Useful when you have a healer although it’s not the most effective tactic you can usually slot. 10% healing received is such a small bonus to take up a tactic slot you will most likely abandon this in a few ranks as soon as you get Devour Energy. Unless you are getting spam healed every few seconds it’s probably not worth slotting.

Suggestion to Mythic: Increase this to 15% as 10% is simply to meager of an effect and it’ll be thrown out compared to any other tactic. I do know that it’s a racial tactic for the Dark Elves and would like to see a racial tactic have more use. I know that racially the Dwarves are more resistant to stuns with a tactic – why can’t Dark Elves simply be noticed for the extra heals they can scrape up?

Devour Energy

Extremely useful in any PvE group environment. Often useful in RvR as well if you find yourself running out of action points at any time. Combine it with Recover Energy and Reckless Gathering to become a human (er dark elven) action point recovery machine. A key ability to sustained damage.

Grasping Darkness

Makes you a debuff machine. Drops an opponents damage by a considerable amount of whomever you hit with Doombolt or Chillwind not to mention makes it drain ever so slightly the AP of someone every time one of those spells land. Useful if you spam Chillwind around and useful if you Doombolt nuke a target – probably an RvR only tactic unless you really need to reduce the mobs damage.

Alignment of Naggaroth

Spirit Damage is the most common damage type from the Order. It is not used by the classes that excel at ranged damage such as the Bright Wizard, Engineer, or Shadow Warrior however. The classes that deal Spirit primarily is the Runepriest and Archmage. Classes that deal it in addition to physical damage are the Swordmaster, Witch Hunter, White Lion, and Warrior Priest. Most of the melee classes usually don’t deal very much spirit damage however. So as modest protection against the enemy healers and an minor tool of survival against the melee of the Order equip this. I however, don’t often use it simply because I try not to get hit in the first place and the ones that do hit me are usually not doing spirit damage.

Endless Knowledge

A pretty good boost to damage and anti-disrupt mitigation. Always the perfect tactic to equip when you need filler. In fact, I would only leave it out of very specialized builds. If and when we determine what the soft cap is for Intelligence then I imagine this tactic will become less useful as you fill out with gear letting you free up a tactic slot.

Infernal Gift

This is why you will be wanted for groups. Notice it doesn’t effect yourself but you will probably still be dishing out more damage then them anyway if your healer loves you enough. Stick two Sorceresses in one group and it’s nearly always up not to mention you can gain the benefit as well. Key to doing massive coordinated damage spikes.

Bathing in Blood

Hardly even useful for PvE. It’s useful somewhat while AoE’ing if you are in danger of dying and begin killing off targets – but if you are that in danger of death it’s likely a single tick of Bathing in Blood wouldn’t save you. There are a lot of reports of it getting bugged while killing multiple mobs at once as well.

Sleight of Hand

If you pull aggro then use this. If you never do then don’t. It’s that simple. I’m sure tanks would want you to use it however, so keep that in mind. Obviously has no effect in RvR unless you pull aggro against Keep Lords or Heroes guarding the objectives. Course even then I doubt it’s needed. Personally I’d suggest a tank Guard you, you get in Close Quarters, and give them as much aggro as you can.

Empowered Dhar

If you dump Dark Magic often with Dhar Wind and are in sustained fights then use this. Generally this will only happen without a healer in RvR. I would see it as counter intuitive that a healer couldn’t give you a hot or two in PvE (unless he can’t keep the tank alive). It’ll probably happen though. PvE by yourself fights go too quick so you don’t have to worry about it. You don’t even need to Reckless Gathering much at all if you use this in RvR.

Close Quarters

A miracle bonus for when you can fight close up. Think PvE where you don’t worry so much about being close – unless it has some crazy AoE in which the Melee DPS get to suffer from. It is possible to use this in RvR but from experience it’ll earn you a faster death. It excels at “dueling” a Melee DPS and any solo conflict with one will be considerably easier. Such a damage bonus is nothing to sneer at while doing PvE alone either as I’ve killed mobs much higher level with this on and it is absolute excellent to use while AoE’ing in these cases. Although it’s quite dangerous again and did get me killed once in a long while.

Manic Obsession

If Obsessive Focus was more worth it then this tactic would be pretty neat allowing you to keep one up indefinitely. This however is not quite the case. A 10% boost in damage using 1.5 seconds of every 20 seconds is hardly worth it. Instead I’d just slot Endless Knowledge and notice the effect without having to constantly use it.

Triumphant Blasting

It’s amazing. Not as amazing as you probably think, but it is amazing. Knocking people around is great. You probably know by now that you crit a lot at high Dark Magic and therefore you will knockback a lot. Great with cone AoEs and Surging Pain to try and get someone off of you as well as pushing back the enemy with Pit of Shades. If however you want to do pure damage and kill the enemy you will be a fair bit disappointed as this will knock the enemy out of your Pit of Shades or out of any AoE range you cast it in. That’s not to say it’s not good because it is very, very good. Just not as good as it’s first made out to be!

Hastened Fear

If you find you need Grip of Fear and Dread Aspect quicker then utilize this. I never felt I needed either as often as the cooldowns permit since I simply got used to the idea of preventing the instances in which I needed them most often. Of course, there will always be times I used them but when I needed them I very rarely noticed their cooldown ticking. So take it if you need it although I imagine this would be quite useful in a more dual type setting.

Glorious Carnage

Another on crit ability for the crit class. I never actually tested this as I was too hooked on other builds and to be honest I forgot about it. I’m not sure how much 200 points of Morale is but I can gather that is a fairly large bonus. Combined with a high Dark Magic setup you will likely do quite well with this active allowing you to reach Morale 3 and 4 much easier. If someone has a more exacting rate at which 200 points travels through the Morale meter (I know that it’s slower at the end so it’s not quite %) then please let me know.

Umbral Fury

Triples the damage from Frozen Touch for your entire group. Pretty interesting really and especially useful on a career that hits in rapid succession (Marauder, Disciple of Khaine, Witch Elf). Remember Frozen Touch only applies to being hit with an attack and does not occur within ticks of a skill so keep that in mind. Very powerful tactic in groups and I can only imagine what it can do in tandem with Tapping the Dark. The DPS increase is not considerable (If you average a single hit every 1.5s at max Agony it’s only a 50 DPS increase by yourself) alone but in a group it must be weighed in.

VII) Masteries

Agony

These skills focus on doing the most damage while you still have Action Points in your system. Directly effecting a single target with massive damage to dispose of them quickly and effectively. Builds Dark Magic extremely quickly with Impending Doom and Gloomburst and is often quite damaging to oneself especially with Swell of Gloom slotted. These Sorceresses will be feared for the burst damage they can output while empowered with Dark Magic.

Recover Energy

Amazing tactic if you are an Agony Sorceress as you will be using a lot of Agony abilities. Used in tandem with the previously mentioned Devour Energy and Grasping Darkness you should boost your sustained damage considerably. It remains to be seen if you can exceed the sustained damage of a Calamity Sorceress but I can’t imagine it being too far off.

Echo of Power

In it’s current incarnation it’s quite weak. It does far less then Impending Doom and has a requirement to be cast as well. Did I mention it costs the nearly same AP? I imagine if a target would disrupt often then it could be of use since it has no cooldown… but that doesn’t happen enough because you are stacking a lot of INT right? I’ve never taken this ability other then to see if I could find a use for it.
Suggestion to Mythic: Make it proc on a chance to block as well, increase it’s strength to make up for it’s rarity, and/or give it a debuff to the enemies disrupt/block chance upon activation. Right the damage isn’t much to be felt in comparison to Impending Doom and this carries a requirement. It has no cooldown but the requirement makes it so rare it’s hardly ever used. Making it a better mechanic in taking down tanks wouldn’t be such a bad idea, as we could use a better method of dealing with block in some form.

Tapping the Dark

Pretty neat ability. You become a pseudo support. I was never sure if it worked though even while trying to use it (I never noticed a new buff on my allies). Remember in it’s current form it boosts only your allies an not yourself. With Umbral Fury I imagine your group keeping a shield up quite often to the point I hope it has a hidden “can only occur once every 3 seconds” tag in there somewhere. I don’t often take it however since I want other things and it takes up a tactic slot. Besides… I kinda want some benefit to myself for a mastery ability.

EDIT: THIS DOES WORK ON ONESELF! Note to self, update this guide.

Suggestion to Mythic: Let it proc on ourselves. It’d be most powerful on any dual-wield dps anyway and not us. As long as the skill is capped to be only occurs once at most every 3 seconds then it should be fairly balanced to be on ourselves as well. Give us some form damage mitigation in our direct combat tree since that’s likely where I should be.

Impending Doom

Very strong burst damage. Builds a ton of Dark magic and it’s cooldown isn’t too significant. Perfect when coupled with a healer or if you plan to use Empowered Dhar a lot. It will allow maybe favorite quick chain of spells which is Doombolt ? Gloomburst ? Impending Doom. (The Triple Nuke! Rawr!) It’ll bring you up high in the Dark Magic levels though (it builds 75 Dark Magic!) although it’s relatively safe at low levels of Dark Magic for what it outputs since the highest generation is backloaded. Especially useful while on the run although it’s difficult to discharge the Dark Magic while doing so. No Agony Sorceress should ever be without it.

Swell of Gloom

A very powerful tactic as long as you are willing to suffer the consequences. Doombolt ? Gloomburst ? Impending Doom is a wicked combo with this tactic and you can bring people to their knees with a crit streak. It does come at that price though as you absolutely must have someone healing you. I’d take this tactic just so when the chance arises you can slot it. It makes Gloomburst just that much more to be feared. Swell of Gloom hits separate to Gloomburst so it triggers a separate hit and can crit just like any spell but will not be cast if the initial Gloomburst has killed the target.

BUG: Currently this only backlashes for around half of what you usually get hit with. Perhaps this is intended I’m not sure. I’m fairly certain I submit this bug however I’m a little tipsy right now so I can’t be certain.

Shades of Death

It’s not too impressive at first glance. Maybe it’s not too impressive at all being a Master Ability Level 13. But I find it quite useful for a few things. The damage is triggered when anyone strikes the target and each trigger can crit. In other words, that’s a good chunk of instant cast damage when a target is being focused upon as the five charges will be used up instantly. Often it will kill targets that are nearly dead and being attacked by anyone else. Also, it builds no Dark Magic. That means it can’t backlash as well but still gains the bonus from Dark Magic. When you are fully charged on Dark Magic you can throw this out relentlessly (before you begin to drop levels of Dark Magic anyway) and not worry about causing harm to yourself while it is still extremely effective with it’s frequent crits. The other use is prepping the target before you Triple Nuke it by getting 4 charges to trigger from it (Doombolt, Gloomburst, Swell of Gloom, and Impending Doom for those who question my math!) I’ve heard tale of this ability being too weak on damage and maybe it’s true for a 13 point mastery ability but I find use enough for it anyway.

Calamity

Damage over time is a wondrous tool for those whom enjoy it. Coupled with the only way to recover health through an ability it enhances your DoTs to be the most that they can be. Technically, this is supposed to increase your sustained damage by a considerable amount. I’m not completely sure about it, although I could imagine Word of Pain, Chillwind, Vision of Torment, Gloom of Night, Shadow Spike, Absorb Vitality, and Hand of Ruin doing all the damage for you in some sense. Not all the DoTs are terribly efficient however. Having said that, they still do considerable damage allowing you to mostly be on the move and pepper a wider array of targets at the same time as compared to Agony. At low Dark Magic this is the safest line to progress in, but at high Dark Magic rapidly casting instant casts is very dangerous as you can trigger a lot of backlashes in quick succession. If you can cast at low Dark Magic and build up to high Dark Magic safely while your dots are still active… well… that’s awesome because you played Calamity perfectly.

Vision of Domination

Currently this gives you 50 Action Points in return for the 40 you spent on it and the meager damage and minor AP drain. I suppose if you find a certain instance you use it relentlessly it could be of use. Currently however I honestly cannot find a time I’d not find another tactic of more value. Not to mention you will have access to the tactic FAR before you can get Vision of Torment.

Suggestion to Mythic: Scrap this and instead make a tactic that increases the duration of Chillwind, Absorb Vitality, Ice Spikes and/or Gloom of Night. It would really boost the sustained dps of the sustained dps tree to have a method of increasing the duration of the dots by a larger amount increasing the efficiency and therefore sustained dps.

Gloom of Night

Dirt cheap to cast, does a little more damage per second then Chillwind, and did I forget to mention it’s an AoE effect around the target? Does have a 2s cast time however, so it has that minor flaw coupled with a 10s cooldown and 80 ft range. Use it when you can. It’s very useful in adding to your array of DoTs and a centered AoE DoT is nothing to sneer at especially one stronger then the primary DoT you carry. Stack as many DoTs on your primary target that you can and make sure to use this before you throw out Pit of Shades.

Shadow of Disaster

This ability is largely valued by it’s power in comparison to Daemonic Chill. It helps degrade the ranged defenses and is especially useful at damaging any AoE sources of damage. However, since Daemonic Chill does not have much of an effect this skill doesn’t much either. I’ve heard of some sources claiming it does respectable damage against enemy AoE attacks but in my experience against a Bright Wizard whom carries the mirror tactic I didn’t think the damage taken was much of a bother at all.

BUG: This ability has not yet reflected the text change and still says Demonic Chill.

Absorb Vitality

Oh sweet, sweet healing. It’s not terribly much but it’s enough to offset a backlash or two over the course of it’s duration. Besides it is extra damage at the same price as Chillwind and it does nearly the same amount of damage as well per tick. This ability alone probably makes this tree one of the safest trees to utilize Dark Magic with, especially if you can use Dark Magic as described in the Calamity section above.

Chilling Gusts

Increases the Chillwind tick by about 50%.. 33% of the time. What is that, 16-17% increase in damage? On a skill that does maybe 60 DPS (Int vs. Tough not included) this doesn’t really seem to amount to much as you are really only boosting yourself by 10 DPS. My advice? Don’t take it in it’s current incarnation. You are welcome to try and convince me the other way and I really wish that I could see the value in it. But currently I just don’t think it’s worth it.

Suggestion to Mythic: Give this some added effect for when it procs such as Toughness debuff and/or AP recovery and/or have it affect some other DoTs. Make this the crown jewel of sustained DPS in the tree since currently the tactics don’t seem to provide that terribly much in that department.

Hand of Ruin

Raw damage that ticks 4 times. Great for adding in a pseudo direct damage for Calamity that is extremely safe to use when at maximum Dark Magic since it only chances a backlash once in the beginning of the channel. It’s damage is high and it’s cost isn’t so bad either. It’s also a fantastic source of Spirit damage for when the are Corporeal protected. Only in comparison to Withering Heat which does equal damage and snares in return for only costing 3 AP per second more. Not to mention it’s much easier to get access to. I wouldn’t really compare these two but they are nearly identical except for the snare, position in tree, and slight cost increase.

Suggestion to Mythic: Maybe consider increasing the damage by 10-25% when the target is Hexed and/or Cursed. I don’t want it to be a direct mirror of the Bright Wizards and I think it should be the source of efficient and high damage for a Calamity Sorceress. Besides we already have a snare – I just want this ability to compare to a nearly direct mirror of an ability that our mirror class possesses. I know it’s frowned upon to compare but Hand of Ruin could use something to differentiate itself damage wise for being such a difficult ability to get.

Destruction

This makes your area of effect abilities not only feared as they were before but respected as you can crit your Pit of Shades for damages that no one wishes to be within. This will make you an AoE powerhouse if you simply put the points into the tree for strength and ignore the skills. Remember increasing the baseline damage of a skill by 50% when you max it out is nothing to sneer at. The abilities are interesting to say the least but out of all three trees are generally not the most exciting. I often find my ability as an AoE caster just fine without Destruction but with it I become a tool for deflecting groups of enemies and killing any of those whom let themselves dwindle too low.

Piercing Shadows

Okay so this is a situation you don’t want to be in pretty much ever where you Backlashes are close enough to injure the enemy. It also presumes you are killing yourself quickly. If you do intend on using it however it does do excellent damage. Over 300-400 damage AoE attacks are nothing to sneer at. Of course, you absolutely require healing support unless you want to die quickly. Surging Pain is useful in causing quick backlashes and doing a fair amount of damage itself although I still recommend using the cone skills. I’ve never had the chance to really test it with a pocket healer so I’m not sure how actually effective it is.

Black Horror

Replaces Shattered Shadows. It only costs 5 more AP for a nifty Initiative debuff and it builds less Dark Magic while dealing Corporeal instead of Spirit. The Dark Magic is up in the air, but usually it’s a safe bet if you want to keep it low that this will keep it lower. If you want it high… well it will keep it high anyway. Make sure you prep any area with this if you plan on using Pit of Shades since the Initiative debuff is well worth the 3s cast time. It’s a pretty large portion of crit chance you just gave yourself and all your allies assisting you. (Of course that is assuming you aren’t alone fighting a group of enemies…) Just kinda wish it had more umph in some sense since it does the same damage as Shattered Shadows and doesn’t even have a cooldown.

Suggestion to Mythic: Rework this ability so that it does a larger chunk of damage, has a lower cast time, and/or bigger debuff effect coupled with a cooldown associated with it. That way it doesn’t completely replace a core ability and becomes more of a defining move in the repertoire of a Destruction Sorceress.

Lengthening Shadows

It increases Surging Pain to a radius 39 and Infernal Wave to a distance of 86.7. It’s most useful for Infernal Wave but it does not increase the length of Shadow Spike. Infernal Wave will now reach targets at the 80 range which is helpful when you are trying to distance AoE. However, as a tactic it’s not terribly useful as you probably can find something else to slot that will be much more useful. I never found it useful in helping Surging Pain in practice of course I didn’t exactly like getting in that close.

Suggestion to Mythic: Standardize the increases so that Surging Pain is 40 radius, Infernal Wave is 85 distance, and Ice Spikes is 85 distance. I’d also consider increasing the other AoE’s to say 25 radius, but I’d be hesitant to add too much. Ice Spikes absolutely must be added to this even if it is a Calamity ability. Infernal Wave and Ice Spikes are twin spells that simply must be used in tandem so they must be affected in the same way in terms of mechanics. Surging Pain needs all the help it can get and is already within the ability – I’d consider having Piercing Shadows increase to 40 radius as well though too to make a fun tactic combination.

Disastrous Cascade

It ticks 4 times in rapid succession during the channel. I’m sorry you can’t move while channeling this it irks me too. This does very good damage and is comparable in a sense to Annihilate although it’s higher in the tree and thus just a little bit better. Make sure you remain motionless while you cast it – although that penalty alone makes it iffy at best for a choice to take it.

Suggestion to Mythic: Allow us to channel it while moving. I had a lot of difficulty deciding to sit down and use it properly. I’d likely choose never to take this ability as it’s too much of a hassle at the cost of a point.

Neverending Agony

Makes Pit of Shades chain-castable and Infernal Wave had a modest 5s cooldown. Being such a high tier tactic I wish it had more, but I suppose the ability to chain cast Pit of Shades is often worth it as it is superior to any ranged AoE we have. If you use Pit of Shades a lot I’d consider taking it although you often have stuff to cast in between Pit of Shades anyway besides likely needing to reposition against all the new threats within the 10 second channel.

Suggestion to Mythic: Add a 40% snare to Pit of Shades and/or some other fun effect. The tactic needs more umph being so high up in the tree and this is perfect. Possibly drop the reduced cooldown for Infernal Wave (or even Pit of Shades itself) but a snare ability within a tactic would be absolutely fantastic. Make sure it doesn’t stack with itself and this would be a tactic worth choosing for a Destruction Sorceress.

Shadow Knives

Very interesting ability but it has one problem. It’s extremely similar in damage to Pit of Shades. For those with the unkeen eye, this is a targeted, channeled AoE.. It ticks 4 times within 6 seconds but ticks for the same damage that Pit of Shades does. For being that high of an ability, you likely don’t NEED this but it can be useful to fill in time in between Pit of Shades or if you find a moment you want the Pit of Shades to follow the target. It’s a little lackluster but if someone can spot what I’m missing please inform me.

Suggestion to Mythic: Add something unique to Shadow Knives such as 100 range, 30 ft radius, higher damage, and/or some debuff associated with it. It’s like Hand of Ruin except AoE and does the same damage as Pit of Shades. Make it more unique and fun to use!

VIII) Stilll to come: PvE

Damage, damage, damage…

IX) Still to come: RvR

Positioning is Key!

X) Still to come: Mastery Ideas

25 Points

15(4)/5(1)/0 – High Agony Triple Nuke Build

XI) Suggestions & Bugs

Suggestion to Mythic: Healing Debuff

We need one. I really need to stress that this is very, very important! I’m not sure exactly whom has Healing Debuffs and whom doesn’t, but it sure feels like the Order gets one on every Ranged DPS and some Support cousins, while Destruction get a meager few on their Melee DPS and maybe somewhere else I’m unaware of. The Sorceress could really use one, in fact it really should be standardized across the factions as to whom gets it as CORE abilities, not something you spec for. I think it should be limited and at least be accessed by the Glass Cannons of both sides – the Bright Wizard and the Sorceress. Either make it Core with a nice cooldown or on two or so Morale abilities on different levels to allow some choice on when to have it.

This solves two things. They really make us the tank destroyers we are meant to be. Healers usually focus their heals on the tanks keeping them up, which is basically their survival mechanic in group RvR and what makes them nearly unstoppable. If we can coordinate some focus fire and cut their healing in half then we can effectively counter them with our Magic DPS. It makes the chain of Magic DPS > Tank more of a reality. It also makes the stalemates of the near indestructible healers less frequent. Healers should eventually die even if they are focusing all their heals on themselves, this is certainly not the case now in practice. It’s a careful timing issue with a Healing Debuff to kill off the healer. Not only do you have to worry about their morale heal being unaffected, but you have to be able to burst them down before it wears off. A 50% strength heal is still pretty powerful when most healers are pretty Magic Resistant. It gives us a chance to beat them, not enough of a chance be the favored in a duel, but it gives us a chance to take them off guard or get lucky with burst damage.

Suggestion to Mythic: Willpower Resistance Reduction and Staff DPS

Something to be concerned about is gear scaling in accordance to casters. As you get better and better gear later on, you are going to get more Int, Weapon Skill, Strength, Toughness, Armor, Resistances, etc. Int, Str, and Ball all balance out with Toughness pretty much equally. Armor is combated by more Weapon Skill. Essentially that help cut back the extra armor everyone will be experiencing. The problem is resistances and weapon dps bonuses are pretty much stand alone. Nothing counters them and as people get more and more gear it’ll simply reduce magic damage with nothing to compensate it. The weapon dps will increase weapon-users damage as gear expands, but that can be expected to match Wounds. Thus we need something comparable.

Put simply, the higher in progression you get as long as you fight equal geared enemies you will be doing less magic damage because people will have more base resistances on their resistance pieces simply because they are stronger pieces of armor. This will result in people having more and more resistance % against your type of magic damages. Getting more and more Intelligence is simply countered by someone getting Toughness to compensate not to mention there will be a soft cap in which getting all the more Int would be less effective. There needs to be a mechanic that counteracts this.

The easiest way, is to put a Resist Piercing mechanic on Willpower to somewhat relate it to Weapon Skill. This will make healing classes more effective at piercing resistances as well, which isn’t really that much of a problem considering it will reduce the insane length of battles between a Healer v. Healer fight. A small re-balance of the resistance system would have to be done, but this is vital to keeping the game scaling at a proper pace. If this doesn’t occur, the longer the game continues the less damage any caster will do.

In the same way, Staff DPS needs to be worked into spell damage as a equal damage mechanic to mirror a weapon-users upgrades. A rework of all the spell damages would have to be done, but this is important to ensure that our damage scales just as a weapon-users damage scales throughout the game. If you would add say 200 points to every stat in two opponents then you would find that the Magic DPS does less damage due to not having anything to work against resistances and the Weapon DPS careers would simply do more damage because their weapon dps would be increasing and allowing them to do more damage. Considering more wounds equally the Magic DPS will take a much lower percentage of health from their opponent and the Weapon DPS should be balanced into doing around the same percentage damage.

It’s imperative that something such as Willpower gives us resistance penetration and staff dps added to the spell damage. I awknowledge that it would be a fair amount of work having to increase the base resistance given by resistance points and reducing the base damage of spells to compensate for the added staff dps on average. Overall it would be for a much improved system in terms of a balancing act.

XII) The Last Stuff

There isn’t much here yet. I imagine I will give credit to those that help me if I update it.

I’m currently still proofreading it so if you see any mistakes… I might have missed it or I’m in the process of working on it. There is a particularly nasty bug that doesn’t allow you to edit pages with the spells with pictures on them nor touch the regular hyperlinks in an easy format. I’m trying to catch most of them!

Can’t wait to see you all at launch!

Credits

Dhar / Dark Magic Table – Revoran

Image Source of the Sorceress: WAR Site

Source: WAR Forums

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The Archmage is the support class of the Shining Guard Army (High Elves Army). Archmages are masters of healing, magical spells used to destroy enemies and they can use all the Winds of Magic at once.

The following guide is written by Dastion.

Mythic has stated their intention to give the Archmage (and Shaman) a thorough review in the near future, this includes the mechanic. Therefore, I am holding off until then to properly update this Guide since anything I update now might simply invalidate itself in the next patch cycle. Rather than delete this guide, I am leaving it unchanged so as to provide a template for the update. In the meantime, if you have any questions, concerns, or input please feel free to hit me up.

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If you notice any errors or outdated information, please message me so I can update/correct this guide. Thanks!

This is an all-inclusive (read: long) guide to the Archmage. I will mainly focus on the details, giving opinions of the current state of abilities where I feel they are needed. Please, do not take my opinions too much to heart because they are, just that, opinions. The last thing I want you to do is finish reading this guide and be swayed that the Archmage is either incredibly overpowered, broken, useless, ect. My intent is to inform and guide your knowledge of this career so you can form your own opinion about whether or not you’d like to play the career. Though, if there is one thing you take from this guide it should be that Mythic has created a game where each career has it’s own allure and unique feel. Every career is so fun in it’s own way that you really cannot get by playing a different career, and often not even by playing that career’s mirror.

With that said, let’s move on to the one career that, despite my fickle nature, kept drawing me back whether I had to start at level 1, or was given a template.

http://i37.tinypic.com/w1uqgn.jpg

The Archmage

Screenshot of mine that won a spot on the Herald

To play an Archmage is to be among the best practioneers of magic. No, this doesn’t mean that you out heal and out damage everyone. It means you’re exceptionally good at what you intend to do. This does not always mean being the best at each individual aspect, but, in this case, having a wide variety of options. Asking, why then, do Archmages not have an option to become DPS is much like asking why you can’t play an Empire Wizard other than the Bright. The simple answer is that, yes, Archmages exist who specialize their skills around being purely destructive. You’ll see plenty of NPC Archmages that fling lightning or other various effects. But, the fact is, just as the playable Empire caster happens to only include those of the Bright College, so then does the playable Archmages only include those who chose to follow mainly the Lores of Life, Light, and, of course, High Magic in order to better assist in all aspects of combat.

The State of the Archmage
I wondered whether to put this at the end or at the beginning, but I believe I’d rather tell you the blunt truth up front rather than dazzle you with all the goodies you’ll get then, possibly, bring you down.

One thing that will be apparent is that the Archmage is a near duplicate in mechanics and abilities to the Shaman. Our button glow for our mechanic actually still has the “Mork and Gork” skulls among the flames. But, this just means Archmage is a career with a lot of room to grow. Most careers have started off very similar to their mirrors and then diverged. The Archmage has a lot of potential, he’s just lacking his niche. His spells look cool and he has many of the same abilities of the Shaman and some very unique spells of his own, but he just doesn’t excel at anything except potentially at widespread debuffs that aren’t very effective at the moment.

The last thing I want is to turn this guide into an “An Archmage runs into a Shaman…” thread, but, currently despite all the physical impossibilities, the High Elven Archmage comes up short to the Goblin Shaman. This is not a thing of imbalance or favoritism, it’s simply the fact that the Shaman has been around longer than most other healers, has had more time for design and time to ‘grow’ into his unique niche.

So, while I left my comments blunt and honest, please remember that this is an MMO and it’s all about growth and change and the Archmage as a lot of room to grow.

The Archmage Mechanic – High Magic
**Note that this description is mostly of my own making. I felt Mythic’s description of the AM mechanic was lacking and difficult to understand. Thus the reason people find it hard to understand why a shaman’s Gork spells build Mork Waagh, and vice versa, yet an AM’s Force spells build Force and Tranq spells build Tranq. Based off of the recent BW mechanic changes, I was able to ascertain a “trend” in how the Winds of Magic seem to work in WAR and used that in trying to make the mechanic sound “cooler” and less like they just dropped the Drain Magic Mechanic idea, gave us the Shaman mechanic, and gave us a vague and elfy description.

High Magic, also known as True Magic and represented by the runic word Qhaysh, is the Lore of the High Elves. To first understand High Magic, and how the Archmage wields it, you must first understand the cruder, yet no less destructive, way that Bright Wizards wield the Winds of Aqshy. As a Bright Wizard conjures the flames of Aqshy into being, a sort of lingering magic, called Combustion, fills his body. The Bright Wizard funnels this build up of magic into his spells, making them even more powerful than they would normally be. However, doing so results in even more of the volatile magic filling him, possibly even harming him in the process. The only way to rid himself of this dangerous build-up is to either refrain from using his magics, letting the lingering Combustion drain away, or, rather than using the Combustion to empower a spell, forming this raw power of Aqshy into a powerful blast called a Meltdown.

Elves are more suited for wielding the Winds of Magic than Humans. Not only do they not suffer from the detrimental effects that humans do, but they know the secret to using this magical build-up safely. Archmages recognize two separate types of magical build up in their bodies when they weave the winds, based on the intent for which the spell is woven. Destructive or offensive spells, build up a sort of magic Archmages call “Force”, while healing or supportive magics build up what they refer to as “Tranquility”. Whereas the Bright Wizard focuses his power into spells that further build Combustion, resulting in a net gain, Archmages focus the lingering magics into a spell of the opposing type. This counter balancing effect results in not only a more potent spell, but they negate any potential backlash and further building up of the magic to unstable levels. It is through this careful balancing of the winds of magic, and build up of magic, that Archmages are able to produce a variety of powerful effects.

In game terms, this mechanic is represented as a Ying Yang. As you cast either destructive or support magics one side of the Ying Yang will light up and build a “point” of High Magic per casting. Destructive spells build Force and Healing spells build Tranquility. The next time you cast the opposite type of spell all of the built-up magic is consumed. Spells which benefit from High Magic do not build it. Each point of High Magic will either swiften or empower a spell. Spells with a casting time will cast 20% faster per point of High Magic that goes into them, this even includes the 6 second cast resurrection spell “Gift of Life”, allowing the Archmage to instantly resurrect allies with enough Force to balance the casting of the spell with. Instant spells are empowered, gaining +5% increased effectiveness per point, this includes channeled spells such as Searing Touch.

Archmage Spell Graphics
The Archmage gets a wide variety of spells and effects. Unlike other casters there is little “theme” to each of his spells. A Bright Wizard’s spells are all fire, explosions, and smoke while a sorceress deals mainly in shadows and pain. But the Archmage spell effects are quite varied. Heals are generally represented by radiant lights and swirling colors. While damaging spells range from a prismatic spear of light lancing into your enemies to lightning that shoots from the tip of your staff. Mainly the spells seem to fall along the lines of shimmering lights, prismatic rainbow effects, and storm type effects. Though there are a few exceptions.

How the Archmage Compares
An important thing to note is that Mythic prefers we do not directly compare healers. Each career should be taken on it’s own and for what it can attribute. Unfortunately, this inevitably results in comparisons since, how can you gauge your true contribution except by comparison to the rest of your archetype? So, while I will provide this section at the request of others, I urge you to not forget that I cannot possibly cover all of the pros and cons, similarities and differences, there will always be one thing a career gets it’s peers do not. This is by design, even in DAoC Mythic built the careers and factions on a “similiar yet different” concept. Careers that fill the same role are similar at their core, especially those of the same sub-archetype (Melee Healer, Flex Healer, and Nuker Healer being those sub-archetypes), yet they will have intentional differences despite in order to give them their own unique feel.

The Goblin Shaman
This career is your mirror, or as some devs prefer to put it, your “analog”. You share a mechanic and a playstyle. Both careers have a different “feel” despite this. To be quite honest, the Shaman is currently better at you in most things. You might have a slight advantage in the debuff area, simply by virtue of Radiant Gaze being able to be made AoE and having an anti-heal. But if it is an advantage, it’s a slim one.

In my mind, the Archmage should focus on being pro/anti ranged/healer careers. While the Shaman should focus on being pro/anti tank/MDPS careers. Why? It fits their concepts. The Shaman is fueled, literally, by the energy of the Waaagh (War). While the Archmage is known for being one of the best magical users around. This seemed to be the way Mythic was going at first, giving the Shaman spells like ‘Ere we go!, Gork’s Barbs‘, and Gork Sez Stop. These spells seem ideal for buffing or hindering tanks and MDPS. Even their Mork mastery spells seem to encourage being used on people who are in the thick of things like tanks and mdps. Shrug it off is best if the target is taking frequent damage, and Do Sumfin Useful is the same.

Yet, on the counter point of being anti-RDPS/Healer he still wins. Sure you can debuff Intelligence and Ballistic Skill (Rainlord used to only debuff those stats, strength was added in later). But he can steal it, making the enemy’s potential his own (sound like a familiar career description to anyone?). Yer Not So Bad quite simply blows Drain Magic out of the water. I mean, does anyone really think doing a little bit of damage is worth making the enemy lose less AP and not getting that AP for yourself?

But, at the same time, I don’t feel jealous of the Shaman. I just feel he’s had more attention, more thought, more of a “niche”. Relatively speaking, the Archmage is extremely new. For the longest time, we all thought that the AM would use “Drain Magic” as a career defining mechanic. It was a bit of a shock when we found he had essentially become a copy/paste of the Shaman with a Elf’d up description of Waaagh. I am certain this guide will need a LOT of updating in the patches to come as Mythic gets the content more fine tuned and careers start getting more attention.

The Runepriest/Zealot
These careers are called the “Flex Healers” for a reason. In aspect of healing they want to persue they can excel in. One the one hand, they will tell you that it’s a disadvantage that their heals are spread out, unlike ours. I would tell you differently though. While this is, in fact, a disadvantage of some sort. It also means that no matter what they specialize in they will have potent heals AND damage. Meanwhile, if you focus in heals your damage falls behind, if you focus in damage your heals fall behind. If you focus in debuffs…well, you get where this is going.

So, the question is, is being able to focus in a single sort of spellcasting worth the others falling behind? I mean, if you focus in healing role and spec so, then your mechanic will boost your damage..right? Yes, this is true. You can instantly cast your weak DDs or add +25% to your weaker instant spells. Does this occasional bonus outweigh the constant 30-50% bonus the Flex Healers receive to both damage and healing spells in the path of their choice? I tend to think not.

In addition to this, you also receive less healing options baseline. Every career gets the same basic heals. A Heal + HoT, a HoT, A Big Heal, and a Group Heal (Melee Healers receive special versions). And..that’s all you get…the basics. Meanwhile, flex healers get an instant cast small heal, a shield that doesn’t have a group requirement AND heals the target when it fades, and a HoT that bounces to 6 targets.

So, currently, less options overall and less versatility. This is an issue that effects both the AM and Shaman.

The Warrior Priest/Disciple of Khaine
It is quite difficult to compare the Archmage to these careers simply because they play so differently. The ability to use dual targeting, stay in melee range, watch health bars, ect. is so important and valued on these careers that I find it nigh impossible to compare them to any other career in terms of playstyle. But I’ll try.

The Melee Healers are extremely potent if played correctly, I might go so far to say that a well played Melee Healer will outdo you. But it’s difficult to say. Their mechanic is such a limitation that the requirement to be in melee or channel their AP->Mechanic skill is necessary. An Archmage can, if he chooses, just stand back and focus on healing. And he’ll excel. No, he doesn’t have as many options as other healers, but he has the tools to do what he needs to do. Meanwhile, if his group is getting hit hard a Melee Healer might find himself out of AP and either HAS to go melee or stand there and convert his AP. His group healing is excellent, especially if he goes into his healing path, and his heals are much quicker. Their “big heal” was long since converted into a channeled melee attack that heals your defensive target, which has some severe limitations since, if you’re up against a tank, it’ll heal little. And the lack of “Sticky Targeting” makes keeping an offensive and defensive target difficult at best.

This is one situation where I’d have to say the AM comes out ahead simply by virtue of the Melee Healers not currently being able to truly fulfill the healing role in combat as a true Healer Archetype currently. But, when it comes to “mixing it up” the Melee Healers do pull ahead.

Playing as the Archmage
First off, let me say that there are a few things you can do to really help playing as an Archmage.
-Go to your options and set it to show ally’s health bars when Hurt. This allows you to heal outside your group very effectively and also allows you to heal while watching the action.
-Knowing your own skills is important, but perhaps more importantly is knowing your enemy’s skills. You need to know things like when a Witch Elf jumps out at you she likely put a Spell Barb on you and you’re going to take damage for each spell you cast.
-You’re a healer, heal. Most of the careers in this game can deal damage to a far greater extent than you. Your damage just isn’t very noticeable. Feel free to stack up DoTs while on the run, but the extra damage you allow an ally to put out by keeping them alive easily outdoes whatever you could do.

Solo PvE: You solo fairly well, as should be expected. While you do have to stack all of your DoTs in order to do respectable damage and you don’t kill as fast, the fact that as you fight you’ll build up instant heals means you usually have little to fear unless you get in way over your head.

Group PvE: You can easily fill the main healer slot no matter what your spec. You will have to heal though, your damage is nowhere near good enough to compete with a DPS, even if you spec for it, and people will want you for your ability to keep people alive. Luckily, through healing you will gain more potent damaging effects. A good tactic if you are concentrating on just healing is to use your built-up tranquility on Transfer Force or, if you have it, Balance Essence for some added damage and healing.
**Note: At the time I wrote this Balance Essence wasn’t worth getting, but I threw that in there since I’m sure they’ll, eventually, give it a boost.

Solo PvP: If you happen to find yourself in a 1 on 1 situation, you will usually do well. Especially if you take advantage of stacking DoTs, detaunting, and spam healing yourself. It’s slow, but it works sometimes. Okay, so it’s only really worked for me once versus a Chosen before they got their aura buffs (i.e. they didn’t have the auras that increase my cast times, increase their resistances, or hurt you whenever you cast an offensive spell). In normal RvR, you should stick to your allies for protection. As Duty so keenly put it, “My Maurader thinks you guys taste good with ketchup.” You are fragile, and when under assault all you really have is a knockback and a prayer. And despite the plethora of Elven Gods… I’ve found it’s better to just stay back or find a convient cliff to knock them off.

Group PvP: You actually do very well here. Archmages and Shaman have possibly the most boring line-up of base heals, but they get the job done. While your damage is usually negligible, it’s not a bad idea at all to build-up some force while running or when otherwise free to do so, as an instant Boon of Hysh is quite potent.

Current Issues with the Archmage
While the current version of the mechanic is by and large better than the old one, currently, the Archmage and Shaman mechanic share an issue. This issue is that while the idea is sound, the actual implementation runs into some issues. +25% to spells that do a noticeable fraction of the damage of DPS spells really isn’t noticeable for one. It’s a minor effect that you feel even at 5 points isn’t much. Not in a game where TTK(Time to Kill) is meant to be so high.

Furthermore, a 20% decreased casting time per point is a terrible implementation of “speeding up” a spell. With full High Magic can you honestly tell me a reason to use it on Healing Energy rather than Boon of Hysh or Blessing of Isha or even Shield of Saphery? The last 3 options get far more from the mechanic than does Healing Energy, the only time you *might* use it is when someone doesn’t need much healing but is taking steady damage. In that case though, you’d be better off doing a +25% Lambent Aura. At rank 40 5HM adds about 375 more healing to it, or 75 healing per tick. For steady healing purposes this is clearly the option. The fact is, these spells values were balanced around their cast times. At 5 HM there is no cast time so all there is is the values, this means that spells that are weaker because they are faster (Healing Energy) aren’t worth using with your mechanic.

The fact that there is any single spell that it’s never *worth* using the mechanic on is evidence of a severe flaw. Yes, an instant Boon or Blessing is amazing, who cares about Healing Energy right? Or Radiant Lance for that matter? None of them are really worth it compared to the other options. Yet, people seem to think that because the other options aren’t entirely bad this is not an issue. I do not agree.

The next issue is our Mastery Lines. They are far too cut and dry. I’ll go more into this further down on each thread individually… but I can sum it up rather quickly. Mix it up! Be creative! I’m an Archmage, I wield the winds of magic in harmony and am capable of feats that make other lesser mages gape. I don’t want a mastery line that focuses on spam healing, or a weak RDPS wanna-be line, or a line that takes the “stealing the potential of the enemy and using it against them” description of the Archmage and turns it into a line of marginally effective, short duration debuffs. Most of which completely ignore your mechanic.

Agree or disagree, it’s just an opinion. I am only speaking of the mechanical issues both careers share. The AM’s “niche” still needs some work but this would go a long way towards letting both careers truly fullfill their role rather than just getting the occasional “boost”.

Archmage Spells, Tactics, and Morales

Archmages do, indeed, use more than one Lore of Magic. Though this has no actual in-game effect, the Archmage’s mechanic being based on the type of build-up a spell creates based on whether it is an offensive or support spell, but it is nice to know that the Archmage really does have quite a breadth of knowledge. Among the Archmage’s spells, the Lores I was able to recognize were mainly of Life, Light, and, of course, High Magic though there is even one spell from the Lore of Metal.

Unless otherwise noted, all damaging spells are Spirit based. I chose to leave out the “numbers” since these are quite varied based on your spent Mastery Points, levels, and stage of beta we are in.

A Quick Intro to How Ability Levels Work
I’ll try to keep this short, but most don’t understand this about the game so it’s needed. The level of a spell is not the level of the character casting the spell. Rather, spells level in a different way. Up until level 10, they gain a level each time you do. After that, they only go up in level every even level thereafter. This means that at Rank 40 the max level of any skill linked to a Mastery Line will be level 25. The remaining 15 levels come from putting points into the Path linked to that ability. Most abilities with an effect that grows as you level are linked to a Path, Lambent Aura, and it’s reflections on other healers, is an exception as it is always at full level.

Level 1
Healing Energy
-With a quick spin of your staff healing energy surges into your ally, immediately healing them and healing them for over twice as much over 9 seconds.
**This is a basic Heal + HoT, the HoT portion is about 2.6x the value of the Heal. This is a much more viable spell now that they, recently, reduced it’s casting time and upped the HoT portion’s value.

Radiant Lance
-A prismatic beam of light lances from the tip of your staff dealing a moderate amount of damage to the target.
**Currently you don’t have much use for this spell once you get all your DoTs and Channel DD, the same tends to go for the Shaman version… it just usually isn’t worth casting even without your mechanic..nevermind with it. Most AMs eventually drop this off their bar.

Level 2
Law of Conductivity-Your hand crackles with electricity as energy courses through your target, dealing a high amount of damage to them over 15 seconds.
[FONT=&quot]**Your only DoT without a secondary effect. It is also the weakest DoT you have.[/FONT]

Level 3
Lambent Aura
-You raise your staff above your head and it shimmers with prismatic light, a soothing aura surrounds your target, healing a high amount of damage over 15 seconds.
**Does not benefit from Mastery. All healer’s get a basic HoT and it is always considered at full level.

Level 4
Radiant Gaze
-Twin beams of radiant light shoot from your eyes, burning the enemy and making it difficult to see. Deals a high amount of damage over 9 seconds, also reduces all damage the enemy does by 5% and reduces their chance to critical hit by 5%.
**Great spell I mean, come on..it’s eye lasers! Probably your highest ticking DoT as it does the same amount of dmg as other DoTs but over 9 seconds. The debuff component isn’t very noticeable, but it’s a great spell when combined with Golden Aura.

Level 5
Searing Touch
-A searing beam of pure white flame leaps from your outstretched hand, connecting with your target and searing them over 6 seconds. (hits 4x for a moderate amount).
**Mythic recently changed all channeled DDs to deal their damage over 6 seconds. It just feels like you’re wasting time. It may look efficient in it’s damage, until you consider that you aren’t regenerating any AP while you channel it. Which effectively increased the total AP cost of this ability by 75. It used to hit 4x in 3 seconds.

Level 6
Transfer Force
-You slowly transfer the life force of an enemy into an ally. Dealing a low amount of damage to the enemy over 24 seconds, healing your defensive target for the amount of damage dealt each “tick”.
**One of the few unique sort of spells the AM/Shaman receive. But it’s pretty weak currently.

Level 7
Prismatic Shield
-A prismatic shell surrounds each member of your party briefly before imbueing itself into them, raising all of their resistances.
**It’s one of your few buffs.

Dissipating Hatred
-You drain the hatred out of an enemy, making them find it more difficult to bring forth the urge to harm you. They deal 50% less damage to you for 15 seconds. If you actively harm them in any way for the duration the detaunt immediately ends.
**Great ability, learn to use it and it will save your tail. One important thing to note is that DoTs already on the target will not cause this to be removed. I have frequently had to do 1on1 fights where I loaded the target up with DoTs, used this, then spam healed myself and repeated the process until I won.

Level 8
Boon of Hysh
-You twirl your staff above your head as lights and colors swirl about your form, finally you slam your staff to the ground directing the healing forces to an ally, healing them for a very high amount.
**This spell used to be Fragile, meaning it was always set back by 2 seconds anytime you took damage. Though it was not mentioned in patch notes (nor were many of the lower heal changes such as 1sec Heal + HoT, instance cast Flash Heals for the Runepriest/Zealot, boosting of the normal HoT, and making the group heal fragile). I will update this when I am more sure of the intended state.

Divine Favor
T1 Archetype Morale
**Probably your best option for a T1 Morale, it heals for quite a bit and instantly and you will usually have it available.

Level 9
Drain Magic
-You reach out your hand and draw both the life and potential out of your enemy.
**This spell is a bit of a sore spot for me, in the TT Drain Magic is a very unique ability of Archmages (and another race, but they aren’t playable). It’s essential effect is to make a target caster nigh useless, making his magic less potent and more difficult to cast. Seeing it made into a crappily done “Mana Burn” type skill (the dmg and AP loss aren’t even linked, nor do you gain the AP they lose) bugs me. Especially when Mythic insists on trying to balance it as a DD. Meanwhile, the Shaman gets a skill that *steals* 180 AP from a victim over 9 seconds. Rant over, moving on…

Level 10
Gift of Life
-You aim your staff at a fallen ally, funneling life energies into them. They stand back up where they fell with 20% of their life total.
**Note that this spell can be swiftened, so you can instant rez potentially. As a point of reference, Runepriests/Zealots get a 3 sec Rez with a 6 sec CD, resulting in the same amount of rezzes in the same time frame, but giving the AM/Shaman the potential to rez quicker in exchange for a slower base cast time.

Level 11
Centuries of Training
Racial Tactic
**Not a bad skill, especially when used with AoEs. The damage type is unknown.

Level 12
Walk Between Worlds
-The Archmage phases himself out of time and space with those near him. Every nearby enemy is detaunted, dealing 50% less damage to the Archmage for the duration, and the Archmage is uninterruptable. Lasts 5 seconds. Detaunt effect fades automatically if you attack a detaunted enemy.
**This spell is nice, but could use an update. I wanted to mention this on the thread on WHA but could not..you see, 5 sec duration sounds nice. Until you realize that 1.5 seconds of that will be taken up by the GCD.

Rampaging Siphon
T2 Archetype Morale
**The healing is, unfortunately, not based on the total damage dealt but rather 1 “hit”.

Level 13
Divine Fury
Archetype Tactic
**An excellent tactic to use while soloing or when there is plenty of healing about..or you just feel like dishing out some pain.

Level 14
Shield of Saphery
-The air around the target swirls, forming a barely perceptible shield against attacks. Absorbing a high amount of damage over 9 seconds.
**First off, unlike Runepriests and Zealots, this shield only works on groupmates. Secondly, it’s no more powerful despite this restriction. In fact, it’s weaker since the RP/Zealot versions also do a heal once they fade. Still, not a bad emergency skill for yourself or an ally, just sometimes difficult to use if you’re in a scenario or warband and aren’t exactly sure if someone is in your party.

Level 15
Empowered Lores
Career Tactic
**Not a bad tactic at all, not much to say. Definitely better used if you know you’ll be doing both damage and healing frequently.

Level 16
Cleansing Light
-A brief purifying light sweeps over your target.
**These spells currently aren’t used very often. The buff/debuff display has been getting some updates recently but it still isn’t really easy to read or quickly recognize, plus it’s difficult to predict what can be removed.

Steal Life
T1 Archetype Morale
**Sometimes a better option while soloing as it deals damage and heals you.

Level 17
Bend the Winds
Racial Tactic
**Perhaps useful if you’re PvEing in an area where you know you’ll need the resistances. I personally prefer they’d replace the Racial Resistance Tactics and just give each race a natural boost.

Level 18
Rain Lord
-With a wave of his staff the Archmage forms a magical rainstorm above all enemies in the target’s area. This rainstorm saps both strength and magic, while obscuring sight.
**Cool effect and all, but really it’s not a devastating or even very noticeable debuff except for maybe in PvE where you can keep it running on a boss constantly to really add up the effect.

Level 19
Discipline
Archetype Tactic
**This tactic is new, and I haven’t used it much. But it definitely looks worth using.

Level 20
Blessing of Isha
-Twirling your staff above your head, you bring it down as purifying and healing lights radiate out around you, healing all party members within a long range for a moderate amount.
*The range is not listed, it seems at least 150 though if not longer.
**Apparently this spell is now fragile, there has been no mention in the patch notes about any of the recent heal changes. Luckily for you, you’re an Archmage and can cast this spell instantly. Also, I’m going to be mean here and tell you that up until quite recently, we had a tactic in our healing line that made this a 2 sec cast. It was nice while it lasted, especially since that -1 second was taken off *after* High Magic was considered. Meaning, your group heal cast instantly with only ~3 Force.

Focused Mind
T2 Archetype Morale
**Definitely a viable second slot morale. It’s pretty much 10 seconds of, “I do what I want”. You can spam heal, run, ect. and you aren’t going to be interrupted or stopped short of death and, better yet, you’re casting twice as fast.

Level 21
Isha’s Encouragement
Career Tactic
**Very nice tactic. There’s nothing quite so nice as being able to cast 2 instant group heals or big heals in a row..sometimes even more.

Level 23
Discerning Offense
Racial Tactic
**I honestly have never used this on any of my High Elf characters. It was recently buffed from 5% to 10% with the big Tactics patch, but I still haven’t found it more useful than my other tactics no matter what my career choice.

Level 24
Divine Protection
T3 Archetype Morale
**I have really never much used this since it’s limited to melee only. Really, not bad, but if I have melee on me I’d rather use Arcane Suppression to get them off me.

Level 25
Wind Blast
-You slam your staff into the ground conjuring a powerful gust of wind to send foes flying. The magical winds continue to assail your enemies for a brief time.
**Very difficult to aim and the area in front of you is quite small. Also, if you aren’t targeting someone in front of you, the autofacing utility will face you towards that person and make you miss those you wanted to hit.

Subtlety
Archetype Tactic
**I don’t think I’ve ever really had an issue with healing aggro. Frequent use of Dissipating Hatred works perfectly well, without wasting a tactic slot.

Level 27
Master of Tranquility
Career Tactic
**Not bad, especially combined with other tactics that give bonuses when you crit like Empowered Lores.

Level 28
Isha’s Ward
T1 Career Morale
**Absolute trash, 50% auto attack speed isn’t worth not having your emergency heal or even Life Tap Over Time morales.

Level 29
Restorative Burst
Archetype Tactic
**This was nerfed slightly with the recent tactics patch, it now gives you the AP over 3 seconds. Also, notice it says “direct heals” meaning, just keeping HoTs ticking won’t do the trick. Nor will group heals.

Level 30
Storm of Cronos
-Lightning leaps from the tip of your staff, striking at enemies causing them to become more sucseptible to spiritual magic.
**Short range, terrible damage, and 10 second duration(you’ll find that most debuffs are a mere 10 seconds, yea i know..it blows). Also suffers from potentially missing because of auto-face if you don’t select a good target.

Level 31
Hurried Restoration
Career Tactic
**Great tactic, potentially overpowered in PvE end game content. I haven’t checked if the spell still consumes Force to “Swiften” while this tactic is equipped, but it really shouldn’t.

Level 32
Blinding Light
T2 Career Morale
**Another situation where a potentially cool debuff is given way too short of a duration. I dont think I’ve ever used it.

Level 33
Master of Force
Career Tactic
**Same as Master of Tranquility, not bad at all, especially combined with Empowered Lores. Would I use 3 of my 4 Tactic slots on the combo? Unlikely, though I could see some real potential with Master of Force, Master of Tranquility, Empowered Lores, and Isha’s Encouragement.

Level 35
Law of Gold
-The Archmage briefly locks away the magical potential of the target, dealing a low amount of damage and making them unable to cast any spells for 5 seconds.
**Silence is golden, it’s a good spell. The damage is low enough to be rather negligible, but a silence helps. Sadly, this is probably your best anti-caster ability. You’d think the AM would be the best anti-caster around, but no such luck. This is essentially the same Silence that most casters recieve.

Transfer Magic
Career Tactic
**Possibly implemented with the recent Tactics patch in response to my vehement feedback about the spell itself. But I am very against “band-aid” tactics.

Level 36
Arcane Suppression
T3 Career Morale
**An extra knockback and silence is great for survival, this is regularly slotted.

Level 37
Run Between Worlds
Career Tactic
**Sorta an uninspired name. But if WBW was boosted in duration or made not to trigger the GCD it could become viable.

Level 39
Desperation
Archetype Tactic
**Not a bad tactic, but I dont think I have the room for it really. I haven’t tested it very thoroughly to see if it is proactive on already running HoTs or when the spell lands, ect.

Level 40
Dissipating Energies
-The Archmage surrounds the target groupmate or himself with crackling energies that lash out and harm any enemies nearby for a short period.
**Kinda underwhelming for your final ability. It has quite a short duration combined with a long CD and requires a groupmate that is within 10ft of enemies for the duration. And all high magic does is get rid of the annoying 2 sec cast time. Hopefully this gets an update to be more interesting.

Alter Fate
T4 Archetype Morale
**Not as good as you may think since it only effects dead groupmates within such a short radius. And, if they are dead, you’re usually long dead as well. It takes too long to get full morale for this to be of any real use.

Mastery Paths
One important thing to note is that the value I give for the ability/tactic/morale is the *requirement* to buy it. You must put that many points into the path and then spend another point to buy it. I chose to represent it this way since you can, technically, have 15 points in a line then go back down and buy an ability that only required 3 points.

My general impression of the Mastery Paths is that they are too strict. As a caster who specializes in “mixing it up” I’d expect all of the lines to have things for both parts of your Mechanic while having a “focus” on the aspect that line embodies. The Path of Isha is a good example of what I mean. It’s meant to be a healing line, yet it has a Life Transfer DD in it. If this spell actually dealt decent damage (right now it’s pitiful), you would be able to heal and then use your built up Tranquility to Transfer life through your base spell Transfer Force, and the Mastery Spell Balance Essence. None of the other lines encourage this sort of gameplay, I’ll go into more detail as a preface for each line.

Path of Isha
This is your healing line. It focuses near purely on healing, with the only exception being Balance Essence. Currently, this spell, despite being useless, is the closest I’ve seen to an attempt to “mix it up” within our mastery lines. Ideally, you could be an Isha Archmage and focus purely on healing allies, using your built up Tranquility to cast an empowered Transfer Force or Balance Essence. Unfortunately, this is not the case and most of the abilities in this line actually encourage you to spam heal to get the most of them.

Level of Mastery: 3
Balanced Mending
Path of Isha Tactic
**Currently not working, better than the old version of this tactic that gave a flat +5% to healing done and -10% to healing taken. Right now this tactic feels like, at most, a band-aid for Healing Energy to make it somewhat more potent.

Level of Mastery: 5
Balance Essence
-With a wave of his hand, the Archmage draws the life energies out of an enemy and uses them to rejuvenate an ally.
**Ideally, this spell should replace radiant lance on your bar. Ideally, it should do more than 150 damage at rank 40 with full points in the Path of Isha. Unfortuantely, this is not the case. Note that this spell does 75% of the damage of the Shaman version.

Level of Mastery: 7
Bolstering Boon
Path of Isha Tactic
**While “in combat” you gain 10 morale per second. This results in 25 seconds worth of morale given each time you use your big slow heal on someone. As a point of reference, it takes ~15 castings to get someone to full morale. So it’s not ideal for spamming for that purpose, but it’s a nice boost. In two castings you more than have enough morale for a T1 ability, and 3 castings gives you enough for a T2..after that it takes much longer to build up.

Level of Mastery: 9
Funnel Essence
-Raising your arms in the air, you immediately begin channeling healing into an ally.
**The best ability in the Path of Isha currently, it heals your target for more than your 3 sec big heal(Boon of Hysh) does in the same amount of time. And it starts the healing right away rather than having to wait until the end of the casting. Note that it gains healing with High Magic, whereas the big heal casts faster. So both still retain their uses. As a side note, this ability used to be a channeled Life Transfer spell.

Level of Mastery: 11
Wild Healing
Path of Isha Tactic
**A pretty good tactic, but I think it focuses too much on spam healing, which isn’t what the AM is about.

Level of Mastery: 13
Magical Infusion
-You infuse an ally with greater healing potential, causing his wounds to be easier to heal by anyone.
**I really dislike this skill. 3 seconds to give them a +25% bonus for only 20 seconds. This means, in order to be effective, you have to be in a sitaution where you know someone is going to need as much healing within a short amount of time, and yet have the 3 seconds to spare to cast this on them.

Level of Mastery: 15
Winds’ Protection
Path of Isha T4 Morale
**Not a bad skill at all. For 15 seconds not only are you providing a very nice absorbtion shield, but also healing them in the process.

Path of Asuryan
I like this line, sorta. But, oddly enough, I don’t go into it for damage. When I do spec this line I pick up the T4 morale, Flames of the Phoenix, and Cleansing Flare. The ability to send a large amount of enemies at 100 range flying is arguably better than having a big heal. I still play mainly a healer when I spec this, I just use my built up Tranquility to instantly knockback people when they charge me or when the person I’m healing gets a lot of people on them. And Flames of the Phoenix is just fun. 600dmg per second in a GTAE is quite potent considering how miserable the rest of your damage is. I tend to mix this with Bolstering Boon in Isha so that during keep defenses I can build up Morale faster and use it on the door.

My main beef with Asuryan is that it doesn’t really seem to fit the career. I’m a healer, I don’t want to be a wanna-be RDPS who can heal himself instantly. I don’t want a weak instant nukes. What I want is abilities that allow me to play an Archmage but play him in a way that focuses on Asuryan, i.e. offensive. Rather than focusing on funneling healing Life energies into an enemy, I want to conjure a phoenix that’s flames sear my enemies and soothe my allies. I want to surround an ally in pure white flames that soothe his wounds and severely burn enemies.

Level of Mastery: 3
Forked Lancing
Path of Asuryan Tactic
**For those “cool graphics” junkies out there like me, just so you know, this ability does indeed cause 2 extra “lances” to fire from your staff at the other two targets. Unfortuantely, the rather pitiful damage of radiant lance makes this a rather limited use skill.

Level of Mastery: 5
Fury of Asuryan -As the enemy catches your ire, he is suddenly enveloped in in pure, white, burning light.
**Rather weak for it’s excessive cooldown and really doesn’t synergize well with the Archmage playstyle in my opinion.

Level of Mastery: 7
Dispel Magic
Path of Asuryan Tactic
**I like the blessing removal, if we were more sure what exactly counted as a blessing, there are so many different types of buffs and debuffs and I haven’t looked closely enough to try and figure out a rhyme or reason. The damage seems sort low for a effect that is a 25% chance to proc and only *if* they have a blessing.

Level of Mastery: 9
Feel the Winds
-Enemies in the area become more susceptible to the power of the winds.
**A very very short duration for such a limited effect. My personal feedback on this ability has always been that it should reduce all resists. I mean, the “winds” would definitely include Bright Wizard magic, which is Elemental and Corporeal based. And yes, this spell is not linked to your mechanic.

Level of Mastery: 11
Increased Conductivity
Path of Asuryan Tactic
**Doesn’t effect Radiant Lance or Searing Touch, and even with this the other spells are fairly low damage or have a long CD.

Level of Mastery: 13
Cleansing Flare
-A massive explosion of prismatic light bursts forth from the target, sending enemies in the area flying away from you.
**My favorite ability in this line, and arguably worth speccing the line for. It’s a lot of fun to peek over a keep wall (while on the defense) and cast this on the enemy’s ram. It hits anyone anywhere near the door and sends them flying back.

Level of Mastery: 15
Flames of the Phoenix
Path of Asuryan T4 Morale
-The Asuryan Archmage focuses on a spot, conjuring a Phoenix to rise from the spot, rapidly spreading scorching flames to nearby enemies.
**Fun fun skill, not only is the spell graphic cool..but, geez, it’s just nice to be able to actually deal some damage.

Path of Vaul
What bothers me about this line is that it seems to be a pale remnant of the old Archmage hype Paul spoke to us of. Taking your enemy’s potential and using it against them. Rather, now it’s a debuff line with nothing truly unique in it except a healing debuff that you can keep on a single target practically constantly…very nice, but hardly creative.

Seriously though, I’m an Archmage. I don’t want to do the same old stuff so many other careers can do. I want to take my enemy’s potential and turn it on them. I mean, if it was such a good idea to hype us up with it..why not put it into action? I don’t want to simply make my target take less from healing, I want to divert a portion of the healing energy directed at him to one of my allies. I don’t want a simple buff that deals a small amount of damage every few seconds, I want a buff I put on an ally that absorbs a portion of the potential of attacks used against him and disperses it all around him. I want my enemy to feel the kinetic energy of his sword swing being sapped by my magic a split second before the energy is converted into a raw bolt of electricity with his name on it.

Level of Mastery: 3
Expanded Control
Path of Vaul Tactic
**Not a bad tactic if you are focused in this line. But, in general, the debuffs are too weak and too brief to make even the the expanded radius very useful.

Level of Mastery: 5
Scatter the Winds
-You set a curse upon the enemy that tears at the very fabric of their being while disrupting the flow of healing energies into them.
**The only other damaging spell in the Path of Vaul, it’s definitely worth taking. In organized group play, the ability to reduce the damage on someone being focus fired is amazing. It will also help when going up against a Disciple of Khaine without enough people to overwhelm him.

Level of Mastery: 7
Arcing Power
Path of Vaul Tactic
**Last I tried this tactic it was healing a set amount and rarely, and only on direct damage spells. NOt really an ideal tactic for a line that only has 2 damage spells and both of them DoTs. If it healed a set amount each time you landed an offensive spell, it would fit this line..and even give a glimmer of the old idea of stealing your opponent’s potential to help your allies.

Level of Mastery: 9
Law of Age
Path of Vaul Ability
-You invoke a potent curse on enemies in the area near the target, instilling infirmity into them as if they had aged many years.
**Not really a bad skill, but it suffers from the same thing as Rainlord does. Rather negligible effect, for an even shorter time. Also, it doesn’t build your mechanic.

Level of Mastery: 11
Golden Aura
Path of Vaul Tactic
**Fun tactic, gives you a 100range AoE DoT (all base AOEs are 80 ft range). Misleading as it really racks up damage in scenarios but doesn’t really kill anyone.

Level of Mastery: 13
Mistress of The Marsh
Path of Vaul Ability
-You magically change the terrain in the area. Enemies who try to pass the area will find passage difficult as if wading through a bog, while allies can move freely.
**Not a bad ability, but difficult to place. With a 3 second casting time, and not effected by your High Magic.

Level of Mastery: 15
Funnel Energy Path of Vaul T4 Morale
-As an Archmage of Vaul you turn the tables on your enemy by making your allies abilities seemingly easier to use, while actually putting the extra strain of their efforts on your enemy’s shoulders.
**Honestly never used this skill, 30 feet is a rather short range and I don’t generally want to get in the middle of enemies to make it very useful. People tend to stay spread out to avoid AoEs.

Image Source of Archmage header: WAR Site

Source: WAR Forums

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Although the Rune Priests are primarily the support Archetype of the Dwarven Oathbearers Army, they are also formidable in combat. Their use of the Dwarven runes also gives them offensive capabilities like DPSing enemies.

The Following guide discusses the offensive capabilities of the Rune Priest Class. This guide is written by Excelsias.

Rune Priest PvP Guide

Version 1.0 (WAR Beta 3.3)
August 23, 2008
By Excelsias

Table of Contents
1. Rune Priests Rock! — class overview and what we do
2. Oath Runes — hidden offensive power and buffs
3. Offensive Spells — more than just a healbot
4. Dude, Where’s my Mana? — overview of AP and how healing works
5. The Heals — better than all the rest
6. Other Goodies
7. Tactics & Morale (more to come… not too relevant at R10)
8. Rue the Rune Priest!

For Grungni! Rune Priests ROCK!
Let me clear the air, and admit to any biases I have upfront. I should call this guide, ‘How to kickass and literally own any scenario you enter as a little dorf dude with a stick’, cause here’s the reality: Rune Priests rock. With instant heals, instant HOTs, and instant attacks these little spellcasting midgets can rack up reknown points and kills like no other class.

You might be thinking, “What’s wrong with Excelsias? The Rune Priest is Order’s pure healer. He’s been drinking too much. They’re not supposed to ROCK. They’re supposed to heal!” Despite the fact that I just finished off a margarita that I ALMOST had to make with Patron (Mrs. Excelsias didn’t stock up on Jose Cuervo), I’m not off my rockers.

Here’s the catch: what makes Rune Priests so powerful isn’t what they can do, but what they allow everyone else to do. They’re the ultimate backbone of any successful party with their excellent buffs, magnificent heals, and passable DPS. The hybrid healers, Warrior Priests (WP) and Archmages (AM), can’t touch them in raw healing output, although those classes are crucial to a party’s synergy as well. In my testing alongside a little dorf dude with an axe, AKA Ironbreaker (IB), my Rune Priest was able to keep the Ironbreaker up against incoming Destros for TWICE as long compared to when I played as a WP or AM. No one can spike heal like a Rune Priest.

Which, I should add, doesn’t make them overpowered. In a game that’s as fluid and RvR focused as WAR, where focus firing (FF) is the rule of the day, and healers are targeted for FF first… someone needs to be able to spike heal. So, if you want to play a class that is (a) Essential, (b) Loved by all, and (c) Targeted before ayone else… get ready. Rune Priest is the way to go, and you’re gonna’ have a blast scrambling to keep everyone alive.

What does a Rune Priest do?
While this guide focuses on 1-10, you should know that while you lots of flashy new spells on the way to R40, your role as a Rune Priest isn’t going to change dramatically. Your job is to heal, and only when possible, DPS or cast damage shields, etc. So, you better like healing. That being said… you can still put out some good DPS, and in making the Rune Priest MORE than just a healbot, I think Mythic has created a very attractive pure healer class. In my view, that’s hard to do, and therefore, I’m going to focus on the offensive capabilities of the Rune Priest to start this guide off.

Oath Runes — Your hidden offensive power!
As with all classes in WAR, the Rune Priest is defined by a mechanic that gives them some flavor besides just action points (AP) and health points (HP). Every class in WAR has a mechanic like this; think of the Rogue’s combo points / finishing attacks in WOW.

For Rune Priests, that mechanic is … Oath Runes! Surprise, right? Like… Rune Priests have runes, oh-mah-gawd, Mythic is like, so like, smart! For what this lacks in creativity, it makes up in awesomeness. Oath Runes are essentially buffs that you can give to yourself and other players. Doesn’t sound very exciting yet, until we get to their second function: all Oath Runes can be “triggered” by the player they’re cast on, causing some kind of attack to that player’s target – direct damage, DOTs, etc. The Oath Rune’s attacking function is instant cast, doesn’t disappear after being used, and refreshes every 60 seconds.

Okay, still not convinced that this is awesome? I wasn’t at first, until I realized how very, very cool it is.

Let me give you an example. I was running around in New Emskrank (Empire vs. Chaos T1/Nordland RvR area) with 2 Ironbreakers the other day. I had cast Oath Rune of Warding on them, which when triggered from the buffed player, causes all enemies in the area (30 feet) to take 90 damage or so over 9 seconds, at R10. So what did my little axe-wielding buddies do? They followed each other into the Destro zerg, triggered their runes together, and caused nearly 200 points of damage to EVERY toon in the area over 9 seconds – a lot when most people only have 1000HP or so. It was ticking on 7-8 people. If we do the math, that’s about 1500-1600 damage caused total, on top of the other damage they did.

Here’s the beautiful thing: as a healer, my BUFFS directly allowed two tanks to do that. That’s a LOT of DPS for a healer! Imagine the awesomeness of 3-4 tanks doing this together. The Rune Priest’s Oath of Warding’s ALONE could take people down, if used at the same time!

Anyway, on top of that, they FF’d on a squishy (goblins… it’s always goblins…) with their heavy blow and binding grudge attacks, both DOTs that tick away for good DPS, a good 300-400 per IB. That, combined with their Oath Rune attacks, was enough DPS ticking away over 9 seconds to kill a single squishy. And it takes all of 6 seconds of attacks.
This is a perfect example of the SYNERGY between classes and how to use them. Doing so successfully is one of the best parts of WAR, and the great thing about the Oath Rune mechanic is you can be part of your group’s offensive synergy, even though you’re the primary healer.

Other Offensive Spells
In the above example, any good Rune Priest with their mithril should also be casting:

• Rune of Striking: 25AP / 2s cast / 100ft Range.
  Does good damage, but the cast time is realllly slow. On the flip side, you’ve got great range on this, so it’s a good offensive standard early in your career.
• Rune of Immolation: 30 AP/ Instant cast / 100ft Range.
  Everyone gets this on them. Just spamming the hell out of this will get you some good DPS in zerg fests, and when you’re trying to FF on someone with your tanks/DPS, this can negate the HOTs that the target’s healers are sure to be casting. This does about 50% more damage that Striking, so it’s good to lay on early.
• Rune of Fire: 40AP/ Instant cast / 100ft Range / 5s cooldown.
  Does less damage than Striking (about 25% less), but it’s instant. At the same time, it costs 40AP, which can substantially detract from your AP for healing.
• Rune of Might: 45AP/ 2s cast / No Range.
  Does PBAE damage around you for 30 feet. Equivalent damage to a single target that you’d see from Rune of Fire. The heavy AP and casting time of this Rune makes it pretty situational; there will be times when the PBAE effect will come in handy, but not that often.

That sums up all of the major offensive spells you’ll be getting to Rank 10. For the most part, your opening salvo when loading up on DPS is going to look like:

Rune of Immolation >> Rune of Fire >> Rune of Striking

Again, you should see that Mythic has tried hard to make us more than just a healbot. In fact, the Rune of Fire and Rune of Might spells are actually pretty nifty. You’re of course not going to be taking down hordes of Destros like a Bright Wizard, but that’s not your job. Nonetheless, you should enjoy the power of your offensive skills and Oath Runes.

Dude, where’s my Mana!?
Ashton Kuchter didn’t lose it, dude. WAR took it, looked at it, and spat it out like moldy toast. If you’re coming over from WOW, EQ, LOTRO, or practically any major fantasy MMO ever made, you’ll be surprised to see that you have no mana bar as a healer.
Don’t worry. It’s going to be okay. Mythic gave you action points (AP), instead.

Action points are a substitute for mana, stamina meters, etc. Every skill you have in WAR takes AP (unless noted) and in reality, all that the AP system does is create a “universal” mana/magic/stamina pool system that limits how many skills/punches/kicks/spells any class can perform over time. It’s actually pretty elegant, but it takes some getting used to.

The reason that I’m going into so much detail about the AP system is that as a healer, you alone have to worry about balancing your AP system between DPS and heals, because both DPS and heals will drain your AP pool. Most other classes – tanks, DPS, and even the hybrid healers, to some extent – use their AP only to dole out attacks, so there’s no balance required. But every ounce of AP you spend casting offensive spells takes away from your ability to layout heals.

As a result, before you go hogwild spitting our offensive spells, you need to take a good survey of the field of battlefield and make sure that you have the AP needed to keep your tanks/party up. If you don’t, resist the urge to do so. Save your AP for healing!

Rune Priest Heals – Better than All the Rest!
The heals available to a Rune Priest are what make the class shine, but before we explore them, I need to clarify another aspect of the class that distinguishes the Rune Priest as the premium healer.

BOTH of the other healers (Warrior Priest / Archmage) have class mechanics that either inhibit their healing, or enhance it — depending on your perspective, or more accurately, your situation. Understanding how much this differs from what a Rune Priest can do is essential to knowing how powerful your Rune Priest is.

Warrior Priests heal through HOTs only, with the exception of a full group heal, BUT, all of their heals require Righteous Fury (RF). Every heal cast depletes the RF pool, and even though the HOTs are instant, that can be frustrating, as RF is only regenerated through melee attacks or a time-consuming (and AP-consuming) ability called Supplication. As such, WP can’t heal continuously without mixing in some melee attacks, much less spike heal, like a Rune Priest. Their HOTs can make your life as a RP MUCH easier, but, they can’t replace you at all.

Likewise, Archmages have a mechanic whereby each offensive cast generates “Force”, and each heal generates “Tranquility”, but these two attributes are a pendulum; building one reduces the other. If you have a balance of the opposing attibute pooled up, it will reduce your cast time. For example, casting a lot of offensive spells will build high Force, and the Archmage’s big 3 second heal will be instant cast with full Force. Doing so will deplete your Force/Tranquility balance, and start building Tranquility. Get it? Again, a limiting factor. Also pretty cool; Rune Priests never get an instant “big heal” like AM can with this mechanic, but it means that if ALL you do is heal as an Archmage, your spells are gonna’ be SLOW without some damage mixed in.

Both the Archmage and Warrior Priest can generate some pretty amazing healing. Yet, they can’t spike heal like a RP. That’s where you come in… again, your ability to provide QUICKER more EFFICIENT healing overall is going to provide awesome group SYNERGY and make these other healers even better. Get it yet?

So, let’s get to the heals! Pretty much every heal from every career has a 150 foot range (nifty, huh!?), so I won’t be including those numbers here:

• Grungi’s Gift: 25AP, Instant cast.
  Doesn’t heal for a LOT, but you can spam this for a good 5-8 seconds and keep somebody up for a long time. You can also spam it on yourself as you flee. You can spam this anytime, anywhere, and it will heal for a lot. Basically, as a Rune Priest, if you’re not spamming this all over the place, you’re doing it wrong. I’ll use this as the baseline to compare to other heals.
• Rune of Regeneration: 30AP, Instant cast.
  This DOES heal for a lot… over 15 seconds. On the flipside, total healing over those 15 seconds will be about 1000% more than the single Grungi’s Gift heal. It’s a great skill to lay on your ally being FF’d, or to top someone off.
• Rune of Shielding: 40AP, Instant cast, 2s cooldown. This used to be a 2s cast, which made it pointless. What it does is shield for equal damage to about 3 Grungi’s Gift, and then when done, heal for an amount equal to about 1 Grungi’s Gift. The reality is that in the heat of battle, you really can’t use this reliably. However, it’s a great skill to use on a tank to prep. them for a charge; cast this, dump your HOT, have your WP buddy cast his HOT, and send your tank in for business.
• Rune of Restoration: 50AP, 3s cast. Heals for about 5 Grungi Gift’s, making it a very effective heal, cause it only costs you 2xAP compared to Grungi’s Gift. The downside, of course, is the very slow cast time, and Mythic’s gone one step further; you get setback a LOT if you get hit using this skill. Setback is basically spell disruption, so you basically need to be sure you are NOT going to get hit in those 3 seconds or you’ve wasted your time. Using this for spot-healing really isn’t a good idea in the thick of serious RvR, but, it’s a great skill to START casting right as your tank starts getting into battle, let it rip, thenf ollow up with Renegeration / Grungi’s Gift.
• Rune of Mending: 60AP, 1s cast. Frontloads about 1 Grungi Gift’s of healing, then does a HOT effect worth another 2.5 Grungi’s Gift. Not a bad skill, and it’s great to combine this with Regeneration + Grungi Gift spam to give someone a LOT of incoming healing. The downside is the high AP cost.

Healing strategy, therefore, comes down to efficiency, like in all MMOs. Do you need to spam Grungi’s Gift and can’t afford to mix in HOTs? Do you have time to work in your more effective AP:HP ratio spells like Restoration? There are no hard and fast answers to these questions. A good view of the tactical situation is critical to being a good healer.

What Other Goodies Do I Get!?
I’m glad you asked! You get a rez (Rune of Life), and a great morale move (Divine Favor) that instantly recovers about 4 Grungi Gift’s worth of HP. But the real skill that shines — and is often underused — is Rune of Preservation.

“Oh mai,” you think, “Excelsias is a real moron. A detaunt in PvP? LOLZ at him that’s for PvE!” Newp! Mythic did something pretty cool here. This works in RvR. Meaning, if you detaunt someone in RvR… well, they won’t stop attacking you like they would in a WOW raid. But they’re only gonna’ do 50% damage to you over the next 15 seconds (so long as you don’t attack them).

That’s right… if some big ol’ badass Marauder comes charging at you, DON’T IMMOLATE THEM. Detaunt them instead, and call in your DPS/Tank buddies to come to your assistance, because ANY class only doing 50% damage to a Rune Priest is going to take a LONG time to burst through the spike healing you can throw at yourself.

How cool is that!? Moreover, you can use this EVERY 15 seconds. I can’t tell you how many people I’ve seen whine about Rune Priest survivability on the beta forums who didn’t even know this skill exists! Hotkey it on your freakin’ forehead, and bang your head on this skill EVERY time you can.

Rue the Rune Priest!
Hope you enjoyed the alliteration! If you play your Rune Priest well, your enemies should rue the thought of ever facing off against a good RvR group that’s supported by one.
Throughout this guide, I’ve talked frequently about the RP supporting a group. I’ve talked about little tank buddies. I wouldn’t use this cute phrase without a good reason; the Rune Priest > Tank synergy is so important that it’s almost symbiotic. As a Rune Priest, I love my tanks, because they help me help them do their job. Tanks using skills like Guard and Oath Friend can give you tons of survivability. And in turn, a tank with a pocket healer like a Rune Priest can tear up the battlefield.

In short; if you want to enjoy the Rune Priest to it’s fullest, you NEED somebody completing you as the “DPS” portion of your partnership. Ideally, an Ironbreaker or Swordmaster. You find one of those guys, and you do this to them:

HUGGGGGGGG! <3 for Life! BFF!!

And you don’t let go, ever, not for anything, until the two of you have heaped buttloads of hurt on the Destro baddies.

I’m not joking. Try running around as a Rune Priest alone in a scenario. Then get a friend (or make one) who plays an Ironbreaker, and get on Vent with them. You will love your class, and your friend, forever. I <3 Ironbreakers.

Enough of the Dorf-love. You get the point, I hope! Now, get your dorf stick, and go crank it on some goblin squishies. Good luck Rune Priests!!

- Excelsias

Concept Art of Rune Priest Source: WAR Site

Source: WAR Forums

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The Witch Hunter Class is a deadly offensive class that wields a rapier and a pistol in Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning. A Witch Hunter also uses holy water, blessed ashes, stakes, torches and other items that increases the damage they inflict so enemies beware of this assassin who wears the badass hat *wink*. They are members of the Order of Sigmar (Holy Order of the Templars of Sigmar) and their allegiance belongs to the Order of the Griffon Army.

The following Witch Hunter guide is written by Goldenheart.

A Guide to the Witch Hunter Class

A heavy revamp of my Previous guide in the Witch Hunter forums. With overviews of all skills now included and in depth uses of each Mastery Tree.

From Alluvian_Est-Endrati of Only-WAR.com

Quote:
“Corruption and the threat of the enemy within are what drove into existence the need for the Witch Hunters. These grim folk seek out and destroy the seeds of corruption wherever they find it. With fire and the sword do they hunt, slay and burn any who have even the slightest hint of being touched by the fell powers. Cultists, mutants and unlicensed practitioners of magic all have fallen to the judgment of the Witch Hunters over the years.

These folk get their name from ancient days when ordained folk were given the perilous task of seeking out and destroying those dark magisters in our lands. These Witches and Warlocks as they are called, consorted with dangerous powers, summoned forth daemons and otherwise posed a grave threat. In modern days however the role of the Witch Hunter is much broader, not only do they seek out those who practice magic, or who dabble with dark magic, but also cultists, mutants and even darker threats to our lands.

These folk live a cursed life, hated and feared by most folk for the suspicion and doubts they cast. Witch Hunters are never welcome in most communities, even those that have great need of them, for they are cruel and unrelenting in their pursuit of those corrupted. These folk are skilled warriors out of the necessity of their tasks, often being proficient even in some of the more recent innovations such as blackpowder arms. Nowhere nearly as heavily armored as a knight or even the warrior priests, the Witch Hunter is still a deadly opponent.

Being sought by a Witch Hunter is a great fear for many folk, for a great many stories are told of how these fell protectors of our lands torment and torture their foes, forcing a confession of their black deeds from them before they are put to death. Many Witch Hunters have fallen over the years, slain by those they seek to destroy yet there are always more zealous folk who take up the calling, driven perhaps by some inner torment or burning desire to see justice done to the wicked. Few enter this career who are innocent folk and surely none last long who cannot become hardened to the horrors and trials forced upon these folk.

In this time of great peril to our lands with the coming of a new warhost of Chaos out of the north, many Witch Hunters have come forth to do battle against such an open display of Chaos. After long years of being hidden in the darkness with this new Age of Reckoning many cults have revealed themselves, believing that the time has finally come for the Empire to fall and a new Realm of Chaos to be established upon the world. So too have many beastmen, mutants and worse things come forth to wage their war against us and these foul folk shall soon learn to fear the wicked ministrations of the Witch Hunter.”

Extract From Armies of WAR-

“These poor, simple folk – too fearful or too dull-witted to see the vulgarity and evil in their own midst. They wail and complain about my…uncompromising methods, but who among you can say that hanging half a village is too high a price to pay for the assurance that corruption has been exposed and destroyed this day?”

- Ernst Traugott, Templar Witch Hunter

The Witch Hunter Look

• Lightly Armored, with long cloaks and coats, wide-brimmed hats and buckled tunics.
• Wields off-hand pistols and main-hand rapiers, swords and torches.
• Ornamented with other tools of their craft such as stakes, daggers, relics, chains and emblems of the Cult of Sigmar or the Empire.

Full List of Abilities
List of Tactics
Career Builder

Why Choose the Witch Hunter?

Witch Hunters are currently Light Melee DPS classes, meaning they can throw a punch yet can be blown away with the slightest breeze. This class takes heavy amounts of concentration and positional tactics to succeed on the battlefield and should not be confused with the WoW variation of the ‘Rogue’ class as this class requires a braincell to succeed in the battlefield.

Stealth and how it Works!

Stealth is an opening move for a few Witch Hunter Skills for a massive advantage over his target. Currently, there are only 3 openers for the Witch Hunter, all of which grant a 50% off all attack Skills. All 3 have unique aspects about them and must be used for each different target.

Burn Armour: This Openers unique trait grants X damage every time your target attacks using a melee skill or auto attack for 10 seconds. This skill should be used on MDPS or Tank. So, from experience, never use this opener in RvR , only on Hero Mobs or Champions. I’ll explain this later.

Sudden Accusation: This Openers unique trait grants X damage every time your target moves for 10 seconds. This is the most useful opener for all targets, as most players seem to circle strafe or run behind enemy lines in fear. Never use this opener in PvE.

Fanatical Zeal: This Openers unique trait grants X damage every time your target uses a Spell for 10 seconds. This skill should be used on every caster type and even Witch Elves who has an array of spells,(melee range of course). However it is better to Use Sudden Accusation.

Stealth, in otherwords ‘Incognito‘ at the moment has a Cool down of 60 seconds, which, only starts once your session in stealth has finished, so you can’t spam stealth attacks. Stealth takes a few seconds to Activate, which also can be done on the Move. Stealth only has duration of 30 seconds, and in total will wipe 50% of your AP bar.

Detecting a person using stealth is easy, however you can only be detected if you are attacking in the line of sight of your target, so it is better to attack from the rear or side to get full advantage. You can also be detected if you take any damage while in stealth, this includes AoE attacks but somehow not DoT attacks that you had on you before activating stealth.

Mythic have not yet responded to the countless threads suggesting better alternatives other than stealth….Since it was implemented last year. Hopefully this will change when both US/EU communities combine in the future.

Masteries and YOU!

Confession

Focused more on burst damage and is commonly used to take down more than 1 target at a time. This mastery is currently in my opinion the best Mastery to specialize in for PvE due to its PBAoE buff and Execution.

This mastery improves the following Core skills:

Blessed Bullets of Purity: These bullets seem to be good and should be your main bullet type until you get BBoConfession. The Initiative boost will help you defensively and allow you to do more damage with the reduction in the enemies Initiative.

Trail by Pain: Currently, this skill should only be used in Solo PvE and only if you pick on 1 mob at a time. 3 out of 6 shots stack with Bullet Blessings, and in this case should only apply to Blessed Bullets of Purity.

Burn Armour: Can be used in Both PvE and PvP, more useful on Marauders and Witch Elves due to the mass spam of melee attacks, should not be used on caster or healers. Sudden Acussation however outclasses this in PvP due to melee dps players keen interest in Circle Strafing.

Seekers Blade: A good skill if used right if you plan on taking out tanks or infact any MDPS careers. I usually apply this skill along Fervor from the Inquisition line.

Razor Srike: This skill can be put to use in this mastery due to Sweeping Razor, This will become your main damage dealer in mass RvR, combined with Dragon Gun will become a good crowd destroyer.

Skills and Aquired in Confession

Dragon Gun: This skill works brilliantly with bullets. Works very well in mass situations like open world RvR where casters and healers are bunched up. For PvE purposes, this skill can be used for AoE farming combined with Blessed Bullets of Purity and Sanctified Bullets.

Repel Blasphemy: This is a MUST HAVE skill if specced in Confession. If under attack by Melee Careers this will add alot of survivability and opening up your Confess ability. This skill also can be put to use with the Tactic Riposte, melee careers will suffer incredible damage if under attack while this skill is active if combined with Ripost.

Tactics

Sweeping Razor: As mentioned above, use this paired up with Razor Strike as your main damage and accusation builder.

Sanctified Bullets: With the new bullet updates, this tactic seems viable for survival, use if you lack a healer or want more survivability. Would be great paired up with dragon gun.

Seeker’s Tiumph: A tactic not worth bringing to the battlefield. There are other tactics worth using more than this as armour ignoring tactic for a skill that does not do much damage is not worth it.

Inquisition

Focused more on DoT damage, but has powerful skills that reduce stats and healing done on targets.

This mastery Improves the following Core skills:

Fervor: This skill should be the main accusation builder for Inquisition specced WH’s. Use this after a stealth opener 3 times (as it stacks), unleashing Exit wound with 5 accusations can be incredibly powerful.

Burn the Heretic!: This skill does massive damage in PvE and PvE, as it is a DoT and does not do physical damage, it is worth doing this on tanks and medium mdps. This skill still does pack a punch and worth using in RvR on ALL careers.

Confess!: A must use skill if need be. Confession/Inquisition builds benefit from this greatly because of Repel Blasphemy. This skill is great going against melee careers if need be it. It is not worth using against Casters as they use spells rather than weapon attacks.

Sudden Accusation: *See article on Stealth above*

Blessed Bullets of Confession: I have not tested this new bullet type, but on paper this seems worth using.

Skills Aquired in Inquisition:

Seal of Destruction: A good seal as this will also count for your DoT attacks, I predict this skill being very hazardous against heavily Armoured targets if you are on the offense. May work well in PvE on high level mobs also.

Punish The False!: If you are attacking a healer, infact, any class, this skill must be used after you have done damage spike with Fervor or other damaging abilities as healers will only focus on the target if it’s health is low. By using it at the right time you can take out your target even with healing support.

Exit Wound: A brilliant skill that spells DEATH to your main target, good against running targets as your DoTs will have bigger effect and can also be applied at range.

Tactics

Full Confession: A good tactic if you intend to be attacking melee careers more than casters for the damage, however you should not be, instead going for casters careers and I doubt you’ll be using ”Confess!” on them.

Prolonged Confession: A must have if you are mainly specced in Inquisition (like Sweeping Razor for confession). This tactic makes sure you do that extra bit of damage to finish off your enemies with an extra tick of damage.

Encourage Confession: This skill on paper sounds like a good tactic, if you are using Confession bullet buff I advise adding this tactic if you are targeting healers mainly.

Judgement

This mastery is focused in massive single target burst damage, and has great finishers, a mastery that teaches you to deal with all target types including the dreaded Tank archtype..

This mastery Improves the following Core skills:

Blessed Bullets of Cleansing:These bullets will help your AP regen. If you are a WH that uses alot of AP the AP regenaration will help, but in early Tiers, it really does not sound useful as 10 ap regen is pathetic and is only worth using for it’s damage.

Torment: This should be your main accusation builder, Razor Strike is not an option as this does more damage regardless of position if specced in Inquisition. If you can stay at the side or rear of a tank you can do good damage.

Absolution: The first execution you acquire as a Witch Hunter. . Use this at the right moment with Burn Away Lies for massive spike damage.

Silence the Heretic: A good skill on taking out casters. The 3 second silence gives you enough time to build up a few accusations to blow your target away. If using Pistol Whip you should use them after either of their timers run out if 1 is used first.

Fanatical Zeal: (See above article on Stealth)

Skills Aquired in Judgement:

Burn Away Lies: A good DoT finisher with a massive Spike damage finisher. Combine with Absolution at the ending spike for a certain killer.

Pistol Whip: A must have skill if specced in the Judgement line. This skill will help you pick off single targets with minimum fuss as they squabble to get away from you.

Van Horstmann’s Speculum: A great relic skill combined with Repel Blasphemy and Riposte tactic, can spell massive damage to all tanks and mdps careers defending their casters and also good for solo play.

Tactics

Fanatical Cleansing A pathetic tactic, avoid this one, the 50 AP loss on an enemy is complete rubbish and can be regenerated in a second.

Atonement If you are one to take risks and are dependant on Absolution for the spike damage combined Burn Away Lies you should use this.

Virolic Judgment Very good if you are a positional fighter, can save your life in later tiers as Sorcs have a r3 morale that can stun you. This tactic will benefit your entire group as morales consist alot of AoE skills.

Witch Hunter Armour and Stats.

Those who were expecting this class to have more armour than a Caster will be sorely disappointed. This is the weakest aspect to being a Witch Hunter.

The Witch Hunter has the same base armour for throughout his/her entire career as a caster (We call them Paper thin because of it). This is its biggest downfall, and has led to minimal survivability throughout later tiers above 1, and the reason why few Witch Hunters ascended above Tier 1. The only Trade off is that you look incredibly badass throughout your career (except Tier 3, bad armour design there).
The Witch Hunters most important stats are:

Wounds: Increases Health/Hit Points. If you are to survive, you need quite a few of these.

Strength: Increases your overall ability damage and reduces your opponents chance to parry your attacks.

Weapon Skill: Increases your chance to parry an enemy attack and increases the amount of armour penetration.

These are the most important stats you need to focus on, however it is still important to have a healthy balance of the other remaining stats (besides Willpower) if you are to be affective. The reason I state no Willpower, is because it is a healing buffer skill, increasing Heal Crits and you won’t be doing any Healing.

Current RvR Situation

The current Situation for the past few weeks in Tier 4 has been Zerg Vs Zerg. The WH only get 1 AoE skill, Dragon Gun, which requires full accusations for it to be effective, which requires a massive spec in Confession.

Get a group, you will need a dedicated healer, not a PuG one with more than just 1 healer in the party, because you will drop like a fly if you’re not careful, well, even if your careful, you’ll die anyway.

Combining Dragon gun with Blessed Bullets of Cleansing and Sudden Accusation can disperse Zerg mind easily and Snare allot of enemies, but only attack from behind. This is because most players in the Zerg do not group or have no concept of looking anywhere else than in front of them, it will cause mass panic (we did this last night, lots of fun) and you can just finish off the fleeing healers and stuff.

Mythic in the next patch will be changing all Bullet buffs and Giving ‘Snap Shot’ (Deals X damage to player, 5-65ft range) a snare if used from behind to catch fleeing players. Also, we will be receiving the +50% critical damage tactic the Sorceress got and had made them OP (they will be losing it next patch).

The main problem Mythic still haven’t addressed is that the WH still do not have a useful escape skill besides ‘Declare Anathema’ which you only get at max rank.

I hardly use this skill, as I always end up flying back into the enemy lines if I do not co-ordinate myself properly, or even off cliffs, lol.

I’ve yet to question why Mythic decided Witch Hunters not to die when you level 40.

Who to Kill

The first Target to get on the battlefield is the ‘Goblin Shaman’. The Shaman has fewer skills in which to defend themselves against mass melee and surprise unlike the Zealot and DoK. Although it’s heals are stronger. The best skill to use in this situation is Silence the Heretic.

The Silence condition may be small, but is effective. Use this at least 2 seconds after you start attacking your Shaman, as within those 2 seconds the Shaman will not be targeting heals on himself yet.

‘The Zealot’ can be overcome, but it is ideal you do not attack the Zealot first if there is a Shaman nearby you can target. It is harder, because the Zealot has access to Knockbacks and damage reduction skills next patch.

Disciple o’ Khaine should be your next target after the Shammy n Zealot. Because of their lack of strength, you will be be able to parry alot of their attacks. By using the skill Confess! as a reactionary you can disarm him (unable to use melee weapon) and thus weakening his heals. He will take longer to kill because of his armour.

Next are all types of RDPS classes. They can be killed easily, but only if they have no healing support. They cause havoc on your team, due to Mexican standoff syndrome in large fights, kill these!

Witch Elves are next in line. They are deadly as hell, and if you do not get rid of them they will kill your healers. Keep using confess to disarm them if they attack you. Now this goes on for all MDPS classes.

Tanks, they will kill you, especially Chosen, However, this can change if you spec in the Inquisition Mastery line, as they have skills to reduce their stats dramatically, however this skill is also high up in the mastery line, but you get some good skills on the way there, some of which are my faves, but it is still wise to avoid them and go for the squishy targets.

To summarize the kill order should be this.
Shaman—Zealot—DoK—All RDPS classes –Witch Elf—Marauder –Tank.

T4 Epic Gear Witch Hunter – UI and BO taking

Image Source of Witch Hunter: WAR Site

Image Source of T4 Epic Gear Witch Hunter: WAR Forums

Source: WAR Forums

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The Runepriests are the support Archetype of the Dwarven Oathbearers Army. They are the masters in wielding the power of the Dwarven runes to cast spells that can enhance a player’s attack and defense. These runes are also used for casting offensive spells.

The following guide is all about the Runepriest – their Archetype, Abilities, Masteries, etc. This guide is written by Kinthral.

Welcome to The Comprehensive Runepriest Career Guide

This guide contains information, explanations, statistics, and a few opinions designed to help you better understand the career as a whole. It also serves as a compendium of current community-accepted builds and techniques, theoryhammering, and empirical data regarding mechanics. It does not focus on how to react to specific situations, but general uses are provided for abilities and mechanics. It encompasses all aspects of gameplay, from solo farming to city sieges and everything in between.

Table of Contents

1. Introduction, Table of Contents, General WAR Mechanics and Terminology, ‘Why a Runepriest?’
2. Core Abilities, Core Tactics, All Morale Abilities
3. Grungni Mastery
4. Valaya Mastery
5. Grimnir Mastery

Current Guide version is: 1.0.0
Current WAR version is: 1.0.2
Last updated: 09/30/2008

General Mechanics

• Career Mechanic: Oath Runes. These are on-hour, single-target, powerful, stat-increasing buffs that are only castable on party members only (not other warband party members or random friendly players). There can be only one Oath Rune on a single player, and any Oath Rune will overwrite another, regardless of the power level of the two runes. Oath Runes also grant the holder an additional ability they can activate and use like a regular spell. By default, using the ability has a 60.0 second cooldown, which can be shortened to 30.0 seconds depending on the Runepriest’s currently equipped tactics. These abilities will appear on the granted abilities hotbar.
• All of your abilities, be they damaging or healing, only require AP. Runepriests do not have a secondary mechanic that is required to cast healing abilities, and casting offensive spells has no effect on your healing spells, or vice versa.
• The term ‘rank’ and ‘level’ are interchangeable. (Rank is the correct term, however).
• The term ’spell’ and ‘ability’ are interchangeable. (Ability is the correct term, however).
• The cast bar progressing is referred to as ability ‘build up’.
• The cast bar regressing (due to taking damage) is referred to as ability ’set back’.
• Damageshields (such as Rune of Shielding) prevent set back while the shield holds. If any part of an incoming attack isn’t absorbed by the shielding, you could be set back.
• Percentage modifiers of damage (such as Rune of Preservation and Grimnir’s Shield) are effectively additive. 50% less caused by an enemy, and 50% less taken by you, causes incoming hits to be reduced by 99% or more. Guard doesn’t stack with Grimnir’s Shield, though.
• Over time effects (DoTs, HoTs) stack with each other, unless otherwise noted.

Terminology

• DoT: Damage over Time, refers to offensive abilities.
• HoT: Healing over Time, refers to healing/defensive abilities.
• AoE: Area of Effect, refers to any ability that affects multiple targets.
• PBAoE: Point-Blank AoE, the most common type of AoE. The effect is centered on the players location, and affected targets are determined by being in the circle formed from that center along with a radius, which is given by the ability’s range.
• CAoE: Cleaving AoE, the second most common type of AoE. Worded in tooltips as “affects all targets X feet in front of you”, the affected location is determined similarly to PBAoE. The one difference is that CAoE only affects a semicircle of about 125 degrees in front of you instead of all 360 degrees. A typically longer range compensates, and you usually end up with a similar affected area.
• Bouncing: AoE which affects its primary target, then picks a nearby target, affects that target, and then usually continues on through a number of charges. Abilities currently can bounce as soon as 1.0 seconds, but can bounce to a valid target anytime during the duration of the effect. Closest targets have priority; there is no priority for wounded targets currently.
• DPS: Damage per second, a comparative rate of the effectiveness of an offensive ability.
• d/AP: Damager per point of AP, a comparative rate of the efficiency of an offensive ability.
• HPS: Healing per seond, a comparative rate of the effectiveness of a healing ability.
• h/AP: Healing per point of AP, a comparative rate of the efficiency of a healing ability.

‘Why a Runepriest?’

If you’re reading this and haven’t picked a career yet, then chances are you fall into one of three categories. First, you don’t know what archetype you want to play as in Warhammer; second, you are set on playing for the Alliance of Order as one of its Support careers but can’t choose; or third, despite how much you like the playstyle of the Dwarven Runepriest and the Chaos Zealot, you can’t decide between the two.

The Archetype

Warhammer Online has grouped its 20 playable careers into four distinct archetypes. By now, you probably already know that those are the Tank, Melee DPS (MPDS), Ranged DPS (RDPS), and Support. The first three are easily discernible if you’ve played other MMORPGs/RPGs, so I’m not going to explain them. If the word “support” doesn’t appeal to you as a player, then the archetype probably isn’t for you.

Being categorized as part of the Support archetype essentially means you have access to reliable heals and buffs. “Reliable” means you have multiple abilities that aren’t on long cooldowns, or tied into Morale or chances to proc. The ability to heal, and to a lesser extent, buff, is practically nonexistent on non-Support careers. Reliable buffs exist on other careers, but the buffs aren’t as potent or plentiful as Support-archetype buffs.

Contrary to some “Support” classes in a number of other MMORPGs, WAR’s Support (and Tank) careers do have a decent capability to deal damage. They will certainly never pass a MDPS or RDPS in terms of raw damage output, but you’ll have enough damage output that you can assist with focus fires, and you’ll find soloing a much more pleasant experience. Support careers are some of the best soloers because of this, and for being healers.

The Support archetype is designed for players who wish to support the players around them. A Support career will generally have a hybrid playstyle, but above all, you should be placing more of your attention towards healing and buffing allies.

The Career

Now that you’ve chosen to play a Support career, you might be looking at the two opposing Realms in WAR. Both realms have an identical number of Support careers: three. If you’re thinking about playing for Destruction, I would suggest you look at career guides for the Destruction Support careers (Greenskin/Goblin Shaman, Chaos Zealot, Dark Elf Disciple of Khaine) since I’ll be talking about the Order careers. The numbers provided are rough estimates based off an easily identifiable number (100,000) – if you’re curious, these numbers are fairly common for a Tier 3 scenario – and should be looked at for rough comparisons only (utility and other factors skew the numbers).

The first is the Empire Warrior Priest. Of the three careers available to you on Order, the Warrior Priest is the most iconic in terms of looks, and unique in terms of mechanics. Warrior Priests have the highest base armor levels due to wearing Medium Robes, and wields either Great Hammers or a hammer and a charm (usually a tome) in the offhand to create various amounts of damage and healing output. The Warrior Priest’s offensive abilities focus on direct attacks that debuff/buff, while the healing abilities focus on HoT effects and small AoE heals. Buffs consists of Prayers, which are Auras granting chances to do things like heal or deal additional damage. The Warrior Priest’s career mechanic is Righteous Fury, which is a separate healing pool used to cast healing abilities, while the normal AP pool is used to cast offensive abilities. Because Righteous Fury doesn’t regenerate in combat, a Warrior Priest must use offensive abilities to continue to heal. Generation is an obvious disadvantage, but keeping your healing safe from AP drains and being able to heal or damage whenever you need to are big advantages.
Damage: 50,000 – Healing: 50,000

Next is the High Elf Archmage. Archmages are the “squishiest” of the three healers in part due to being in Light Robes, and in part due to their healing (defensive) abilities having longer cast times than other careers. Archmage offensive abilities focus heavily on debuffing DoTs and transfers (simultaneously damaging and healing), while the healing abilities focus heavily on HoTs and smaller casted heals. The Archmages’ buff is to all resists (defenses). The Archmage mechanic is High Magic, which encourages you to repeatedly cast offensive abilities (building Force) or healing abilities (building Tranquility), and then cast one of the opposite, which receives an increase in power or decrease to cast time, respectively. Due to this mechanic, damage and healing outputs spike up and down more with this career than the other two.
Damage: 25,000 – Healing: 75,000

Finally, there is the Dwarf Runepriest. Runepriests also wear Light Robes, but due to a few choice abilities and, in particular, two Runepriest-only tactics, they have much better survivability than the Archmage (and perhaps better than a Warrior Priest). Offensive abilities are a more standard repertoire with a few DoTs but the bulk of the damage through direct attacks devoid of buffs/debuffs, and healing abilities are also a mix between HoTs and small direct heals without secondary effects. Officially, Oath Runes (and to a lesser extent, Master Runes) are the career mechanic, which are for the most part the the only long-term buffs that increase output (offensive versus input/defensive). Most don’t consider the Runepriest to have a career mechanic though which is fair to say; at least not one that impacts their playstyle.
Damage: 10,000 – Healing: 90,000

To Summarize

Healing flows greatest to least: Runepriest, Archmage, Warrior Priest
Damage flows greatest to least: Warrior Priest, Archmage, Runepriest
Survivability flows greatest to least: Warrior Priest or Runepriest (defensive), Runepriest (base), Archmage
Buffs/debuffs/utilities flows greatest to least: Runepriest, Archmage, Warrior Priest
Adaptability (to make instant changes in playstyle): Warrior Priest, Archmage, Runepriest

Warrior Priests are required to DPS to heal, Archmages are encouraged to DPS in bursts, Runepriests usually don’t DPS.

The Mirror

If you want to play a Runepriest on the Destruction side, you’re looking to play a Chaos Zealot.

Many of the key differences were removed after beta, so now most of what remains is the Zealot’s Harbinger of Doom ability. Most of the other differences are dependent on mastery choice.

Because the comparison between these two is quite subjective to other factors (balance between the Realms as a whole, balance between the careers that protect you as a healer on either side, and so on) I’m not as versed as I’d like to be with the Zealot to make a definitive comparison. This quote by Grondoth, a RP from the WHA forums, is a great synopsis though.

Quote:
…And everything else is debatable: Zealots say RP are better group support, but there’s not much we can do that they can’t, except knockback people more often and proc armour buffs that negate armour penetration, and resurrect groupmates that are within 30 feet of you every 3 minutes. There’s a lot they can do that we can’t, reduce resists, silence multiple people, make the area of their ritual kinda dangerous to enemy players, give AP freely, or proc a heal on people attacking a target. It’s not much of a heal, but it’s something! Yes, Rune of Burning does more damage than Storm of Ravens, and rune of fate’s easier to use than the transference tactic… but they do the same things. RP might be a little tougher because of a few tactics and a r2 class morale, but that’s about it.

Core Abilities

Flee

Obtained at rank 1
All – If you do decide to use it (typically to escape or catch a Fleeing enemy), be prepared to defend yourself. Your defenses are very poor with no morale or AP upon flee ending, so try to put some HoTs or a damageshield on yourself before Fleeing.
PvE – This is primarily your transportation around the world until you get a mount.
RvR – It can be used in combat, to greater effect at earlier levels when snares aren’t as abundant, but is generally risky. Snares prevent Flee from doing anything, so you’ll want to wait to not have any, or cleanse yourself first.

Rune of Regeneration

Obtained at rank 3
100hps, 50h/AP, coefficient 1.72
All – The only drawback to this ability is the time it takes to run its course. It is out most effective proactive heal (healing damage as it happens) due to its low AP cost, being instant cast, and the fact that it can (and often should) be on every nearby friendly.

Rune of Preservation

Obtained at rank 7
All – The Runepriest’s detaunt ability. Despite the tooltip, it functions similarly to other detaunts, reducing the damage output of enemies by 50%.
PvE – The threat loss is enough to deter any accidental aggro, but its to your advantage to learn to pre-emptively use it so your tank doesn’t get worried. If you pull aggro from multiple mobs, quickly clear your offensive target, and the first mob to hit you will become your target, ready to receive Preservation. This way, you don’t detaunt the tank’s Taunt target (leaving extra mobs to attack you).
RvR – If you see a player running across the battlefield towards you, its best to Preservate and wonder why later. (TM Loading Screens).

Rune of Life

Obtained at rank 10
All – A basic resurrect, castable in combat. Targets are resurrected with 20% health and empty AP and morale bars, at the location of where the resurrect was casted. The person you resurrect is detargeted, so be ready to retarget them and give them some heals, lest they experience death all over again.
RvR – Most players will respawn before you can resurrect them, but bringing back key players like healers and tanks can have a huge effect on a fight, largely in part due to the psychology. Its also occasionally effective to let a target die and immediately resurrect them instead of trying (and failing) to heal them in the first place, as that puts them at maximum range with no debuffs and a full health bar.

Rune of Cleansing

Obtained at rank 16
All – Removes a single Curse or Ailment on a friendly target. Stacks count as single debuffs and are removed with a single cast.
PvE – This can easily provide more net healing then casting heals. Get used to what debuffs you can remove look like, and get rid of them.
RvR – Cleansing snares and healing debuffs are the big uses for this ability. Cleansing an early snare can allow you to make an easy escape. Watch for enemy careers with healing debuffs that might debuff the people you are trying to heal, and wait for them to “waste” it. Reacting once the debuff has crippled enough heals and your target dies is a poor idea: you won’t outheal these debuffs with any number of healers.

Rune of Sundering

Obtained at rank 25
All – It works as it says it does.
PvE – The knockdown is mediocre at best, only buying your tank some time to pick up an additional target or two. It is a good interrupt though.
RvR – An interrupt and knockback all in one, this is best used offensively. Depending on your surroundings, you can potentially remove an entire group of enemies from a fight (at least for a little while). Knockbacks prevent fall damage from most heights now, so its not as lame anymore. In scenarios, you’re usually putting players you “punt off a cliff” out of the fight for 15-30 seconds.

Oath Rune of Sanctuary

Obtained at rank 40
All – Instead of an offensive ability, Sanctuary grants the holder the ability to self-resurrect. Since the Toughness buff lasts an hour, its possible to rotate the buff through your entire party so everyone can have the toughness buff if the self-res isn’t needed on a particular player (such as the healer for wipe prevention).

Core Tactics

Stoutness of Stone

Obtained at rank 11
All – Until you get something better, you might as well use it.
PvE – If you’re getting stunned as soon as the Stun diminishing return buff fades (or if the buff isn’t working), it’s probably a good idea to have this on a different tactic set and swap it when fighting certain mobs (Trolls come to mind).
RvR – It’s not really necessary until Tier 3 when a number of careers get long-duration stuns.

Divine Fury

Obtained at rank 13
All – You need to have this on at least one offensive tactic set.
PvE – If you’re soloing, you should be using this. In early to mid parts of PQs, using Divine Fury and DPSing is more efficient at building contribution than simply healing.
RvR – The benefits don’t make up for the drawbacks, unless you have a very specific role. If you aren’t sure how to effectively use it, then pick a healing tactic for RvR.

Swift Runes

Obtained at rank 15
All – Sometimes it’s working, sometimes its not. Tactic must be active to reduce the cooldown.
PvE – Your best option for solo/PQ content until rank 23.
RvR – Rune click abilities are generally mediocre and situational in all but Tier 1 RvR, and you’ll want all the healing and defenses tactics you can get for RvR anyways.

Stubbornness

Obtained at rank 17
All – There’s not a ton of Corporeal damage for a Runepriest to worry about, but preventing a fifth of it is probably your best option for a healing tactic this early on.
RvR – Replace Stoutness of Stone from your RvR set.

Discipline

Obtained at rank 19
All – One of the best all-around tactics for this career, pairing healing output with a nice amount of spell disrupt.
PvE – If you’re healing use it, but if you don’t like Swift Runes once you hit rank 20, you can use this with Divine Fury to reduce downtime.
RvR – Use it in every tactic set.

Cleansing Vitality

Obtained at rank 21
All – It’s situational (Rune of Cleansing requires a debuff to cast) but it helps you to remember to cast Cleansing more often. The heal is moderately impressive, and saves you a global cooldown.
RvR – When facing Marauders and Witch Elfs in particular, this is a more effective tactic. Cleansing should be the second thing you do after detaunting, and getting heals rolling on yourself in the same step really adds to your survivability.

Ancestral Inheritance

Obtained at rank 23
All – One of the best tactics available to us, this is a flat 15-20% armor increase for us. You’re in Tier 3 now, and being able to “tank” Champion level mobs and harder hitting enemy MDPS becomes one of the Runepriest’s biggest assets. This only gets more better when you get Regenerative Shielding.

Subtlety

Obtained at rank 25
PvE – For single target tanking, you shouldn’t need this, as you’ll more often be limited by AP regeneration than threat. Considering that you can only detaunt one mob if you pull aggro, you may want to give this a shot if you can’t wait for the tank to build aggro on multiple mobs. In instances, this becomes a better idea just for safety.
RvR – this has no effect, so don’t get caught with it.

Regenerative Shielding

Obtained at rank 27
All – This is mostly the same deal as with Ancestral Inheritance, but with a different mechanic. You’ll usually want to use both for the combined average 50% armor you’ll have in-combat. If you have to choose one, then it’s this one for sure as it affects other targets and ignores armor penetration (what good is 100% armor if it’s all getting penetrated?).

Restorative Burst

Obtained at rank 29
All – Better for Grungni Runepriests then others, but you should still be using Grungni’s Gift fairly often. The true effectiveness ultimately comes down to how you spend your renown points (for healing crit or not) and how much healing crit you stack on your gear.

Blessing of Grungi

Obtained at rank 31
All – Yep, its probably a typo. Same deal as Restorative Burst. It becomes more effective the more healing your target(s) will be receiving (ie raids, keep sieges) and allows for burst healing.

Potent Runes

Obtained at rank 33
All – Situational, but particularly useful against enemies with shields and other Support characters in RvR. If you’re DPSing, the mastery tactics are generally better choices for your tactic slots.

On your Feet!

Obtained at rank 35
All – Resurrects are quite powerful if you can get them off, but your friendlies shouldn’t be dieing in the first place with you around. Counting on you to fail at your job means there is usually something wrong, but maybe that’s what you want your enemies to think. The major synergy that gets brought up is Alter Fate and Grimnir’s Fury.

Sundered Motion

Obtained at 37
All – It’s obtained this late, because knockback is just plain fun to use.
PvE – The knockdown is quite situational compared to the knockback and snare in RvR.
RvR – Given that Discipline/Ancestral Inheritance/Regenerative Shielding are the big three tactics use in RvR tactic sets, this is usually the one most people will fill that last slot with.

Thick-Skulled

Obtained at rank 39
All – Yes, Grungni’s Gift is instant cast, and yes, this tactic needs to be updated. Unless something like Rune of Restoration or Blessing of Valaya is added, it’s basically useless due to the quick cast times on the other two abilities if applies to.

Core Morale Abilities

Note: the examples for each level are rough approximations of the amount of fighting to unlock each level every 60 seconds. You can of course save up and skip several cooldowns.

Level 1 Morale (solo chain pulls)

Divine Favor

Obtained at rank 8
All – This is probably the strongest Level 1 choice, simply because it heals so much, is rarely not up being only Level 1, and is useful in RvR as an emergency heal or in PvE should your tank take an unexpected burst of damage. Castable on other people is the big thing here.

Steal Life

Obtained at rank 16
All – Steal Life acts mostly as an extra, more powerful DoT with a minor self-healing component.
PvE – Nice for soloing when you want to kill fast so you don’t need to heal. In groups though, Divine Favor’s safety net is still nice to have should someone weak pull aggro.
RvR – Even if you’re DPSing, the one minute cooldown of Morales and the lack of healing you’ll have means you’d probably rather have Divine Favor.

Rune of Insanity

Obtained at rank 28
All – Runepriest-only: This one is tricky, as there are two great times to use it, and neither of them you should be encountering that often. The first is using the AP drain portion to remove a Witch Elf’s AP pool: unless you’re stacking Initiative for some reason, you’ll get jumped, and then you’ll be wanting to stay alive against the already nearly-depleted of AP Witch Elf. The second is for finishing off a healer, where you have a nice burst of damage, and essentially silencing them for a few seconds until their AP regenerates.

Level 2 Morale (several mobs, typical Scenario fighting)

Rampaging Siphon

Obtained at rank 12
All – Improved by Intelligence and Divine Fury (no -20% on the healing), this is one way for offensive Runepriests to heal their group, and if you hit enough targets, it can be a very potent instant cast group heal.
PvE – Amazing talent when AoE farming solo or with a group.

Focused Mind

Obtained at rank 20
All – Focused Mind encompasses two very handy mechanics. First, removing the crowd control effects, you are able to prevent a potentially huge amount of damage. Removing snares/roots lets your Rune of Cleansing hit healing debuffs (as you run away) first. Second, Blessing of Valaya and especially Rune of Restoration with 50% haste and no setback is an amazing output of DPS. This is definitely a powerful and universal Morale to use.

Mountain Spirit

Obtained at rank 32
All – Runepriest-only: This is a borderline ridiculous Morale, and gives Focused Mind a run for its money. Focused on group mitigation instead of raw healing output, this increases your group’s physical reduction by about 35%, and spell reduction by about 40%. While a few careers may already be close to the caps on armor (and resistances if a cap exists), you can’t complain about the 30 second duration given the 60 second Morale cooldown. Level 2 Morale is obtainable every 60 seconds in all non-solo situations if you stay in combat.

Level 3 Morale (chain AoE pulls of groups, heavy Scenario fighting, light Keep fighting)

Divine Protection

Obtained at rank 24
All – Lacking. The shield lasts 10 seconds, and the amount isn’t as much as it should be for a rank 3 Morale.
RvR – Enemy melee should be focusing one group member, so the shielding is wasted on the other 5 members.

Rune of Rebirth

Obtained at rank 36
All – Runepriest-only: Great to have on hand as an emergency self-heal should you have been in the fray enough to gain Level 3 Morale without using one of the better Level 1 or 2 Morales. It doesn’t replace Divine Favor unless you had always been saving Divine Favor for yourself.

Level 4 Morale (chain AoE pulls of whole areas, heavy Keep/City fighting)

Alter Fate

Obtained at rank 40
All – Highly situational, but highly powerful. The main problem is that you’ll usually have to pass up multiple L1/L2 Morales, AND stay alive, AND have your group members die within 30 feet of a central location, AND heal them quickly enough afterwards to let the 20% damage buff actually do something.

Runepriest Masteries

The Path of Grungni

“A master of this path focuses on powerful and direct effects, learning to both restore his allies and smite his enemies with equal skill. The path of Grungni is for those who prefer to focus on a single target at a time, be they friend or foe, and unleash powerful effects upon them.”

The following is a review of the mastery path, its abilities, and its playstyle.

WARDB Career Builder
At the link above you can see the layout of the Grungni Mastery path. The first pieces of the path to look at are the Grungni Core abilities. The abilities are:

• Oath Rune of Power
• Rune of Fire
• Rune of Restoration
• Protection of the Ancestors

And in more detail, the usefulness of the abilities, and therefore the usefulness of any improvements to them:

Oath Rune of Power

• An hour-long buff only usable on party members which increases the holder’s Strength and Intelligence by a significant amount (15% or so), and allows the holder to activate the buff to unleash a instant cast, direct damage Elemental attack (that is roughly as powerful as either of a Runepriest’s other DD abilities).
  • This is the first Oath Rune you get, so you will get some experience with it early on. Beginnning at Rank 9, however, Oath Rune of Warding (+resistances, and self-purge for a AoE DoT) becomes more useful for it’s activated effect and for survivability in PvP situations, where ranged damage dealers are more of a threat. Oath Rune of Power is still an effective buff to have for MDPS and RDPS-Casters, but typically a single Runepriest will focus on group survivability first, in order to make healing easier.
  • Even later on, Oath Rune of Iron has a greater activated damage potential, while possessing more defensively-oriented stats, so it is a more balanced approach.
  • In an interesting turn, when multiple Runepriests and coordination are present, this ability goes from the worst of the three Oath Runes to the best. Survivability of the group can be increased through coordination along with than the plethora of buffs available in a large group. Consequently, damage output, particularly burst damage (provided by Power), jumps much higher on the list.

Rune of Fire

• An instant cast, single target, direct damage Elemental attack on a short cooldown of 5 seconds.
  • Rune of Fire is one of a small few of burst damage options for the Runepriest. It sits at about 75.2% of the power of the primary nuke, Rune of Striking, and due to a 2.0 second global cooldown, it can be worked in quite punishingly while using other abilities.
  • It’s major drawback is high AP consumption – it is a draining ability (AP loss > AP regen over time) so if you use it every cooldown for too long, you will run into AP issues. It is quite effective for finishing off players and creatures that are fleeing.
  • While situational, it is one of the strongest options for burst damage outside of mastery abilities.

Rune of Restoration

• A 3.0 second cast, high value healing ability that always suffers from pushback while being attacked.
  • In a solo situation, this spell will rarely get used, but when you are allowed to freely cast, it will turn battles in your favor due to the burst healing it provides. It heals 65% of the primary HoT ability, Rune of Regeneration, but in a fifth of the time and as one burst.
  • Being a casted ability, it has much better Willpower coefficients than Rune of Regeneration, so it will scale better as well, making any improvements worthwhile.

Protection of the Ancestors

• A short-duration boon to health.
  • This one is tricky to analyze: It is quite powerful, but the cooldown management presents a problem. With improvements, though, it would be a solid pseudo-Morale ability.

Finally, the unlocked abilities and tactics.

Runic Blasting

• (Tactic): 15% crit to your bread-and-butter nukes, and also to a useful heal.
  • Without a way to increase your critical strike chance directly as of yet (although the character sheet hints that it exists), let alone 15% in one place, this tactic is worth it for anyone that will be using their nukes a lot.
  • That being said, you aren’t a super-effective damage dealer in PvE, or even PvP, and I haven’t seen any overwhelmingly positive results from “DPS Runepriests”.
  • I’d personally only take it if you find that your group has healing covered for the most part, or if you are trying to set up a “cripple”-spec Runepriest, such as with the synergy of Rune of Nullification later in the path.

Master Rune of Fury

• (Ability): You place a Master Rune on the ground, granting group members a 20% chance after using an ability to regain 50AP, so long as they are within 65 feet of the Master Rune’s fixed location.
  • A Runepriest really needs at least one of the three Master Runes, and most agree this is one of the better two of the three. At an average of 10AP off the cost of every ability casted by your party, your party’s AP will last much longer. 30AP/GCD seems to be about standard regen rate for AP, and taking nearly all abilities’ costs below 30AP on average means you would never run out of AP, unless you are being drained.
  • While the burst nature of the AP gains from the ability are uncontrollable (it might not come at the best time, such as fuller AP bars), it does promote burst damage, which is a big pro for certain careers (particularily melee). Scoop this one up.

Ancestor’s Blessing

• (Tactic): Your heals have a chance to increase the target’s AP by 50, though you can’t increase your own AP (as if it mattered).
  • Unless 50 is a base value, or the effect stacks, I don’t see this being an effective use of a tactic slot.
  • One exception could be a dedicated role healing melee, with a focus on Grimnir to improve the two best healing abilities for that task and the Master Rune of Adamant, and then placing points in Grungni just for this tactic. Even then, I’d still recommend against it.

Rune of Fortune

• (Ability): Rune of Striking v2.0. Heals your defensive target for the amount of damage you deal, for only 5AP more per cast.
  • Not much to say here, it’s a well-designed (apart from all but replacing an ability) ability that lets you damage and heal at the same time.
  • More target switching, but better rewards. Take it if you can.

Rune of Nullification

• (Tactic): Critical attacks on a target debuff their healing taken by 100% for some number of seconds (it’s bugged).
  • There’s been discussion on the forums about it, and there’s two sides to the argument: It’s too good, probably won’t make it into release at 100%; and it’s nice, but situational/random and therefore not that great.
  • Personally, I don’t think it’s anything to focus on, since it takes the career in a direction it’s not designed to head at first glance – pure DPS. If you find yourself doing a lot of damage anyways, it’s worth picking up and swapping in for RvR.

Rune of Binding

• (Ability): Instant cast 3.0 second stun that deals a tiny bit more damage than Rune of Striking (or Fortune at this point) on a 20.0 second cooldown.
  • With Rune of Sundering (and possibly Immolating Grasp) being the only other CC options, it’s an amazing ability to pick up.
  • If you went this far, it’s probably to get this ability.

Rune of Ending

• (Rank 4 Morale): Deals 1040 damage to enemies within 30 feet, healing group members for the amount of damage dealt.
  • If you hit 6 players with this ability, each of your party members (yourself included) will be healed for [6 * 1040] = 6240 life.
  • Most players haven’t been liking the effectiveness of the Rank 4 morale abilities, because in the time it takes for them to charge, you could’ve let off several lower-ranked morale abilities. However, in the Runepriest’s case, I feel like this could play in quite nicely.
  • First, Alter Fate (AoE rez + heal) and the other Mastery Morale abilities are the only options for Rank 4 Morales currently, and I don’t feel Alter Fate is a viable choice (ie, if my party is dead, it’s cause I went down first).
  • Secondly, with as many points in as Rune of Binding is, you’re not left with many other good options lower in on the other two paths.
  • Third, in an organized groups members should be staying relatively equal in terms of health, due to AoE being so effective and watching for assist trains, and a party heal shouldn’t be as wasted as some might think. It’s an incredibly powerful instant cast PBAoE that is more than capable of finishing players off, and of healing an entire party of six players to full. Not to mention letting it off in a crowded room or hallway that contains a zerg.
  • It’s conveniently half the damage of Rune of Skewering, but I would write off the versatility (DPS and healing) of Rune of Ending as the superior.
  • It’s Ramapaging Siphon’s bigger brother, so you can use that to see if you like this.

The Path of Valaya

“An arguably more subtle mastery, the path of Valaya is focused on effects which continue to linger after they’ve been invoked. A master of this path prefers to stick to tested, tried, and true slow-and-steady abilities, whether he’s building up his allies’ strength until they become unstoppable, or whether he’s grinding his enemies down with inevitable and unescapable doom.”

The following is a review of the mastery path, its abilities, and its playstyle.

WARDB Career Builder
At the link above you will see the layout of the Valaya Mastery path. The first pieces of the path to look at are the Valaya Core abilities. The abilities are:

• Spellbinding Rune
• Rune of Shielding
• Rune of Immolation
• Rune of Mending
• Oath Rune of Iron

And in more detail, the usefulness of the abilities, and therefore the usefulness of any improvements to them:

Spellbinding Rune

• A casted silence ability paired with a fast-acting DoT.
  • A 30.0 sec cooldown allows you to get a few uses out of the ability per fight, and it becomes more powerful as the fight size decreases. While the silence portion is pretty straightforward, the DoT portion is what really makes the ability shine.
  • It does 80% of a Rune of Immolation’s base damage, but in a third of the time. Therefore, a net edge in DPS over Immolation by 240%; balanced by the cooldown.
  • For burst damage, this is another nice one to improve.

Rune of Shielding

• Shields your target, preventing damage and set-back as long as the shield holds. When the shield is broken, the target will be healed slightly.
  • The story with bugs and this ability remains: the cooldown is oddly short, and there are issues with the cast time being incorrect, causing the cast bar and UI feedback to not display correctly.
  • This ability is quite nice, though, as it allows a target whose health is going down to suddenly spike in the opposite direction.
  • The duration shielded while under fire is around 1-2 seconds at Rank 1, while the ability can usually only shield a single hit by Rank 4. Don’t count on this for set-back prevention, in other words.
  • The main reason to use this is due to its high hps and h/AP values. It has a superior un-sustained hps and hp/AP value to all other “direct” heals. The cooldown is the limiting factor here, so most likely this is supposed to be a 20 second cooldown like it’s Zealot cousin.
  • That all aside, you should be using this every cooldown, so its a great ability to improve.

Rune of Immolation

• A standard DoT.
  • There’s not much need to explain this one; its the best offensive ability you have.
  • Of all the offensive mastery core abilities, this is the best one to improve.

Rune of Mending

• A two part, combination direct heal and HoT.
  • Due to the way over-time abilities are so effective right now, this is going to be your “go-to” heal later on in the game. (Rune of Shielding and Grungni’s Gift currently are effective, but it is reliant on Rune of Shielding staying at such a low cooldown.)
  • Rune of Mending currently seems to be working off two Willpower coefficients for each part of the ability. While this is common in other MMOs, in WAR the ability seems to be “double-dipping” and pulling from Willpower twice; as opposed to pulling from it once and then splitting it between the two portions of the ability. Effectively, Rune of Mending scales twice as well as single-portion abilities.
  • You want to let the whole duration of the HoT run, since the spell has poor efficiency, and a large AP cost that can drain you quite fast if you spam it. The HoT portion also heals more, anyways.
  • Of all the defensive mastery core abilities, this is currently the second best one (because of Shielding) to improve.

Oath Rune of Iron

• Increases your chance to dodge, chance to disrupt, your overall healing, and decreases your chance to be critically hit. The granted ability is a potent single-target DoT.
  • This is the Oath Rune you’ll want to use on yourself in group situations. The Willpower, and therefore overall healing, is the main reason for doing this, while the the extra survivability (particularily against an already easy to counter ranged attacker) is icing on the cake.
  • Other support characters should be given this, but there are usually better Oath Runes for other archetypes. Unless you run into an encounter or a group of enemy players (not as big of an issue in RvR as Order) stacking both physical ranged and caster ranged (use Warding for caster-only), of course.
  • Group Willpower/healing buffs are few and far between, you’ll use this Oath Rune on yourself for most of the game, and the granted ability is the most universally potent.
  • Definately worth the improvements.

Onto the unlocked abilities and tactics.

Immolating Grasp

• (Tactic): A chance on immolation ticks to snare the target considerably and drain their AP.
  • The AP drain is the big part of this tactic, since you don’t have any other AP drains as a Runepriest.
  • Immolation gets used a lot, and is typically on multiple targets, so this is a great tactic for small group skirmishes, and is quite nice for large fights to sow chaos throughout the enemy.
  • However, in a larger group, you’ll most likely be assisting targets to death one by one, and that means you’ll have more capable debuffers on your target. Regardless of a focus on healing and assisting targets though, if you have time to DPS you’ll be throwing out Rune of Immolation on other targets, so the tactic is still not that bad.
  • The overall effectiveness of this talent will depend on how much your group forces you to rely on the core “defensive” tactics (Ancestral Inheritance, Regenerative Shielding, and to a lesser extent, Discipline) based on how well they defend you.

Master Rune of Speed

• (Ability): Places an 65ft range aura that eminates from a stationary point. Master Rune of Speed reduces ability build-up by .25 seconds.
  • Note, some testers are thinking it is -.25 second per 1.0second of the cast (so a 3.0 second cast becomes 2.25), which would make this Master Rune incredibly effective.
  • As it is though, this has the most use in a RDPS or Support-heavy group, since those characters have many more casted abilities.
  • If you don’t like this Master Rune, just skip it: you’ll typically have enough points to pick up Fury or Adamant from the other trees.

Earth’s Shielding

• (Tactic): While a Rune of Shielding is active, any attack made against it will debuff a random stat of the attacker by 120 for 10 seconds. There’s no hidden cooldown on the debuff effect.
  • It’s unreliable, and Rune of Shielding only lasts for a hit or two, meaning that even if there’s lag, only perhaps 3-4 stats will be debuffed. Of those four, only two will really be of any use, assuming Wounds can even be debuffed.
  • If Rune of Shielding is supposed to be only a 2.0 second cast with a 6.0 second or less cooldown, though, you could keep refreshing it and debuff quite a few stats.
  • PvE monsters appear to possess stats, so depending on which stats they possess, and which can be debuffed, this may have some use. -120 Toughness on a raid boss could amount to quite a bit of additional raid DPS, for example.
  • Overall, there are better uses for the tactic slot.

Rune of Burning

• (Ability): A channeled DoT.
  • Currently the chance to be set-back while channeling is not working according to beta testers, who also say that it is slated to be fixed in the near future.
  • It has a poor d/AP ratio that gets even worse when you are hit. There is also the inability to perform other actions while channeling it.
  • However, the dps of the ability is astounding. At rank 25, Rune of Immolation is 28 dps, while Rune of Burning is around 173 dps un-sustained (if sustained, that number would be approximately halved).
  • Frankly, the true usefulness of this ability mostly comes down to whether or not you can afford to spend at least half of your time DPS’ing.
  • Most have said it’s a nice ability to have for those few times you really need to finish someone off or pump out some damage, and it makes solo PvE quite easy (getting most monsters down to 50% life by the time they reach you).

Efficient Runecarving

• (Tactic): Ticks of one ability give you a 20% chance to proc a bonus effect the next time you cast the other.
  • Rune of Immolation is already cheap, and there is only about a 60% chance to proc the effect due to Rune of Mending’s short duration. Rune of Mending is also quite expensive, if you’re using it over a more appropriate heal for the sake of getting a proc. The AP savings are one of the reasons to use this tactic, but Restorative Burst is a much more universal option if you have AP issues.
  • Rune of Mending is only a 2.0 second cast. If you think that you have a use for it to be instant cast, them most likely you aren’t playing how you should be.
  • Overall, the benefits of this tactic are poor when compared to other tactics.

Rune of Fate

• (Ability): A vampiristic DoT.
  • With such a long cooldown and duration, it is a convenient “fire and forget” ability.
  • It does around twice the damage of Rune of Immolation, at around twice the duration; while healing for 100% of the damage dealt, pushing its efficiency over Rune of Immolation. It even has the same low AP cost of 30.
  • If you went this far, this is a great ability to pick up, as it is useful no matter if you’re healing or DPSing.

Valaya’s Shield

• (R4 Morale): An AoE group HoT that restores 25 AP/sec.
  • The only strictly-healing/utility T4 morale ability currently available for Runepriests.
  • The big reason for getting this is for giving your group essentially unlimited AP for 15 seconds.
  • The heal portion is like giving your entire group a slightly more powerful version of Rune of Regeneration. Which of course can stack with Rune of Regeneration. This is quite a nice morale ability to have in situations where you want to quickly pre-HoT your whole group, such as deciding to stand and charge of AoE characters/monsters.
  • It suffers from some issues as all other high-rank morale abilities do (notably, trying to hold onto your morale without using it on multiple lower-ranked morales), but if Alter Fate isn’t for you and you’re this far into Valaya, it’s a good choice.

The Path of Grimnir

“This path is concerned with runes which affect large, sweeping areas as they unleash their innate power. A specialist in this path is an expert at changing the ebb and tide of combat by either bolstering his allies’ entire front line, or by sending vast swaths of crushing power across the enemy masses.”

The following is a review of the mastery path, its abilities, and its playstyle.

WARDB Career Builder
At the link above you will see the layout of the Grimnir Mastery path. The first pieces of the path to look at are the Grimnir Core abilities. The abilities are:

• Rune of Might
• Oath Rune of Warding
• Rune of Serenity
• Blessing of Valaya
• Rune of Cleaving

And in more detail, the usefulness of the abilities, and therefore the usefulness of any improvements to them:

Rune of Might

• Your standard PBAoE.
  • Early on, you’ll use this a bit, and it remains useful for AoE farming throughout your leveling. However, it’s only marginally useful for RvR, and come endgame you’ll be healing a lot more anyways.

Oath Rune of Warding

• Resistances against all three types of spell-based attacks. The granted ability is an AoE DoT.
  • The resistances are pretty straightforward, and are really only useful in certain situations.
  • You’ll find that you use this ability primarily for the granted effect, which, in an organized group, is simply brutal.

Rune of Serenity

• A bouncing HoT.
  • “fire and forget” setup means you’ll be getting a lot of use out of this heal.
  • This is of the big (or few/only) reasons to put points into Grimnir at the moment.

Blessing of Valaya

• Your standard AoE heal.
  • To be used when two or more group members are missing life.
  • No special set-back rules (like Rune of Restoration) means that you will find some success casting this during combat to save yourself and your party, but for the most part, try to be be proactive with healing.

Rune of Cleaving

• A supplemental AoE attack to Rune of Might. Line AoE style, and it’s also deals its damage as a DoT.
  • If you’re AoEing, you’ll want to keep this DoT ticking, but for the most part, you’re not designed to AoE that well.

Finally, the unlocked abilities and tactics.

Extended Battle

• (Tactic): It does what it says.
  • And isn’t good. Skip it, unless the group you run with really needs a sub-par AoE’er or you run with an AoE farming group.

Master Rune of Adamant

• (Ability): Places a 65ft range aura that eminates from a stationary point. Master Rune of Adamant periodically heals allies slightly, provided they are in range.
  • This has the potential to be a powerful Master Rune, but it is almost dependent on group composition and coordination.
  • You’ll find that melee careers often run out of range, and the cooldown prevents you from re-placing it as often as you’d need to in a melee-heavy group. A ranged-heavy group will usually stand close to one another, although there is by default a variance of 50 feet between Support and RDPS, so there is only a certain amount of variance before someone is at a poor range for their archetype/playstyle.
  • Assuming that endgame PvE-encounters function remotely close to existing MMOs, this ability will be easier to use effectively in PvE.
  • Overall, it’s nice, but you’ll need to formulate strategies and coordination with your group to work around the range limitations.

Concussive Runes

• (Tactic): AoE targets will be randomly debuffed and do 50% less damage to you.
  • Mostly the same deal as Extended Battle; don’t take it unless you’re in an AoE farming group.
  • Overall quite poor: if you’re taking damage, you really shouldn’t be AoEing.

Rune of Battle

• (Ability): A freindly target you buff will gain a pulsing AoE damage aura.
  • It’s effective, but limited by the cooldown. Again, for (the tank of) AoE farming groups.
  • For the amount of use you’ll get out of this in your average day of play, it’s not worth it.

Ancestor’s Echo

• (Tactic): Does what it says.
  • There are conflicting reports of whether or not it it heals on HoT ticks. If and only if it does, it will become pretty useful, but by itself it’s not really worth it.
  • In particular, this high up in Grimnir you’re likely going to be using the Grimnir abilities to heal, which means you have Blessing of Valaya, which is quite situational (among its other drawbacks).
  • The shield is again, one or two attacks, and should just be treated like an additional heal effect.
  • Of all the mastery tactics, this is the only viable one to replace the core tactics for a support-oriented Runepriest.

Grimnir’s Fury

• (Ability): A group ressurect that heals to a higher percentage than other ressurects, and gives a brief damage increase for those ressurected.
  • The situational nature of this ability means that quite likely, you won’t get as much use out of this as you’d like to. Alter Fate is a close relative to this ability, if you need it to be instant cast at the cost of the health restored and the damage increase.
  • At only 2.0 seconds of a longer cast than Rune of Life, restoring 30% more life at ressurect, and giving the ressurected some extra damage to work with, it’s quite useful. It is also better to use than Rune of Life for single targets if you’re not going to use it again for a while.
  • Any time you focus on ressurection as a staple of your build (this, Alter Fate, or On Your Feet!), make sure you’ll be able to get some protection from Warband members so that you can get your party up and running again.
  • This ability is one of the closest things you’ll have to a second Rank 4 morale on a separate cooldown, but overall, situational.

Rune of Skewering

• (Rank 4 Morale): A highly damaging line AoE attack.
  • While other careers have morale abilities that come close to, or surpass, Skewering in terms of single target damage, Skewering has a definiate advantage in overall damage potential.
  • The range is quite far, but careful aiming is paramount, given the amount of investment to be able to use it.
  • When AoE farming, this isn’t super effective unless you can quickly move from pull to pull (which is hard to do when you’re pulling the entire camp) and stay in combat to build morale.
  • It’s one of the few options for excessive burst damage you have as a Runepriest, but overall, AoE and DPS are both things we don’t do that well.

Source: WAR Forums

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The Swordmaster class is known as the tanker class of the High Elves. They specialize in Blade Dancing (sword combination attacks) and Balance (swordmaster mechanic). Their allegiance belongs to the Shining Guard Army.

The following guide discuses the Swordmaster Class – general information, abilities, playstyle, tips, etc. This guide is written by SwordmasterCyris.

The Swordmaster Guide by Cyris of Vendetta

This guide will provide an introduction to the Swordmaster and give advice on how to play the class.

Who am I and why should you care?

I’ve been in WAR beta since before the High Elf/Dark Elf pairing was created. Since the Swordmaster class was released, I’ve been playing it alongside nearly every other class. As a Swordmaster, I’ve leveled from 1 through 40 over the course of multiple beta phases, I’ve tanked and DPSed nearly every PQ in the Elf and Empire zones, and I’ve run every instance currently in the game – including the King battle in Inevitable City. So when I say I know a thing or two about Swordmasters, hopefully you’ll believe me.

An Overview of the Swordmaster

The Swordmaster is one possible tank class that Order players can choose to play in Warhammer Online. Originally designed as an anti-magic tank, the boundaries have since become fuzzy. The strengths of the Swordmaster stem from the ability to wear heavy armor, and the ability to deal large amounts of spirit damage instead of physical damage. (This checks against Spirit Mitigation instead of Physical Mitigation)

The Swordmaster Mechanic

Swordmasters use a mechanic called Balance. It’s a fairly straight forward system in which certain skills require either Normal Balance, Improved Balance, or Perfect Balance to use. In addition, many skills not only require a certain balance, but also increase your balance.

The path of progression through balance is as follows:

Normal -> Improved -> Perfect -> Normal

It is important to note that skills used from Perfect Balance do not consume any AP.

What can a Swordmaster do in PvE?

In PvE gameplay, the Swordmaster is first and foremost a tank. Their job is to gain agro on one or more mobs and hold it, ensuring that other players are not being attacked. To do this, a Swordmaster must be skilled at more than simply spamming high-threat skills such as Graceful Strike. They must also know how to position a mob and when to use their defensive skills to reduce incoming damage.

The Swordmaster excels at both multi-mob tanking, and tanking without a shield. However, just because a Swordmaster can tank without a shield does not mean that they should. Depending on Mastery spec, there are some options that will only be available when using a greatsword, and some options that will only be available when using a shield. Currently, however, the benefit of being able to block far outweighs those gained from using a greatsword; this is because in Warhammer, blocking defends against ALL attacks – ranged and magic as well as melee.

For those players who have picked a Swordmaster, yet lack the Zen required to be a worthwhile tank, fear not. For Swordmasters are able to pump out respectable damage with their greatswords and the help of mastery points spent in the Path of Khaine and the Path of Hoeth.

What can a Swordmaster do in RvR?

There are two main schools of thought about a tanks job in RvR. Some players feel that tanks should stand in the back and try to protect healers, and other players feel that tanks are front line assault warriors who should charge into groups of other players and get beat on.

It is my personal view that standing in the back and trying to protect a healer is a waste. There is no mechanic to force a player to attack you (e.g. Taunt in EQ2) and you have no way to remove CC from another person. Nearly every class in WAR has ample methods of CC – if a healer gets attacked by a melee class, they’ll be snared, silenced, and debuffed before you can even blink. At best you can snare the attacker or if you’re an ironbreaker, knock them down for a short amout of time and hope the healer can get away. Although chances are the healer is being focus fired, so it probably won’t do much good anyway. If I was forced to pick a tank class to stand back and “defend” the healers though, it would be an ironbreaker. They have many more tools for this at their disposal than a swordmaster does. (knockbacks, knockdowns, snares, damage-on-move debuffs)

Let us say then, for the sake of argument, that a Swordmaster’s role in RvR is to act as a front line assault element. Their high mitigation and ability to spec for very respectable damage makes them very, VERY deadly in this role. With proper healing, a Swordmaster can charge into a full warband of destruction and take them all out one by one without risk of dying. Without healing, they can still survive long enough to create an opening that the rest of the Order players can exploit.

Abilities, Tactics, and Morals

The Swordmaster is unique among most other classes in that nearly every skill has a well defined purpose in either PvE or RvR. Due to the Balance mechanic that a Swordmaster employs there is no one set skill that is best spammed until your target dies.

Exact descriptions of all the abilities, tactics, and morals that you can get as a Swordmaster have been done by other players to a much better degree than I am able in this guide. For example, the WarDB database has a very nice listing of all the skills and how they change with level. I will therefore not repeat their work. Instead, I will give a few short notes on the various skills and their uses.

A list of our skills that work off the balance mechanic is as follows:

Requires Normal Balance and leads to Improved Balance:

Graceful Strike – A physical based DD+DoT attack that also increases hate
Ensorcelled Blow – A spirit based DD attack
Sapping Strike – A physical based DD attack that also drains 50 AP over 5 seconds
Gryphon’s Lash (Khaine Mastery) – A physical DD attack that cannot be blocked or parried

Requires Improved Balance and leads to Perfect Balance:

Eagle’s Flight – A physical based DD attack that increases your chance to parry
Crushing Advance (Khaine Mastery) – A physical based DD attack that increases your Armor and chance to Block as well as interrupts your target
Quick Incision – A physical based DoT attack that also snares your target
Dazzling Strike – A physical based DD that increases your target’s build times by 1 second for 5 seconds
Gusting Wind – A spirit based AoE DD attack with a 10 foot range
Phoenix’s Wing (Khaine Mastery) – A physical based frontal AoE DD attack that also increases hate
Intimidating Blow – A physical based DD attack that also reduces your target’s morale

Requires Perfect Balance and leads to Normal Balance:

Bluring Shock – A physical based DD attack
Wrath of Hoeth – A spirit based AoE DD attack with a 30 foot range that also reduces spiritual resistance
Dragon’s Talon – A physical based DD attack that hits twice and reduces your target’s damage by 20%
Ether Dance (Khaine Mastery) – A spirit based DD attack that hits 5 times
Whispering Wind (Hoeth Mastery) – A spirit based DD attack that hits twice and silence your target
Crashing Wave (Vaul Mastery) – A spirit based DD attack that hits twice and knocks down your target
Protection of Hoeth (Hoeth Mastery) – Creates an shield around you that absorbs damage

In addition to skills which work on the Balance mechanic, we also have a number of useful buffs:

Taunt – Interrupts your target and increases damage you deal to them by 30%
Guard – Your target’s hate and damage taken is split 50/50 with you

Juggernaut – Removes most CC from you, but does NOT make you immune to further CC
Aethyric Grasp – PBAoE root

Heaven’s Blade – Buff that adds a DD proc to all melee attacks
Nature’s Blade – Buff that adds a stat drain proc to all melee attacks
Phantom’s Blade – Buff that adds a morale drain proc to all melee attacks

Aethyric Armor (Hoeth Mastery)– 30 minute buff that increases armor and disrupt chance

We also have a number of passive buffs, called tactics, that we can use. The number of tactics you can have depends on your level, capping at 4 class tactics at level 40. I’ll describe the more interesting ones that I typically use here:

Focused Offence – Increases all damage you do by 25%, but increases all damage you take by 20%
Rugged – Increases your toughness by 160 at level 40
Menace – Increases all threat generated by your attacks by 100%
Centuries of Training – 25% chance to proc a DoT lasting for 5 seconds
Ensorcelled Agony – Ensorcelled Blow now adds a DoT lasting for 5 seconds
Potent Enchantments – Each time your enchantment procs, a DoT is applied for 9 seconds
Gryphon’s Precision (Khain Mastery) – 25% chance to stun your target for 1 seconds when you use Gryphon’s Lash
Perfect Defences (Vaul Mastery) – Increases your chance to Block and Parry based on your Balance level
Bolstering Enchantments (Hoeth Mastery) – When your enchantment procs, your target is drained of spiritual and corporeal resistancefor 10 seconds and you gain the amount drained.
Volatile Enchantments (Hoeth Mastery) – Increases your enchantment proc rate to 50%
Deep Incision (Khaine Mastery) – Increases the DoT component of Quick Incision
Vaul’s Buffer (Vaul Mastery) – On a successful block, dodge, parry, or disrupt you become surrounded by a small absorption shield for 10 seconds

From first glance, there is an obvious synergy between various skills. I will list the most common chains below:

(1) Graceful Strike -> Eagle’s Flight -> Dragon’s Talon

This chain is your bread and butter tank chain. You open with a high hate attack, then follow it up with a blow that increases your chance to avoid damage, and finish it with an attack that mitigates any damage you do take. In addition, this chain can be used while wielding a greatsword.

If you have chosen to put points into the Path of Vaul and plan to use a shield, then you can switch in Crushing Advance for Eagle’s Flight. This allows you to increase your armor well as your block value; the results are both an increase to physical mitigation, and a higher chance to outright avoid all types of damage. Crashing Wave can also be alternated with Dragon’s Talon in order to knock your target down, thereby preventing them from doing anything for the duration. However, the cooldown on Crashing Wave is on the longer side, so it’s not a skill that you can use every time perfect balance is achieved.

(2) Ensorcelled Blow -> Gusting Wind -> Wrath of Hoeth

This chain is your basic spirit attack chain that you can use against heavily armored opponents (such as destruction tanks). Every skill does spirit damage, and Wrath of Hoeth lowers your target’s spiritual resistance. Additionally, this chain can double as your basic AoE chain, allowing you to take on multiple targets at the same time. However, this is not the chain you should use for AoE tanking.

(3) Graceful Strike -> Gusting Wind -> Wrath of Hoeth

This is the chain you should use for AoE tanking. As long as your party members are attacking your target, graceful strike will build enough hate to ensure you keep agro. The damage from Gusting Wind and Wrath of Hoeth will ensure that healers will not accidently pull agro. This chain can also be used to multitank when other classes are AoEing. The cravat is that they need to wait a few moments so that you can build initial agro.

If you have gone down the Path of Khaine and picked up Phoenix’s Wing, then you should switch out Gusting Wind for it due to the increased hate it generates. However, to do this you must be tanking with a greatsword.

(4) Sapping Strike -> Dazzling Strike

This partial chain can be weaved into other chains for RvR battles. The 10 second cooldown on each skill prevents them from being used in the same manner as other Normal and Improved balance sills, but their impact can be enough to turn the tide of battle in your favor.

(5) Gryphon’s Lash -> Quick Incision -> Ether Dance

If you plan to DPS as a swordmaster, this is the only chain you need to know. The ability of Gryphon’s Lash to bypass block and parry makes a huge difference in the DPS dealt compared to other attacks. Quick incision not only adds a large DoT, but it also ensures that your target stays nice and close. Finally, Ether Dance is able to deal over 1000 damage per cast is you build yourself correctly. Put all this together and you have a heavily armored melee DPS character that can put real MDPS classes to shame.

As mentioned before, these are only a few very basic chains. In actual practice, your tactics and mastery choices dictate what skills you are most likely to use. For instance, picking up Ensorcelled Agony makes Ensorcelled Blow much more attractive for general damage if you aren’t Khaine spec. And I you’re full Khaine spec, then you would want to use Ether Dance over Wrath of Hoeth in chain (3).

Advice and Tips on Playstyle

What stats should be stacked?

It depends on how you want to play. If you want to DPS, stack Strength and Weapon Skill, then Toughness, then Wounds
.
If you want to mitigation tank, stack Toughness and Initiative first, and then worry about Wounds, Weapon Skill, and Will Power

If you want to avoidance tank, stack Weapon Skill, Will Power, Initiative, and then worry about Toughness and Wounds.

Wounds really isn’t very important, as long as you’re getting healed. No player can burst out enough damage to kill you in a couple of hits (bugs excluded). The only way for you to get one shotted in this game is though being focus fired. (E.g. You get hit by 10 doombolt spells at exactly the same time)

What type of crowd control/debuffs can I use?

Swordmasters have a large number of crowd control skills, though not all of them are available on demand and some require tactics to use.

However, we have the ability to… Snare (quick incision, wings of heaven), Root (aethyric grasp, grappling blow), Silence (whispering wind), Stun (gryphon’s precision), Knockback (forceful shock, whirling geyser), Knockdown (crashing wave), Reduce Armor (demolishing strike), Reduce Spiritual and Corporeal Resistance (wrath of hoeth and bolstering enchantments), Spell Interruption (crushing advance), Increase build up (dazzling strike), Drain AP (sapping strike), Drain stats (Nature’s Blade), Reduce damage (dragon’s talon, dampening talon, distracting blow)

And then of course we have all of our damage absorption and damage reduction buffs.

What is the best single target DPS spec?

First make sure that you’re using Heaven’s Blade and keeping Taunt up.

This is your spec: Link

Your tactic choices are Focused Offence (25% extra damage), Bolstering Enchantments (reduce spirit resistance when your enchantments proc), Deep Incision, and Rugged

Alternatively, you can use Centuries of Training instead of Deep Incision and put the extra point into Khaine. If Centuries of Training is nearly always up, you should do more damage than with Deep Incision. The advantage of Deep Incision is that it will always be on your target.

Your attack chain is: Gryphon’s Lash -> Quick Incision -> Ether Dance

In the event that Ether Dance isn’t off cooldown, wait until it is and then use it. DO NOT start trying to do a difference chain or use another finisher. You lose DPS because you increase the time before you can use Ether Dance again.

Now I’m sure at least one of you is saying “you’re an idiot, you can do more damage if you change out rugged or put more points into Khaine instead of taking Aethyric Armor!” And you’d be right; you can do more damage that way… until you die. The first rule of DPS is that dead players have a DPS of 0.

At level 40, Rugged gives you 160 extra toughness. The extra armor granted by Aethyric Armor goes a long way in increasing your physical mitigation, and the increased chance to disrupt added to the increased spiritual and corporeal mitigation gained from Bolstering Enchantments means you take a lot less magic damage. This means that you live longer, which in turn increases the amount of damage you’re actually able to do.

What are some different ways to spec a swordmaster?

One of the best things about this game is that there is no one great spec. Everyone’s spec needs to be different if you plan to get the most out of RvR – unlike other games, you are not a hammer and every problem is not a nail.

Having said that of course, there are some generally cookie-cutter ways to play a swordmaster. First off, you can spec for DPS as mentioned in the tip above. However, as also mentioned above, there are various ways to do this… Do you want to be a pure DPS class with no regard for how fast you die? Do you want to be burst damage or sustained damage? Do you want to be single target or AoE oriented? The Swordmaster can fill all these roles… and that’s just if you want to DPS.

Swordmasters are also able to tank, even better than they can DPS. But again the quest arises – what type of tank do you want to be? Do you want to be a mitigation tank? An avoidance tank? Do you want to use a greatsword or a longsword and shield? Do you want to build yourself to absorb maximum damage, or would you like to be able to do decent damage at the same time? Do you want to tank single target encounters or multi-target encounters?

As you can see, there is no one way to play a Swordmaster, every encounter has a chance to require a different setup than the one you’ve chosen for maximum efficiency. That isn’t to say you won’t be able to do it, just that if you were speced differently it’d probably be easier.

I was asked to give a list of specs, however I don’t know of a career builder that also lets you select mastery points, your equipped tactics, your equipped morale, and your renown abilities all on the same page to share with others. The other issue is that this game is designed to have you switch tactics between encounters, so there really is no static set of tactics you’ll be using all the time.

Under what conditions should I use my blade enchants?

Swordmasters get three blade enchants – Heaven’s Blade, Nature’s Blade, and Phantom’s Blade. Each one of these has its own uses. One important thing to mention is that these enchantments have a chance to proc (base 25%) on each attack… this means both autoattacks and skill attacks. At first this doesn’t sound so great, and it isn’t… until you remember that we have a lot of multi-hit attacks. Dragon’s Talon, Whispering Wind, and Crashing Wave all hit twice… and ether dance can hit 5 times. Needless to say, these proc a lot in real play.

If you’re planning to be in a situation where you’ll be doing single target damage – grinding, leveling, RvRing – then you probably want to use Heaven’s Blade. The other common condition is AoEing mobs that are fairly below your level – the extra damage can make them die pretty fast.

For AoEing mobs at or above your level, or tanking, Nature’s Blade is the only choice. On each proc, Nature’s Blade removes over 100 stat points (at level 40) of a random stat and gives you the amount drained for a few seconds. Often times you end up with something that won’t benefit you, like intelligence or ballistic skill – but after a while you begin to notice that you’ve drained toughness, strength, and weapon skill. Not only is this nice because it increases your damage, but it also decreases the damage your enemy is doing. For AoEing this can mean the difference between life and death.

Phantom’s Blade is something I’ve never actually used. The amount of moral that it removes is very, very small, and at the time of writing it doesn’t scale with mastery points. If this reached the level where it had a chance on proc to remove 100 morale, it might be worth using in RvR. The biggest strike against it though is that most people use Morale 1 or 2 in combat, it simply takes too long to get to 3 or 4 and oftentimes you’re dead before you get there. Additionally, there’s a 60 second cooldown between morale uses, so there’s a high chance you can be draining your targets morale when they can’t use it anyway. Wouldn’t decreasing their toughness and ability to do damage be a better use of time?

What are some common tactic setups?

As I mentioned elsewhere, tactics are meant to be switched around depending on the situation. So what are some common situations one might run across?

AoEing:

When AoEing mobs, you typically have up Nature’s Blade and use Gusting Wind and Wrath of Hoeth as your last two attacks. Because you’re being hit by a large number of mobs (I normally pull 10-20 at a time) it’s a good idea to make sure you have Rugged equipped. Because you’re doing spirit damage, Bolstering Enchantments is good to have if you’re Hoeth Spec. If you’re trying to hold agro on all the mobs, then Menace is a good idea to have as well. For any remaining slots, use Centuries of Training or Potent Enchantments to help bring the mobs down a little faster.

Recommended tactics for AoEing: Rugged, Menace, Bolstering Enchantments, Centuries of Training, Volatile Enchantments, Potent enchantments

Single Target DPSing:

If you’re trying to kill single targets, you want to dish out as much damage as possible while maintaining as little risk. This can be accomplished by making sure that Heaven’s Blade is in use and Taunt is kept up on your target. You also want to mix around the following tactics: Focused Offence, Rugged, Centuries of Training, Bolstering Enchantments, Deep Incision, Potent Enchantments, Ensorcelled Agony and Volatile Enchantments.

The exact tactics to use depends on the length of the fight and your gear. In terms of maximum damage per second, Centuries of Training does more than Deep Incision or Potent Enchantments, but there’s no guarantee that it will be up as often. With Deep Incision you have absolute control on when it gets applied, and with Potent Enchantments you can have a higher probability of application by also slotting Volatile enchantments. However, Potent Enchantments is currently ticking every 3 seconds, which leaves open the possibility that it can be reapplied before a single tick goes off and hence you lose the damage.

Additionally, you’re mastery path has a very large impact over what skills will be available to you. If you don’t go down Khain, then Ensorcelled Blow with Ensorcelled Agony slotted is the best opening attack you can have; and one possible tactic setup might be: Rugged, Focused Offence, Ensorcelled Agony, Centuries of Training. And if you happen to be Hoeth, replace Centuries of Training with Bolstering Enchantments.

Until the game goes live and all skills are finalized and working, there’s no way to get accurate numbers on how to maximize single target DPS under different conditions.

Tanking:

Tanking is all about holding agro and not dying. As a Swordmaster, you can tank one mob, or if you prefer, all the mobs. Tactic selection for this goal is more straight-forward than other roles. If you’re not speced into Vaul, you want to at least have Rugged and Menace. If you plan to be taking damage from elemental sources, it might be wise to think about using Bend the Winds since we have no other way to buff this stat by ourselves. Isha’s Protection is also nice since it makes healing a lot easier, and the additional reduction from Dampening Talon stacks with our initial 20% – this changes Dragon’s Talon to reduce damage by 30% for 5 seconds.

If, however, you have chosen to spec into Vaul, the tactics that you can use become much more interesting. Rugged is still a must, but the addition of Perfect Defenses and Vaul’s Buffer bring a lot to the table. Volatile Enchantment’s also works well with Nature’s Blade to ensure that your target is nearly always missing multiple stats, and you’re buffed a good deal of the time. If you find yourself being crit a lot, Lingering Intimidation might be worth looking into.

Typically, when I go Vaul to tank, I slot: Rugged, Perfect Defenses, Vaul’s Buffer, and Menace.

There are of course many other combinations than the ones I listed here, and I doubt I could cover every single situation in which they might be used. As the game advances so will the strategies that are used to slot tactics.

Image Source of Swordmaster: WAR Site

Source: WAR Forums

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