In the last couple of weeks, I’ve talked about factions, and
the races that go along with them.
Today, we have classes.
Classes are a way to differentiate different players not by
how they look, but what they can do.
Classes are broken into several different types, or roles:
Tanks, healers, Melee DPS(damage per second), and Ranged DPS.
WoW has ten, soon to be eleven, classes that can fulfill one
or more of these roles.
The first class I’m going to talk about is the Rogue.
Rogues can only fulfill the melee DPS role. In terms of lore, they are sneaky little
sneak thieves, usually specializing in stealth combat. Rogues, for gameplay purposes, use ‘energy’
to cast their moves, creating combinations that can be unleashed as a big
finisher. When playing a rogue, you need
to be nimble, changing direction and location, while still being able to cast
moves. Rogues can wear cloth and
leather, so they are a bit squishy(ie, they take damage more easily from a
monster), but they make up for that in evasiveness.
Next we have the Hunter. Hunters can only fill the ranged DPS
roll. Hunters are the class that shoots
guns or bows, and has a wild animal as a pet that they can also send into
combat. The nice thing about hunters is
they are a relatively easy class to learn, but harder to master. When playing a hunter, you need to be aware
of all your tools, including traps, stuns, and your pet. Hunters can wear cloth, leather, and mail, so
even in they are being hit by monsters, they won’t necessarily die too fast.
For a second purely ranged DPS class, we have the Mage.
Mages specialize in direct damage spells focusing on frost, fire and
arcane type damage. Depending on which
kind of damage you decide to specialize in, you may have incredible burst
damage, a decent multi-mob attack repertoire, or you may have increased
survivability. Mages can only wear
cloth, and are thus known as the ‘glass cannon.’ Mages have an intense variety of spells, but
most are relegated to the back burner, depending on specialization.
A third purely ranged DPS class is the Warlock. Warlocks are
similar to mages, but they have a bit more
survivability, despite their only
being able to wear cloth armor. Warlocks
specialize in shadow and fire damage, and also can summon demonic pets to
assist in combat. Warlocks also
specialize more in damage over time, or DoT spells, more so than just about any
class in the game. Similar to mages,
warlocks have a multitude of spells they can use, but warlocks seem to use most
of their options in the course of combat.
Death knights, or
DK’s, are a relatively new class to WoW.
They can fulfill two roles, tank and melee DPS. In both cases, the focus is first on getting
some rudimentary DoT diseases on the monster, then whacking said monster with
your weapon. DK’s have a lot of
different things they can do, including yanking a monster toward them, or
laying down a ground effect called death and decay that hits a monster over a
set period of time. DK’s can wear all
armor types, and so tend to be difficult to kill.
Another two role class is the Warrior. Warriors can also
fulfill the tank and melee DPS role. In
fact, they are superficially terribly similar to DK’s. Plate armor, whacking monsters, tanking and
melee DPSing. However, warriors definitely
have a completely different feel than DK’s.
While warriors have quite a few special attacks, a big chunk of their damage
comes just from hitting a monster straight up.
Warriors do not have a lot of visual effects on their moves, just a lot
of hitting things, which can be fun in it’s own way.
Next comes a class that can fulfill multiple roles, the Paladin.
Paladins can specialize to be either tank, healer or melee DPS. This is the first true hybrid, though
paladins are probably my least favorite class to play in the game. I think the biggest issue is, unless you were
to heal, you must be right on any monters, and I really REALLY dislike
melee. Paladins can wear all armor
types, and are one of the MOST difficult classed in the game to kill.
And now, we’re getting to the good stuff: Druid. Druids can play all four roles
effectively, assuming they have the correct gear and specialization. When I played druid, I usually played ranged
DPS, seeing as I am not good at healing, I hate melee DPS, and I find tanking
rather boring. Druids can wear cloth and
leather armor, though the armor led to…The biggest issue with being able to
play all four roles is that all those roles required a different gearset. I never had any bagspace available at all
when I played my druid. So, I thought I’d
try something new…
Shaman. Shaman can fulfill three roles, ranged and
melee DPS, and healing. Shaman are, in
game lore, the speakers to and for the elements. To do this, they use totems as conduits, and
call on fire, air, earth and water to deal damage and heal wounds. Their gear looks the coolest, and they have a
wide variety to choose from, from cloth to leather to mail. Shaman don’t have the gear space issues druid
do, since two of their three specializations can use the same gear.
And that is all the class choices in World of Warcraft. Next time, I’ll go into a bit more depth as
to what the terms tank, heals, and DPS actually mean.
