I probably owe Tanks an apology, particularly World of Warcraft ones. I’ve recently started another character, primarily for the reasons in the previous post, and this time it’s a Warrior, chosen partly because I wanted to put my feet up a bit, and partly because having been on the Healer end of the Tank-Healer relationship, I felt it would be helpful to understand exactly what Warriors can and can’t do.

I think that’s possibly the best way to become a good pick-up group member; proverbially walking a mile in another man’s shoes. Often that mile is enough to get a basic feel for the style, flow and rhythm of the way they work, and that sort of information is useful whatever your regular character is.

Now you have to understand, that ‘In My Day’, a Warrior was basically an Adventurer that couldn’t do anything else; magic, prayers, etc. In Everquest, they got ‘Kick’, a very minor straight damage special attack, ‘Taunt’, which did exactly what it said on the tin, and that was about it, leaving the majority of the class a matter of having to spend a crapload more on equipment than everyone else, and begging strangers for healing. The trade has certainly come on a long way since then, and Warrioring in World of Warcraft is in many ways, even more complex than Priesting, which took me by surprise.

Indeed, one thing that has particularly impressed me with WoW, is that each and every class actually plays quite differently, and involves a interesting mechanic, distinct from most of the others. A lot of MMOs tend to present dozens of classes, which all turn out to essentially be different styles of Warrior with varying levels of AC and HP, and varying colours of particle effects, pets, ranged weapons and so on.

Warrior is usually the benchmark, the flat two-dimensional yardstick against which all other classes are measured, but Blizzard seem to have really given the class new depth, with different attack modes for different situations, with special attacks for each, a ‘Rage’ bar that powers the abilities and effectively makes Warriors more powerful the more abuse they take, a set of surprisingly involved and intricate Threat management options, and an excellent set of ‘Keeping the others safe’ abilities and skills, and at the same time, the class is eminently soloable, which is usually where the Warrior template fails, often requiring a full-time Priest-Physiotherapist following them around to be effective.

The Rage idea in particular is novel. Instead of the cop-out of giving Warriors a ‘Mana’ pool and then just calling it ‘Power’ or some such, Warriors get a red bar, which starts empty and goes up when they land a hit, AND when they get hit themselves. They then spend this rage on the specials. This fits the idea of a frothing bruiser getting more and more worked up, and then using the anger to perform spectacular feats of carnage. This bar slowly drains away when out of a fight, which goes some way to explaining why Warriors tend to go mental and keep on charging after stuff the instant the current fight is over – as long as the rest of the group is ready, this style of recklessness is actually helpful to the warrior’s performance. (None of this applies to Paladins though – they get Mana like everyone else, so ‘The Steamroller’ had no excuse!)

Add to that the usual huge AC and HP, the most varied weapon and armour choices in game, and generally high group desirability, and Blizzard really have done wonders with what is usually one of the most stale classes in MMO gaming. Although having said all that, at the end of the day it’s hard not to get an enormous amount of satisfaction out hitting things with a really big sword, really really hard. I think I have a new Main…

(The Ranterbury Tales will however continue…you don’t have to be a Priest to make a pilgrimage, afterall…)