The Elves of WAR: Meet the Shadow Warrior

Massively continues its exclusive pre-NDA coverage of the Elves of Warhammer Online with this spotlight on a master of Ranged DPS for the side of Order, The High Elf Shadow Warrior. They come in three flavors, Scouts (long-range dps specialists), Assault (close-combat) and Skirmish (short-range bow specialists). Each one of these masteries has a corresponding Stance that boosts their key abilities:

Scout Stance - Increases your Ballistic and Initiative scores and your maximum range
Assault Stance - Increases your Strength and Weapon skill as well as increases your Armor by 100%
Skirmish Stance - Increases your Toughness and crit chance.

This career comes with a long list of bow attacks and a fair amount of blade attacks. Shadow Warriors also get the Vengeance of Nagarythe ability. Every 3 mins you can increase your damage by 20% for 15 seconds and unlock special additional abilities on many of your exisiting attacks for the duration.

The Scout mastery focuses on long-range bow attacks. It unlocks many abilities including the Enchanted Arrows tactic which allows your Flame Arrows and Festering Arrows to ignore their targets resistances. Also you get access to Glass Arrow which does not only damages its target, but shatters to cause damage over time to all enemies within 30 yards. This is the mastery for those who want to stand far back to do the most damage.

The Assault mastery still has killer bow attacks, but mixes in blade attacks as well. The No Respite tactic in this tree increases Parry chance by 10% and temporarily raises your chance to critically hit every time you Parry. And the Swift Strikes ability unleashes a rapid series of damaging hits that does more damage if the opponent is building up an ability to unleash of their own. This is the mastery tree for versatility which may be a good idea given the chaotic nature of Realm vs Realm combat.

The Skirmish mastery harkens to the origin of the career: a class that harries its opponent with hit and run tactics. You'll get access to the Charge Forth tactic decreases the maximum range of your abilities, but increases your crit chance by 20%. You'll also get the Flanking Shot ability which does good damage if you are behind the target. The interesting aspect of this ability is it will build up even if you're moving and if you are Vengeful, it will have a 20% increased chance to critically hit.

Along with the Dwarven Engineer and the Empire's Bright Wizard, the High Elf Shadow Warrior will soon be feared by the agents of Destruction on the battlefield as one who rains down death from afar (and near!)

	Did you enjoy this? Make sure to check out our other exclusive Elves of War features and all of our previous Warhammer Online features. Plus, don't miss any of our ongoing coverage as Massively goes to WAR!