The Elves of WAR: Meet the White Lion, levels 1-5

Earlier in the week we gave you a broad overview of this Warhammer Online class based on our higher level beta experiences. Today, we continue our exclusive pre-NDA look at the Elves of WAR with a look at the White Lion class from the ground up.

The White Lion career is a melee dps class on the side of Order only available to High Elves. With a loyal lion pet by their side and an enormous axe in their hand the White Lion is very good at taking down enemies, especially small groups of them.

You start the game with three abilities:

Level 1 - Call War Lion
60 AP, 2sec casting time, 15sec cooldown
You call your tamed War Lion to come forth and fight with you. You may only have a single War Lion at a time.

Level 1 - Hack
30 AP, Instant cast, 5ft range
A brutal chop at your enemy which deals 15 damage.

Level 1 - Axe Toss
20 AP, 1sec casting time, 5-65ft range
You fling a throwing axe at your target, dealing 10 damage.

Your initial lion is rather weak, dealing about 5 damage per hit. That will change at level three when you get your first pet buff. Until then, consider him a weak DoT. Don't get too excited about the Axe Toss ability either. You aren't a ranged dps class. Its just for tagging mobs from a distance.

The real gem among your initial abilities is Hack. This is your spammable special axe attack that will let you take down enemies quickly for your first few levels.

Level 2 - Blindside
30 AP, Instant cast, 5ft range, 5sec cooldown
You attack your enemy at a vulnerable spot, dealing 17 damage immediately and inflicting them with an Ailment which deals an additional 36 damage over 9 seconds.

Later, when you pet can taunt, you can move next to or behind an opponent to unleash more powerful attacks like this one. For now, you must send your lion in first to attack a mob and gain initial aggro so you can come up from behind and open up with this ability. This also puts an Ailment on the mob which opens up other abilities later.

Level 3 - Trained to Threaten
No AP cost, Instant cast
You train your pet to behave menacingly, increasing it's Toughness and Initiative by 6 and increasing your chnce to critically hit by 5% as long as you are at your target's sides or back. Your War Lion gains the ability to threaten its enemies, the abitlity to reduce a fore's armor and the ability to snare its enemies.

This is your bread-and-butter pet tank buff. The three abilities your pet gets are:

Leg Tear
Deals 85 damage to the target over 15 seconds. For the first 5 seocnds, the target will be snared, reducing their movemen t by 40%

Shred
Deals 33 damage to the target and reduces their armor by 29 for 10 seconds.

Lion's Roar
Taunts all enemies in front of your War Lion, up to 30 feet away, making them hate your pet much more and causing them to deal 30% less damage to eeveryone else other than your Lion.

As you can see, your pet is not only better at tanking, but damage and debuffing, too. You can't tell your pet when to use their abilities, but you can turn the abilities on or off whenever you want, thus limiting the pet's choice in battle to what you need done. It's now also much easier to use Blindside as your lion now has a strong taunt.

Later you will get another pet buff that makes them better at damage in case you like to do the tanking on solo mobs as well as a third buff that balances between offensive and defensive abilities in case you want to fight side by side with your lion.

Level 4 - Coordinated Strike
50 AP, Instant cast, 5ft range
You and your War Lion attack as a pack ravaging your enemies. You strike your traget for 15 damage, and your pet strikes its target for 15 damage. if you are within 10 feet of your pet's target, you will also strike that enemy for 15 damage and likewise, if your pet is within 10 feet of your target, it will also strike your enemy for 15 damage as well.

Here's the TLDR version: you and your pet get an extra strike on each other's target. If you are on the same target, it's a good chunk of damage. If you are on separate mobs, it's like a free attack. This is one of the unique abilities that only pet classes get.

Level 5 - Nature's Bond
30 AP, Instant cast, 150ft range
Your War Lion regains 165 health over 15 seconds.

This instacast HoT is great in a pinch to buy your pet some extra time while you hack away at your opponents.

That's it for the first five levels. Next we look at levels six through ten including an axe attack with built in detaunt for your defensive target, the dps pet buff and a Morale ability that does crazy good damage.

	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!