The Elves of WAR: Meet the White Lion

Massively continues it's pre-NDA blogging of the Elves of Warhammer Online with a look at the High Elf melee dps career, the White Lion. Wielding a ferocious axe and bonded with a lion for life, this pet class is fierce, able to take on two enemies at once or harass RvR opponents mercilessly. The White Lion can follow one of three specialty tracks, the path of the Hunter, Axeman or Guardian. Each path goes with its own special abilities and enhanced pet buff.

Like all WAR careers, the White Lion receives basic abilities that span across all three paths, but by putting mastery points in a particular path, they increase the effectiveness of that path's basic abilities and can unlock additional skills, tactics and morale abilities.

The Path of the Hunter focuses equally on the White Lion and his pet. The accompanying pet buff, Trained to Hunt, grants your lion a high damage attack, an AE attack and an attack debuff. It also buffs the pet's autoattack and crit rate while giving you and your lion a chance to proc a DOT on your enemies. Highlights in the Hunter tree include Pack Hunting, a career tactic that increases your autoattack speed by 50% while you have Trained to Hunt active on your pet and Pounce which sends you leaping 20 feet in the air, inflicting damage when you land to all in the area. This is an excellent path if you want you and your pet to be strong and effective in most situations.

The Path of the Axeman is for those of you who want your lion to keep the attention of enemies while you position yourself to the side or behind them to do bigger damage. This isn't to say the lion is going to tank instances, but it will handle single mobs well in solo quests and Public Quests. Trained to Threaten is the pet buff that compliments this tree. It increases your pet's Toughness and Initiative while boosting your chance to crit if you are behind the mob. Additional abilities gained include Threatening Distraction, a career tactic that reduces the White Lion's hate generation by 75% and Cull the Weak, a high damage attack that can be used by the White Lion if the mob is under 50% health.

The final mastery tree is the Path of the Guardian. This one is for those who want go face to face with their opponents while their pet aids them in DPS. Trained to Kill is the pet buff that increases your lion's Weapon's skill and your own toughness. It also grants the lion some impressive DPS specialty attacks including one that has the lion rearing up on its hind legs and shredding the opponent with its front claws for impressive damage. Other highlights in this tree are Brutal Pounce, granting your pet's next attack extra damage as well as a stun component and Stalker, a career tactic that reduces your lion's threat generation by 75%.

Though there are specialty paths for the White Lion, they only enhance what the White Lion and his pet can already do. You will still have access to all three pet buffs regardless of what Path you specialize in. And by the time you hit the level cap of 40, you will have enough points to max out one tree, while investing a short way into the second or you can spread out your points out among all three.

No matter how you tailor your White Lion's abilities, it's an enjoyable career with a strong pet and unique abilities. The weakness of the class is that without your pet, you are not very effective, but together, you will be a force to be reckoned with in the war against the forces of Destruction.

	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!