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The Elves of WAR: Meet the Witch Elf
We know some of you probably aren't looking to have quests and their delectably gooey centers spoiled for you, so with that in mind we've got something else for you to sink your teeth into. While there may only be three Dark Elf classes for now, they're at least compelling classes for anyone looking to be a dark, brooding badass. For this post, we're going to focus on the Witch Elf and her nasty array of sharp, stabby, poisonous and just all-around deadly attacks. Each ability is listed in the order you acquire it as you level up and train. Also, keep in mind that the damage listed is only the initial ability and its leveled-up version.
The Elves of WAR: "The Joys of War"
We've seen the first quest for the Dark Elves in Warhammer Online, and it wasn't quite what we were expecting. You could definitely say we were happily surprised. So to be honest, we didn't expect the second quest to be so much cooler than the first. After turning in Blood Feud, you find yourself tasked with a much more vicious quest called, "The Joys of War" This time you're ordered to operate a massive siege weapon, which will rid the beach of pesky High Elf warriors. It's really their own fault for getting in your armies' way of conquering The Blighted Isle.The High Elves aren't expecting this terrible attack, because they're an honorable race of snooty know-it-all types. Why would anyone do such a dishonorable thing? Well, to win the war, obviously. It was so much fun watching those tippy-toeing High Elves prance up the beach while we nailed them (literally, in a sense) in the face for 30,000 damage with high-grade Reaper Bolt Thrower spikes. 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!
The Elves of WAR: Your very first Dark Elf quest
So what's the very first thing you do when you log into Warhammer Online as a Dark Elf? You accept the quest "Blood Feud" and get right to the High Elf killing, of course. Surrounded by the towering ebony ships known as Black Arks, the very first thing you see is a Dark Elf man. He has light purple skin, is wrapped in red robes and metal bracing and his name is Gorthan Rakar. He has a job for you:"Thousands of years have pased since our treacherous kin, the so-called High Elves, betrayed us by choosing the follow the pretender king, and used their vile magics to sunder our lands. So long have we waited for our revenge, and today, with the strength of the Black Ark behind us, we will have it!"After reading these words, you turn around and see before you a wide breadth of beach covered in NPC Corsairs fighting Sea Guards. It is up to you to aid in the slaughter for if not you, who else? Did you enjoy this? Make sure to check out all of our previous Warhammer Online features, and don't miss any of our ongoing coverage as Massively goes to WAR!
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 rangeAssault 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 Elves of WAR: Meet the Swordmaster
Massively continues its exclusive pre-NDA look into the Elves of Warhammer Online. This article focuses on the Swordmaster, the High Elf tanking career specializing in combo chains called the Blade Dance. Through the use of enchanted Great Swords and Shields as well as natural elven agility, Swordmasters not only endure the incoming attacks of their enemies, but also unlock powerful abilities as the battle progresses. Every Swordmaster has a Balance state. At the beginning of battle, their Balance state is Normal, but special attacks improve their Balance and unlocks a new set of attacks. When the Swordmaster reaches Perfect Balance they can unleash their most fearsome abilities, but at the cost of resetting their Balance back to Normal.Being a tank class, most of their abilities are focused on taunting, debuffing and protection of their allies through attacks on the enemy. But through mastery trees, each player can customize the class in different ways. Through the Khaine (offense), Vaul (defense) and Hoeth (magic) mastery trees the Swordmaster will not only gain new abilities, but will buff core abilities that improve Balance in a way that works with the chosen playstyle. Plus, there are three different blade enchants the Swordmaster has access to, though only one can be active at any time, that will also get buffed by the corresponding mastery tree.
The Daily Grind: Would you rather play High Elves or Dark Elves?
So we've given you some hot-off-the-pre-NDA lift information on both the Dark Elves and High Elves. Now we pose to you a "Would you rather" situation: Dark Elves or High Elves? We're aware that Elves tend to be a love-hate relationship with most of us. So even if you would much rather run around as an awesome Greenskin or an Order race, we simply must know which of two evils would you pick and why?We can certainly understand if you'd want to play as the sinister, wicked and all-around clinically insane Dark Elves. Though there are likely plenty of people who enjoy running around in bright nansy-pansy High Elf robes with giant, golden swords, too. Our strategy is to pretend they're not most certainly surrounding us at every moment. If we succumbed to the truth of it, the world we've built up around ourselves may just crush us into tiny, gooey blogger giblets.
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 Digital Continuum: Dark Elf days in WAR
So we've gotten official approval to speak our minds early and often about the Dark Elf (High Elves too, but bollocks to Order, I say!) experience in tier one and two as much as we like. That led me to decide that it would be fun to give you my personal take on them. Especially considering that in the not-so-distant past I made my worries about Warhammer Online very well known. As worrisome as Mythic's decision to remove four cities and four -- but in reality, two -- classes made me before, I'm happy to say that overall my experience with the early Dark Elf starting zone has been a positive one.From the moment you enter Warhammer Online as a level one Dark Elf surrounded by Black Arks and clanging metal, you'll be made to feel like an evil and menacing figure. This is done in various ways and I'm glad to say that it's never undone. One way Mythic invests you into your character is the first quest you ever receive and it's going to put a smile on a lot of your faces, unless you're an Order player. If you're an Order or player, you'll probably want to run into my sword for Malekith's sake. Trust me, it's really all for the best.
The Elves of WAR: Lore unlocks
The Tome of Knowledge is one of the most unique elements of Warhammer Online. Though it builds on the work of games like City of Heroes and Lord of the Rings Online (and obviously inspired similar mechanics in other games), the sense of 'completeness' the Tome offers is comprehensive. High Elves have it pretty good: they can start filling up one of the most fun parts of the Tome mere seconds after character creation. The Compendium section is basically your sight-seeing guide to Warhammer Online. The Bestiary section tracks every kill you make, rewarding you regularly for ridding the world of everything from elves to orcs. The Notable Persons area tracks important NPCs you interact with. Though the big kahunas like the racial leaders are tracked in this area, there are numerous important background lore characters recorded here as well. Finally, the Compendium tracks History and Lore unlocks – hidden easter eggs of lore that everyone and anyone can enjoy searching out as they travel the game's chapters. It is your first History and Lore unlock which you can accomplish mere moments after making your High Elf character. Did you enjoy this? Make sure to check out all of our previous Warhammer Online features, and don't miss any of our ongoing coverage as Massively goes to WAR!
The Elves of WAR: The House Arkaneth public quest walkthrough
You've heard about the fearsome Public Quest that kicks off the High Elves Tier 1 experience many times before, but it's never had a name. The evils of House Arkaneth are the subject of this first encounter, and that's the name of the game: "House Arkaneth". The very first High Elf public quest in Warhammer Online pits you against waves of Dark Elf soldiery, mini-bosses aplenty, and even a mighty hydra! The spires of a mighty Black Ark tower above the coastal town of Narthain as hordes of Dark Elf warriors make ready to disembark. Along the base of the massive vessel, a black wave of Corsair ships lies at anchor, waiting for the signal to discharge their own bloodthirsty cargo upon the shore. The defenders of Narthain must find some way to stop the Dark Elf advance, or the town will surely be lost! Read on below as we describe, step by step, the process of working deadly work against the devilish Elven invaders!
The Elves of WAR: Massively begins pre-NDA lift Elven blogging!
You know those "English posh people" and "English people on drugs" that Paul Barnett keeps talking about? The ones with the pointy ears and bad attitudes? We here at Massively hope you like the Warhammer Online Elven factions, because you're going to be hearing quite a lot about them in the next week. We've been given special dispensation to do some pre-NDA lift blogging! We've had people playing the Beta for the highly anticipated Warhammer Online for some time, and they're ready to talk. Starting this weekend and all the way through till the NDA lifts, we'll be bringing you a special slice of Games Workshop's unique world. We'll be exploring the Tier 1 and Teir 2 content for the High Elves and Dark Elves – and you're invited along for the ride! Just follow the elves-of-war tag here on the site to keep in the loop!Join us as we explore the starting areas for both races, detail everything we can about the Elven classes, and dare to take on fearsome foes in the Tier 1 and Tier 2 RvR scenarios. And stay tuned, because Massively is going to be your place to turn once the NDA comes down! We'll have exhaustive guides on each of the racial starting zones. We'll have detailed walkthroughs of the mighty Inevitable City and stalwart Altdorf. We'll even have class guides, broken out by faction and class role! So, for example, if you're shopping for a Ranged DPS Destruction class, we'll have all the info you need in one compact feature. Stay tuned, Warhammer fans, as Massively goes to WAR!
