Warhammer Online: White Lion Class
I very rarely mention news from other games — this is a WoW blog, after all — but a recent announcement about the upcoming game Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning (WAR) caught my eye. In brief, WAR announced that they are adding a melee class called the White Lion.
White Lions have pet War Lions which they raise from cubs and can train to work with the character in different ways. For example, the character and pet can rush into melee together, or the pet can distract the target while the character flanks it for extra damage, or the character can distract the target while the pet flanks. You can find more information about the White Lion class on the WAR website.
This announcement caught my eye because WoW-hunter-style classes are fairly rare in MMO games. Oh sure, many games have pet classes, but most pet classes are necromancer or warlock types with undead or enslaved demons. Few games include a class that integrates a true animal companion to the degree that a WoW hunter does.
But even though WAR’s White Lion class looks like it may be interesting, it’s missing one of the biggest attraction of WoW hunters, at least in my eyes: 160+ different pet appearances. Apparently War Lions change their appearance as they level, and the highest level ones can wear “ornate armored protection”. But as cool as pet armor is, it doesn’t make up for the fact that every White Lion character will have an identical white lion as a pet.
Yeah, yeah, I know: Sometimes it seems like every WoW hunter has a white lion too. But at least we have the choice.
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Yeah, the white lion announcement caught my eye as well. That and the dwarven engineer sound like interesting options on the side of order. The squid herder on the destruction side sounds like fun, too (although those are a pet class of the ‘disposable pet’ variety).
If you are interested, have a look at Final Fantasy XI. There is a class called Beastmaster. Not shure if they can tame animals or just summon different ones.
Yes they don’t have the pet variety, but instead they have a lore. They are the royal guards of the king, with rare huge white lions (war lions rawr) raised from cubs. As a hunter in WoW you just stumble upon a full-grown pet that you tame and name.
I wish WOW pets could get armour :( like actual graphic detail when you give them stat boosts - would be awsome :)
[...] the WAR path Mania’s posted a short review of one of the potential WAR online (Warhammer: the reckoning MMO) classes, the white lion – the [...]
The lions are cute, sounds fun, but I would get reeealy tired of having the SAME oet as everyone else. I like my SM hyena better!!!!
Plus I don’t have that game.
Starwars Galaxies used to have a hunter like class called Creature Handler that preyed nests for eggs and babies and raised them, you could get over 200 different pet famillies, ranging from a Womb rat to a Rancor, worth mentioning too.
According to the information listed on the site, I think, or somewhere I read it, you’ll get to choose what the lion looks like as you begin the class, but after that, it’s pretty much set.
Basically, it will have a few looks rather than the multitude of Cat looks we have now in WoW. And, it makes all White Lion players pretty much alike since their mechanics won’t differ at all. Unlike a Hunter who uses a Ravager or Raptor rather than a Cat.
It is kind of limited in its potential, in the same way their other pet class is, and most of their classes seem to be.
Well the thing that cought my eye in this class other than you costomize ur lion a little and he gets armor is that the actual high elf is melee combat, which is a cool change from the usual stay away from combat pet handler.
Also according to how u “specialize” you can make it more like your the one tryin to keep threat over ur lion, ur lion keeps threat from you, or you both just swing around and hit multiple people and don’t care who sees you lol.(well thats more what i liked about this class)
Seeing as the only other MMO I’ve ever played was Guild Wars I kinda assumed that most MMOs had some sort of pet handling class. Though all pets are basically the same in Guild Wars there is some “customization” depending on the skills that are equipped. Not as great a variety in appearance as in WoW but enough for my tastes.
I personally think its an awesome choice and I might seriously consider this game now lol. I love the idea of armoring your cats (Come on, tell me one hunter who wouldn’t love armor for your pet XD Plus, it looks like my lil Echeyakee <333)
Someone mentioned FFXI’s Beastmaster. I’ve played this game, and I can tell you Beastmasater is like WoW a bit more. You can choose any monster beast to be your pet and some pets you can summon from items. HOWEVER they do not stick with you forever. They tend to vanish I believe when you zone (if I remember correctly) or after a certain period of time.
Also, most of the beasts tended to look alike. A tiger was a tiger was a tiger, and a pugil (fish monster) was a pugil. ETC ETC
Summoner was way better, but I digress XD
As Mania stated 160+ pet appearances is what makes WoW for me. I have 27 Hunters and the army of them is still growing. My friends think I’m crazy, but I think I just love Hunter XD
@ Regis
I know you CAN just tame and name any pet, but I like to get the lowest lvl pet of that type (the baby =]) and bring it up from there. Seems more like I have raised it, you know? I don’t care about how long it takes to lvl it either, it makes things more interesting. Oh and I RP a lot =)
Who cares about white lions. They are elves, therefore tools. Now the goblin squig herder is where it’s at.
That’s cool, about this game! Definitely gonna look into it.
Engineer, White Lion (cue Transformers’ theme), and squig herder…
got my pre-order… not sure if it’ll sway me from WoW but *shrug* who knows… if they’re more responcive & informative to the masses on changes & whys.. just might.
[...] Mania’s Arcania, llego a la pagina oficial del Warhammer Online, concretamente a su version paralela de los [...]
The different modes for the white lions seems interesting. I wonder if wow could create a pet-setting of some sort to help with the hunter pvp problem. Maybe some pet mode where your pet will constantly try to stay between you and the enemy, giving it some % chance to suffer incoming melee hits instead of you. But that’d probably take tons of effort on blizz’s part and still not work anyway X_x;
i may take a brake from WoW when this comes out
Just for reference, for those of you who have not done much (or any) research into Warhammer Online, I’ll point out the following that may be of interest.
1) Warhammer is a primarily PvP (actually RvR - realm vs. realm) product. There is plenty of pve content to level on, but the “meat” of the game is pvp.
2) There is to some degree, although I don’t know how much, collision detection. You can’t run through people. In addition, “Tank” classes have abilities to trip up and basically subdue people trying to rush by them. In short, they are attempting to make a game where tanking matters in pvp. Unlike in WoW, where you as a tank can do nothing to save your comrades short of direct healing or killing there attacker, Tanks can actually hold bad guys back to let the soft targets do their dirty work. This is of import to this class in that a class with a built in dps/tank pair may be especially effective. If your pet really can command attention of other players in pvp combat, it could be interesting.
3) Another biggie for PvP - Your Lion doesn’t disappear just because you died. Your pets stays out and keeps kicking butt after your death. You lose the ability to command the pet, and there is some penalty related to the Lion going back to “feral instinct” instead of your disciplined training, but it still stays around. In small group or 1 on 1 situations, ignoring the pet completely while mindlessly attacking the player might end up being a draw at best (you kill the player, but you’re hurt and now have a fully healthy Lion mauling you) or a recipe for losing (if the White Lion player is specced for the Lion to “tank” while the player “flanks”, and if tanking really does have significant power in pvp like they are aiming for, the enemy might find itself dead before it ever gets to the White Lion player).
One of the tricks Mythic have used to make tanking matter in PvP is that the tank classes are designed such that they gain power when their allies are attacked, rather than just when the tank is attacked (at least, the Dwarven Ironbreaker works that way - I’m assuming the other tank classes are similar in that respect). So if you ignore the tank, you run the risk of powering up a wrecking ball that is going to end up landing on your head.
They also have things arranged whereby the tanks can apply a debuff to people such that they suffer penalties when not attacking the tank.
[...] Arcania, a WoW Hunter Pet blog, has written up a piece on WAR’s White Lion class. [...]
WAR looks promising, for true RvR *g* - I’ll keep an eye on this game.
Everquest (the original *g*) does have a Beastmaster class, which can summon an animal companion. It’s a melee class with spell casting abilities.
Well dont forget all you WOW fans, that WOW just copied the hunter class off of EQ1’s beastlord, granted they didnt have to tame it, and it looked the same through your leveling with the exception of getting bigger.
You could cast buffs on it to give it all kind of special abilities. The only thing I ask is that you all realise that WOW didnt do the animal companion first, nor does it have the market covered on it.
optional: Oh of course not. But by the same token, the existence of combat pets is not the only thing that attracts us to the WoW hunter class, or for that matter to WoW. The tone or feel of gameplay is rather different between EQ1 beastlords and WoW hunters, in part because the feel of gameplay between EQ1 and WoW is so different.
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