Ok, ok, I’m hooked! I admit! Guilty as charged! But after seeing the new class video for Carbine/Ncsoft’s upcoming MMORPG Wildstar, who can blame me? I must also admit that I haven’t been riding on the proverbial hype-train up until now, because my faith is Ncsoft games hasn’t been that high lately. I was half-expecting Wildstar to be another over-the top adventure including ridiculous over-the top armor and weapons, wings and tons of “Kill 10 pigs for me” quests. But, I have to hand it to Carbine – they do have some imagination, and definitely have a truck-load of humor. Oh, and they are also generous, delighting us with a new trailer regarding the Classes in Wildstar. Let’s have a look at them!
The Warrior – This is what you get when you cross Hulk Hogan with Skorpion, dress him up in heavy armor, give him a big-ass sword and mount a cannon on his arm. Not, not a gun, a cannon! The warrior is a beefy melee character, that goes up-close and personal in order to deliver pain, and has a range of gap-closers in order to make sure that, you know, he’s close. Added to this, he gets taunts, and pretty much everything you’d expect a tank to have. Warriors as such will either be melee damage dealers, tanks, or a mixture of both. And they get to blast you in the face from range with their cannon too! How cool is that?
The Esper – Espers are sort of like telekinetic meets summoner, with a pinch of annoying on top. They wear light-armor and use pesky kiting abilities to evade hugs from Warriors, while either doing damage via summons, spells and…more summons (and when I say summons I don’t just mean pets, I mean conjured hammers smacking you senseless), or healing allies. And if that wasn’t enough, they are also that class that everyone in every MMO hates, specifically, the CC class. They get stuns, snares, roots, probably sleeps and fears, and of course, buffs. I can already foresee the amount of rage and hate they will generate in opponents!
The Spellslinger – Well, it’s safe to assume Carbine got quite the inspiration from The Old Republic’s gunslinger when they designed this class, as the similarities, including the artwork, dual-blasters and armor designs, are evident. Still, I can’t blame them honestly, as the Gunslinger was indeed one of the coolest classes in ToR. What we’re getting in terms of the Spellslinger is a highly mobile ranged DPS, with teleports, crowd control abilities, kiting potential, heals and nukes through the use of sigils, kickass damage and an attitude to go with it. And they get to wear cowboy hats (no info if straws to chew on are included or not yet)! Can’t get much cooler than that.
The Stalker – No, this class isn’t the neighborhood pervert with weird fetishes and a restraining order. Well, not entirely anyway. Stalkers are, as the name implies, stealth-based assassins that like to do things from behind *cough*. They employ nanites to boost their skills, and have a range of abilities, such as stuns, gap-closers, and of course, tons of damage (duuuh!). They are effective either as burst-damage killers, disablers, or even tanks. As opposed to the less refined warriors, instead of relying on heavy armor, they rely on agility and dodges to tank. And it’s not hard to guess where the aggro will be coming from either! And, the best thing about them is they use retractable claws as weapons. You know, like that grumpy character played by Hugh Jackman.
The Medic – If you need an explanation for what medics do, you’re one health, lucky, and possibly extremely socially isolated individual! Medics heal people (trust in my Captain Obvious skills), but in Wildstar, they do so while dual-wielding resonators, kinda like miniature rail-guns of some sort. They also set up stations in combat, as well as use probes (for…probing?). But medics aren’t limited to stitching you up, no sir! They can do a fair amount of damage by turning their resonators hostile, or by setting up their probes to explode. Buffs, debuffs, heals, damage, the Medic has it. Medics also get medium armor, for when the tanks are slacking and bosses decide to shift their attention!
The Engineer – We don’t know too much about them yet, since Carbine has yet to release specific information about this wrench-wielding class. Still, from what we’ve seen, they like to tinker and come up with various contraptions (flying or otherwise) that are designed to inflict pain. And, apparently, they won’t limit themselves to one robot, being fans of the “the more the merrier” approach. Think along the lines of the Engineer in Anarch Online. Who wouldn’t want to have Robocop as a personal slave? While their primary role will be to deal damage, I’m guessing they will also use robots and gadgets to mitigate damage, debuff, stun, and probably annoy you to death. Oh, and seems like they’re going to use heavy (and I mean really REALLY heavy) armor too!
To sum it all up, here’s the newly released video showing off the classes of Wildstar. The pirate music, repeated smashing of the main protagonist of the trailer and humorous take were a nice touch. And if that’s not enough for you, you can take a look at detailed individual descriptions of the classes on the official website for Wildstar here.
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