Review of the White Lion

shadout00

As many have read, the White Lion is supposed to be a very unique class. In many ways, it is. The ability to have a pet that can tank for you or do DPS for you along with being a melee character is amazing. I was able to get my WL to 15 and RR 12. Myself, I like playing important classes in most games, whether that be a healer or tank. I found that tanks don't flourish too much in PVP and healers are just boring with all the excitement on. That left me to play some type of DPS. I didn't want to get targeted 24/7, so I didn't choose any cloth type casters. The melee fighters are all very nice, but I needed something that had a little bit more. From what I have tried, the only classes I would choose to progress were the engineer, squig herder or the white lion. I found the engineer very unique, but for my taste it was boring. The squig herder is my next choice after this.

In PVE, the White Lion solos extremely well. The DPS output is awesome if you put your pet in offensive and keep yourself as offensive tank. With this setup, the pet does about 60%+ of your total damage output. I kill mobs fairly quickly, in large spurts and little downtime. I can kill many champion mobs 3-4 levels lower than me with ease. The only downfall is that the pet pathing still needs to be worked out, and half of the time it doesn't obey. This is clearly a beta bug that will be fixed though. Generally in public quests I find myself getting top especially on long Hero boss fights. All of the skill do not have casting times, but some do depend on your positioning for bonus damage, DoTs or just to use them. The pet's moves depend on the stance you put them in, with the tank stance giving it more HP and aggressive + a taunt, and the DPS stance giving them many powerful moves. I pet attacks fairly quickly and if you are good, you can time when they use their moves in with their auto attack to maximize damage.

PVP is rather sketchy. In scenarios, the White Lion is amazing. Many people do not go after us because we look like swordmasters, and because many do not tend to bother with attacking tank looking classes first. I can sick the pet on any DPS (witch elf, squig hurder) and expect them to die fairly quickly. With scenarios being less frantic than RvR, people will generally either A) Go for a tank that is being constantly healed, simply because they are idiots Go after anything that looks fragile. This is perfect since the WL is neither. With my morale 1 ability in tier 2, I can do a melee hit for about 700+. I find myself at the end of most scenarios being top 1-3 in damage dealt and most killing blows. Other than DPS though the White Lion does not offer much. You can heal your pet for a small smount and you get some decent debuffs, but don't expect to do anything else.

In RvR I honestly would say on a large scale we suck. During the keep siege I was in today, my pet would die very fast before it could do damage, mostly because of the mass amount of range players out there. Since we are a melee class with only DPS, we can only flourish in close combat. In RvR, most of the time, tanks run in and get their fixing in of damage, then back out being healed constantly. This leaves us to only fight the tanks (who are always healed) and the stupid opposing DPS that are close up. I found myself up top using the artillary and ballistae for most of the game because I simply was not effective on the battle floor.

 

This review is kind of short but it gives you guys sort of a glimpse at the class. If there are any questions, please ask!

Cartography

I'm honestly surprised to hear that you think they sucked in RvR... I played destruction side but from what I saw the WLs were seriously kicking some major ass in the scenerios... we were constantly getting rolled. It seems like a powerful class.

shadout00

Okay saying they suck is pretty harsh. What I meant to say was that the amount of DPS they do without the pet in RvR is decent, but not amazing if they always had to pet. The pet usually gets killed quickly and/or the pathing of it makes it unbearable to use and it just runs in a random place.

Teiman

Welll..     Is scaring to read you, because is true that the class is that efficient.

Anyway I will still roll a  squig herder, and kill all these white lion guys. The Squig Herder is ranged, and this will prove more interesting that what you comment about WL stances.

xenogias

I think once they get the pathing fixed on the WL the class will be MUCH better. I have been in/seen in open RvR WL's with a healer and its scary. Give them a WP and they are VERRY good. This is of course assuming the lion does what its told (pathing). Without that dps the WL is ok, but not where it should be. Overall nice review. Its going to be a verry good class in the long run for people wanting a new twist on a pet class (viable melee).

shadout00

Thanks for the feedback.

 

Even though I spent half this weekend trying to figure out where my pet was, I think I will still play the WL. It just seems very unique and tons of fun in scenarios.

Nadia

Originally posted by shadout00

Even though I spent half this weekend trying to figure out where my pet was, I think I will still play the WL. It just seems very unique and tons of fun in scenarios.

www.warhammeralliance.com/forums/showthread.php

4) Pet AI and pathing is severely broken. The Preview Weekend patch (3.3) unfortunately borked the system. This is issue #1B for us. Even though this is a beta and new bugs/issues are to be expected, we messed up on this issue. We expect a quick turnaround on this next week. So please accept my apologies for this one, it should not have happened.

- Mark Jacobs

 

I was playing a Squid Herder before the Preview Weekend and pet pathing worked great for me

but the preview weekend had horrible pet pathing

Myrdek

Originally posted by Nadia

Originally posted by shadout00

Even though I spent half this weekend trying to figure out where my pet was, I think I will still play the WL. It just seems very unique and tons of fun in scenarios.

www.warhammeralliance.com/forums/showthread.php

4) Pet AI and pathing is severely broken. The Preview Weekend patch (3.3) unfortunately borked the system. This is issue #1B for us. Even though this is a beta and new bugs/issues are to be expected, we messed up on this issue. We expect a quick turnaround on this next week. So please accept my apologies for this one, it should not have happened.

- Mark Jacobs

 

I was playing a Squid Herder before the Preview Weekend and pet pathing worked great for me

but the preview weekend had horrible pet pathing

 

Another closed beta poster said that it was never great, just a little bit better before

Nadia

Originally posted by Myrdek

Another closed beta poster said that it was never great, just a little bit better before

it was night and day for pet pathing issues in PVE prior to the Preview weekend

- my squig *never*  "just sat there" during combat prior to Preview Weekend

 

people can hopefully see for themselves in 2 weeks during the Open Beta for pre-orders on 09/07