A continuation of “Witching Witch Elves: The Misconception Pt. 1″
Understanding the With Elf:
Contrary to popular belief, Witch Elves can not take out multiple targets within a matter of seconds without an opener. Truth be told, they do not have the AP to sustain continous damage. The WE class is an AP intensive class with a small AP pool. It’s very plausible to completely run out of AP within 5-6 key strokes, without an opener. 5-6 keystrokes is usually enough to take out one opponent if the appropriate specials are used for that specific opponents archetype. If a Witch Elf is able to pull off an opener they can theoretically double their sustained damage. Openers are key to the class; the drawback to openers… they can only be used while in stealth.
Witch Elves are NOT WoW rogues!!!! They can NOT stay stealthed forever, they can NOT stun lock and they can NOT completely dissolve all damage dealt to them with the click of a button.
The Witch Elf stealth(Shadow Prowler) is on a timer while in use. When the time is up they automatically pop out of stealth and have to wait for a 30s cooldown before restealthing. Shadow Prowler has a 2s cast time and can be disrupted upon damage taken, excluding DoT’s. While in stealth the Witch Elf is plagued by a continuous AP drain. Granted, they do move at normal movement speed while stealthed, they can not use any abilities except for ONE of three openers; meaning if the oponent flees while a Witch Elf is prowling them, that Witch Elf will have to pop stealth to catch the fleeing opponent. In many regards, stealth is situational and must be used at the appropriate time to be effective.
The boon of Shadow Prowler is that all of their abilities will have a 50% AP reduction for 10 seconds. They will also gain 2 blood lust (points for the finisher/execution mechanic) rather than the normal 1 they receive from non openers. Finally, they will drop a situational proc on the opponent based on which opener is used.
Openers
- Vehemet Blades (anti-melee/tank) – Target will take (X) damage over the next 15s for every attack they make.
- Enfeebling Strike (anti-ranged) – Target will take (X) damage over the next 15s for every time they move.
- Treacherous Assualt (anti-healer/caster) – Target will take (X) damage over the next 15s for ever spell they use.
Witch Elf Fan Art
Career Masteries
As all other classes, Witch Elves have three career masteries in which they can dabble to help diversify the class to completing its role based on individual playstyle.
Path of Carnage – This is the strength and mitigation nullification line. It also happens to be the line that most Witch Elves, according to the Warhammer Alliance forums, place most of their mastery points. It gives Elixir of Insane Power, allows 7 seconds of complete armor penetration for all attacks; Pierce Armor, a high dmg armor ignoring attack that also reduces up to 1000 armor on the opponent for 20s; Sharpened Edge, a tactic that allows all Frenzies to reduce opponents armor by 75% for 3s; Broad Severing, a tactic that allows Sever Limb (disarm) to affect all enemies in a 20ft frontal cone; Swift Blades, a tactic that increases parry chance by 10% (Sever Limb, our disarm ability, can only be triggered after a parry); and On Your Knees, a damage dealing 2s knockdown that can attack up to 6 opponents at once. While knocked down your opponent can not parry or block. Finally, this is the line that buffs the Vehemet Blades opener.
Doesn’t take much of a genius to figure out what archetype this line is designed to take down.
The other two options: Path of Suffering and Path of Treachery both have a mix of abilities and tactics that are desined to either increase damage output through DPS boons, inhibit healing done or given, and reduce opponents or increase the Witch Elf’s AP. Treachery has more of a debuff/buff focus; whereas, Suffering focuses on ailments such as DoT’s and proc’s. Also, Treachery buffs the Treacherous Assault opener and Suffering buffs the Enfeebling Strike opener.
My 2nd point of misconception diffusion: the most pivotal class ability, the opener, gives it one of three options each designed for a specific archetype; furthermore, one of the three career mastery trees for a Witch Elf is completely desined as an anti-tank/melee DPS tree; whereas, the other two are a mix that leans toward supporting the previously stated tree.
Continue to “Witching Witch Elves: The Misconception Pt. 3″
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