It's All a Matter of Class

Hello fellow gamers! Hope everyone is doing good. Welcome to my second blog entry. Just a quick note before we get started, I am writing this blog so far to give the beginning player some good tips and advice. That being said I probably won't be able to cover all possibilities and all rules so feel free to read the other blogs on this site. Some of them are really enjoyable reads. Now I have one other note as well before we get down to business.
I fully planned on writing this article on the flight or fight theme, but I got so involved in discussing jobs & classes that I kind of ran out of room. So in this blog we will discuss jobs in the game instead of the other theme. Sorry about that. I promise we will catch it in a future blog.

So on with the show! First off we need to start off by understanding the different classes and the job they hold in the game. The online game is a lot like the minis game so we can draw a lot of comparisons. Let's begin:

Now you have a lot of classes in the game: Druid, Warrior, Paladin, Rogue, Hunter, Priest, Shaman, Warlock, Death Knight(not included in the minis game at this time), or Mage. They all have their strengths and weaknesses. But in general every class has their own job in the game. A Priest is a great healer, while the Rogue can smash out a lot of damage. Some classes are hybrid like the Druid, Shaman, or Paladin. They can do more than one job or be geared towards doing something specific. Now that being said here is a list of jobs they do.
Healer, Tank, CC (Crowd Control), or DPS (Damage per second). Both in the online game and the minis game all of these jobs exist. That's one of the reasons why WoW translates so good into multiple game formats. But I digress.....Let's take a look at the terms:

Healer: This is pretty self explanatory. The healers job is to keep everyones HP high. Valuable in the minis game too. Can help you pull a victory out of defeat. Good classes for this: Priest, Druid, Shaman, Paladin.

Tank: What do you think of when you hear the word tank? Some huge machine with heavy armor and a turret to blast through enemies right? Well a tank in WoW is pretty much the same. Well minus the turret! But you get the point. A tank has high defense and abilities to grab the attention (hate, aggro) of an enemy. This is reflected in the minis by the tank having abilities which force adjacent enemies to attack him instead of his weaker health and armor allies. Good tanks: Warriors, Paladins. Any class is your tank if he can hold the agro and live.

Crowd Control (CC): While this ability is in general more important in the online game it is still a very powerful option in the minis as well. Classes: Mage, Hunter, Rogue. Archmage Arugal is a great example of this. His Void Bolt blasts you for up to 7 damage and if that wasn't enough he also slows the characters he hits! And his ability You, Too, Shall Serve! ? Forget about it! Pure control there....

Damage Per Second (DPS): These are your straight up damage dealers. They don't have enough armor to be tanks. But once the tank is holding the enemies hate than the DPS moves in to wreak havoc on the assembled Mobs (enemies). Same in the way minis. Maintaining a steady DPS is still a nice road to victory.

So there you have it. The basic principles of the jobs your toons (characters) will be doing in the game. In the online game you would want to have one of each of these jobs in your party if you can. Now the minis are a different format so you might have only to figures to play with. What to choose? How to build a party that is well balanced? Well, if you wanna break it down to the absolutely most basic idea, did you know that most strategy game builds fall into two major categories? Intrigued? Good. See you next blog.