Class Confusion, Part 2

I made an effort to at least log into all my characters of the other four classes and have a bit of a play around.

Wizard: This one probably felt the least changed so far, with all of my favourite abilities seemingly still present, but similar to the rogue it still didn't feel quite right. The control aspect just wasn't entirely there and using the same rotation I used to use, instead of enemies getting locked down I just got punted around a lot and my damage output generally felt weak. It's possible that I missed something when setting up the feats; will have to investigate.

Ranger: Similar to the wizard, this one doesn't feel like it's changed a lot; it was just so much weaker in terms of damage output. Maybe it's a gear scaling thing and they'll all feel stronger again once at the new level cap.

Paladin: No more healing and doing damage (even a little) at the same time, bah! And they gave them a similar divinity mechanic to the cleric's, which I'm not a huge fan of. I may have to play a bit more to be able to make a definitive judgement, but my first impression is that like with the barbarian, they ruined another of my favourite classes.

Fighter: Like with the warlock, I don't actually have very detailed memories of playing this one, but I certainly wasn't a fan of the class's gameplay in the past. That said, the new seethe mechanic for the dps spec actually feels like it could be fun, setting up combos of first blocking damage and then hitting all the harder for it.

So far, it seems that the classes that I liked have mostly been made less fun, while a couple of the ones I didn't like have been improved a little. Homogenisation achieved?

Stag Do

The Sylvan Stag is an old mount, added to the game way back during the Sharandar campaign, but it was the first and only lockbox mount that I recall ever actually wanting. Not enough to actually take part in Neverwinter's lockbox shenanigans, mind you - and the price on the auction house was always prohibitively high for a casual player like me.

The recent appearance of these stags in Nostura's Forest reminded me to have another look to check the current rate they were going for, and lo and behold, they were only a fraction of what they used to be! Still by no means cheap, but affordable even to me, so I finally gave in and purchased one. I decided to give it to my hunter ranger since that seemed most thematically appropriate, and my cleric main has enough other mounts that suit her anyway.

The only thing that remains mysterious to me is why the price has dropped so much. A (very) cursory Google search seemed to indicate that a lot of previously rare mounts and companions have been added as (also rare) reward drops to dungeon and skirmish chests, which would certainly explain it. Good times for me in any case.

Hunter Ranger

My hunter ranger hit 70 this past week, and while that gave me reason to celebrate, I've also been somewhat disappointed by the class.

Initially I was really pleased with the way hunter rangers switch between ranged and melee combat, especially as it features some very cool animations. It reminded me of the days when my hunter in WoW could also dual wield and would hamstring opponents that came in too close, despite of being a predominantly ranged class.

However, while levelling up I quickly found that trying to fight at range became more and more tedious, with poor kiting options that just result in every solo fight being a slow and tiring dodge-fest. Somewhat bizarrely, my characters' abilities' power levels and fun factor also seem to be inverse to their cooldown, which is to say that my dailies are boring and useless, while spamming my at-wills seems to be the way to go most of the time. Alas, I guess me and the HR weren't meant to be.