Class Confusion

I'm slowly getting used to the new cleric mechanics. I still haven't figured out divinity management in my healing spec, but hopefully I'll get there.

The real problem is that I have seven more characters that I don't have a clue how to play now. Levelling them over the course of several years, I had plenty of time to get acquainted with how each one worked at least on a casual level. Now they've all had their mechanics changed, powers and boons reset, and I'm basically lost.

I have tentatively started logging into a few of them to get an idea of where things stand with other classes, and my first impressions can mostly be summed up as "uncomfortable":

Rogue: The basic mechanics (stealth etc.) of this one don't seem to have changed - thank god - however unfortunately the build I used to run with no longer exists. I used to rely on certain abilities having synergies (use A to trigger B and reset the cooldown on C) that are no longer in the game, so I did a lot of flailing about wondering why things weren't coming off cooldown as expected. Will need to look up a new build at some point.

Barbarian: I was crushed to find that Battlerage (formerly Unstoppable) no longer grants temporary hitpoints. It was a key part of the ability that it combined an incentive to not bother with dodging out of the red circles (the control immunity) with the ability to survive standing in them for a few seconds. The new version grants a slight damage reduction instead but that's not nearly as good. Not sure where to go with this one.

Warlock: This was the class I knew the least about since it was the last one I levelled, which has the advantage that I'm feeling less pain from my previous knowledge being made redundant now. I never really "got" warlocks, and the new and improved version is even more confusing to me. They have a new resource bar that doesn't seem all that great and depletes so rapidly that I feel like I should constantly hurry from combat to combat to avoid "wasting" the resource, which I don't like at all. But hey, I never liked the class much to begin with, so I guess this one's no big loss.

Scourge Warlock Quests

I've previously written about how Neverwinter's class and race quests are a kind of under-appreciated feature, and while levelling my warlock I was fascinated to see how Cryptic had initially iterated on the concept before abandoning it. You see, unlike the other classes, the Scourge Warlock doesn't have to hunt down quest givers in the middle of nowhere with nothing but a letter as a hint: They get their very own warlock friend hanging out in Protector's Enclave, making it much harder to miss her quests.

These also felt much more condensed than the chains for other classes, with a lot of them pouring in quickly during my warlock's early levels, and the whole chain coming to a conclusion as early as level 30. The finale was pretty epic as well, with my warlock descending to the nine hells to meet her patron and being told that her tiefling "mentor" had a debt with the demon that would have some dire results for her unless you were willing to pick up the tab. I took the "nice" option and saved her, but I wonder what happens if you sell her out...

Tyranny of Dragons Trailer

I'm a bit late commenting on this, but about ten days ago IGN posted a gameplay trailer for Tyranny of Dragons, the upcoming fourth module (mini-expansion) for Neverwinter.



It doesn't really show anything amazing, just some characters fighting a couple of new monster models in familiar-looking locations. The implication to me seems to be that this module won't follow the "new area with dailies" model but will instead add new content to existing zones. This is neither particularly good nor bad in my eyes; it just makes me wonder about how exactly accessing the new content is going to work.

Also, a small detail I really liked: "The Scourge Warlock uses forbidden lore and long-forgotten ancient secrets to power her magic." I suppose it's sad that I still have to find this remarkable at all, but too many gaming companies still default to always casting their heroes as male characters.