[Misanthrope Prime]

Iiiiiiiiiii'm back! I didn't get to play all classes, but I /did/ get to play the Disciple, and his Order equivalent. I just had bad luck in that I did not have a chance to play many Destruction classes today.


SWORDMASTER IMPRESSIONS: At first, I was never really that interested in this class, but after playing, I was pleasantly surprised. While confusing at first, I found that, as you went up in stances, from normal to improved to perfect balance, the moves that you've just unlocked flashed. Because of the swordmaster's nature, he had a good many skills available to him. The initial skills are typically DD, the improved balance skills
typically have a side effect and the perfect balance ones not only strike twice, but have a side effect as well. The swordmaster could also enchant his blade, the two enchants either added extra spirit damage or sapped strength. I'm seriously considering playing one. However, a minor gripe- the swordmaster's ponytail clipped through his helmet, though I'm sure that'll change come release.

ADDITIONAL SHADOW WARRIOR IMPRESSIONS: I got the chance to play a shadow warrior at level 20, and while most of what I said while leveling him still applied, I have to say, this guy is a long-range damage beast. I got a chance to use skirmish mode, and while in skirmish your auto-attack changes to the bow, and yes, he does shoot forward as I suggested. You're not supposed to do anything but harass in skirmish mode- it's to do a bit of damage until you can snare or knockdown your enemy and get away into scout mode to pour on more long range pain.

ADDITIONAL DISCIPLE IMPRESSIONS: After being meeting a man who is only known as "dude with long hair" who posts on this very forum (YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE!), I decided to try the disciple again... after he made a point of killing my shadow warrior repeatedly and topping the healing charts (and he was damn good at it!). I did better with the disciple the second time around, reinforcing my previous statement that he (and the warrior priest) just have a larger learning curve than other classes, the main reason why I sucked at the disciple? The skill layout on the actionbar was just... random. I'd much prefer to have all my DD skills together, all my DoT skills together, and all my heals together. This leads me into the...

WARRIOR PRIEST IMPRESSIONS:
I had the same problem here- the skills were arranged randomly and were rather disorienting. Also, for a guy in heavy armor, the warrior priest goes down rather easy. While the disciple has many DoT spells, the WP has a bunch of cripples and snares, logically based around breaking kneecaps.

ARCHMAGE IMPRESSIONS: The archmage was also fun to play, though even squishier than the WP. His skills clearly say "builds high magic" and "expends high magic", and high magic is NOT, I repeat, NOT a bar. It's kind of like... five points, to the right of your action bar, that build up every time you use a damaging spell. Unlike the WP of DoK, who /need/ to do damage to heal, the archmage just has the action point cost of his beneficial spells reduced, to the point where many become entirely free with enough high magic points. He also had a AP drain and a channeled spell that was quite damaging.

ZEALOT IMPRESSIONS:
Like the shadow warrior from yesterday, I played a Zealot from level 1 in PvP, getting him up to level 3 before it was time to go. The chaos starting area is really nice, truly distinct- you begin fighting zombies and wraiths, meet a skaven hiding in a graveyard, fight Imperial spearmen and kill beastmen. I didn't get to experience the zealot's unique mechanic, though I know it revolves around buffing, debuffing and AoEs, I had only unlocked one buff, debuff and no AoEs at the time. Something that discouraged me, however, was that I could wear a piece of armor, a kind of plain yellow robe, that was identical to the guy playing the DoK next to me. However, it was a statless piece of armor, and everything with stats was unique to the class.

OTHER: I arrived late, so I missed the Warhammer panel initially, though I did get to meet briefly with Jeff and The Hickman. Here's something you High Elf players may like, however- I took a peak into my DoK's ToK and went through the bestiary. Under high elves, you had the archmage, sword master et cetera... and... the white lion. Folks, if this isn't confirmation, I don't know what is.

I also went to a generic MMO panel hosted by TenTonHammer which I'm sure you can find floating around the internet- I was the guy who asked the question about roleplaying.