The Conqueror

In my opinion the Conqueror is a very potent class in PvP. It has double the hp of the demonologist and necromancer. He can wear heavy armor, and dishes out decent damage. You run out of stamina fast though, as this is used for three things in particular. All of their combo's use stamina, sprinting drains stamina pretty quick as does charging, but moving while hiding also uses stamina. If you get into a melee battle with a caster and you have stamina to burn, in my experience, you will usually win.

Melee is very visceral, lots of blood flying around, and you have to get in and stay close! Keep your target in front of you if you swing. You can swing regardless of range, so if the target is out of range as you fire off the big one, tough. It's now on cooldown. I found it to be a good new challenge, and a welcome relief from the normal melee system that most MMORPG’s use.

You perform a combo by starting it with a given skill and then following up with the directional keys in the order displayed on your screen. For my weapon I went with a two-handed sword as it just seemed cooler, and the two-handed abilities at this level seemed more suited for PvP. One-handed was good for tanking and two-handed had knockback. They have one tree for dual wielding, and one for two-handed.

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style="font-style: italic;">The Necromancer can summon many undead minions.

The Necromancer and Demonologist

These casters are squishy, low on hitpoints, and wear lighter armor. They play a lot like traditional MMORPG casters. Both classes have pets, though the necromancer has more. At this level the demonologist has a choice of one pet called the incubus. it buffs your mana and fires a weak fire bolt. The necromancer has three pet points at this level, which I could split between 2 minions, namely a zombie, or a flesh zombie. Both can melee. The pet control system is pretty easy to use. You have five commands, assist, follow, attack target, defend and passive. This controls your entire group of pets, and they have no other active abilities to use.

Both classes have damage spells. The necromancer uses unholy and frost, while the demonologist is fire and electrical. Frost and electrical seem to be the crowd control (CC) trees (roots, stuns and slows), while unholy and fire focus more on damage. The demonologist does varying degrees of Area of Effect (AoE) with most of his spells. The necromancer seems to focus more on Damage Over Time (DoT). Both of these classes rely heavily on not being smashed in order to deal good damage and survive, so their CC is important. Instant spells are almost non existent, except one instant electrical shock for the demonologist. If they have free play to fire off their spells, they’re quite dangerous. The necromancer has one tree for his pets, and one for frost/unholy damage. The demonologist has one tree for fire and one for electrical.

While playing these classes I also performed a few fatalities, like a fire fatality with the demonologist. Whenever this one triggers your victim stands there screaming like a maniac whilst on fire, waving his arms, until he drops to the ground dead. With the electricity, you get electrocuted, before spasming to the ground. Melee gets more bloody ones like chopping your head off, or gutting you. After these fatalities your screen gets spattered with blood and you get a short buff. Yes, they are pretty damn cool.

Conclusion

So, is it worth all the hype? Is it ready for launch? For me, I can answer with a definite yes. I might’ve only sampled a small portion of the game, but keeping in mind that this is still only beta it seems well on its way to being what Funcom promised on release. See you in Hyboria!

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