The Warlord


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style="font-weight: bold;">Warlord
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/93781/"> style="font-weight: bold;">Calling: Warrior

Role:
Support

Primary Attributes:
STR/END



style="font-style: italic;">Rift has
gone a long way towards dispelling some of our preconceived notions
about what roles certain classes can perform and how they perform them.
While some souls are brazen in their defiance of standard convention,
the Warlord is a bit more subtle about it. Typically used in
conjunction with tanking builds, the Warlord is a support soul that
buffs allies, debuffs opponents and can change the shape of battle with
their timely enhancements.

 


Pros

  • Excellent threat generation
  • High synergy with other tanking souls
  • Support role offers more non-conventional gameplay

Cons

  • Direct damage output is weaker than other souls
  • Viability limited to larger groups
  • Slowest leveling soul in warrior calling




Overview



Most warriors are all about hacking, slashing, tanking and
spanking. The Warlord is fine those conventions, but adds an element of
strategy into the mix as well – less meat and more shield if you will.
Warlords make excellent off-tanks in raid situations as they can
simultaneously increase damage output, reduce incoming damaging and
park hostile mobs until the raid is ready to dispatch them. While most
of the Warlord’s abilities are user controlled, some are reactive and
require timing and proper cooldown management to be most effective.


Solo Play



Solo play is the least effective utilization of the Warlord and
using it as a primary soul would result in a comparatively slow
leveling experience. This doesn’t mean it can’t be done however,
especially if the Warlord is a secondary or tertiary soul. Featuring
statistical buffs to virtually every facet important to the warrior,
Warlord enhancements are an excellent tool for many tanking builds and
players will want to learn to incorporate them into their repertoire
earlier rather than later.


Group Play



Like beer and pretzels, the Warlord was made for parties and in
this case the bigger the better. Raid groups are where the soul really
begins to shine, even though its effectiveness can be felt at all
levels of group play. Not to beat the analogy horse to death, but the
Warlord is a lot like 3M – it makes things better. Warlords can stack
Calls, Orders and Distractions to increase the damage done by allies
and increase damage taken by enemies to reap huge DPS gains. The
Warlord isn’t a passive participant though by any means, many of the
Distractions are coupled to several abilities that greatly increase
their threat generation – which is where they become efficient and
powerful off-tanks. 

Pairs Best With


Paladin



While Paladins have impressive levels of mitigation, the added
protection from Warlord abilities can create a formidable tank that
healers will gravitate to. Any of the callings three tank souls will
find benefit in pairing with the Warlord, but the synergy with the
Paladin is unmatched. Both No Permission to Die and That Which Doesn’t
Kill Me fit well into the Paladin’s world; granting a protective
ability that saves a party member from certain death and a passive self
heal whenever you’re the victim of a critical strike respectively.


Beastmaster



After all this talk about the Warlord being a defensive/support
soul and a perfect off-tank, it seems counter-intuitive to suggest
pairing it with a DPS soul, but there is a method to the madness. It is
true that there is undeniable strength in linking this soul with other
tanking souls, but the flip side is a DPS centric support build – and
the Beastmaster is the perfect soul to make that happen. The
Beastmaster not only has several beneficial damage increasing abilities
but at as few as 10 points spent will grant increased armor and reduce
incoming damage – not to mention the free pet.


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Last Updated: Mar 29, 2016

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