To stab or not to stab...

Like most players, as the release date of a new game approaches, I start to ponder on my choice of which classes to role. Unless you are one of the people fortunate enough to have been given access to the Beta, your only recourse will be to troll the official sites and pick up tidbits of info off any unofficial forums you can find.

As my previous posts have alluded to, I'm pretty excited about Age of Conan but a fair amount of that comes from the fact that it will reunite a lot of my friends who are currently scattered amongst different games and different servers around the world.

At the same time, I've just received my signup email for Stargate Worlds Beta which is kinda exciting as I can't wait to see what Cheyenne Mountain Games have come up with. I've always been a big fan of SG:1 (and more recently Atlantis) so I hope they can live up to their fans' expectations. That said, if I get in, the NDA becomes applicable so i can't even tell any of you what a good time I'm having trying to break it for them :P

Anyway, back to classes.

Detailed information on SG:W is decidedly sparse at the moment, but AoC has released a full overview on all their classes. Look a bit further down the page for the link if you haven't seen it yet.

Having spent the last week or so deliberating, I've settled on a choice - the decision of which I will share with you in due course.

I will tell you straight away, however, what I WONT be doing.

I will NOT be picking up a sword as, for some reason, I can't do melee.

It's official.

I'm a swordtard.

I couldn't hit the side of a bus with a halberd, even if my characters life depended on it.

My first foray into the world of melee was back in Star Wars Galaxies. Once an old friend of mine had explained the mechanics and recommended templates for levelling up, I rolled a Swordsman / Doctor. A truly great combination, capable of decent damage and healing. The fact that Master Doctor buffs also sold for a decent wedge and made you instantly rich in godlike proportions was just a bonus.

An '8 digit personal credit balance' bonus!

Now, the thing is, SWG made it all seem fairly easy and I ended up staying with that spec until the time I decided to grind out my Jedi...

*baaa baaa*

Yeah, I'm a sheep. Shut up.

At least I got mine before it became a class you could pick from the character select screen, ok?

...but having spent quite a bit of time with whacking squills on Tatooine with sharp pointy metal things made me think I could play a rogue or fury warrior when I left like a sheep to play WoW.

How wrong can one guy be?

Very. Trust me.

If any of you have had the misfortune to come up against a good rogue in a Warcraft battleground, you'll know where I'm going with this. I can fully appreciate the timing involved in getting certain attacks off and removing the ability of your opponent to even get a single shot off.

I just cant do it.

I see these players flinging their rogues around, jumping around like a kangaroo on amphetamines and know that it's just one class I will never be able to get to grips with.

Now, give me some cloth robes and the ability to fling fiery balls of death at unsuspecting rabbits as I wander around Elwynn Forest and we're talking business!

I am a caster.

I will ALWAYS be a caster.

I want to rain fire/ice/disease/the occasional flaming rabbit down on my unsuspecting foes.

I want to curse my foes so vehemently with dark magicks that they curl up in a withered foetal position begging to be taken to their mommies.

/Dutch Accent
"It's just kinda my thing ja?!"

So, all that said, feel free to take a look at this selection here and take one guess which piece of juicy evilness I will be opting for.

Not difficult is it?

I'll give you a clue "They summon and command the undead, and they are legion. Their ghoulish minions are capable of tearing men apart or casting their own death magic."

I'll give you another clue, 'cause I'm nice like that: The class rhymes with Kekromancer!

"The dark magic wielded by necromancers ranges from the unholy to pestilent corruption and the freezing touch of death. Through careful study they can develop the ability to call corpses from the earth to rise up and surround a foe or even attain lichdom, turning themselves into terrifying undead archmages."

Y'see? I don't know about you, but there's just something inherently satisfying about 'flinging poo' at your opponents (as my friend Ben calls it). The ability to DoT them up SOOOOO bad that their character logs itself out for half an hour without their permission, just to recover.

Now I hate to compare any game to WoW, especially as so many people tend to use it as a benchmark these days, but this Necro class seems to be a perfect amalgam of mage, warlock and shadow priest. Having only had the chance to speak to several friends (who are currently enjoying their last month in the testing of AoC) as opposed to sampling it firsthand, I can only go on what they are telling me. Their impressions are honest but favourable and it seems that my suspicions about the Necro class are pretty much dead on; fairly squishy early on but they come into their own in their later lives...like most caster classes.

Either way, I think I may have one less dilemma to worry about when I finally reach the character creation screen.

Now...what to call him?!

I think it's time for the return of...