By Travis
Or So You Weren’t Scared Off
Now that you know the servers and the general demeanor of the other players based off their toon of choice (read: racial profiling for fun and profit), let’s take a look at what roles you can play in the world of warcraft- I mean Azeroth.
ROLES AND CLASSES
For a more general explanation of classes, check out my first article. As for a character’s role, each class can be summed up in one of three categories:
TANK
Or the one who gets hit. The Tank is vital to dungeon runs and raids. In a given party (not the kind full of drunk jocks/annoying Coach Purse bitches) a good Tank is vital for the survival of the group. The Tank must be out in front of the group capturing the attention of all the baddies which, believe it or not, takes a lot more than a couple of “yo mama” jokes and a crotch grab. The main classes for Tanks are:
Warrior
Pretty much 90% of Warriors you meet in game are Tanks. This class is designed to take abuse; they can wear the heaviest armor, use the biggest weapons, and get the biggest shields (which really screams “compensation” if you ask me). They even have a move called “Challenging Shout” which gets the attention of all the enemies within a 10 yard radius (read: shouting “all insert monster name here masturbate while thinking about their mothers,” before raising your shield).
…You know, anyone with spikes those big on his shoulders clearly isn’t trying to make up for anything at all…
Paladin
It’s kind of hard to put a Paladin into a specific role, since each of their three specialties (A.K.A. “specs”) fall into a different role (Paladins, such goody two shoes that they can’t be happy with just doing one role in a party, they got to take up them all). However, a lot of Paladins that I’ve run across are Tanks, since they also have the great little ability to protect themselves from damage and heal themselves while fighting (which in PVP areas reads: DON’T YOU DARE BUBBLE HEAL YOU SON OF A –dammit)
Because when all else fails, Paladins can say “I don’t want to play anymore and I’m telling on you” before running home to cry.
Death Knight
As with the Paladin, Death Knights (DKs) have different roles depending on their spec. Another note is that DKs are really varied in how good they can play (read: will either stomp your face in or die by blade of grass). Most classes have a few bad players, but a lot of decent to great players. But the fact that DKs are only available at level 55 and look badass a lot of the n00b players play a character to 55 then abandon without learning the game play more and just get a DK rushed to level 85 (as of this article that is the maximum level). So before you run into a dungeon with a DK as your Tank always see how well they can play.
“LOOK AT HOW AWESOME I AM!!!! Now how do I move my character again?”
DPS
AKA damage per second AKA the one who kills things dead
DPS classes focus on killing the monsters that the tanks are distracting. There are two basic types of DPS: Regular and Ranged.
Regular DPS classes are mainly Rogues, who use shadows and stuns to deliver a lot of damage to enemies without them being able to hit back (read: “Why can’t I move? Where did that rogue come from? WHY CAN’T I MOVE YET!?”). Paladins, Warriors, and Druids (read: GODDAMN DIRTY HIPPIE-shit, I’m dead…) all have specs that allow them to excel at smashing the faces of anyone who crosses their path.
That guy in the middle is about to know what swiss cheese feels like and that woman to the right will know what it’s like to have night terrors for the rest of her life.
Ranged DPS (RDPS) is almost all magic users, Mages, Warlocks both use magic to make their enemies shit blood. Shamans are mainly RDPS, which is really helpful since otherwise they’re usually dead within five hits upclose. Druids also have a ranged DPS form, known as boomkin, that are usually deal the most damage in raids (or basically, they talk a big game about communing with nature, but then melt nature’s face off). The only non-magic RDPS is the Hunter class, which opts to use bullets (and buckshot) and arrows to turn anyone who crosses them into a computer punch card like corpse.
Whatever is about to happen is going to be very unpleasant for you…
Healz
Or RESTORE ALL THE HP!!!
Healers are the most vital part to any raid or dungeon party. They must focus on keeping everyone alive while they shoot, hit, or get hit. The only class that is mainly healers is the Priest class. Unlike real world priests, these ones only touch adults. Druids have yet another spec that also excels at healing (and they decide to make themselves look like a tree to boost their healing powers #wtf), proving that the damn hippies are so selfish and lonely that they decide to play all roles by themselves. Not as often, but pretty common healers are the Paladin and Shaman classes. They do decent healing, but they’re usually secondary in choice to the Priest and Druids.
“Why are you all looking at me like that? You don’t look like a tree when you heal?”
Now that you now the roles and a bit of the classes, tune in next time for what you can do in game for entertainment, aside from touching yourself to the dancing Belfs.
Questions, comments, or pissed off rants for glossing over your favorite class and spec? Feel free to leave them in the comments section below.
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