Warhammer Online: Slayer Career Guide

The wait is over! Mythic has finally filled out its lineup of character careers by adding the much awaited slayer and choppa careers to the game. By now you've either done the Bitter Rivals event and unlocked your slayer early or have been granted access to the career with the rest of the player base. But what now? How should you play the slayer? What are its weaknesses and strengths? And most importantly, what on earth should you choose for tactics and masteries? Well worry not. This guide will take you through the ins and outs of playing the slayer class, top to bottom.

In order for you to understand the class mechanics, you should try and understand what exactly a slayer is. The only thing that dwarfs in Warhammer love more than their beer and their gold is their honor, and when one of them loses it, it's a pretty big deal. Unable to deal with the shame, they strip themselves down, shave their heads into a mohawk, and take up arms hoping to do exactly one thing: fight until they find an honorable foe to die in combat with. Slayers have no fear and even seek death, which makes them pretty scary as opponents and awesome as allies.

As a slayer, you a rolling ball of unstoppable rage, and your class mechanic reflects this. There is a gauge above your characters action bar that displays your level of fury. Green is the base level, you receive no bonuses or penalties at this level. As soon as you enter combat, you start gaining rage, and soon you will enter the second level, Furious! When you are furious, you deal 25% more damage and will be able to use some abilities that are only available when furious. If you keep on fighting, eventually you will become Berserk! When you are berserk, you deal 50% more damage, but your armor and resistance are also reduced by 50%. When in this state, you can do some serious damage, but you are also even squishier than before, so be careful. Paying close attention to your Enrage bar is key to playing a slayer correctly.

As a slayer, you are a Melee DPS career. This means that you get up close and deal out a lot of hurt to whoever happens to be in front of you. Slayers are particularly good at dealing AoE damage, so especially when in RvR, you want to be in the thick of things as much as possible so you can reach your full damage potential. Slayers are also one of the least armored melee careers in the game, so you want to try to stay out of the crosshairs of other melee DPS and ranged DPS careers. If you can stay alive (always a big if with a slayer) you have the potential to do a ton of damage in a short period of time.

The path of the Trollslayer is the first of the slayer masteries and has the most in the way of utility, though like all of the slayer masteries, it has the potential to increase your damage by a great deal. Power through is a great tactic that allows you to keep your rage level even after you use an exhausting blow – while you may have to choose between this and higher damage tactics later on, it's a very useful way to make the most of your rage. The path also includes abilities that reduce the healing of others, slow your enemies down, let you heal, and buff your teammates. The path is pretty strong overall, and its hard to go wrong with Trollslayer.

The path of the giantslayer is based around using great weapons instead of two one-handed weapons. Great weapons do not do significantly more DPS but they have a lot more burst potential than dual wielding. The tree has some extremely powerful single target attacks and a few tactics that provide big bonuses to your exhaustive blows. This tree also has the biggest trade-offs in terms of damage for survivability, so be aware of what you're choosing – it might make you a death machine, but you'll be much easier to kill. General consensus is that the Path of the Giantslayer needs some work, but if you plan to use a great weapon, it's pretty unbeatable.

The Path of the Skavenslayer is all about AoE damage, and it does not disappoint. Some of your most powerful abilities are in this tree, and if you want to do damage to dozens of foes at once, this is where you want to put your points. There are some very powerful tactics in this tree, including Accuracy, which makes your flurry deal damage to three times as many targets, and Takin' Chances, which greatly increases your survivability through healing. The abilities are also all useful, and the moral ability granted by Path of the Skavenslayer, Looks like a Challenge, is a DPS nightmare. This tree is, by all accounts, pretty amazing. If you're not sure where to go as a slayer, this path is hard to beat.

The slayer is still a pretty new class, so expect some changes, and don't be discouraged if things seem off at first. All in all, the class is very well designed – your biggest problem is going to be with staying alive in the higher tiers. Still, if you like doing damage, this is most definitely the class for you.

Be sure to check the MMO channel and it's RSS feed for more Warhammer Articles and the upcoming Warhammer Online: Choppa Guide.

If you liked this guide, make sure to check out these Warhammer Guides as well:

Warhammer Online: Engineer Guide – Part 1

Warhammer Online: Engineer Guide - Part 2

Warhammer Online: Twisting Tower Scenario Preview (WAR)