So I posted my initial thoughts on launch day but I’ve now had the chance to play through to the end of Awakenings and thought I’d share a more detailed review. I’m not going to include spoilers, but I will mention a few “mistakes” that I made and suggest some other ways to do it. So that might be considered a spoiler, but really I look at it as a preferred order to work through the quests. With that said, I’m dying to talk about things so if anyone wants to talk specifics let me know and I’ll open up a Spoiler/Discussion thread.
For my first play-through, I used my Dual-wielding Warrior who I ended up re-specing a couple of times as I progressed and unlocked more of the specializations. The new spec lines are MUCH better then the original ones and they’re all purchasable from the various vendors, so I highly recommend getting them as soon as you can. As I referenced in my previous post, the Greywardens website has the scoop on all these for all the classes so it wouldn’t be a bad idea to check them out ahead of time. Most of the cool skills/abilities can’t be unlocked right away (2nd skill in each line is a level 22 requirement) so you do have some time to get the books and play around a bit with them. I did “cheat” a bit and save my game, buy a respec stone, check out all the specs, and if there wasn’t something I liked re-load my game
I ended up deciding to go with the Spirit Warrior and Guardian specs with the templar spec from the original game. This allowed me to pretty well fit the role of AoE DPS and yet still survive as a tank when need be. Guardian spec has some REALLY handy abilities for keeping agro and protecting the party while the Spirit Warrior line just rocks in general
This combination has crazy defensive bonuses and some really fun AoE skills which make for a great time. For you LOTRO players, think Champion DPS with Warden survivability in heavy armor
Also, the additional abilities in the Warrior line are incredibly useful and I used them in almost every fight. I’m looking forward to really checking out the new rogue stuff and I’m saving my mage for last as there are what appear to be some awesome spells.
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