Get mad at me all you want for being the asshole but I have and always will give it to you guys as straight as I can to help people get better. I did flip my lid a little about you guys losing but that's because when KGB gets beat I am the one that most people trash talk to and I got several earfulls lol.

Now to those of you saying I need to play before I talk blah blee blah especially CHEERIO you silly man *remember who you are talking to* I have been playing and I have seen what near end game stats are going to look like and what the damage/mitigation is at this moment.

I cannot tell you the toon name I was given access to or which group it belongs to but I will tell you that mages will be the biggest threat at about the 2 1/2 month mark.

83 int with an R7 staff and 75 in all of the ele spells except heat stroke which is in the low 50's.

Magma Bombs: are landing 90'ish damage hits with the awesome knock up tacked on. The knock up is not as predictable as original DF but you can still land 1 slow cast or 2 quickies if your aim is good.

Heat Stroke: I saw Hare's post about heat stroke in the plate warrior thread and it is pretty good but I think the blinds are going to be far more useful than trying to stam drain a warrior. ultimately you are better off dealing damage as then a warrior ahs to burn all 3 heals to stay alive which gives you more time to deal damage while he is in death spin recovery mode.

Thunderbolt:I was hitting plate for 40. Super turbo dps spell that in group pvp is amazing and will most likely be your bread and butter. We were doing 3v3's and having 1 primary CC caster with 2 others spamming this just to see how fast you could bring someone down. It's pretty sick.

Lightning bolt: Spell is way too good. Solid damage hitting plate for almost 60 in the face and blinding...just holy hell

Tornado: Good luck melee. KB and blind as a defensive cast

Static field: I use this offensively as the cast time is a little slow but if you know a melee is coming for you and you can get the cast off just pull after cast and melee them in their face. I have seen a ton of melee kill them selvves by attacking me when I jump into their face. And then if they move away to use range you get free melee hits because they have to bow you. 15 seconds is a long long time to keep a melee from hitting you. (Funny story) Just to see what would happen a buddy of mine took his mage and went and baited some newbies with the field up...the 3 newbies all killed themselves on static field while just getting tanked)

Fireball: been dealing a steady 50 damage to plate wearers.

These are just the main abilities I have been fighting with and warrior mains are getting tooled left and right. We even did some dueling and I watched several ele mains out melee true meleer's.

Statting is going to be huge and a super grind in an of itself. The devs have been discussing raising stat caps per races like orks and mahirrim getting up to 120 strength etc etc...but I really don't see them doing that since it would still be unbalanced...then again it is aventurine we are talking about.

It all comes down to skill with any range as DF is and has always been a shooter with melee as an afterthought. Granted in team fights having a warrior or 2 will be nice to keep pressure on mages but ultimately CD management on a warrior while chasing and reacting to a mage in an openfield fight is going to lead to a warriors demise.

I can tell you that brawler is 501527761126391203912435788 times better than battlebrand as the movement they get is really nice and you as a brawler will have to be a jetfighter pilot to really stick to people. I like a lot of the brawler skills but only had a 40% success rate in a 10 duel series and keeping your top end gear 24/7 will be rough. Get good at cav fighting if you plan on melee and I suggest maxing your 1 hand mace jsut like original DF.

Now I have seen a couple of really really badass warriors(whose strangest winning strategy right now is to fight on top of a mountain and use knockback lol) but the meta is and will continue to favor mages on the top end. (I say this but right now without the other mage class in I can't make a guess as to which is going to play better.

Have not seen anyone mess too much with earth/water yet so I can't do anything but theorycraft on those.

Melee will have its place in close quarter combat (tower assault, small dungeons etc etc but we did a test with 3 mages stacking on top of each other with static field and watched 2 super warriors rip themselves to shreds as they took X6 reflective damage) and as ship deck marines but you will really have to get good with bows and make sure you always have top end armor and weapons which over the long run I think will be more expensive than just playing as a mage.

As to PVE...Right now I have not done much pve because I don't care for it at all and have been jumping on my buddies toon to duel and fight around with. I hear though that the mega camps are already getting perched (IDK if this will be the same in launch or if changes are going to be made but on that end the game is more of the same.)

I leave you with a very good quote from mmorpg.com

Darkfall UW is not a sanbox mmo. It's a pvp arena with limited crafting & pve.

With my new job and training for yet another certification I won't have time to grind at all and although I love full loot I just cannot put myself in a position of frustration when I will have to fight guys with mega toons and just can't compete based on stats.

If piercing damage gets a little better I may level bow skills to join you guys for major fights but the grind time frame is too much for me right now. (YES I AM A BIG OL BABY AND HATE LOSING!!! NA NA NA NA BOO BOO!!!)

[Linked Image from nodiatis.com]