My World of Warcraft toon of awesomeness, Aogail, is the 16th best geared Holy Paladin in her entire realm. (There are 308 of us Holy Paladins in the realm total.) Besides the commentary that this must unavoidably make on the status of me having a life, hello? it’s probably clear that I’ve put some work into this girl. She is now busily progressing through what is known as “end-game” content–the final boss challenges, and doing pretty well at it, too.
She does have a secondary spec–Retribution Paladin. Each possible character class has three specifications–for some classes, the differences aren’t enormous, but for Paladins, they rather are. A Holy Paladin is a healer; the other two class specs, Protection and Retribution, are for melee combat. A Protection Paladin is what’s known in the parlance of the game as a “tank;” this type of Paladin directs as many attacks from the group’s enemies at herself as possible, and her main ability is to absorb massive amounts of damage without dying and to keep the enemies’ attention as exclusively as possible focused on herself. A Retribution Paladin is what’s known as a “dps;” that stands for “damage-per-second” and is, obviously, designed to kill as many of the group’s enemies as possible, as quickly as possible.
What I think is interesting is how very different an impression the full gear and weaponry set for each of her two specs looks. The first pic below is of her in her Holy (healing) set; the second pic is of her in her Retribution (damage) set.
Notice her armor and weapons in the first set? The armor’s all shiny-gold and sky-blue, and her helm only covers half her face and makes her eyes glow golden too. She has a sky-blue sparkling shield in one hand and a shining blue mace in the other. In short, she looks like a well-armored angel.
Now, the second set–she sure doesn’t look like an angel anymore. The color scheme has gone to dead-black and dried-blood red, and her full-face helm’s a lot more reminiscent of the Terminator than anything else. That sword she’s holding is about as long and wide as she is, and it’s the only thing on her that has even the faintest of sparkling auras anymore.
So–healers, pretty and kind! Killers, scary and evil! I find both sets of armor appealing, depending upon my particular mood, heh. The armor sets come in pieces and can be mixed and matched in many combinations, with many different options for each slot–ie, a toon’s chest slot, or wrist slot, or head slot, etc. But you will achieve an overall look if you stick to individual armor pieces that favor a certain specification…I just found it interesting that the creators put enough thought into the different sets of armor to try to achieve a particular visual impression for each character spec on purpose.
That’s impressive attention to detail.
I play in a game where there are angels walking around. In fact I play one of those angels, and thus have given some thought to what pings the ‘angel’ response in British geeks.
Flowing robes with armour over the top work very well. Most of the time, if you look across the field and see an angel, it’s either one you know personally or it’s wearing a long skirt, with same coloured sleeves and some form of armour on its top half, and carrying a sword. Otherwise it doesn’t usually trigger the ‘angel’ response.
I do want a winged helmet for next time. I think this would add something to my currently quite poor impersonation of a divine messenger.
She’s pretty fly no doubt (mr. e would approve).
oh… and why do I get the impression we could make people cry with our geekness???? My initial urge was to type “She’s awesome, but D could take her out at 100 yards!” LOL
YOU COULD because one sucky thing about pallies is that they have no ranged capabilities AT ALL.
just ask mr. e…
He’s got a pretty fly mage. And one of those death knight guys. And like…well, 3 maxed out characters. I’ll put up a pic of one of his characters later. And see, tis all good, because your paly could walk up and punch D in the head and kill her…she’s ALL range (goes with the huge gun). CoH/CoV only goes to 50th level…I have one 50 and a couple 40 somethings. I just could not get into WoW…I really tried….cause see, MY MAN pressured me to game with him and all LOL
You were smart to be a pally. I’m a shaman and we’re pretty weak… I have a hard time fighting people my own level (I’m still in my 60′s). D’oh! Oh well.
The holy healer has a vulnerable and feminine look, the killer loses all femininity… You find that interesting? I find it stereotypical and lacking in imagination.
Frandroid: The killer looks pretty feminine to me. And it’s practicalities that makes the difference typical – a front-line fighter needs more armour and better weapons, while a healer can afford to wear lighter gear.
Not to mention, in WoW the costumes sorta make themselves. And I think the armor look is way sexier!
Frandroid–the color scheme and styling of the armor pieces are the same regardless of toon gender. The healer guys get the same frou-frou golden winged helmet and sparkly blue shield etc. as the ladies do, and honestly, there are a lot more male toons wearing this armor than female toons. WoW is actually one of the least sexist games in terms of the actual game itself (the people playing it are a whole ‘nother story sometimes, unfortunately) out there.