As we’ve seen detailed over the past few weeks, Neverwinter’s Undermountain expansion is bringing a lot of new things to the table, especially to the MMO’s classes. We’ve had peeks at Cleric and Paladin changes, then Warlocks and Fighters, and now it’s the turn of the Rogue and the Great Weapon Fighter.
Rogues, by all accounts, are going to remain their same stab-happy selves as one would expect, with the biggest change being to the class’ paragon paths. The devs are seeking to make each path distinct, with the Assassin path focusing more on leaping from the shadows and adding poisons, and the Whisperknife using misdirection and a new At-Will Shuriken Toss power for a bit of ranged damage.
The biggest changes are to the Great Weapon Fighter, which is being renamed to Barbarian. As detailed before, tanks are getting lots of adjustment in regards to healing and threat, along with tweaks to blocking biting in to stamina; for the Sentinel tank path, this means that your “unstoppable” class mechanic will automatically block incoming attacks while you focus on dealing damage to maintain threat — something that will be bolstered by passives that increase threat with every action taken.
The DPS-minded Blademaster Barbarian, meanwhile, will see “unstoppable” renamed to “battlerage” and “determination” renamed to “rage.” These are effectively aesthetic choices, considering they still work much the same as Great Weapon Fighters do on the live game currently. That’s not to say they’re not getting new toys, with such painful sounding abilities as Axestorm, Adamantine Strike, and Bounding Slam.
