Blade & Soul delivers an engaging story and vibrant world for players to explore. In the game, players must fight to avenge the death of their fallen master in a classic Wuxia storyline. Wuxia, which literally means "martial hero", is a broad genre of Chinese fiction concerning the adventures of martial artists in ancient China. As players explore the world in Blade & Soul, they will see a fusion of Asian cultures that delivers stunning landscapes and vistas.

Blade & Soul defies typical MMO conventions, delivering action-based combat with ability combos and a flexible party role system that does not require dedicated healers. It gives players unprecedented movement abilities around the world as their characters leap over mountains and fly through the air.

The Warlock class will become available in Blade & Soul on March 2 with the Unchained update.

Harnessing dark magics, the Warlock is a medium-ranged caster that relies on empowered Talismans—floating supernatural writings that can be consumed or unleashed to great effect—to protect or attack.

The Warlock is Blade & Soul’s second dedicated ranged class with great power but considerable fragility. Many of their powerful abilities have significant casting times and long cooldowns, requiring one of two strategies to be employed: keep enemies at bay or incapacitated long enough to be able to cast the high damage abilities again, or reduce cooldown times through expert timing of other abilities.

The most iconic aspect of a Warlock is their ability to summon a Thrall as an ally on the field. This Thrall lasts for only a short period of time, but can be useful in engaging an opponent while the Warlock is busy setting up the scene for their next big performance.

 The Warlock in Play

The Warlock needs to eliminate opponents quickly and efficiently, or risk being overwhelmed and easily defeated. As such, their combos need to be set up on either reducing or resetting the cooldowns of their primary damage-dealing abilities—Dragoncall and Wingstorm—or triggering instant-cast scenarios.

In keeping with the shamanistic theme, Warlocks can apply certain afflictions on their enemies. A Brand on an enemy will increase the damage dealt by some spells, whereas a Target on an enemy will allow the Warlock to instant-cast spells and direct the Thrall’s attention.

For party play, the Warlock provides an incredible support buff. Their time-winding abilities can extend out to their party members by triggering Soulburn, which resets the cooldown of everyone’s skills, and gives them the Awakened state. When active, specific abilities for each class will also become Awakened, and receive a big power boost on top of the general buff.

In Arena PvP, the Warlock has a pretty substantive set of defensive skills to accompany their powerful offensive skills, but still suffers from a glass cannon status that could be easily exploited. The Thrall should be used tactically as their cooldown cannot be reset and their presence alerts the opponent for the potential for highly powered abilities activating upon the Thrall’s sacrifice. Prioritizing instant-cast abilities, fast casting speed, and skills that pierce defenses over high-damaging abilities can all help to ensure the Warlock can hold their own competitively against the other classes.