Blade and Soul is an action-RPG MMO coming out of the Korean developer NCSoft. The game combines colorful environments and characters with a combat system heavily focused on stylish martial arts. This week, the developer revealed a new class for the game: The Force Master.
Force Masters are a class that blend fire and ice to offer a double faceted style dependent upon balancing offense, defense, and battlefield control. Fire acts as the offensive platform for the style, offering direct and area-of-effect attacks, also allowing the player to stack damage and burn away their enemy’s defenses. Ice offers defensive and set-up strategies. Players will use ice to protect themselves from a dangerous situation, freezing enemies, or even themselves to avoid damage. In addition, bold players will using the advantage of a helpless frozen enemy to jump to their fire aspect and deliver punishment.
Force Masters have a lot of options at their disposal, but as a magic-heavy combatant, it comes at the cost of being fragile outside their magical defenses. A player that gets caught out without the proper escapes or protection in place will be easily dispatched by opportunistic opponents. Balancing attacks and defense is paramount to survival as a Force Master.
Blade and Soul was announced for beta in late October. The first and second closed betas have concluded with three more scheduled. The next, in which the Force Master will be playable, will be November 24th and can signed up for via the purchase of a Founder’s Pack from the official website.
Blade and Soul is slated for release in early 2016. Progress from the beta will not carry over, but it is a chance to see what the game has to offer and get sneak peaks on everything before it’s full release.
You can see the Force Master in action below.
