Tabula Rasa: The Soldier

The Soldier class is the intro to the combat line of TR's class tree. As such, I think it performs its function tolerably well. There isn't a tremendous amount of distinction at this tier, but really levels 5-15 are more about learning game mechanics than class roles, and the tools the soldier has available work fairly well for that purpose.

There are four Soldier-specific skills, and I tried out all of them. Since they're the real distiguishing factor, I'll focus on them for the purposes of this review. (Attributes are non-class-specific, and crafting is its own topic.)

Rage: Rage is on the verge of being drastically altered, so I'm mostly going to skip it, other than to note that I'm not very good with remembering to buff myself regularly. It was pretty awesome when I did remember to use it, but that's probably at least partially because it's 5x as powerful as intended.

Shrapnel: This one was fun - it's a point-blank AoE effect, handy for those tight situations. It has a longer cast time than I'd really like, but it seemed to do pretty decent damage, and AoE always makes me happy. I may play with it further on my melee clones (I can't see it being too useful on a sniper, though.)

Machine Guns: I can't imagine why you wouldn't put at least one point in this. I saved my chainguns for heavy targets like Kael and mortars - they're ammo eaters and you can really go through cash if you use them too much - but situationally, they were invaluable.

Reflective Armor: Again, why not put a point in it? In these lower levels, you level past armor far too quickly to cling to any particular piece, so I used the best stuff I had at the moment, type be damned. The concept is fascinating, though, and I like the idea of different advantages to full-suit vs. piecemeal armor.

Overall, the skills seem reasonably well-chosen to give players a taste of upcoming decisions. The idea of armor types that are more complex than simply "good, better, best" is a critical one, even if the actual choice isn't critical this early. Shrapnel is reflective of skills to come (carpet bombing and scourge, in particular) and Rage is a nice differentiator between Soldier and Specialist. I was able to solo the Wilderness instances with sufficient but not excessive challenge, and I definitely got a solid grip on how to play a heavy combat character.

The only real lack was in melee combat - other than critical kills, I really don't have any taste of how that would work. Hand-to-hand doesn't make much sense when it severely damages your weapon, plus the shotgun has beautiful knockback and is well-suited to those kinds of close-quarters situations. I was originally planning to aim for Spy, but I know I like sniping, and I have no idea if I'd like melee. A melee weapon - even a set of brass knucks - would give players a way to try out that playstyle here, where the stakes are low.

(As it is, the critical kill concept is just bizarre - distance and cover are your best advantages. Why on earth would you give them up? But that's a rant for another day.)