Cheers!
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I think there should only be one article for classes since your masteries will eventually have a second one unless you’re doing a single mastery run on purpose.
Also, while most of the classes in the list is okay (top 5 is mostly those 5 you have but in a different order depending on who you’re asking), I almost stopped reading when I saw battlemage on top 10. Battlemage is like bottom 3 class in the game.
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The title says “as a newer player”, and Battle Mage shines in that case.
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If a new player picked battlemage without game knowledge and did well with it, it doesn’t mean it’s any better than literally any other soldier combo.
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Given this:
“ The Battlemage is a combination of the Soldier and Arcanist masteries and is a great choice for a starter class. As a Battlemage, you have access to powerful passive and toggle buffs, as well as useful leveling abilities that are accessible early on in the skill tree, allowing you to have both respectable damage output, and survivability.”
I’m going to assume he’s talking for strict beginners who just need to get to 100. Which is easily doable and the points he made are true.
I think beginner stuff should always come with a warning something like:
“These will get you through the game (ie, campaign) but it’s good to start this and do this because you will find future characters potentially better suited for endgame. “
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Another reason Battle Mage is commonly suggested for beginners is Krieg’s set, which does support Arcanist.
Not really. Even getting to 100 is harder with battlemage compared to other soldiers. His points on battlemage emphasize forcewave and forcewave support - arcanist doesn’t give anything meaningful to forcewave unless you’re going aether which you likely can’t do until level 94 with krieg. Second point he brought up is toggle buffs, and half of those is on soldier. Maiven doesn’t make you any tankier early game than say spectral binding or heart of the wild. There’s mirror which is probably the only good thing about battlemage early.
@MykolasCole I’m only criticizing battlemage here. The rest of your list is great (I’d change the order tho) but I’d replace baftlemage with dk.
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Thanks for your comments/criticisms. The articles are aimed towards newer players, focusing on easily digestible information and I find battlemage to be a good starting class. Mental alacrity + forcewave is pretty huge. Also at no point did I recommend to stick with forcewave past 94. Again, thanks.
And that can be a huge noob trap. Yes krieg battlemage can be good. If you know what you’re doing. New players often don’t. And while levelling you’ll use physical on bm. When you get krieg you switch to aether, meaning you have to level all the aether devotions from scratch. Nothing feels worse than not knowing you have to grind again because your levelling path is different from the final build. You most likely don’t have access to exp potions by that time too.
Meanwhile dk can just use physical with krieg while still being miles ahead of battlemage in the aether version
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Battlemage isn’t necessarily bad. It has multiple layers of defense inherent to it’s masteries, methods for surviving in emergencies and useful utilities like Null built into it’s masteries. Soldier has 2 decent levelling skills in 2-handed Forcewave and 2-handed Blade Arc and as a nice extra, Assassin’s Mark for Physical damage variants shines better with the large amounts of OA Arcanist adds during the mid and late levels. It’s been shown to have some successful builds for it at endgame as well including ones using Krieg’s set.
The problem I feel end game players like @x1x1x1x2 take with it is once you understand character building, other mastery combos are capable of putting out more damage than it whilst maintaining “good enough” defense. Battlemage can be thought of like a set of training wheels in this regard where it might help someone new learn the game and is certainly viable but for a good chunk of concepts or builds that it can do, there will be something that does it better.
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I agree Death Knight would be better for a slightly more seasoned player. However, I think battlemage is, as you say, easier to learn, like training wheels.
Well, my endgame knowledge and inclination does play a huge part in my opinions but I also had battlemage as 1st char when I was new and it was utter shit.
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I feel like this goes for most people’s first time playing or first characters without any guidance though. The first proper character I played through the game with was a Witchblade in vanilla, one of the most recommended “safe” options back then. For me, it was ridiculously tanky but the damage was awful because I was levelling it with Sword and Board Chaos Cadence.
I think you’re right that Battlemage would be awful without someone pointing a new player in the right direction but I’d also say that goes for 70 or 80% of the combos, it’s not like pets where you can just max those and steamroll Normal/Veteran 
I’m not disagreeing with what you say. But the way I evaluate this is like this:
Conjurer starts with pets and ends with pets. Spellbinder starts with aether and ends with aether. Sorc with fire and so on and so forth. This applies to all classes on the list except battlemage… And warlord (but endgamd warlord is still phys, just retal which is not so hard to transition). Battlemage on the other hand starts with physical and ends with aether. They’re on opposite sides of the world. Unless you somehow obtain all pieces of the spellscourge set by the time you get to 100 which is just not a good assumption to make especially with krieg existing (and even then you have to be valinov tier player to make spellscourge work well).
I’ve seen inexperienced players just use 4-piece Krieg on a BM and continue using Forcewave successfully.
You’re not wrong that you do have to make a switch at some point with Battlemage if someone is levelling one for Aether, even Nery does in his beginner’s Lucius Battlemage guide around 40-50 when I went to go look at it. Though it’s not as big of a deal for him as he just swaps RR devotions and exclusives. But it is an extra step that the other mastery combos don’t have to deal with as you say - all of them start as 1 damage type and stick with it just fine.
I just did a whole HC save reset with 4/5 Kriegs playing forcewave Battlemage with Obsaidian Warcleaver. Capable of entry end game farming without any 75+ components. Super fun. Easy to play. And accessible gear for a starter. I’d say this is probably one of the best beginner setups.
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All soldiers can do that tbf, heck even solo class soldier
Now that’s a definite fair point.
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Yeah but likeeeeee in the eyes of someone who just bought the game…why would you do that? lol