Character Categories

Every character has a unique set of categories that defines it differently from other characters in the game. Many of these categories are shared amongst characters.

## Specialties and Subclasses

> *Main article: Specialties and Subclasses*
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Every **character** in *War of Champions* has an assigned **specialty**, along with a **subclass**. This specialty represents a defined set of patterns in player's behavior, responses and reactions to environment (including but not exclusive to enemies and own team). This may also include preferred item and trait paths.

The available specialties are as follows:

* Assassin
* Fighter
* Mage
	+ Shapeshifter
* Marksman
* Support
* Tank

The available subclasses are as follows:

* Controller
* Diver
* Enchanter
* Juggernaut
* Poke
* Ranger
* Skirmisher
* Vanguard
* Warden

## Roles

> *Main article: Roles*
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A character's **role** refers to the most common fundamental gameplay niche that a character fulfills. This gameplay niche usually reflects the "meta" (most effective tactics available), which are the most widely accepted methods to win the game. While metas can get out of hand, the most stable meta in *War of Champions* includes the following roles:

* Damage
* Support
* Jungle

## Difficulty

A character's **difficulty** is a general reflection of how challenging a character is to perform successfully on a consistent basis. Difficulty is set by the developers upon release or rework of a character. A character's difficulty is not always a reflection of the true difficulty of the character, but is rather a benchmark set by the developers to help new players try out easier characters.

The difficulty levels are as follows:

* Easy
* Medium
* Hard
* Very Hard

*Very Hard* is oftentimes exclusive to characters that have especially unique gameplay mechanics that are abnormal for the game.

## Other Categories

There are many other ways to classify characters. Most of the following categories have little cannon, and are instead general names that refer to a specific play style of a character.

* **Bully:** A character with such exceptional strength in the early stages of a game that they can seriously threaten, or bully, their opponents, and force them to play defensively. In exchange for this power, however, bully champions also tend to become less effective as matches progress, a process also known as **falling off**. Hallmarks of bully champions include very high armor, cheap traits, long-ranged damaging abilities, and traits or weapons that do not scale with enchantment books.
* **Farmer**: A character who can quickly kill jungle monsters, thereby "farming" resources from the jungle. Farmers typically have extra damage towards jungle monsters via enchantments on their weapons, or apply status effects that deal damage towards jungle monsters, such as instant health against undead creatures. As a side-effect of their excellent speed in the jungle, these characters usually suffer from high cooldown costs.
* **Carry:** A character who becomes powerful enough as a match progresses so as to be able to seemingly win games single-handedly, thereby "carrying" the rest of the team on their back. Typically, this has been used specifically for weapon-dependent characters, due to how weapon-based builds tend to scale the hardest into the late game using enchantment books.
* **Melee:** A character with a weapon defined as melee. Melee characters typically have a short combat range, but tend to make up for it with bolstered innate defenses and unique advantages to their traits. Most assassins, fighters and tanks are melee.
* **Ranged:** A character with a weapon defined as ranged. Ranged characters tend to have the most reach out of all characters, but are also more fragile on average. Most marksmen and mages are ranged.