mathemagic

Thanks for the mention. Your opening WarShade paragraph is one of the most concise, entertaining descriptions of a WarShade in action I've read.

Hi Laucianna, Longtime Warshade main here. If you don't mind, I'd like to correct a bit of your warshade post. First off, warshades need LIVE bodies even more than dead ones. Eclipse increases your damage resists for every live body it hits. I would also recommend that one go for perma-eclipse in the same manner that you describe for light form. Also, the two mires, human and dwarf, increase damage output for every live body they hit. And the effects from Eclipse and the mires carry over into Nova or Dwarf. So you can jump into a pack of baddies, Eclipse and double mire, then turn Nova with capped resists and max damage output. You should be surrounded by dead bodies in no time. Use the dead bodies for your Dark Extraction pet, and Stygian Circle, which refills your health and stamina bars for every dead body it hits. Hope this helps.

There's no way to get Nova form on the ground. But if you adjust your camera so that you're "looking down" slightly, any movement you do will also be in that direction. That will at least keep you close to grounded.

Yes, you can get the bonuses from up to 5 Luck of the Gambler: Global Recharge. You can only put one in each power, so besides Shadow Cloak, you'll also have to get some pool powers like Maneuvers or Stealth or Combat Jumping. As for sets with recharge, without going into purples, the best sets are Decimation and Positrons Blast for ranged attacks, and Crushing Impact and Obliteration for melee attacks. Call to Arms in Dark Extraction. Panacea. Put Stupefy in Gravity Emanation, and Basilisks Gaze in Gravity Well, I would take some slots out of the shields to fill out those powers. You'll need the sets 5-slotted to get the recharge bonus. And Kheldians Grace. Not sure where you're at influence wise, but you should start building for recharge.

For warshades, start the fight like Ohsirus said, but don't forget about human form during the fight. You can take on giant packs of mobs by dropping to human to refresh Mire or Eclipse, or to grab a quick heal with Stygian Circle. Or pull out a new fluffy, or Unchain Essence, or... well, you get the idea. Then back into a form and keep going.

I remember on Live getting enough recharge to get three fluffies out. Now I'm lucky to get the first one to live long enough to have two. Photon Seekers seems what they've been turned into.

Differences? PBs play a little more like a standard hero. Good blasts, good melee, good heals, self buffs. WSs are more different. Everything depends on having enemies around them. Buffs, recovery, pets, they all need enemies, alive and dead. Which sometimes leads to a very tense, on the edge, playstyle. There are several good guides and sample builds scattered about here on the forum pages. I would suggest a first time Kheldian start as a tri-former. Nova, though squishy, is just too good to pass up as a lower level offensive force. And dwarf gives much needed defense and protection. Later, once you know your powers and play style, you can respec into whichever way you want to go.

A little farther down the forum page is AlienOne's Complete Guide to Human Form Warshading.

The answer would be go with whichever one you enjoy playing the most. Since they're both level 40, you should already have the main powers and a good idea how to play them. You want to maximize recharge so slotting IO's is pretty much the same for both. They are both powerful and fun to play. So, when you log on tonight, which one do you most feel like playing?