Omegus wrote: ↑Thu Dec 14, 2023 11:59 pm
Too many people... and also the Mythic devs. WAR was originally going to be zero stealth, but then not long towards the end of development the WH/WE were revealed. They had a limited stealth duration (30 seconds) with a very obvious trade-off: no charge move. You stealthed to get in, and self-punt to get out. Or if you were really clever, self-punt to close the gap on the next target.
The purpose was not to lurk and gank like a WOW Rogue. You would be seen stealthing up and the fear then came from who you would target with some very strong (at the time) stealth openers. Enfeebling Strike was strong enough in the early days to make people stop dead in their tracks out of fear of the damage they would be taking when trying to get away.
During the life of ROR, this has changed and they have become far closer to WOW Rogues. Much longer stealth duration, WH/WE packs ganking out of stealth (usually in high AAO zones, because they deserve the huge RR bonus for jumping on someone who could never see it coming), etc. The option for a second stealth WITH A SPEED BOOST was added. WEs gained access to one of the best gap closers in the game (pounce) with a built-in snare, etc. And to try and make them viable in city warbands they got given an anti-res mechanic, because everyone loves spending an extra 20 seconds of being unable to take part in the fight.
Most of this comes from the reluctance of the ROR devs in the past (not sure about the present) to give WH/WE viable roles and specs for all levels of gameplay and have instead pushed them further and further into this weird spot of being a WOW Rogue in a game that was not designed to have WOW Rogues, and giving them a bunch of random tools that do nothing to solve the fact that cleaving is very much a thing in this game. The fixing of the cleave tactic in the early days of city without any matching balance changes was the death of the warband WE/WH, and a lot of the changes since that point have just pushed it further and further to the edges.
I'm happy to see the start of the stealth changes be reigned back in, but the classes still need a big overhaul to make fighting with/agianst them more interactive with better synergies in groups and warbands.
Stealth was originally something you saw happen and then began to panic in case you were the chosen target. Bringing back that level of interaction would be a good start. Unless I missed something in the notes, with 300 AP you still get 60 seconds of stealth with 5 AP/s.
Stealth was 100% intended and planed by Mythic from the start, since they took most ideas, class core gameplay and even some skills in Warhammer Online Age of Reckoning, from Mythics earlier game Dark age of Camelot.
In fact the Witch and Witchhunter came into the game as the first two classes of those that were not finished at release, even before the Knight/blackguard and the final Slayer/Chopper. They were planned from the beginning and the only reason the stealthers took so long was, that they were not pleased with their state shortly before the launch. Mythic knew what it meant for a great mass of the old Dark Age players to have their favorite assassin class. The only real dropdown was the change towards a limited time stealth mechanic.
But that did not mean that you could not lurk around. And most of the time the only indicator for enemies that a witchhunter or a witch was close, was the sudden collision between them when they stood close together.
30 seconds of stealth and 30 seconds of cooldown were always two sided. On one hand it always felt to be a too long cooldown. On the other it was no problem, since a duel against others most of the time took more than 2 min so you would get a second stealth opener in that fight anyway. The fights and hereby the chances to go back into stealth midfight even got longer after the introduction of the end game armor sets, where every class got more and more wounds and defense stats. It went so far patch after patch that Mythic and later Bioware Mythic EA made ALL the classes stronger with higher and higher health pools and toughness, while completely ignoring witchhunters and witches. Those two had to fight longer and longer fights, since their dmg output was never buffed to compensate the increase in enemy defenses. So, at the very end of the live server time, you had fights between healers and Witchhunters/Witches that were simply stopped by both sides because of the fact that it would never end.
The Role of Witchhunters and Witches on live were clearly defined at the beginning.
Open RVR:
Act as a scout, Solo roamer, within a warband or as the 25th outside member with one assigned personal single target healer, to strike the enemy backline of healers and range casters. Or defend your own backline
Either go around the enemy line with stealth, pick a target and KILL a healer before anyone can even react to it. Or pop out of stealth right next to your own backline that gets attacked and prevent your healer’s end.
Scenario:
Build pressure on enemy backline. Attack and kill enemy healers and casters and defend your own.
Dungeons:
Do your job as the strongest single target DD in game and have mercy with your tank to not steal aggro from him despite of you having his guard. If you wanted to clear the tomb of the Vulture Lord, without losing the dps race encounters again and again, you had to bring an witchhunter/witch.
But this is all from the past. And it will never work again. Even on live it was gone as soon as the defensive variations of the souverain gear was introduced.
Some would even say it went downwards for Witchhunters and Witches from the moment where their main attribute was changed from dex to strength. While the main attribute was still dex those two classes were real assassins with a natural high armor penetration. What use is Strength above the soft cap, when your Character has almost no real source of dex(armor pen) on his end game gear as a light armor wearing stealth class?
And on RoR it got even worse, since whoever knows why, they decided to make all the other DD’s outdamage them both.
