[SW] Glass Arrow

[Knowthyself]

I'm noticing people are saying the recent changes to SW are a nerf.

That is complete and utter nonsense.

I play ranged SW at rr70-something and put a fair bit of effort in learning to play the class while it was unbuffed. The only change that I liked was the change to Guerilla Warfare. The rest of the changes seemed like trying to hit a mosquito with a cannon. Ranged SW was, in many ways, quite balanced pre-buff. The problem is that it required a fair bit of knowledge of one's own and other classes to be strong, in other words, the class was quite skill-intensive, hence all the moaning by bad players (there, I said it). The place where it did notably lack a role was in organized 24-man formats. (in ranked 6v6 it suffers from the same issues the other ranged dps classes suffer from).

The changes that were made have seemed to given SW a role in 24-man format (like city) by force, through raw damage. This is by far the worst solution that could've been picked and messed up their balance in all the other formats RoR is played in. A much better solution would have been to turn ranged SW into a buffer/debuffer, the tools for which are already present in a few mediocre talents like "Leading Shots".
But what's done is done, I guess. These changes are here now and while I'm assuming they will be tweaked, this seems to be the 'philosophy' the devs have gone for.

Just don't let any of the bad SWs out there convince you that SW isn't very powerful right now or that these buffs somehow were not effective.

You might not be aware but SW is actually a DPS class and is being far outperformed by Dps AM. So obviously R-SW is not in a good position in small scale and according to your perspective the given role to SW in large scale must be limited to a buff of %8 crit chance incrase like a trinket. In that case who would bother playing the class. It is implied in your statement you didn't bother going on playing yourself anyway.

As I have already mentioned above glass arrow is the only improvement on ranged SW. Let me explain you the reasons :

Broadhead arrow change : Stackable 3 times - good dps when stacked but being cleansable just turns it to a complete waste of AP most of the time. Can be turned into aoe (let's do not forget that it has 20ft radious) with a tactic but it forces you to be in 65ft of your target(remember you are in light armor) and easy rp for the melee train (doesn't matter if you are guarded or not) + in a large scale fight what you have as a target from short range distance is only tanks (imagine a keep attack or defese or zerg vs zerg situation) and you get blocked and dodged enough before you can apply the second stack. So not really worth to being forced into 65ft.

Guerilla Training - Speed boost is good and if you are a stance dancer(I like to play it that way) the ap reduction somehow helps you to deal with glass arrow AP incrase.. but is it worth to a tactic slot when you have to already spend two of your tactic slots to cap ballistic and reach a considerable WS amount ?

Powerful Draw - %25 armor penetration sounds good on the tooltip but have you tried checking the difference it makes ? I did and it made me laugh.

Flame arrow : Still hits like a cotton ball after being correctly placed to skirmish tree in terms of dmg calculation and meh 65ft..

What do you lose further : Ranged KD on the move, Snare from 100ft, an insta ability in your rotation which actually not only had a considerable dmg amount but also range decrease on your target. Most of your insta cast abilities that you could have used to finish your target before like glass arrow, flanking show, flame arrow, take down.. are all limited to 65ft now. You only have rapid fire and most of the time you are limited in just stacking broadhead arrow and firing rapid fire.

So the only positive change is the glass arrow. Yes maybe it requires tunning down a little but the disadvantages I listed above for not one but different play styles should have looked into first.

With all that said, let me clear that I mainly play my rr84 SH and have a 70 SW as an alternative for when game gets bor'ng on destro side. It wouldn't make me happy to see these changes on SH at all albeit a similar ability to the mentioned "OP" glass arrow.

[geezereur]

the 3 stacking broadhead arrow can we make it into only 1 stack again and up the damage a little bit instead.......

[jvlosky]

I'm noticing people are saying the recent changes to SW are a nerf.

That is complete and utter nonsense.

I play ranged SW at rr70-something and put a fair bit of effort in learning to play the class while it was unbuffed. The only change that I liked was the change to Guerilla Warfare. The rest of the changes seemed like trying to hit a mosquito with a cannon. Ranged SW was, in many ways, quite balanced pre-buff. The problem is that it required a fair bit of knowledge of one's own and other classes to be strong, in other words, the class was quite skill-intensive, hence all the moaning by bad players (there, I said it). The place where it did notably lack a role was in organized 24-man formats. (in ranked 6v6 it suffers from the same issues the other ranged dps classes suffer from).

The changes that were made have seemed to given SW a role in 24-man format (like city) by force, through raw damage. This is by far the worst solution that could've been picked and messed up their balance in all the other formats RoR is played in. A much better solution would have been to turn ranged SW into a buffer/debuffer, the tools for which are already present in a few mediocre talents like "Leading Shots".
But what's done is done, I guess. These changes are here now and while I'm assuming they will be tweaked, this seems to be the 'philosophy' the devs have gone for.

Just don't let any of the bad SWs out there convince you that SW isn't very powerful right now or that these buffs somehow were not effective.

You might not be aware but SW is actually a DPS class and is being far outperformed by Dps AM. So obviously R-SW is not in a good position in small scale and according to your perspective the given role to SW in large scale must be limited to a buff of %8 crit chance incrase like a trinket. In that case who would bother playing the class. It is implied in your statement you didn't bother going on playing yourself anyway.

As I have already mentioned above glass arrow is the only improvement on ranged SW. Let me explain you the reasons :

Broadhead arrow change : Stackable 3 times - good dps when stacked but being cleansable just turns it to a complete waste of AP most of the time. Can be turned into aoe (let's do not forget that it has 20ft radious) with a tactic but it forces you to be in 65ft of your target(remember you are in light armor) and easy rp for the melee train (doesn't matter if you are guarded or not) + in a large scale fight what you have as a target from short range distance is only tanks (imagine a keep attack or defese or zerg vs zerg situation) and you get blocked and dodged enough before you can apply the second stack. So not really worth to being forced into 65ft.

Guerilla Training - Speed boost is good and if you are a stance dancer(I like to play it that way) the ap reduction somehow helps you to deal with glass arrow AP incrase.. but is it worth to a tactic slot when you have to already spend two of your tactic slots to cap ballistic and reach a considerable WS amount ?

Powerful Draw - %25 armor penetration sounds good on the tooltip but have you tried checking the difference it makes ? I did and it made me laugh.

Flame arrow : Still hits like a cotton ball after being correctly placed to skirmish tree in terms of dmg calculation and meh 65ft..

What do you lose further : Ranged KD on the move, Snare from 100ft, an insta ability in your rotation which actually not only had a considerable dmg amount but also range decrease on your target. Most of your insta cast abilities that you could have used to finish your target before like glass arrow, flanking show, flame arrow, take down.. are all limited to 65ft now. You only have rapid fire and most of the time you are limited in just stacking broadhead arrow and firing rapid fire.

So the only positive change is the glass arrow. Yes maybe it requires tunning down a little but the disadvantages I listed above for not one but different play styles should have looked into first.

With all that said, let me clear that I mainly play my rr84 SH and have a 70 SW as an alternative for when game gets bor'ng on destro side. It wouldn't make me happy to see these changes on SH at all albeit a similar ability to the mentioned "OP" glass arrow.

YES THIS. People don't realize it takes 7.5 seconds. YES 7.5 seconds for the first tick of the Broadhead x3 to get its first damage tick. 3 GCD (1.5 sec each) and then another 3 seconds to get the first dmg tick. By this point in oRVR that **** is usually cleansed off and you have to reapply. You pretty much dump all your AP trying to get Broadhead x3 on someone while in close range for 7.5 seconds without any dmg. Pretty wack

but noooo SW so OP.

I dread the SH buff, more mSH topping dmg charts in city please. Christ.

[Illuminati]

Its almost like the role improvements for SW are too broad. Are these too many changes across SW 'roles' instead of focusing on improving the role that SWs wanted (improved WB play)? I would have improved utility (AoE Snares, etc.) as messing with damage is very hard without completely wacking balance.

1. Is this trying to improve solo/roaming play? then the Broadhead changes are good (unless you vs someone with cleanse).

2. Is this trying to improve ST burst play? then the Glass Arrow changes are good

3. Did this actually improve WB play and viability? Maybe the Morale drains are ok but what else does a SW bring to WBs?

4. Did this improve 6v6 (not that aSW needed it)? Crosscut additional hit is OP...

Anyway, GL with the changes. I don't 'feel' like SWs are super overpowered unless Glass Arrow on channeled multi-attacks (which you will feel on Order if they mirror to SH) and haven't done any new 6's yet vs aSW (though I trust some of the skilled players that commented the aSW change to Crosscut was unwanted/needed ).

[Spyked1106]

Meh at this point I just want all the changes reverted back or just nerf SW into the ground. So tired of all the destro complaining about a class that was irrelevant and blown into obscurity finally getting some attention and maybe being viable.


Whatever, the Karens have beaten me.


Everyone knows Order having the same amount of viable classes for end game city and oRVR as Destro is unfair to Destro /s.

2 things :

1/ play destro you ll see something
2/ SW was viable before the buffs specially ranged specs ones, the matters are just : a) melee spec is better than ranged specs before the buffs + b) we ve 0 good players and 0 trydarders in SW unlike live server


All I see on this server is QQ'ers on forum about their class, crying for more buffs when dmg is already here
You can't expect big dmg + self heal + perma debuff heal + debuff armor + ranged + more then 100feet +... + ?.....+ .....

Stop, pull your fingers from your ass and start playing well with a brain !

[agemennon675]

Meh at this point I just want all the changes reverted back or just nerf SW into the ground. So tired of all the destro complaining about a class that was irrelevant and blown into obscurity finally getting some attention and maybe being viable.


Whatever, the Karens have beaten me.


Everyone knows Order having the same amount of viable classes for end game city and oRVR as Destro is unfair to Destro /s.

2 things :

1/ play destro you ll see something
2/ SW was viable before the buffs specially ranged specs ones, the matters are just : a) melee spec is better than ranged specs before the buffs + b) we ve 0 good players and 0 trydarders in SW unlike live server

SW was viable before the buffs ? Especially ranged SW ? Excuse me can you share where RSW was viable so we(all bad players) can also understand where we sucked. Enlighten us

[Caduceus]

You might not be aware but SW is actually a DPS class and is being far outperformed by Dps AM. So obviously R-SW is not in a good position in small scale and according to your perspective the given role to SW in large scale must be limited to a buff of %8 crit chance incrase like a trinket. In that case who would bother playing the class. It is implied in your statement you didn't bother going on playing yourself anyway.

As I have already mentioned above glass arrow is the only improvement on ranged SW. Let me explain you the reasons :

Broadhead arrow change : Stackable 3 times - good dps when stacked but being cleansable just turns it to a complete waste of AP most of the time. Can be turned into aoe (let's do not forget that it has 20ft radious) with a tactic but it forces you to be in 65ft of your target(remember you are in light armor) and easy rp for the melee train (doesn't matter if you are guarded or not) + in a large scale fight what you have as a target from short range distance is only tanks (imagine a keep attack or defese or zerg vs zerg situation) and you get blocked and dodged enough before you can apply the second stack. So not really worth to being forced into 65ft.

Guerilla Training - Speed boost is good and if you are a stance dancer(I like to play it that way) the ap reduction somehow helps you to deal with glass arrow AP incrase.. but is it worth to a tactic slot when you have to already spend two of your tactic slots to cap ballistic and reach a considerable WS amount ?

Powerful Draw - %25 armor penetration sounds good on the tooltip but have you tried checking the difference it makes ? I did and it made me laugh.

Flame arrow : Still hits like a cotton ball after being correctly placed to skirmish tree in terms of dmg calculation and meh 65ft..

What do you lose further : Ranged KD on the move, Snare from 100ft, an insta ability in your rotation which actually not only had a considerable dmg amount but also range decrease on your target. Most of your insta cast abilities that you could have used to finish your target before like glass arrow, flanking show, flame arrow, take down.. are all limited to 65ft now. You only have rapid fire and most of the time you are limited in just stacking broadhead arrow and firing rapid fire.

So the only positive change is the glass arrow. Yes maybe it requires tunning down a little but the disadvantages I listed above for not one but different play styles should have looked into first.

With all that said, let me clear that I mainly play my rr84 SH and have a 70 SW as an alternative for when game gets bor'ng on destro side. It wouldn't make me happy to see these changes on SH at all albeit a similar ability to the mentioned "OP" glass arrow.

The problem for ranged SW was their performance in city/24-man.

In solo, small-scale and RvR they were, in my experience, absolutely fine. In ranked 6v6 they weren't great (like most ranged dps), but here SW has a fantastic alternative in the ASW-spec.

So any 'fix' to the SW class should have focused on giving them a (significant) buff in city/24-man play, without completely messing up the balance in the other formats. Sadly, they went for buffs in all the wrong places. The buffs made them way too powerful in solo, small-scale and ORvR (most notably the changes to Broadhead Arrow).

I also disagree that the changes did not buff SW in city. While I haven't gone into city personally on my SW since the buffs, I've seen them topping the damage boards consistently, and this experience is shared with people who I consulted on both Order and Destruction.

I'll repeat, I believe SW was absolutely fine in solo, small-scale and ORvR formats before this fiasco (and I have played SW here extensively, at decent rr), but needed a buff in 24-man play. While the buff seems to have 'fixed' SW in 24-man, it did so without any regard for their balance in other formats. It's a mess.

[Teefz]

The problem for ranged SW was their performance in city/24-man.

In solo, small-scale and RvR they were, in my experience, absolutely fine. In ranked 6v6 they weren't great (like most ranged dps), but here SW has a fantastic alternative in the ASW-spec.

So any 'fix' to the SW class should have focused on giving them a (significant) buff in city/24-man play, without completely messing up the balance in the other formats. Sadly, they went for buffs in all the wrong places. The buffs made them way too powerful in solo, small-scale and ORvR (most notably the changes to Broadhead Arrow).

I also disagree that the changes did not buff SW in city. While I haven't gone into city personally on my SW since the buffs, I've seen them topping the damage boards consistently, and this experience is shared with people who I consulted on both Order and Destruction.

I'll repeat, I believe SW was absolutely fine in solo, small-scale and ORvR formats before this fiasco (and I have played SW here extensively, at decent rr), but needed a buff in 24-man play. While the buff seems to have 'fixed' SW in 24-man, it did so without any regard for their balance in other formats. It's a mess.

Agree. It's a do-over.

I like the idea of tieing certain stuff to VoN, because that is how the vision for the class was originally. However testing some of these changes, I hope the rework of squig's never gets done Honestly sad to see a rework turn out to be nerf to the rdps side of the sw while 'unintentionally' buffing it's assault spec.

Reworked Glass Arrow idea is cool, but why not add the effect to Flame Arrow instead and give SW's back their 5s cd, instant cast range decrease, dmg ability. Glass Arrow/Sharpnel is a great and unique tool for both sw/squig to annoy/shutdown other rdps/healers. Removing the dmg component nerf's the SW's ability to put out burst rotations. This would in turn make Flame Arror/Explodin' Arrer desireable instead of it's current form where it's only purpose is masking other dots.

Broadhead Arrow dot stacking is a giant waste of time + ap. Sure the dmg scales nicely, but why not just increase the psm of BA instead and keep it like it was? No rdps want's to click the same button 3 times, to watch it all get cleansed in one go. That's just bad design. Also, really need to be buffing aSW at this point? Making them able to stack their own version of marauder "Rend" is way too overkill on top of already receieve a buff to their Crosscut while vengeful.

Shadow Sting 65ft/Powerful Draw: the range increase tactic shouldn't be gone, but somehow is? This needs to be fixed asap. Spammable 98ft healdebuff is needed for any range spec. Also, 25% armor pen sounds nice, but let's be honest crit chance or crit dmg linked to skirmish/scout would have been a lot better.

Guerilla Training tactic also benefits the aSW spec more than the rdps spec, since you have too many tactics that you need to use in order to utilize the full dmg potential of the ranged spec.

At this point I honestly hope they revert most of these changes.

[jvlosky]

Meh at this point I just want all the changes reverted back or just nerf SW into the ground. So tired of all the destro complaining about a class that was irrelevant and blown into obscurity finally getting some attention and maybe being viable.


Whatever, the Karens have beaten me.


Everyone knows Order having the same amount of viable classes for end game city and oRVR as Destro is unfair to Destro /s.

2 things :

1/ play destro you ll see something
2/ SW was viable before the buffs specially ranged specs ones, the matters are just : a) melee spec is better than ranged specs before the buffs + b) we ve 0 good players and 0 trydarders in SW unlike live server


All I see on this server is QQ'ers on forum about their class, crying for more buffs when dmg is already here
You can't expect big dmg + self heal + perma debuff heal + debuff armor + ranged + more then 100feet +... + ?.....+ .....

Stop, pull your fingers from your ass and start playing well with a brain !

This is just straight up wrong, we are talking about viability in oRVR and City environments. SW before the patch wasn't anything special. Literally any other DPS class was better than them save for WH.


Even now you dont have SWs anywhere close to topping dmg charts and being this boogyman destro think it is. All the while mSH can easily top charts in city.


If you thought SW was viable before for city or oRVR then I dread to think what your wb compositions were. Your comment was either disingenuous or you have no idea what you were talking about. Please explain which spec was 'viable' for city before the rework.

[Knowthyself]

Meh at this point I just want all the changes reverted back or just nerf SW into the ground. So tired of all the destro complaining about a class that was irrelevant and blown into obscurity finally getting some attention and maybe being viable.


Whatever, the Karens have beaten me.


Everyone knows Order having the same amount of viable classes for end game city and oRVR as Destro is unfair to Destro /s.

2 things :

1/ play destro you ll see something
2/ SW was viable before the buffs specially ranged specs ones, the matters are just : a) melee spec is better than ranged specs before the buffs + b) we ve 0 good players and 0 trydarders in SW unlike live server


All I see on this server is QQ'ers on forum about their class, crying for more buffs when dmg is already here
You can't expect big dmg + self heal + perma debuff heal + debuff armor + ranged + more then 100feet +... + ?.....+ .....

Stop, pull your fingers from your ass and start playing well with a brain !

This is just straight up wrong, we are talking about viability in oRVR and City environments. SW before the patch wasn't anything special. Literally any other DPS class was better than them save for WH.


Even now you dont have SWs anywhere close to topping dmg charts and being this boogyman destro think it is. All the while mSH can easily top charts in city.


If you thought SW was viable before for city or oRVR then I dread to think what your wb compositions were. Your comment was either disingenuous or you have no idea what you were talking about. Please explain which spec was 'viable' for city before the rework.

Why do you even bother replying someone who lacks the basic signs of basic human courtesy. "Stop, pull your fingers from your ass and start playing well with a brain !" this mouth-**** alone shows the level of the person's capasity of exchanging ideas with others. Ignoring is what you can do for some.