WE Viability?

[KvotheTheArcane]

Somewhat recently started playing WE and I was curious what their current class overall looks like. Are they severely UP? OP? Balanced just right?

[Hastykrasty]

They are really good at high RR and gear

[peterthepan3]

more than viable, just arguably outdone by other DPS in large scale encounters

[maggii]

Short answer:

I love it.

Viable in that sense, if ppl playing it and/or are using it in a Group, uses its full war capabilities its a much potent class.

But most of all; if u enjoy the class u will learn and evolve

//Maggi

[Atropik]

more than viable, just arguably outdone by other DPS in large scale encounters

I'd say, totally outdone by every other dps in small scale, and don't even exist in large scale fights.
Viable, fs, wl is more than viable, we is a joke.

[zgolec]

Great food for cats!

.p.s. Great for solo plays. And if played right its awesome.

[Aurandilaz]

Viable catfood, whether as breakfast, lunch or dinner.
Good for ganking lowbies and slaughtering scrubs.
Sucks versus any good enemy players who don't let a WE spam AW at their backsides.
Doesn't really have any role in largescale RvR due to suffering from lack of AoE and mechanic being wonky as any DoT can ruin your stealth.

But stabbing enemies is fun so, and "burst" (well not true burst like WL or WH with BaL, rather consistent flow of decent dmg hits) is okayish.
Many enemies do not run proper tank + guard groups so you can still kill many many people on a WE.

[Renork]

Viable catfood, whether as breakfast, lunch or dinner.
Good for ganking lowbies and slaughtering scrubs.
Sucks versus any good enemy players who don't let a WE spam AW at their backsides.
Doesn't really have any role in largescale RvR due to suffering from lack of AoE and mechanic being wonky as any DoT can ruin your stealth.

But stabbing enemies is fun so, and "burst" (well not true burst like WL or WH with BaL, rather consistent flow of decent dmg hits) is okayish.
Many enemies do not run proper tank + guard groups so you can still kill many many people on a WE.

Lol, you have such an incredible bias against BaL (since you bring it up EVERY time you get a chance to do so) and somehow have engraved it in your head that "it's omg so bursty!! class defining!!". Sweetie, you need better tanks and a semi-dumb healer and you will never die to BaL. Now if you're solo and have no pots, sure you will probably die. Any competent 6 man will take EW over BaL.

[ragafury]

Somewhat recently started playing WE and I was curious what their current class overall looks like. Are they severely UP? OP? Balanced just right?

to awnser you as precise as I can, and I'm not much of a WE / WH player, so I can only give feedback from a guy which plays ocassionally with a WE in his party:

solo: more than viable, at least from what I see. can kill most targets without much struggle, with good gear you can win 1v2, may avoid the autoloss classes unless you have a clear advantage.
requires gear and renown to work completly independent.

grps: if you are considering yourself a soloplayer and you are not in a guild you will have a rough time, the typical pugger joe on destro thinks a good 6 man consists of marauder + choppa, everything outside this concept is not worth a try. for every mdps train, you only really need the marauder (cause of the potent armor debuff, nothing more really), and destro is quite flexible in other spots, means, all tanks are viable, choppa, WE, DPS DoK are quite viable, all healers are somewhat viable.
At least viable enough that if you play half ass mode with a 6 man should lead the scoreboard / be at least in the top 10 kills.

warbands:
meh. there is no typical 24v24, WE may have a spot there, but this requires testing and evaluation. atm there is only oRvR with not capped player numbers (means a zone can be a 200 v 200).
in such situations AoE is king. And WE offers not constant AoE dmg like other classes.
However, even here. the server is flodded with pugs / non organised groups and so on.
If you want the warband experience,.. you can even have that on the class. just maybe not in an "organised guild".
WE however is even fine in a 12 man if you play more ST orientated.

Think the biggest struggle is for WE to find a grp which accepts them for roaming, PvE, etc and so on.
but if you play this game in /5 lfg mode, you will anyway have a bad time, occasional pugging is allright, doing this 24/7 is suboptimal, and if you strife for that playstyle your class is less accepted and desired than other classes.
many ppl will invite marauder marauder or marauder choppa as a DPS option and leave you aside.
the other popular pugfarmer combos in orvr are sorc sorc or sorc magus or sorc sh. WE has no spots in those, but such grps usually avoid scenarios cause they have a high chance to get matched vs order melee trains.

special mentions:
ppl love to say: "WE is only good with high RR and gear."
suprise, every class is, especially mdps. undergeared mdps suffers a lot and sucks.
in a grp you perform with less gear like every undergeared class: you will do less dmg and / or die a lot / die when you could have made it out etc.
only class that has not that high gear dependancy is again: marauder, cause they are carried by the 1.5k armor debuff, but even there own dps sucks ofc with trash bin gear and crap renown and same goes for there survivability. so you have the gear and RR issue on every class to a certain degree.

also ppl love to state:
"you ain't helping your realm! roll a tank or heal (and support me!1!111!!!)"
No sense in doing so if you don't enjoy it, rather take the (maybe) longer gear progression.

Big Advantage of the class:
once you made it and you are geared up and have renown 50+ you can play the game whenever you want, you don't need a grp. even though I think it's more fun to opperate with guard and heals. you will have a much higher sucess rate in soloing than choppa / marauder / dpsDoK, just because you can stealth out of hot situations and can maybe avoid deaths which is for other classes a guranteed deathsentence.

my 2 cent.

TL;DR: if you like it, play it. only thing that's likely closed for you are premade warbands, no semi serious guild will invite you to a 4fg warband. find an active roam or roam / sc guild with maybe ocassional 12 mans which can make use of WE. If not you have a slow grind before you, but you would have the same slow grind on any mdps class and playing an alternative you don't enjoy will make you quit the game. besides that, everything goes atm in orvr and sc's, there are barely any meta premades playing, and if so they are bored (cause there mains are geared) that they goof around too on non optimal setups most likely or are not a full 6 man.

TL;DR of the TL;DR
more viable than ppl think.
more viable than not viable.

[sunnyray]

With removal of cleansing wind and resolute defense, the class suffered a lot.
The WLs became an automatic loss. Without RD you can't survive a knockdown with sufficient health to continue fight.
It's not possible to make agile escape due to pet being able to see you under stealth.
So if WL pounced, and he is not a "clicker" - you are dead.

The nerf of the whole stealth mechanic of being so fragile is also irritating. No CW makes it impossible to stealth in situations when you have dots on.The lack of good finishers is also frequently brought to light.

Otherwise it is a fun class. The biggest advantage is you don't need a group. It is very useful if you have like 1-2 h a day to play.
If somebody is just starting the game and considering a stealth class, go WH. He has two very good finishers (EW and BAL), RB is very good in duels and for survival. And you will not meet WL's And mara's are not such an issue. In worst case scenario you can run