Are BWs obsolete?

[SilverWF]

TLDR: Order has lesser number of tanks not because their tanks are bad, but because their RDPS are much better

If I got you right.

Not sure, that increasing a size of IB model would be... hm, lore-friendly neither would be helpful in some way to increase number of order tanks.

[peterthepan3]

no competitive scene in the game, BW is easy to play and can still muster kills vs bad/noob players. you can kill 'competent' players, too, if you know how to coordinate bursts with tank punt/healer CC.

notion of BW being 'obsolete' is remarkable.

[Aurandilaz]

Considering you still need around 3 sorcs to match the aggregated damage per second output of 2 bombing BWs, and then if your opinion is that BW is obsolete, I wonder what wording one would pick for Sorc...

And if you see a Sorc get lot of kills in Sc or Orvr, they are either on unguarded pugs with no resist buffs or in a large battle where Maras-Squigs undisruptable AoE and Tank M2 Razes have annihilated the enemy tank formation, which then allows the Sorcs to start getting damage through once HTL buffs vanish and the remaining dps find their guard and resis buffer just died to morals. In Scs the "mystery" behind Sorc doing kills in scs is focusing on overextending enemies and hunting any lowbie or low disrupt target. As for 6v6, has anyone seen a Sorc in that scene lately? Don't play it myself because I'm just a mindless zerger.

Thanks to Flashfire+BurnThrough synergy and the fast M2 Ruin and Destruction (10 sec with moral tactic), Wildfire critting and continuous stream of Funnel Power, BW is far from being "obsolete".

[dansari]

Outside of killing under levels and under geared people open field, they are worthless in small scale fights or premade scenario fights. Really, the better choice for ranged by far is a SW/SH.

SW/SH are in a good spot, but neither can burst a target very well from ranged (I'll still argue that SH is better than SW in that regard but that's beside the point). To kill competent, organized players you need burst. The best burst order has from ranged is BW.

[ragafury]

Spoiler:

Chosen and BO bring so much group utility that order has no real comparison except knight. You can even bring BG now for easy superpunts or to beef up one DPS in particular, although the power of chosen aura, BO absorb/slows, and morale pumping is better.. Order didn't really bring it upon themselves; the class makeup and class aesthetics are what drive archetype numbers.

Super punts in rvr? Meh. When you're facing 2 wbs, st punts won't do much for you, plus people are very likely to have all the immunities. Sure bg has nice st buffs and debuffs, but it's still not really a wb material tank, not to even mention lack of morale pump. I think we can all agree on that.

Bo bubble? You mean the 500 dmg over 5 seconds that you have to use on a target in melee range, and can therefore be defended? Yea no. It's a waste of a gcd and a waste of htl/chm channel time. 500 dmg is one hit from a single bw, which hit for even more really. Sw hits for over 1k easily. If you instead of that bubble used htl, you actually give a chance for your team to defend these attacks, not just mitigate a small amount of it. So I hope you can see that it's a useless ability for rvr.

Bo snare? The tactic puts it on a god damn 10s cd. It's beyond useless in rvr. Sure you can take kd for chop fasta buff that will put it on a 5s cd, and actually make it similar to kotbs snare, but you still need a tactic and an ability from high up in a tree to make it work. Not to mention you obviously won't have chop fasta up all the time, meaning you can't maintain 100% uptime, unlike kotbs ofc (that only needs one tactic which costs lousy 4 points, I don't know which kotbs wouldn't take that). I don't use the snare anymore, in any play style I do.

Saying sm is useless in wbs is simply not true. It brings double resist debuff. That alone is a reason to take it. It has a bubble that is actually worth taking. Over 700 dmg absorb, that he can cast whenever he wants. Ww is not as useless as people might think either (spammable aoes from bws). I dare to say sm is one of the tankier tanks in wbs. If you spec right, you can last very long. It has very nice tactics that stack with abilities. I play sm in wbs, so don't think I'm making all this up in my head. I'm usually among the last to die.

Sure order doesn't have morale pump on tanks. But it has morale pump on ams and bws. And since the nerf to bo snare, it's even easier to kite while you build morales. Snares from ams and kotbs, free bubbles from sm etc. Build up to bw m4, and see things melt from 100 feet. Then push in with tanks and seal the deal

To conclude, bw is far from obsolete in rvr, where you will get the majority of your kills very easily.

Fair points. Though my argument is that SM doesn't have much control abilities, so even if you can spec tanky, you don't bring much control to rvr, which is part of the point of playing tank. (It's like, sure you might be tanky but your opponents can just ignore you because you're not doing anything but guarding and WW). And why would you need a double spirit debuff? I don't think order has much/any AOE spirit damage.

on the tank side discussion without further derailment:

Spoiler:

AOE KB is so potent at chokes... with RD missing, bridges / height differences / chokes etc. can make huge differences and turn the tights of battle if we are talking largescale. you can fight MUCH bigger numbers just by that tool and it just got indirectly buffed. getting rid of 9 ppl out of 48 is a big deal. bring two SMs and make it 18 and follow after cleanup or see them walk back to there warband... all that on a 10 sec CD per default.

The ability can buy time for recovery.

you can also destroy formations with it and keeping flanks and pushes at bay. it has not the biggest KB distance, it's situational, but it has it's moments where it's godlike.

that 3 alone are more than usefull applications.

besides that SM has disorient, which BO doesn't have anymore and cast interrupt. (If I'm not mistaken on SNB specc)
Just go for targets that "love" those. I miss those surely more than my 3 sec KD with 20 sec CD for largescale which is most of the time pointless cause you need to get the buff up and have no time to "aim" for max value but also don't just want to slam it into a almost guranteed parry or block. (hi turrets and WL pets all over the map).

can snare two targets at the same time without points or tactic investment.

The SM CC is just "softer", still it's great.

On a tank it's all the same, minimal plays can matter and / or secure kills / turn fights.

On the resistance:
Destro doesn't have that much corp dmg sources (sorc dots and zealot dps to sum it almost up), still I play waaaagh to support those few spells that do. add the damage of 3-4 swordmasters and you have an additional DPS at least.
Every damage counts. It's about killspeed.

Grurfarg is also with his post to 99% right. He just was very polite to not write: BG is a meme class and BO bubble is a meme skill. (for largescale)

[tazdingo]

TLDR: Order has lesser number of tanks not because their tanks are bad, but because their RDPS are much better

If I got you right.

Not sure, that increasing a size of IB model would be... hm, lore-friendly neither would be helpful in some way to increase number of order tanks.

there are larger than normal dwarf NPCs in game. i think it's pretty lore friendly to assume that more hulky dwarfs would have a better chance of being promoted to the hardest-of-the-hard ironbreakers

increasing their model size would also make them more effective sightblocks and screens for the order backline, an unspoken role which orcs, chosen and mara perform very effectively for destro

[peterthepan3]

Considering you still need around 3 sorcs to match the aggregated damage per second output of 2 bombing BWs, and then if your opinion is that BW is obsolete, I wonder what wording one would pick for Sorc...

And if you see a Sorc get lot of kills in Sc or Orvr, they are either on unguarded pugs with no resist buffs or in a large battle where Maras-Squigs undisruptable AoE and Tank M2 Razes have annihilated the enemy tank formation, which then allows the Sorcs to start getting damage through once HTL buffs vanish and the remaining dps find their guard and resis buffer just died to morals. In Scs the "mystery" behind Sorc doing kills in scs is focusing on overextending enemies and hunting any lowbie or low disrupt target. As for 6v6, has anyone seen a Sorc in that scene lately? Don't play it myself because I'm just a mindless zerger.

Thanks to Flashfire+BurnThrough synergy and the fast M2 Ruin and Destruction (10 sec with moral tactic), Wildfire critting and continuous stream of Funnel Power, BW is far from being "obsolete".

Why are you always looking for an opportunity to lament about the dire, dire state of the Sorcerer? The disrupt stuff doesn't just affect Sorcerer, you know, and has arguably a more profound impact on Magus/Engineer (DoT trees were great even before the disrupt change, right?! ). BW is in a better position but to suggest that because of this, Sorcerer is in a bad spot, seems a bit reaching. As for the 6v6 comment, the scene is dead so you don't see any classes in it

[SilverWF]

TLDR: Order has lesser number of tanks not because their tanks are bad, but because their RDPS are much better

If I got you right.

Not sure, that increasing a size of IB model would be... hm, lore-friendly neither would be helpful in some way to increase number of order tanks.

there are larger than normal dwarf NPCs in game. i think it's pretty lore friendly to assume that more hulky dwarfs would have a better chance of being promoted to the hardest-of-the-hard ironbreakers

increasing their model size would also make them more effective sightblocks and screens for the order backline, an unspoken role which orcs, chosen and mara perform very effectively for destro

Yes, Destro side has only 1 nation of little size - goblins, that is only half of the Greenskin race and both their roles (rdps and healer) are mentioned to stay away from the front line.
While Order has little size nation too - dwarfs, a whole dwarven race and they have all roles inside: healer, rdps, mdps and a tank. So their size is fine for healer and rdps, not bad for mdps (harder to target, but arguably while in rage) and bad for tanks. Sure it's increases their survivability for a bit, but tank must protect and survive, not only survive.

[Cimba]

no competitive scene in the game, BW is easy to play and can still muster kills vs bad/noob players. you can kill 'competent' players, too, if you know how to coordinate bursts with tank punt/healer CC.

notion of BW being 'obsolete' is remarkable.

Haven't played much BW lately have you?

[peterthepan3]

no competitive scene in the game, BW is easy to play and can still muster kills vs bad/noob players. you can kill 'competent' players, too, if you know how to coordinate bursts with tank punt/healer CC.

notion of BW being 'obsolete' is remarkable.

Haven't played much BW lately have you?

No I haven't, but I think it's more a case of not seeing too many decent BWs lately - outside of pug farming in the lakes.

and the class is easy, let's not kid ourselves.