What Makes WL so OP?

[Bozzax]

I'll add some more reasons as to why for OP:

Burst Damage & Armor

- Medium armor DPS (current meta) with the highest frontloaded single target burst in the game.

- Extremely high frontloaded AoE burst (channel + high armor penetration).

- Basically 0 setup time for burst – unlike most other classes.

Crowd Control (CC) – The Big One

- This is THE ONLY CLASS IN THE ENTIRE GAME with CC (Knockdown / Silence) off the GCD. (SH has disarm off gcd, sure. But we can all agree, that a 3 second knockdown has more impact than a disarm)

What does this mean? A frontloaded burst class can unleash its full burst instantly from second 0 of a 3s knockdown.

Every other DPS class either:
Relies on someone else’s knockdown, or
Loses ~1.5 seconds of that 3-second knockdown before even starting their burst.

This is a massive difference in practical combat – and a core reason why the class feels oppressive.

Bugs & Odd Interactions

- Known issues still in play:

- 100ft+ ranged knockdown

- Insane pull range

Player / Pet Split

- The damage/CC split between player and pet adds another layer:

- Pull counterplay: you must CC the player (pull comes from them).

- Knockdown counterplay: you must CC the pet (but LF KD immunity makes this hard – disarm is basically the only option).

Result: you will get pulled OR knocked either way. Same applies to the detaunt.

Mobility

- Pounce gives both you and your pet a burst of movement speed after landing.

This can get you out of very hairy situations and lets you play the positioning game on a completely different level compared to almost all other DPS classes.

Design Advantages

- Avoids most drawbacks other classes face while still fitting perfectly into the current medium armor meta.

- Can run all the strong tools in one spec thanks to +2.

RoR-specific Changes

- Increased channel damage.

- Added armor penetration tactic.

- Removed condition on the damage increase.(If specced mid left)

(At least there was a stealth fix for LF procs being counted properly – so no more free flanking benefit).

With it's tools it is the perfect counter to a 321 ranged setup sure. But it's a bit much for my liking...

Heal debuff as proc something that was a stealth mostly (also chp but I think it was added later on live)

Excellent write up

[Farrul]

White Lions popularity and performance needs to be seen through the action and situation of the gameplay.

Not too much has been altered with the class and spec itself.
But overtime indirect adjustments to the game have put WL in this possition

Global cooldown increased, made it so "spamable" builds got replaced with coordinated "Channel calls" for warband play.
Slayers for a time was the stacked Order warband class, their strong Channel and raw dps output outshined the M2 dumping classes like WL/BW.
After Rampage was nerfed, and Retribution was "adjusted" the all-in-one solution White Lion stepped up by default. And was catapulted to the top performance spot by doing everything well, including having the counter-tool in an aoe interrupt when Channeled dmg drops are still the backbone of AoE stacking.
The failure of RoR balancing was when the old stable solutions to kill the proc meta in 2017 wasnt replicated and instead 2024 RoR tried to create new proc rules, leading to the situation we have now. An already strong class that has everything checked you want out of an aoe dps warband role, and then you pair it was this proc situation BW and WP can provide in a groupsetting.

WL already had acces to the Fort weapon ghetto version of being a Chosen with healdebuff aura. But it was kept in check or used previous years on an even level as Slayer/BW/WL. (also running a dps runie for the 35% healdebuff + armor debuff might be a better warband option)

With the game this year being in the era of the pug, the overall quality having continiously dwindled, less guilds running on their own, still no gameplay changes to intencivizing players to spreading out or picking their own fights instead of tailtagging. Then the action is more "blob vs blob" despite blobbing having been a thing since Live servers, its now just with worse quality and more "open casual bands"

Whitelion brings burst on demand, with Loner tactic removing the class mechanic whereas other dps need to Ramp up, WL is online after 1GCD in maximum performance mode with 25%dmg for 10sec, fully spinning with all the procs in the world and not even having to face the targets you want to mow down. You bring the counter tool in the better version of the aoe interrupt, have acces to a M2 drop, having a Snare-breaker + Charge combo and a pounce plus a defensive M1 100% parry should you ever be behind in tempo.

WL is funnily enough a class that I would predict would do better under a lower aoe target cap, due to the strong mobility you could leap over the tank frontline nad spin on the dps-line where as other classes would get bodyblocked by the tanks on the front.

White Lion is honestly Fine, its just the game that changed due to proc rules, GCD channel meta, and RvR in neglected decline for creating better largescale action

One suggestion for a smaller tweak, would be the left tree tactic that gives both AP solutions & Armor pen in one tactic, for both the filler aoe skill and channel. Seems a little much for one tactic.

A voice of reason in here? Appreciated. If you can filter out the usual noise from the shaman players who desperately want to get Wl nerfed( likely this OP is a bait pretending to be innocent). Then i agree WL is mostly fine, except pet is still bugged, critical bugs that the devs can't for some reason fix after half a year( like the one where the lion is stunned for the whole duration of the immunity).

I think the AOE of the axe attack could have a 180 cone though.

[Akalukz]

In the words of Dev's on Live when asked about OP AoE warbands. Just punt.....

Seriously tho, imo opinion, the biggest issues are these 3 1) 360 AoE 2) High DPS 2-hand weapon (AA) 3) Non speced AoE healdebuff.