A reflection on stealth classes

[Deadpoet]

For the over-simplified stealth class-playing individuals that happen to read this, I'll save your time: you just have to read the next line.
"someone is bitter that they died to a WE"

NOW, TO THE MATTER IN HAND:
TLDR:

WEs (and WHs to a lesser degree) need adjustments. Way too tanky and self supporting with no downsides nor sacrifices for a class that choose their fights and then disappear if they don't like the outcome.

At a sociological level, the possibility of no accountability and total impunity leads to an infestation of this extra cheese abomination and total frustration for people who manage to ALMOST win a fight vs them before the WE decides she isnt interested in dying and vanishes.

At the very least remove the vanish+speed+target loss stupidity that wasn't present nor needed in the original version of the game. One of the reasons that roaming is almost dead is that people who are brave or original enough to not play a stealth class will feel constantly cheated of their deserved win by a stupidly over-pampered class godmode state.


ABOUT THE INCOMING DPS PATCH
I don't have any hopes that I can realisticly expect to materialize, but I feel that I would like to express them, just for the record.

I see some problems at various levels regarding the current state of stealth classes in this game.

AT "ARCHETYPE" LEVEL:

At some point the devs will have to decide if they want Witch Elves (and WHs to a lesser degree) to be healers, tanks or dps.

Right now they are all three in one. OK, I am clearly exaggerating here, but there is something to it. The amount of self heal + absorb that a WE can do is already very high as dps go. Objectively. The fact that they don't have to spend any points in weapon skill as they do huge amounts of corporeal damage, (with some of the skills even ignoring toughness) plus spammable 100% armor ignore skill means they can build incredibly tanky without losing much damage power.

OK, you can say the same thing about some other classes, such as magus, SM, chosen, AM/shaman, all very good classes for roaming.

What tips the balance so heavily in WEs' favor (and WHs' to a lesser degree) is the fact that they exist in a different, superior universe, reserved for stealth classes alone, where they can decide when, where, how and whether they want to engage in a fight, and, even more importantly, they can disengage if they don't like an outcome that would be inevitable for all classes except for them.

That's why
AT A "SOCIOLOGICAL" LEVEL

The fact that playing a WE means that, if you are not severelly mentally handicapped, you can kill almost anything without breaking a sweat and you don't have to die, like ever, is a temptation that is really hard to resist for most people. And that has consequences for the class balance and population distribution in the game.

Of course there are people who like a support role, or who just want to contribute to their realm and don't mind sacrificing themselves for the greater good etc. But many players, maybe most people, look for a game experience that allows them to kill as much as they can and dying as unfrequently as possible. Many players try to join organized warbands where they can be relatively safe and have greater odds to kill and not die. Or at least die less than in a pug context.

Others, with a hungrier ego, want to shine individually without having to obey orders or be accountable to any higher team structure, and choose the classes that are best suited to oppress stragglers and randoms.

At the top of this marginal food chain are the stealth classes. The zero accountability and extreme killing power with total impunity has an irresistible attraction.

Many things have happened throughout the years that have enhanced this situation for the stealth classes.

At some point WEs got ranged KD

At some point ppl dying in RvR didnt teleport to besieged keep, so they had to keep trying to get to rez range from walls and were now free kills for gankers.

At some point stealth classes got yet another disengagement tool: elixir of shadows/sanctified oil. As if the stun wasn't enough.

While the general tendency of latest patches have been toward more coordination and synergy, depriving solos of some valuable tools of self survival (BG/IB self heal ability for example), stealth classes have retained their amazing survival tools. The toning down of self heal bullets/kisses and the witchbrew change to rely on str have proved vastly insufficient.

I have talked to many people who like to try their hand at solo/duo roaming exp and don't even try to fight WEs anymore, because even if they, with a lot of careful speccing, fighting skill, gear grinding, etc, manage to survive the always unequal start of the fight and somehow miraculously turn the tables and get the upper hand, the WE or WH will just decide theyre not interested in dying and will vanish.
This has been th situation for many years, but it builds up to a point where many people are really fed up with it.

Please give WE back the crit tactic, make them pure dps, increase their damage so that very few will survive their jump, like it was at the beginning of the game, but once they have commited to a fight the WE/WH chose, let them face the consequences. The stun is more than enough. Vanish+speed+lose target midfight is an abomination. Tanky self healing dps that can escape whenever they want is an abomination.

[Nauht]

TLDR

But I suspect it's WEOPnerfpls

[Sinisterror]

This is what happens when Original Warhammer online Rules/Laws are removed or added. Its obviously insane that We/Wh have Better Charge than other Mdps. It ignores GCD + doubles as stealth. Speed aspect should be removed or it should be max 1sec 50% speed boost so it would be more of a dash really than charge. Even that would be more than what they even " Need " or really should have. And it shouldnt be elixir/relic it should be lvl 40 core skill. Add back elixir of blades for both of the classes. None of the good Welfs wanted to even increase the time you can be on stealth to be more than 30sec, because then you actually had to make smart choices

Nerfed Buttons in Aor and probably RoR when it existed(wink wink) allowed you to set attack only every 1.15s and it + this Old ror main dev quote so this is not in question imo.
"The GCD on both AoR and RoR is 1.15 seconds. We know this is the case because the client allows abilities to be used 1.15s into the displayed 1.5s GCD as long as you get your timing right. If you invoke the ability too early, it will be blocked until the 1.5s GCD is up.

We previously had the server enforce the 1.5s GCD hard, and it resulted in client casts being cancelled."

So RoR has now 6 instant skills in 10s instead of 8 before. That is 25% slower gameplay now vs original faster Gcd. Obviously this buffs anyone who has casts over 1.5s so healers and rangeds but on top of that everything Extremely good and extremely needed abilities have been supoer toned down. Add Critting Riposte with 1s Icd back with Critting Leonine Frenzy/Witchbrew/Sod+Absorb vitality heal portion which was affected by Sorc 100% Critical increase mechanic! You know that kind of very good things. Removal of 50% ae Hd from the game, adding Morale dmg cap and increasing aoe cap from 9 to 24 with everything else that really lets you do something to the blob. with 9cap and old non homogenized Ranges made positioning much more impactful becase 40-65ft Ae Melee abilities like 9s ae stagger. Things like this made one party able to kill 1/3 of enemy Wb with single target abilities+Kiting after 9s and not dying to 24 with 6 is not possible any more. Add talismans like Shoulder Crit/boots talismans like Odjira 60% SPeed buff 7% Chance to proc on being hit and the other version that was 12% on being hit to increease 40% speed buff. Different Speed buffs used to stack<3 on my Shaman i could get to 115% Speed increase with Odjira+Run Away tactic+Quick escape RR skill : D

Few examples from AoR like Kotbs doing 65ft RANGED Shatter 2.8k dmg from 1 Shatter using Destroy Confidence Tactic : D

https://imgur.com/a/warhammer-original-glory-3gwL5FQ

RoR has their own thing but imo return to original Basic Laws/Rules of AoR would be for the best of all of us Examples that break the Holy Triad most are this Vanish speed buff for we/wh and adding shield to Dok/Wp... Another defensive passivegameplay adding move. And Shield is the most powerful thing you can equip in this game because of Block. Removed the need to do dmg to heal and introduced need to hit to heal. I would love The old OP Shield spec a little bit nerfed and modified to dual wield/2h because Things like 25% + Melee heals + Divine strike hits 2 extra back when it was spirit dmg meant insane lvl of healing and you could make that spec work in RvR now you cant really.

Sacrifice was a great skill when you could move whilst casting it. The ability damaging you and healing your grp by Very nicely within 100ft. Also the Ranged 300dmg absorb reseting every 1sec for potential of max 10s? For your party + you 3k absorb? nice

I have great video example of everything you are saying without even speccing to get Vanish speed buff with my rr47 Wh vs rr 76 Zealot Duel that lasts almost or a bit over 3 minutes : D And i didnt have any regen bs or defensive bs except 150% Heal bullet tactic. Its too big to upload imgur so heres one of the faster duels.

https://imgur.com/a/warhammer-online-ro ... ot-87AnRvc