Deadpoet wrote: Mon Dec 08, 2025 8:55 am
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.
