Manatikik wrote: ↑Sun Nov 10, 2019 2:08 am
the class isn't based around DoT's and would require an entire rework to make it so.
Hey Fenryl,
I'd like to give you a detailed explanation of why we did the nerf. I'll take ownership and say that this was my idea after a long discussion in the balance channel. It isn't balanced around DoTs; you're right, that's why I would love to add more options in addition to the 10s rotation.
The reason we did the CS nerf is to highlight the abilities that were under-performing - as you've mentioned here, the best part of WL that is over-performing is their 10s rotation - Forced Opportunity, Pack Assault and Coordinated Strike. Anything else outside of that 10s burst rotation is essentially filler / single target pressure. That's not good design if your class is defined by three buttons on the same cooldown that can be used passively to do burst damage, and maybe 2 GCDs outside of that rotation for applying debuffs or pouncing to another target. I'd say CS was the highest performing ability on the WL.
That being said, there needs to be another role for WL outside of that 10s rotation. Let's start by looking at the under-performing abilities in trees:
Hunter
FO/Pounce are standard abilities that everyone pretty much takes at this point. I'm against making them baseline as it forces people to make decisions about what 13pt tree decision they wish to go for.
Hunter's 13 pt ability needs a rework as right now, imo, there is no incentive to go for it. Whirling Axe severely under-performs compared to Slashing Blade.
Slashing Blade can benefit from Tearing Blade AND Hack and Slash tactics, but generally you wouldn't run both of them, as you'd have to give up Speed Training and one of the two: Brute Force, or Flanking, neither of which you'd really want to give up under any circumstance. So really, you either get a strong AOE attack that both Slashing Blade and Whirling Axe benefit from (with Slashing Blade outperforming Whirling Axe in almost every circumstance) or an extra DoT on Slashing Blade and Sundering Chop (which doesn't do that much damage at all.)
I think the best option would be to increase the primary stat modifier of Whirling Axe to 0.66 from the 0.22 where it is now. That would be a pretty big leap, but it would make WL's AOE pretty damn strong and make the 13 point investment worthwhile compared to just putting more points in the tree to improve Slashing Blade.
Some have stated that WL needs an AOE knockdown like Marauders do. I don't think that's the case, as that's unique to marauders and we shouldn't take that away from them. I think WL's AOE just sucks currently, and it's not because they are missing AOE utility.
Axeman
Thin The Herd / Cull the Weak / Primal Fury pretty much defines the Axeman Tree. I think Axeman's passive tactics are lacking. Expect to see a change that allows Full Grown to allow Blindside / Shattering Blow to bypass 35% armor in the future as well as the stat increases. Needs more feedback to see if the CS buff in the last patch (11/9/2019) was enough to restore WL to a somewhat usable state.
As my boss says at work to me about balance changes, "players generally notice changes that are 15% (or more); that's when you generally cross the threshold where you start to notice changes." - I'd expect 35% armor penetration to make those abilities worthwhile.
I feel like the initial/DoT hit is weak on Blindside. I've considered adding weapon damage to that ability for both the DoT and initial hit. Additionally, Shattering Blow is still not where I want it to be, but I'd feel extra dirty if it scaled off weapon damage too. I think the best course of action is to triple the value of SB's Primary Stat Modifier.
Guardian
I think Leonine Frenzy, Brutal Pounce pretty much is class defining for the guardian tree. The passives are too small for me to really want to use them. Would love to see Furious Mending tick every 1 second as opposed to every 5. I wouldn't go overboard like the Torque changes were, though. I think Baited Trap should passively 'steal' disrupt chance on whatever target you use it on when you use Baited Strike, to add a bit of synergy that wasn't there before with RDPS.
But it's missing an ability as well. Echoing Roar takes way too long to build up damage with a 15s duration. I'd rather see it be a 9s duration, 5s reuse, and a tick interval of every 3 seconds.
I would also like to mention that Guardian, imo, is in the best spot - it's the easiest class to play due to most of its abilities being done by the lion and therefore not subjected to GCD (IE; Brutal Pounce, Leonine Frenzy, etc) and you really only have to put brainpower into the 10s rotation and keeping your lion alive or on the right target. It really doesn't need any more changes than what has been presented already.
But muh Marauders!
I'd like to give a similar buff to Marauders, even though they've been the poster child for a 'perfectly balanced class' for a while, a buff to their Rend ability to match that of WL's DoT buffs. They already get an armor bypass on their mutation-required abilities, and it would only seem fair to buff the WL's 'Mythic mirror' with something similar.
Closing
We've actually had a lot more plans for not just WL, but wanted to see how the WL changes were received before moving forward with any more changes. Generally, the feedback has been positive from destro players and neutral from order players.
I'd also like to mention that these are changes *I* want to see and do not reflect the opinions of the entire team, and none of what I posted may stay in the game for long, or if at all.
I think these are pretty good ideas and I just so happen to have access to my local dev server right now. I may stream working on these abilities soon so we can try them out together as a community. Is that something you guys would be interested in seeing?
Let me know, even if it's just feedback. If these changes work well for WL, we'll be touching other classes with similar tweaks.
