Streamlining ability effects

[Cimba]

Introduction
In this topic I want to discuss the distribution of ability effects (Curse, Hex, Ailment) across classes.
I realize that the devs might not have the ability to change it yet but considering the proposal of Azarael to change group cleansing I believe this is something that should be considered before touching cleansing.
I used the waronlinebuilder as a source for this. While it is not up to date on everything I believe/hope it is still state of the art for the points discussed in this topic.
I summerized the ability effects of each class in this spreadsheet.

Identify the issue
As already mentioned there are three (cleansable) ability effects currently implemented in the game. With twelve classes per side one would assume that these would be distributed evenly among the classes. This is the case for Order but apparently not for Destruction, there are 5 classes that use Ailments and only 3 with Hexes.
Furthermore one would assume that there is some kind of logic how these ability effects were distributed. By looking at the Destruction classes one can see that each archetype (mdps, rdps, healer, tanks) has access to every ability effect (exception MDPS --> only 3 hexes available). For order this is not the case were each archetype has only access to two ability effects with the exception of the healers.
So there is no overarching logic how these ability effects were distributed for both sides. At least I can’t see one.

Why it is an issue
Issue 1: Unevenly distributed ability effects on the side of Destruction
With 5 Ailments, 4 Curses and 3 Hexes the healers who are supposed to clean hexes are at a disadvantage. This is just a numbers argument not counting the importance of the buffs that these healers can cleanse.
I can’t see any argument not to fix this (Aside from implementation/development issues)

Issue 2: Lacking distribution logic on Order side
For destruction the consequence of this is that DoKs can cleanse every important incoming heal debuff. Which is arguably the strongest debuff in game. While this certainly sounds very good for DoK players the Zealots get the short end of the stick with being able to only cleanse the somewhat less important Archmage IHD (compared to SW, SL, WH IHD).
On order side this issues makes group building sometimes awkward if you consider facing 2x heal doks group on a regular basis. Reason is that if you want to play with a white lion your 2nd DPS needs help to sustain the IHD. In 2/2/2 groups the only tank that can do that against double DoK is the sword master. Leaving IB/Knight as the second tank… and everyone knows what the preferred choice is there.

My conclusion is that the effect distribution favors some classes over others alone on the basis of their effect type and how cleansing works. I can’t see any reasonable explanation why this should be and therefore propose a change.

Proposal
Edited Proposal. Original can be found in the Spoiler
In my opinion it’s important to spread the most powerful debuffs evenly among the effect types with the goal of promoting class diversity for the opposing healers. A good example how to achieve this is shown by the distribution of effect types on Destruction. With the exception of MDPS every other archetype uses the three different effect types.

The goal would be
a) Fix the anamoly on destruction mdps
b) Create the 'perfect' split among archetype for Order as well

Proposal 1: Least effort
The least effort way to balance the distrubtion on Destruction would be to change the Marauder or Witch Elf effect from Ailment to Hex. Since Marauder are often considered the more 'potent' destro mdps I would prefer the change for the Marauder. This would enable WP and Archmages to cleanse the respective effects.

The least effort way to acomplish the 'perfect' split for Order would be
BW/Engi: Hex ---> Curse
KOTBS/IB: Curse ---> Ailment
Witch Hunter/Slayer: Ailment ---> Hex

I strongly believe that engi should be cleansable by DoK (Hex/Ailment cleanse) due to the grp cleanse/AE DoT problematic. So the BW would move to Curse. Which probably creates an outcry of epic proportions among the DoK players.

For the KOTBS/IB I would prefer the IB to change. Due to the fact that the WL (Curse) already has a outgoing heal debuff and armor debuff that can't be cleansed by DoK. Therefore the IB (who also has an armor and OHD) should change to Ailment.

For the MDPS change I don't have a clear favorite since IMO Slayer and WH fulfill very similar rolls.

Proposal 2: The easiest distribution to memorize
With the proposal above the archetypes would be split evenly among the effect types but there would be no other logic behind it. This makes it kind of hard to memorize what classes a particular healer can and can't cleanse. As far as I know a lot healer just rely on addons to tell what they can/can't cleanse.

If the effect types were distributed by race each healer would just need to know the race he can't cleanse and work from there.

A distrbution by race would also lead to the desired split of effect types among the archetypes.

My proposal would be
Dwarfs --> Ailment
Elfs --> Curse
Empire --> Hex

Greenskins --> Ailment
Dark Elfs --> Curse
Chaos --> Hex

An anchor would be again the pairing with Engi/Magus to DoK/WP. The second reference was that I wanted to keep BW/Sorc on DoK/WP cleanse this time.

Spoiler:

In my opinion it’s important to spread the most powerful debuffs evenly among the effect types with the goal of promoting class diversity for the opposing healers.
Furthermore I believe that Engineers/Magus need to be cleansable by DoK/WP due to their group cleanse capabilities.
The easiest distribution I came up with that satisfies these conditions is a distribution by race centered around the Engi/Magus and DoK/WP problematic.

One of the questions that should be addressed is if DoK/WP should be allowed to cleanse BW/Sorc or if this should be exclusively handled by the other two archetypes.

[noisestorm]

Would be helpful if you could draw a better conclusion or rather solution to what exactly should be changed.
Like: Do you want to Change the WE/Marauder to Being Hex for example? Do you want a perfect Hex-Ailment-Curse split upon each class of its Archetype? Basically like it already is for every Destro Archetype except Melees, as well as changing all of the types on order to fit the scheme as well?

To put it short again: Proposal needs to be a bit more specific

[Penril]

Moving to discussions.

[Telen]

One issue that pops up to me is that dok/wp cleanse really has to be hitting bw/sorc as its the only thing that can keep them in check. If you dont happen to have those healers the zealot/rp cleanse spam tactic seems aimed to counter it aswell. Really clenase and the bw/sorc rotation we all know are so entwined they will need to be looked at together for any major changes. Its no surprise the red headed stepchild of the healers are the ones that cant cleanse bw/sorc. Just shuffling types around wont change that as if you cant cleanse bw/sorc youre immediately at a disadvantage.

[zumos2]

"This is the case for Order but apparently not for Destruction, there are 5 classes that use Ailments and only 3 with Hexes."

I would change as few as possible to all the debuff types of different classes. I don't currently see a reason, nor have I seen a strong argument to change anything beyond turning one Ailment user into a Hex user. The other issue raised is the outcome of poor balance of dps classes. The fact that one heal debuff is better because the dps itself is better is could be an argument now, but ultimately the game should be balanced that they are all "equally" good and then you have balanced around something you changed later on, which should be prevented whenever possible.

Then onto which class to change to Hexes. Your argument of choosing Mara over WE I really don't get. Why would the WP have to be able to cleanse - what you call - the most potent mdps? Besides that WE could get stronger in the future, with the idea of the game getting more balanced over time it is very hard to argue for any class to change to hexes. Then again currently every class except for probably shaman will be a buff for the WP.

Spoiler:

" So the BW would move to Curse. Which probably creates an outcry of epic proportions among the DoK players."

I always have trouble taking something like that serious from a main BW player

[Cimba]

One issue that pops up to me is that dok/wp cleanse really has to be hitting bw/sorc as its the only thing that can keep them in check. If you dont happen to have those healers the zealot/rp cleanse spam tactic seems aimed to counter it aswell. Really clenase and the bw/sorc rotation we all know are so entwined they will need to be looked at together for any major changes. Its no surprise the red headed stepchild of the healers are the ones that cant cleanse bw/sorc. Just shuffling types around wont change that as if you cant cleanse bw/sorc youre immediately at a disadvantage.

When I wrote that proposal I felt the same because it's the straightfoward way to counter the sorc/bw rotations. Now two months later with having played quite extensively with a WP/AM duo I don't think it's that important anymore. Not being able to cleanse BW/Sorc certainly needs to be considered when building a group but at the end of the day it's just one criteria. For our setups the benefits of an AM usually outweighes the benefits of an RP. And I've been told AM is far more interesting to play then RP but I can't judge that

"This is the case for Order but apparently not for Destruction, there are 5 classes that use Ailments and only 3 with Hexes."

I would change as few as possible to all the debuff types of different classes. I don't currently see a reason, nor have I seen a strong argument to change anything beyond turning one Ailment user into a Hex user. The other issue raised is the outcome of poor balance of dps classes. The fact that one heal debuff is better because the dps itself is better is could be an argument now, but ultimately the game should be balanced that they are all "equally" good and then you have balanced around something you changed later on, which should be prevented whenever possible.

You can take this argument in the other direction too. Currently I can't see any distribution logic for order. So at some point during your balancing you might discover that it's actually easier to balance the dps classes if there is a logic to how these effects are spread among them. Now you have balanced everything around a broken/unlogical state.

Then onto which class to change to Hexes. Your argument of choosing Mara over WE I really don't get. Why would the WP have to be able to cleanse - what you call - the most potent mdps? Besides that WE could get stronger in the future, with the idea of the game getting more balanced over time it is very hard to argue for any class to change to hexes. Then again currently every class except for probably shaman will be a buff for the WP.

You can also just do a coin flip. The question is if you want to use this change as a balancing one or not. Since heal WP are still more or less set in stone for one heal slot this change would probably be percieved as a nerf.

Spoiler:

" So the BW would move to Curse. Which probably creates an outcry of epic proportions among the DoK players."

I always have trouble taking something like that serious from a main BW player

Spoiler:

I'm not really affected by this change. The groups I play in make it virtually impossible to cleanse BB in time anyway (Aside from M2). But I guess I need to play my slayer more to be taken seriously on arguments related to BW...

[Karast]

As an important addition it should be noted that the current distribution of debuff types on destro side is actually problematic to order side, since there are many more heal debuffs that WP are unable to cleanse than there are for DoK. This has pushed order into doing more split healer groups RP / WP or AM / WP rather than single healer groups WP /WP.

Also taking engi / magus aoe dots into consideration for DoK / WP cleanse is a bit of a nonissue. The damage pressure on the vast majority of the AoE dots is low enough to cause no pressure at all. Cleanse is more about removing key debuffs like the heal debuff or wounds debuff than it is about trash AoE dots, which in an organized environment are more used as cover than anything else. Many healers actually like having a few trash dots on them since the ticks will break stagger, or help generate useful procs.

But I do somewhat agree with re-balancing the effects because they are at the heart of healer and dps balance, tweaking as proposed could reshape healer / comp balance, and provide a key weakness to the current double DoK comp.

[Tesq]

As an important addition it should be noted that the current distribution of debuff types on destro side is actually problematic to order side, since there are many more heal debuffs that WP are unable to cleanse than there are for DoK. This has pushed order into doing more split healer groups RP / WP or AM / WP rather than single healer groups WP /WP.

Also taking engi / magus aoe dots into consideration for DoK / WP cleanse is a bit of a nonissue. The damage pressure on the vast majority of the AoE dots is low enough to cause no pressure at all. Cleanse is more about removing key debuffs like the heal debuff or wounds debuff than it is about trash AoE dots, which in an organized environment are more used as cover than anything else. Many healers actually like having a few trash dots on them since the ticks will break stagger, or help generate useful procs.

But I do somewhat agree with re-balancing the effects because they are at the heart of healer and dps balance, tweaking as proposed could reshape healer / comp balance, and provide a key weakness to the current double DoK comp.

if it would not for the m2 dok have that woudl be not much of a difference, before do h-debuff you bury it under dots and dots, a destru group can cleanse 2 every 5 sec so with 2x snare 2x dot from 2 tanks you are alredy cover for 10 sec of heal debuff.....the onyl way is use a zealot/rp tactic to bypass that wall of dots or debuff enemy dmg save you're ass with guard and cc.

i somewhat agree with the aoe dots being not so high in fact i just dropped the g-cleanse and done a more durable tactic build on my dok after all these continiusly changes. There is really no difference and i can cleanse again ppl out of party and if 4 healers can do that then it just work better i had only 1 reason to slot g-cleanse and it was shatter limbs since i cannot cleanse both me and group and i need to cleanse me then the tactic can stay home( ye engi aoe dots need a "bit" more of attention but that's all fine). Regardless once every min i can g-cleanse with m2(tough that was nerfed too) so is just like play a vanilla dok( i need a more moral gain centered itiemization tough, and ye i want/dream of a moral tactic for dok).

[Penril]

Time to lock, and not even 2 pages. Oh well