[Dev] White Lion proposal

[Aceboltz]

Why is it so hard to nerf this ragequit class? WL is piss easy: tanky, greatest mobility, greatest ST, great CC, easy faction, pet class, few keybinds, etc. The class is no risk/big rewards in every aspect of the game (except zerging).

Even with a big damage nerf and or CS removal, the class will still be tanky, super fast, pug killer, solo hero (but not godlike), wil synergise well with other classes in roaming and scenario, will still have his place in the game.

At the moment the wl just outmatches slayer & witch hunter (2 great classes in the good hands, I mean REALLY great classes) making them irrelevant in the meta just because IT IS SO EASY to remove an enemy target in 3 gcd and turn the tide of the battle with a wl.

And it's not like the class takes some skill and training to be played well. Everyone and his grandmother can play wl and be successful with it. I can't make the difference between a skilled player and a keyboard turner WL because there is none: the skill floor is really low and more or less matches the skill cap. The only boring part is level up to r40.

But I know we are just entering an other cycle of wl buffs (or maybe nerfs this time? one can dream) then undo to leave it in its former broken state in 6 month.

[larsulu]

Reduce pet damage.
Remove crit chance from leonine frenzy.
Do not touch CS.
And you can balance the WL.

[Dammy095]

adding 10% crit chance to coordinated strike via invader definitely wont help, because that set will be meta for few months at least
im not complaining about set being op, just saying its harder to balance keeping that in mind

[Liandel]

These complaints didn't really start until Torq buffed pet damage across the board, right?

Why not revert most of those changes and leave all the other stuff alone? Why do you have to mess around with stuff that's unrelated to the root complaint?

[anarchypark]

it's not killing other specs. there're many skills just not bursty.
dmg will be fine, it's burst this option addressing.

Coordinated Strike is 100% a mandatory part of your burst (it is even more important than the Armor Debuff, which you can technically substitute with an IB). WL is a frontloaded burst class, and this is the frontloaded burst skill that enables a WL to launch upon an unsuspecting squishie, and deliver a world of hurt within 2/3 GCDs. I can say with 100% certainty that if CS were to be made 13-pt Hunter, every single WL worth a damn would spec for this - killing other specs.

How do you intend to kill good players without CS being part of your rotation now? Hint: you won't.

Also, to reiterate: the player burst is not the issue here, so why would we nerf the player's damage and not the pet's?

Spoiler:

I really hope the good feedback people are giving (from both camps) isn't drowned out by some of the 'nerf bcoz nerf!' stuff people are spouting.

it does front loaded burst. but it doesn't mean class should have that trait all the time.
that's mis-used definition of WL.
it's just burst class. non stop with pet.
is there downtime after frontload burst, non dmg period after burst?
it's not like BW/sorc, non dmg while building up burst.
there're plenty other skills after CS. what's 50% hp crit doing in frontload class.

again, it does constant dmg with pet. plus extra burst with CS.
so you have to pay for extra.
i don't think steroid pet users will abandon guardian spec.
you can assist with pet from far.
or assist with main character + pet.

who do i detaunt first is tricky.

[Nekkma]

First of all, I disagree with the description of the issues with WL. The propsal discusses the WL as a whole and argue that is over performing when considering burst and cc. This is not the case. It is one spec, i.e. the guardian, that can be said to over perform. Based on my own experience as mainly destro healer and nowadays occasional WL player, the guardian WL is a bigger threat than the classic hunter/axeman "burst spec". The hunter/axeman is not presently over performing.

This leads to my second point, as the guardian tree is the problem, the solution should be sought after there. I share Peterthepan's opinion that petdamage, and in particular, leonine frenzy should be looked at instead. As it is guardian that over performs, adjust that spec and not the others. Hunter/axeman is in my opinion fairly balanced right now.

Regarding option 1:
This will result in hunter/axeman not beeing able to take thin the heard. Although an outgoing healdebuff is not as useful as an incoming one it is still an unneded nerf to this spec.

Regarding option 2:
This change would actually give cc to the "burts spec" hunter/axeman and could in many situations actually be a buff. If the problem with guardian is burst+control, giving more control (although less reliable without leonine frenzy) to hunter/axeman seems odd. This change just run the risk of shifting the problem to hunter/axeman from guardian.

In summary:
Hunter/axeman is in my opinion fairly balanced right now. Guardian is overperforming. Both options affect both specs and run the risk of nerfing/buffing hunter/axeman and to kill build diversity. The conclusion is that changes instead should focus on the core guardian abilities, preferably leonine frenzy.

[peterthepan3]

it does front loaded burst. but it doesn't mean class should have that trait all the time.

It doesn't: Coordinated Strike is on a 10-second CD.

it's just burst class. non stop with pet.

See my previous point re pet scaling. Pre-pet scaling change, outside of Leonine Frenzy, the pet damage was entirely reasonable.

is there downtime after frontload burst, non dmg period after burst?
it's not like BW/sorc, non dmg while building up burst.
there're plenty other skills after CS. what's 50% hp crit doing in frontload class.

Plenty of skills after CS - you are correct! The idea is that a Hunter/Axe would Armor debuff/CS/Execute (still frontloaded burst), or Hunter/Guard would Armor debuff/LF + other pet ****/CS.

After these rotations, your damage would plummet; this is why WL is pretty bad for sustained DPS, and why other, more sustain-oriented classes (such as Slayers) tend to come out on top in prolonged fights.

again, it does constant dmg with pet. plus extra burst with CS.

DoTs do constant damage, too. I don't see the point you're trying to make....that WL can still do mediocre sustained DPS after his burst periods? Are we forgetting that the pet can be killed btw?

don't think steroid pet users will abandon guardian spec.

Depends: solo players who just wanna run around with the kitty might not, but high-end players will not give up CS.

you can assist with pet from far.
or assist with main character + pet.

Pet damage when master is far away is reduced exponentially.

[Bregon]

Spoiler:

Im not his biggest fan but listen to **** peter.

[Jabba]

Not going to bother repeating suggestions others have made as what's the point, but will instead suggest alternatives that don't leave the class gutted (imo)
I speak from the PoV of playing mostly destro healers/rdps. I don't think WL's over-perform by too much other than in pug situations where (good, well geared ones) they are beyond silly for just a couple of reasons imo:

Detaunt isn't anywhere near as effective against them as against any other class (people saying "YoU JUsT NeEd tO DeTAuNt" need to wake up) as the pet does silly damage too. A suggestion for this could be to have single target detaunts affect both the pet and the player (and the same with sh etc too) if the white lion player is targeted with it.

Pull and then silenced etc in mid air by the lion leaving rdps/healers unable to do anything, a solution to this would be for the lion to be self stunned for like 1.5-2 seconds maybe? after the pull activates, similar in idea to the am/shaman instant res. My thinking on this is that it would give those in mid air time to detaunt or w/e. The stun duration should be low enough that the Lion would have time to get back in range after the stun wears off to add to the damage when the pulled player lands, it would just mean the pulled player isn't so helpless while he's in mid air taking free damage.

Other than this, I think the pet damage needs to be scaled down a touch maybe... (but maybe not if detaunt affected both wl and pet)
Just these changes wouldn't gut the class, but they would go a long to making sure WL's can't delete some squishies (who actually know how to press that detaunt button) without thought or effort.

[Nekkma]

I

Pull and then silenced etc in mid air by the lion leaving rdps/healers unable to do anything, a solution to this would be for the lion to be self stunned for like 1.5-2 seconds maybe? after the pull activates, similar in idea to the am/shaman instant res. My thinking on this is that it would give those in mid air time to detaunt or w/e. The stun duration should be low enough that the Lion would have time to get back in range after the stun wears off to add to the damage when the pulled player lands, it would just mean the pulled player isn't so helpless while he's in mid air taking free damage.

This is a more general issue but perhaps it becomes most glaring with guardian WL which have both kd and pull. It is the devs of this servers idea to have you disabled during the pull. On live you could detaunt, use anti cc, morales, pots, even cast heals with casttime while you where airborne. I hate this change as it basically adds another knockdown on a separate immunity timer. A compromise could be to counted as moving while in air which would allow for instant abilities but not casted ones.