A different kind of Bias

[mursie]

Pounce is broken

did i get your attention yet? Here's the twist. It isn't broken in the way you may think.

White Lions are melee dps. Their abilities, at least any of note, are restricted to within 5ft range of their target. Unlike the slayer and witch hunter, which both have inc hd, the WL has pounce. A very unique gap closing ability meant to place the white lion on the target it is pouncing to. (yes i know WL's have other goodies like FO as well.)

I do not believe the devs ever intended for white lions to repeatedly spam pounce on a target. I also don't believe white lions themselves, want to repeatedly spam pounce on a target. So why does it happen?

It happens because the current broken implementation of pounce does not put the white lion on the target's location upon landing with 100% success. As Azarael has noted, it is a limitation of the game's code that it can't adjust pounce on the fly in mid-air to land where the target currently is instead of where the target was when pounce was used. The result - a lot of times the white lion is NOT within 5ft range of the target after landing a pounce.

What options does a white lion, who just used pounce but still is outside of 5ft range, have to use against his intended target? throwing axe... or another pounce. And here in lies the problem and why pounce spam occurs. The white lion is not on the target (i.e. within 5ft).

If you can guarantee the white lion will have the target (by rooting it to where it is and where pounce will be landing)...then you solve the broken mechanic of the white lion. And honestly - the white lion should be rejoicing at this - because now the abilities that matter (those within 5ft range) are going to be able to be used.

Further, it solves the pounce spam whine... because spamming pounce isn't necessary. the white lion is within range of said target.

But - by buffing pounce to root the target... you need to give something back. A cooldown on the ability. There is precedent in other games of 10 seconds on a cooldown for exactly this type of ability.

So - i'm not proposing a nerf to whitelion. more a lateral move. a buff/nerf at the same time to the ability. one that should be beneficial to both parties. the whitelion for the guaranteed success of being on his target at the end of a pounce... and for those running away from a white lion only to see six consecutive pounce spams.

As for pounce ignoring KB - as a white lion, I very much love that I am immune to punts in Tor Anroc ..or anywhere for that matter... but honestly - as a white lion - I know this is BS. It just shouldn't happen.

As for z-axis scaling on pounce to walls... to my knowledge this didn't happen on live. I don't see why it's happening here.

[Deadpoet]

In the introduction to my post I stated clearly that this isn't a thread about pounce, although pounce is brought up several times as an example. If my Original Post is read with some attention anyone will be able to notice that the main focus of my post is an analysis of how some melee abilities, no matter which realm they belong in (I explicitly mention TE too) are being utilized to fuel the fire of realm antagonism when maybe we should be delving a bit deeper and ask ourselves about archetype balance. If i had decided to write about that in the pounce thread and you had pointed it out as a severe derailment from the specific nature of the thread I would have had to agree with you.

The fact is, my post has a distinctly general (I'd even say sociological) approach, while the Pounce thread is crammed with technicalities and minute observations of the functioning of the ability in theoretical battle contexts. That's how i saw it. Forgive me if I was wrong.

[Valfaros]

To sum up, in any other context that is not a well organized premade, mdps have been suffering, are suffering and will be suffering. Take the typical pug sc, the typical warband, the roaming situations. Mdps are the cannon fodder. No guard, unreliable heals, etc.. While rdps don't need to be in a group to be effective and will get loads of DBs with 0 deaths if only they have the minimum clue about positioning. So, if a WL can pounce non stop, or a mara can pull you, for example, they are the only mdps classes that have such tools to deal with ranged. And particularly in the case of WL with pounce, no matter if you can pounce out of trouble (which isn't always possible), Wls have to place their balls at less than 5ft from the enemy to apply their rotation. RISK vs REWARD. That is one of the main balancing principles that should be applied in this game. To hear people who can kill their victims casting their DoTs or pets at 100ft distance without even having to worry about properly kiting, or who can KD people from the distance in addition to a whole array of cc abilities (yes SWs), to hear hose people whining about one mdps that can't be ganked with impunity is simply surrealistic.

Well as you state "any other context that is not a well organized premade" so you are refering to pug groups or warbands but there isn't any point to make. Pugs groups don't matter you can't balance around something random and this was said so many times I really don't know why people are bringing THIS discussion up all the time. So in orginized premade groups mdps aren't suffering no they are meta. So it is a fair argument for a rDPS to make that one class is compleatly ignoring their benefit of being a rDPS. Since they are already lackluster in premades why do you think they can't complain about something that is clearly reducing their viability.
Do you really think that destro is more meele because they thought "hey yeah let's just play all meele" or could the reason for that distribution lie somewhere else?

[notagain]

Pounce is broken

did i get your attention yet? Here's the twist. It isn't broken in the way you may think.

White Lions are melee dps. Their abilities, at least any of note, are restricted to within 5ft range of their target. Unlike the slayer and witch hunter, which both have inc hd, the WL has pounce. A very unique gap closing ability meant to place the white lion on the target it is pouncing to. (yes i know WL's have other goodies like FO as well.)

I do not believe the devs ever intended for white lions to repeatedly spam pounce on a target. I also don't believe white lions themselves, want to repeatedly spam pounce on a target. So why does it happen?

It happens because the current broken implementation of pounce does not put the white lion on the target's location upon landing with 100% success. As Azarael has noted, it is a limitation of the game's code that it can't adjust pounce on the fly in mid-air to land where the target currently is instead of where the target was when pounce was used. The result - a lot of times the white lion is NOT within 5ft range of the target after landing a pounce.

What options does a white lion, who just used pounce but still is outside of 5ft range, have to use against his intended target? throwing axe... or another pounce. And here in lies the problem and why pounce spam occurs. The white lion is not on the target (i.e. within 5ft).

If you can guarantee the white lion will have the target (by rooting it to where it is and where pounce will be landing)...then you solve the broken mechanic of the white lion. And honestly - the white lion should be rejoicing at this - because now the abilities that matter (those within 5ft range) are going to be able to be used.

Further, it solves the pounce spam whine... because spamming pounce isn't necessary. the white lion is within range of said target.

But - by buffing pounce to root the target... you need to give something back. A cooldown on the ability. There is precedent in other games of 10 seconds on a cooldown for exactly this type of ability.

So - i'm not proposing a nerf to whitelion. more a lateral move. a buff/nerf at the same time to the ability. one that should be beneficial to both parties. the whitelion for the guaranteed success of being on his target at the end of a pounce... and for those running away from a white lion only to see six consecutive pounce spams.

As for pounce ignoring KB - as a white lion, I very much love that I am immune to punts in Tor Anroc ..or anywhere for that matter... but honestly - as a white lion - I know this is BS. It just shouldn't happen.

As for z-axis scaling on pounce to walls... to my knowledge this didn't happen on live. I don't see why it's happening here.

This is the kind of thinking that needs to be applied to these issues as a whole and fits well with the tone of this thread. Pounce spam looks, (and likely feels) ridiculous. The lateral move you are advocating is so much better than the wonton cries for nerfing that don't identify the underlying issue. If a root were applied, this would not only fix the issue of pounce not landing on a target, but it would also give the WL a little more group utility. The cool down of ten seconds is reasonable as that's about the time it should take for a team working together to converge on and kill the WL target, at which point he is ready to get to another.

What we need to be doing as a community, is instead of people focusing on the abilities the other side has they don't like. Look at the actual problems occurring in the game, and come up with reasonable solutions to improve everybody's quality of life.

[Tesq]

pounce is gap closer it mean you jump from x and you arrive at y not y +1/2/3/4 where the target have moved...it is not a teleport...alredy the pet teleport around wl do not need to magic telport everywhere on the battllefield too.....then with the currently server range compensation these not sounds good argument.

[Telen]

To sum up, in any other context that is not a well organized premade, mdps have been suffering, are suffering and will be suffering. Take the typical pug sc, the typical warband, the roaming situations. Mdps are the cannon fodder. No guard, unreliable heals, etc..

You cant really do anything about that unless you reduce the effectiveness of guard. It always has to be factored in as a given for balancing just as healing is they are both the foundations of the game.

[lilshoota]

I have to say that for me pounce is what makes a White lion a viable and fun class to play. People talk about rock, paper, scissors but in my experience of the game this does not exist. If you put a good player on any class they are able to beat a lesser player on any class. My problem is that poor players can play white lion currently and easily beat good players on other classes by completely negating their survival tools. When I played WL on live I could not spam pounce as they currently do or I would look like a complete noob with no AP left to kill them. As an example, a few days ago while roaming on magus I saw a witch hunter. I was able to open on him and stop him gaining stealth and to be fair killed him easily, 2 mins later I came across a solo White lion, again I opened on him, tried to cc him, while I tried to cc him his pet continued to attack me, needless to say he destroyed me in seconds. I looked up my combat log to see what he had used, 5 pounces and 2 other attacks. He is your hard counter I hear you cry suck it up. So should I just run, well you cant cos pet runs faster than you and he will pounce you to death. Now I dont think the class is broken but I think it should have some tweeks to pet and increased ap cost on pounce. Every other melee class needs to think about positioning and counter cc WL does not that is why there are so many WL on this server compared with live.

[Azarael]

Friendly reminder from your neighbourhood dev that balance arguments based on duelling will be completely ignored.

[Nidwin]

As an example, a few days ago while roaming on magus -- cutted part irrelevant for my response -- I came across a solo White lion, again I opened on him, tried to cc him, while I tried to cc him his pet continued to attack me, needless to say he destroyed me in seconds. I looked up my combat log to see what he had used, 5 pounces and 2 other attacks. He is your hard counter I hear you cry suck it up. So should I just run, well you cant cos pet runs faster than you and he will pounce you to death. Now I dont think the class is broken but I think it should have some tweeks to pet and increased ap cost on pounce. Every other melee class needs to think about positioning and counter cc WL does not that is why there are so many WL on this server compared with live.

I'm sorry but I've to respond to this one, friendly neighbourhood dev, because it has raised a question in my mind.

So lilshoota,
Are you telling me that you consider a WL a hard Magus counter while the actual end-game gear is annihilator based with 40RR40 as max rank while what could help the WL against a Magus as renown abilities stuff isn't working yet?
Do you think that all the pukes out here, posting on the forums and ask for a WL nerf by adding a CD and whatever else to pounce, think the same as you that the WL is a hard Magus counter?

I'm not flaming you lilshoota and this isn't any form or kind of insult. I'm currious about your and others response because it could help me and others understand where we actually are as a playerbase.

[Abolition]

No other class in the game can ignore an entire subsect of a specific factions defensive tools......excpet for maybe WH/WE but that self punt ability has a CD

And anyone who is ranged but hey, that doesnt sound as cool as what you wrote.

Good job ignoring, and cutting out, the first bit of his comment. If one spends a GCD, and grants an immunity, to knock a WL away, the WL should at least have to land on the ground before pouncing back in again. It's ridiculous that you can knock a WL, for example, off the edge in Gates of Ekrund, for them to instantly come flying back through the air.