Azarael wrote:
The priority should be:
- Class abilities/tactics/morales and specs
- Renown abilities
- Item abilities/effects.
Any concept which exists within the latter two should be ripped out and used in the first to effect greater variety in specs and balance.
I can agree with that, but at the same time I'd like to add that only having renown abilities that give stats would be rather boring in terms of character specialization. I wouldn't mind RD/Cleansing Winds etc. being reworked, or only being restricted to certain classes, but I don't think these abilities are fundamentally broken in anything else than 1v1s which are irrelevant to the overall balance discussion.
As far as RD is concerned , it has a myriad of uses both offensively and defensively. My problem with it is that it is not reactive, but rather strips your opponents of any counter-play in form of CC. And while it does require more "skill" to use properly i am unsure if a mechanic like this is healthy to have access to on EVERY class.
Also while it may seem like it is a big deal to some investing 10+ points into any of these abilities , looking at the long term as stats/gear increase and as people reach higher RRs , the value of getting stats through RR is going to diminish while the value of getting these abilities is only going to increase.
RD certainly isn't skillless or non-reactive, there are certain CC skills that are telegraphed by players movement and there are good timings when to pop them, in large scale RvR as well as in 6v6 - where a player using RD badly would benefit much more from just having 10 points in some stats. In 1v1s, yeah it's stupid, but again 1v1s aren't a part of the discussion. For instance lots of zones in ORvR have restriced spaces where a chosen or a knight is pretty much guaranteed to be able to get a good stagger of, but it is telegraphed because he moves towards the healers and away from his guard target who usually has to pull back. There the stagger is actually the play with no counterplay, if RD isn't available. Honestly I have nothing against timing skills, or pro-active skills. RD is all of that with a little bit of reactive to movement added to it. Just because an opponent doesn't slam his CC into an RD doesn't mean it wasn't a reaction to him demonstrating an intention to use CC at a certain time
As per your second point, yeah that's true and RD shouldn't be an autospec on higher RRs, it should be a choice. But that doesn't necessarily mean RD needs to get nerfed, but rather that there need to be meaningful alternatives to it (which there really weren't in AoR).
