Huge Order/Destro moral unbalance

[Nefarian78]

I see many people think achieving balance is just a "nerf X". Balance doesn't work like that, especially when the discussion is about large scale fights in a game with only semi-mirrored classes. It's even more complex when there's lack of knowledge in many of the participants involved and lack of players to create and test various setups that could be used to counter X strategy.

In this case, nerfing Mara's morale drain would require extensive changes to almost every class on Order (In addition of gutting the last thing that class is good at). This game's RvR is balanced around Order having more raw damage and healing compared to Destruction but worse morale play. Nerfing Mara's morale drain without touching Order's raw damage would tip the scales very heavily in their favor.

Morale dumping has both weaknesses and strenghts. It's painfully easy to both predict and subsequently stop or prevent (Either by counterdumping or well-executed aoe punts and positioning) a BW m2 or a BO m3 (Most common Order and Destro morale dumps) dump, but if not countered it's a crushing blow that the enemy most likely won't be able to recover from. High risk high reward.

On the other hand, it's nowhere near as easy to counter 4 slayers outputting absurd amounts of WB-wide raw pressure with undefendable ID+SL + 2 BWs + 2 more dps. The class and spec requirements alone are incredibly high. This is the list of things that are REQUIRED to stand a chance against an organized slayer heavy WB that knows what they're doing.

- At least 3 Chosens are required to run Dire Shielding for counterpressure,
- 4 BOs that know how and when to use Waaaagh, always shattering Rampage the instant it goes up and using Not in Da face as soon as it's up and on targets that matter.
- 4 DoKs spamming Patch Wounds to cleanse and using Khaine's Withdrawal correctly.
- At least 2 Squigs that constantly use Indigestion on the healers to keep up the pressure.
- 1/2 Marauders constantly draining morale. Can't let the 2 BWs manage to dump a well-placed m2 on destro's frontline with such a high constant stream of pressure or it's over.

This strategy of using raw pressure has only one downside and that is how good is your leader at leading and coordinating that pressure. If executed correctly raw pressure has no risk whatsoever. You're going to direct the flow of the battle as the enemy is going to be busy catching up to you. Their only way of winning being a predictable and easily countered m2/3 drop.

I've played both Destro and Order. One thing i've noticed is that Destruction guilds and especially alliances (and even pug city warbands, to a lesser extent) tend to take full advantage of the tools they have at their disposals, while there's literally 3 left doing the same on Order and that is Zerg/TuP/Thundercats.

Won every single city i've done with destro alliance warband.

6man guilds completely dominating pro orvr warband guilds in these city instances, a disappointing lack of challenge.

Nerf morales.

Also true.

[toffikx]

I see many people think achieving balance is just a "nerf X". Balance doesn't work like that, especially when the discussion is about large scale fights in a game with only semi-mirrored classes. It's even more complex when there's lack of knowledge in many of the participants involved and lack of players to create and test various setups that could be used to counter X strategy.

In this case, nerfing Mara's morale drain would require extensive changes to almost every class on Order (In addition of gutting the last thing that class is good at). This game's RvR is balanced around Order having more raw damage and healing compared to Destruction but worse morale play. Nerfing Mara's morale drain without touching Order's raw damage would tip the scales very heavily in their favor.

Morale dumping has both weaknesses and strenghts. It's painfully easy to both predict and subsequently stop or prevent (Either by counterdumping or well-executed aoe punts and positioning) a BW m2 or a BO m3 (Most common Order and Destro morale dumps) dump, but if not countered it's a crushing blow that the enemy most likely won't be able to recover from. High risk high reward.

On the other hand, it's nowhere near as easy to counter 4 slayers outputting absurd amounts of WB-wide raw pressure with undefendable ID+SL + 2 BWs + 2 more dps. The class and spec requirements alone are incredibly high. This is the list of things that are REQUIRED to stand a chance against an organized slayer heavy WB that knows what they're doing.

- At least 3 Chosens are required to run Dire Shielding for counterpressure,
- 4 BOs that know how and when to use Waaaagh, always shattering Rampage the instant it goes up and using Not in Da face as soon as it's up and on targets that matter.
- 4 DoKs spamming Patch Wounds to cleanse and using Khaine's Withdrawal correctly.
- At least 2 Squigs that constantly use Indigestion on the healers to keep up the pressure.
- 1/2 Marauders constantly draining morale. Can't let the 2 BWs manage to dump a well-placed m2 on destro's frontline with such a high constant stream of pressure or it's over.

This strategy of using raw pressure has only one downside and that is how good is your leader at leading and coordinating that pressure. If executed correctly raw pressure has no risk whatsoever. You're going to direct the flow of the battle as the enemy is going to be busy catching up to you. Their only way of winning being a predictable and easily countered m2/3 drop.

I've played both Destro and Order. One thing i've noticed is that Destruction guilds and especially alliances (and even pug city warbands, to a lesser extent) tend to take full advantage of the tools they have at their disposals, while there's literally 3 left doing the same on Order and that is Zerg/TuP/Thundercats.

Hold on, did you just make a logical, very well structured post that does not have neither excessive salt or e-peen bragging?
Looks like the Matrix has stopped working on the RoR forums.

[teiloh]

I think we all agree that Destro has the morale advantage and that Order has the damage and healing advantage and that’s the way of the game. Both sides just need to make sure to utilize the tools they are given to improve and adapt.

The notion that Order has a healing advantage hinges on a single tactic for the WP and one for the Knight, and I'm not really seeing it. Destro definitely has a heal debuff advantage; BG > IB, WE > WH, Chosen > KOTBS (30 foot incoming aura worse than outgoing), SH = SW in theory but in practice is better despite 5 higher AP costs, DoK proc > nothing, etc.

Destro also has a ton of damage reflects like two Mara M4s, two classes with Misdirection, Bane Shield.

For AOE mDPS mSH and Marauder are both better than WL. Destro has more and better CD decreasers as opposed to live where this was an Order advantage. Sorc + Magus is far better than BW + Eng, and in terms of raw damage Sorc and BW are not much different. The only Order classes that outdamage their Destro counterparts might be the Archmage and Ironbreaker and only by a limited amount - but then again, as with WLs and Marauders, the IB/BG pairing is dubious when it comes to AOE.

So unless I'm missing something, I can't agree.

1. In this case, nerfing Mara's morale drain would require extensive changes to almost every class on Order (In addition of gutting the last thing that class is good at).

2. This game's RvR is balanced around Order having more raw damage and healing compared to Destruction but worse morale play. Nerfing Mara's morale drain without touching Order's raw damage would tip the scales very heavily in their favor.

3. On the other hand, it's nowhere near as easy to counter 4 slayers outputting absurd amounts of WB-wide raw pressure with undefendable ID+SL + 2 BWs + 2 more dps. The class and spec requirements alone are incredibly high. This is the list of things that are REQUIRED to stand a chance against an organized slayer heavy WB that knows what they're doing.

- At least 3 Chosens are required to run Dire Shielding for counterpressure,
- 4 BOs that know how and when to use Waaaagh, always shattering Rampage the instant it goes up and using Not in Da face as soon as it's up and on targets that matter.
- 4 DoKs spamming Patch Wounds to cleanse and using Khaine's Withdrawal correctly.
- At least 2 Squigs that constantly use Indigestion on the healers to keep up the pressure.
- 1/2 Marauders constantly draining morale. Can't let the 2 BWs manage to dump a well-placed m2 on destro's frontline with such a high constant stream of pressure or it's over.

4. I've played both Destro and Order. One thing i've noticed is that Destruction guilds and especially alliances (and even pug city warbands, to a lesser extent) tend to take full advantage of the tools they have at their disposals, while there's literally 3 left doing the same on Order and that is Zerg/TuP/Thundercats.

Some claims I want to address:

1. It would not. And the Marauder has incredible utility, although I'm not necessarily in favor of nerfing the tactic.

2. Can you list the ways in which Order has more raw damage? You mentioned ID+SL but that's one single combo. Destro has two CD decreasers on two very popular classes, when Order used to have a 10/20s uptime version (on an unpopular class) and Destro a 20/60. How much damage is ID hitting for on average, exactly? Squig Herder Run Away! (the ability) lowers damage done by all affected targets for 10 out of 45 seconds. It stacks with challenge, detaunt and lasts the full duration even if the Squig pet is beaten down or even dies. Any properly played Squig Herder will completely wreck Order MDPS damage. ID is not exceptional and Destro has counterplay in spades. Marauder Lashing Power and Forked Aggression will either outright kill or severely cripple all DPS attacking them. For BW, a BW will be hitting himself as hard as he hits a single Magus if that Magus uses Misdirection.

3. I'll do you one better - 2 Marauders with damage reflection for Slayer/BW, 1/2 Marauders with drain, 2 Magus with Misdirection, 2/3 SH with Run Away! and the standard mSH build, Shaman to build everyone's morale.

4. The fact that Destro doesn't use one of the best tools at its disposal, Run Away!, leads me to believe this is not really true.

[teiloh]

I think we all agree that Destro has the morale advantage and that Order has the damage and healing advantage and that’s the way of the game. Both sides just need to make sure to utilize the tools they are given to improve and adapt.

The notion that Order has a healing advantage hinges on a single tactic for the WP and one for the Knight, and I'm not really seeing it. Destro definitely has a heal debuff advantage; BG > IB, WE > WH, Chosen > KOTBS (30 foot incoming aura worse than outgoing), SH = SW in theory but in practice is better despite 5 higher AP costs, DoK proc > nothing, etc.

Destro also has a ton of damage reflects like two Mara M4s, two classes with Misdirection, Bane Shield.

For AOE mDPS mSH and Marauder are both better than WL. Destro has more and better CD decreasers as opposed to live where this was an Order advantage. Sorc + Magus is far better than BW + Eng, and in terms of raw damage Sorc and BW are not much different. The only Order classes that outdamage their Destro counterparts might be the Archmage and Ironbreaker and only by a limited amount - but then again, as with WLs and Marauders, the IB/BG pairing is dubious when it comes to AOE.

So unless I'm missing something, I can't agree.

1. In this case, nerfing Mara's morale drain would require extensive changes to almost every class on Order (In addition of gutting the last thing that class is good at).

2. This game's RvR is balanced around Order having more raw damage and healing compared to Destruction but worse morale play. Nerfing Mara's morale drain without touching Order's raw damage would tip the scales very heavily in their favor.

3. On the other hand, it's nowhere near as easy to counter 4 slayers outputting absurd amounts of WB-wide raw pressure with undefendable ID+SL + 2 BWs + 2 more dps. The class and spec requirements alone are incredibly high. This is the list of things that are REQUIRED to stand a chance against an organized slayer heavy WB that knows what they're doing.

- At least 3 Chosens are required to run Dire Shielding for counterpressure,
- 4 BOs that know how and when to use Waaaagh, always shattering Rampage the instant it goes up and using Not in Da face as soon as it's up and on targets that matter.
- 4 DoKs spamming Patch Wounds to cleanse and using Khaine's Withdrawal correctly.
- At least 2 Squigs that constantly use Indigestion on the healers to keep up the pressure.
- 1/2 Marauders constantly draining morale. Can't let the 2 BWs manage to dump a well-placed m2 on destro's frontline with such a high constant stream of pressure or it's over.

4. I've played both Destro and Order. One thing i've noticed is that Destruction guilds and especially alliances (and even pug city warbands, to a lesser extent) tend to take full advantage of the tools they have at their disposals, while there's literally 3 left doing the same on Order and that is Zerg/TuP/Thundercats.

Some claims I want to address:

1. It would not. And the Marauder has incredible utility, although I'm not necessarily in favor of nerfing the tactic.

2. Can you list the ways in which Order has more raw damage? You mentioned ID+SL but that's one single combo. Destro has two CD decreasers on two very popular classes, when Order used to have a 10/20s uptime version (on an unpopular class) and Destro a 20/60. How much damage is ID hitting for on average, exactly? Squig Herder Run Away! (the ability) lowers damage done by all affected targets for 10 out of 45 seconds. It stacks with challenge, Wind Woven Shell, detaunt and lasts the full duration even if the Squig pet is beaten down or even dies. Any properly played Squig Herder will completely wreck Order MDPS damage. ID is not exceptional and Destro has counterplay in spades. Marauder Lashing Power and Forked Aggression will either outright kill or severely cripple all DPS attacking them. For BW, a BW will be hitting himself as hard as he hits a single Magus if that Magus uses Misdirection.

3. I'll do you one better - 2 Marauders with damage reflection for Slayer/BW, 1/2 Marauders with drain, 2 Magus with Misdirection, 2/3 SH with Run Away! and the standard mSH build, Shaman to build everyone's morale.

4. The fact that Destro doesn't use one of the best tools at its disposal, Run Away!, leads me to believe this is not really true.

[Nefarian78]

Some claims I want to address:

1. It would not. And the Marauder has incredible utility, although I'm not necessarily in favor of nerfing the tactic.

2. Can you list the ways in which Order has more raw damage? You mentioned ID+SL but that's one single combo. Destro has two CD decreasers on two very popular classes, when Order used to have a 10/20s uptime version (on an unpopular class) and Destro a 20/60. How much damage is ID hitting for on average, exactly? Squig Herder Run Away! (the ability) lowers damage done by all affected targets for 10 out of 45 seconds. It stacks with challenge, detaunt and lasts the full duration even if the Squig pet is beaten down or even dies. Any properly played Squig Herder will completely wreck Order MDPS damage. ID is not exceptional and Destro has counterplay in spades. Marauder Lashing Power and Forked Aggression will either outright kill or severely cripple all DPS attacking them. For BW, a BW will be hitting himself as hard as he hits a single Magus if that Magus uses Misdirection.

3. I'll do you one better - 2 Marauders with damage reflection for Slayer/BW, 1/2 Marauders with drain, 2 Magus with Misdirection, 2/3 SH with Run Away! and the standard mSH build, Shaman to build everyone's morale.

4. The fact that Destro doesn't use one of the best tools at its disposal, Run Away!, leads me to believe this is not really true.

Incredible utility? Such as? You should list what you think is "incredible utility" and explain how if you're trying to debunk an argument, but anyway... Once morale drain is out of the picture there's only two good things left. Exhaustive Strikes and 25feet aoe KD. On the class that has the absolute lowest damage in the game. That's nowhere near enough to make it a viable class.

My previous post explains how and why Order has more raw pressure compared to destro, but i can go in slightly more detail. The answer is how easy it is to apply constant damage for Order compared to Destro. and, once more, it mostly comes down to Rampage ID+SL.

ID ticks every 3s doing an average of 350 to 500 damage with a 30 ft radius, basically meaning you have from 2 to 3 IDs hitting the entire warband. It has 5s CD and it's undefendable much of the time due to Rampage not being so easy to shatter in a 24v24 fight. Besides that, it's not like Slayer uses only ID and SL. Retribution, Onslaught, Flurry all deal very good damage and are a constant source of pressure, much of the time being undefendable. A Slayer can easily output an average of 2.5k dps to a group of enemies, which normall can be healed by competent healers. Now remember you have 4 Slayers dealing 2.5k undefendable average dps, add another 2 BWs that also average at 2.5k dps. Maybe add an engineer that has Concussive Mines and Pierce Defenses and a WH that is being a pain in the ass to one of the healers. Hell, you could even add two more BWs or 2 more Slayers instead. Ontop of all of that the entire enemy warband is affected by SL.

That paragraph above is purely about sustained pressure. Both BWs and Slayers can output incredible aoe burst damage in a very short window of time with Rampage'd Retribution proccing Jagged Edge alongside BWs using Annhilate proccing Wildfire, Flame of Rhuin and Explosive force.

Can Destro apply this much pressure and with the same ease of use? Not really. Which is why destro has better morale play.

Moving on to the next part of your point. Forked Aggression? Lashing Power? Magus Misdirection? No, no and once again, no. Don't take offense at this, because that's not my intent. I can clearly tell by this that you must be either a new player or one that completely lacks knowledge about Largescale fights.

What are you going to do with a Savagery mara?

Apply you Single target wounds debuff that does next to no damage every 10s? You have a 2h BG proccing Hastened Doom with Crimson Death and Monstrous Rending. Apply your single target armor debuff that also does next to no damage and isn't needed? Zealots can spec into Sweeping Disgorgement if you want an armor debuff and that one is also aoe.

Same can be said about Brutality mara. What are you going to do the entire time? Use Wave of Terror to accomplish nothing and then idk convulsive slash someone for 150 damage total. Maybe even reach such legendary heights such as...300 total damage with Mutated Aggressor active! I personally haven't seen or played a deep brutality mara in years and there's a reason for that.

Magus as a class doesn't fit into anything. They can rift which can occasionally be good but completely lack damage. How much damage they lack? I've seen BGs and played my BO as pure dps in 24v24 achieving better results in both damage and DBs while still having tank utility. This might be my bias speaking, but that class has to be re-created from scratch to make it useful for anything outside pug wb/sc

Run Away! isn't used for WB play because it's simply not useful. Doesn't matter how good you think it is.

Destro has two CD decreasers on two very popular classes, when Order used to have a 10/20s uptime version (on an unpopular class)

Which is yet again another case of Order not using the tools at their disposal. Balance arguments should not take "But Order lacks X which means Y results in Z" in consideration. Destro takes full advantage of what they have (which in many cases is straight up inferior, like KotB and Chosen), why can't Order do the same?

[teiloh]

The way you describe it, ID doesn't seem to hit much harder than GON does (300-750? a tick, but there's always 5 or 6 of them, I forget)

The Marauder M4s are so good that it's worth using them regardless. Lets take your Slayer/BW damage for example, of 2.5k DPS. As far as utility goes - take your pick from a mix of cone AOE interrupt, AF debuff, AP gain reduction, Morale gain reduction, one of the few AOE knockdowns, defense debuff, a strong pull (Fetch is the worst), heal stealing, aoe WS/ini debuff, AOE disorient. Then there's other nice stuff like Parry, barbs, etc but they're nothing special.

Lashing Power has a 33% chance to reflect the entire damage back and heal the Marauder. Every single Slayer/BW attacking him will be taking back 800 of that DPS back, and nullifying the damage done to them. This M4 lasts 20 seconds, a 1/3rd uptime.

For Forked Aggression it reflects the damage back with a 50% boost; undefendable morale damage. So each Slayer/BW is dealing 3.7k DPS to himself from *one* Marauder alone. Once more this is a 33% uptime ability. Better to ask what a Hoeth Swordmaster is going to do other than keep WW up.

As for what they can do when not using their M4s, they can just spam AOE like anyone else, with Exhaustive Strikes. Brutality Marauder even has a morale build stopper, but it's not really the stand-out. Monstro Marauders can knock down the Slayers.

As for Slayers, I doubt they're hitting shield tanks that hard, which is really among the few times Rampage is going to be a significant penetration boost. Soft targets were barely defending against Slayers to begin with.

As for the Magus, when I played mine there was almost never any time any Sorc or any other class could put out higher damage numbers than I did. Not only do you keep Spirit constantly and ubiquitously debuffed, Pandemonium probably hits the average target for 280-550, Glean Magic 120-200, Infernal Blast 250-300, Daemonic Lash 450-950, (Dissolving Mist, Agonizing Torret, Aegis damage procs, pet attacks) etc etc. And this would be at max range and not specced for close engagement. To top it all off they can take Misdirection with little opportunity cost, and there you go, your 2.5k DPS bright wizards are now doing 1.25k DPS to themselves on top of the 3.7k DPS they're doing to themselves because of the Marauder. Then there's stacked Dire Shielding, maybe even thorns potions for laughs. Unless something changed, Wildfire's damage is 70-110 a tick non-stacking, that's less than Glean Magic.

Likewise Squig Herder Run Away! is basically the nerfed Distracting Bellow except it stacks with everything, needs not build morale, is 0 risk, has a potentially longer range, and has a lower cooldown. Two Squig Herders can easily cut the damage of every single Slayer in half.

IMO, Order's "complaints" here are perfectly valid. If anything, Destro has better DPS here.

[Bozzax]

ID ——GON
Instant ——- 2s cast
5s CD —— 10s cd (so SL has 2 active)
Proc ——- Dot so no proc
Undef ——- Defendable
5-70% pen ——- no resist bypass

When a sorc uses GON his dps drops. ID make slayers virtually immune to challenge on top of being a pressure tool.

Bud you need to read the advice you got.

[jasonX]

I would make a post over this since having played both sides on a warband scale gives me a wide perspective but I know that I will waste my breath just as I did on my Shadow Warrior post.

Just a tip. Among all the imbalance in moralepump between the two factions please add the shaman aoe AP drain that leaves Order DPS gimped and unable to do systainable fluff dmg.
If a destro warband played optimally there is no way to beat it. If you did trust me they were not playing optimally. So no morale and no fluff dmg. I guess using blast pots and crossing fingers is the last resort hahaha.

[Nefarian78]

Spoiler:

The way you describe it, ID doesn't seem to hit much harder than GON does (300-750? a tick, but there's always 5 or 6 of them, I forget)

The Marauder M4s are so good that it's worth using them regardless. Lets take your Slayer/BW damage for example, of 2.5k DPS. As far as utility goes - take your pick from a mix of cone AOE interrupt, AF debuff, AP gain reduction, Morale gain reduction, one of the few AOE knockdowns, defense debuff, a strong pull (Fetch is the worst), heal stealing, aoe WS/ini debuff, AOE disorient. Then there's other nice stuff like Parry, barbs, etc but they're nothing special.

Lashing Power has a 33% chance to reflect the entire damage back and heal the Marauder. Every single Slayer/BW attacking him will be taking back 800 of that DPS back, and nullifying the damage done to them. This M4 lasts 20 seconds, a 1/3rd uptime.

For Forked Aggression it reflects the damage back with a 50% boost; undefendable morale damage. So each Slayer/BW is dealing 3.7k DPS to himself from *one* Marauder alone. Once more this is a 33% uptime ability. Better to ask what a Hoeth Swordmaster is going to do other than keep WW up.

As for what they can do when not using their M4s, they can just spam AOE like anyone else, with Exhaustive Strikes. Brutality Marauder even has a morale build stopper, but it's not really the stand-out. Monstro Marauders can knock down the Slayers.

As for Slayers, I doubt they're hitting shield tanks that hard, which is really among the few times Rampage is going to be a significant penetration boost. Soft targets were barely defending against Slayers to begin with.

As for the Magus, when I played mine there was almost never any time any Sorc or any other class could put out higher damage numbers than I did. Not only do you keep Spirit constantly and ubiquitously debuffed, Pandemonium probably hits the average target for 280-550, Glean Magic 120-200, Infernal Blast 250-300, Daemonic Lash 450-950, (Dissolving Mist, Agonizing Torret, Aegis damage procs, pet attacks) etc etc. And this would be at max range and not specced for close engagement. To top it all off they can take Misdirection with little opportunity cost, and there you go, your 2.5k DPS bright wizards are now doing 1.25k DPS to themselves on top of the 3.7k DPS they're doing to themselves because of the Marauder. Then there's stacked Dire Shielding, maybe even thorns potions for laughs. Unless something changed, Wildfire's damage is 70-110 a tick non-stacking, that's less than Glean Magic.

Likewise Squig Herder Run Away! is basically the nerfed Distracting Bellow except it stacks with everything, needs not build morale, is 0 risk, has a potentially longer range, and has a lower cooldown. Two Squig Herders can easily cut the damage of every single Slayer in half.

IMO, Order's "complaints" here are perfectly valid. If anything, Destro has better DPS here.

It's pretty clear you are intent on keeping on thinking the grass is greener on the other side. The only thing i can suggest at this point is to actually try fighting or watching serious 24v24 fight between organized WBs such as TUP/Zerg/Thundercats in Order or PnP/LoB+Capulet+Exodus for Destro. You'll realize very, very quickly what you think is so op right now isn't actually that op.

[Panodil]

I would make a post over this since having played both sides on a warband scale gives me a wide perspective but I know that I will waste my breath just as I did on my Shadow Warrior post.

Just a tip. Among all the imbalance in moralepump between the two factions please add the shaman aoe AP drain that leaves Order DPS gimped and unable to do systainable fluff dmg.
If a destro warband played optimally there is no way to beat it. If you did trust me they were not playing optimally. So no morale and no fluff dmg. I guess using blast pots and crossing fingers is the last resort hahaha.