Debate about why Order is how it is.

[Serrin]

Here is how my class choosing process went (I started after "the youtube video"):

I always loved dwarfs and used to play a dwarven army in Warhammer Fantasy Battle, so my choice to go for order and dwarfs was easy. I also prefer melee classes and like tanks.

So I played an Ironbreaker until level ~30 and the following things I did not enjoy:
a) Cluky mechanics: Especially "Guard" felt clunky and not fun to use and very hard to use when the game starts to lag, and on top of that you want to use and maybe juggle Oathfriend.
b) Did not feel impactful: Giving the buffs to your Oathfriend is cool, but somehow I had the feeling that it would be cooler to smash some heads

Then I tried KotbS only until level 15 because I wanted to get an impression for that class, and while it felt way easier to play then IB the skills also did not look very exciting.

So I tried Swordmaster and also played it to about level 30. That class is really fun, has a mechanic that is not too clunky (is annoying though when the game lags and you don't know if your skills go through), has cool skills, can do damage and tank and is usable in all kinds of environments.

For me the looks of the classes was not so important, although I have to admit that after seeing the SM endgame gear... well... not too inviting if you ask me.

But at that point I asked myself: "Do I really want to play an elf?". The answer could only be "NEVER!"

So I tried a Slayer and played it now to rr 68 and had a lot of fun with it. But sometimes, when I put down my hammers and lie down to sleep, I can hear the call of the Ironbreaker...

Here are some ideas from a new players perspective that could make Ironbreaker (and destro counterpart) more attractive (yeah ok also stronger...):

a) Your guard target is automatically an Oathfried and with your Oathfried ability you have the option to assign a second Oathfriend. I think this change might increase the attractivity of IBs for warbands and still leaves the option to increase the performance further with Oathfriend juggling.

b) Refactor the blessings to be attacks / damaging abilities. It seems to me that as an Ironbreaker you have so much stuff to do that you hardly use your skills like "Guarded attack". So maybe some of these skills could even be merged to have a little bit less but more meaningful and fun abilities. I mean, I am an Ironbreaker and only because I use a shield does not mean that I don't want to smash some heads with my axe!

c) Refactor Guard. I have read a dev post where the dev explained that "Guard" is clunky on purpose because it is so powerful, and I understand that. But insteand of using "clunkyness" as gate, you could also use a cooldown or a cast time.

[dansari]

Basically just run KotBS / SM / WL, Slayer, BW (Pick 2), WP, RP and be done with it.

Pretty much this. If you are on order and you play: an AM, an IB, a WH, an engy, or SW, you probably want to find another class before you invest too much time into it like a few people have been doing for years before they discovered it would be obsolete for end game content.

[Hypernia]

Basically just run KotBS / SM / WL, Slayer, BW (Pick 2), WP, RP and be done with it.

Pretty much this. If you are on order and you play: an AM, an IB, a WH, an engy, or SW, you probably want to find another class before you invest too much time into it like a few people have been doing for years before they discovered it would be obsolete for end game content.

The best thing is that if you run WL / Slayer it's good for 6v6 and WB level too with some respecs all round. Order class viability is an all time low.

[Akalukz]

IMO, and I am a pug at heart / solo small group player. The issue imo goes back to premade vs pug. Put solo/duo/trio in one set of queues and premade in another. This goes back to bad mythic coding throwing pugs against premades in scenarios. Which RoR has basically kept in place, except for the creation of the single "non"premade queue. I know no one wants to hear it, but there it is. That and the fact that some guilds / warband leaders absolutely will not take sub geared / specced / RR players. therefore those same players are left further and further behind.

[maximus76]

Was thinking maybe when the guarded target gets kills, the Tank gets 50% of their damage done attributed to him and then calculated on the board at the end for medals etc.

[Kloaner]

make exact mirrored classes so this discussion ends one and for all. Should be easy for most of the classes with the exception of WL/SH/SW/MR and Engi/magus

[Omegus]

The End Times didnt happen. It had multiple characters acting completely out of character so that GW could wrap up an IP and create a new one just to get stronger copyright protections.

Of course you could choose to ignore the questionable writing of The End Times, but it is still the lore after all.

It very much did, and it was triggered because Warhammer Fantasy sales had died off completely. The setting was still popular, but the tabletop Warhammer Fantasy game was practically dead. Also, the End Times is in a different timeline to Age of Reckoning.

also another thing IB can get alot of armor but on this server its cap at 75%

The cap is after mitigation from the attacker. The point is to overstack armour so even after debuffs/penetration/etc you are still as close to that 75% as possible.

- Morale imbalance... In tight spaces like in city, order simply has no tool to counter it in any way, except for movement, but then look at the previous point... morales are deciding most battles and Order has a super hard time here.

The good premades counter it by not blobbing to begin with (sometimes if you're focusing a cannon you need to take the morale hit - the cannon will be dead before anyway), punting when they see the very telegraphed player movement of a morale bomb (even more telegraphed if order is spread out) and by having some of the 5-6 Warrior Priests use Rampaging Siphon to counter the effects of the drop. Good premades generally do not wipe to morale drops alone. Neutralising just some of the participants involved in the drop is enough to ruin the whole thing and now destro has no morales for 60 seconds.

like Rampage resets your class resource to 0

Are Slayers no longer using Power Through?

From what I can tell LOB/Montague won in kills but lost every stage this morning to Dachosen's /5 but that's on them for bringing an engy and not enough Slayers amirite

/5? Most of those people are in the alliance and regulars. Things have moved on a bit since Dachosen formed WBs just from /5 lol. Fenryl vs Dachosen in cities has been an ongoing battle for ages now and both know each other's tactics well (disclaimer: not sure if Fenryl was in this particular siege on an alt). I've lost track of the score but the fights are almost always bloodbaths on both sides (and great fun). Sometimes one side is missing key people or has to resort to including a few morons which made the fight very unbalanced which is a shame, but those are pretty rare in the big scheme of things.

Funny story about that fight: the Sorc died 39 times. 39. We just could not keep him alive vs the assist train. However, the ST assist train could not wipe the destro WB overal. That ST train gets a LOT of kills one after the other but it can struggle in taking out enough people at once to cause a warband to collapse, especially when the healers are spread out. Drop a Sorc, insta-res and it's back in the fight which is why his damage remained high. Drop 4 healers at once and the WB is immediately close to wiping. The low-geared Shammy was the hero in that as he was on-point with the resses and kept us in the fight.

Their Engi was giving out free immunities though with those pulls.

Please don't try to explain to me that there are just 23 wbs worth of destro that are more organized and assist better than order.

It's partially true though.

Firstly, assisting has nothing to do with it. A disorganised mass of melee (destro) will easily run over a disorganised mass of ranged (order) in confined maps such as cities. If the city maps were more open or multi-level/vertical then order's population bias towards RPDS might be a benefit, but in the IC and Altdorf maps you have to fight at close range due to the layout and objectives. Run forward and spam AOE and watched the unguarded RDPS blob die.

There's also the fact that due to a general population imbalance (i.e. the millions logging in when city starts), destro players have gotten used to trying to form 24-mans to guarantee city pops because queueing solo (and often queueing as a 6-man) gets you left outside the gates for 30 minutes with no pop and crests. The level of organisation required to even get into the city is generally higher on destro than it is on order. It was city sieges that stopped me playing with a soloer mentality and forced me to get good (well, better) and find people to group up with. Goodbye pug life.

Finally, destro city warbands are very fluid between soloers, guilds, alliances, etc. A lot of WB leaders have ended up in order people's WBs due to not having enough people online, logging on late, etc, which has resulted in a lot of knowledge and tactics being shared between guilds. New alliances have been made as a result of cities. And so on. This might happen on order as well but I haven't seen it mentioned much. I know a few famous names bounce around between WBs but other than a few people I'm still learning the names of the good order city players.

But it brings me back to my initial question, WHY are Order so heavily stacked on RDPS and lack the archtype spread we see on destro? Can the community fix this, or do we need bigger dwarves, more armored slayers, and Witchhunter hats for all melee classes?

Having played this game since live with a huge variety of people (MMO vets, Warhammer fanboys, total newbies) on both order and destruction, the people who gravtitate to classes based on how awesome they appear to be have these reactions to order classes:

1) Bright Wizard almost universally loved. It's such an over-the-top design and about as fire-magey as a fire mage can be. And people like fire mages.

2) Engineers might be dwarfs but they look like they're heavily armoured and they have guns. Guns make everything awesome. On top of that they get to deploy a second gun. Double the awesome.

3) Slayer. Looks fairly good to "normies" but to Warhammer Fantasy fans he seems to be the best thing ever. Mythic knocked it out of the park with how good they made the Slayer look. It's one of the most iconic things from Warhammer Fantasy so will always have a big appeal.

4) Warrior Priests angry priest with a giant hammer. Players usually get upset upon learning that they actually need to leave the big hammer at home and take the small hammer and tome. And that the small hammer is mostly cosmetic. It's up there with DoKs and 2H tanks in terms of expectations vs reality. Some people will re-roll, some will refuse to believe this and will keep believing that one day they will be a hammer wielding god while standing in the back spamming group heals.

5) Witch Hunter. It has guns (see Engineer) and an awesome hat. Looks like a gothic Cowboy, i.e. awesome.

6) Shadow Warrior. Archers always get a big reaction, and a lot of nerds still have a soft spot for Elf Archers thanks to Lord of the Rings. Usually get quite upset upon being told they need to go melee to be useful.

For destro classes, the main reactions are easier. Those wanting to look big and powerful have 4 classes (Black Orc, Choppa, Chosen and Marauder) to go with. Of course they want to be 2 handed tanks but that fantasy soon goes for most. The important thing is that they rolled the class. The visual design - i.e. the lack of clothes - of the Sorc and WE gets the perverts attention. Some try and be a bit more upmarket and go for a DOK. Finally, Goblins appeal for just how different they are compared to everything else. Most of destro is serious evil, they are comedy evil.

The big problem if this 100% anecodtal and totally biased assessment is that generally none of the order tanks look like they can fulfill the power fantasy that influences a lot of people when picking a class. Instead most of the typical power fantasy tropes for order are ranged tropes. Order lack big meaty men (Chosen/Mara/Orcs) and visual comic relief (Gobbos). The visual design of the order classes is more restrained (human, short-fat humanoid and tall-skinny humanoid) compared to the outlandish design of destruction classes (humanoid, muscle humanoid, naked elves, tiny angry yodas, ORCS ORCS ORCS ORCS ORCS). Even when players know how a class should be played, in their heads they are often still pretending to play out the power fantasy.

And all of this would be fine except for the game's scenarios (normal, ranked and city) having maps that heavily favour melee.

Slice through lets you keep up to 3 people basicly perma snared, chosen can't do that and actually i think knight is the only tank that can aoe snare players.

BO, IB and BG all have AOE snares of some sort. SMs might do as well, but lol SMs.

Was thinking maybe when the guarded target gets kills, the Tank gets 50% of their damage done attributed to him and then calculated on the board at the end for medals etc.

The usage of Guard is already factored into contribution.

[Omegus]

tl;dl

1. Disorganised order get farmed in cities. Disorganised destro don't get into cities.

2. Also, most order ranged and destro melee (both tanks and dps) look cool and tick boxes on the power fantasy box. "Male elf in an armoured skirt" isn't exactly a thing people aspire to be compared to giant evil dude in full plate.

3. All of the scenario maps (including city) favour melee over ranged due to being full of narrow spaces with little-to-no variation in height rather than being open multi-level fights like in keeps. Thus the faction that likes to bring more melee will have an advantage overall. If the scenario maps offered a wider variety of play options then the issue - whether it's due to power, balance, or whatever - of one side favouring melee and one side favouring ranged becomes less important.

Also, the game needs ranged tanks.

[Foofmonger]

tl;dl

1. Disorganised order get farmed in cities. Disorganised destro don't get into cities.

2. Also, most order ranged and destro melee (both tanks and dps) look cool and tick boxes on the power fantasy box. "Male elf in an armoured skirt" isn't exactly a thing people aspire to be compared to giant evil dude in full plate.

3. All of the scenario maps (including city) favour melee over ranged due to being full of narrow spaces with little-to-no variation in height rather than being open multi-level fights like in keeps. Thus the faction that likes to bring more melee will have an advantage overall. If the scenario maps offered a wider variety of play options then the issue - whether it's due to power, balance, or whatever - of one side favouring melee and one side favouring ranged becomes less important.

Also, the game needs ranged tanks.

I read both your long post, and your TLDR, and you did a nice job on your analysis. I concur Omegus.

[wonshot]

This topic is turning in to a little bit of everything by now, but some of the posts are excelent guys. The input from newcomers sharing their experience, someone coming in with a very new approach or view or the premade vs pug experiences all contribute to the overall picture of RoR so keep it coming.

As for the balance between careers, realms, and mirrors. Well.. Lets begin with accepting the game will never be "perfectly ballanced" as it will not be exactly mirrored, some abilities and tools on one realm will be spread on other classes making different setups and compositions come to life. And yes some tools are not mirrored and super strong, while the other side have X,Y,Z to bring their own playstyle. Not everything is directly counterable As much as id love a better aoe knockdown than engineer 2tactic requirement setup for a ghetto 1minut-long pbaoe-knockdown(while giving up all your turret-stacks), I also know that the superrior Order advantages combined with a direct mara knockdown mirror, would probably tip the scales too much in Blue-corner favor etc.

When it comes to cities, one thing that is worth pointing out, and in the current state of the server its mostly destro getting advantage of this, is how active the LFG channel is when Citysiege is happening. Players are coming together cross guild/alliance, playing with new people from different timezones they dont normally mingle with and the experience is an really putting the "multiplaying" back in the MMOrpg genre!

Sure you could nerf Flashfire and funnelpower on BW. Or bring SW some aoe, remove some cooldown restrictions and allow the class to bring something to a warband setting that is not matched better on other classes: Ap party buff, you can get that on runepriest ritual. 8%crit? you can get that 5% from a knight already, without slotting a weaker AoEDPS class on limmited dpsslots and the list goes on.

Bringing some of the unattractive builds and careers up to pair, on both realms to enjoy engame content should honestly be a top priority imho. Sure WH/WE shouldnt be main aoe classes, but atleast allow them the Niece dragongun spec for the 1/24 slot. Same for engineer and magus, give them a "loner" tactic with none of the turret bonuses and just a flat 25%bonus but disable turrets and make Self-destruct work without a turret for the bpaoe knockdown and the list goes on. Bringing classes up to pair with little tweaks to allow for more groupplay would be very welcome, since catering too much to pugging is probably the way to balance towards in very general.