Eyedrop wrote: ↑Fri May 21, 2021 11:56 pmSpoiler:detrap wrote: ↑Fri May 21, 2021 9:39 pmEyedrop wrote: ↑Fri May 21, 2021 6:41 pmSpoiler:Hey all! Xrealmer here (boo hiss). First I'd like to say I appreciate the devs for all they've done to allow us to play this game that many of us love and thanks to the GMs that have dealt with most of our BS.
I think that these changes addressed some issues and concerns that myself and a bunch of other players had. The ability to have Immaculate Defense up almost every 60 seconds from Black Orc was insane and Chosen's morale generation was also fairly strong plus Zealot's ability to have Windblock ready constantly was also pretty strong. The ability to cast and get the Whispering Wind's CDR effect at any time was a much needed change. I do have some issues with these changes and how these changes are coming out however...
It really seemed that the only changes made to order were of those that were directly mirrored to Order (Mist/Napalm and the self morale pump from BW/Sorc that was rarely used). I do think Mist and Napalm were pumping pretty big numbers so I'm fine with this change (albeit I do not play a Magus or Engi, but I'm sure the top players of those careers will still pump out insane numbers). The main issue here is that only Destro got hit with the hammer this patch when there have been aspects of Order classes that are incredibly strong. I think the aoe detaunt change is fine, 15 second duration on the selected target with 5 second aoe detaunt on those around the target seems like an okay change to me, let's see how it plays out in the long run. The shaman and AM change seems nice when it comes to their HOT (if it works haven't logged on today yet) and the AP drain was oppressive, the problem is that these classes need that AP badly. I think you could have the target lose less AP (like the change) but provide more AP to the Shaman/AM in return. Double morale pump has not been ran in an incredibly long time on Shaman so don't think it was an issue, but it was in line with other morale pumps so think it's alright. Thank god it is/was broken, but the buff to morale pump for AM is now the best pump in game. I know EoV/FoDG is a bit clunky, but this tactic is now allowing AMs to morale pump entire RAIDS/WBs since it counts as a direct heal. I'm all for counting it as a direct heal still, but there is no way that this tactic can work for EoV, with 100% upkeep it's pumping 1200 morale a minute for EVERYONE. Granted in a city instance you won't be hitting everyone with EoV, but in a fort/keep you are most likely hitting the full 24. 24*1200 = 28,800 morale pumped a minute. Please make this tactic exclude EoV. This is just counterintuitive to the whole morale pump changes as a whole.
Next, Swordmaster. Everyone believes this will be the FoTM and for good reason. SM were already pretty strong as they were. Like I said, the ability to get the CDR from Whispering Winds at any time was a much needed change, but what they got to have this effect is way too strong. Don't get me wrong, I love the flavor for WW prebuff/postbuff, the issue is the silence was too weak since free immunities/required a target/could be blocked/parried, and the issue is the aoe interrupt is nuts. SM now has 2 aoe interrupts and can now aoe interrupt 4 times in the time span of 10 seconds on its own, not to mention that WLs also have an aoe interrupt. Aoe interrupts interrupt cast times and channels (like choppa's BIO, a strong ability that the already underperforming choppas rely on further pushing them out of the picture). It was a really strong buff to Winds, but I think it would have been fine and the whole "just play a few weeks" argument would be okay if BO didn't lose their CDR, a tank spot that was much more flexible than the already underperforming choppas. SM also has raking talons, a really strong tactic whom everyone I have talked to says stacks with challenge AND bellows.
Since I just talked about SM, I might as well address the problem with Black Orc's now... As many before me said, BO is having an identity crisis. There's now competition sure, but the problem is that this competition is for the worst snb tank in the game. Snb BG has been needing buffs for a long time now as it's been atrocious, but snb BO is probably equally as bad as snb BG now. BO now can provide toughness and WS to their entire group (which doesn't stack with Chosen aura), which 1, you're better off running a second chosen in your party for debuffing enemy toughness while increasing your party's along with 2 other strong auras, and 2, you could've just stat stealed it anyways with Da Biggest!. Sure Black Orc still has some tools like the previously mentioned stat steal, and they have skull thumper among some other nifty stuff, but in the end it really feels like the new solution to party comps is just run 6-7 Chosens and a 2h BG. BO also lacks the option for a ST punt that SM has the option to spec into. Don't get me wrong, BO was strong before, but this has always been a severe hinderance to Black Orc, but that's besides the point. Black Orcs really need the old Waaagh badly. I know that the devs added it and since the Q&A wanted to get rid of it, but there is so much more flexibility in having a CDR in a tank spot rather than having it in the mDPS slot. If making a champ party for cities, you cannot have Choppa in a party with melee squig/shaman champ because you need the other champ DPS. The Choppa and Melee Squig are competing for the same spot whereas the SM was already being taken to cities and had more flexibility in what the rest of your party was. Everyone would be happy if they removed chop fasta and gave choppas Rampage in return just to keep waaagh on BO. Then it would be a discussion of ID/GTDC which would honestly be fine. So, the outrage in this change? I can understand, although it could have been more civilized.
I know I glossed over the dps/shield dok/wp, but seems like a pretty strong buff for them. I am interested to see what happens, just know that I think that these changes can have the possibility to be a little too strong, but we'll see. WL change is whatever, I don't think it is good enough to be ran, but like I said I am interested to see what happens. Squig herder changes, for the most part, seem pretty solid. One can argue that squigbeast should get moved to a different morale slot, or even have it's damage be reduced to 75%. This m1 is the highest single target morale damage in the game. Squigs will be fine, this will still probably hit for 2.5k+. Could have made it not stack with squig frenzy. I think you could have also gotten away with making Sharpened Arrers be 15% armor pen, but keep it for all the trees besides the rarely used Big Shootin' tree. The squig armor internal cooldown being 5 seconds seems like a bit much. I get what this change was trying to do, but ranged squigs are already super squishy I think you could have tried 3 seconds on this first. Outta my way going down to 25% from 75% seems pretty big, it was a channeled ability after all. Maybe 40% would have been okay, but like I said, I am interested to see what happens.
With the balance changes out of the way, I guess it's time to address the new balancing system with regards to Realm Champions. When I first heard about this idea on the Q&A, I initially thought this was more out of laziness on the dev team, but now realize that it was an opportunity to actually put more focus into putting out the content that the game had back out on live, so it's understandable. The Q&A also talked about how they wanted to put out these big balance changes in line with ranked (so they could put more focus into putting out the content that the game had back out on live), the problem with this is that we are now going without balance changes for months which is really hard if you want to keep this game afloat. Take a MOBA for example, if a MOBA did balance changes along with a new season of ranked that is typically seen as a poor design choice. 3-4 months is way too long for balance changes and I really think tweaks here and there rather than dropping the hammer is the better option even if its like 3 weeks in between these tweaks. I also think that realm champions shouldn't be focused on the betterment of their realm and debating it with the other realm's realm champions. The people working together to try and balance the game should have both faction's interest in mind as seeing it now, if the only nerf to order that happened this patch was to mirror Mist and Sorc self morale pump, I find it hard to believe that information and data was gathered from destro players. The amount of tools that slayer has seems a bit ridiculous. Defenses ignore for 10-20 seconds (granted can be shattered, but can also be covered up by other abilities that can be shattered), Inevitable Doom, Shatter limbs... it seems like a lot. There's a reason why slayer stack are a thing and are arguably the best DPS in the game. Slayers would seem a lot more tame if chop fasta was replaced with rampage and BO had CDR back. As mentioned before there's raking talons, there's also focused mending on kobs, wounds buff on WP, and a bunch of other things, but the point is there's a lot of incredibly strong stuff on Order as well and I have a hard time getting behind a one sided nerf like this where essentially nothing gets touched on Order. I don't think this nerf could not have came at a worse time. NA destro tries to put up a fight, but gets constantly zerged down. Order has been winning more and more cities as of late, it may have been a "Order has finally started to organize after all these months of Destro telling them to do so", but NA is so dead on destro it's actually mind boggling. In a game like this where server pop really matters, we shouldn't be pushing people away that are upset about patches, that's just bad business. I know this is a private server and devs/gms aren't being paid for this and it's out of their own time, but something needs to change. Fast.
-Nelk
Next, Swordmaster. Everyone believes this will be the FoTM and for good reason. SM were already pretty strong as they were. Like I said, the ability to get the CDR from Whispering Winds at any time was a much needed change, but what they got to have this effect is way too strong. Don't get me wrong, I love the flavor for WW prebuff/postbuff, the issue is the silence was too weak since free immunities/required a target/could be blocked/parried, and the issue is the aoe interrupt is nuts. SM now has 2 aoe interrupts and can now aoe interrupt 4 times in the time span of 10 seconds on its own, not to mention that WLs also have an aoe interrupt. Aoe interrupts interrupt cast times and channels (like choppa's BIO, a strong ability that the already underperforming choppas rely on further pushing them out of the picture). It was a really strong buff to Winds, but I think it would have been fine and the whole "just play a few weeks" argument would be okay if BO didn't lose their CDR, a tank spot that was much more flexible than the already underperforming choppas. SM also has raking talons, a really strong tactic whom everyone I have talked to says stacks with challenge AND bellows.
The interrupt is at most 3 times in ten seconds, and two of those interrupts you are referring to are only 15ft and I'm sure is defendable. The interrupt from Winds is only a 30ft line in front of you. How are Choppa's underperforming? How are they being pushed out of the picture when they, like the SM's are the only class for their realm with the much loved CDR? The BO was and still is the easiest SnB tank class for me to play, I still would use Waaaagh! because it has the 25% AA damage buff and the big corporeal debuff to help classes like Sorcs. Throw in the new tactic to give that extra toughness and weapon skill for your group to help with more armour penetration and survivability, and it's not so bad when you compare that 11 point tactic to the SM's not so useful healing one.
CDR on the Black Orc, with the AA damage buff and corporeal debuff, was overperforming when you consider Choppa's also have CDR so every party with these two classes would give almost permanent CDR for the entirety of their engagements, not even having to worry about the timing of when to use the ability like SM's do to maximise the uptime. No cooldowns on cleansing, shatters, your entire action bar with 5 seconds removed from nearly every ability that had a cooldown, for an entire fight. It's a small price to pay so that Choppa's keep theirs and are now even more desired for group activity. You could still have constant CDR now but you'll need two SMs/Choppas in the party which means you potentially sacrifice some utility in doing so, which has always been the case for order anyway stacking two SMs in a party.
Raking Talons is only 20ft and last 4 seconds, which is sometimes difficult to maintain because we use other abilities in final stance like Dazzling Strike/Blurring Shock just as frequently as well as Crushing Wave/Winds/AoE punt or skipping the final stance altogether to use bubble in emergencies. So the uptime on it is not realistically long unless you decided to not contribute to your warband more effectively and only use that.
Since I just talked about SM, I might as well address the problem with Black Orc's now... As many before me said, BO is having an identity crisis. There's now competition sure, but the problem is that this competition is for the worst snb tank in the game. Snb BG has been needing buffs for a long time now as it's been atrocious, but snb BO is probably equally as bad as snb BG now. BO now can provide toughness and WS to their entire group (which doesn't stack with Chosen aura), which 1, you're better off running a second chosen in your party for debuffing enemy toughness while increasing your party's along with 2 other strong auras, and 2, you could've just stat stealed it anyways with Da Biggest!. Sure Black Orc still has some tools like the previously mentioned stat steal, and they have skull thumper among some other nifty stuff, but in the end it really feels like the new solution to party comps is just run 6-7 Chosens and a 2h BG. BO also lacks the option for a ST punt that SM has the option to spec into. Don't get me wrong, BO was strong before, but this has always been a severe hinderance to Black Orc, but that's besides the point. Black Orcs really need the old Waaagh badly. I know that the devs added it and since the Q&A wanted to get rid of it, but there is so much more flexibility in having a CDR in a tank spot rather than having it in the mDPS slot. If making a champ party for cities, you cannot have Choppa in a party with melee squig/shaman champ because you need the other champ DPS. The Choppa and Melee Squig are competing for the same spot whereas the SM was already being taken to cities and had more flexibility in what the rest of your party was. Everyone would be happy if they removed chop fasta and gave choppas Rampage in return just to keep waaagh on BO. Then it would be a discussion of ID/GTDC which would honestly be fine. So, the outrage in this change? I can understand, although it could have been more civilized.
Identity crisis for all the complaints I read about being just a CDR and morale bot? And considering the ease of playing with both the BG and BO not needing to constantly run around the outside of a blob like Order tanks do in close warband fights. There are some abilties on the BO that still make them superior to the SM. There are some abilities for the SnB BG that make them exceptional, 5 second knockdown, biggest ST punt, Force of Fury, well beyond the highest toughness for a tank, AoE defense debuffs. You mention Choppa's are being pushed away but you want strip them of their CDR when they had it first, and give them rampage instead? That would probably mean you would either have to give a 50% block channel for Order tanks as well, or give Order tanks morale pump tactics too to balance things out. Because when I'm playing my BO/BG I use my block channels to make sure the damage from rampage is the only damage I'm receiving.
there's also focused mending on kobs, wounds buff on WP
You have two tanks on Destruction that AoE debuff wounds, Order only one and it has to be from the squishiest tank a 2H Knight. Focus Mending is only 15% extra incoming heals, does not affect melee heals, and helps make the most useless aura we have usable. 15% is usually not enough to counter any heal debuffs so it's a tactic that is easily replaceable.You're right, I should have said you can get 4 interrupts in ~12 seconds. I believe the shield bash can be defended against, but that doesn't change that this class has 2 aoe interrupts. Choppas are underperforming in that most of their dps are channels which can be interrupted (now also by Whispering Winds). They are also squishy and their main executes require them to drop rage. This is the same as slayer, however, slayer also has much much more sustained damage. Choppas are being pushed out despite this much loved CDR because, as a DPS class, it is competing against the 5 other DPS classes compared to SM competing against the 2 other tank classes. Slayer only has to compete with WL as a mDPS whereas Choppa has to compete with Marauder and Melee Squig which already outperform. As I have previously stated, Choppa also has negative synergy with melee squig in a champ party since you cannot have both. It is much easier to double stack SMs in a party for double CDR than it is to stack Choppas. Whereas WW synergizes really well with Shadow Warrior and AM, Chop Fasta synergizes really well with Melee Squig and Shaman, which means you cannot double stack if you want the Melee Squig to benefit unless you want to have 1 tank if you want to double stack that is. When people think of Waaagh, the AA damage buff and Corporeal debuff is an afterthought. People weren't stacking sorcs to take benefit from the Corporeal debuff from Waaagh before. It was more of something nice to have. If you wanted to give toughness to the group, you're better off playing Chosen. Not only does it increase the same amount of toughness to allies, but it also debuffs toughness from enemies. In terms of the weapon skill buff in regards to the tactic, you could already have 100% uptime on your dps without the new tactic. The other tank in your party, most likely a chosen, does spirit damage anyways and your healers don't need weapon skill. If you really wanted the group weapon skill, which I don't know why you would if you efficiently spread your Follow 'me Lead around to the classes that need it, you're better off hoping you steal it when you are using Da Biggest!. Don't get me wrong, Black Orcs were overperforming before, I just don't think you needed to take their morale pump AND their CDR and have destro's CDR to a class/role that isn't flexible. Raking Talons really is not that hard to maintain, especially if you already ideally had ~3 SMs before the patch. You could use one to only raking talons the blob and WW when its off CD, you could have another SM be on the target and use Blurring Shock/Crashing Wave/Raking Talons when Winds is on CD, and the other can do a mix of what I just said because we all know that no one likes when a SM aoe punts unless its punting people off the edge. This isnt necessarily ideal/perfect, but I can almost guarantee that the uptime of raking talons was pretty high.The interrupt is at most 3 times in ten seconds, and two of those interrupts you are referring to are only 15ft and I'm sure is defendable. The interrupt from Winds is only a 30ft line in front of you. How are Choppa's underperforming? How are they being pushed out of the picture when they, like the SM's are the only class for their realm with the much loved CDR? The BO was and still is the easiest SnB tank class for me to play, I still would use Waaaagh! because it has the 25% AA damage buff and the big corporeal debuff to help classes like Sorcs. Throw in the new tactic to give that extra toughness and weapon skill for your group to help with more armour penetration and survivability, and it's not so bad when you compare that 11 point tactic to the SM's not so useful healing one.
CDR on the Black Orc, with the AA damage buff and corporeal debuff, was overperforming when you consider Choppa's also have CDR so every party with these two classes would give almost permanent CDR for the entirety of their engagements, not even having to worry about the timing of when to use the ability like SM's do to maximise the uptime. No cooldowns on cleansing, shatters, your entire action bar with 5 seconds removed from nearly every ability that had a cooldown, for an entire fight. It's a small price to pay so that Choppa's keep theirs and are now even more desired for group activity. You could still have constant CDR now but you'll need two SMs/Choppas in the party which means you potentially sacrifice some utility in doing so, which has always been the case for order anyway stacking two SMs in a party.
Raking Talons is only 20ft and last 4 seconds, which is sometimes difficult to maintain because we use other abilities in final stance like Dazzling Strike/Blurring Shock just as frequently as well as Crushing Wave/Winds/AoE punt or skipping the final stance altogether to use bubble in emergencies. So the uptime on it is not realistically long unless you decided to not contribute to your warband more effectively and only use that.
Black Orcs seemed to me that they were content with just being a CDR and morale bot. BG needs to play outside of a blob because SnB BG bring less utility than a 2h BG does. They have super punt and AoE defense debuff while in 2h, 3 second knockdown instead of 5, have aoe crit buff, and apply wounds debuff whenever they crit compared to the selfish talents of toughness tactic, parry tactic, block tactic, and block channel that SnB has. Force of Fury is nice in the sense that it will make you and your Dark Protector be 45% less likely to be crit at 90 hate, but that's all it does since the armor doesn't stack with pots and is not really that good for a 13 point ability. I am curious to what abilities you believe that Black Orc has that is superior to Swordmaster as right now it just seems that Swordmaster is superior to Black Orc in almost every way. I don't believe having the CDR on a dps is a good thing. It is much more flexible if it was on a tank hence why I would rather not have Chop Fasta and have Waaagh or something else instead and replace Chop Fasta.Identity crisis for all the complaints I read about being just a CDR and morale bot? And considering the ease of playing with both the BG and BO not needing to constantly run around the outside of a blob like Order tanks do in close warband fights. There are some abilties on the BO that still make them superior to the SM. There are some abilities for the SnB BG that make them exceptional, 5 second knockdown, biggest ST punt, Force of Fury, well beyond the highest toughness for a tank, AoE defense debuffs. You mention Choppa's are being pushed away but you want strip them of their CDR when they had it first, and give them rampage instead?
Chosen is the only destro tank that easily applies AoE wounds debuff. Whereas 2h knight also easily applies AoE wounds debuff AND a tactic that guarantees that enemies get the crit debuff. This is not the case on Blackguard where they have the aoe crit chance increase debuff and a tactic that applies the wounds debuff ONLY when they crit an enemy. But I can see your argument here. The 15% increased incoming heals that also stacks with Blessing of Grugni. This aura is not meant to counter heal debuffs, but to just flat out further increase healing across the board for Order. If you tell almost anyone who organizes on Order that this tactic is easily replaceable or you aren't using this tactic as a KoBS, they think you are trolling or throwing. Cleanses are meant to counter heal debuffs.You have two tanks on Destruction that AoE debuff wounds, Order only one and it has to be from the squishiest tank a 2H Knight. Focus Mending is only 15% extra incoming heals, does not affect melee heals, and helps make the most useless aura we have usable. 15% is usually not enough to counter any heal debuffs so it's a tactic that is easily replaceable.
The only time I should use DT is when targeting a mdps or a mobile rdps, usually your first perfect stance abilities are either WW, CW, BS. For casters/healers it's Dazzling Strike. So uptime on Raking Talons isn't as long as you think it is. Even with multiple SM's in the warband. You literally have to ride the main assist in the destro blob the entire fight in a city, only using that ability to make it really impactful. But then I'm not assisting targets or doing other tank duties which may be of more benefit.
BG and Knight both sacrifice some to a lot of survivability to be 2H, so of course you should get more offensive utility as compensation. Force of Fury is a great ability to help your Dark Protector when being focused, means less damage you take also if you are guarding them and less stress on your healers. Looks like another under-utilised ability.
If healing is adequate or you need to be more aggressive in warband engagements, why run the heal tactic and aura? Yes you have your cookie-cutter auras you run most of the time, but there's the additional 3 predominantly offensive auras from the mastery trees that can all be useful in the right situation. If someone thinks you are 'trolling' by not running it even with good reason, they aren't familiar enough with the class.
