BO, Should I even bother?

[Culexus]

A resounding yes?

“ Should I just main my chosen and my choppa or is there no hope for us BO mains, damned forever into oblivion? ”

No there are no known improvements coming for BO (outside of punt for ranked) and last 4 years has been downhill.

No the devs or people they rely on haven't demonstrated that they understand the class what made it viable on live or why they broke the class. Nor demonstrated any interest in improving the class.

Ofc you can KEEP CALM AND GUARDSWAP and things may improve but I would main Choosen

I get the impression that the BO doesn't have anyone within or close to the dev team that champions it like some of the other classes (SM, Chosen, Slayer etc.) so their only interaction with the class is when they kill/die to it. The people that deal with or have influence on balance are only human and will tend to favor a class they play over one they don't. Combine this with the mmo formula for class balance (If I kill a class it's because of my skill, if a class kills me it's because it's overpowered) we have the state we're in now.

[Panzer80]

A resounding yes?

“ Should I just main my chosen and my choppa or is there no hope for us BO mains, damned forever into oblivion? ”

No there are no known improvements coming for BO (outside of punt for ranked) and last 4 years has been downhill.

No the devs or people they rely on haven't demonstrated that they understand the class what made it viable on live or why they broke the class. Nor demonstrated any interest in improving the class.

Ofc you can KEEP CALM AND GUARDSWAP and things may improve but I would main Choosen

I get the impression that the BO doesn't have anyone within or close to the dev team that champions it like some of the other classes (SM, Chosen, Slayer etc.) so their only interaction with the class is when they kill/die to it. The people that deal with or have influence on balance are only human and will tend to favor a class they play over one they don't. Combine this with the mmo formula for class balance (If I kill a class it's because of my skill, if a class kills me it's because it's overpowered) we have the state we're in now.

Correct. That describes the entire dev team. This could be remedied by eliminating the grind involved to get top gear. A free private server shouldn't have a huge grind, as it only serves to keep new players away, and old players playing the same geared toons. Hopefully the test server will help more with this issue.

[Fey]

You're not going to get far blapping on the dev team with vinegar. We'll get the ability rework for x-mas. (Hopefully) Pray to Gork, or Mork.

Personally I'd like to see THC go back to normal, or big brawling tactic increased to 30% slow. Preferably both. Then we'll have to see how far the Mor' Hardcore punt will be. Orcs are known for their patience after all.

[Culexus]

You're not going to get far blapping on the dev team with vinegar. We'll get the ability rework for x-mas. (Hopefully) Pray to Gork, or Mork.

Personally I'd like to see THC go back to normal, or big brawling tactic increased to 30% slow. Preferably both. Then we'll have to see how far the Mor' Hardcore punt will be. Orcs are known for their patience after all.

I wasn't being salty, there is a reason that there is a split between the 'have' and 'have not' classes and interest and experience with the class by those that can make decisions related to the balance of those classes is probably the reason for this. As a BO main, I spend a lot of time thinking about how the BO can be balanced based on my experience with the class, and no time at all about thinking about Shadow Warriors as I know nothing about them. If I was in charge of balance I would be in a far better position to give a BO what it needs and would just doing guesswork on the SW as my only interaction with the class is getting killed by them.

Although I'm hopeful for the future after what has been said about making Magus/Engis more mobile and doing something about auras (which are more op than rampage and gtdc yet never get discussed as both sides have them) I do fear that we'll just be given a punt and cooldown reduction just because that's what talked about so often. The truth is we have fundamental problems as a class that need addressing beyond that.

[Gravord]

The truth is we have fundamental problems as a class that need addressing beyond that.

Can you elaborate on fundamental problems of bork? Genuinely curious.

[mekal]

The truth is we have fundamental problems as a class that need addressing beyond that.

Can you elaborate on fundamental problems of bork? Genuinely curious.

Hey hey hey this is bandwagon thread! BO BAD! Don't question it

Honestly though bo is bad because mythic were absolute tards coming up with a stance dance mechanic for every skill

Anyone outside of Europe knows what a pita playing tanks with 200-500 ping is punting people in the wrong direction stance mechanic only makes it worse

[Culexus]

The truth is we have fundamental problems as a class that need addressing beyond that.

Can you elaborate on fundamental problems of bork? Genuinely curious.

Sure.

First off though it’s worth addressing the elephant in the room, and that’s that auras are extremely powerful with no downside and require no interaction to maintain them. Until this is addressed it will be hard to balance the other tank types against them as they make a lot of the abilities of most classes in the game redundant in some way. E.g. “oh that’s nice you can debuff the enemies spirit resist, my aura debuffs all resists is always on and can’t be removed in any way. It also effects every target around me just by being near me and boosts all the resists of the party”.

So back to the Black Orc, I don’t want to write a full essay here but I think the fundamentals are flawed as:

1) Our abilities are anti synergistic, stacked way to heavily in the da best plan, and in a lot of cases just plain worse than other classes equivalent.

Anti synergy: Let’s say you follow this rotation with Da Biggest active: FML.>RIDJ>SMH. If during that rotation you proc WS and T all of the buffs from those abilities become pointless.

Another example would be Tuffer ‘n Nail that becomes totally redundant when using Da Greenest and unlike every other ability armour buff from every other tank offers nothing besides the armour buff itself. This skill gets removed from the action bar fairly early on as it gives no reason to ever use it.

With all masteries full we have:
6 no plan abilities. 3 if you don’t count, UW, RH & Clob. 2 are shield only.
5 Gud plan. 3 excluding TnN and aor punt.
9 best plan abilities. 2 require Great weapon.

Why is this a problem? It means we have to spam unneeded abilities to get to the ones we actually want rather than having an even spread. All our rotations have a lot of ability redundancy after a fight goes on for a while.

2)The plan/balance system doesn’t offer enough upside to counterbalance it’s downside.

The last ability of your combo not costing ap isn’t enough to balance the downside of not being able to use any ability whenever you need it. For example, on fast target switching for a kd other tanks can just insta switch and kd instantly on the switch. BO/SM have to make sure they are in the correct plan at the exact point they stop focussing the previous target to be able to pull it off. If they don’t get it exactly right it could mean an extra gcd before kd or not attacking for a few seconds before the switch, which can give the upcoming switch away entirely. There are lots of other reasons why no ap isn't enough for the stance system but that’s just one quick example.

3) Our bellows/enchantments suck and from my understanding will suck even harder once the ability rework comes in.

Won’t go into this one too much but these need looking at.
The wounds buff is way too low and only ever used in solo where it still sucks.
The stat steal is way too rng and most of the stats we don’t care about buffing or debuffing.
The resist buff only comes on for 10sec once you’ve already been hit. This will be worse when the ability rework is out as you won’t be able to provide your gorup with resists if you defend against any of the damage types.
Tactics that rely on bellows to proc massively favour high proc bellows and are useless in the others.

[Gravord]

The truth is we have fundamental problems as a class that need addressing beyond that.

Can you elaborate on fundamental problems of bork? Genuinely curious.

Sure.

First off though it’s worth addressing the elephant in the room, and that’s that auras are extremely powerful with no downside and require no interaction to maintain them. Until this is addressed it will be hard to balance the other tank types against them as they make a lot of the abilities of most classes in the game redundant in some way. E.g. “oh that’s nice you can debuff the enemies spirit resist, my aura debuffs all resists is always on and can’t be removed in any way. It also effects every target around me just by being near me and boosts all the resists of the party”.

So back to the Black Orc, I don’t want to write a full essay here but I think the fundamentals are flawed as:

1) Our abilities are anti synergistic, stacked way to heavily in the da best plan, and in a lot of cases just plain worse than other classes equivalent.

Anti synergy: Let’s say you follow this rotation with Da Biggest active: FML.>RIDJ>SMH. If during that rotation you proc WS and T all of the buffs from those abilities become pointless.

Another example would be Tuffer ‘n Nail that becomes totally redundant when using Da Greenest and unlike every other ability armour buff from every other tank offers nothing besides the armour buff itself. This skill gets removed from the action bar fairly early on as it gives no reason to ever use it.

With all masteries full we have:
6 no plan abilities. 3 if you don’t count, UW, RH & Clob. 2 are shield only.
5 Gud plan. 3 excluding TnN and aor punt.
9 best plan abilities. 2 require Great weapon.

Why is this a problem? It means we have to spam unneeded abilities to get to the ones we actually want rather than having an even spread. All our rotations have a lot of ability redundancy after a fight goes on for a while.

2)The plan/balance system doesn’t offer enough upside to counterbalance it’s downside.

The last ability of your combo not costing ap isn’t enough to balance the downside of not being able to use any ability whenever you need it. For example, on fast target switching for a kd other tanks can just insta switch and kd instantly on the switch. BO/SM have to make sure they are in the correct plan at the exact point they stop focussing the previous target to be able to pull it off. If they don’t get it exactly right it could mean an extra gcd before kd or not attacking for a few seconds before the switch, which can give the upcoming switch away entirely. There are lots of other reasons why no ap isn't enough for the stance system but that’s just one quick example.

3) Our bellows/enchantments suck and from my understanding will suck even harder once the ability rework comes in.

Won’t go into this one too much but these need looking at.
The wounds buff is way too low and only ever used in solo where it still sucks.
The stat steal is way too rng and most of the stats we don’t care about buffing or debuffing.
The resist buff only comes on for 10sec once you’ve already been hit. This will be worse when the ability rework is out as you won’t be able to provide your gorup with resists if you defend against any of the damage types.
Tactics that rely on bellows to proc massively favour high proc bellows and are useless in the others.

Thanks for elaborating. Very accurate.

[what63]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b60Aybn8FqI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GjZXx1TDQYc

Already added to bugtracker as live proof of some of the destruction being wreaked on BO/SM being completely wrong (CHM not proccing things, statsteal being, well, not usable, alas can't find proof for resistance buff, but obviously that was never designed in a way that would proc once a month), but for good measure I'll chuck it in here aswell. As pointed out, some very loose decisionmaking is leading to further degradation of fundamental things, apparently they matter so little that just confirming these things just aren't worth going through before hitting the red button.

[arturziomas]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b60Aybn8FqI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GjZXx1TDQYc

Already added to bugtracker as live proof of some of the destruction being wreaked on BO/SM being completely wrong (CHM not proccing things, statsteal being, well, not usable, alas can't find proof for resistance buff, but obviously that was never designed in a way that would proc once a month), but for good measure I'll chuck it in here aswell. As pointed out, some very loose decisionmaking is leading to further degradation of fundamental things, apparently they matter so little that just confirming these things just aren't worth going through before hitting the red button.

Oh man you're the hero black orks needed and deserved, looks like cant hit me and da biggest nerfs will be reverted. Da greenest is absolute garbage now and it doesn't make sense to me either that by getting more defences you effectively nerf one of your skills as a tank.