Edit: After rereading the whole post it seems like I might have failed.
Parry% is the main defence tool of mdps against other mdps. Especially in oRvR.
It has consistently been tied to Weapon Skill (WS), before (viewtopic.php?f=8&t=23384) and after the new ability rework (viewtopic.php?f=2&t=52422). This makes sense because it is a stat that both mdps and 2H tanks, the classes that need parry the most, tend to focus on naturally. This also means that a big part of their kit and, especially, gear is already designed with a focus on WS with Initiative (INI) being of secondary concern and not a focus stat for mdps and 2tank sets.
Here I will bring 2 examples:
- Choppa's main Sovereign set provides a total of 91 Initiative. Comparatively, Shaman's main Sov set provides 119 INI.
- Choppa's original design intent (which has also persisted after the Ability Rework) didn't treat Initiative as a focus stat:
Due to the pre Ability Rework stat system, it was mostly uniform across all classes if they didn't invest on it, with around 200 - 350 Initiative (base + gear). This is still the case at the moment; classes are mostly uniform in INI without investment. You can see that also from the base stats for all classes:
https://wiki.returnofreckoning.com/Stats
Before I list all the issues that a swap of parry% from WS to INI will/would cause, I need to address another elephant in the room; parry strikethrough%.
Currently granted by Strength at 1% per 100 stat points, this means that on average a mdps can reach around 10% and 2H tanks around 7% from STR alone. This is further increased by some gear pieces in the case of mdps (around 3% more) and is also increased by 10% when a player is using a 2H weapon.
To sum things up, without further buffs/debuffs we can expect:
- dual wield mdps: 13% parry strikethrough
- 2h mdps: 23% parry strikethrough
- 2h tanks: 17% parry strikethrough
To give an example: 2 mdps face each other and mdps A has 40% parry while mdps B has 20% strikethrough.
If for some reason (we'll get there soon) mdps A's parry chance dropped by 10%, it wouldn't result in a linear ( [40-30]/40 =) 25% reduction in effective chance to parry. It would instead result in a ( [20-10]/20 =) 50% reduction in effective chance to parry due to the existence of strikethrough. This effect gets more extreme, the closer you are to the enemy's strikethrough chance.
Having established all the above, it's now time to examine the issues that a change of parry from WS to INI would immediately create:
- physical classes lose between 12 - 24% parry (400 - 800 stat difference between WS and INI) if they don't adapt their build to the change. Adapting completely is not an option because:
- Initiative is not a focus stat in any of their best gear
- Renown Point allocation cannot help (by dropping Futile Strikes for INI) since even with the new system for CTBC-INI scaling using 30 renown in FS results in a 15% CTBC reduction compared to 34 points in Impetus (120 INI) for a 6% CTBC reduction.
- Dropping other talismans in favor of Initiative ones will decrease their damage significantly to (attempt to!) compensate for their lost parry%. Even combining that with allocating less Renown Points in Futile Strikes and more in offensive stats (that were lost through talismans change) is not nearly enough to compensate.
- Most of the time they do not have any abilities, even in their mastery trees, that could help with increasing their INI.
- On the opposite end of the spectrum, healers would now have access to around 6-9% more parry than before (200-300 stat difference between INI and WS), reaching around 11-13% parry base. This is usually not relevant due to the average strikethrough chance being between 13% and 23%. This is not always the case, however, since in the case of Order healer classes stacking parry and Initiative could become a valid tactic in roaming/smallscale scenarios, providing them (probably) unintended survivability increase. Unfortunately at this point in the post we will unavoidably have to discuss faction differences.
- What's relevant in for this specific discussion are the following issues:
- White Lion (which currently represents the majority of Order mdps) is a 2H class. This means that they have 10% extra parry strikethrough. Not only that, but if needed they also have access to this core tactic:
- Slayer, despite being a dual wield class (usually) has access to Rampage:
- In comparison, ALL* destro mdps classes are dual wield while on Order there is only* WH (Choppa can go 2H but it's subpar atm). But even WH has access to extra parry strikethrough via the core ability
The only source of innate mdps strikethrough on Destro (please correct me if I missed something) is on dps DOK which is also quasi-mirrored to dps WP (10% dw parry + 10% parry strikethrough from tactic vs 10% 2h parry strikethrough + 10% parry from tactic)
- *Melee Squig Herder (MSH) and Assault Shadow Warrior (aSW) are the only mdps that don't have access to either the dual wield 10% parry or the the 2h 10% parry strikethrough bonus. However, aSW gains 10% parry by being in the assault stance so you can pretty much consider it a DW class. MSH on the other hand not only has to rely on a tactic for gaining 10% parry but alongside Slayer they aren't/weren't usually built for crit and instead tried to maximize their WS for penetration and rely on the included parry% as their main source of survivability vs enemy mdps. Both will/would be extremely affected by the proposed change and in the case of MSH, unlike Slayer, they'd have no parry M1 to rely on when focused.
- White Lion (which currently represents the majority of Order mdps) is a 2H class. This means that they have 10% extra parry strikethrough. Not only that, but if needed they also have access to this core tactic:
- And the final thing that needs to be mentioned here is that those are not the only available sources of effective parry reduction. The most common ones are Blackguard's base ability Furious Howl, KOTBS' Mastery Ability Staggering Impact, and ranger characters' core tactic Pierce Defences. All of these reduce parry of enemies affected by an additional 10%. Staggering Impact is a bit harder to come by than Blackguard's (due to being in the 2h tree) but Pierce Defences is also harder to find on Destro due to rSH having basically no AOE, MSH not being able to afford the tactic slot without gimping their damage or survivability (especially if the parry changes goes live) and on the other end both SW and Engi being far more prevalent and usually less tactic-starved.
But even that seems fairly even between the two factions. Here's the catch though; if all mdps' parry is debuffed by 10% all the time due to those abilities and if those mdps lose 12 - 24% parry due to the INI change and when parry is only relevant vs mdps with 20%+ strikethrough then you can clearly see how parry should be no longer worth it. Even in the case of DW mdps where they get an extra 10% parry it should not be enough:
10% (dw) + 350/100*3% (INI) + 18% (Renown) = ~ 40% (without any parry from gear) is all they can muster against 10% debuffs and upwards of 20% strikethrough
It doesn't seem worth it when you could just spend those renown points in less CTBC or Wounds/Toughness.
So if the dw bonus is ''useless'' then it naturally follows that only the 2H bonus is useful. Sure, it might not be relevant vs enemy mdps if they don't stack parry at all, but it will be useful vs enemy healers (as illustrated above) and vs enemy tanks (especially 2h ones). To sum it up: Order has an innate advantage due to having more usable 2h dps classes/specs which, in a META where mdps classes can no longer rely on parry, gives them a non-mirrored advantage (against Destro tanks and healers that could consider stacking parry%).
- Mdps (and 2h tanks to a certain extent) cannot get back to their old parry levels without sacrificing a big part of their offensive stats --> Indirect melee classes survivability and/or damage output nerf
- If they decide to keep their offensive stats as they are, their parry will plummet making them a lot less survivable against each other
- If my assumptions are correct most mdps will entirely stop focusing on parry% which makes the dual wield 10% parry bonus nearly worthless and drastically changes the desirability of certain mdps classes according to their other survivability options in orvr (e.g. Mara with Monstro proc vs MSH with no AOE detaunt or parry M1). It also intensifies faction differences due to only the 2h 10% strikethrough bonus remaining relevant, which Order is able to utilize a lot more often than destro --> Order healers can be built for parry in smalscale vs Destro ones who can't, while most Destro mdps lose all value in their innate weapon bonus.
To me it seems clear that, in order for the change of parry% from WS to INI to be implemented, 1 or more of the following things must happen:
- mdps classes' gear and sets must be thoroughly reworked to facilitate avenues to reach high INI or parry%
- mdps masteries and abilities must be thoroughly reworked to facilitate avenues to reach high INI or parry%
- All dps masteries and abilities must be thoroughly reworked to ensure that the risk vs reward is properly weighed (if mdps do indeed have to sacrifice survivability to maintain their damage or the opposite, then the same should hold true for other ranged dps). Unless this was an intended indirect ranged dps buff, in which case it wasn't conveyed properly.
There is also precedent for this approach in the case of Zealot and Runepriest where their heal Rituals are able to proc things only because those abilities are wrongly classified as direct heals due to a bug. To not ''destroy'' those classes until the healer phase, on last December it was decided to postpone that fix and wait for the healer phase rework. Why not do the same now, especially since a lot more classes will be directly affected?
P.S. The change in INI regarding crit should be able to be pushed live with the small caveat of looking into the balance of AOE Initiative debuffs.
EDIT: Was informed that the next statement is partially wrong. AM's puddles also provide AOE 120 INI debuff but have a lot smaller radius of application and also ''waste'' an escape tool for damage purposes.
(As it stands, Destro have 2 reliable ways of doing so in Mara's Wave of Mutilation and Sorc's Black Horror versus Order who can only apply it via WH's Dragon Gun in combination with Blessed Bullets of Purity (when ideally they'd opt to use Blessed Bulltets of Confession for 50% AOE outgoing heal debuff):
Granted, these differences (similarly to the strikethrough differences presented above) can be a deliberate faction design choice. However, the impact it will have when changing the importance of Initiative should be examined.)
Thanks for reading and feel free to discuss
