[SL] why so unpopular?

[Sulorie]

How about we have classes, which are better suited for solo roaming and classes which are better used together with other players? You want to play solo? Pick a class which supports this play style. Usually you get zerged anyway, when you are busy "duelling" someone in the lakes. Both sides have classes good at it. You are not encountering the same players all the time, so it doesn't matter if some class has a slight edge as there will be always someone mechanically better, if we ignore player skill and gear.
If you want 1:1 balance, play a different kind of game.
Classes are designed around heals, tanks and DD, therefore some classes will lose against others per design, if they fight 1vs1.

[Stimpz]

I only want to throw in that there are no complaints, specifically from order or destro side, only individuals that claim to speak on behalf of a whole fraction.

In Germany, we have a word called "Fremdscham", which is a combination of the words foreign and embarrassment. It's used when you see someone embarrassing himself and therefore feel ashamed yourself. That's what I get when I see some claims that people give in my name because I mainly play one faction.

[cabal852]

How about we have classes, which are better suited for solo roaming and classes which are better used together with other players? You want to play solo? Pick a class which supports this play style. Usually you get zerged anyway, when you are busy "duelling" someone in the lakes. Both sides have classes good at it. You are not encountering the same players all the time, so it doesn't matter if some class has a slight edge as there will be always someone mechanically better, if we ignore player skill and gear.
If you want 1:1 balance, play a different kind of game.
Classes are designed around heals, tanks and DD, therefore some classes will lose against others per design, if they fight 1vs1.

LMAO

[what63]

Why fixate purely on duelling? How many duels does the average "solo roamer" even get in a day?

"Solo roaming" is more than duelling. A class can be utterly useless in a duel but be majorly out of balance in arbitrary RvR engagements regardless, with or without a group or with a partial one. Everything from major outliers in duelling to major outliers in warband bombing should be tuned down to where they don't pose long term frustration to relatively large chunks of the less organized playerbase. Something that is exceedingly frustrating to engage in a 3v3, 2v6, 6v12, 7v10 or any other combination falls somewhere in between these scales. The game is all about open zones with arbitrary pvp, seeing balance in anything but shades of gray will not work. It's pugs galore as god intended.

Gear also matters. If a class design causes it to delete anything below BIS without any telegraphing, then it is bad design. If something does this, without being broken in "meta" play, it just makes the design even worse- it is now oppressive in areas that were not the target without hitting the mark in the intended area. And the solution is never to further double down on the bad design as was done with SW (and stealth) to try to bruteforce it. It requires a pivot, for example spreading the damage out while making it higher so there is telegraphing and counterplay possible, but more impactful in coordinated play. The way SW has been handled is akin to if sorc/BW base damages were increased significantly, crit damage modifier was reduced slightly but insufficiently to compensate and DoTs were made uncleansable, because of how poorly they work out against timed absorbs, cleansing, unlucky non-crits and how important it is for the rotation to oneshot people. Removal of counterplay or further doubling down on oneshot mechanics is just awful, despite how it works out in meta play, it degrades the play in the far more important arbirary aspects of open world PvP.

If a class had an ability with a conditional of "Deal 1 damage. If target is ungrouped, deal a million damage instead" you'd still have people coming in and claiming balanced because duh, it dun affect my guild warband or ranked...... This whole inability to distinguish strength in arbitrary engagements accross the board is the same freaking thing. A class can be borked purely on account of how hard it will destroy 5 pugs standing behind a 6 man fighting a 6 man.

Solo roamer means ( by definition) one who goes out solo in the RvR lakes(meaning not seeking the proximity or protection of the herd, if that happens it is due to random chance), this could be 1vsx, in a small scale random conflicts etc.

Point is the playstyle is not dependant upon the protection of other players, in this setting the SW is not a top tier performer, never was. If a SW does this it will be extremely exposed to harm since the class is squishy without any self-sustain. The frustration just isn't worth it for most players when a random low level bolstered witch elf can remove 50% of their hp in 1 random ambush attack, or targeted by ranged classes with actual self-sustain and durability ( Magus, Shaman) hence why you almost never find them solo roaming.

Now as for your other point, this complaint( from the destro side) generally boils down to Festering Arrow, Fell the Weak, free -casting spam etc. But being on the receiving end of a sorc's telegraphed casting hurts even more, a magus or a SH are just as bad once they are free casting on you.

I think generally all ranged classes need a nerf, not just SW, in their ability to hit , currently def-defender is a useless renown investment since the strike-though of ranged classes is insane, removing strik-through from Ballistics/intelligence is a good starting point, this brings us right back to the real topic since for sure, the Slayer like all melee's are victims of this ranged spam that is going on.

Listen, you can solo roam and make it a point to rely on the protection of other players. Easily. Be that a warband, a duo, a 6 man, or whatever. The actual throughput of the class relative to it's general kit and mechanics are the issue. How it's possible to play is entirely disconnected from how anyone thinks one should play. Fact of the matter is that its throughput is overtuned relative to delivery method, mobility, CC and general tools like providing its own healdebuff, in most arbitrary settings, to the point where having any semblance of an optimal group is entirely optional as far as the goal of maximizing the amount of kills in any given window is concerned.

And as with all of these super frontloaded bursts, it is very cheesable by something like a sub-6 group just going at oneshots for the hell of it. Yes, magus/engi can do the same- but neither possess nearly as complete a toolkit as the SW/SH (the latter now already being nerfed, of course). I'm not advocating for any of the utility or actual original class defining kit to go away- but it really should go back to being closer to a ranged support, with scout having its damage spread out a bit to make it more viable. It never should have been buffed to a main DPS without having its utility completely nuked into oblivion, when part of that meant giving it a massive frontloaded burst on top of everything else.

Being on the receiving end of sorc/BW rotations boils down to just taking a step back. It's not frontloaded, and there is ample counterplay, too much dare I say.

[Turd]

Maybe get off the high horse? Instead of dismissing everyone who disagrees with your '' flawed personal opinion'' , how about you make a counter argument instead ( preferably with some facts or in-game scource to back up your claims).

If you truly care about the reality of the game is , then it shouldn't be an issue for you to point at these solo roaming SW gods, i'm all ears in fact since i keep an open mind, show me a single SW solo roaming who is consistently beating the OP destro faction classes in this context of solo roaming. Give me a name, i know them all in-game.

Too much to ask for?

I'd start with these, just at a glance

1
SHADOW_WARRIOR

Annalena
be water my friend
Lvl 40
RR 85
3807
2
SHADOW_WARRIOR

Laserion
Tercio de Estalia
Lvl 40
RR 84
3530
3
SHADOW_WARRIOR

Awbzz
Pax Mortis II
Lvl 40
RR 87
3199
4
SHADOW_WARRIOR

Lethargia
Scoiatael
Lvl 40
RR 81
2354

Annalena 38xx jkills to less than 200 solo kills ....
Laserion 35xx Kills less than 150 solo kills .....
Awbzz 32xx Kills over 300 solo kills - worth to invest
Lethargia 23xx kills 160 solo kills.

I would say none of them is a solo King or actually looking for solo gaming ... but what it shows is that SW is pretty good at getting the Kill contribution in zerg fights.
a rdps class with with a high dmg value Shot will often get the killcredit for targets in a Zerg simply because its easy to have the highest personal contribution to it when you have exactly 1 high dmg shot WL with their high burst have a similar high chance of getting kill contributions but its riskier because they are melee.
just check the skirmish page of this SWs and you will see most kills come from SC skirmishes where they have an actual frontline or Zergfights where they can pick a single target out of safety.

Is SW good for Solo zergsurfing ? Do we have some decent Players on SWs ? Absolutely! but nothing else is said by this numbers you posted

Fair enough - i did decide to just look down the rest of the list for comparison though. The SW's werelooking at about a ratio of c.15:1 kill to solo kill

Mieles Maura 22xx SOLO: 20. Ratio c.100:1

Krix WH (designed for solo, right?) 19xx SOLO 258, ratio c.9:1

Jackdarippe Choppa 19xx SOLO 142 ratio c.15:1

Deviathl WL 17xx SOLO 61 ratio c.30:1

Korgha Mara,17xx SOLO 95, ratio c. 18:1

The arguments you outlined above still all apply- but normalising across kills as seen in this rough look (my solo kills were lifetime, but i figured thats what you looked at too)- the SW is *still* performing consistantly better than/atLEAST average in SOLO. The WH was better by 50% of so...but... ist hat a surprise? I'd be happy to concede that WH is a better solo roaming than the SW.

[Ashoris]

Fair enough - i did decide to just look down the rest of the list for comparison though. The SW's werelooking at about a ratio of c.15:1 kill to solo kill
Mieles Maura 22xx SOLO: 20. Ratio c.100:1
Krix WH (designed for solo, right?) 19xx SOLO 258, ratio c.9:1
Jackdarippe Choppa 19xx SOLO 142 ratio c.15:1
Deviathl WL 17xx SOLO 61 ratio c.30:1
Korgha Mara,17xx SOLO 95, ratio c. 18:1

The arguments you outlined above still all apply- but normalising across kills as seen in this rough look (my solo kills were lifetime, but i figured thats what you looked at too)- the SW is *still* performing consistantly better than/atLEAST average in SOLO. The WH was better by 50% of so...but... ist hat a surprise? I'd be happy to concede that WH is a better solo roaming than the SW.

So the discussion started about actual SOLO SW's, Farrul made the argument that most of them are simply zergsurfing because thats what actually works well with a SW.

You list a lot of zergsurfing SWs.... i mention that ... and as answer you give me a list of other dps without any context ...
The majority of your List are Grp Player or even grp exclusive Players. dont undderstand what that has anything to do with actual SOLO SWs (btw still missing the example of a 1vs1 solo SW)

[Sulorie]

How about we have classes, which are better suited for solo roaming and classes which are better used together with other players? You want to play solo? Pick a class which supports this play style. Usually you get zerged anyway, when you are busy "duelling" someone in the lakes. Both sides have classes good at it. You are not encountering the same players all the time, so it doesn't matter if some class has a slight edge as there will be always someone mechanically better, if we ignore player skill and gear.
If you want 1:1 balance, play a different kind of game.
Classes are designed around heals, tanks and DD, therefore some classes will lose against others per design, if they fight 1vs1.

LMAO

Do you want to embarrass yourself even more or will you add more substance to your responses?

[Martok]

Do you want to embarrass yourself even more or will you add more substance to your responses?

Its the emoji generation, man, they don't know how to add substance to an argument.

[Turd]

Fair enough - i did decide to just look down the rest of the list for comparison though. The SW's werelooking at about a ratio of c.15:1 kill to solo kill
Mieles Maura 22xx SOLO: 20. Ratio c.100:1
Krix WH (designed for solo, right?) 19xx SOLO 258, ratio c.9:1
Jackdarippe Choppa 19xx SOLO 142 ratio c.15:1
Deviathl WL 17xx SOLO 61 ratio c.30:1
Korgha Mara,17xx SOLO 95, ratio c. 18:1

The arguments you outlined above still all apply- but normalising across kills as seen in this rough look (my solo kills were lifetime, but i figured thats what you looked at too)- the SW is *still* performing consistantly better than/atLEAST average in SOLO. The WH was better by 50% of so...but... ist hat a surprise? I'd be happy to concede that WH is a better solo roaming than the SW.

So the discussion started about actual SOLO SW's, Farrul made the argument that most of them are simply zergsurfing because thats what actually works well with a SW.

You list a lot of zergsurfing SWs.... i mention that ... and as answer you give me a list of other dps without any context ...
The majority of your List are Grp Player or even grp exclusive Players. dont undderstand what that has anything to do with actual SOLO SWs (btw still missing the example of a 1vs1 solo SW)

The context of these players are that they are the next down the line in monthly kills - the SWs were all the top 4 (all shadow warriors). You mentioned their solo kills being low to suggest theyre surfing characters. Going down the list in other high kill classes showed they had overall *less* solo footprint than the SW. The point would be; SW's are more capable solo killers (even if theyre not trying to/that's not their playstyle, like you said). They may not be seeking those circumstances, but theyre very potent at executing them (except when compared to the WH - who is likely seeking those situations out).

It's just food for thought. I accepted you were using low solo kills to point out those players were usualy in a group. But out of curiosity, those solo kills are actually still above average per group kill. Is this evidence theyre the best solo class? No. (but it is alarming that theyre not much worse than the WH). But it *is* to suggest theyre atleast more effective than the other kill-volume-centric classes as going it alone.

[Farrul]

How about we have classes, which are better suited for solo roaming and classes which are better used together with other players? You want to play solo? Pick a class which supports this play style. Usually you get zerged anyway, when you are busy "duelling" someone in the lakes. Both sides have classes good at it. You are not encountering the same players all the time, so it doesn't matter if some class has a slight edge as there will be always someone mechanically better, if we ignore player skill and gear.
If you want 1:1 balance, play a different kind of game.
Classes are designed around heals, tanks and DD, therefore some classes will lose against others per design, if they fight 1vs1.

That could be tolerable if there was a clear vision about it, which then players could use as a guideline when picking the class. However not due to class imbalances which results in incosistency of performance. Just compare a Chosen vs Kotbs for an extreme reference of one class(chosen) being extremely versatile in different contexts whilst the other became extremely one dimensional. Which class do you think will make players stick to it?

Hence the problem is that the RoR team does not ( evidently - judging from patches released) consider the collateral damage of changes, resulting in a lot of incosistency. This has happened for years, but this year extreme in a short span of time resulting in a lot of players unfortunately quitting the server.

This also goes into the realm of forcing a playstyle which a majority will not like, versatility will generally keep players more engaged and happy with the class, which is ultimately tied to modern gaming routines that look different from the era when games like Age of Reckoning and other popular old MMO's were designed.

Then there is the added issue of a low pop server, especially during NA hours grouping up is not always possible and this highly favors certain classes over others, resulting in more imbalances. Hence why imho the devs should adapt the balance to what the server is, rather than pretend it is something else long gone.