[Black Orc] Why 2h BO sucks and suggestions to fix it (long read)

[Culexus]

Summary

It’s no secret that 2h BO is not in a good place at the moment. While SnB BO has gone from strength to strength with the changes made during the balance patches, 2h BO has gotten to the point where it’s barely viable as an off-spec. Although it’s great to see BO being wanted in warbands again with all it brings with SnB, we’re stuck playing the same SnB build for small scale as going 2h is always going to be a detriment to our group. With 2h being terrible and us having no access to T’ree hit combo whilst SnB, BO has lost its identity as a brawler tank The choice between the destro tanks has been the group buffs and cc of the Chosen, the amazing debuffs and cc of the Blackguard, or the dps assist of the Black Orc. It was always generally better to go CH and BG anyway as BO couldn’t punt, but with us no longer being an effective brawler, we’ve lost our whole niche and are instead a ‘pure’ tank as we have to run defensive SnB in all content to bring anything to the table.

What this post aims to do

This post aims to explain the current problems with 2h BO for the purpose of the balance team having a complete picture of its issues so they can use the information for future balance patches. Any suggestions made are done with consideration of the work required for their implementation, using our existing abilities with minimal reworking wherever possible. I will not be making any suggestions for how any new abilities should function as that’s for the balance team to decide.

Reference build

Feedback will be based on the following build being run. At the time of posting this, the career builder has not been updated to include changes from patch 23/10/2024. Tactics have not been selected as this will be covered in the tactics section.
RoR.builders - Black Orc

Problems with 2h BO

This will be broken down into the following sections:

Section 1. Assessment of the problems with 2h Black Orc.
1. The mechanic
2. Too many Gud plan abilities
3. Overreliance on tactics
4. Lack of effective cc
5. Lack of unique and impactful abilities
6. No clear vision for 2h BO’s group role

Suggestions will then be broken down into the following sections:

Section 2. Suggestions and their potential results
1. Suggestions to fix 2h
2. Results of the suggested changes if implemented

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Section 1. Assessment of the problems with 2h Black Orc.

1. The mechanic

I want to preface this by saying I do enjoy the combo mechanic, but although it’s fun to use, there’s no denying it’s a negative to the class. As the mechanic affects both the BO and SM both SnB and 2h, this is more of an overview of the mechanic itself, rather than it being directly tied to 2h BO. It’s important to bring it up as it is a reason the 2h BO isn’t as desired in small-scale content.

The mechanic ties abilities to a certain order in which they are used, essentially making abilities within certain plans have to be queued, thereby resulting in them having an artificial cooldown imposed by the mechanic itself. This means that abilities cannot used when they’re needed as the player has to cycle through other abilities first, with the impact of this getting worse the more abilities you have tied to plans. The reward for this is certain abilities (those in Best plan) costing 0ap.

The problem with the mechanic the downside of not being able to use an ability the moment it is needed is in no way close to being compensated for Best plan abilities costing 0ap. Having an ever-increasing artificial cooldown imposed on Gud plan and best plan abilities by the mechanic is a huge downside compared to classes that don’t have this restriction. This has got significantly worse with the change to gcd to 1.5sec. Although it does give us good ap management, other classes that use career resources also don’t have to use ap for (usually far more) abilities without having to deal with the plan system. It also doesn’t give anything for abilities tied to Gud plan, despite them suffering the same drawback as best plan abilities. The abilities attached to plans gain nothing for being a part of them besides the 0ap of Best plan, unlike BG/IB for example, and are treated like any other ability any other class would use. This unreliability compared to other tanks has always made BO a bit of a risky pick, but good BOs know how to play around the mechanic effectively to negate as much of it’s downside as possible. Sadly, using the plan system well is always about negating the downsides rather than increasing the upside.

2. Too many Gud Plan abilities

Plan abilities are far too heavily stacked into Gud plan as 2h. As the mechanic section explains, this is a problem as so many of our abilities tied to a single plan makes the ability queuing we have to do take even longer, leaving us not able to use abilities when required.

Using the reference build, let's look at the spread of abilities across the plans:

No Plan:
Follow ‘me lead
Wot Armor
Arm Breaka

Gud plan:
Trim ‘Em Up
Tuffer n Nails
Right in Da Jibblies
Down Ya Go
Big Swing
Chop Fasta!

Best plan:
T'ree Hit Combo
Skull Thumper
Da Big Un’
Git Out/Fly Gits
Shut Yer Face

Why is this an issue? So let’s say you wanted to snare your target, buff yourself with Chop Fasta, give parry to your target with Tuffer n Nails, snare again, punt, then channel.

A standard class would do the following: Snare> Chop Fasta > Tuffer n Nails >snare>punt>channel. 6 abilities.

Now lets have a look at the BO using the most effective rotation: Wot Armor >snare> Follow ‘me Lead > Chop Fasta > Arm Breaka>snare>punt> Wot Armor>Changin da Plan>channel. 10 abilities.

We could have started with Changin da Plan rather than Wot Armor or used it after the first snare to save a gcd, but have opted to apply an armour debuff to the target as we would normally in this scenario.

For all we had to do there compared to the standard class, and all the downside of the added time to the rotation, we gained 2 abilities without an ap cost, those being the punt and channel. That’s only a simple scenario, the more Gud plan and Best plan abilities we have to use, the longer that ability queue becomes, making the time to get to the abilities we need longer and longer.

When you look at the abilities themselves, you see that most of our most useful abilities are stacked into Gud plan. Best plan has Da Big Un’ only being used if running Da Biggest, and Git out/Fly Gits/ Shut Yer Face all being situational cc, so not being required as often. That leaves only T'ree hit combo and Skull Thumper as best plan abilities that can be used each plan rotation, with Skull Thumper being very mediocre. And with Arm Breaka having a 10sec cooldown, we only have 2 spammable abilities in no plan to move up the plan system!

3. Overreliance on tactics

2h BO has way too many tactics required to make it work. We have the same 4 tactic slots as every other class, but have been designed like we have way more. If we apply defensive tactics and cc, we lose our offense, so may as well go SnB. If we apply offense, we lose our defence and cc, making us incredibly squishy and unable to fulfill our role as a tank without a lot of group support that could be better spent elsewhere.

2h has 3 tactics that have to be used. Those being:

Gud at big choppin: +5% parry, +10% damage.
Git out for good: Make the punt move enemies more than 3ft.
Less stabbing me: +10% parry + 5/10% depending on plan

We need to stack parry as we need to defend against both enemy and guard damage, so GaBC and LSM are auto-takes. As the punt does nothing without the tactic, that has to be taken as well.

That leaves us with a single tactic slot to use. Not unusual as most classes have a few mandatory tactics, but with the removal of Savin’ Me Hide from 2h, the slot has to go to Rugged for +160 toughness. This could be swapped for Gork Smash for some crit, or Ave Another One/Loudmouth if running a no-crit build, but with our defense and mitigation already being low from not having any defense or mitigation abilities it leaves us incredibly squishy. Classes shouldn’t be top-tier at everything and should have to sacrifice defense for damage, but goes way too far for 2h BO. We’re are a something or nothing class.

Build if taking Rugged: RoR.builders - Black Orc

We can go full brawler, dropping the punt and Rugged for Gork Smash+Stab You Gooder. We lose the punt and toughness, so we’re both squishy and can’t punt, but we can do some decent damage. Once again though as we are super squishy and lose the ability to punt, no group will want us in this spec. Running SnB we don’t have any of these problems as we can run +10% block, Linecraka, morale pump, and punt. We don’t do any damage but we’re tough as nails, so we don’t put additional pressure on our healers like 2h does whilst bringing far more to the table at the same time.

Build if taking Gork Smash+Stab You Gooder: RoR.builders - Black Orc

4. Lack of effective cc

BO has 4 cc effects in his toolkit. Those being a snare, silence, root, and punt. Root has not been included below as there's nothing to say about it

Snare
The snare is shared across all tanks and all classes in the game have access to one in some fashion. The BO snare comes with the benefit of not having a cooldown. This sounds good on paper, but as it’s tied to the Gud plan, it becomes far more unreliable to use than a standard snare on a 5sec cooldown as there as so many other abilities in that plan that need to be kept up. This results in the snare having a cooldown imposed by the mechanic.

Silence
Suffers from the same thing as other silences in that it shares an immunity with the knockdown. Although the silence gives an extra second of cc compared to the KD, the KD has the added benefit of completely immobilizing the target at the same time. Rather than being a unique ability, it’s a situational variant of the same one. It’s certainly not a bad ability and a good part of our kit as silences are very strong, but having a KD in our toolkit takes away from its uniqueness and we could easily manage if the ability had another effect. Its strength comes more from it being able to be used when the KD is on cooldown or vice versa.

Punt
We have the worst punt in the game. It’s not even a contest. The punt we were giving somehow managed to combine all the drawbacks of the other punts without giving us any of the upsides whatsoever.

Let's compare the upsides and downsides of all the punts:

KotBS/CH: No restrictions when it can be used as not tied to the mechanic. Requires a tactic. 20sec cooldown. Tactic reduces cooldown by 10sec when 2h.
IB: Requires class resource. Doesn’t require a tactic. 10sec cooldown as standard.
BG: No restrictions when it can be used. Distance is determined by class resource. Doesn’t require a tactic. 2h reduces cooldown by 10sec as standard. Best punt in the game.
BO/SM: Restricted to mechanic stance. Requires a tactic. 20 sec cooldown. Tactic reduces cooldown by 10sec when 2h.

Both IB and BG have their punts tied to their class mechanic but are compensated by not having to use a tactic slot to make them actual punts and reduce the cooldown to 10sec when 2h. KotBS and CH both have to use a tactic slot but their punts are not tied to any mechanics so can be used as and when required. BO and SM have their punts tied to the mechanic, but unlike IB and BG, receive no benefit for this and still have to pay the same price as a KotBS and CH. The BO/SM mechanic is arguably more restrictive to punts than the IB/BG mechanic, making this disparity even worse.

The punt not costing ap isn’t a compensation for it being tied to the mechanic, and as they were originally tied to the Gud plan, wasn’t a factor when they were designed.

5. Lack of unique and impactful abilities

What 2h BO brings:
Decent damage for a tank (in certain specs)
An additional 322 armour reduction on Wot Armor
An additional 39 stats stolen from Da Biggest
Action point steal/pump with Arm Breaka
-10sec cooldown on the punt with Git Out Fer Gud tactic

What 2h BO loses:
Much higher survivability with block+defensive/mitigation from gear and abilities.
Morale pump
We’z Bigger+Linecraka combo
+5 sec cooldown debuff from Not in da face
-20% physical damage debuff from Ya Missed Me
-20% magic damage taken group buff from Savin’ Me Hide
Easier access to include Waaaagh in a build

So when looking at the above the question must be asked, why would you ever run 2h over SnB? One could argue that there’s nothing stopping 2h speccing into Da’ Toughest tree to gain access to We’z bigger and Not in da face, but why not just run SnB instead and to do the same thing but without losing most of your damage and Brawler tree abilities?

The Brawler tree itself is also very underwhelming, with few abilities worth taking.

Arm Breaka: It’s ok. Its problem comes from its position of taking up a slot in a tree with needs more impactful abilities.

Chop Fasta: Once again an ok ability. Its problem is that it’s 13pts rather than its effect.

Skull thumpa: Sadly, although this is a unique ability with all the changes to procs it’s become practically useless. Any target that causes this ability to procs often enough to do enough damage to justify using a gcd is dead anyway. This ability is now a relic of the past.

6. No clear vision for 2h BO’s group role

There doesn’t seem to be any clear vision for 2h BO. SnB is in a great spot with multiple changes made that have turned it from a 1-trick Waaagh bot into a fun, useful, and engaging spec to play. Changes to 2h on the other hand seemed to have boiled down to “we don’t want you to have U Wot anymore”. We’re a brawler tank without any of the abilities required to carry out that role. Whereas our mirror the SM fulfills its role as a 2h brawler really well, bringing almost dps levels of damage while still keeping most of its toolkit and survivability, 2h BO simply is unable to fulfill that role as he brings nothing but extra damage at the cost of everything else.

The balance team needs to decide what they want 2h BO to do and what he can bring to the table compared to 2h CH or BG. If you want him to be a brawler, make him a brawler. At the same time, we need more of our impactful debuffs available to 2h. SnB will still have its benefits and reason to run it without it having a monopoly on all our best abilities.

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Section 2. Suggestions and their potential results

1. Suggestions to fix 2h

I’m not going to go into in-depth suggestions here as I and others have said a lot of the same stuff in the BO balance patch feedback thread. This post is more about giving an in-depth analysis of the problems so the balance team can discuss solutions internally with as much information to hand as possible. That being said, I will give some suggestions on what I believe would be the best course of action for fixing 2h BO here as well so it’s all in one place.

Mechanic

Recognize that BO/SM has a mechanic and design abilities with the mechanic in mind. The only time this has been done is by swapping the plans on the KD and punt. That change made a big difference and made both abilities far easier to use. Have more abilities and tactics to work with the mechanic, providing benefits to compensate being tied to it.

Ability changes

Right in Da Jibblies – Change from Gud plan to no plan. Helps with the over-stacking of Gud plan abilities and makes the interrupt usable the moment it is required like an interrupt should be.

Rock ‘Ard - Becomes a core ability. The same will apply to SM bubble. This ability is taken to navigate the plan system rather for the absorb, allowing to us move from no plan without a target. This is vital to navigating the plan system and each stage of both BO and SM stances should have a no-target ability. With this change for BO we’d have Rock ‘Ard, Big Swing, and Savin me Hide/Da Big Un’ to achieve this.

Not in Da Face – replaces Rock ‘Ard as the 5pt ability in Da boss tree, allowing it to be used as 2h.

Arm Breaka – Move to 9ts in Da Toughest tree, replacing Not in da face. As it’s an ap buff it's probably more suited to Da Boss tree as it is more or a buff. But as Not in Da Face takes that slot there’s no room for it. Honestly, it could just be removed and no one would miss it.

Chop Fasta – Move to 5pts in Da Brawler tree.

Tuffer n Nails - Now works on you and the defensive target. See the latest feedback on the BO feedback thread for patch 24/10/2024 for more detailed feedback on this.

Ya Missed me – Now works on block and parry. A great unique small-scale skill that would give a big boost to 2h and make him more viable in a group v group setting. This has been said so many times for so long there’s obviously resistance to it on the balance team, but there’s no harm in repeating it again here.

Git Out – Allow the punt to knock back its full distance and have its cooldown reduced when 2h without the requirements of a tactic. Just as with IB and BG, it should get a bonus for being tied to a mechanic. Not requiring a tactic will help with our tactic slot issue as well.

Skull Thumper – Ability redesigned into another debuff or buff.

U Wot!?! – reintroduce U Wot!?! as a new 13pt ability in Da Brawler tree. It doesn’t have to be anything like its previous incarnation, it just needs to be a 13pt worthy ability that helps us fulfill our role as a 2h brawler tank.

Waaaagh! – Remove the corp debuff and damage and make the aa buff 20sec. Not directly related to 2h, but included as we can spec into it in certain 2h specs. Making the aa buff 20sec allows it to work better with the mechanic and tidies the ability up, making the aa buff the prominent feature.

Tactics

Review the changes to damage procs not critting when they only apply to single abilities. I understand the need for it when they can proc off any ability, but when it’s only tied to one, it’s nowhere near as egregious. Both Ave’ Another One and Loudmouth have been nerfed by the proc changes when they weren’t causing any problems before. Allowing these tactics to crit again would be a big boon to us in fulfilling our brawler role.

2. Results of the suggested changes if implemented

If the suggested changes were implemented we can see how this would effect the class compared to its current state. We will use the same reference build, but swap Less Stabbin Me with Not In Da Face, which will be a 5pt ability in Da Boss tree in place of Rock ‘Ard.

RoR.builders - Black Orc

Let’s start by seeing how the changes affect the spread of abilities throughout the plans:

No Plan:
Follow ‘me lead
Wot Armor
Rock ‘Ard
Right in Da Jibblies
Ya Missed Me

Gud plan:
Trim ‘Em Up
Tuffer n Nails
Down Ya Go
Big Swing
Chop Fasta!

Best plan:
T'ree Hit Combo
Skull Thumper
Not in da face
Da Big Un’
Git Out/Fly Gits
Shut Yer Face

We now have a more even spread of abilities between the plans, adding 2 to no plan, losing 1 from Gud plan, and adding 1 to Best plan, allowing our combos to be more efficient without a repeat of abilities or over-stacking into a single plan. With Rock ‘Ard becoming core, we now have an ability that doesn’t require a target for each stage of the plan as part of our standard kit.

When we look at the tactics, having the punt tactic worked into the mechanic frees up a tactic slot, and having Tuffer n Nails work on us and the defensive target gives the option of freeing up a slot as Less Stabbin Me is no longer mandatory. This puts us back to how we were pre-balance patches and allows us to take Rugged, while also bringing 2 dps tactics so we can fulfill our role as a brawler tank again.

Now let’s compare 2h vs SnB again after the proposed changes:

What 2h BO brings:
Decent damage for a tank
An additional 322 armour reduction on Wot Armor
An additional 39 stats stolen from Da Biggest
-10sec cooldown on the punt
New U Wot!?! ability

What 2h BO loses:
Higher survivability with block+defensive/mitigation from gear and abilities.
Morale pump
We’z Bigger+Linecraka combo
-20% magic damage taken group buff from Savin’ Me Hide
Easier access to include Waaaagh in a build

You can see there’s far less disparity between the two now that 2h has access to more of the tools available to SnB. Now both SnB and 2h are useful in small-scale content, providing us with more build options and group variety. With the addition of a new version of U Wot!?! introduced and Skull Thumper changed into a new ability, we are bringing several unique tools to small-scale groups as well as our damage, making us a viable 2nd option for a tank in a 6-man group. This will make it a struggle to pick which of the 3 tanks to bring to a group as now all of the tanks are great options, just like in RvR. Making players have to decide between multiple good options as they’re all equally good is the pinnacle of class balance in my opinion. We will have regained our role as a brawler tank, giving us a distinct playstyle and allowing us to once again be the destro mirror of the Sword Master.

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Conclusion

Although the 2h BO is in a bad spot right now, most of the foundations for fixing it already exist within its toolkit, it just needs to be able to access them so it can bring more to the table to stand toe-to-toe with CH and BG for a place in a small scale group. 2h may be an off-spec, but that doesn’t mean it should be treated with any less love than SnB and should still be considered a viable way to play the class. When having to re-grind warcrests for BiS off-set after completing the main set, it is a massive feelsbad to have the spec be totally worthless.

I have no doubts that the balance team already knows that 2h isn’t in a good spot. Hopefully, this thread has given you a more complete picture as to exactly why. I know there’s a lot here but I wanted to give something more than “2h BO sucks” so you have a full understanding of what high-level BO players mean when we say that. Even if you disagree with everything here, I hope you’ve found something useful that you can take away for any upcoming changes you have planned. I’m pretty sure I can speak for all the BOs in the community when I say I hope you do something to make 2h BO great again, as we’d all love to dust off our 2handers and clobber some puny gits. With the way things are at the moment though, all our 2handers will have to stay on the shelf.

[rady]

Love it but it wont happen :C

[Culexus]

UPDATE: Added an additional section "Results of the suggested changes if implemented" so it's easier to envision what the changes would look like and how the class would compare to its current state.

Also tidied things up a bit so it's easier to read and added some additional build links.

[amputationsaw]

great compilation. hopefully this will be considered

[Fey]

This is a fun read, good suggestions. One thing that I noticed reading this is that there are no abilities that are usable and have different effects depending on stance. So that makes me think about how the punt can be implemented.

Make punt usable in any stance. No plan, punt knocks the target up interrupting it ala RidJ. Gud plan standard crappy punt, but undefendable. Best plan something resembling an actual punt. Get rid of the tactic.

I particularly like your suggestion of abilities in all three stances that can be used to advance the stance without needing a target. This alone would be a huge qol improvement, and why Rock Ard in particular should be a core ability.

Like many others I played BO to 80, and put it on the shelf. BG is just vastly superior, and chosen is chosen.

Just as a side note, the BO/SM mechanic not adding additional effects to base abilities depending on stance is a really boring and unimpressive mechanic. Never thought about it before, but now it's a glaring oversight. Grudge improves abilities as it increases, why not implement a similar mechanic here?