[PTS] Patch Notes 07/09/2025

[leftayparxoun]

To the posters above complaining about buffs/nerfs to WH/Slayer/WL/WE/etc, remember that these are universal changes. It would be weird if the buffs and debuffs of those classes were not adjusted to match. This is not the "DPS patch".

To devs: with the new rules introduced with this patch there is now inconsistency between the Shaman and Rune Priests toughness buff. The Shaman's 250 toughness buff on Do Sumfin Useful is single target so needs a load of GCDs to get it spread, however the Rune Priest's 250 toughness buff on Master Rune of Stability is a group buff.

Shouldn't the RP's buff now be lower than the Shaman's one to reflect the RP's buff being a group buff and the Shaman's buff being single target? I know the aim with the changes to the Master Rune were to give order and destro access to a 240 (now 250) Toughness buff, but that value now breaks the new system.

Kinda similar to Shaman's/AM's/Chosen's/KOTBS' AOE resist buffs being 240 now but Zealot's and Runepriest's Resist Mark/Rune also being 240 despite being applied in ST.

[Hazmy]

Some of the changes are exciting to say the least. The Black Orc and Swordmaster no longer requiring a stance to knockback is a great QoL. Knights and Chosen look interesting too. In general Tank play will be more interesting.

I am also eager to see how this will shift the general enjoyment of casual RvR and Pug Scenarios with stacking damage reductions. People should be able to have more enjoyable proper fights instead of dying too fast ... on the flip-side there will be more cases of noone dying.

[Omegus]

To the posters above complaining about buffs/nerfs to WH/Slayer/WL/WE/etc, remember that these are universal changes. It would be weird if the buffs and debuffs of those classes were not adjusted to match. This is not the "DPS patch".

To devs: with the new rules introduced with this patch there is now inconsistency between the Shaman and Rune Priests toughness buff. The Shaman's 250 toughness buff on Do Sumfin Useful is single target so needs a load of GCDs to get it spread, however the Rune Priest's 250 toughness buff on Master Rune of Stability is a group buff.

Shouldn't the RP's buff now be lower than the Shaman's one to reflect the RP's buff being a group buff and the Shaman's buff being single target? I know the aim with the changes to the Master Rune were to give order and destro access to a 240 (now 250) Toughness buff, but that value now breaks the new system.

Kinda similar to Shaman's/AM's/Chosen's/KOTBS' AOE resist buffs being 240 now but Zealot's and Runepriest's Resist Mark/Rune also being 240 despite being applied in ST.

The Zealot/RP marks and runes are always an awkward one to categorise as they're single target but you buff up before the fight and they last for an hour so it's not like you're burning GCDs to keep them applied (unlike Do Sumfin Useful). I very nearly proposed something very similar to the OP (standardising buff and debuff amounts based on whether it's ST and AoE) a couple of years back and struggled to decide what to do with the basic Zealot/RP buffs

[dirnsterer]

- Burn Armor - Armor debuff reduced from 990 to 660.

- Blessed Bullets of Purity - Initiative debuff reduced from 120 to 100.

Decisions like this make me question certain things

This made me chuckle, like sure nerfing aoe debuffs fits for burn armor, but I wish they would look a bit at the class they nerf. Like warbands wont touch WH with a looooooong stick, not for burn armor, not for anything but maybe stake and that is in wb vs wb which in orvr is rare snowflake. Maybe try out if single target debuff with similiar range would work and keep numbers the same? Also ini nerf, when SW gets increase for their debuff, for reasons?

[leftayparxoun]

- The following damage reducing abilities will now stack with Guard and Detaunt: Challenge, Distracting Bellow, Radiant Gaze, Ya Missed Me and Dragon's Talon

- Guard and Detaunt abilities now form their own stacking group (in addition to Ability, Tactic and Morale).

A few questions here just to make sure the new system is properly understood:

• "Challenge, Distracting Bellow, Radiant Gaze, Ya Missed Me and Dragon's Talon". Are all of these part of the "Ability" group (besides Bellow that is "Morale")? Or do they belong to their own separate stacking group too?

• Could you explain the interaction between stacking groups here? Is it also that only the highest buff from each category will apply and they will all stack multiplicatively?

• Could you perhaps clarify what happens to other damage reducing buffs such as the ones from Vaul's Tempering, We'z Bigger and Oppression?
  Do they belong to the "Ability" category and will also stack with Guard/Detaunt but are overwritten by Challenge, Ya Missed Me and Dragon's Talon (due to having less mitigation% value) ?

• What about the goblin racial tactic "Whazat Behind You?!" ? Does it belong to the "Tactic" category and also stack multiplicatively with Guard/Detaunt?

[Demonito]

- Rune of Fate - Duration reduced from 24 to 15 seconds. Cooldown reduced from 15 to 10 seconds. AP cost increased from 30 to 35. Damage bonus scaling increased from 0.86 to 0.90.

The Rp spell had higher damage due to a longer duration
Shouldn't Zealot' Mirror of Madness then be 1896 Corp damage ? (or RP reduced to 1165 elem)

Zealot dps tactic being once again useful on proc is very nice
Changes to Shield DoK are a good step forward
Chosen switching auras with one clic and knockback without tac are great ideas too, thanks !
The new interactions with auras also seem cool ;
Please consider changing "Corrupting Horror" into something more useful, like kotb had "To Victory"

Black Orc is unlucky on that armor nerf, certainly because this was forgotten in the last armor patch
Tastes Like Chicken - Wounds buff reduced from 160 to 150 : pure evil :p

[Faction69]

I'm very disappointed in the devs perception that the TTK is too low with guard.

TTK with guard is if anything repressive to fun in this game. Making other things stack with it will make things worse.

TTK might be too fast in situations WITHOUT guard, but when you are talking about balanced comps with healers, the 100% uptime off gcd guard that RoR has makes things extremely boring. Giving guarded players even more damage reduction does not make sense. The most viable groups are already mostly based around guarded dps due to the massive defensive power and total shutdown of burst damage that it offers. You can't even be smart and swap to targets who aren't guarded because it has no cooldown and no gcd so any good tank with decent reaction time will shut that down quick.

Also saddened that WH was caught in the crossfire of the nerfs to AoE debuffs. AoE WH is a niche archetype that very few people play. The 2 nerfed abilities are almost always used on single targets. Burn armor is already a fairly situational opener because Torment ignores armor anyway and thus gets no bonus from it, this just makes it an even weaker option.

At the same time, WE single target debuffs got buffed. There is already a power diferential between WH and WE in their main role (solo and small group play) due to WE having a viable defensive spec, and this is just going to make the gap wider. There has to be some way to buff DPS WE without also buffing defensive WE (which is what this change does)

[footpatrol2]

So I don't agree with his patch. Whatever. I don't agree with most things the dev's do.

Can you please not reduce challenge shout to 7 sec's. How are you supposed to organize around this on 7 sec durations in a warband setting?
Is the goal not to organize?

Typically on comms you have 2 groups of tanks for calling out (old) challenge shout to maintain the cycle for 100% upkeep in ORvR. Granted it fell off after 3 hits. Sometimes you got hit, sometimes you didn't. If you have 8 tanks in a warband 4 of them will be split into group 1, then another 4 will be split into group 2. Group 1 would start the cycle then group 2 would pick up the cycle after 15 sec's.

With this new Change Now to challenge we need to create 4 teams of challenge shout to maintain 100% upkeep? This is completely unnecessary and over complicates things.

Your already doing a TON of stuff as a tank but now since you reduced the duration we have to maintain 4 teams of challenge shout... ... What?

If you are worried on TTK reduce the effectiveness of the challenge shout to 25% or 20%. Please don't play around with the durations. Challenge is almost as fundamental as guard.

You kinda can't organize around 7 second durations with all the other things the tanks need to do.

The durations in this game are set for a reason so you can coordinate with other team members to get 100% of the desired effect. Are you trying to destroy organized play? Are you aiming for purely a solo experience.

Is the goal not to organize? Is the goal not to coordinate? is the goal not to have teamwork? That's an honest question? I don't know if RoR has that goal? Is it the goal? Is RoR just turning into a solo game? A team based ORvR game is taking away the team part and going more solo?

I haven't played in awhile but it seems RoR doesn't like organized play given their patch history. Is this a fair assumption?

[crazyturkme]

i think WH WL still needs a nerf. other changes cool.

[vanbuinen77]