WE/WH: What really went wrong

[lumpi33]

If you think about WAR from the early days and the initial class balance then one thing should be crystal clear:

The classes that were supposed to do highest damage also had major drawbacks in their mechanic. Their idea was to have slayer/choppa as top melee and BWs/Sorcs as top ranged damage dealers. Both are taking risks for highest damage.

This bonus / malus system wasn't only applied to damage, but also to the toolkit of the classes. Stealthers received stealth and high damage with the downside of being squishy and having to commit to a fight once out of stealth and getting kited.

Fast forward to what we have with ROR right now:

Stealthers with top damage, no drawbacks like slayers/choppas/BWs/Sorcs, the ability to get out of the fight at any point without having to commit, having lots of tools to prevent getting kited.

It should be obvious that this is creating a huge imbalance. Well and it does. Here we are.

I mean, I have nothing against shaking things up and making it a bit different but ya know, it just sucks to face this shadow monsters every day and having to wait for the next patches which might fix it or not.

If you keep their toolkit as it is then you should at least add some disadvantages to them. Like: You do this, gain that BUT you are more vulnerable for some time, or cannot attack or lose your defenses for some time or in general higher AP usage and cooldowns.

High damage, stealth and having all these tools has to come with a high price. A high price that slayers/choppas/BWs/sorcs are also paying for their higher damage. Don't break this concept.

That's my take on this issue.

[Fenris78]

Some adjustements can surely be made to limit the power of stealthers, but I think more by limiting their abilities to reset the fight of just completely ignore the difficulty by jumping away, which currently got very few counters.

I think of some skills adjustements / weakness, (not meant to be all implemented ofc) :

1. Make the stagger part of the jumpback blockable/parryable again ; it would still be an auto-jump, but exactly like the SW whirling pin, the other effect should be avoidable, forcing the WH/WE to invest into some parry strikethrough instead of getting full defensive like now.

2. Make a visible animation for Incognito/Shadow Prowler, to allow counterplay with taunt/interrupts. Currently there is no way to tell when the skill is being channeled, only the vanish animation playing at the very end which is useless for counterplay.

3. Optionally, make Taunt skill (the 15s cd one from tanks only) add a small timer when a channeling skill is interrupted, like 1/10th of the natural cd of skill, with a minimum of 1s. Example, a skill with a 0-10 cd will get interrupted and enter to 1s cooldown.
Which means Incognito/Prowler when interrupted by Taunt will go into a 3s cd, meaning more strategic use of both skills, and a real ranged counterplay to stealth.

4. Make stealth (Incognito/Prowler) 45-60s cd long instead of 30s.

5. Make Fleshrender rings unique

All other options are to me counterintuitive or plainly destroying the class, like AP/s malus or damage/defense reduction, on classes meant to go out from stealth with half their AP pool, with already a uber squishy character (especially now they lost even more initiative thanks to weapon nerfs).

Just need more counterplay to stealth to allow less freedom/survival on a bad decision.

[lumpi33]

Some good points Fenris.

All other options are to me counterintuitive or plainly destroying the class, like AP/s malus or damage/defense reduction, on classes meant to go out from stealth with half their AP pool, with already a uber squishy character (especially now they lost even more initiative thanks to weapon nerfs).

I think their intention was to make them better for group and warband play but now the good ones are actually harder to kill than maras/WLs/slayers/choppas.

Why? Because they can just disappear when focused or jump out when the assist train is coming to them. As non-stealther it is not that easy to get rid of an assist train. A WE with guard, hots/heals, parry, disrupts, self 600 absorb after crit and all that escape tools is very hard to kill. They are currently like better WLs with better escapes. WHs seem to be a bit less extreme regarding mobility but insane regarding parry.

A part of it is actually not a stealther class problem. The parry/disrupt renowns are absurdly cheap. So, Id actually start there and make that more expensive. Have ya played caster recently? Super fun, trying to kill a WE/WH... disrupt, disrupt, absorb, target is invisible, target is immune to your ranged damage, target is on you, you have nothing to counter, you are dead...

So I see the issue in the high parry/disrupts in general and also a bit in the classes. For WEs the self absorb should be reduced to 400, their pounce should be removed again and their ability cooldowns increased a bit. For WHs, their parry rate is a bit obscene. This would hit their survivability and mobility a bit, which is really needed. They were never meant to outperform full mdps but actually do atm.

[Shogun4138]

There are many ways to stop them from going stealth. If I have to tell you then you're not playing correctly.

Both classes blow up in any warband setting, one armor debuff and they are done. Their aoe hits like a wet noodle.

The part that upsets most people is they got killed by a solo or small team. Let's be honest. You died against a class you feel you should never die to.

The stealth classes are for the most part functional at this point compared to other classes.

[Shogun4138]

I also run cctv. So many players dump all their cc in the first move they do. Oops.

[rorswar]

Both classes blow up in any warband setting, one armor debuff and they are done. Their aoe hits like a wet noodle.

You haven't seen WEs like Bestinclass or others in WBs. If I have to tell you how, then you're not playing correctly.

[Shogun4138]

Both classes blow up in any warband setting, one armor debuff and they are done. Their aoe hits like a wet noodle.

You haven't seen WEs like Bestinclass or others in WBs. If I have to tell you how, then you're not playing correctly.

I pretty much know a lot of WEs, most don't wb play. I don't play in Wbs because it's s all three button trash play.

Also, just look at the kill board top kills. It's all warband or warband surfers.

[rorswar]

Both classes blow up in any warband setting, one armor debuff and they are done. Their aoe hits like a wet noodle.

You haven't seen WEs like Bestinclass or others in WBs. If I have to tell you how, then you're not playing correctly.

I pretty much know a lot of WEs, most don't wb play. I don't play in Wbs because it's s all three button trash play.

Also, just look at the kill board top kills. It's all warband or warband surfers.

So now your argument that WEs aren't in WBs isn't that they're bad at it, but that it's three button thrash play.

Right.

[Shogun4138]

You haven't seen WEs like Bestinclass or others in WBs. If I have to tell you how, then you're not playing correctly.

I pretty much know a lot of WEs, most don't wb play. I don't play in Wbs because it's s all three button trash play.

Also, just look at the kill board top kills. It's all warband or warband surfers.

So now your argument that WEs aren't in WBs isn't that they're bad at it, but that it's three button thrash play.

Right.

That's not my argument for WB play for WEs. First they don't have good aoe abilities. They don't have the gear set to stay alive in Wb play. With guard, they end up killing their guard and themselves in seconds.

Do you even play a WE?

[rorswar]

I pretty much know a lot of WEs, most don't wb play. I don't play in Wbs because it's s all three button trash play.

Also, just look at the kill board top kills. It's all warband or warband surfers.

So now your argument that WEs aren't in WBs isn't that they're bad at it, but that it's three button thrash play.

Right.

That's not my argument for WB play for WEs. First they don't have good aoe abilities. They don't have the gear set to stay alive in Wb play. With guard, they end up killing their guard and themselves in seconds.

Do you even play a WE?

Yes, I do. A RR70 one, which I put on the shelf in disgust. Everyone sees it, even the WE players themselves who don't have their head so far in the sand that they can't see reality.

Just read this snippet from a post on the forum: https://ibb.co/j9qWP8gp