BW: Current state

[lumpi33]

Hello there,

so, I dusted off my old BW to mess around a bit. He is close to BIS gear so not a new char at all. Around 7% less chance to be disrupted, max int, 36% base crit with potions.

I've been running different specs to see how he is currently doing. The result was pretty much from "meh, this is not good" to "omg, this is awful".

Their AOE spec is kind of fun to play but the damage just isn't there. Wild Fire procs, Spreading Flames and Detonate do pathetic damage. They tick around 100ish, IF they are not getting disrupted, blocked or absorbed. That's wild when you think about hots ticking for 5xx on crit.

One thing that was standing out on the AOE spec was really the Discordant Turbulence and Shield channel backdrafts. They did almost the same damage back to me than I did to them, not even counting the 750 damage procs I get from my mechanic when at 100 power. It's pretty common to hurt yourself for 750 while the target just disrupts and getting 0 damage. What the hell?!

This doesn't seem right to be honest. It is a high risk, very squishy damage class and there are so freaking many disrupts. It is super hard to get any meaningful damage done to tanks or healers that have very high disrupts. The most insane situation was a defensive BGs running their disrupt tactic. They were basically immune to my damage.

Another thing that was very annoying was the Tzeentch Reflection ability from the chosens. Every time I was in a good spot to start casting AOEs I got muted by this ability. That's crazy when you think about it. They are not even targetting me and I'm still getting muted, backdrafts from their auras and hurt myself from the mechanic. Let alone all the blocks and disrupts. And when it finally hits it barely does any damage. Crazy.

The spec that worked best for me was deep mid tree down to kd and right tree to funnel power. Then there is at least some single target pressure but AOE is pretty much gone and the disrupt problem is still there.

Overall I think that BWs are in an awful state right now. With Deft Defender people are having such an easy way to pump their disrupt/dodge rate while I'm as BW have pretty much nothing to counter that. Let alone the M1 some have that make them completely immune to my damage. Let alone the bad escape mechanics BWs have. Where is my ability to become immune to their damage? Where is my ability to escape like they do?

There is so much wrong about BWs right now. Deft Defender too cheap, no renown to counter Deft Defender, strong passive auras / strong passive tactics / shield channels from tanks, m1 immunity from mdps, balanced around 100 power play with a slow ramp up where the damage below is pathetic, huge self hurting mechanic other classes that do the same or better damage don't have, worst escapes, super squishy, no snares beside the withering heat where you have to stand still, no good aoe moral like mdps have, no immunity m1 to melees like melees have for rdps, no finisher like SH/SW/maras have against low health targets, cleanseable damage (dots), no aoe detaunt, disrupts/blocks/backdrafts/mutes all the time... painful...

Even ignoring all the weaknesses... The disrupt systems seems very broken for BWs right now...

Right now it is just not worth playing BW. At least from my point of view. It is in an awful state. What do you think about it?

[georgehabadasher]

Yeah, the stat standardization giving healers tons of disrupt, the healer rebalance granting extra cleansing to rp/zeal and the strikethrough cap change have really hit bw/sorc hard. And that’s after their mechanic got nerfed because of procs. Both classes are in a pretty rough place. But at least you’re not a slayer!

[Akilinus]

Skill issue. Slot flashfire, few understand this.

[seorito]

I feel this post is bait. BW is in a very good spot.
As Akilinus said, flashfire is the backbone of any AoE build for the BW and we actually benefit much from disrupts for those juicy instacast blasts and fireballs. You certainly need a good guard and good timing entering the mele blob to explode them, but when you do it right, the damage is incredible.

[lumpi33]

I feel this post is bait. BW is in a very good spot.
As Akilinus said, flashfire is the backbone of any AoE build for the BW and we actually benefit much from disrupts for those juicy instacast blasts and fireballs. You certainly need a good guard and good timing entering the mele blob to explode them, but when you do it right, the damage is incredible.

Why a bait sir? Good spot? I doubt. How many do you see in scenarios?

Ofc I use flashfire. It is one of the only good tactics. Just because flashfire is decent doesn't change the other points I have mentioned. It is okish vs pug groups without heals or guard but against any decent melee group it isn't anything more than a scratch. Here they are again:

There is so much wrong about BWs right now. Deft Defender too cheap, no renown to counter Deft Defender, strong passive auras / strong passive tactics / shield channels from tanks, m1 immunity from mdps, balanced around 100 power play with a slow ramp up where the damage below is pathetic, huge self hurting mechanic other classes that do the same or better damage don't have, worst escapes, super squishy, no snares beside the withering heat where you have to stand still, no good aoe moral like mdps have, no immunity m1 to melees like melees have for rdps, no finisher like SH/SW/maras have against low health targets, cleanseable damage (dots), no aoe detaunt, disrupts/blocks/backdrafts/mutes all the time... painful...

[Fey]

I thought for sure this was a Bombling post.

[Fey]

It is interesting that while there exists a dodge mechanic, and a disrupt mechanic, there is no "miss" mechanic. If you don't block or parry, its an automatic hit. No doubt this adds to the strength of melee setups which have been meta now for maybe the entire existence of the server.

[wonshot]

I thought for sure this was a Bombling post.

Im kinda just awaiting the fabled RDPS patch honestly, to see if any of my most liked classes in their closerange aoe builds will be nuked. Sorc, BW, MSH, dpszealot.

As for the fireclown, Flashfire really is the only thing on the class making it fun. In a meta where movementspeed is everything it just doesnt feel that good to mash Flamebreath as a filler aoe ability to get procs of 375 aoe morale damage around you from Explosive Force tactic.

Flashfire tracking, useage, and options give some depth to the aoe right tree. But having 2 class resource dumps and not having a good flow of up/down rotation is what im personally hoping we will see added on the RDPS patch. Being an immobile procbot classcanon that is barely outdamaging WL is not that good of a state for a full damage classcanon class imho. The class is still functional, for sure though!

Same for the singletarget build. Either you timestamp and gearcheck someone or you get countered and have little to no pressure against good clenses,absorbs, los. Just a pugstomping monster of a class overall.

Sham/AM, Slay/chop mechanic changes from the balance team gives me some hope that not just rushing to 100combustion/darkmagic will maybe be a thing, but maybe these classes are close to impossable to keep balanced one way or the other. They could be made more engaging and less spammy though!

[illumius]

RDPS on the order side have been weakened since the days of Graword. A good Magus or Squig can deal damage equal to that of an WE in both PvE and PvP.

There is also a common issue with the unremovable percentage of Dodge/Disrupt. When playing as a mDPS, you can stand behind target and deal damage to their zero defense, but as a RDPS, you will still be Dodge/Disrupted.

There's a suspicion that the hit chance is completely broken. For example, you make an experimental build for a WH with 55+ dodge/disrupt for a warband. Then you meet a talented Tifz and see that he only dodged one of the 10 attacks. Then you step into the Magus puddle, and all his attacks disrapted

[Sinisterror]

Changing Strikethrough formula to only penetrate 50% of avoidances is a bad "solution" to the problem that was caused by RoR changing Combat formulas to begin with, i mean its trackable right? So why not just Revert some old change that causes huge amounts of many different issues instead badly fixing/focusing on issues that one change makes game function worse and its really hard to see any benefits from but everyone who has played the many versions of this game knows that the issue is there.

And im talking generally but this applies to Combat formula changes perfektly imo. Like changing how Ws functions because "Stat cant give both offensive and defensive properties" Is very stupid reason to change something that wasnt broken. Back then one Problem was Proc dmg and instead dealing with that how AoR did they overnerfed it and that is what always happens. All proc dmg was not the problem, but wpn dmg proc 360 was 540 with slayer/choppa being berserk, and in Aor if wpn proc dmg was 300, it never under any circumstances could do more than 300 dmg, and it could be close to 300, but never full 300.

They should have changed that aspect of how proc dmg functions. But all Wp,dok,Wh,We,Sorc,Bw types of dmg procs should be increased by Dmg % increases(except 50% berserk mechanic because the dmg from wp proc is caused by the "prayer" of Wp)

Alot of issues are caused by changing Combat Formulas. Imo Making Guard dmg undefendable if the attack is undefendable is fundamental nerf to the gameplay as a whole, and obviously nerfing the point of what TANK is.

9 ae cap with Melee chars having 80ft aoe morale dmg and no cap on that morale dmg either worked so much better than now, i mean 6 people against 24 and the tank is first to die due to nerfs to guard. This was not the case with higher dmg and unnerfed original abilities and you could actually kill and kite against higher numbers if not wipe 6v24. There was much more depth to the combat.