Difference between Slayer and Choppa

[CountTalabecland]

Slayer is currently the worst class in the game.

It does not fill any particular role better than another class. Especially focusing on the AoE spec. ST Slayer isn't worth mentioning bc from a ST dmg perspective it also isn't the best at anything compared to other physical or magic dmg dealers. ST Choppa has some more merit to its middle tree due to its synergy with its tactics and other abilites. Slayer's ST middle tree requires Power Through tactic and to remain in red so yes, it is the epitome of glass cannon when WH and WL are bigger cannons.

WL does the same or really better AoE melee dmg, and it has some armor bypass that doesn't just come from raw stats alone (trying to max WS on SL is an expensive endeavor in terms of gold for talis), plus it doesn't have the absolutely punishing rage mechanic, which means it is much easier to do dmg as WL than SL as the WL is more mobile and tougher.

Furthermore, Slayer has the bar none worst mobility of any MDPS beside melee healers WP/DoK (which have all the benefit of being healers and armored). Every other MDPS, including choppa, has a speed boost, pull, etc. besides basic Charge.

On top of that, Choppa has a major advantage in two key abilities, GTDC and Furious Stompin. GTDC is a speed boost, pull, and interrupt all in one package and in this game pulls/CC and utility are king. FS > ID because FS does dmg where the Choppa is, rather than its target like ID, and ID has a random duration that can be very short. The glory days of ID was when it could be spammed by sacrificing a tactic slot but no longer since SL was once again nerfed.

A major problem for Slayer is living long enough and getting close enough to the enemy to do its AoE dmg. Furthermore, Order has less CC and Desto more CC to exacerbate this effect. Consider that Destro has the superior Marauder pull, GTDC, and WE leap to feed kills to its melee train. Order simply has WL Pounce and the janky WL pull, thats it.

Additionally, Destro has Zealot winds, SH Outta My Way, and janky Choppa pull (all of which don't respect immunities) so Slayer constantly bounces around if properly CC'd and struggles to get its damage payload delivered.

On top of all of that is the punishing rage class mechanic that now harms Slayer/Choppa even in yellow. For some unknown reason devs decided to make these two classes even squishier. However, Slayer has this particularly bad in that its "defensive" racial tactics don't do anything for the class. Ancestral Inheritance (Armor) is actively reduced by the class mechanic and what you end up getting from it is negligible. Then you have Stoutness of Stone (Toughness) for a class that in Sov with the Bloodlord weapon has below 50 toughness and has to bring a tactic (Wild Gambit) that reduces toughness by more than twice the value of Stoutness just to do sufficient dmg to compare to WL.

Choppa benefits both from its racial wounds tactic as wounds are not reduced by the class mechanic or other tactics, and from its + % crit dmg tactic as MDPS should always be maximizing crit chance and dmg.

Taken together, the whole picture for this class is bleak. The only reason to bring it is because you enjoy the class aesthetic. There is no reason in the meta to do so as the Slayer last remaining unique ability, Shatter Limbs, does not justify all the other downsides of brining SL as compared to WL and BW.

Choppa > Slayer

THE DEVS NEED TO FIX SLAYER NOW.

[wonshot]

..Additionally, Destro has Zealot winds, SH Outta My Way, and janky Choppa pull (all of which don't respect immunities) so Slayer constantly bounces around if properly CC'd and struggles to get its damage payload delivered...

A good post overall! but i think its important to catch this mistakes before they spread.
Winds on zealot DOES respect immunities, but they dont give them.
MSH Outtamyway DOES respect immunities, but they dont give them.
Choppa pull Does respect AND give immunities, else you would potentially have the same target in a smallscale situation get chain pulled.

As for the main topic, what really sets Slayer and Choppa apart for warbanding & builds imo, would be that Stomping is so much easier to fire-and-forget to create a cool aoe burst moment with FrontalDoT + Stomp + Channel for 3 abilities bursting at once. If you get interrupted, well then you have a second aoe channel beside Bring it On, in GTDC.

GTDC is a tool with versatility, when you are in a stalemate you can try to play-make and make stuff happen in a doorway. It serves as a speed-up and run away tool, a secondary burst channel, and if airborn movement worked correctly it would interrupt enemy channels or casts aswel.

ID on slayer on the other hand requires much more on the user, you need to apply it on the correct target as its not just a fire an forget ability like Stomp. It has indeed been nerfed (ID was always the issue, Rampage wasnt as much imho) and because ID pre nerfs was already an ability being held down by Random uptime, high ap cost, 5sec cooldown. You needed a lot of group synergies to bring ID online to a good state, even overtuned state.
Slayer doesnt have a secondary channel so any taunt or mara frontal interrupt will make slayer go into more of a "filler" rotation flury spamming which is kinda meh with ID as a fallback not being near what it once was.

The Shattered Limbs cooldown increaser debuff is still the same as for many years, its good. Counters spammy builds and thats powerful.
The class mechanic of both classes needing to ramp up, and not having a "real" M2 drop just makes them more or less replaceable with WL/Mara which has more armor, aoe interrupt, better utility, and M2 drop etc.
Slayer and Choppa having Numbstrike was a pretty huge tool in City days or warband on warband clashes to create an opening kill or pressure. With more blob heavy warfare, if you get interrupted on Retribution then slayer kinda just feels meh.

It can still perform though, looking at you Anyslayer!

[Nelly74]

Slayer is currently the worst class in the game.

It does not fill any particular role better than another class. Especially focusing on the AoE spec. ST Slayer isn't worth mentioning bc from a ST dmg perspective it also isn't the best at anything compared to other physical or magic dmg dealers. ST Choppa has some more merit to its middle tree due to its synergy with its tactics and other abilites. Slayer's ST middle tree requires Power Through tactic and to remain in red so yes, it is the epitome of glass cannon when WH and WL are bigger cannons.

WL does the same or really better AoE melee dmg, and it has some armor bypass that doesn't just come from raw stats alone (trying to max WS on SL is an expensive endeavor in terms of gold for talis), plus it doesn't have the absolutely punishing rage mechanic, which means it is much easier to do dmg as WL than SL as the WL is more mobile and tougher.

Furthermore, Slayer has the bar none worst mobility of any MDPS beside melee healers WP/DoK (which have all the benefit of being healers and armored). Every other MDPS, including choppa, has a speed boost, pull, etc. besides basic Charge.

On top of that, Choppa has a major advantage in two key abilities, GTDC and Furious Stompin. GTDC is a speed boost, pull, and interrupt all in one package and in this game pulls/CC and utility are king. FS > ID because FS does dmg where the Choppa is, rather than its target like ID, and ID has a random duration that can be very short. The glory days of ID was when it could be spammed by sacrificing a tactic slot but no longer since SL was once again nerfed.

A major problem for Slayer is living long enough and getting close enough to the enemy to do its AoE dmg. Furthermore, Order has less CC and Desto more CC to exacerbate this effect. Consider that Destro has the superior Marauder pull, GTDC, and WE leap to feed kills to its melee train. Order simply has WL Pounce and the janky WL pull, thats it.

Additionally, Destro has Zealot winds, SH Outta My Way, and janky Choppa pull (all of which don't respect immunities) so Slayer constantly bounces around if properly CC'd and struggles to get its damage payload delivered.

On top of all of that is the punishing rage class mechanic that now harms Slayer/Choppa even in yellow. For some unknown reason devs decided to make these two classes even squishier. However, Slayer has this particularly bad in that its "defensive" racial tactics don't do anything for the class. Ancestral Inheritance (Armor) is actively reduced by the class mechanic and what you end up getting from it is negligible. Then you have Stoutness of Stone (Toughness) for a class that in Sov with the Bloodlord weapon has below 50 toughness and has to bring a tactic (Wild Gambit) that reduces toughness by more than twice the value of Stoutness just to do sufficient dmg to compare to WL.

Choppa benefits both from its racial wounds tactic as wounds are not reduced by the class mechanic or other tactics, and from its + % crit dmg tactic as MDPS should always be maximizing crit chance and dmg.

Taken together, the whole picture for this class is bleak. The only reason to bring it is because you enjoy the class aesthetic. There is no reason in the meta to do so as the Slayer last remaining unique ability, Shatter Limbs, does not justify all the other downsides of brining SL as compared to WL and BW.

Choppa > Slayer

THE DEVS NEED TO FIX SLAYER NOW.

Thank you! That's really good to read. If only the developers would make the effort to acknowledge the terrible mistake they made by making the Slayer so useless. Nevertheless, thank you for this clear and realistic article.

[nat3s]

I exclusively solo roam, I don't zerg in WBs, worth noting the posts above are from the blob/zerg perspective, so if that's your preference, take notice of their advice.

However, if you prefer a more skill centric form of pvp as a solo roamer / small scale player, for me, its slayer > choppa. Dwarf racial tactics are so good in the solo realm.

[ravezaar]

I exclusively solo roam, I don't zerg in WBs, worth noting the posts above are from the blob/zerg perspective, so if that's your preference, take notice of their advice.

However, if you prefer a more skill centric form of pvp as a solo roamer / small scale player, for me, its slayer > choppa. Dwarf racial tactics are so good in the solo realm.

I know u main WE but as I main Slayer (or did atleast) Iam curious since I Solo roam basicly 100% what Dwarf Racial Tactics is good for that ?

Stubborness - no one takes that ever
Ancestral Inheritance - Armor of 660 ? Well we loose 25% of armor in Yellow now, and 50% of it in Red and Choppas loose 0 of its Wounds
Stoutness of Stone - 80 Toughness + 1sec shorter recovery from CC ? Iam guessing this is what u talking about then, but SoS Tactic used to be 50% shorter vs all CC so it also got nerfed.

Iam sry but there is imho not any really good Dwarf Tactic that functions well for Slayer, for an IB sure but not for Slayer with our mechanic.

[Panzerkasper]

I didn't say Choppas or Slayer are top tier in game. They are not on the best momment.

But choppa still far superior than slayer, as it has always been

Wrong again.

I play this game since release and for the majority of time the slayer has been better than the choppa by a wide margin.
Just like TenTonHammer said correctly, ID+Shatter Limbs+Rampage was a nightmare to deal with. For multiple reasons. It caused lags like crazy, cleansing became a lot harder and Rampage just enabled the Slayer to completly ignore a vital game mechanic.

I remeber a time, when we had a really active 6man scene on this server and order grps were just running double Slayer and just sh*t on everything.

[nat3s]

I exclusively solo roam, I don't zerg in WBs, worth noting the posts above are from the blob/zerg perspective, so if that's your preference, take notice of their advice.

However, if you prefer a more skill centric form of pvp as a solo roamer / small scale player, for me, its slayer > choppa. Dwarf racial tactics are so good in the solo realm.

I know u main WE but as I main Slayer (or did atleast) Iam curious since I Solo roam basicly 100% what Dwarf Racial Tactics is good for that ?

Stubborness - no one takes that ever
Ancestral Inheritance - Armor of 660 ? Well we loose 25% of armor in Yellow now, and 50% of it in Red and Choppas loose 0 of its Wounds
Stoutness of Stone - 80 Toughness + 1sec shorter recovery from CC ? Iam guessing this is what u talking about then, but SoS Tactic used to be 50% shorter vs all CC so it also got nerfed.

Iam sry but there is imho not any really good Dwarf Tactic that functions well for Slayer, for an IB sure but not for Slayer with our mechanic.

Recently played def WE, but stopped playing it a couple of weeks ago, too op, needs fixing. I was a reluctant WE, I just jump on the meta train tbh. Longer term my mains were AM/Sham (at the height of their meta), def Magus, WH, def Mara, WL and more recently dps RP/Zeal (RP for me being the new meta champ, really sick class right now, hence switching over).

I was thinking Ancestral Inheritance / Stoutness of Stone yeah. Maybe I'm wrong, I respect your solo roaming, so I'll defer to your knowledge there then. Just see these tactics as a huge reasons why RP / Engi have strong solo builds, maybe with rage armour reductions, they are less impactful for slayer.

o7

[ravezaar]

You are correct that some of the Dwarf Racial Tactics are really good for RP/Engi/IB but sadly both those Tactics loose alot of effect when u playing Slayer. Sometimes when I Solo roam I still run Stoutness but that mainly cause Push For More also got passivly nerfed when we now take more dmg in Yellow and that Tactic requires us to be in rage.

So you are correct, good Tactics just not for Slayer

About the OP Meta thing, yea I gave up my dps RP for same reason as u did with def WE