Eyedrop wrote: ↑Fri May 21, 2021 6:41 pm
Hey all! Xrealmer here (boo hiss). First I'd like to say I appreciate the devs for all they've done to allow us to play this game that many of us love and thanks to the GMs that have dealt with most of our BS.
I think that these changes addressed some issues and concerns that myself and a bunch of other players had. The ability to have Immaculate Defense up almost every 60 seconds from Black Orc was insane and Chosen's morale generation was also fairly strong plus Zealot's ability to have Windblock ready constantly was also pretty strong. The ability to cast and get the Whispering Wind's CDR effect at any time was a much needed change. I do have some issues with these changes and how these changes are coming out however...
It really seemed that the only changes made to order were of those that were directly mirrored to Order (Mist/Napalm and the self morale pump from BW/Sorc that was rarely used). I do think Mist and Napalm were pumping pretty big numbers so I'm fine with this change (albeit I do not play a Magus or Engi, but I'm sure the top players of those careers will still pump out insane numbers). The main issue here is that only Destro got hit with the hammer this patch when there have been aspects of Order classes that are incredibly strong. I think the aoe detaunt change is fine, 15 second duration on the selected target with 5 second aoe detaunt on those around the target seems like an okay change to me, let's see how it plays out in the long run. The shaman and AM change seems nice when it comes to their HOT (if it works haven't logged on today yet) and the AP drain was oppressive, the problem is that these classes need that AP badly. I think you could have the target lose less AP (like the change) but provide more AP to the Shaman/AM in return. Double morale pump has not been ran in an incredibly long time on Shaman so don't think it was an issue, but it was in line with other morale pumps so think it's alright. Thank god it is/was broken, but the buff to morale pump for AM is now the best pump in game. I know EoV/FoDG is a bit clunky, but this tactic is now allowing AMs to morale pump entire RAIDS/WBs since it counts as a direct heal. I'm all for counting it as a direct heal still, but there is no way that this tactic can work for EoV, with 100% upkeep it's pumping 1200 morale a minute for EVERYONE. Granted in a city instance you won't be hitting everyone with EoV, but in a fort/keep you are most likely hitting the full 24. 24*1200 = 28,800 morale pumped a minute. Please make this tactic exclude EoV. This is just counterintuitive to the whole morale pump changes as a whole.
Next, Swordmaster. Everyone believes this will be the FoTM and for good reason. SM were already pretty strong as they were. Like I said, the ability to get the CDR from Whispering Winds at any time was a much needed change, but what they got to have this effect is way too strong. Don't get me wrong, I love the flavor for WW prebuff/postbuff, the issue is the silence was too weak since free immunities/required a target/could be blocked/parried, and the issue is the aoe interrupt is nuts. SM now has 2 aoe interrupts and can now aoe interrupt 4 times in the time span of 10 seconds on its own, not to mention that WLs also have an aoe interrupt. Aoe interrupts interrupt cast times and channels (like choppa's BIO, a strong ability that the already underperforming choppas rely on further pushing them out of the picture). It was a really strong buff to Winds, but I think it would have been fine and the whole "just play a few weeks" argument would be okay if BO didn't lose their CDR, a tank spot that was much more flexible than the already underperforming choppas. SM also has raking talons, a really strong tactic whom everyone I have talked to says stacks with challenge AND bellows.
Since I just talked about SM, I might as well address the problem with Black Orc's now... As many before me said, BO is having an identity crisis. There's now competition sure, but the problem is that this competition is for the worst snb tank in the game. Snb BG has been needing buffs for a long time now as it's been atrocious, but snb BO is probably equally as bad as snb BG now. BO now can provide toughness and WS to their entire group (which doesn't stack with Chosen aura), which 1, you're better off running a second chosen in your party for debuffing enemy toughness while increasing your party's along with 2 other strong auras, and 2, you could've just stat stealed it anyways with Da Biggest!. Sure Black Orc still has some tools like the previously mentioned stat steal, and they have skull thumper among some other nifty stuff, but in the end it really feels like the new solution to party comps is just run 6-7 Chosens and a 2h BG. BO also lacks the option for a ST punt that SM has the option to spec into. Don't get me wrong, BO was strong before, but this has always been a severe hinderance to Black Orc, but that's besides the point. Black Orcs really need the old Waaagh badly. I know that the devs added it and since the Q&A wanted to get rid of it, but there is so much more flexibility in having a CDR in a tank spot rather than having it in the mDPS slot. If making a champ party for cities, you cannot have Choppa in a party with melee squig/shaman champ because you need the other champ DPS. The Choppa and Melee Squig are competing for the same spot whereas the SM was already being taken to cities and had more flexibility in what the rest of your party was. Everyone would be happy if they removed chop fasta and gave choppas Rampage in return just to keep waaagh on BO. Then it would be a discussion of ID/GTDC which would honestly be fine. So, the outrage in this change? I can understand, although it could have been more civilized.
I know I glossed over the dps/shield dok/wp, but seems like a pretty strong buff for them. I am interested to see what happens, just know that I think that these changes can have the possibility to be a little too strong, but we'll see. WL change is whatever, I don't think it is good enough to be ran, but like I said I am interested to see what happens. Squig herder changes, for the most part, seem pretty solid. One can argue that squigbeast should get moved to a different morale slot, or even have it's damage be reduced to 75%. This m1 is the highest single target morale damage in the game. Squigs will be fine, this will still probably hit for 2.5k+. Could have made it not stack with squig frenzy. I think you could have also gotten away with making Sharpened Arrers be 15% armor pen, but keep it for all the trees besides the rarely used Big Shootin' tree. The squig armor internal cooldown being 5 seconds seems like a bit much. I get what this change was trying to do, but ranged squigs are already super squishy I think you could have tried 3 seconds on this first. Outta my way going down to 25% from 75% seems pretty big, it was a channeled ability after all. Maybe 40% would have been okay, but like I said, I am interested to see what happens.
With the balance changes out of the way, I guess it's time to address the new balancing system with regards to Realm Champions. When I first heard about this idea on the Q&A, I initially thought this was more out of laziness on the dev team, but now realize that it was an opportunity to actually put more focus into putting out the content that the game had back out on live, so it's understandable. The Q&A also talked about how they wanted to put out these big balance changes in line with ranked (so they could put more focus into putting out the content that the game had back out on live), the problem with this is that we are now going without balance changes for months which is really hard if you want to keep this game afloat. Take a MOBA for example, if a MOBA did balance changes along with a new season of ranked that is typically seen as a poor design choice. 3-4 months is way too long for balance changes and I really think tweaks here and there rather than dropping the hammer is the better option even if its like 3 weeks in between these tweaks. I also think that realm champions shouldn't be focused on the betterment of their realm and debating it with the other realm's realm champions. The people working together to try and balance the game should have both faction's interest in mind as seeing it now, if the only nerf to order that happened this patch was to mirror Mist and Sorc self morale pump, I find it hard to believe that information and data was gathered from destro players. The amount of tools that slayer has seems a bit ridiculous. Defenses ignore for 10-20 seconds (granted can be shattered, but can also be covered up by other abilities that can be shattered), Inevitable Doom, Shatter limbs... it seems like a lot. There's a reason why slayer stack are a thing and are arguably the best DPS in the game. Slayers would seem a lot more tame if chop fasta was replaced with rampage and BO had CDR back. As mentioned before there's raking talons, there's also focused mending on kobs, wounds buff on WP, and a bunch of other things, but the point is there's a lot of incredibly strong stuff on Order as well and I have a hard time getting behind a one sided nerf like this where essentially nothing gets touched on Order. I don't think this nerf could not have came at a worse time. NA destro tries to put up a fight, but gets constantly zerged down. Order has been winning more and more cities as of late, it may have been a "Order has finally started to organize after all these months of Destro telling them to do so", but NA is so dead on destro it's actually mind boggling. In a game like this where server pop really matters, we shouldn't be pushing people away that are upset about patches, that's just bad business. I know this is a private server and devs/gms aren't being paid for this and it's out of their own time, but something needs to change. Fast.
-Nelk
