TL;DR: Balance is a must for endgame.
First off, I do not know HOW Mythic did it, but they had a method where the RR point percentage was some how...altered. As a result, the RR gain was very large in comparison to average default RR experience gain. Suffice to say, I was wondering if the current devs of this server would be kind enough to be able to find a way to supply the same RR experience buff effect one day for the server. I won't lie, I have been out of the loop of following this revival of the game, but I (just guessing here) are going to assume they will bring back the entire game in full one day. RR1-RR100. Well, lets hope that is the case. The fact of the matter is that the RR gain was painfully slow, and alot of people lost interest when they felt like they were chipping away at a solid brick wall with a stone axe. Just saying, but I think that the PVP RR gain should be focused on when the devs feel is necessary, and will be at (hopefully), a high fast paced rate. Not one where I can get from RR1 to 50 in a day (lol), but one where it feels rational, and that I am making solid progress.
Now, I would like to discuss some end game class balance issue related things. Being the fact that as an end gamer of the old days of WAR, I would like to make a few points that the devs may want to keep in mind, so please hear me out.
The first thing I would like to mention is that during the last days of Mythic WAR, the endgame balance was brutal...brutally unbalanced. For instance, Witch Hunters were basically a Call of Duty MLG sniper god class, able to take out the more squishy classes without much effort and being able to outdps the WE too easily. I can remember many times having sudden WH's just one shotting me in the back while I am trying to do some solo ganking and get away easily, since they had friends looking out for them, and that did not feel fun or fair, but rather cheap. Even in small groups, WH's had too many easy advantages, especially when they just vanish as soon as that CD on their stealth skill wears off. Even in warband's, that happened a little too often. But hey, I may being a bit bias, but even so, I don't see what counted as a downside for playing the Witch Hunter besides the fact that you wore light armor.
I always was a strong believer in fair play, and balance, hence I thought some classes did not get it easy, while others got it too easy. White Lions seemed to be more DPS then tank, and could move around the battlefield better than any Chosen. The Chosen, while an efficient tank, did not have an easy time being able to escape, unlike White Lions. I never saw that as a fair thing, maybe if the Chosen had a 20 sec invulnerability spell that only wears off if you attack someone, and made you immune to stuns, snares and knock downs could have been a good counter skill to make things more fair, but hey, it seems Mythic Devs didn't care what Destro folks thought. RR100 White Lions were not even funny when all the RR90's, etc, were getting crumpled and the White Lion gets basically ganged up on, then jumps away into the crowd of Order and gets uberheals straight afterwards.
Anyways, not speaking out of bias but personal experience when I say this; Choppa's had the hardest time ever in end game. First off: The sad thing with Choppa, was that it was an all in or out class. Glass cannon was the only viable method to play, which would be 2 Handed Weapon User, as the class itself was terribly unbalanced in end game. One handed weapon spec felt like trying to chop redwood tree's down with a small, blunt hand axe.
Being a professional 2 handed great axe user (over 2 years of experience with this spec), things felt far more balanced. There was nothing more fun then chopping out huge damage numbers on the nearest squishy Rune Priest or Engineer that you could sink your teeth into. The issue with Path O' Da Hitta (2H), was that the best way to play it, was being a full blown rager. You basically had to be at full blast Rage to deal constant crit's (burst damage was your bread and butter in Hitta Spec).
The whole "hit when the bar is yellow" thing was cool and all, but it didn't mean much when you were trying to multi task between the Witch Hunter trying to one shot you, and that the fact of the matter is that your best skills were available mainly at full rage.
It was essentially pointless to try to stay in yellow rage mode, since: your knock down skill was not available unless you were at full rage (seriously, what the hell Mythic??!?), your damage was far less constant, and you were trying to multitask constantly, to the point you would not notice you were in the red until it was too late, there goes the Witcher Hunter backstab, down you go, and healers hate your guts. As we all know, Choppa is at his squishy-est when at red rage mode, and considering that's when Hitter Spec did the best managed damage...things didn't work out very well when you were the first one to die in your party as soon as you clashed with a order warband with your friends. No one was amused when you hit the ground faster then a rock falling out of the sky.
To only make things more unbalanced, your crit and damage numbers were so random in yellow zone, that it was pointless to remain in it. Constant 1000's, 2000's 2500's and so on were far more useful then the random 1400, 200, 1560, etc. Constant high ranking crits out compete obnoxious burst crit's that don't arise often enough to balance things out. You basically had to balance a half torn tightrope, and it was painful. The fact that full blown DPS Choppa armor was like cloth to most heavy hitting classes when it came to armoring the Choppa, it just became a massive whackamole life for end game Choppa. The AOE spec for Choppa apparently was the best spec for Choppa before I entered the game, and apparently got ubernerfed into oblivion after a while. I should know, I tried to play RR90 with it.
Suffice to say, it bombed badly. The fact that you sacrificed much crit and str in the place of weapon skill, instead of being able to find a synergy between the three, went to show that the spec was utterly ruined. None of the epic tier skills for it worked as intended, and barely even caused any critical hits. The thing was a straight up whackfest, and a poor managed one at that.
All the skills except one, being a snare skill, had terribly long cool downs. The rage meter had barely any synergy with the tree, not to mention all the useful skills had like...2 and a half minute long cool downs. It was just plain useless, and horrible. No one used it, and when I did see a Choppa use it, he would use it for like...3 days, and then change to 1H single target spec (forget the original name of spec) or Hitta Spec. Suffice to say, AOE Wrecka spec was....wrecked.
Ruined to the point of total uselessness. And things like these, that Mythic messed up badly, should be fixed and balanced in my opinion. Total viability should be a primary focus for people to use and enjoy using. Being able to be able to play every part of the game, and feeling like you are doing the right thing, should be the way to go in my eyes. In the end, there should be NO good, ultimate, uber spec, just a useful in every scenario spec. That's how I see it, in any rate.
Last, but not least, I would like to mention that the other issue I have, is that the price for endgame RVR items should be looked at in some point in the future, as they were outrageous in Mythic's WAR. Some items IIRC went for 10k coins, and the only proper method to acquire these coins, was to farm constantly in Land of The Dead. And no one liked to do that, really. Most people were more focused on PVP then farming items until they hit RR90, and then required a friend to help them out. My point is that the coins required and the prices set for them should have been more balanced out, but in the end, they really weren't. But hey, just something I would like to suggest to dev's to look into when they can find the chance to do so
Thanks for listening to my "rant", see you guys on the battlefield! Cheers!
-Grokmog Bonebreaka
PS. If anyone has any questions about my questions, I will answer them as best I can.
