Return of Reckoning

So i am posting this in response to this patch update that happened some time ago viewtopic.php?f=42&t=17985. Specifically the increase to thunderous blows cool down. The reason I'm bringing this up now is because A. I wanted to get a long play time with the new cool down and allow my play of the toon to adjust and B. to talk to other marauders and see how they feel about it.

The long and short of it is the updated cool down seriously affected the marauders ability to deal sustained dps past the 5/6 gcd point,they have plenty of ap but no skills off cool down that provide decent damage. Before the change marauder was reliant on TB to act as a filler in between other abilities this allowed it to maintain high sustained dps (something all mdps should be able to achieve). The problem is that now we lack that filler and our damage drops off a fair bit while we wait for other abilities to come off cool down.

While the marauders dps was reduced its ability to debuff was harmed significantly less and i still see near 100% up time on TB and certainly 2nd rotation Tb's are never cleansed so very little has changed in this regard.

It was mentioned in the brief that Tb is a 5 point skill and that its cool down is much shorter then comparable effects. To answer these well made points I would like to say that even in its current form TB could be at the top of savagery or brutality and marauders would still spec it, Its just that important to the tool kit. To address the second point about its comparability i would say the only debuff that compares to it is devastate for the slayer, that is the only debuff that is the same size. Now while devastate has always been a skill with a 10 second cool down, slayer has never in its two handed build been reliant on it for damage the slayer has good spamables potentially 3 good spamables in 2hander build, that's something the marauder doesn't have it at most has one spamable that is only good when you are positioned behind the target.
In short the marauder needs to rotate and playing with the cool downs may have harmed the class in ways that where initially unintended.

Solutions
1. A total reversal of the Experimental change
2. Change the cool down to 5 seconds and half the debuff duration.
3. A reversal and boosting it higher in the tree
4. A combo of the above

Regardless of what decision may be taken on this thread, let it be noted that I object to the reversion of a nerf to the debuff tree on the basis that a major debuff ability isn't also working as lolDPS. I'd rather you proposed modifying the actual ST DPS tree's abilities to cover any gap you see.

Moving to discussions.

I only see this as a problem if you are camping in savagery, imaple is pretty good filler along with the other stuff opened up by going into brut. And between heal debuff, draining swipe, tb, cutting claw, and gut ripper you have plenty of skills to use during the 5 seconds you are in savagery.

Unless the problem is savagery as a mutation is just so good you never want to leave it and then I can see the CD on TB becoming a problem in terms of DPS output. But then that points to a larger problem of class design failure.


edit: I think if you went into more detail about the mara rotation, and showed how this is a problem (mathmetically or otherwise) it would help me and probably others who come in later that disagree see where you are coming from regardless.

TB has a 10s CD in RoR. OP even linked the patch where this change was made - Penril

hacbjr wrote:

Spoiler:

Toldavf wrote: 2. Change the cool down to 5 seconds and half the debuff duration.

TB already has a 5sec CD, i would say increase the skill CD to 10s and half the debuff duration, and maybe lower the the wounds debuff a little 148 its a lot

TB has a 10s CD in RoR. OP even linked the patch where this change was made - Penril

my bad i didnt notice that, i will remake my post, change the cd to 5s and half the debuff duration, and lower the value of the wounds debuff a little.

The Marauder has not a Damage problem. His damage can be pretty good. In Brutaly it is very good. Impale with 25 AP cost is a great filler. the 25% damage buff without any restriction is very good aswell.

In savage Tree with the best debuffs you should not expect to do the same damage like a WE or an Choppa. I would even lower the base damage in savage tree. For all those very good debuffs the damage is to high in sav tree in my opinion.

hacbjr wrote:
my bad i didnt notice that, i will remake my post, change the cd to 5s and half the debuff duration, and lower the value of the wounds debuff a little.

So what's your logic behind proposing nerfs? How exactly are marauders overperforming? They would seem to be subject to the same issues that MDPS are facing in this current meta. They are light years behind RDPS in orvr / warbands. MDPS shine in premade scenario groups with dedicated guards/heals on assist trains using voicecoms. To me, this is a pretty narrow sliver of the gameplay spectrum.

If 6v6 is what the devs are choosing to balance the game around... so be it. I implore you to remain clear and consistent in this aim. If 6v6 is in fact not the endgame, I feel strongly that any and all MDPS nerfs would be ill-advised at this point.

Xerol
Nazgul

SRoth137 wrote:
If 6v6 is what the devs are choosing to balance the game around...

It is not. The rule only says that balance won't be discussed for anything under a 6-man. This means no solo/duo/pug arguments.

In other words: we want to balance for both 6-man groups AND warbands. All classes should have at least 1 viable spec for those group setups.

gandresch wrote: I would even lower the base damage in savage tree. For all those very good debuffs the damage is to high in sav tree in my opinion.

guess this is prolly a good idea