Patch Notes 03/09/2022

[Haojin]

For us filthy casuals that don't memorize all classes, what was changed here? Career builder for this has just cooldown reductions on pit of shades and infernal wave. Was it like a aoe increaser for infernal wave or something?

I did see on twitch this last week some strange setup destro organized warband of 1 chosen, 1 choppa, 2 sorts 2 heals x 3 groups and a 2 tank 2 marauder 2 healer 4th group. Never seen that heavy of a dps setup in orvr warbands before....

I could be missremembering but back in the TUP prime days they ran with something like 8 sorcs back when Blackorcs had the destro CDR so you could have 2-2-2 and 2 sorcs per group benefitting from IW going down from 10 sec with 5sec reduction from tactic and 5sec reduction from the WAAGH. Meaning that IW with two supporting tactics became a spamable aoe attack with really high width and distance.
Basicly extending the killzone that bomb warbands usuall have around 30ft pbaoe or 40ft frontal to a full 8dps slot 65+ft killzone. And for a pretty good reason was this nerfed by making IW unable to go below 5sec capped cooldown.

Dalen been working in the background with the database and fiddling with abilities for the big database overhaul thingie and as a result one of these RoR custom changes got temp removed, but now its back to the RoR version with this patch again.

A couple of things for this change that i think is worth mention is that since this TUP shotgun warband killing 3 order warbands with just shotguns these things have been changed in the bomb meta for warband play:

1) Hold the line was altered with and is arguble stronger now against casters in a front to front fights, but worse in a kiting situation. This change should make IW 0cd weaker.
2) WAAGH CDR was removed and now Destro have to pair a ChopFaster choppa with each sorc, a greedy comp would be exactly to run a 1tank-2sorc-1chop-2healer comp in some groups. But that leads to a fragile and squishy warband comp with less frontline, but trading for a bigger criticalmass usual 2-2-2 is not providing.
3) the total available stats from higher tier items are available since 2017 shotgun sorcs, and timetokill and meta overall is different now.
4) Sorcs generally dont have much going for them in their aoe build compared to their counterpart BW. BW has sinec 2017 where Destro lost IW, been granted Flashfire for no reason on top of already strong 13point options and more procs and an easier filler in their aoe rotation. Sorcs have IW and while its a good pugkiller it does really do much to have 1-2 sorcs extend the killzone from 30ft of their warband to 65+ when the rest of the warband cant assist further than 30-40ft that just ends up being fluff and IW with 5sec hard cap is not good enough to be stacked to extend the killzone to IW range for a full warband. No one runs full sorc stacks.

IW was strong when it worked in 2-2-2. but with CDR on chopfaster and aoe sorc being in the state it is, maybe testing for more than one week to see how strong or whatcounterplay exsis against these 1-3-2 bomb groups. One ambush and those unguarded sorcs with no snarebreakers should be pretty toast for example
Also is it really the IW 0sec that was strong, or was it simply the added criticalmass from running 1-3-2 and not 2-2-2 that carried, who knows since it didnt get more time to get experimented with.

it's mind blowing that anyone except bombling stepped up as a destro warband builder. it really makes me sad honestly to see passion is totally gone.

NA+CF was one of the unique destro tools in the past, it got nerfed due to existence of black orks own CD decreaser not for it's being overly unbalanced and broken. again, balance desicions made due to "discord whine crowd" instead of actual math and balance perspective.

/shame.

[wachlarz]

I think this game have more op skill than sorc Iw. Order dont like world on R and ended on E

[wonshot]

The thing is aoe sorc build have pretty much no identity, its just a copy paste of Brightwizard aoe, but in a worse state all around

Brighwizard aoe advantages:
- More procs in tactics related to Flame of Ruin allowing them to deal proc damage that is only mitigated by some types where as raw ability damage is dealing with armor/resist/toughness etc.
- Funnelpower
- MUCH better tactic choices for aoe build with wildfire, fueled from within + crown of fire, which naturally gets higher tooltip dmg as BW have acces to a viable build with more points in left-mastery tree making the Flames of ruin and the tactic scale and deal more dmg.
- Flashfire is it's own mystery and legit is as a standalone with no other advantages, enough to make BW much superior than aoe sorc.
- Viable 13point mastery options either Backdraft which actually does a respectable high ticking dot + selfpeel against choppapull, and FBB option to ranged assist when displaced
- MUCH stronger aoe filler rotation with Flamebreath 20combustion builder for getting big value out of morale dmg 375 aoe procs with Explosive force


Aoe sorc advantages:
- IW medium distance aoe pressure, allowing sorc to play more from in & out bombing range and not stacking up in the face of frontal kings slayers.
- Two supporting tactics for IW, to make it wider and more build defining with 2/4 tactic slot investment.
- Infernal gift party buff, most destro aoe dps seem to assume this role of aoe dmg + amplifying the other party members but they dont have any selfish aoe carries (msh PD, mara ini/ws debuff, choppa CF, sorc IG)
- ranged aoe punt tactic (honorable mention for those who dont run with a shammy for punt on the tower or msh with ranged aoe punt from leftover points)

The way i see these two aoe classes, they are fragile, immobile (no snarebreaker outside of FM in stage3 city in aoe build) high risk supposedly high reward casters who benefit from a busted class mechanic yet still struggle to see higher annihilate/disastorus casade channels for more than 375 ish. And they still suffer from having to fight against Hold the line stacks, Bellow, Challenge and cant move like any of the melee classes while channeling pbaoe. Despite all of this these classes might see top of the damage leaderboard, but not by much outside of a keepsiege situation where fluffdamage is plentyful. Instead its much better to slot a utility dps instead of these supposedly purebreed damagedealers, as you might lose 20% damage output difference by not slotting a clothie caster on the frontline but instead gain utility like Shattered limbs, aoe knockdown, aoe interrupt, more armor, more mobility and in most cases more damage aswel.

Sorc and BW deffo had their time in the past, they are for sure still playable and can be fun too.
But maybe its also time to look at little tweaks to these careers, like IW 5sec hardcap, icespike 20combustion gain on cast, Anni/DC castable on the move with a movespeed penalty, aoe root actually being a class defining lvl 10 ability like ressurect, charge, htl, guard, stealth and not being this stepchild of the family of "free immunity"

Brightwizard, i dont even go for full 1050 int on mine for the past 2-3 years because the damage comes from the procs. Sorc dont have the same luyxary so they have to go sorfcap and play as a brightwizard pretender with just the only little advantage of IW, with a lesser rotation for procing morale damage due to 10darkmagic from icespikes vs 20 on flamebreath, and nowhere near the same proc output and same low channel magic damage, on careers that were supposed to be purebreed damagedealers.

[Bozzax]

Nailed it

Clap clap

[rejndjer]

after trying out some pug scenarios, gotta say that this is my favorite patch since starting in january. now i can finally play some RoR when i have 30 minutes time window free during the day, and not worry about having 0kills combined in 2-3 scenarios. thank you devs <3

[Caduceus]

snip

Good post!

Sorc and BW have been in a rather odd position for a while now, being able to completely annihilate pugs but being fairly cotton-fisted against anything organized. I like your observation that range of IW does not amount to much in warbands that are melee-focused.

Some time back I wrote a with suggestions to fix Sorc. (viewtopic.php?f=95&t=44428&p=473061#p473061)

One of the things I put forward was to give IW an additional effect to compensate for being hard-capped at a 5 second CD.
Sorc's AoE identity seems less damage-focused and more focused on utility (TTD, Black Horror, Triumphant Blasting, Paralyzing Nightmares, to name a few utilities). It fits poorly in a meta that seeks to maximize damage output at all costs, though perhaps this can be worked with in order to make Sorc AoE both useful and unique.

Perhaps the initiative debuff from Black Horror could be transferred to IW, and Black Horror could be reworked into something more useful.

What do you think?

- Animalmother

[Phantasm]

after trying out some pug scenarios, gotta say that this is my favorite patch since starting in january. now i can finally play some RoR when i have 30 minutes time window free during the day, and not worry about having 0kills combined in 2-3 scenarios. thank you devs <3

Yes I love it too.
Sometimes after work I only got like hour or 2 to play and I hate early NA, so I usually Q scenarios. If it had weekend sc event map too that would be awesome.

[tazdingo]

yep this may be the best change of the last few years. scs just work now, lets hope for a steady climb in pop with summer coming to an end

[Whyumadbro]

Most casuals are going for sc, this patch is amazing! More pro-fun changes pls. BTW the list of scs is amazing

[Sofong]

this is good news for causal players. nice!