Gap Closer Balance

[Secrets]

Thank you Secrets for once again proving that r0r devs are pretty consistently clueless for just about everything on the server they have worked on.

I'm not a dev. But when I was, I knew more than you - mainly because people willingly give me all the information I needed to make those conclusions because they were passionate about the game enough to see it succeed. I shared those dreams until I couldn't mentally handle it.

Marauders are underperforming. The reason ROR is low pop is certainly not because of my work at this point, and certainly not because of Marauders underperforming or overperforming.

[Secrets]

I really hope that you have nothing to do with the balance patch because what you are saying here is complete nonsense.

"Maras have basically nothing". Come on man. Ridiculous. They have a great toolkit and good damage. Mara is a very strong class.

"They have a great toolkit and good damage" - yeah, but WEs have an exceptional toolkit and great damage.

[zulnam]

I really hope that you have nothing to do with the balance patch because what you are saying here is complete nonsense.

"Maras have basically nothing". Come on man. Ridiculous. They have a great toolkit and good damage. Mara is a very strong class.

"They have a great toolkit and good damage" - yeah, but WEs have an exceptional toolkit and great damage.

But what if stance cd would be removed? Would it help close the gap?

I always found it awkward and against the class's play style, like a 5 second global cooldown.

also, some of y'all need to chill.

[Omegus]

To say nothing about actual class balance, Maras probably have the single biggest utility toolkit out of any DPS in the entire game.

Just a shame they're lacking actual DPS, only have 4 tactic slots and their kit is spread out over 3 mastery paths, and they're locked out of about half of their (useful) abilities at any one time.

Destro run Maras because Monstro Maras are very good when playing into Slayers. Throwing Maras into Slayerballs has been a thing since I can remember. The utility Monstro Mara is effectively dead due to the combined nerfs to AP drain and morale drain, so now it's just a tanky DPS spending all tactics on trying to achieve a useful level of damage.

AOE interrupt is fantastic though when used right. There is a special place in hell for Maras who use charge and knockdown to initiate a fight before anyone else is in range to capitalise.

And of course, the utility you listed is also provided from tanks doing tank things (auras and bellows).

But what if stance cd would be removed? Would it help close the gap?

The next question is: what would be the point of stances limiting abilities if there was no CD so you can just switch?

[Secrets]

I really hope that you have nothing to do with the balance patch because what you are saying here is complete nonsense.

"Maras have basically nothing". Come on man. Ridiculous. They have a great toolkit and good damage. Mara is a very strong class.

"They have a great toolkit and good damage" - yeah, but WEs have an exceptional toolkit and great damage.

But what if stance cd would be removed? Would it help close the gap?

I always found it awkward and against the class's play style, like a 5 second global cooldown.

also, some of y'all need to chill.

Stance CD would not help Marauders except for them staying alive. People have asked WLs the same ****, and I'd disagree it helps with anything beyond survival. If you are changing stance in combat, imo, there's something wrong with the design of that spec you're playing, or you need the defensive benefits of that stance. There are times where WL can get a free 100+ toughness by going into TTK stance from TTH, and that's a significant amount.

If they get their pull fixed, and get significant debuffs, destro would be at a massive advantage as Order would have no class that mirrors Marauder's debuffs.
Historically my idea for Maras was to increase their raw damage, as that's what they are lacking. Their debuffs and utility are fine. Pull/KD is the only reason you'd bring one currently. If you remove one of those two, they need their raw damage adjusted massively upwards so they can stand toe to toe with any other melee blob in terms of sheer damage.

They need to hit slightly stronger than 2H WPs. Currently, they do not. That's a huge problem.

[lumpi33]

Historically my idea for Maras was to increase their raw damage, as that's what they are lacking. Their debuffs and utility are fine.

They have less damage because they have better survivability and more tools than other classes.

What you are trying to create is a class with no disadvantages. No thank you, they already did that with WHs and WEs. They got way too many tools for the damage they do.

And you are talking about buffing an already strong class while other really underperforming classes like the engi or skrimisher SW are being left in the dirt... They have much bigger issue that should be looked at.

That you as an order player are asking for a mara buff is btw more than suspicious. Switched sides, ey?

[lemao]

Secrets is right though. What does a mara bring besides the pull that your BG or choppa/we dosent have?
What 6 man ranked grp runs a mara over we/choppa?
What destro wb wouldnt replace there maras with WLs if they had the choice?

Everyone runs we/choppa because of the WE mostly. OYK spec pumps your whole group morale extremely fast(while also draining the enemys morale),
so you can use WE M3 every minute on cooldown, can use choppa M4 every 90 secs (if not forced to use M1) while having perma Tank bellow M3 on cooldown.
WE with that spec gives your whole team basically extremely good offense and defense at the same time. If you would nerf the morale drain/pump spec you would see a lot more maras instead of choppas.

[lemao]

Keep pull how it is, for both Mara and WL (as WL gets 65 ft pounch, Mara gets longer, more consistent pulls in turn for not having Pounce)

So you are playing destro now

Mara gets longer, more consistent pulls in turn for not having Pounce? How about elves getting gits run away then and WL the armor pierce ignore and self hot of mara brutality and of course the mara aoe knock down and free 50% armor pierce tactic for most of their attacks and dual wield for more procs. How about that?

Seriously now, what are you smoking? That mara pull as it is right now is super broken and completely unfair for the receiving side.

There was a time where the WL pull had no range at all. It was the same unfair stuff.

There was never a time when WL pull had unlimited range. Well, at least not since 2017 on emu when I started playing my WL here. If there was, it was a bug. A lot of the behaviors players became accustomed to since RoR were bugs in the server code, and not intended.

As for the actual balance issues-

WL already has one of the biggest bits of burst with their 10s cooldown abilities, and consistent AOE with their AOE spec being their best ST spec. Mara has basically nothing.

Mara has no solo ability outside of being a nuisance, their AOE knockdown is a free immunity outside of specific 24 man situations, the 50% armor pen tactic is negated by the fact that WL has virtually 100% armor pen from whirling axe / slashing blade alone (which also consistently removes taunts), and Mara's pull is their only useful ability left beyond their passive debuffs, which I guess BG gets anyways?

I'd argue that even Chosens can do more damage and utility - in both solo and in a party - due to their armor class (plate), their ability to deal consistent spiritual damage, and the obvious buffs they bring.

WL's only gripe should be that Mara gets consistent uptime on their crit damage tactic and is not dependent on the pet for uptime on their crit damage tactic.

But Mara also does not get Coordinated Strike, Pack Assault, Whirling Axe (their version honestly sucks ass). The ability to stay alive on your own does not make a class 'good'.

Most of these concerns are moot, anyways - as balance will likely wildly change in the abilities update when most abilities get reverted to 1.4.8 balancing.

"You must be playing Destro!"

...I don't even have a Mara. If I didn't have advance knowledge that the ability changes would drastically change everything (and I'd actually have time to play the game), I'd play WE. You'd be stupid to play a Mara unless you enjoy pulling someone from 200 ft. That's their only purpose at this point; to pull someone to their death while better classes (like Witch Elf, or Choppa) actually secure the kill. And that weird stutter step against Order WBs that never works thing that involves knocking people down on engage that gives them free immunities that destro does. Like, wait till order is at 20-50% due to an AOE push, then hit the ability, people.

How is mara AOE kd "free imunities" ? Its insanely good , a good aoe kd and morale drop wins you fights all the time in big RVR fights.
WL´s armor pen tactic is only applied on 2 of his abilities, which are AOE which is great for large scale fights. Meanwhile Marauders armor pen tactic is applied on EVERY ability which requires a stance, so it also effects almost all of his ST spells which you use to burst (armor debuff-> wounds debuff>Pulverize-> guillotine), i would take maras armor pen tactic over WL´s any day. Does WL have more burst dmg than a Marauder ? Sure he does, but it´s not like Marauders burst is bad by any means if you are able to stance swap (which most players on this server aren´t for some reason).Marauder also has better sustain damage than a WL. Also no chosen will every do more damage than a Marauder, unless the Marauder has no hands i guess ?! Not sure why you think mara is "underperforming", im not arguing which of the 2 is better/worse, but marauder is defenetely not a bad class in either single target nor AOE spec. Minisynn basically listed you everything a few comments above.

[Omegus]

Historically my idea for Maras was to increase their raw damage, as that's what they are lacking. Their debuffs and utility are fine.

They have less damage because they have better survivability and more tools than other classes.

What you are trying to create is a class with no disadvantages. No thank you, they already did that with WHs and WEs. They got way too many tools for the damage they do.

And you are talking about buffing an already strong class while other really underperforming classes like the engi or skrimisher SW are being left in the dirt... They have much bigger issue that should be looked at.

That you as an order player are asking for a mara buff is btw more than suspicious. Switched sides, ey?

Look at a Mara outside of mindless aoe Monstro spam and tell me about it's survivability. Monstro shrugging off all armour pen is a problem, Maras being terrible outside of Monstro is also a problem. The "debuff" stance's special feature is... a DoT and slightly reducing an enemy's AA speed. The "damage" stance's special feature is... making off-hand AAs slightly better. Both are god-awful. And in Monstro the "DPS" class gets no extra damage bonus at all.

How is mara AOE kd "free imunities" ?

Interrupting important casts on a healer blob and taking them out of the fight for a couple of seconds at a key moment is great. Random Maras just a "deep knockdown" with nothing to back it up is free immunities.

It's not quite up there with AOE punts in terms of being advantagous for the enemy, but when used incorrectly (i.e. most of the time) then it's very close.

[Darkdargor]

Mara pull needs a fix not a nerf! - it shouldn't break if the player jumps. It does have 2nd range check if you run backwards it will break. Its also possible to block/parry it. Easiest way to check if someone is a good player is to try to pull them. Its pretty rare you hook a good player.

Why shouldn’t it break when jumping? Healers can't cast and jump, their 1 sec cast on the move abilities. sorry don’t have a better example of an ability it’s the closes correlation I could find.

I think he means that Marauder pull can be avoided if target uses jump at exact same time when pull is about to happen. It worked like this Live as well,not saying it should work like this but Live Piercing Bite was bugged also and affected ALL skills including Auto Attacks.

About engi/magus pulls i think they should be like they used to be https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-5Zw4FUPacc

Mara pull breaks on jump? No, it does not. Willing to test it anytime. Pm me with ur Mara.