Marauder pull needs to be reined in
Posted: Wed Mar 29, 2023 10:00 am
There's a lot of glaring balance issues, that require attention - but the Marauder pull, Terrible Embrace, has apparently been knocked out of the ballpark.
For starters, it's based on the Marauder's strength value and only defendable by parry or block - which basically makes it undefendable against most of the squishiest Order classes (BW, AM, RP and, to a certain extent, Book WPs) - generally any class that doesn't have any parry or block. I'm fairly confident that this was never the intention of the ability.
It used to be based on intelligence - which a lot Marauder players complained about, hence the change to it being strength-based. However, I would make the argument that it being based on intelligence was not an oversight or an error, but actually intended, because it makes good sense:
- First off, both description, animation and icon reads and looks very much like a magic attack (apropos the somewhat silly determination to changing other abilities to match icons etc - "Vigilance" comes to mind).
- Secondly, and more importantly, it makes the ability mainly useful against dps-classes and tanks, which normally doesn't stack willpower and/or tons of disrupt - but on the other hand are tougher and/or have more getaway-tools available. So the ability works the best against "equals", so to speak - and harder against the softer targets.
Since the change to a strength-based check, I personally haven't defended any Marauder pull on my AM. Not a single one. And that change has been in effect for quite some time. My only hope is to break LoS, which is very situational at best and not even guaranteed to work. Otherwise it generally means getting pulled into a group of dedicated dps, followed by a knockdown - which in most cases equals instant death, unless you have a lot of assist available.
Another issue is the range check. It only checks at the beginning of the cast, which means you can't outrun it with, say, a use of Flee. More importantly, it also means that the casting Marauder can (and often do) start to run backwards while channeling to extend the pull distance. At one point I believe there was added a second range check at the end of channeling, exactly to counter this behavior - it boggles the mind why it was reverted. (As a side note, I believe all cast time abilities, which can be cast on the move, had this second check added - not sure if they have all been reverted as well, or if it's only TE. But if they have, it might be good idea to add those checks back to all these abilities.)
To sum up, all pulls are by default very strong abilities - and TE seems downright broken at the moment. I would therefore suggest one of the following:
1) Revert TE back to being Intelligence-based and restore the second range check at the end of channeling. (Ideally)
2) Revert TE back to being Intelligence-based without adding the second range check at the end of channeling.
3) Keep TE Strength-based, but add second range check at the end of channeling.
It of course stands to reason, that if there are similar issues with WL's Fetch, then those should be looked at as well.
For starters, it's based on the Marauder's strength value and only defendable by parry or block - which basically makes it undefendable against most of the squishiest Order classes (BW, AM, RP and, to a certain extent, Book WPs) - generally any class that doesn't have any parry or block. I'm fairly confident that this was never the intention of the ability.
It used to be based on intelligence - which a lot Marauder players complained about, hence the change to it being strength-based. However, I would make the argument that it being based on intelligence was not an oversight or an error, but actually intended, because it makes good sense:
- First off, both description, animation and icon reads and looks very much like a magic attack (apropos the somewhat silly determination to changing other abilities to match icons etc - "Vigilance" comes to mind).
- Secondly, and more importantly, it makes the ability mainly useful against dps-classes and tanks, which normally doesn't stack willpower and/or tons of disrupt - but on the other hand are tougher and/or have more getaway-tools available. So the ability works the best against "equals", so to speak - and harder against the softer targets.
Since the change to a strength-based check, I personally haven't defended any Marauder pull on my AM. Not a single one. And that change has been in effect for quite some time. My only hope is to break LoS, which is very situational at best and not even guaranteed to work. Otherwise it generally means getting pulled into a group of dedicated dps, followed by a knockdown - which in most cases equals instant death, unless you have a lot of assist available.
Another issue is the range check. It only checks at the beginning of the cast, which means you can't outrun it with, say, a use of Flee. More importantly, it also means that the casting Marauder can (and often do) start to run backwards while channeling to extend the pull distance. At one point I believe there was added a second range check at the end of channeling, exactly to counter this behavior - it boggles the mind why it was reverted. (As a side note, I believe all cast time abilities, which can be cast on the move, had this second check added - not sure if they have all been reverted as well, or if it's only TE. But if they have, it might be good idea to add those checks back to all these abilities.)
To sum up, all pulls are by default very strong abilities - and TE seems downright broken at the moment. I would therefore suggest one of the following:
1) Revert TE back to being Intelligence-based and restore the second range check at the end of channeling. (Ideally)
2) Revert TE back to being Intelligence-based without adding the second range check at the end of channeling.
3) Keep TE Strength-based, but add second range check at the end of channeling.
It of course stands to reason, that if there are similar issues with WL's Fetch, then those should be looked at as well.