The Ability System Rewrite and Provisional Patch Notes

[Schweedy]

Very interesting I suppose I must apologize for my misstatement as it does appear that order out numbers Destro in the ways that matter in regards to PVP. I was basing my statement on what I saw in game as far as population percentage during the times that I normally play perhaps overall this is not the case.

Destro WB vs WB play in primetime dominates thoroughly (sometimes) for a few good reasons. Cohesion, communication, intuition, and warband maneuvering that plays to Destro strengths in a given RvR Lake. It is no surprise that despite lower numbers you sometimes see Destro respectably stomp on Order WBs during high pop hours. Order's marging of error is less than it is for Destro, in general, so they grow overconfident from it (vets/newbies). This makes them more prone to either ignore WB strategies and compositions or just haphazardly crash against warbands with poor/exposed positioning, which is critical for their heavy range-favored realm.

So badly lead and/or composed Order WBs will get punished for not respecting Choppa Pulls (melee trains) and cooldown decreasers (Choppa being a mandatory class for effective endgame RvR/city fight success). W/o the right Destro leadership that respects/manages party compositions and good party tanks to mitigate said over-exposed Choppa/Melee front and mid-line... it all falls apart. Bad tanking hurts Destro more here, because of how much they need to mitigate to prevent healer exhaustion/overstress from the significant burst DPS (unavoidable) Order puts out on melee fronts due to "certain" class tactics, abilities, and broken synergies (high success w/ lower investments than Destro mirror), but I won't mention which here.

It's no mystery to anyone who leads warbands on BOTH realms that you HAVE to play a tighter ship on Destro to face off against the roaming Order Guild WBs, which are damn near invincible with the best comps and highly successful with good comps and a leadership with a pulse. But luckily Destro tanks have a popularity that Order, occasionally, lacks, which can make up the deficit in WB vs WB play. This concludes my tedtalk.

Spoiler:

Welcome to RoR, were this knowledge is not news to everyone else in the know.

[normanis]

i have another idea
ror hardcore
no auction house
all pvp gear requirement need 10 more rr(decimator 17rr and obligerator 27)
u can trade /party up with ather ror hardcore players. no dungeons
u can spend only 50%rr points
no permadeath no rr boost potions
byt when u reach 40/80rr u get triumphnat ring as reward and title +mounts and some ather coockies for your suffering, and all stuf as athers.
p.s byts its out of current topic about abilities. and such stuff.

[Avernus]

So badly lead and/or composed Order WBs will get punished for not respecting Choppa Pulls (melee trains)

Sounds like you can refuse from being pulled (surprise - you can't). And your wb leader (assuming you have one...) must make a decision before destro comes too close to use 1 button - and at this point this will be too late to think - its not like you can reliably disengage against gtdc faceroll.

Yes, if you have a good leader and a dedicated pvp warband (not all those guys who gather a 1-2 times in week to have some rvr fun) all those random pulls are not that threatening. But for pug warbands, solos, duos, not full groups, random discord warbands etc the 1 bloody skill turns their orvr life into bloody nighmare - you can't defend from this crap, you can't run from it and in addition this bloody thing messes with your camera.

There is only one thing you can do against this as solo/smallscale group - run. And they wonder why order is so willing to run the moment they see some destro - you must be quite far away from the enemy if you wan to escape from those pulls - default reaction for any solo/smallscale group. And this triggers the chain reaction in pugs - unless some reassuring force is rushing to kill those destro (the aforementioned dedicated wb, but pug zerg sometimes can do this too assuming they think that they have an advantage) - the next moment order is running into the hills.

Obviously, the same could be said about destro pug - but, since there is no pullfest on order side, you have a better chance to save yourself in the same situation, and, in result, destro is bit more "brave", since there is no skills to punish them for this.

To sum it up - most of the time order consists of those zerg surfers/pug warbands/etc who aren't that great against pullstorm unless they can zerg the enemy.

[Avernus]

Balance Changes

- Assault Stance - Removed Auto Attack damage and proc. Replaced with permanent 35% Auto Attack speed buff.

What is the reason behind this nerf? The current aSW AA (thanks to AA damage buff) is something in betwen 2h and duals. Btw, this is the only thing which justifies AA attack speed boost from some parts of equipment. I do hope that there will be some adjusments to this because after this patch this will be just pathetic 1h AA and, at this point, there is no reason to keep this 35% AA buff - why bother if its gonna be useless anyway?

[Fey]

Imo something like, Shield Wall, should block un-blockable abilities. Perhaps that's not the consensus, but I think it's rather obvious, and also good for the game.

Morales in particular strike me as difficult to properly balance, but also contribute to spicy game play. I think a specific morale balance patch after the ability rework would go far, but that's more work.

Bring back 30 second, Eye of Sheerian and Mountain Spirit, and I'll shut up.

[Nekkma]

Morales in particular strike me as difficult to properly balance, but also contribute to spicy game play.

I think this is what i miss most from live. It felt like all classes had some really cool and/or powerful abilities. On ror it seems most of that fun stuff have been nerfed.

[Dajciekrwi]

Live was great if you were ahead of the curve on a great class as the power you had was far greater than the power you would have here. For everyone else it was a horror show.

I wouldn't sign that. RoR has it's own major downsides.

It's not only the games fault, people just play it in a different way now. Do you know the game show "survivor"? It's still the same game show after all but people are playing it with a lot different and optimized strategies now. Same happened to this game. Even if you would roll back to live version you wouldn't get same game play as back then. People are more experienced now, more veterans, better communicating and coordinating, switch to overpowered classes way more quickly, minding more about their kills and deaths, etc, etc.

Overall Id say that the smaller group and solo fights are happening a lot less now. At the same time the amount of coordinated premade warbands increased. The first is a consequence of the latter. When there are many premades mowing over solos and small groups then there will be less solos, small groups or pug wbs. Then you have classes like WH/WE and dps AM/shaman that outshine everything else in 1:1 and small skirmishes. There is no point to try running solo with any other class. You will get jumped by stealthers and dotted up by AMs/shamans.

The thing is that roaming premades love to roll over masses of pug players. When the pug players leave the game so will the premades.

That being said the focus should be on new players, pug scenarios, pug groups, 1:1 and small skirmishes. They are keeping the game alive, not the premades that will just disappear when the game gets empty or too boring.

The synergies and survivability of premade warbands with 2/2/2 setup is far too good right now. You can't hurt them without good coordination, which pugs don't have. WHs/WEs and dps AMs/shamans are also far too dominant right now. They will destroy any other player in 1:1 with ease. Unless something is being done about these two things, people will not try to go out there solo or in small group trying to find fights - at least not for long. That's a major difference to how live once was. People do log off when they can't get kills and being non-stop stomped, either by warbands or dominant 1:1 classes. That's not a whine, that's a fact.

... and the speed proc meta ...

So the speed proc meta is a problem in your opinion and the gits speed proc is not? Id like to understand your logic. With roaming premades speed procs/abilities would be more than welcomed for the solos and small groups to get away from approaching premades on horses.

Agreed with all that on 10000 %

[Garamore]

Live was great if you were ahead of the curve on a great class as the power you had was far greater than the power you would have here. For everyone else it was a horror show.

I wouldn't sign that. RoR has it's own major downsides.

It's not only the games fault, people just play it in a different way now. Do you know the game show "survivor"? It's still the same game show after all but people are playing it with a lot different and optimized strategies now. Same happened to this game. Even if you would roll back to live version you wouldn't get same game play as back then. People are more experienced now, more veterans, better communicating and coordinating, switch to overpowered classes way more quickly, minding more about their kills and deaths, etc, etc.

Overall Id say that the smaller group and solo fights are happening a lot less now. At the same time the amount of coordinated premade warbands increased. The first is a consequence of the latter. When there are many premades mowing over solos and small groups then there will be less solos, small groups or pug wbs. Then you have classes like WH/WE and dps AM/shaman that outshine everything else in 1:1 and small skirmishes. There is no point to try running solo with any other class. You will get jumped by stealthers and dotted up by AMs/shamans.

The thing is that roaming premades love to roll over masses of pug players. When the pug players leave the game so will the premades.

That being said the focus should be on new players, pug scenarios, pug groups, 1:1 and small skirmishes. They are keeping the game alive, not the premades that will just disappear when the game gets empty or too boring.

The synergies and survivability of premade warbands with 2/2/2 setup is far too good right now. You can't hurt them without good coordination, which pugs don't have. WHs/WEs and dps AMs/shamans are also far too dominant right now. They will destroy any other player in 1:1 with ease. Unless something is being done about these two things, people will not try to go out there solo or in small group trying to find fights - at least not for long. That's a major difference to how live once was. People do log off when they can't get kills and being non-stop stomped, either by warbands or dominant 1:1 classes. That's not a whine, that's a fact.

... and the speed proc meta ...

So the speed proc meta is a problem in your opinion and the gits speed proc is not? Id like to understand your logic. With roaming premades speed procs/abilities would be more than welcomed for the solos and small groups to get away from approaching premades on horses.

Agreed with all that on 10000 %

I would say the main differences between when I played on live and here are that there are actually less organised wbs (my server on live would have 4-5 24 mans on each side most nights) and that they mainly looked to fight each other and leave the small groups/pug wbs alone. There was also good respect between wb leaders and we would communicate across realm on IRC. If someone was zerging outside of taking a keep then an agreement would be made by the other wbs to let the other realm smash them till they stopped.

On this server there is very little respect between wb leaders - death threats, :| threats and constant trolling have taken over from working to make the game and the RvR better.

Its changed from wb leaders looking to be respected for the way they play to trying farm kills against the easiest possible opposition/situation (i.e pushing a fort then xrealming) to belittle your opponents across all forms of media.

[Fenris78]

Balance Changes

- Assault Stance - Removed Auto Attack damage and proc. Replaced with permanent 35% Auto Attack speed buff.

What is the reason behind this nerf? The current aSW AA (thanks to AA damage buff) is something in betwen 2h and duals. Btw, this is the only thing which justifies AA attack speed boost from some parts of equipment. I do hope that there will be some adjusments to this because after this patch this will be just pathetic 1h AA and, at this point, there is no reason to keep this 35% AA buff - why bother if its gonna be useless anyway?

Yes, I seriously hope there will be balancing for AA damage, because this +65% AA damage buff is the main reason making Assault a remotely decent spec.
Otherwise, I see little reason to play the class again, being outclassed by all other DPS, being ranged or melee, will be badly disheartening at the very least... :/

I'm sure it will be returned in a shape or another by the time they push first balancing patches after that, because the AA damage buff is here to get on par with all other mDPS, who all get either 2H or dual-wield hits, for roughly the same AA DPS.
Not having this bonus pretty much means your melee AA will be half value, amputating the class roughly from about 12 to 18% of its total DPS.

Or that's other damage buffs that will be upped, but having to rely on an hypothetic M1 damage boost and/or VoN is not ideal either.

Melee AA base damage absolutely need to be on par with other mDPS, either by making a dual-wield or 2H-equivalent version, or Assault spec will be unviable forever.

[Phantasm]

I would say the main differences between when I played on live and here are that there are actually less organised wbs (my server on live would have 4-5 24 mans on each side most nights) and that they mainly looked to fight each other and leave the small groups/pug wbs alone. There was also good respect between wb leaders and we would communicate across realm on IRC. If someone was zerging outside of taking a keep then an agreement would be made by the other wbs to let the other realm smash them till they stopped.

On this server there is very little respect between wb leaders - death threats, threats and constant trolling have taken over from working to make the game and the RvR better.

Its changed from wb leaders looking to be respected for the way they play to trying farm kills against the easiest possible opposition/situation (i.e pushing a fort then xrealming) to belittle your opponents across all forms of media.

Back on the Live servers, the restriction of not allowing both Order and Destro characters on the same server played a significant role in shaping the dynamics of the game. It meant that players had a clear allegiance to one realm, sharing a sense of realm pride and identity. Warband leaders couldn't simply switch sides on the same day or evening (like they can now in RoR), which contributed to more stable and structured gameplay.

Additionally, the subscription cost acted as a barrier to xrealming, making it less attractive for players to constantly switch realms for short-term advantages. The financial commitment discouraged excessive realm-hopping, preserving the integrity of realm pride and loyalty.

However, in RoR, with free accounts and the ability to create characters on both sides without any extra cost, the dynamics have shifted significantly. It has led to a more fluid and unpredictable environment, where players may fight alongside or against the same guild within a short span of time. This shift in dynamics has brought about a change in the way Warband leaders and players approach the game. As we see in RoR people choose own personal progress before realm pride, guilds roll other sides to seek a bigger challenge, public records of every kill and death - characters and their guilds, make incentive to play with more focus on those instead of campaign, which is in a fact now meaningless. What is zerging now if not a protecting own or guild`s public stats for bragging rights? For many players and guilds top ten weekly or monthly kill/death killboard ratio is a new campaign.
Despite both games seem to be similar, people play/played them in totally different way i would say.