WE situation.

[Zxul]

The def regen WE with Witchbrew is as popular with order as ever, don't think I remember a day without a post asking to nerf it. However-

WE needs finishers to do dmg, without them dmg drops significantly, def or off spec. And here comes the problem- currently Witchbrew is the only finisher with a good dmg.

RA was double nerfed in abilities patch- both dmg on ability itself was nerfed, as well as armor pen tactic which it benefits from was nerfed from 50% to 25%, dropping a total dmg significantly.
Puncture is nothing to cry home about- dmg isn't great, no cd is nice but WE doesn't has WH's tactic for mechanic points gain off finishers, and doesn't has anything going off finishers. Also unlike WH, WE doesn't has a tactic for +25% crit on it.
Sacrificial Stab doesn't offers any extra dmg compared to Puncture, despite being 13 points up in tree. Heal is nice in theory, but its on top of glass cannon tree.
HRT does even less dmg than Puncture, unless someone has found some hidden use for it, don't think anyone uses it.
OYK is nice for alt KD, for morale drain, and to occasionally pump numbers with aoe, but once again single target dmg is worse than free Puncture.

Speccing around AA doesn't works- WE AA dmg isn't great, and WE no longer has abilities to increase it. AA also requires slow weapons to be good, 3 sec attack time or slower- which WE again doesn't has.

So in other words, current WE situation is nice in theory- but its fully dependent on a single ability Witchbrew. Not only not having alt builds makes class less fun, but also should eventually nerf cries end with Witchbrew nerf, WE will no longer have any working build. Probably a good time to start asking for improvements to other finishers/ for getting something going off finishers so no cd ones are actually useful.

WH btw somewhat is in this situation already- their channel got nerfed same way as WE one. They got BaL, but it got lot more requirements to use, and can be cleansed. And they got more options to build around Absolution, but with the mechanic gain nerf (https://bugs.returnofreckoning.com/view.php?id=21362), its harder to use as well. Which is why their numbers dropped lately in lakes.

[salazarn]

All i heard was nerf regen we and I agree.

[Krima]

Unfortunately, we're still in the same state as years ago. It's the same old boring routine of AW + WB spam, making it one of the most tedious specs ever.

As for Sacrificial Stab, it's been completely useless since it went live. It serves no purpose at all. Props to Torq for attempting something different, and it wasn't even overpowered. I don't know why the devs reverted it. Sacrificial Stab should deal at least 30% more damage than Puncture. Additionally, the healing component should be removed

[Fenris78]

Time to invest into some offensive stats.
Hurts to be on same level as WH, does it ?

Taunt aside, it's clear it was not witchbrew the issue (ofc it was when WB is proccing on dagger throw, wich has been fixed iirc), but the other finishers that were not as efficient.

Make 3 viable finishers, make witchbrew physical (but with damage tweaking to somehow not be strictly superior on all aspects to other options), and finally be gone with stupid regen builds wich make no sense at all ; either remove/nerf absorb tactic or limit regen options.

WE should be high damage, high risk, low resilience class. Not the unkillable abomination she has become since years.

[Hugatsaga]

As for Sacrificial Stab, it's been completely useless since it went live. It serves no purpose at all. Props to Torq for attempting something different, and it wasn't even overpowered. I don't know why the devs reverted it. Sacrificial Stab should deal at least 30% more damage than Puncture. Additionally, the healing component should be removed

Yeah the auto-attack dmg buff was at least interesting. It wasn't meta or broken or anything but it was another spec option and there was nice synergy with Mark of Morathi (now Mark of Hellebron) although the spec was still sub par compared to ruthless assault spec or witchbrew spec. I think the that nerf/change was unfortunate side effect of "let's make game more like it was in live" -doctrine which, when followed blindly, can essentially mean "let's change this interesting ability into a useless & boring one". Or "let's take this perfectly working UI element and break it again because it was broken on live" (flowing accusations/career resource display)

[reynor007]

You can simply fix WB, which, due to a bug after the patch, receives +25% damage (hidden 5th tactic for each WE at the moment)

no need to nerf anything, just please do it this way it should work
WH with 5 tactics is an abuser, WE with 5 tactics is not

https://bugs.returnofreckoning.com/view.php?id=21956

[Zxul]

You can simply fix WB, which, due to a bug after the patch, receives +25% damage (hidden 5th tactic for each WE at the moment)

no need to nerf anything, just please do it this way it should work
WH with 5 tactics is an abuser, WE with 5 tactics is not

https://bugs.returnofreckoning.com/view.php?id=21956

Its nice to see how after 4 years you still keep on posting about how WE is better than WH and needs nerfing, persistence is important.

Back to topic though, Witchbrew is what currently is holding the class up. Whatever is done with it, after the RA nerf currently, unlike WH, WE has no other spec option.

[Hugatsaga]

Even after double nerf, RA is still pretty good by the way. With WH I barely press TBP anymore but WE has many tactics that boost the RA dmg (+25% from frenzied mayhem and 3 different tactics which buff by +15%) so for WE its still viable. Last time I checked they all stacked too ..although realistically you are not going to run all of them.

[Zxul]

Even after double nerf, RA is still pretty good by the way. With WH I barely press TBP anymore but WE has many tactics that boost the RA dmg (+25% from frenzied mayhem and 3 different tactics which buff by +15%) so for WE its still viable. Last time I checked they all stacked too ..although realistically you are not going to run all of them.

You need BE tactic for RA to be any good, and you need Frenzied Mayhem, that already leaves only two tactic slots. You also very likely need Brute Force, that leaves one.

Realistically though, comparing my 80 WE to my lower magus in worse equip, WE in RA spec does significantly less dmg.

[reynor007]

You can simply fix WB, which, due to a bug after the patch, receives +25% damage (hidden 5th tactic for each WE at the moment)

no need to nerf anything, just please do it this way it should work
WH with 5 tactics is an abuser, WE with 5 tactics is not

https://bugs.returnofreckoning.com/view.php?id=21956

Its nice to see how after 4 years you still keep on posting about how WE is better than WH and needs nerfing, persistence is important.

Back to topic though, Witchbrew is what currently is holding the class up. Whatever is done with it, after the RA nerf currently, unlike WH, WE has no other spec option.

as you would expect, you didn’t even read what I wrote about, but you already wrote some kind of nonsense frenzied mayhem works for Witchbrew 5 tactics, what nerf are you talking about, why 5 tactics WH is bad, but 5 tactics for WE is ok, this is hypocrisy