Melees overperforming

[shoelessHN]

To give you a taste of double aoe pressure. Too bad the dwarf doesn't have something like that.....wait. As a balancing suggestion, the dwarf should also get the thing for triple aoe pressure can't be that destro can do that now.

Give me? Wtf are you talking about?

[MedV]

I thought you would address the melee blobbing a bit with the ability overhaul.

We are back to status quo:

https://ibb.co/kKf5RG9
https://ibb.co/5Lx9VS2

Melees in general an especially WLs and Choppas are overperforming by a large extend right now. Some classes that were bad before are still in a pretty terrible state and received even some harsh nerf. Like engis and skirmish or assault SWs. mSHs have at least a great aoe melee spec. Sorcs and BWs doing fine with close range specs.

It's still the melee aoe stacking and now also the proc meta that is completely out of balance. Please have a look at that.

There is literally only two WLs on the monthly kill board leaders and they are both the main dps from their respective organized guild WBs.

[Dajciekrwi]

I thought you would address the melee blobbing a bit with the ability overhaul.

We are back to status quo:

https://ibb.co/kKf5RG9
https://ibb.co/5Lx9VS2

Melees in general an especially WLs and Choppas are overperforming by a large extend right now. Some classes that were bad before are still in a pretty terrible state and received even some harsh nerf. Like engis and skirmish or assault SWs. mSHs have at least a great aoe melee spec. Sorcs and BWs doing fine with close range specs.

It's still the melee aoe stacking and now also the proc meta that is completely out of balance. Please have a look at that.

The answer for Wl nad Choppa advantage is obvious; lets take something from a marauder )

[GONDOR]

Spoiler:

Key word is tanks......SM and IB were nerfed


As I understood, only their 2H builds got nerfed: IB with DMG and Swordmaster with 2H defense.
Do they also perform worse in their RvR warband performance?
I must confess, I don't know if 2H SM is viable for warband play. Did they nerf them so hard that they can't no longer fulfill their role in the grand scheme of RvR?
I mean, 2H Chosen got nerfed hard too a few years ago; it sounded like a death sentence back then, but they only suffered in smallscale.
They are still fine Tanks. Even their 2H build is very viable in small scale, but they don't have opression and undefendable spirit DMG cleave anymore.

What I want to say is, is it really that dramatic over all? A bit less DMG, a bit less defense. I have the feeling they are still doing well.

It's nerfs to playstyles and pigeon-holing. Nerfs to SM does make their 2h WB viability less, IB change affects SC and small scale. It's now there's less ways to play or even enjoy your class. Maybe the changes were warranted, but the result and reception has been less than favourable. At the end of the day, there's balance, and there's balance.

It's easy to balance by numbers or utility, it's much harder to balance that and maintain or improve playability of classes. At the end of the day, no matter how well "balanced" a class is, it won't be a popular class if it isn't fun to play.

Melee aoe were 30fts cos were designed for 8 players cap where most of the time you hit tanks and some guarded dps. Here however you got 24 cap and rather big aoe pressure area from classes that got numerous gap closers, aoe detaunts and somehow aoe spells better than their single target skills. 24 v 8 cap is huge macro change that differ the game significantly

Crazy that's the thought process - smaller aoe range gives better control over who you clip. 30ft 8 cap spreads out to any viable target within the 30ft, zero control over where to apply it.

Some arguments for the 30ft I've heard revolve around "making it easy to", but the same people will say "it's at team game". Punts, cones, snares, etc. are on varying availability between the roles for a reason - to ensure there's interplay and force multipliers. Guarded DPS? Tank can move behind the tank and punt. Stuck wailing on a tank wall? Use your AD keys and move. Want to pressure healers? Time to risk vs reward trade - push vs overextending. Snared? Scream at healers for cleanses ("CLEANSE ME SKREEEEEE"). It's all teamwork .

Stacking 30ft melee aoe buttons is a crutch for melee players who can't position or play good.

[Shalanor]

There was clearly no logical attempt in the patch to solve the problems that the game actually has.

Destro and Choppa were made stronger, Order tanks nerfed, no help for Order RDPS being wasted slots.

And its the IB that gets its dmg and sustain nerf? Seriously this patch was madness.

It makes no sense. I quit until its fixed.

Oder Tanks nerfed? Kotbs got a huge buff, with even more utility for the whole group. Chosen got a 5% parry nerf and a tiny bit more dmg for Relentless. Nothing else. Cherry-picking, my friend.
Slayer still does a ton of DMG, and WL is now in a better spot because it seems a lot jumped off the slayer train (without real reason), but yes, it is different now. When you play as a destro tank, you feel like a tank again and don't melt in the rampage wave. It is an odd feeling to suddenly have block and parry now.

SM got a big nerf. This patch was a big failure. Tank players dont wanna play anymore it seems. The whole day less tanks.....

[Everdin]

The reason those two perform better then before is not regarding to them, it's because of proc madness. Or could someone explain why a lion should perform better then before these patches? The nerf should be on procs...

[Bullen1995]

The melee range with aoe and procs is way to generous in the current state of the game. Alot of these kills if not all is mostly massive amounts of aoe spam in coordinated groups.

Melee is in a strong position no doubt due to most ranged dps classes lack the utility to deal with them and the snare patch nerf for more "fluid gameplay" didnt help ranged dps case either in a mostly melee dominated meta.

[kolybri]

Yeah, they are. We'll have to wait till Devs reach the "Balance DPS" phase of their roadmap.

To make a case for rDPS in WBs tho. They don't need Guard. You can make a 1 tank, 2 healers, 1 BW/Sorc (for the proc and they can even play midrange if u want) and 2 rDPS party and it will work. That duo > 1 mDPS. Imo that is a good balance decision. mDPS should do more dmg than rDPS, but you can sacrifice a bit of CC and Tankiness to bring an extra DPS to increase your WB's dmg.

Balancing should be made around kiting, CCc, immunities - all that little dance - and not just DPS numbers, imo. Don't know how it could be done, its probably a pipe dream that they'll be able to make rDPS fully functional outside of blobwarfare and chokes, because i think the biggest challenge to that are Greenskin classes. They have self speed buff, immunities on command, pulls, pounce and 360º movable AoE. Gonna have to do a lot of spell changing while trying to not make rDPS absurdly OP at the same time.

That's not a case for rDPS WBs. If it was, we'd already see it.

MDPS is overperforming because RDPS can't come to the table/be at the bar in group play. A large chunk of it goes beyond numbers - it's down to macro and micro mechanics.


Melee AOEs are 30ft
Ridiculously generous - completely erodes the skill for melee to be in melee range. Most games would put 30ft into the short range category, instead of melee. It's wild that people think 30ft range is melee. It covers a huge area, and it's exceptionally easy to land on lots of targets. It's also much more forgiving being so huge to maximise damage, and favours blobs as they're able to stack hard and stack lazily to overlap their damage zones easily.

There is no skill and no real need to play tight as part of a melee train when it's this generous.


Ranged AOEs are static in more ways than one
Ranged AOEs are usually (not always) accompanied by a cast time or channel, or are placed on the ground and can't subsequently be moved. You compare this to melee AOEs, they emanate from the player, and move with the player. Situation has changed? No problem, just move the players and you can adapt. Ranged AOE requires better forethought and coordination to maximise its impact - this is the case in any rvr game. Ranged bomb takes planning, kiting, chokes, and synchronisation to pull off - melee is much more brutish and easy.


Melee is much easier to drive around with
Most warbands don't have the coordination (guilded or pug) to pull off an effective ranged bomb - nevermind the fact that ranged bomb doesn't exist. This isn't a slight to the guilds; it just requires tighter callouts and group play than anything I've heard in the last month, and actually requires comms to work effectively.


Melee synergises well with all buffs, auras, and damage overlapping from a clustered mobile centre
If you stack up on a central train location (warband leader) all buffs and offensive debuffs cleave out from that central location. This means you'll always get maximum effectiveness, as long as people stick with the marker. The nature of ranged mechanics means they'll often be spaghettied or at distance - buffs/debuffs might not properly land or take a higher level of capability to apply effectively.


Many Ranged AOEs don't stack (mostly GTAOE - equivalent to melee 360 PBAOE)
IDK why this is - definitely something that's come up a few times recently in the Discord. It's hard to bring anything to the table in a Warband in terms of effectiveness when you're at best a token class since it's better to stack up AOE damage that can stack, instead of AOE damage that can't. A large part of the kill skew will be down to this - for every 1 sorc, you might have 2-3 more choppas (BW:Lions, pick your poison). It's more effective for the warband and that's reflected in the numbers.


Bulk
Bulk is an important and often unknown factor in RvR combat - the mere presence of players in a location can change the pace or direction of a battle. What I mean by this is have you seen how X faction runs away when there's a whole bunch of players running at them? Melee has both the battlefield presence, and the bulk (resistances, EHP, etc.) to push the fight around - ranged doesn't. This is a huge factor in battlefield and fight flow and control.

Awesome read, which I agree on in every aspect. Didn't expect such a nice depiction of key factors in RvR. Analyzed in a neutral way and well presented.

[juzziex]

Slayers are still on the monthly leaderboard when vast majority of other classes are not. They were also topping leaderboards month after month since the thing got introduced and would have been doing so since the beginning of T4 existence on the server 10 or whatever years ago.

Mara still not on the leaderboard. Never ever see WB player engi/sh/sw/magus on leaderboards EVER and lousy ass slayer players gonna ask for a buff? LOL. If anything keep nerfing that class and buff others thanks. Fix this 15 year old stale meta.

[akisnaakkeli]

I really hope current Cone of fire issues are not a feature but HUGE bug. You literally cannot do pbaoe behind ur own back, dont have to be anything in the way i mean it playes very badly. Espesially on melee channels! Enemy can break ur 3s cast if he just walks a bit to the right or left.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZYzFg40b7Uw WAR PvP: SURPRISE!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=37l1M_4Hkho WAR: Rain of fire

Imo Pbaoe like RoF/Pos etc should stack but only 2 highest will deal dmg , same with napalm/mist etc. Do this to Aoe Melee channels as well like Whirling axe/Retribution/Bring it on.

the 9 ae cap is so needed for this to work with Pbaoe channels should work like in those videos. Cone of Fire is for when im kiting with my SH using run an shoot and if i make mistake against WH so he can snare me with throw axe because im at flank/behind of him. Kiting right im facing him the whole time and thats why snare from WH dont work when kited proper.

In melee combat this "Outside cone of fire" has never been a thing. Its a thing if i kite on any range and cone of fire message appears it means hes behind me or at side of me and with strafing i can "face him again" and using run an shoot but he cant snare me. All melee channels are super broken atm, and sometimes Animation happens, gcd happens cooldown happens but the skill itself doesnt happen? I think this is because of hard 1.5s GCD.

It definetely aint supposed to work like its working atm.