White Lion Changes (8/25/2018)

[facundo7777]

4 things.

1) its sad to have "mirrors" it was unique in this game that both factions dont have same classes.

2) the worst thing is that we cant focus on pet playstyle while we choose petbased class

3) knockdown shouldn't required pet after the changes

4) coordinated strike should be in hunter tree instead of axeman

[catholicism198]

The problem is that Guardian was broken. You know it, I know it. Why would we want to bring it back as it was?

Also, you're not going to isolate Hunter from Axeman when you can dip into both trees and have no limiter, and you're forgoing the debuff part of Marauder to recreate Mythic's fault, which is multiple trees based on dealing damage with mixed skills all over the place.

But guardian was “broken” because of its survivability. It’s damage is not much different from the hunter/axe build. That’s why I was saying you can link the pet’s strength and weaponskill to our strength from gear and tune the numbers as you see fit. That way, we no longer stack toughness and wounds for damage returns. The playstyle or damage was never broken, it was the ratio of damage to defenses that people hated so much.

As for picking things from other trees, I loved what you guys did with the melee squig herder. Everything mandatory was simply in one tree. This led to three separate playstyles available for the squig herder. If it’s a points allocation issue, you can simply add mandatory things we use in guardian that are currently core, and simply put it in the tree so we’re forced to spec it.

The difference with the Squig Herder and the White Lion is that everything in the Bouncing is specifically tied to Squig Armor and nothing outside of the mastery works in squig armor. It is a completely isolated mastery with zero synergy- so you have no choice but to invest in all of it.

You keep talking about how Guardian was a 1v1 mastery, but everyone knows it was more of a +2v1 than anything else. First you had to kill the pet, then you'd had to kill the player- but by then the player would already 50ft away. It was a complete joke.

As for getting rid of the pet all together...I would hate to see it go, but pets don't work in orvr- this includes the Magus/Engineer/Squig Herder. They all die so quickly and you lose an important, sometimes game changing, buff.

The only way I see the pet working in orvr is if the pet gets very high defense against magic and melee, but only while in Hunter's Craft with the more points you spend in Path of The Hunter and acts as more of a debuffer than a damage dealer. Debuffs like Terrifying Roar, and a Tainted Claw and Drain Draining Swipe mirror- with Draining Swipe being an 5 point ability that is added to you pet ability bar. Shred would obviously be replaced since the player can debuff armor and the pet wouldn't deal high damage; damage would be similar to a Marauder, but not quite as high since the pet's GCD is independent of the player. -Axeman and Woodsman could still use the pet, but it wouldn't have the same survivability. Coordinate Strike would be the only issue.

[qwerty113]

Its seems like everybody who says 'its ok', 'lets try it' are all destro. Finally you got what you want, nerf main wl's advantage - burst damage(kill pet and wl will lsto it). Wl has the only thing that he have its burst, no any kind of buff's debuff's like mara have. Destro can only whine,whine,whine..Mirroring classes its wrong way for a game, unique classes that what had make this game special.

[Foomy44]

Its seems like everybody who says 'its ok', 'lets try it' are all destro. Finally you got what you want, nerf main wl's advantage - burst damage(kill pet and wl will lsto it). Wl has the only thing that he have its burst, no any kind of buff's debuff's like mara have. Destro can only whine,whine,whine..Mirroring classes its wrong way for a game, unique classes that what had make this game special.

And seems like everyone that thinks all you need to do to win vs a WL is kill their pet only plays order.

[Aurandilaz]

Its seems like everybody who says 'its ok', 'lets try it' are all destro. Finally you got what you want, nerf main wl's advantage - burst damage(kill pet and wl will lsto it). Wl has the only thing that he have its burst, no any kind of buff's debuff's like mara have. Destro can only whine,whine,whine..Mirroring classes its wrong way for a game, unique classes that what had make this game special.

WL has;
inc healdebuff
wounds debuff
armor debuff
Init debuff
AoE Interrupt
AoE Knockdown
AoE Morale drain
ST KD
Pounce
Build time increaser (unless I remember wrong some tooltip)

Obviously all cannot be reach at same time, and there will be some tweaking required in future, but it's a work in progress.
I'm probably forgetting a lot stuff the pet has, like Fetch, pet Silence, pet armor debuff, pet snares...

[Mausini]

Thats my idea:
Change the Lion to a "Spiritual Follower". A ghost Lion that is always on the side of the character and make him invulnerable to any damage.
Strip off any auto attack or pet attack damage and only use him as a a tool for skill based attack animation like "Echoing Roar". Put the damage of the pet on top of the base skills.

Like this you keep the lion thematically and don't need to redo all pet based skills.

- Fetch could be a channel like the mirror skill but you send the pet while channeling.
- Brutal Pounce and Throat Bite is a fast hop forward from the "Spirit Lion". You can even add some range to it as a unique mechanic.
- Coordinated Strike could do mixed damage . Physical from you and spirit damage from the spirit lion.
- Leonine Frenzy could be extra damage on the characters attacks. Again even with the possibility to deal spiritual damage in combination with a tiny spirit resi debuff or something to spice things up.
- Echoing Roar simply uses the Lion right next to you as a second point for initiating the AOE... and so on.

I love the Idea to have a melee dsp with some sort of mixed damage component. Would be cool for small scale play too,some synergies with SM, Kotbs and AM.

But its late here and maybe the idea is total bullshit...

Good night guys and thanks for your effort dear RoR team.

P.S. Another stupid idea:
If you make some skills available for 2 stances they could do different secondary effects in different stances. Leonine Frenzy could do a spirit resi debuff in woodman but a armor debuff in Axeman (just a example)
Like that you would need to plan your rotations according to your spec. When to change stance, before or after firing LF.

[qwerty113]

Its seems like everybody who says 'its ok', 'lets try it' are all destro. Finally you got what you want, nerf main wl's advantage - burst damage(kill pet and wl will lsto it). Wl has the only thing that he have its burst, no any kind of buff's debuff's like mara have. Destro can only whine,whine,whine..Mirroring classes its wrong way for a game, unique classes that what had make this game special.

WL has;
inc healdebuff
wounds debuff
armor debuff
Init debuff
AoE Interrupt
AoE Knockdown
AoE Morale drain
ST KD
Pounce
Build time increaser (unless I remember wrong some tooltip)

Obviously all cannot be reach at same time, and there will be some tweaking required in future, but it's a work in progress.
I'm probably forgetting a lot stuff the pet has, like Fetch, pet Silence, pet armor debuff, pet snares...

I agree with take time for new changes, but this mirroring its not what we need. Classes must be unique

[Aurandilaz]

Its seems like everybody who says 'its ok', 'lets try it' are all destro. Finally you got what you want, nerf main wl's advantage - burst damage(kill pet and wl will lsto it). Wl has the only thing that he have its burst, no any kind of buff's debuff's like mara have. Destro can only whine,whine,whine..Mirroring classes its wrong way for a game, unique classes that what had make this game special.

WL has;
inc healdebuff
wounds debuff
armor debuff
Init debuff
AoE Interrupt
AoE Knockdown
AoE Morale drain
ST KD
Pounce
Build time increaser (unless I remember wrong some tooltip)

Obviously all cannot be reach at same time, and there will be some tweaking required in future, but it's a work in progress.
I'm probably forgetting a lot stuff the pet has, like Fetch, pet Silence, pet armor debuff, pet snares...

I agree with take time for new changes, but this mirroring its not what we need. Classes must be unique

So what would that "unique" entail, godmode in 1v1, extremely potent in 1v3 "Le Balanced Guardian" - meh "focus the pet and watch it explode" in 6man fights - trashtier in warbands with "explode within 2 GCDs in storm of AoE".
You want to retain the good things of dominating smallscale - yet apparently portion of current WL playerbase don't care if their class has nothing to do with endgame warband activities and pushing the campaign in largescale fights, as long as they get to retain their "unique" lifestyle of dominating soloers and ganking smaller parties with absurd levels of burst and a tanky pet (which however becomes a free anchor for AoE spells in largescale or a source of free leechheals for any dps healer).

Which then leads to questions like "why doesn't Order have a melee frontline" when considerable portion of their melee classes (namely WL) just don't do much in WB and the players themselves know they can do fine alone outside warbands going for 1v1 fights - and how do you balance largescale when you lack said frontline.
And how do you achieve "balance" between 6 melee classes when one of them has to retain their snowflake status "look at me, my pet is doing the melee for me" - whilst others are not assisted by a somewhat buggy teleporting pocket-dmg-assistant.


I enjoyed my "balanced" Guardian WL spec as long as it lasted, many good 1v1, 1v2 and 1v3 fight were enjoyable to me, less so to my enemies - now I just wait and see how the next form of ST gank spec looks like or maybe it's time to play for warband utility purposes and help the realm.

[catholicism198]

Its seems like everybody who says 'its ok', 'lets try it' are all destro. Finally you got what you want, nerf main wl's advantage - burst damage(kill pet and wl will lsto it). Wl has the only thing that he have its burst, no any kind of buff's debuff's like mara have. Destro can only whine,whine,whine..Mirroring classes its wrong way for a game, unique classes that what had make this game special.

WL has;
inc healdebuff
wounds debuff
armor debuff
Init debuff
AoE Interrupt
AoE Knockdown
AoE Morale drain
ST KD
Pounce
Build time increaser (unless I remember wrong some tooltip)

Obviously all cannot be reach at same time, and there will be some tweaking required in future, but it's a work in progress.
I'm probably forgetting a lot stuff the pet has, like Fetch, pet Silence, pet armor debuff, pet snares...

I agree with take time for new changes, but this mirroring its not what we need. Classes must be unique

Classes should have some uniqueness, but for the most part they should be able to fill the same role and dish out similar damage as their counter part.
Stances were added to prevent the White Lion from having access to all the "goodies" at once.

People were complaining about Guardian spec, not White Lions in general. Even Azarael acknowledged how oped they were and, iirc, he plays order. Guardian had too much going for it. High burst, high survivability. WH/WE were supposed to be the assassin class, but the WL outperformed both.

[drmordread]

Played all day on the WL. It could work. "Could"

I hated it first thing in the morning, till I joined a WB. Definitely need a WB to keep the WL up, and even then, it is hard. So RvR can be an option. I am sub 60rr on it so I speced more tankiness, used one more toughness and one more armor talisman, and my WL can survive long enough in a WB to be useful... with dots and aoe.
With all the cuts to ST for survivability any chance of a decent burst is gone, baring any changes.

SC's... do not even bother unless you have a dedicated healer. Maybe in a few months, maybe, after destro players get out all their angst at WL's and no longer pile on the rabbit. But for now, it is open season on the WL.
One thing can change this and the above WB play. Give the WL the same (or close to the same) debuff to armor penetration and some sort of self healing like the mara.
After all, the point is to make the WL mirror the mara a lot more than it had.

I know the devs dont care, but I love 1v1, it is the only "Heroic Glory" there is. I found a way to make my WH viable as a ganker once more and get pretty good results. I will find a way to get my WL back to form too, and will find a way get some of that burst back. And IF I can do it, anyone can.
So... no point in crying and beating your head against a brick wall. The changes happened, and will be hopefully adjusted. In the mean time ... find a way with what is there.

TIP: I found this works really well. I bound all three stances to the mouse as I have for my SW;
<middle button click>
<shift+middle button>
<cntrl+middle button>

Once you can get the stance dance going (and this needs to be learned), you can really start doing some burst again. All I have to do is figure out a tactic set that will work with all 3 stances.