Broken WB Balance

[Karast]

This topic will definitely stir up opinions but the situation is to the point where it has to be brought up.

As one of the most active, and experienced order WB leaders I have to say this,

Right now WB balance heavily favors destro. It has gotten to point where there is no real competition when it comes to AoE WBs, and that a 2-3 WB destro blob is almost untouchable by order. This is evident by destro taking keeps with AAO, ridiculous zone kill counts, and the sheer inability for order WB's to go toe to toe no matter their comp.

As it stands there are two glaring imbalances that give destro the upper hand.

1. Crushing Blows tactic for Mara. There is no effective counter or mirror. This tactic alone keeps order warbands off morale, and effectively removes order morale bombs from the game. 1-2 Mara is enough to continually drain and prevent any AoE WB on order from build effective morales. It's mirror tactic on WH has a positional requirement, on a class that was recently stripped of its AoE. It was briefly mirrored to WL but was then also removed. It needs to be mirrored properly to WL, or removed.

As long as this tactic remains destro only, there is very little order can do since AoE WB fights, and zerg fighting depend on morale bombs, and order can't play that game.

2. Winds of Insanity ability for Zealot. There is no effective counter for this undefendable immunity ignoring AoE punt. Right now the zealot punt is game breaking since it not only ignores immunities, but is also undefendable and hits through walls. All it takes is 1 punt zealot on a postern door, near an entrance to a keep, or in a tight area to effectively lock down and shut down an order WB. You can't FF down 3-4 zealots, especially when they are funneled up inside a keep. It needs to be removed, or fixed so that it is no longer undefendable, and so that it doesn't ignore immunities.

As long as zealot punt remains order cannot effectively push or break desto funnels, and destro can easily abuse it to lock order players down. With Fortresses now a part of the game, destro have a massive defensive advantage.

AoE WB's are fundamentally broken around these two points and heavily favor destro. Order WB's and WB leaders know it. Destro WB's and WB leaders know it. These two abilities get brought up again and again.

They need to be addressed for the health of WB balance.

Not everything needs to be the same. I personally don't think perfect balance will ever exists, and there will always be a "grass is always greener" mentality, but there two examples are game breaking. They go beyond anything else and fundamentally skew the balance in destro's favor.

[shaggyboomboom]

CNTK struggles, while TUP on order does not.

Must be heavily destro biased balancing.

[wonshot]

So did anything change last half year, sounds awefully familiar of what was to be adressed on that priority list that seemed too good to be true.

But hey, atleast there is new gear, pve and more players to help you forget about the essence of the game, untill forts are out and they are forced to face the situation. Players realize their singletarget specs are doing nothing useful(in the largescale), their class might not have a funtional role for this content, or simply is not wanted because its underperforming and not only that, but they are taking up a spot in these limmited-number fort battles.

Either that, or they are faced with the fact they have been pugging, zerging and putting in minimal effort for so long that they have little to no chance to compete with the organized groups.

I hope to see warband viable specs for more classes to shake up the meta, bring new setups, strategies and replayability to the game, that is not just stats on new gear. But maybe that is just the dream in the retirement home.

[Karast]

CNTK struggles, while TUP on order does not.

Must be heavily destro biased balancing.

TUP doesn't player order. They haven't since the morale changes. They have no reason to.

You know perfectly well what the situation is Shaggy. You know perfectly well how imbalanced zealot punt and the mara morale drain are.

That's why you don't talk about them and pointlessly try to flame it.

[Karast]

So did anything change last half year, sounds awefully familiar of what was to be adressed on that priority list that seemed too good to be true.

But hey, atleast there is new gear, pve and more players to help you forget about the essence of the game, untill forts are out and they are forced to face the situation. Players realize their singletarget specs are doing nothing useful(in the largescale), their class might not have a funtional role for this content, or simply is not wanted because its underperforming and not only that, but they are taking up a spot in these limmited-number fort battles.

Either that, or they are faced with the fact they have been pugging, zerging and putting in minimal effort for so long that they have little to no chance to compete with the organized groups.

I hope to see warband viable specs for more classes to shake up the meta, bring new setups, strategies and replayability to the game, that is not just stats on new gear. But maybe that is just the dream in the retirement home.

That's the reason to bring it up. Fortresses really bring it front and center now, you can't get around it. It's slowly kill the enjoyment of the game for a lot of people, or pushing them to swap factions to play the play style they want.

[Karast]

Also to any who claims this is a "skill" or "L2P" issue.

Make an order WB warband, and go toe to toe with the destro AoE WBs. Go toe to toe with the prime time zerg, and show proof that you have counters, show proof that you can do it.

There is no proof. There is no counter. We have tried it, others have tried it. Some of you yourselves have too. You know there is no functional counter. You know it damn well. At least be honest about it.

[ragafury]

<:-D

*cough* Infernal Wave *cough*

[Karast]

<:-D

*cough* Infernal Wave *cough*

You've commented on these before Raga. Not going to add anything else?

You guys have run order wbs in the past. You run destro now and you sure as hell make use of both. I remember a light hearted comment after the morale changes about your next order WB being 2022. Are you really happy with this balance situation?

With the exception of the few fights our assist train catches you in a bad place are you even remotely pressured by anything under 3-4 WB on your own?

[ragafury]

I don't think the zealot 13 pointer is an issue by its own, but im also not stating dps rp 13 pointer is in any form desirable.

I don't think mara drain is an issue by its own, i also wouldn't mind seeing it mirrored.
For the purpose of rvr, or more like blobfighting it barely matters. I'm playin mara currently when I'm not on bo.
Mara tactics you run for wiping blobs are:
Brute force, feeding on fear, arm pen, 50% crit dmg.
For 24 v 24 we would go mdrain, and the even more gamechanging ap drain from left tree.

The most urgent issue for rvr balance or why destro has a bigger powerplay in blob warfare are sorcs, there cd shortener tactic, and the interaction with cd reduce.
We played with our order wb vs destro in rvr with that state of balance, with a non min mixed setup and the pug blobs still melt with a bw train.
Thats mostly caused by the secret formula:
Bomb on one spot, stick compact, the bw heavy setup and wam leading.

After that shatter got mirrored, huge buff.
Both in conjunction seemed very unnecessary (the bug, its 6 months or more now on the tracker).

The game has balancewise for rvr very drastic changes behind it.

Mostly:
Pointless mirroring
Pointless buffing
Pointless or wrong aimed nerfing (ff as an example)
Removing stuff without implementing the solution
Changing morales (cementing bw and sorc even more)
Stating not all classes need to be wb material
Ununifying skilltrees (15 pointers, tactics which argumwnt skillable abilties, moving m4s to core)

And so on.

There is a lot of pointless stuff in the patchnotes and there is a lot of open stuff on the bugtracker.

Why we not play order has other reasons to be fair.
Numbers good enough to provide fights on the home realm, new blood, old blood changed classes, order wb fairly unbalanced setup wise (rerolls required for deepth, maybe next 2x exp)

Ofc balance is also an issue, but mainly because every class which isnt kotbs, sm, bw, wp or rp is already questionable if not trash and most changes cemented bw even more as the order king of bombing.

So all in all, I partially agree with your core statement (balance is off), but as you can see, my points are not the 13 pointer nor the drain, rather non fixed bugs and a lack of an overarching concept.

[kmark101]

I stopped playing the game due to those 2 abilities and retarded imbalance (3rd one was melee SH's). Sad to see that nothing changed and game is still unplayable on organized warband level for order. Guess I'm not the only one.