[WL vs Mara] NOT a flame thread but honest Discussion.

[th3gatekeeper]

Can we stop the SC vs RVR stuff. ALL your doing is derailing the thread. Thats the fast path to getting this locked. It looks like there is actually some constructive discussion going on here, take the SC vs RVR balance focus to another place to continue. Thanks!

[peterthepan3]

Every damn scenario is 12v12. Non existant huh?

Name one 12-man premade in the game. All those 12-man "groups" you see in SCs are pugs. And I believe the first rule in balance is "no balance around PUGs"...

The only premades you see in SCs are 6-man groups.

Pretty much this. As much as competitive 12v12 would be cool, it's just not a thing, and 99.99% of the time it is imbalanced as there is either: a) one premade on one side vs 2 pug groups; b) one premade on both sides, but one side has a good second group/comp while the other side has 5 DPS Ams and a level 32 IB with Focused Offence as their second group. Can't balance around that, in all honesty.

Sorry gatekeeper, shall refrain from posting.

[crisinel]

I feel the pet is too tough except for a full guardian build, I think mara trees need to be rejigged to cause investment in character as opposed to getting everything available as low hanging fruit.

My biggest problem with WL and its pet is, that with the current play style of most WLs, the pet is too powerful with a low risk high reward. All you have to do is run away and let the pet fight.
IMHO fleeing a fight should not be rewarded. The pet spec is ok but the WL itself has to be involved in the fight.

My proposal: let the pet do less dmg with higher distance from the WL
get in the fight and fight with a powerful pet
bail out and you are left with just the utility from the pet

[Penril]

Can we stop the SC vs RVR stuff. ALL your doing is derailing the thread. Thats the fast path to getting this locked. It looks like there is actually some constructive discussion going on here, take the SC vs RVR balance focus to another place to continue. Thanks!

Even though this thread is in General Discussion, it is still a Balance Discussion. I believe it should at least follow the balance discussion rules. I am no moderator though, so If I am wrong I'm sure a Mod will tell me, and at that point I will stop posting. But for now, I think you guys should discuss these classes (Mara/WL) from a premade perspective. And premades in this game are either 6-man or 24-man groups.

[Aurandilaz]

Yeah, you can point to the fact that "no balancing arguments on anything less than 6v6", sure that's a valid argument.
However IMO a solid counter-argument is that most Order premades seem to be running with a WL and most of Destro don't even bother assembling a 6man these days.
Now the reasons behind this state of affairs may be multiple, but maybe one contributing factor is that a well-played WL with a premade backing them is just quite troublesome to deal with, and at some point people may realize assembling a proper "anti-Wl" party setup is just not worth the time and effort to counter the few Order premades running in the zone, when it's just easier to run with what you have and farm the pugs.

Maybe there is some "balance" and WL's are "fine", but maybe they are just a bit "too fine"?

let's face it, WL burst is top notch, I don't think any other mdps class can achieve same amount of dmg done in 4 seconds, which IMO is troublesome since WH is supposed to be the light armoured "high risk, high damage" mdps on Order side, or maybe I've understood something terribly wrong.

[zumos2]

]All you have to do is run away and let the pet fight.

big 1v1 argument

[roadkillrobin]

I'm not using any PuG argument Penril. I'm using a numbers argument.
If a WL does 300 dmg how much damage does 4 do? If a WP heals for 200 how much do 4 heals for? . And if that just keeps on increasing more and more you gonna come across unballanced scaling since HP pools doesn't scale the same way. Thats why something can seem ok on a smaller scale but if you increase it to 2:1 it can really easy turn into something compeltly different. Thats why you can't have 18 man, 12 man and 6 man instances wich basicly play the same game uset he same ballance scale.

As for WL and Mara. Have them both drop the Armor debuff and make WL AoE 's into spirit dmg, alternavly make Force Oppurunity into a up to 990 AoE Armor debuff. Don't have any sugestion for what to replace Mara Armor debuff with.

[th3gatekeeper]

Mara should lose Deadly Clutch. It makes 2 mara groups viable. Armor-debuff and wounds-debuff is nice, but a good heal debuff is more important. As it is a tactic in a tree, it needs a replacement. piercing bite might be a tactic worth 11 points, but it may destroy the versatility of possible mara-builds. What could be a good replacement for deadly clutch, that is now a core tactic?

As two WL are usually not considered a viable group setup, I think adjusting some skills/tactics might be enough. For example: Decrease the damage bonus from pack synergy to 30% and increase the damage from looner to 30%. You could also remove the speed proc from pounce again.

I feel the pet is too tough except for a full guardian build, I think mara trees need to be rejigged to cause investment in character as opposed to getting everything available as low hanging fruit.

NOW we are getting somewhere

So... Mara deadly clutch. Provides heal debuff - same as WL "Thin the heard".. However I dont see many WLs rocking this tree...

Armor Debuff + Wounds debuff + Heal debuff all in 1 tree. This is the problem I agree combined with a LOW "Guillotine" as well as Growing Instability + Mutated Aggressor.

I like Torq's idea: re-allocate the cost of the abilities.

Cutting Claw should be 13 points (swapped with Draining Swipe). Then...
Growing Instability moved to T3 (swapped with Unstable Convulsions)...

What this does - prevents a Mara from gaining ALL the goodies in Sav. as well as Brutality. Youll have to give up SOMETHING to get 50% more crit damage.

For WL... I dont know enough about the class to suggest changes... possibly a similar thing? Moving the armor debuff up the tree to 13 points? IDK.... The pet might be a good approach to WL... nerfing its "base" tankiness or something and increasing the viability/benefits of Guardian..

[anarchypark]

They both have melee role.
Mara stands near front line, adding number to melee line.
WL fails to add number in melee line because of pet and pounce.
If WL stay at front like Mara their pet would die.
WL is melee but they don't/can't stay in front line.
instead they have to hit & run.

there are bad WLs who act like rdps, using pounce only to overextend.
This maybe L2P issue, but bad Mara still fill melee role, bad WL do not.
requiring certain level of skill to fulfill archtype role is disadvantage IMO.

and
which one is easy to guard, Mara or WL ?

[freshour]

I saw two awesome ideas.

1. Make the pet squishier
2. Make the pet deal less damage when the WL is further away..

Why not do something like the pet takes an increased damage multiplier when further from the WL? That way the opponents have a fair chance at blowing up the pet if he sends it to the backline for a fetch?

I don't like to toot my own horn, but I guess a blind squirrel finds a nut every now and then? Do you guys think that may eliminate some of the pug rage while also upping the skill cap required to play the class well?