White Lion Changes (8/25/2018)

[Renork]

Tested extensively. Much less burst, practically no sustained damage, and next to no survivability. Our "CC" doesn't work. Without stalker, speed training doesn't really work. So fetching things on the run are next to impossible unless they stop. In purely quantitative terms, we do subpar damage compared to other mdps. Also switching stances with a 5 second cooldown virtually makes going into Hunter a 4 second "do nothing" period. Being as objective as I can be for someone that mains a White Lion, I feel the class is broken. Leveling other characters to keep up with the meta that is changing nowadays on a weekly basis...I just don't have it in me. This wasn't a Guardian nerf, it was a White Lion nerf. Hunter/Axeman performed much better before. Giving up for now. Take care all. Had a lot of fun!

You already said that before, plus not sure how 1 2 3 4 can be fun but I guess fun is subjective.

[oaliaen]

balance is more important than fun , try to adapt like every other classes player.

[soliticks]

balance is more important than fun , try to adapt like every other classes player.

There is a distinction you should try to make between something underperforming, something mid range, and something overperforming. Based on your comments, I feel you’re one of those people that are only capable of seeing things that are overperforming. But if you lack objectivity, you should be careful when throwing out words like “balance” (which is an extremely difficult thing to achieve in an mmorpg) so easily.

Here I'll try to give you an example. Let's say you are a Squig Herder. Every time you come across the old Guardian White Lion, your death rate is basically 100%. There is literally nothing you can do to possibly survive against a well-played one. So your conclusion is "Man this class is op as hell. I can't do anything to get away and they take next to no damage from me". So from then on, every single comment he hears about White Lions being op, he jumps on it with a passionate zealotry. But players like him are unable to see all the times when he is the best kiting class in the entire game. Even though when well-played, he is for all intents and purposes, untouchable to every other class in the game, he doesn't care about that at all. He's only able to see what one class has the capacity to do to him. A Sorc blows up nearly anybody in the game from 100% to 0 in a single rotation at full Dark Magic. With a strong melee line supporting him, he is an absolute juggernaut that decimates entire groups without a second thought. But for many Sorcs, they don't see all the times they annihilate everything in sight. They often only see the times when maybe a White Lion pounced back there and killed them before the healers and tanks could react. Him and the Squig Herder are kindred spirits. This is partially why people like you shouldn't throw around the word balance so easily. It's irresponsible and inaccurate.

At the end of the day, everyone wants their class to be able to do everything. Although it certainly couldn't do that, the old Guardian White Lion maybe came a little closer to it than some of the other classes due to its survivability. And even then, it wasn't doing more dmg than Slayers, WE's, Choppas, or most Rdps. But because of its solo capabilities, this was deemed "overpowered", or "imbalanced". But in its current state, the White Lion is under-performing compared to other classes in the same archetype. Guardian was not doing the damage of the classes above even before, but now, this new Hunter/Axeman is not even in the same ballpark. So slapping on your balance sticker and telling people to move on is pretty indicative of your biased and pond-deep perception of all aspects of the game.

[catholicism198]

Spoiler:

Personally not a fan of this whole pseudo-mara WL. I much rather preferred the idea of introducing beastmaster (wl mirror) to des and emp captain (mara) to order. That way you are just introducing new options and not making anyone feel like their class is taken away from them (or rather changed into something totally different). WL, especially guardian specced one was always good at bullying squishies (check Avellett's vid from 2010 if you dont believe) and sucked at larger scale.

I never cared about how WL performs in WB's. Rather it filled the niche role of being perfect for 1-3 man roaming while hunter- axeman was decent for 1fg play. Also I very much liked microing the pet and its abilities. Ofc you could blow up squishies pressing 123 but trying to play the class on its full potential was actually really fun and more challenging than any other class ive played in this game. Not saying guardian wasnt OP or anything… it was for sure and I have no idea what would have been best way of nerfing guardian. I believe it was Torque who had nice outside-the-box thinking nerfs on guardian initially (putting LF in M4 spot and later changed pet str stat gain from wounds to toughness) although end result was still too OP.

If I was in charge I would revert the latest change and probably have guardian spec WL's pet gain stats on str but reduce stat gain ratios so the end result would be squishier WL and pet that hits less hard but is still useful and WL would still very much be gimped if pet dies... like it has been since forever. Also I would have been nerfing heal tactic (Aza did this in the last patch which was definitely good change imo) and armor/disrupt tactic. Thats my vision for the class anyway... yours is probably different.

Harassing is different from killing someone before they recover from a stun.

You also cannot use live as something to support your argument because live had a massive gear and renown gap.

[Sgttimmen]

I have tested, and its just not a WL. Stances, mara like but without the surv is a bad choice. You can do better than this for balancing stuff, its just a poorly executed nerf to ONE spec that killed all 3. There has been a number of good suggestions in this and other threads. I just cant get what you were trying to achieve here.

[Spacecraft]

I know its the 1st day but the class is not fun to play anymore. At least thereare 9 other classes but im shelfing my wl till i see somethimg i like. This strange you take a class to rr60 + then its completely re worked kinda frustrating. I would like to hear fromm more wl what they think, let everyone comment. Not just salty des what are high fiveing right now.

[Slmjmosumb]

Would much rather have Hunter/Axeman returned to like previous and remove Guardian for anything. Sucks that Guard getting hammered also destroyed balanced Hunt/Axe build. If I wanted to stance dance I would have played a Mara or SW. I played a WL to not have to stance dance.
Let's just make all tanks have to twist now...after all, Chosen and Knights have been doing it forever too.

[Bregon]

I think many people are blinded by their hatred of the class that they don't care if the class dies, many comments rolling all specs of wl into one when all that needed corrected was guardian build. Overwhelmingly negative views from majority of the wl player base about how the class plays now, as many in game point out just all bad players right.

[vanbuinen77]

A well deserved nerf.

[sogeou]

I think most of the WL are being a bit dramatic. I ran dps test on my WL with a weak bonus damage of 160, RR 65 I was able to keep up almost 2k damage until AP ran out using a new build I was testing for about 15 seconds.

As an example, a WE in light armor and much worse survivability does about 1700-2000 on the same test mobs in 15 seconds.

So, it might be a huge nerf from before where WL's were doing 6k damage in 1-2 seconds. But, they are currently in the DPS place they should be. 2nd tier DPS as they have a higher HP pool and can spam aoe detaunt along with a sprint to get away.