White Lion Changes (8/25/2018)

[Sanao]

That took a turn.

No reason to derail the thread with this. Back to the regularly scheduled White Lion debates.

[adamthelc]

This digression is nonsense. No one said strength bypasses armor. The comment was made that witch elves have an advantage over white lions in practical PvP situations because of their ability to bypass armor with agonizing wound.

I'm not supporting that argument or refuting it, only restating it because of the nonsense that followed.

The concept of White Lions was fine, but it never really worked well in practice. Some of that was melee pets not really working well in mass PvP without making them too strong in other situations. Some of it is just the limits of the technology and not being able to micro manage a melee pet and play in melee in a mass encounter.

I think reducing the reliance on the pet is a step in the right direction though I have no idea how the changes are actually playing out in practice. But it's nice order has another AoE class that deals damage that isnt heavily mitigated by armor.

[soliticks]

You should consider looking in to what Agonizing Wound does.

Well sure, let's see...

Agonizing Wounds...it says here that it does 177 damage at a cost of 35 ap, 5 foot range, and it ignores armor if behind the target.

Now, Torment...177 damage at a cost of 35 ap, 5 foot range, and it ignores armor if behind the target.

That looks like it does the same thing. That's weird considering the amount of crying I'm seeing over witch elves while no one is mentioning witch hunters. Is Order trying to open up a salt mine? It looks that way.

Perhaps you should consider looking into what Torment does.

I'll explain to you why that is. First let's start with mechanics. A Witch Hunter must use a finisher to proc his blessings. A Witch Elf simply has to attack to proc his Kisses. You can imagine how often one will hit vs the other. Now let's look at the mechanics of the two. A Witch Hunter builds up accusations and spends them on finishers (such as Burn Away Lies). Now here is where the two become so different. While a Witch Hunter is forced to use finishers to proc his blessings, a Witch elf has no need to do that. So basically, a Witch elf never has to use a finishing ability if she doesn't want to. This is where the two classes diverge so heavily. Most Witch Elves slot a tactic that gives them extra crit chance with the amount of Blood Lust they have. Since they don't need to ever use a finishing move, they are able to literally use Pierce Armor (100% armor pen), and then spam Agonizing Wound forever (100% armor pen). Do you see the difference now? Witch Elves are rewarded for spamming an ability that does the highest possible damage per gcd. Now let's compare that to the Witch Hunter. Let's say they have a standard build with Burn Away Lies. The Witch Hunter finishers are mitigated by armor. So unless you are on a squishy target, it is a huge dps loss vs simply spamming Agonizing Wound. Allowing this kind of gameplay for Witch Elves opens up their viable targets to just about ANYTHING except sword and board toughness build tanks. This is why Witch Elves will often double the damage of everyone else in the group with a vast majority of the killing blows in any typical scenario. Compare the killing potential of somebody like Slaa (Witch Elf) vs another good Witch Hunter (Nadril). It's incomparable. Since nearly anything is a viable kill target for a Witch Elf, they scale with a Guard much more efficiently than the target-limited Witch Hunter.

But let’s stick to the subject please.

[Ummagumma]

You should consider looking in to what Agonizing Wound does.

Well sure, let's see...

Agonizing Wounds...it says here that it does 177 damage at a cost of 35 ap, 5 foot range, and it ignores armor if behind the target.

Now, Torment...177 damage at a cost of 35 ap, 5 foot range, and it ignores armor if behind the target.

That looks like it does the same thing. That's weird considering the amount of crying I'm seeing over witch elves while no one is mentioning witch hunters. Is Order trying to open up a salt mine? It looks that way.

Perhaps you should consider looking into what Torment does.

I'll explain to you why that is. First let's start with mechanics. A Witch Hunter must use a finisher to proc his blessings. A Witch Elf simply has to attack to proc his Kisses. You can imagine how often one will hit vs the other. Now let's look at the mechanics of the two. A Witch Hunter builds up accusations and spends them on finishers (such as Burn Away Lies). Now here is where the two become so different. While a Witch Hunter is forced to use finishers to proc his blessings, a Witch elf has no need to do that. So basically, a Witch elf never has to use a finishing ability if she doesn't want to. This is where the two classes diverge so heavily. Most Witch Elves slot a tactic that gives them extra crit chance with the amount of Blood Lust they have. Since they don't need to ever use a finishing move, they are able to literally use Pierce Armor (100% armor pen), and then spam Agonizing Wound forever (100% armor pen). Do you see the difference now? Witch Elves are rewarded for spamming an ability that does the highest possible damage per gcd. Now let's compare that to the Witch Hunter. Let's say they have a standard build with Burn Away Lies. The Witch Hunter finishers are mitigated by armor. So unless you are on a squishy target, it is a huge dps loss vs simply spamming Agonizing Wound. Allowing this kind of gameplay for Witch Elves opens up their viable targets to just about ANYTHING except sword and board toughness build tanks. This is why Witch Elves will often double the damage of everyone else in the group with a vast majority of the killing blows in any typical scenario. Compare the killing potential of somebody like Slaa (Witch Elf) vs another good Witch Hunter (Nadril). It's incomparable. Since nearly anything is a viable kill target for a Witch Elf, they scale with a Guard much more efficiently than the target-limited Witch Hunter.

Since you have explained this, let's call it fiction and be honest with ourselves, let me explain the truth.

So, by blessing you mean bullets and kisses, yeah? So, you think that bullets only fire on 5 accusation? Your post seems to imply this and, I must say, this just isn't correct. Bullets fire 100% of the time on all targets of a finisher for Witch Hunters. Kisses on the other hand only fire 25% of the time, but since they do NOT ignore global cooldowns, they don't fire a true 25% of the time.

I can see you are confused by this so let me bring my friend math into this.

Let's take 8 attacks by a Witch Elf. Let's split those up over 5 attacks in one global cooldown and 3 in another. Those 5 in the first bit will only proc once. I know, it doesn't seem fair, does it? But it's true. Then, regardless of whether or not they proced in the first global cooldown, they only have 3 chances in the next bit.

Bullets also do double the damage of kisses per proc. Did I mention that? I probably should since it feels relevant to you crying about how overpowered kisses are.

Fun fact: Most Witch Elves slot Frenzied Mayhem for the better chance to crit because their finishers are poop. If Witch Elves had access to Burn Away Lies...well you'd be here whining about it with many other Order players I'm sure, but Witch Elves would use that finisher all the time, just like Witch Hunters.

If spamming Agonizing Wounds is so powerful, why don't Witch Hunters just Abso spam? You know, Torment, Absolution...repeat. Why do Witch Hunters seem to always use Burn Away Lies and Repel Blasphemy all the time? Just get in there and spam Torment.

Also, you realize Kisses don't do a ton of damage. I hope you do because you're making it seem like kisses just obliterate order which, ha, just isn't how the class runs.

So most of your post is saying how awesome Agonizing Wounds is, and ignores the fact that Witch Hunters can spam Torment while Burn Away Lies is ticking and do the same thing. Again, if you think Agonizing Wounds is so wonderful, use your version of it. It does the same thing. Promise.

And also remember, bullets do double the damage of kisses so over the course of a fight, you're likely doing the same damage. Unless you abso spam. Then you're doing more. Meanwhile Witch Hunters gain access to a baseline parry tactic which synergizes with riposte which synergizes with Repel Blasphemy for some nice defense.

I hope you can see the differences between the classes here.

[Ummagumma]

That took a turn.

No reason to derail the thread with this. Back to the regularly scheduled White Lion debates.

Oh right, white lions were discussing why stacking toughness and wounds to make them tanky AND do incredible damage at the same time wasn't overpowered. I think that's what's being discussed.

Also...white lions are medium armor wearers while witch elves and witch hunters are light armor so the latter should be doing more damage than the former.

[larsulu]

Hi guys, I just logged in and studied the White Lion changes a bit. This will not be a number crunch. It will be a few days before we can figure out how much damage all these changes equate to. But let's get the sad news out of the way: Guardian spec is gone.

Although Guardian wasn't viable for either 6v6 or warband play, it was undoubtedly one of the most powerful duel specs in the entire game. With that being said, try not to get too angry for the game being balanced around 1 v 1. At the end of the day, people are still people. Nobody likes being killed in a duel so completely. You'll notice that classes that excel in group play, such as the Slayer, Choppa, and Marauder are rarely called OP (at least proportionately to the Guardian White Lion). The reason? They don't necessarily kill people 1 v 1. It's time to accept that in their hearts of hearts, that's what people care about (despite the insincere blabber they regurgitate daily about "team-based play").

Now with that being said, let's take a look at what the White Lion has become as of today. I think a good place to start would be our three new stances. They are now called Hunter's Craft, Axeman's Craft, and Woodsman's Craft. The bonuses to them are similar to what you have become accustomed to. Hunter's Craft will give your lion the ability to debuff armor. Axeman's Craft will give you the familiar 5% crit chance bonus, and your lion gains the ability to "distract your enemies with its roar". I believe this means an interrupt on a 10 second cooldown (lot of potential here if timed correctly). Since it's basically a taunt, your pet gets a 30% damage boost, and even Sundering Axe is "improved" by it. Finally, we have Woodsman's Craft. For all intents and purposes, Woodsman is now our Guardian tree. This "stance" increases your toughness and grants your lion the ability to basically aoe and debuff enemy autoattack speeds. It's also worth noting that individual pet attacks (that are not the special attacks of the three stances) only exists in the Woodsman's stance (i.e. bite). I call these three "stances" because there are now certain abilities "tied" to these three buffs. This is partially what they mean by becoming "analogous" to Marauders.

Now to put it simply, the Woodsman (Guardian) tree reflects the Marauder's Monstrosity tree pretty closely. It is now our aoe tree for warband play. There are a few key differences though. For starters, it doesn't have the survivability that the Marauders have. When Marauders switch into their Monstrosity stance, they are basically immune to ALL armor penetration. This basically means that weaponskill means nothing to them. On top of that, their abilities used in this tree heals them. This is what makes Monstrosity Marauders so unbelievably tanky. White Lions do not get either of these. Instead, we get a tree that can "maybe" do more aoe damage. For starters, a tactic named Spirit Strike empowers ALL of our Woodsman abilities with spirit damage. Now whether this beats out the Marauder's passive 50% armor ignore tactic remains to be seen. In any case, the rest is pretty similar to Monstrosity: aoe damage, morale drain, interrupt, a cone knockdown...you get the idea. Basically think of it this way: Bouncin Squig Herders retain their roaming capabilities, Monstrosity Marauders retain their roaming capabilities, White Lions do not. You get the idea. That's called balance.

Now let's get into the really interesting stuff. I'm thinking you guys didn't roll, and continue to play, a White Lion because you wanted to join the zerg and do aoe dmg. So let's take a look at our traditional Hunter/Axeman build. To their credit, not much has been taken away. We did lose Primal Fury though. It is now core, but it no longer gives a flat 25% damage increase. Instead, you get 200 strength and toughness for 10 seconds on a 1 minute cooldown. Now let's look at what we did get. We now have the option of grabbing Thin the Herd as a viable choice. It is no longer an outgoing, but an incoming 50% heal debuff. BUT, both Thin the Herd and Pounce are respectively 13 point abilities in the Hunter and Axeman trees. So it is now basically a choice between the two. It can possibly be included in a 6v6 build though (where pounce isn't AS abused). The other two big things that Hunter/Axeman did receive was Brutal Pounce (knockdown) AND Leonine Frenzy. It is worth noting that we can't do much during the knockdown. Since our main burst abilities (Coordinated Strike and Cull the Weak) are locked into the Axeman stance dance, we have a 5 second lockout from switching to Hunter to use Brutal Pounce. 3 second knockdown vs 5 second stance lock. Sundering Chop spam is about it.

Here's the kicker: there has been no changes to our pet liability. They will still be targeted and killed (now in 1 second instead of 2 without Guardian toughness). So Brutal Pounce and Leonine Frenzy, the only two things that we got out of this, will be difficult to use against any group that knows what they're doing (or even just random aoe from a disrupt free magus and w/e else). Remember that pet guard that we didn't have enough points to spec into as Guardian? Protector of the Pack is now core. We now have the option of making our pet last 2 seconds longer, and half dying in the process (but this time, in full dps gear).

Conclusion: The changes are an overall disgrace to balance. While Savagery/Brutality Marauders still have the option of going defensive with Monstrosity stance to survive focus fire, Hunter/Axeman White Lions cannot. While Savagery/Brutality Marauders can run in a traditional melee train with a Guard and be at 100% effectiveness, White Lions still lose all their damage with the pet death that happens in the first two seconds of the confrontation. While Monstrosity Marauders still get to roam in their warband specs as unkillable, armor-penetration ignoring, self-healing machines, Woodsman White Lions are just as squishy as their Hunter/Axeman counterparts. While Savagery/Brutality Marauders have the option of stacking only strength due to their 50% armor ignore tactic, and having the option to stack their secondary stat defensively (initiative/toughness/armor), White Lions are still forced to stack Weaponskill as their secondary stat and becoming glass cannons. "Analogous" indeed.

mara monstro are not unkillable as you believe, either in 1v1 6v6 or wb. monstro is a proc on mara attacks, which is means if your attack get parried/blocked you dont have the armor/hot bonus.
with these changes WL isnt anymore a easymode class and now you need more " skill" to play it, like mara.
just wait before complaing about "nerf" or changes about WL. we will see in the future if is good or bad.
cheer

[soliticks]

That took a turn.

No reason to derail the thread with this. Back to the regularly scheduled White Lion debates.

Oh right, white lions were discussing why stacking toughness and wounds to make them tanky AND do incredible damage at the same time wasn't overpowered. I think that's what's being discussed.

Also...white lions are medium armor wearers while witch elves and witch hunters are light armor so the latter should be doing more damage than the former.

A few things:

Firstly, nobody here said Witch Elves were overpowered (although they are imo). But I never said that explicitly. That's just personal opinion. And this is not even the place to discuss such a topic. You're comparing Witch Elves and Witch Hunters as if they're hitting a target dummy with no armor for an extended period of time. I was under the impression we were discussing pvp. How long do either classes stay on a target in pvp? Maybe 5 seconds average? If that? You really want to compare the damage potential of Pierce Armor into Agonizing Wound spams to Torments into Burn Away Lies or Absolution on a wide variety of targets in a 5 second window? You also conveniently left out my point about the varying viability of targets for both classes. Any honest Witch elf that also plays a Witch Hunter at endgame will tell you the same. There is an undeniable damage discrepancy between the two classes. I mean...that's not even contested in the general public. You brought up Repel Blasphemy. Sure! It's a great 1 v 1 ability in a duel between two melees. In fact, I'm sure a Witch Hunter would win most of those duels against a Witch Elf because of it. But that's not really the point is it? In group play, it's incomparable to say...a 3 second knockdown on a 10 second cooldown (On your knees). Also, I think you may have misread my comment on Kisses. I was focusing on the fact that they allow the Witch Elf to abstain from using finishers at all. In terms of the sheer dmg output, it's not doing game-breaking damage by themselves for either side.

As far as your snide little comments on White Lions, try and actually read through the 9 pages of posts instead of looking for windows to thrust yourself into with your snooty remarks. You seem so keen on jumping out and flapping your little mouth to inflict the maximum amount of offense you can to others. Yet nearly none of those posts that people have posted here asks for Guardian back the way it was. In fact, nearly none of them do. Yet here you are, saying that this is the ongoing discussion in this post. If you take the time to read, most of the discussions are on the under-performing status of our current Hunter/Axeman build, or a way to bring back the Guardian "playstyle" without the defenses. You accused me of being fictional. Before you do so in the future, maybe check your own small-minded head first. You seem to be lost in your hatred.

[soliticks]

Hi guys, I just logged in and studied the White Lion changes a bit. This will not be a number crunch. It will be a few days before we can figure out how much damage all these changes equate to. But let's get the sad news out of the way: Guardian spec is gone.

Although Guardian wasn't viable for either 6v6 or warband play, it was undoubtedly one of the most powerful duel specs in the entire game. With that being said, try not to get too angry for the game being balanced around 1 v 1. At the end of the day, people are still people. Nobody likes being killed in a duel so completely. You'll notice that classes that excel in group play, such as the Slayer, Choppa, and Marauder are rarely called OP (at least proportionately to the Guardian White Lion). The reason? They don't necessarily kill people 1 v 1. It's time to accept that in their hearts of hearts, that's what people care about (despite the insincere blabber they regurgitate daily about "team-based play").

Now with that being said, let's take a look at what the White Lion has become as of today. I think a good place to start would be our three new stances. They are now called Hunter's Craft, Axeman's Craft, and Woodsman's Craft. The bonuses to them are similar to what you have become accustomed to. Hunter's Craft will give your lion the ability to debuff armor. Axeman's Craft will give you the familiar 5% crit chance bonus, and your lion gains the ability to "distract your enemies with its roar". I believe this means an interrupt on a 10 second cooldown (lot of potential here if timed correctly). Since it's basically a taunt, your pet gets a 30% damage boost, and even Sundering Axe is "improved" by it. Finally, we have Woodsman's Craft. For all intents and purposes, Woodsman is now our Guardian tree. This "stance" increases your toughness and grants your lion the ability to basically aoe and debuff enemy autoattack speeds. It's also worth noting that individual pet attacks (that are not the special attacks of the three stances) only exists in the Woodsman's stance (i.e. bite). I call these three "stances" because there are now certain abilities "tied" to these three buffs. This is partially what they mean by becoming "analogous" to Marauders.

Now to put it simply, the Woodsman (Guardian) tree reflects the Marauder's Monstrosity tree pretty closely. It is now our aoe tree for warband play. There are a few key differences though. For starters, it doesn't have the survivability that the Marauders have. When Marauders switch into their Monstrosity stance, they are basically immune to ALL armor penetration. This basically means that weaponskill means nothing to them. On top of that, their abilities used in this tree heals them. This is what makes Monstrosity Marauders so unbelievably tanky. White Lions do not get either of these. Instead, we get a tree that can "maybe" do more aoe damage. For starters, a tactic named Spirit Strike empowers ALL of our Woodsman abilities with spirit damage. Now whether this beats out the Marauder's passive 50% armor ignore tactic remains to be seen. In any case, the rest is pretty similar to Monstrosity: aoe damage, morale drain, interrupt, a cone knockdown...you get the idea. Basically think of it this way: Bouncin Squig Herders retain their roaming capabilities, Monstrosity Marauders retain their roaming capabilities, White Lions do not. You get the idea. That's called balance.

Now let's get into the really interesting stuff. I'm thinking you guys didn't roll, and continue to play, a White Lion because you wanted to join the zerg and do aoe dmg. So let's take a look at our traditional Hunter/Axeman build. To their credit, not much has been taken away. We did lose Primal Fury though. It is now core, but it no longer gives a flat 25% damage increase. Instead, you get 200 strength and toughness for 10 seconds on a 1 minute cooldown. Now let's look at what we did get. We now have the option of grabbing Thin the Herd as a viable choice. It is no longer an outgoing, but an incoming 50% heal debuff. BUT, both Thin the Herd and Pounce are respectively 13 point abilities in the Hunter and Axeman trees. So it is now basically a choice between the two. It can possibly be included in a 6v6 build though (where pounce isn't AS abused). The other two big things that Hunter/Axeman did receive was Brutal Pounce (knockdown) AND Leonine Frenzy. It is worth noting that we can't do much during the knockdown. Since our main burst abilities (Coordinated Strike and Cull the Weak) are locked into the Axeman stance dance, we have a 5 second lockout from switching to Hunter to use Brutal Pounce. 3 second knockdown vs 5 second stance lock. Sundering Chop spam is about it.

Here's the kicker: there has been no changes to our pet liability. They will still be targeted and killed (now in 1 second instead of 2 without Guardian toughness). So Brutal Pounce and Leonine Frenzy, the only two things that we got out of this, will be difficult to use against any group that knows what they're doing (or even just random aoe from a disrupt free magus and w/e else). Remember that pet guard that we didn't have enough points to spec into as Guardian? Protector of the Pack is now core. We now have the option of making our pet last 2 seconds longer, and half dying in the process (but this time, in full dps gear).

Conclusion: The changes are an overall disgrace to balance. While Savagery/Brutality Marauders still have the option of going defensive with Monstrosity stance to survive focus fire, Hunter/Axeman White Lions cannot. While Savagery/Brutality Marauders can run in a traditional melee train with a Guard and be at 100% effectiveness, White Lions still lose all their damage with the pet death that happens in the first two seconds of the confrontation. While Monstrosity Marauders still get to roam in their warband specs as unkillable, armor-penetration ignoring, self-healing machines, Woodsman White Lions are just as squishy as their Hunter/Axeman counterparts. While Savagery/Brutality Marauders have the option of stacking only strength due to their 50% armor ignore tactic, and having the option to stack their secondary stat defensively (initiative/toughness/armor), White Lions are still forced to stack Weaponskill as their secondary stat and becoming glass cannons. "Analogous" indeed.

mara monstro are not unkillable as you believe, either in 1v1 6v6 or wb. monstro is a proc on mara attacks, which is means if your attack get parried/blocked you dont have the armor/hot bonus.
with these changes WL isnt anymore a easymode class and now you need more " skill" to play it, like mara.
just wait before complaing about "nerf" or changes about WL. we will see in the future if is good or bad.
cheer

Hi there Decimo. I actually respect you as a player. But I'm not sure where you're going with this. Are you saying that because the proc on Monstrosity Marauder stance can be...parried that it's useless to have as a viable form of defense? See you in Discord.

[facundo7777]

its so sad as someone said earlier. I choose pet class without stances and i received stance class with "useless" pet.

Nerfing guardian was so simple. Just reduce character wounds and toughness for example by 15-20% while pet is active in trained to kill.

Now the only thing to "fix" this destroyed class is too create hunter more pet based spec and move there skills like coordinate strike. Make axeman more "loner" spec and let us use the knockdown as normal skill without pet requirements.

[Ridduk]

So many pussies on Destro....keep giving in to their whiny demands, ror team.