WL improvement iterations

[Aurandilaz]

Say, you have a typical AoE mara facing down a 2k armored target, some kind of clothie or a pug medium armour who forgot to use armor pot.
Mara plays in a proper warband where the victim gets armor debuffed by zealot, about 700-800?
Then mara runs a tactic ignoring half of the enemy armor.
Then you add in mara WS to ignoring whatever remains.

The mara dmg is very much higher than the current "trickle" coming out from a WL trying to AoE, even if its Spirit (the physical trickle would be far more meagre, as it would barely scratch tanks or +3k armor ppl with current lack of armor ignore tactic or high enough WS or whole realm lacking an AoE armor debuff).

You don't have double corp debuff on order, nor a double spirit debuff which would help all the High Elves, best you do is with -360 WoH from SM, something that is kinda easily countered by chosen resis aura or even shaman group resis buff - even with that debuff, the dmg is certainly a "trickle" - lot of 100-200 dots or less on your screen, little to no burst, either you have enough WLs and other actually heavy dmg doing dps doing the actual AoE dmg.
Sure, mara isn't the "main" dps on Destro, that would be Sorcs. Choppas should also be far above them. Yet, maras are not as toothless as current form of AoE WL.
And the gap between "Destro main" dps, Sorcs and between Maras with their "acceptable" AoE output is not that wide, compared to the other "Master of AoE dps" - BW versus their kitten friends the mighty high elf warriors who, while being now quite nice in the utility front, just do very limited AoE output and have still severe AP issues.

Possible solutions;
have Woodsman spec convert all of your WS into Str. Assuming you have somewhere between 300-400 WS, and maybe 700-800 Str, it would free your need to run Brute Force + Str pot whenever hoping to dish out AoE dmg (which you do with Spirit anyway coz you lack the armor ignore and WS is anyway very low to matter much).
Even with 50% of WS converted into Str, it should free that tactic slot (say 300 WS converted into 150 Str), should be enough to not need Brute Force in AoE spec.

Or something like giving dps Runie some way to hand out a 100-200 Spirit debuff based on a tactic, so you get more than 360 Spirit debuffed and maybe boosts the WL spirit dmg output somewhat. (Blorc + dpsZ combo vs SM + dpsRP combo?)


WL is getting better as option for WB, but its current form is still a questionable pick, you might get 1-2 to debuff enemy, but with recent changes to morales being barely there, you probably just don't have similar need for the AoE moral drain option. One or two should be enough to get that AoE KD and Init debuff, apart from that picking too many WLs just risks lowering the warbands dmg output by too much.

[lefze]

Say, you have a typical AoE mara facing down a 2k armored target, some kind of clothie or a pug medium armour who forgot to use armor pot.
Mara plays in a proper warband where the victim gets armor debuffed by zealot, about 700-800?
Then mara runs a tactic ignoring half of the enemy armor.
Then you add in mara WS to ignoring whatever remains.

The mara dmg is very much higher than the current "trickle" coming out from a WL trying to AoE, even if its Spirit (the physical trickle would be far more meagre, as it would barely scratch tanks or +3k armor ppl with current lack of armor ignore tactic or high enough WS or whole realm lacking an AoE armor debuff).

You don't have double corp debuff on order, nor a double spirit debuff which would help all the High Elves, best you do is with -360 WoH from SM, something that is kinda easily countered by chosen resis aura or even shaman group resis buff - even with that debuff, the dmg is certainly a "trickle" - lot of 100-200 dots or less on your screen, little to no burst, either you have enough WLs and other actually heavy dmg doing dps doing the actual AoE dmg.
Sure, mara isn't the "main" dps on Destro, that would be Sorcs. Choppas should also be far above them. Yet, maras are not as toothless as current form of AoE WL.
And the gap between "Destro main" dps, Sorcs and between Maras with their "acceptable" AoE output is not that wide, compared to the other "Master of AoE dps" - BW versus their kitten friends the mighty high elf warriors who, while being now quite nice in the utility front, just do very limited AoE output and have still severe AP issues.

Possible solutions;
have Woodsman spec convert all of your WS into Str. Assuming you have somewhere between 300-400 WS, and maybe 700-800 Str, it would free your need to run Brute Force + Str pot whenever hoping to dish out AoE dmg (which you do with Spirit anyway coz you lack the armor ignore and WS is anyway very low to matter much).
Even with 50% of WS converted into Str, it should free that tactic slot (say 300 WS converted into 150 Str), should be enough to not need Brute Force in AoE spec.

Or something like giving dps Runie some way to hand out a 100-200 Spirit debuff based on a tactic, so you get more than 360 Spirit debuffed and maybe boosts the WL spirit dmg output somewhat. (Blorc + dpsZ combo vs SM + dpsRP combo?)


WL is getting better as option for WB, but its current form is still a questionable pick, you might get 1-2 to debuff enemy, but with recent changes to morales being barely there, you probably just don't have similar need for the AoE moral drain option. One or two should be enough to get that AoE KD and Init debuff, apart from that picking too many WLs just risks lowering the warbands dmg output by too much.

I agree with 99% of what you said, but I detest stacking debuffs like that. I should probably have worded my post earlier to suggest either a flat Spirit resist bypass OR a % bypass, as a flat one is definetly an option, and preferable to another stacking debuff anyways. Order as a whole doesn't need to benefit from an attempt to fix WL.

[Fallenkezef]

Is the Mara in the destro wb for the damage or is he there for the toolbox utility?

If you want aoe damage on order you go BW or Slayer. I think the WL's "niche" if you will, would be better to have a toolbox approach like the mara.

[Azarael]

So I'm having a little trouble following the suggestions specfically aimed at the offense potential of WB spec.

What you're proposing, combined, would be:

- Woodsman's Craft converts damage out to Spirit
- Ethereal Transferral is reworked to be independent of Ethereal Cleave, with its effect causing attacks to bypass x% of Spirit Resistance.

Or am I misunderstanding?

I have to be wary of putting too much on Woodsman's Craft. Monstrosity causes you to gain defensive stats, namely armor penetration and the heal. If Woodsman's Craft starts granting you anti-crit AND Spirit damage AND a proc for damage, we're getting into skill overloading territory. The cleaner solution would be to make Woodsman attacks natively Spirit, convert Spirit Strike to x% bypass of Spirit Resistance or a tactic-based Spirit debuff from Woodsman skill attacks, have anti-crit on Woodsman's Craft as a proc on attack like Monstrosity's, and rethink Ethereal Transferral entirely. But that's just my thought.

[lefze]

So I'm having a little trouble following the suggestions specfically aimed at the offense potential of WB spec.

What you're proposing, combined, would be:

- Woodsman's Craft converts damage out to Spirit
- Ethereal Transferral is reworked to be independent of Ethereal Cleave, with its effect causing attacks to bypass x% of Spirit Resistance.

Or am I misunderstanding?

I have to be wary of putting too much on Woodsman's Craft. Monstrosity causes you to gain defensive stats, namely armor penetration and the heal. If Woodsman's Craft starts granting you anti-crit AND Spirit damage AND a proc for damage, we're getting into skill overloading territory. The cleaner solution would be to make Woodsman attacks natively Spirit, convert Spirit Strike to x% bypass of Spirit Resistance or a tactic-based Spirit debuff from Woodsman skill attacks, have anti-crit on Woodsman's Craft as a proc on attack like Monstrosity's, and rethink Ethereal Transferral entirely. But that's just my thought.

I would go for pure offense. Any defence is more or less wasted, to a point, in warband play.

Woodsman attacks made natively spirit, %/flat spirit bypass from Spirit Strike looks like the most sensible thing to do. Any anti crit would be overkill, gotta keep some things mandatory to take from renown, and ini is obiously not something you have to worry about. Currently sitting at 9% inc crit with no renown spent with just the woodsman buff.

Would rather have an offensive proc from woodsmans craft. X spirit damage, chance for next attack to deal x% more damage, or whatever can further boost damage. The damage isn't good even when unmitigated at the moment so.

Edit: Feel like I gotta stress the part about inc crit reduction. As I said I'm, sitting at 9%. If you slap a 10% reduction for example onto woodsman, you can still go balls deep and get 29% more from renown and liniment. This results in a -30% incoming crit chance, which is not okay.

[Mausini]

So I'm having a little trouble following the suggestions specfically aimed at the offense potential of WB spec.

What you're proposing, combined, would be:

- Woodsman's Craft converts damage out to Spirit
- Ethereal Transferral is reworked to be independent of Ethereal Cleave, with its effect causing attacks to bypass x% of Spirit Resistance.

Or am I misunderstanding?

I have to be wary of putting too much on Woodsman's Craft. Monstrosity causes you to gain defensive stats, namely armor penetration and the heal. If Woodsman's Craft starts granting you anti-crit AND Spirit damage AND a proc for damage, we're getting into skill overloading territory. The cleaner solution would be to make Woodsman attacks natively Spirit, convert Spirit Strike to x% bypass of Spirit Resistance or a tactic-based Spirit debuff from Woodsman skill attacks, have anti-crit on Woodsman's Craft as a proc on attack like Monstrosity's, and rethink Ethereal Transferral entirely. But that's just my thought.

Ethereal Transferal changes Woodmans skills damage into spirit and gives the WL a spirit resist strike through (flat or %) for all spirit damage attacks and has no more connection to Ethereal Cleave.

Woodmans stance gives anti crit and a heal on proc.

I would vote for this solution because like that you have the stance and the damage part clean. And also because like that your other spirit attacks in Axeman would gain benefit from Ethereal Transferal. That sounds fair for the investment into a dedicated tactic.
I can see that if you put to much into the stance, Woodman specced WL become super useless as soon as they change stances because they will not have any WS or armor debuff.

In the end the solution doesnt matter as long as the spirit debuff is not only applied to Woodman skills exclusively.
Mara can still change into any stance and benefit from the armor strike through, WL wouldn't.

[Mausini]

So I'm having a little trouble following the suggestions specfically aimed at the offense potential of WB spec.

What you're proposing, combined, would be:

- Woodsman's Craft converts damage out to Spirit
- Ethereal Transferral is reworked to be independent of Ethereal Cleave, with its effect causing attacks to bypass x% of Spirit Resistance.

Or am I misunderstanding?

I have to be wary of putting too much on Woodsman's Craft. Monstrosity causes you to gain defensive stats, namely armor penetration and the heal. If Woodsman's Craft starts granting you anti-crit AND Spirit damage AND a proc for damage, we're getting into skill overloading territory. The cleaner solution would be to make Woodsman attacks natively Spirit, convert Spirit Strike to x% bypass of Spirit Resistance or a tactic-based Spirit debuff from Woodsman skill attacks, have anti-crit on Woodsman's Craft as a proc on attack like Monstrosity's, and rethink Ethereal Transferral entirely. But that's just my thought.

Edit: Feel like I gotta stress the part about inc crit reduction. As I said I'm, sitting at 9%. If you slap a 10% reduction for example onto woodsman, you can still go balls deep and get 29% more from renown and liniment. This results in a -30% incoming crit chance, which is not okay.

My idea was more that the WL simply cant get critted anymore. Plain and simple. The armor strike through protection from Mara is huuuuge. No crit is different but should give a decent defense vs the back line of warbands while still let you take damage from tanks that do normally not crit a lot.

Edit: I just realized that my assumption is missleading. You would still take the damage of the attack without the crit part of it.
In the end someone would need to do the math about what exactly is appropriate.

[lefze]

So I'm having a little trouble following the suggestions specfically aimed at the offense potential of WB spec.

What you're proposing, combined, would be:

- Woodsman's Craft converts damage out to Spirit
- Ethereal Transferral is reworked to be independent of Ethereal Cleave, with its effect causing attacks to bypass x% of Spirit Resistance.

Or am I misunderstanding?

I have to be wary of putting too much on Woodsman's Craft. Monstrosity causes you to gain defensive stats, namely armor penetration and the heal. If Woodsman's Craft starts granting you anti-crit AND Spirit damage AND a proc for damage, we're getting into skill overloading territory. The cleaner solution would be to make Woodsman attacks natively Spirit, convert Spirit Strike to x% bypass of Spirit Resistance or a tactic-based Spirit debuff from Woodsman skill attacks, have anti-crit on Woodsman's Craft as a proc on attack like Monstrosity's, and rethink Ethereal Transferral entirely. But that's just my thought.

Edit: Feel like I gotta stress the part about inc crit reduction. As I said I'm, sitting at 9%. If you slap a 10% reduction for example onto woodsman, you can still go balls deep and get 29% more from renown and liniment. This results in a -30% incoming crit chance, which is not okay.

My idea was more that the WL simply cant get critted anymore. Plain and simple. The armor strike through protection from Mara is huuuuge. No crit is different but should give a decent defense vs the back line of warbands while still let you take damage from tanks that do normally not crit a lot.

Edit: I just realized that my assumption is missleading. You would still take the damage of the attack without the crit part of it.
In the end someone would need to do the math about what exactly is appropriate.

Monstro proc is leaps and bounds behind what you are suggesting. In fact what you are suggesting is just unimaginably good, and negates whole career mechanics, crit damage tactics, crit tactics, on-crit procs etc. to to mention the actual base crit mod and stat.

[Mausini]

Edit: Feel like I gotta stress the part about inc crit reduction. As I said I'm, sitting at 9%. If you slap a 10% reduction for example onto woodsman, you can still go balls deep and get 29% more from renown and liniment. This results in a -30% incoming crit chance, which is not okay.

My idea was more that the WL simply cant get critted anymore. Plain and simple. The armor strike through protection from Mara is huuuuge. No crit is different but should give a decent defense vs the back line of warbands while still let you take damage from tanks that do normally not crit a lot.

Edit: I just realized that my assumption is missleading. You would still take the damage of the attack without the crit part of it.
In the end someone would need to do the math about what exactly is appropriate.

Monstro proc is leaps and bounds behind what you are suggesting. In fact what you are suggesting is just unimaginably good, and negates whole career mechanics, crit damage tactics, crit tactics, on-crit procs etc. to to mention the actual base crit mod and stat.

Monstro negates a whole base stat (WS) any tactics that give more armor pierce lowers the amount of every hit including the damage propotion of crit tactics etc. negates a big part of auto attacks. Its very potent. But in the end someone needs to do the math and decide how exactly it needs to be implemented.

[Aurandilaz]

Well, my suggestions;

-Woodsman now causes all the attacks of that tree/type to deal Spirit dmg
-Woodsman converts 50% of your WS into Str, and 25% into Toughness and Initiative (depending on whether you have 300 or 400 WS may be much or not, makes Brute Force less of a must-have) [may tweak values, just throwing out possible ideas]
-Spirit dmg tactic now causes (aoe) ability X (whatever, maybe one of the 10s CD abilities?) to debuff targets spirit resis by 120-150? (tactic based spirit debuff stacking with abilities) [zeal + BO together debuff about 500; WL+SM together debuffing close to 500 should be tolerable - since WL dmg is still nowhere close to the AoE corp dmg Sorc deals out]
-give some ability (something that other specs might use too - maybe one of those mystery dot abilities no one uses in any spec rotation), to help regain some kind of AP, 40-80 back once every 10-15 sec or some small self AP buff with 20-30 CD could help "ability X now DoTs enemy and causes you to steal 40-80 over next 5-10 sec"? - current level of starvation is pretty high
-while Morale Drain was nice last week or so, with current level of morale """gains""" its questionable pick unless you know some devilish destro guild premade warband is running some juicy morale meta [hint, not existing in game as of now] - I mean its nice to prevent Chosens and Blorcs from theoretically pumping themselves to Raze, but apart from those Destro doesn't provide that much of a threat when it comes to morales (no Sorc M2, no Choppa bomb, Mara nerfed...)... it is "cool" utility tool to have, especially when considering previous morales gains, but with current gains its questionable if its needed. Well remains to be seen how the devs treat morales in future.