[Tank Balance Re: Mobility]

[scatterthewinds]

[Proposal] Melee Mobility Faction Balance

Hello, you may know me as Uthwe rr70+ SM here. I also play a KOBS, IB, BG, BO and Chosen varying from rr 30-50. I believe I have enough gameplay experience on these classes to qualify the validity of the following post:

Recently I have been playing on destro as well as order. I haven't played destro in about a year and a half and I've grown out of touch with the state of the destro faction given the recent changes. I'm looking at this from a "practical" gameplay perspective. I'm referring to the the experience of anyone logging into the game from your casual strength talisman engineer to a 6v6 player and everything in between. This includes typical scenarios 6+spares vs 6+spares, 12v12, incomplete parties like duos, trios, quads, warband level, roaming in likes and all sorts of situations you get involved in like 6v9+, whatever. I think the issues I'm going to talk about apply to all levels of gameplay.

A long time ago there used to be a balance in this game which goes as follows: Order had damage and gap-closing advantage (pounce/wings of heaven), and Destro had tankiness/tank morale and snare advantage. That was the trade off between the factions and it was a reasonable balance. So where do we stand now?

Damage: I don't anyone can contest that order melee has overall higher damage. Crit%/ini debuff is still in order's favour, SM damage is still massive and IB is no a slouch plus provides its own significant crit buff. Two offensive BG/BO setup might be able to match it but needs to trade survivability to do so. KOBS/SM or KOBS/IB can provide excellent damage while provided all the kobs utility as well as being tanky enough to survive serious pressure. Glass cannon BG/BO pale in comparison. In a 6v6 in a vaccuum it could work but we all know that this game goes far beyond 6v6 and as soon as the number of players in the fight increase those offensive specced BG/BO without a chosen to guard them out of danger really suffer from focused damage.

Gap closing: Melee SH does have pounce, yes, but lacks the debuffs that a WL does to (in my opinion) warrant a spot as a true MDPS. Some groups might make it work but realistically destro are going to go with some form of mara + WE/Choppa. Which means order have a the gap closing advantage. Even WITH melee SH, Wings of Heaven tips gap control in order's favour, allowing for some pounce+wings onto a healer with virtually no counterplay (see peterpan 6v6 videos).

Tankiness/Tank Morale: Destro are probably tankier overall still, but the big morale advantage they used to have with the classical chosen/borc s/b double morale pump is now neutered by the new morale generation rates. Morale pump is still great... if you can find the tactic slot for it.

Snares: Here we reach the crux of my post. Currently order melee have a massive advantage in crowd control, an advantage they've never had historically. KOBS+SM or KOBS+IB you get the tri snare from the kobs (+whispering winds) or you get the tri snare + IB AOE. Destro have celerity (20%) because I'm assuming they always have a dok + 20% AOE from BORC, a single target snare from the chosen, and an AOE snare from the BG that is rarely specced because you then lose high malice tree and thus the greatest strengths of that class. So what does this result in? You get an order melee train that, already having pounce, is now able to upkeep snares at a greater rate than destro. It results in order being able to push when and where they want with impunity and forces destro on the defensive constantly. Look at this from destro point of view. Lets say you have chosen/malice BG. How can you ever really stop a wl/slayer/kobs/sm from pushing your backlines? You can't. Even assuming 100% 20%snare uptime from a dok or BO it is not enough to win control off of a tri snare kobs with SM support. I've tried running the BG aoe snare which helps, but than you lose crimson death and the damage gap between factions increases even more. With IB the situation is even more skewed. When you add more people to a fight, say a 12 v 12, this effect is compounded. The bigger the melee train the more difficult it is to control, and the disparity between kobs and ib snares vs destro snares increases.

How do you fix this and restore balance?

Quite simply you give black orc back its aoe snare tactic at its full 40% and 7.5s uptime + build time increaser. It is a strong tactic, bordering but not quite OP, but is the cornerstone of the entire destro melee line and irreplacelable to the faction as a whole. I would argue it is the single most important tactic in all of destro. The 100% uptime balances wings/pounce + tri snare and gives destro an even chance when it comes to positioning control instead of constantly being forced to peel to protect its healers without recourse for counterattacking themselves. Order can still initiate attacks easier but destro can also stabilize easier instead of the melee pressure from order getting out of control.

As a secondary change the aoe snare on SM phoenix wing should also be removed (if it hasnt been removed already). It was a needless unnecessary change made without full knowledge of the melee situation and how they operate. Yes I am asking for a nerf to my main, but I am looking out for the health of game balance as a whole as someone that plays both factions and can look at this completely without bias.

I do not believe in nerfing tri snare or pounce or any of the unique abilities of classes. Give BO back its iconic ability and role in the destro melee line.

Thank you