State of the Realm July 2019 Edition

[Esperflame]

I know it's been a good minute since I did one of these posts, but I think it's time we discuss some things and assert our voices to the devs what's going on the server and how we feel.

First off, I want to point out that most of my perceptions about the game come from a tanks point of view. It's what I do because it's what I know. I will be talking about various classes and the perceived problems I see. I have prepared by discussing many things with many of more known players of various classes to not only get a better idea of how things are working, but also have discussed buffs/nerfs on their own classes to gauge what they think. This will be filled with a lot of opinion but I feel it's time we discuss things honestly since it's been a long time since I did a State of the Realm post.

Let's begin with my breakdown of the various tanks and the many buffs/nerfs they received comparing them to how they functioned during live.

Toughness Nerf - Capping how much dmg that can be mitigated is not a great move. All you have done is made every dot in this game be much more effective vs all the tanks across the board. You've taken an important stat to my archtype of choice and made it much more less effective than it used to be. This is one of the reason (though a very minor one) as to why SnB tanks have become more and more rare. You even tried to push a guard nerf to force more people into SnB for SCs and you saw the backlash. Tanks depend on toughness to deal with all the magic damage dots this game is full of and you've basically made them from being rock to being clay.

Ironbreaker - For the most part, Ironbreaker seems to have been left alone. It works for the most part just like on live. My personal issue is the lack of good itemization available to IB. I would personally like to see more WS available to them through set bonuses and on the gear itself, but it remains in a good spot.

Black Orc - You Wot is too good even for a level 13 ability. It has a 66% uptime with a very minor downside during the downtime all the while giving the BO +15% to all avoidances, +10% damage, and +30% armor and resists. It needs a longer cooldown or a reduced duration to 15s. Tree-hit Combo now requires a 2h weapon. This is one of the big reasons a lot of BOs run with a 2 hander now. This change has impacted build diversity badly. The WAAAAGH tactic stole cooldown increaser to added it to waaagh all the while increasing the cooldown. Not a very good tactic, so maybe give it back. Savin' Me Hide lost the ability to grant the Black Orc who used it the 20% magic damage reducer that only lasts 4 seconds? You guys really think 4 seconds is too much? Also, the ability to swap War Bellows needs adjusted. They went from no cooldown to 10s. BO is supposed to be able to "go with the flow" and you've locked us into a specific bellow for 10s. Maybe reduce this to a 5s cooldown.

Knight of the Blazing Sun - Knights have always been in a weird spot as a tank. Sure they have auras. Sure they can be hard as hell to kill, but they very rarely are capable of any realm damage. The group utility they bring is very strong and very much in line with what a Fantasy Paladin type class brings to the table. The only real nerf that is really killing any sort of build diversity is the change to Banish Darkness. Do the devs not like tanks? Your taking away a CC tool from a class that's all about CC. This change should finally be reverted. I think the nerf to Slice Through is fine since they also nerfed the BO AoE snare. Also, get rid of that stupid vigilance tactic. I know you won't give SnB knights back Destroy Confidence, but you should have replaced it with a tactic that gives knights some sort of burst on a move with cooldown as that was the major function of Destroy Confidence.

Chosen - This class in my eyes has become the single worst tank in the game. This class is supposed to be like a Death Knight or Evil Paladin so it of course lacks quite a few of the group utility things KoBS have, and I'm fine with that. The only reason people want a Chosen is auras. This class has managed to get nerfed in all the bad places. No I'm not talking about Ravage spam. I'm glad that's gone. Let's start with an easy one. Hastened Dismissal need to be changed back to how it was much like Banish Darkness. This only serves to harm the build diversity which is why most chosen run around with 2 handers. Bane Shield, FIX IT! You added an internal cooldown (ICD) of 1 second to the damage which makes Dire Shielding a **** tactic now. The whole point of this combo is to punish AoE. You already fixed it so that it only procs on a successful hit and you fixed it so dots don't proc it anymore other than the initial cast so remove the ICD and give back SnB Chosens their only only move that allows them to get okay and more importantly, it's supposed to punish AoE. I would also consider bringing back Crippling strikes. Wastelands Ruse isn't stat wise nearly as good as Runefang and isn't a suitable replacement to reducing a targets dmg by 10%.

Swordmaster of Hoeth - This is the order tank that has received the most changes. First off, like Black Orc, the cooldown to changing Blade Enchants needs to go down to 5s too for the same reasons. Now lets talk about the mirroring of the Black Orc Bellows. This was a bad change especially with how you implemented Da Greenest on SMs. If you're gonna mirror it then mirror it to proc on being hit like it should. Personally, I want to see the resist debuff and the bubble to come back. Eagle's Flight needs a 10s duration. I mean it's mirror get's a 15% bonus for 20 seconds now so maybe it's the time to buff Eagles a little. Vaul's Tempering needs a nerf. You nerfed the BO's 4 second immunity to snares and roots to 3 seconds, but then you give SM's a 7 second immunity? I don't know how you guys missed that but that's not balanced at all. Either that or buff the BO to 7 seconds.

Blackguard - This is the Destro tank that has received the most changes.
First off you gave them a 960 Armor buff that stacks with pots and they share while nerfing the crit reduction part of the buff. This ability needs to be looked at in a serious way. The armor buff should not stack with pots, and the crit portion should go back to the way it was reducing your chance to be crit up to 45%. Not reducing your chance to be crit by 45% of a %. You gave them a KD in their 2h Tree that has a snare and removed Blade of Ruin. Make Blade of Ruin a core lvl 40 ability and remove the snare from the KD. 2 CCs for one cooldown is a bit too good.

Now I'm gonna talk about the classes I don't play and about some of the changes you've made (buffs/nerfs) And how they've impacted my play as well as the play of other players. I'm only going to talk about the things That I or others have brought up as a problem. I'm only going to discuss the reasonable issues so no, WL Pounce should not be nerfed.

AM/Shaman - These classes seem to be constantly perceived as weak but in all honesty have been overbuffed by the change to their core mechanic. DPS versions of these classes are basically easy mode. You have strong heals that you throw all the time and then you throw a damage, then a heal, then a damage, then a heal and rinse and repeat. This allows them both to sit constantly at full dmg with little difficulty. These classes dot you hell up and then lazer beam of justice you dead with little difficulty of managing their mechanic. It's why order is currently plagued with a small army of DPS AMs. It's even more annoying vs a shaman since they have a tactic that allows them to single-handedly kite small groups. I think this mechanic should function how it did on live so that you actually have to balance your mechanic. If these classes still need help in the healing department, then maybe look at that again once this has been fixed.

Melee Squigherder/Shadow Warrior - These classes are not broken, but there has been consistent bugs and changes that have made these classes not what they're supposed to be. RANGED Dps. Both classes need to lose pounce. PERIOD. You don't fix a class by stealing from others. Also, with the fact they gain WS in melee stance, maybe remove the 10% parry bonus. They are not primarily a melee dps and they don't duel wield. They don't deserve a random free stance bonus to parry. The Melee tree was intended and designed as an "oh ****!" response to being pushed into. These classes are supposed to be range. Now, I don't play these classes, but clearly they need a bit of buffing in the ranged department though nothing too big. Also, the Squig punt should not be better than a BG/IBs punt. It also doesn't grant immunites when punted.

Engie/Magus - Damage needs to come down. You went from 5 stacks of 5% to 8 stacks of 5%. This only made them less mobile and more damage. Why not something like 5 stacks of 6%. You've basically given both these classes a free Focused Offense tactic with none of the downsides just for standing next to their pet. I think you gave them too much. Also, Engie's Armor-Piercing Rounds is too good. 25% armor pen for 12 seconds? How about 15% for 10 seconds?

White Lion - Pet Damage needs to come down. Pounce is fine and to be honest I thought adding a cooldown was plenty of a nerf to them. Yes they hit freaking hard but they pay for that in action points and the lack of +10% parry for duel wielding. Pets do need to not be insta gibbed but they should never be capable of doing more dmg than some DPS classes. They're a pet, not a player.

Git to da Choppa - This ability should be defendable.

What I've seen over the years of playing on this server is a contant nerf to tanks across the board as a tank player. Ranged damage has been buffed across the board except on Squig and SW, theirs was nerfed due to a lost of a Morale. Tanks have been nerfed losing tools they one had in SnB being either forced to go with a 2 hander or abandon their build that was fun. This server has made one very critical mistake that even the live devs feared. You've slowly but surely made ranged dps classes so good we see a decline in actual melee dps. This is more true for order since this playerbase seems to favor ranged over melee. But in the end this all ends up being a nerf to tanks. You didn't increase resistances for tanks baseline to remain tanky, you just made them take more and more dmg. This ties into the toughness nerf too. Tanks are suppose to reduce small dots to almost nothing. They're freaking tanks! You may not like it but thats how the original balance and design of the game came to. I've heard rumors of even more tank nerfs down the road. Do you guys coding this game really dislike tanks that badly? You've already made changes to many of the tanks forcing them to abandon their builds in favor of 2h over snb. Hell I get told on a daily basis that I'm stupid for running SnB on chosen. Why am I stupid? I'm wanting to be a full blood tank on chosen. It's not my fault I've slowly had tools ripped away from my build that made it work fine.

Then there's the current fort issues. I know the devs are planning on a fix this weekend but Order is checking out. They're leaving in droves. Hell, I should be done with invader by now but I have gotten 0 rewards on fort defenses and that's really made me not even want to log in my rr80 IB. Meanwhile Destro continues to rack in the medallions with no problem because they always have the numbers to push and lock 2 forts back to back. This is a disaster.

These are once again just my opinions, but I've heard many of them echo throughout the community of this server. Let have a good discussion on some of the problems you have? I also want to hear the devs on this post. I'm sure they have issues with classes as well but we only find out when you decide to nerf something. I think everyone should be discussing the problems to breed awareness to them so that maybe some of them can finally be addressed.

This has been your State of the Realm Address. Discuss please.

[Natherul]

The point of this thread?

As always if you have a suggestion on how to make a career better (and not OP) because its under performing, it belongs in the balance subforum as a suggestion.

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