[WL] AoE spec too strong for city siege

[Grock]

With Whirling Axe's rather short downtime of only 10 seconds, even with a CD increase, one short AoE KD only prevents one of 3 or 4 bombs due to immunity. Also, a big problem against this, is that even the Def Tanks take so much f*ing damage because of the armor ignore + guard, that every well timed no-morale Whirling Axe drop can easily kill multiple people.
Blobbing up doesn't help at all against the bomb damage - in fact it literally is as strong as a decent M2 morale drop, bringing everyone easily below 50% in 2-3 seconds, if not a lot lower when hit by all WLs. Also, healers cannot do anything while blobbed, since there's 1 to 2x interrupt per WL every 10 seconds AS WELL AS the Whirling Axe and Slashing Blade having a seemingly unusual high setback chance and amount, so I dare say that if they get their timings right, they can wipe a full blobbed warband in 5 seconds without even using morales. And they will get there with some more experience in the setup.

Oh - and let's not forget that they lose a lot less single target burst than one would expect, so they can still kill healers very easily if they duo it in case the bomb drop isn't enough.

Every mara has AoE interrupt which doesn't give any immunity, you dont need KD to interrupt their bomb, you need KD to react to their dive and punish it

Whats this "1 to 2x interrupt per WL every 10 seconds"? What does it even mean? Echoing Roar has 10s cooldown and hits once - when you cast it.
If you meant SM's CD reduction buff, well destro has two of those

And the final part abou single target burst - AoE WL usually played with Loner, that means no Coordinated Strike burst, no pet damage, no crit damage tactic, they also usually spec 3+1+1, which means no Cull the Weak/OHD/BrutalPounce either, so what's that burst you're referring to? AA and spammables?

[Sigford]

With Whirling Axe's rather short downtime of only 10 seconds, even with a CD increase, one short AoE KD only prevents one of 3 or 4 bombs due to immunity. Also, a big problem against this, is that even the Def Tanks take so much f*ing damage because of the armor ignore + guard, that every well timed no-morale Whirling Axe drop can easily kill multiple people.
Blobbing up doesn't help at all against the bomb damage - in fact it literally is as strong as a decent M2 morale drop, bringing everyone easily below 50% in 2-3 seconds, if not a lot lower when hit by all WLs. Also, healers cannot do anything while blobbed, since there's 1 to 2x interrupt per WL every 10 seconds AS WELL AS the Whirling Axe and Slashing Blade having a seemingly unusual high setback chance and amount, so I dare say that if they get their timings right, they can wipe a full blobbed warband in 5 seconds without even using morales. And they will get there with some more experience in the setup.

Oh - and let's not forget that they lose a lot less single target burst than one would expect, so they can still kill healers very easily if they duo it in case the bomb drop isn't enough.

Every mara has AoE interrupt which doesn't give any immunity, you dont need KD to interrupt their bomb, you need KD to react to their dive and punish it

Whats this "1 to 2x interrupt per WL every 10 seconds"? What does it even mean? Echoing Roar has 10s cooldown and hits once - when you cast it.
If you meant SM's CD reduction buff, well destro has two of those

And the final part abou single target burst - AoE WL usually played with Loner, that means no Coordinated Strike burst, no pet damage, no crit damage tactic, they also usually spec 3+1+1, which means no Cull the Weak/OHD/BrutalPounce either, so what's that burst you're referring to? AA and spammables?

That's the point, no coordinated strike etc and they still pounce in to healer and 1 shot it (sometimes even through guard). We've used the KD from Mara and interrupts on Mara. ALSO talking about the interrupts they have 6 white lions cycling through interrupts that's 1 every 1.66 seconds WITHOUT SM cd reduction and in the last match we had they stacked 3 shield SMs which guess what? ALSO get an aoe interrupt so now you have 9 of them that can cycle every 1.11 seconds without SM cd reduction. simply put that means anyone with a channel or a cast over 1 second is F***d. Last note is just making sure you know Echoing Roar affects anyone within 15 feet of the white lion and the SM's interrupt is a 15 ft cone in.front of them. I'm sure after that last point the argument would just be to spread, but they still just pounce (ENDLESSLY) throughout your back lines and wreck anything they touch.

[teiloh]

That's the point, no coordinated strike etc and they still pounce in to healer and 1 shot it (sometimes even through guard). We've used the KD from Mara and interrupts on Mara. ALSO talking about the interrupts they have 6 white lions cycling through interrupts that's 1 every 1.66 seconds WITHOUT SM cd reduction and in the last match we had they stacked 3 shield SMs which guess what? ALSO get an aoe interrupt so now you have 9 of them that can cycle every 1.11 seconds without SM cd reduction. simply put that means anyone with a channel or a cast over 1 second is F***d. Last note is just making sure you know Echoing Roar affects anyone within 15 feet of the white lion and the SM's interrupt is a 15 ft cone in.front of them. I'm sure after that last point the argument would just be to spread, but they still just pounce (ENDLESSLY) throughout your back lines and wreck anything they touch.

Just be glad you aren't dealing with Squig Herders and Choppas instead.

There are two huge counters to this setup that only Destro has. If they have 6 WLs you can have 3 Zealots with WoI.

Won't divulge the other one because it's game-breaking.

[adamthelc]

This whole thing makes me wonder why Slayers have a penalty for being in the red and WLs have nothing like that.

Some classes or abilities dont have a 24 target cap while others do.

Some MDPS get better gap closer or mobility while other classes are left with whatever relics they always had.

Just seems like changes are made without a lot consideration to the side effects. I dont want to be too critical, balance is trick, neverending and probably unattainable. But if you are going to make any changes you should be looking for any inconsistencies those changes make and consider make other changes if you need to.

It's not an easy or fun job I'm sure, but once the cat is out of the bag you cant just ignore potential issues.

And the reason this thread makes me think of that is because you have certain classes that pay a price to do high damage and other classes that dont. And the former recently got nerfed.

TLDR why is WL damage comparable to a BW or Slayer without the lowered survivability mechanic?

[Sigford]

That's the point, no coordinated strike etc and they still pounce in to healer and 1 shot it (sometimes even through guard). We've used the KD from Mara and interrupts on Mara. ALSO talking about the interrupts they have 6 white lions cycling through interrupts that's 1 every 1.66 seconds WITHOUT SM cd reduction and in the last match we had they stacked 3 shield SMs which guess what? ALSO get an aoe interrupt so now you have 9 of them that can cycle every 1.11 seconds without SM cd reduction. simply put that means anyone with a channel or a cast over 1 second is F***d. Last note is just making sure you know Echoing Roar affects anyone within 15 feet of the white lion and the SM's interrupt is a 15 ft cone in.front of them. I'm sure after that last point the argument would just be to spread, but they still just pounce (ENDLESSLY) throughout your back lines and wreck anything they touch.

Just be glad you aren't dealing with Squig Herders and Choppas instead.

There are two huge counters to this setup that only Destro has. If they have 6 WLs you can have 3 Zealots with WoI.

Won't divulge the other one because it's game-breaking.

WLs counter SHs with interrupt, takes their bounce out of the equation, same with Choppa, core abilities require a channels. and if WoI stands for Winds of Insanity it gives immunity else you'd be right. The sounds of it you've not been on the other side. I've fought SH and choppas and yeah it sucks, but it's manageable. 6 WLs is just ludicrous in the cities.

[teiloh]

TLDR why is WL damage comparable to a BW or Slayer without the lowered survivability mechanic?

Because it isn't. +50% damage is +50% damage, WL have no way to match up to Slayer/Choppa raw damage with their AOE channel.

WLs counter SHs with interrupt, takes their bounce out of the equation, same with Choppa, core abilities require a channels. and if WoI stands for Winds of Insanity it gives immunity else you'd be right. The sounds of it you've not been on the other side. I've fought SH and choppas and yeah it sucks, but it's manageable. 6 WLs is just ludicrous in the cities.

SH bounce is on a 8s timer. Destro has TWO cooldown reducers superior to WW in deployment. Mara's likewise have an interrupt. WOI does not leave an immunity, but respects it, unless it was nerfed.

[adamthelc]

TLDR why is WL damage comparable to a BW or Slayer without the lowered survivability mechanic?

Because it isn't. +50% damage is +50% damage, WL have no way to match up to Slayer/Choppa raw damage with their AOE channel.

Because that one ability with a longer CD, they lose half their mitigation? Ok. They dont even have as good a damaging morale to add to it.

Look I have no problem with the WL heavy group, I am glad more types of groups can be competitive. But a Slayer heavy group is usually an easy win as long as there isnt a large imbalance in skill or comp.

I'm not even neccesarily arguing WLs need a nerf to their survival. Maybe Slayer/Choppa mechanic needs to be looked at or given more mobility.

I dont have enough data to actually know how close WL damage is in WBs to other big damage dealers. But if it's even close the fact that Slayers/Choppas have the mechanic they do seems like a flaw.

[Sigford]

TLDR why is WL damage comparable to a BW or Slayer without the lowered survivability mechanic?

Because it isn't. +50% damage is +50% damage, WL have no way to match up to Slayer/Choppa raw damage with their AOE channel.

WLs counter SHs with interrupt, takes their bounce out of the equation, same with Choppa, core abilities require a channels. and if WoI stands for Winds of Insanity it gives immunity else you'd be right. The sounds of it you've not been on the other side. I've fought SH and choppas and yeah it sucks, but it's manageable. 6 WLs is just ludicrous in the cities.

SH bounce is on a 8s timer. Destro has TWO cooldown reducers superior to WW in deployment. Mara's likewise have an interrupt. WOI does not leave an immunity, but respects it, unless it was nerfed.

Was nerfed has been nerfed for awhile. Mara's do have rupt but they're not worth stacking 6 to make a difference 1-2 rupts isn't going to change whirling axe channels. If you go back up to previous post 6 WLs can cycle rupts every 1.66 seconds meaning 8s timer or not MSH bounce is negated fully. WBs are also starting to use shield SMs which also get a rupt as mention in that same post the 1 comp had 9 rupts that's 1 every 1.1 seconds WITHOUT cd reduction.

[Sigford]

TLDR why is WL damage comparable to a BW or Slayer without the lowered survivability mechanic?

Because it isn't. +50% damage is +50% damage, WL have no way to match up to Slayer/Choppa raw damage with their AOE channel.

Because that one ability with a longer CD, they lose half their mitigation? Ok. They dont even have as good a damaging morale to add to it.

Look I have no problem with the WL heavy group, I am glad more types of groups can be competitive. But a Slayer heavy group is usually an easy win as long as there isnt a large imbalance in skill or comp.

I'm not even neccesarily arguing WLs need a nerf to their survival. Maybe Slayer/Choppa mechanic needs to be looked at or given more mobility.

I dont have enough data to actually know how close WL damage is in WBs to other big damage dealers. But if it's even close the fact that Slayers/Choppas have the mechanic they do seems like a flaw.

WLs are competing easily with Slayers/Choppas/BWs/Sorcs etc and in some cases out performing them. The fact that they're able to do that with AOE on top of annihilating targets ST with endless pouncing around the battlefield is one of the main arguments is that they don't really have a down side. Best of all worlds, mobility, ST, and AOE.

[teiloh]

I dont have enough data to actually know how close WL damage is in WBs to other big damage dealers. But if it's even close the fact that Slayers/Choppas have the mechanic they do seems like a flaw.

WLs are doing nowhere near the DPS of Slayers and Choppas. The reason why they put out high numbers is because they have mobility and aren't as soft as targets as Choppas/Slayers. This is why the OP's screenshot has a Magus on top with 3.7 million damage and no one is calling for a Magus nerf.