Debate about why Order is how it is.

[Shooshpanzerer]

We can talk about balance, tactics, etc a lot, but there's 2 main issues, both outlined here a lot of time. Destro have X, Order can counter X with Y, Destro can counter Y with Z, etc, etc. That's why premade vs premade is within margin of error (and who's online at the moment).

Issue 1
Bad melee train >>> bad RDPS wall in any scenario.

That leads us to
issue 2 - MAIN ISSUE
Organised pugs basically rolls a d20 24 times on who i get (still maintaining 8-8-8).

Destro
Tanks
1-8 I get a Black Orc, 9-16 Chosen, 17-20 BG
DPS
1-5 Choppa, 5-10 SH, 11-13 Mara, 14-16 WE, 17-18 Sorc, 19-20 Magus
Healers
1-12 Shaman, 13-17 Dok 18-20 Zealot

Order
Tanks
1-12 IB, 13-17 KotBS, 18-20 SM
DPS
1-7 Engie, 8-11 BW, 11-14 SW, 15-17 WH, 18-19 WL, 20-Slayer.
Heals
1-12 WP, 13-16 AM, 17-20 RP

[EsthelielSunfury]

We can talk about balance, tactics, etc a lot, but there's 2 main issues, both outlined here a lot of time. Destro have X, Order can counter X with Y, Destro can counter Y with Z, etc, etc. That's why premade vs premade is within margin of error (and who's online at the moment).

Issue 1
Bad melee train >>> bad RDPS wall in any scenario.

That leads us to
issue 2 - MAIN ISSUE
Organised pugs basically rolls a d20 24 times on who i get (still maintaining 8-8-8).

Destro
Tanks
1-8 I get a Black Orc, 9-16 Chosen, 17-20 BG
DPS
1-5 Choppa, 5-10 SH, 11-13 Mara, 14-16 WE, 17-18 Sorc, 19-20 Magus
Healers
1-12 Shaman, 13-17 Dok 18-20 Zealot

Order
Tanks
1-12 IB, 13-17 KotBS, 18-20 SM
DPS
1-7 Engie, 8-11 BW, 11-14 SW, 15-17 WH, 18-19 WL, 20-Slayer.
Heals
1-12 WP, 13-16 AM, 17-20 RP

Where'd you get these numbers from? They don't make any sense.

[Shooshpanzerer]

Where'd you get these numbers from? They don't make any sense.

Just my observations playing both sides.

[growill]

The few city i played in organized wb we didn't quite have the dps to take them down, but neither did them. So all turned down to morale drain > morale drop gg.

Saying morale is not a game changer is quite frankly very silly since they are by definition the strongest skills in the game

[dandelions]

I'm a new player that joined after the Lazy Peon video, saw that Order were the underpopulated faction at the time and rolled it for the challenge. Dansari's post just gg'd this thread and is exactly the differences I'm seeing as a competitive oriented player. During my time on the server, we had the majority of veterans in the guild I'm in roll Destro characters and we constantly would compare abilities to better understand our classes and theirs.

Are order players more casual and generally less skilled? I'd say absolutely from my experience. But not to the 70% winrate for Destro cities constantly happening. That's a ridiculous discrepancy.

It comes down to Order having to put in way more effort and coordination to achieve similar results based on the mechanics of the classes which aren't mirrored. Once again, Dansais knocks it out of the park with his post. Quoted below for good measure, his response is on the previous page.


All these guild leaders and big egos beating their own dicks in this thread in a largely dead game, pretending that their organization and leadership is the only difference is appalling, especially if they want player retention and some competition to organically arise from currently weaker side. Funny that multiple ego guilds wrote in this thread they have such a hard time keeping organised recruitment going on the Order side... couldn't have anything to do with needing to exclude multiple classes on Order from competitive play while also needing to play at a higher and more coordinated level to achieve similar results in the current meta.

Spoiler:

I'd bet money that 9/10 of the instances order loses the fight is over before destro even gets m2.

Kind of a shitpost but really do I have to explain why morale and class balance doesn't really matter as much as the organization and system problems that order has.

Almost every single time i've solo qued on order (and I farmed full sov on dps am) there was extremely shitty class distribution, never had the problem on destro not once. There is also a reason why you can sit in que on destro for 20+ minutes even if you qued instantly while you get near instapops on order any time you que.

This is such a lazy explanation though. What if we explored *why* this might be happening? Again, recently we had a city score of 5-23. If you believe that there are 23*24 organized destro cities (552 players), I have a bridge to sell you. Let's break everything down when it comes to city setups:

Spoiler:

- KOBS bring 15% heal buff for group, which is negated by Chosen 25% incoming heal debuff aura. But if you don't have a knight in group, you're still going to be affected by the Chosen aura which means order is forced to run a kobs in every group (along with getting the crit buff on block and superior resists aura).
- SM bring cooldown decreaser, which counters cooldown increaser by squig. But WW only effects 6 targets, whereas squig can hit more than that (quick aside here that squig has free reign of where they want to place their cooldown increaser at any time with no cd pounce whereas order does not via Slayer), so order is forced to have one SM in group as well, else they are very susceptible to any cooldown increaser.
- Do you want a 2h knight? You probably want to drop a snb knight for it which means you lose the crit buff for group off Dirty Tricks, but at least you'll deal 1/6 the damage of a 2h Chosen while supplying a wounds debuff + ctbc debuff for the wb and you won't be getting debuffed to worse levels from BO corp debuff.
- Where does IB fit here? Their main unique abilities are the parry buff for one group member, the crit buff for one group member, and their 50% outgoing heal debuff. What do you plan to drop for the group to bring IB: 15% healing and resists that counter Chosen and Blorc, or cooldown decreaser to counter squig?

- Chosen bring -25% incoming heal aura for the entire wb, which negates some of the per group % healing bonuses order has without the same group restriction of 1 chosen per group; and an aoe wounds debuff they can use regardless of spec that negates the WP wounds buff, which once again forces order to run one WP per group else they will be effected even more by the Chosen base aoe wounds debuff. Chosen also has a self morale pump on block, which means they could drop Distracting Bellows pretty early in a fight (way before order will have theirs). 2h Chosen also brings a huge amount of damage and has an 66% uptime 25% parry buff that 2h knight lacks.. normally leading to a 2h Chosen which not only deals way more damage than 2h knight (due to Oppressing Blows, Relentless, and Rending Blade), but also has more defensive capability.
- Which brings us to the abomination that is Blorc. BO bring a huge aoe corp debuff (which order need to rely on engy for) AND an auto attack buff for the group (which helps melee assist trains heavily), conveniently corp debuffing for several sorc abilities and procs; the choice to add a cooldown decreaser to their aoe corp debuff (which does NOT require giving a free kd immunity to your target like SM's WW does); group absorbs+stats like SM; a single target cooldown increaser; the choice for an aoe snare that SM doesn't have; and a self morale pump with a, let's be honest, way over the top m3.
- BG bring aoe snare, 50% outgoing heal debuff which mirrors IB Punishing Knock but tied to a intelligence/willpower debuff that stacks 3x, and with 2h they can spread a ctbc debuff like kobs with once again, more defensive capability and damage. But due to the nature of how the group buffs are spread, it's much easier for destro to bring a 2h BG than it is order to bring a 2h knight, primarily because of:

- Chop Fasta, a second cooldown decreaser for destro on Choppa for the group (that every Choppa specs), which means Blorc is *not* a required tank slot in your group to counter Shatter Limbs, OR
- Replace Chosen with BG and have your BO run Da Greenest for the resist buff, and/or have zealot give resist buff instead of init (any good zealot can review enemy unit frames and see when their buff gets shattered) and/or sham resist buff. Because order really *can't* bring an engy most of the time, you're only getting debuffed from knight resists in the realm of -150ish, which both Da Greenest and zealot buff will cover and leave you better off vs BW damage.

So now we've determined why order is less versatile when it comes to tanks, let's talk about Engy v Magus. The biggest culprits being:

Spoiler:

- Destro murder ball is much more effective than order's in most situations, primarily due to the efficiency of 2h tanks (their damage being superior in most cases outside of 2h IB and their presence easier to slot as aforementioned); the overtuning of MSH, which has been broken for over a year and a half; the presence of an aoe kd on Mara that doesn't exist on order; and superior control of the morale game in every way. This means Magus rift (which *still* has no delay vs Engy which is on a delay) is *much* more beneficial than Engy magnet. Destro *want* to fight you in a ball, order *doesn't*.
- % crit tactic *not* tied to pet, which dies almost instantly to aoe damage
- BW stacking not being viable on order anymore, whereas sorc stacking is very viable, meaning magus can be valuable as a spirit debuffer and engy's corp debuffing isn't as valuable.

We don't need to talk about the abomination that is MSH vs the single target god that is ASW, nor the issues that plague both WE/WH, so let's talk about AM v sham. Sham have a much easier time slotting into warbands for a few main reasons:

Spoiler:

- Superior morale pump, no matter what some people will try to spin. An instant group buff you can pop before entering combat and then on the move far surpasses a single target stationary heal, which allows sham to be much more mobile than AM. It also allows destro as a *group* to reach morales faster than order, which is always more important when morale dropping than having *one* person hit m4. Destro also don't have to worry about morale drains at all, which means they will always have an edge in the morale game.
- Vastly superior incoming damage reduction in the auto detaunt racial vs Run Between Worlds.

Actually I lied let's talk about MSH vs ASW/WL. The biggest factors are:

Spoiler:

- Big Bouncin, which deals *way* too much damage on a class with that much armor capability, is even further made better by its 8s cooldown vs Whirling Axe's 13s cooldown (no such channel on ASW), meaning if you have a cooldown decreaser in group (once again, granted by either Choppa or Blorc), you can constantly spam it.
- A core single target kd, which neither WL nor ASW have nor have room to spec for, given the WL spec kd is tied to pet and you can only get the kd on ASW with 6pc Warlord or if you give up Crosscut or the defensive steroid pounce (neither being worth giving up).
- An aoe cooldown decreaser they can apply anywhere they want.
- A core single target snare which ASW doesn't have in melee (armored) stance.
- A corp aoe dot that syncs with Blorc corp debuff

None of these things are meant to say that order doesn't have over the top things that need to be tweaked, but it does highlight the vast differences in versatility between the two realms, and why *maybe* if you leave out 5 entire classes from warband viability, they will all flood to solo queue cities in the form of ranged SWs, dps AMs, WHs, and engies, or when it comes to IB, be so frustrated you play a different class entirely.

[jvlosky]

I'm a new player that joined after the Lazy Peon video, saw that Order were the underpopulated faction at the time and rolled it for the challenge. Dansari's post just gg'd this thread and is exactly the differences I'm seeing as a competitive oriented player. During my time on the server, we had the majority of veterans in the guild I'm in roll Destro characters and we constantly would compare abilities to better understand our classes and theirs.

Are order players more casual and generally less skilled? I'd say absolutely from my experience. But not to the 70% winrate for Destro cities constantly happening. That's a ridiculous discrepancy.

It comes down to Order having to put in way more effort and coordination to achieve similar results based on the mechanics of the classes which aren't mirrored. Once again, Dansais knocks it out of the park with his post. Quoted below for good measure, his response is on the previous page.


All these guild leaders and big egos beating their own dicks in this thread in a largely dead game, pretending that their organization and leadership is the only difference is appalling,
especially if they want player retention and some competition to organically arise from currently weaker side.

Spoiler:

I'd bet money that 9/10 of the instances order loses the fight is over before destro even gets m2.

Kind of a shitpost but really do I have to explain why morale and class balance doesn't really matter as much as the organization and system problems that order has.

Almost every single time i've solo qued on order (and I farmed full sov on dps am) there was extremely shitty class distribution, never had the problem on destro not once. There is also a reason why you can sit in que on destro for 20+ minutes even if you qued instantly while you get near instapops on order any time you que.

This is such a lazy explanation though. What if we explored *why* this might be happening? Again, recently we had a city score of 5-23. If you believe that there are 23*24 organized destro cities (552 players), I have a bridge to sell you. Let's break everything down when it comes to city setups:

Spoiler:

- KOBS bring 15% heal buff for group, which is negated by Chosen 25% incoming heal debuff aura. But if you don't have a knight in group, you're still going to be affected by the Chosen aura which means order is forced to run a kobs in every group (along with getting the crit buff on block and superior resists aura).
- SM bring cooldown decreaser, which counters cooldown increaser by squig. But WW only effects 6 targets, whereas squig can hit more than that (quick aside here that squig has free reign of where they want to place their cooldown increaser at any time with no cd pounce whereas order does not via Slayer), so order is forced to have one SM in group as well, else they are very susceptible to any cooldown increaser.
- Do you want a 2h knight? You probably want to drop a snb knight for it which means you lose the crit buff for group off Dirty Tricks, but at least you'll deal 1/6 the damage of a 2h Chosen while supplying a wounds debuff + ctbc debuff for the wb and you won't be getting debuffed to worse levels from BO corp debuff.
- Where does IB fit here? Their main unique abilities are the parry buff for one group member, the crit buff for one group member, and their 50% outgoing heal debuff. What do you plan to drop for the group to bring IB: 15% healing and resists that counter Chosen and Blorc, or cooldown decreaser to counter squig?

- Chosen bring -25% incoming heal aura for the entire wb, which negates some of the per group % healing bonuses order has without the same group restriction of 1 chosen per group; and an aoe wounds debuff they can use regardless of spec that negates the WP wounds buff, which once again forces order to run one WP per group else they will be effected even more by the Chosen base aoe wounds debuff. Chosen also has a self morale pump on block, which means they could drop Distracting Bellows pretty early in a fight (way before order will have theirs). 2h Chosen also brings a huge amount of damage and has an 66% uptime 25% parry buff that 2h knight lacks.. normally leading to a 2h Chosen which not only deals way more damage than 2h knight (due to Oppressing Blows, Relentless, and Rending Blade), but also has more defensive capability.
- Which brings us to the abomination that is Blorc. BO bring a huge aoe corp debuff (which order need to rely on engy for) AND an auto attack buff for the group (which helps melee assist trains heavily), conveniently corp debuffing for several sorc abilities and procs; the choice to add a cooldown decreaser to their aoe corp debuff (which does NOT require giving a free kd immunity to your target like SM's WW does); group absorbs+stats like SM; a single target cooldown increaser; the choice for an aoe snare that SM doesn't have; and a self morale pump with a, let's be honest, way over the top m3.
- BG bring aoe snare, 50% outgoing heal debuff which mirrors IB Punishing Knock but tied to a intelligence/willpower debuff that stacks 3x, and with 2h they can spread a ctbc debuff like kobs with once again, more defensive capability and damage. But due to the nature of how the group buffs are spread, it's much easier for destro to bring a 2h BG than it is order to bring a 2h knight, primarily because of:

- Chop Fasta, a second cooldown decreaser for destro on Choppa for the group (that every Choppa specs), which means Blorc is *not* a required tank slot in your group to counter Shatter Limbs, OR
- Replace Chosen with BG and have your BO run Da Greenest for the resist buff, and/or have zealot give resist buff instead of init (any good zealot can review enemy unit frames and see when their buff gets shattered) and/or sham resist buff. Because order really *can't* bring an engy most of the time, you're only getting debuffed from knight resists in the realm of -150ish, which both Da Greenest and zealot buff will cover and leave you better off vs BW damage.

So now we've determined why order is less versatile when it comes to tanks, let's talk about Engy v Magus. The biggest culprits being:

Spoiler:

- Destro murder ball is much more effective than order's in most situations, primarily due to the efficiency of 2h tanks (their damage being superior in most cases outside of 2h IB and their presence easier to slot as aforementioned); the overtuning of MSH, which has been broken for over a year and a half; the presence of an aoe kd on Mara that doesn't exist on order; and superior control of the morale game in every way. This means Magus rift (which *still* has no delay vs Engy which is on a delay) is *much* more beneficial than Engy magnet. Destro *want* to fight you in a ball, order *doesn't*.
- % crit tactic *not* tied to pet, which dies almost instantly to aoe damage
- BW stacking not being viable on order anymore, whereas sorc stacking is very viable, meaning magus can be valuable as a spirit debuffer and engy's corp debuffing isn't as valuable.

We don't need to talk about the abomination that is MSH vs the single target god that is ASW, nor the issues that plague both WE/WH, so let's talk about AM v sham. Sham have a much easier time slotting into warbands for a few main reasons:

Spoiler:

- Superior morale pump, no matter what some people will try to spin. An instant group buff you can pop before entering combat and then on the move far surpasses a single target stationary heal, which allows sham to be much more mobile than AM. It also allows destro as a *group* to reach morales faster than order, which is always more important when morale dropping than having *one* person hit m4. Destro also don't have to worry about morale drains at all, which means they will always have an edge in the morale game.
- Vastly superior incoming damage reduction in the auto detaunt racial vs Run Between Worlds.

Actually I lied let's talk about MSH vs ASW/WL. The biggest factors are:

Spoiler:

- Big Bouncin, which deals *way* too much damage on a class with that much armor capability, is even further made better by its 8s cooldown vs Whirling Axe's 13s cooldown (no such channel on ASW), meaning if you have a cooldown decreaser in group (once again, granted by either Choppa or Blorc), you can constantly spam it.
- A core single target kd, which neither WL nor ASW have nor have room to spec for, given the WL spec kd is tied to pet and you can only get the kd on ASW with 6pc Warlord or if you give up Crosscut or the defensive steroid pounce (neither being worth giving up).
- An aoe cooldown decreaser they can apply anywhere they want.
- A core single target snare which ASW doesn't have in melee (armored) stance.
- A corp aoe dot that syncs with Blorc corp debuff

None of these things are meant to say that order doesn't have over the top things that need to be tweaked, but it does highlight the vast differences in versatility between the two realms, and why *maybe* if you leave out 5 entire classes from warband viability, they will all flood to solo queue cities in the form of ranged SWs, dps AMs, WHs, and engies, or when it comes to IB, be so frustrated you play a different class entirely.

This post is the best thing ever and I agree 100%. Overall Destro is more over-tuned and better. Just tiny pp Destro players who liked being carried by their class keep saying 'iT iS BeCuAsE DeStrO iS BeTtEr' has never taken a statistical analysis course in their life. Numbers dont lie and when the percentage of win discrepancy is this high in Destro's favor the issue has to be taken up with the game makers and not the players.

It isn't the players job to not play 2 classes on their side 'Order' just to win. Destro classes on average when compared 1 for 1 are better than their Order counterparts.

[Omegus]

Another take:

When the Mara had its morale drain abilities and tactics swapped around recently for the first week or 2 it couldn't actually drain morale as the new drain skill was bugged. I don't think it made a dent in the city stats. It made tough fights tougher for destro and made no change to a melee blob rolling over a ranged blob before either side gets to M2.

Remember what the big complaints were before cities? It was order's mass of rdps instanuking people in keep sieges. Engi nests. BW funnels. Knight morale drains during key pushes. None of that has changed and destro melee still go through absolute hell during sieges of any kind as the ranged imbalance favours order. Keeping enough damage on 2 tiny chokepoints was trivial.

All of that is still there except now there is a new game mode that favours melee over ranged and suddenly destro melee is op even though the few order groups running melee setups also do very well (and often get more kills overall due to having better single target damge and better healing against aoe thanks to overspamming WP). The implicit advantage order have in keeps and forts by over-stacking ranged classes in is gone. Those poor BW and Engis who have grown fat from farming easy kills with little to no coordination have now become the easy kill. It's not nice, is it?

Meanwhile, the mass of destro melee dps have had to fight for heals and guards to do anything, who since live have mostly stood around being farmed during keeps and forts until they needed to push through a door before going afk again until the next time are now finally getting their payoff. Slayers, WL and Shadow Warriors get to join in on the fun too. SW might not be in a spec they enjoy but they have a useful spec and need to suck up spending an hour in melee to earn crests for ranged sov (I assume there is a ranged sov)

Out of all the classes I feel sorry for WE and WH the most. They might do good in the very niche ranked team deathmatch but besides that... they can kill bosses quick in pve. Almost/all other classes have viable roles or specs for the open pvp content but those 2 really are in the shitter at the moment.

[Omegus]

Remember, it's the win percentage on 2 maps all on the same level that are full of chokes and narrow alleyways in a game mode that has existed for just over 2 months. Peonwave know nothing else.

I'd like some stats on the win rate of forts for order and destro

[Sarnai]

I'd like some stats on the win rate of forts for order and destro

Would be interesting, including before city implementation. Who is defending vs who is attacking is also a major factor. Order is good at defending forts....but I leveled without the help of x2 (maybe 1 weekend) events and I never saw the inside of a destro fort until over rr70. Came close in Fell Landing once, but couldn't get inside the walls. That could have been poor leadership/organization, but that was when the open campaign was nothing but a destro steamroll every day so Order was lucky to even sniff at CW, Caledor, or BC.

[Vayra]

[

This is such a lazy explanation though. What if we explored *why* this might be happening? Again, recently we had a city score of 5-23. If you believe that there are 23*24 organized destro cities (552 players), I have a bridge to sell you. Let's break everything down when it comes to city setups:

Why this happens? Likely there's a population imbalance causing more destro players queueing for city. Which means a lot of people don't get in. This mainly affects solo queuers since it's much easier to match up a full wb or 12 man for an instance. This forces destro to organize to even get in to the city, and even then if you're late queueing you're not guaranteed a spot. From personal experience, I have queued solo 5 seconds after queuing opened, and didn't get a pop. How late can you queue solo on order and still get a pop?

This leads to what Omegus said earlier:

1. Disorganised order get farmed in cities. Disorganised destro don't get into cities.

Why this population imbalance happens I don't know, might be caused by what people have said about destro having more viable setups so more people feel useful and try to get in. Might be caused by people who play both sides choosing to play destro for cities, either due to wanting to gear their destro toons or because they won't get an organized group on order due to their class choices there.

But there absolutely were far more organized destro groups in the siege you refer to (and in every other siege). There probably wasn't 23 full warbands, probably 16-18 full warbands from guilds, alliances and /5, alongside a good number of 12 and 6 man groups making up the other instances with a few lucky solo players filling up a party here and there. A few of them likely got into the losing instances as well but faced organized opposition and ended up losing against a fair fight. And maybe there was 1 or 2 full pug instances on destro, who may or may not have faced a full pug instance on order where the outcome is a coin flip.