MSH needs some attention

[Foofmonger]

So Destro who on average win 10/12 Cities with melee focus groups and warbands need a buff to one of their strongest melee classes SH as well as buffs to their other main melee Mara and Choppa, combined with a nerf to White Lion to balance the factions out. Sounds reasonable ........

Yes because destro is only winning by pure player skill not class imbalance simply because they are better players all of them

Destro is actually mostly winning because of class distribution, and it's neither really about skill nor is it about class balance. As this was recently covered in very long (100+ page) "why is order the way it is thread".

After we actually analyze real data and not people's personal opinions, it is very clear that destro has a semi-even class distribution across its classes. Order does not, and is heavily stacked with over 30% of their playerbase just playing 3 classes, Engineers, Bright Wizards, and Warrior Priests. Order has absolutely pathetic numbers for tank players, having on average roughly half of the tank players that destro has.

Order loses cities because they can't field enough tanks to fill cities, and they overflow with extra Engineers and BWs who can't find warbands. This leads to a lot of random pug groups that are RDPS heavy, because order itself is RDPS heavy.

The city is not a friendly RDPS envionment either in how the content is designed. Therefore, Order is for some reason playing way too many classes of the same type, that aren't really all that useful for cities, and for some reason is refusing to play the tanks that their faction needs.

It has very little to do with class balance. Class balance is not about "the law of averages" here, and you can't just say "this side win more city class must be stronger" as the summation of your analysis and expect it to be even close to accurate. Class balance is important when you have equal set ups, of optimized groups, with similar levels of skill and gear. When organized 24 man wbs of 2/2/2 destro stomp random pugs of BWs and Engies, that has absolutely nothing to do with "class balance". When two 24 man wbs of 2/2/2 order and destro comps fight it out with roughly similar levels of skill/gear, is where you can actually see how the classes are properly balanced and what their strengths and weaknesses are (same goes for 6v6, it's not just city wbs). Conflating skill, class distribution, gear, and organizational advantages as "balance" is like calling a hamburger a vegetable. Wrong.

[StrongUn]

Also having Confusing movements M1 (Dodge and Parry for 7 seconds)
instead of
Concealment M1 (Dodge and Disrupt for 7 seconds) could be useful for mSH specs

[StrongUn]

.

[agemennon675]

So Destro who on average win 10/12 Cities with melee focus groups and warbands need a buff to one of their strongest melee classes SH as well as buffs to their other main melee Mara and Choppa, combined with a nerf to White Lion to balance the factions out. Sounds reasonable ........

Yes because destro is only winning by pure player skill not class imbalance simply because they are better players all of them

Destro is actually mostly winning because of class distribution, and it's neither really about skill nor is it about class balance. As this was recently covered in very long (100+ page) "why is order the way it is thread".

After we actually analyze real data and not people's personal opinions, it is very clear that destro has a semi-even class distribution across its classes. Order does not, and is heavily stacked with over 30% of their playerbase just playing 3 classes, Engineers, Bright Wizards, and Warrior Priests. Order has absolutely pathetic numbers for tank players, having on average roughly half of the tank players that destro has.

Order loses cities because they can't field enough tanks to fill cities, and they overflow with extra Engineers and BWs who can't find warbands. This leads to a lot of random pug groups that are RDPS heavy, because order itself is RDPS heavy.

The city is not a friendly RDPS envionment either in how the content is designed. Therefore, Order is for some reason playing way too many classes of the same type, that aren't really all that useful for cities, and for some reason is refusing to play the tanks that their faction needs.

It has very little to do with class balance. Class balance is not about "the law of averages" here, and you can't just say "this side win more city class must be stronger" as the summation of your analysis and expect it to be even close to accurate. Class balance is important when you have equal set ups, of optimized groups, with similar levels of skill and gear. When organized 24 man wbs of 2/2/2 destro stomp random pugs of BWs and Engies, that has absolutely nothing to do with "class balance". When two 24 man wbs of 2/2/2 order and destro comps fight it out with roughly similar levels of skill/gear, is where you can actually see how the classes are properly balanced and what their strengths and weaknesses are (same goes for 6v6, it's not just city wbs). Conflating skill, class distribution, gear, and organizational advantages as "balance" is like calling a hamburger a vegetable. Wrong.

Well ofc its wrong and I totally agree with you, my comment was just a little sarcasm over some players who think its only a l2p issue. I play Order and I always try to put together a 2-2-2 pug and can safely say that I can only make a proper 2-2-2 2/10 times because tanks are non-existent on Order

[Foofmonger]

Yes because destro is only winning by pure player skill not class imbalance simply because they are better players all of them

Destro is actually mostly winning because of class distribution, and it's neither really about skill nor is it about class balance. As this was recently covered in very long (100+ page) "why is order the way it is thread".

After we actually analyze real data and not people's personal opinions, it is very clear that destro has a semi-even class distribution across its classes. Order does not, and is heavily stacked with over 30% of their playerbase just playing 3 classes, Engineers, Bright Wizards, and Warrior Priests. Order has absolutely pathetic numbers for tank players, having on average roughly half of the tank players that destro has.

Order loses cities because they can't field enough tanks to fill cities, and they overflow with extra Engineers and BWs who can't find warbands. This leads to a lot of random pug groups that are RDPS heavy, because order itself is RDPS heavy.

The city is not a friendly RDPS envionment either in how the content is designed. Therefore, Order is for some reason playing way too many classes of the same type, that aren't really all that useful for cities, and for some reason is refusing to play the tanks that their faction needs.

It has very little to do with class balance. Class balance is not about "the law of averages" here, and you can't just say "this side win more city class must be stronger" as the summation of your analysis and expect it to be even close to accurate. Class balance is important when you have equal set ups, of optimized groups, with similar levels of skill and gear. When organized 24 man wbs of 2/2/2 destro stomp random pugs of BWs and Engies, that has absolutely nothing to do with "class balance". When two 24 man wbs of 2/2/2 order and destro comps fight it out with roughly similar levels of skill/gear, is where you can actually see how the classes are properly balanced and what their strengths and weaknesses are (same goes for 6v6, it's not just city wbs). Conflating skill, class distribution, gear, and organizational advantages as "balance" is like calling a hamburger a vegetable. Wrong.

Well ofc its wrong and I totally agree with you, my comment was just a little sarcasm over some players who think its only a l2p issue. I play Order and I always try to put together a 2-2-2 pug and can safely say that I can only make a proper 2-2-2 2/10 times because tanks are non-existent on Order

Thats fair, it's not a L2P issue, and it's also not a class balance issue.

It's quite literally, a "class distribution" issue, and there's no good way to fix that outside of begging BW/Engie players to be useful and start playing tanks. Order has about twice as many players as they should have playing these 2 classes, and missing about half the amount of players they need on tanks. Pretty easy to figure out whats going on.

[Illuminati]

Yes but I would assume any further changes would likely result in the MSH getting better single target burst and losing AOE...

Destro needs more ST burst classes to be honest, while maintaining their AOE balance, which is somewhat equal atm across realms. I would personally improve WE/WH (prob not a ton needed here, more QOL stuff, i.e. Witch Brew critting), improve Mara ST burst, pull, and some Choppa utility (adding damage dot to Chop Fasta, improve Bleed Em Out) to make it on par with Slayer DPS with ID and go from there. Id fix both Slayer/Choppa 2H trees and adjust the mechanic to be slightly less punishing.

I wouldn't mess with mSH AoE or give it more ST. My reasonable list is within this thread and wont swing the balance pendulum.

Anyway, these are all moot. There is only enough people bandwidth to do one class over time...

Out of curiosity, do you have a rough kind of metric for how you quantify good vs bad ST burst? I'm one of the few people who thinks Mara's burst isn't poor, so I'm curious to see what people think is current burst (X damage) over a period of time (Y timestamp) to actually see how the Mara burst compares. I'm happy to provide Mara numbers/screenshots for certain time periods (1.5, 3, 4.5, 6 seconds, whatever). I can do far more than Secrets did to this shaman though.

Agree that the numbers from the vid were not that impressive. Burst for me is classified as during the time stamp of a KD (~3 secs). Some classes have front loaded burst, some timed, etc. or sustain that is high enough.

Good burst is ~4-5K per GCD (total 6k or greater for 3 secs). A 2H Choppa example would be,

GCD Window 1: Bleed Em Out (final tick) ~1500
GCD Window 1: AA ~1700
GCD Window 1: No More Helping ~2200
GCD Window 1: Hurtin Time ~300
GCD Window 1: Yer All Bleedin Now (tick) ~175
GCD damage potential: 5700+

Add in the second GCD and you squeeze in another ~2500. So a 2H Choppa (not viable for a few reasons) can squeak out some spike damage occasionally if Bleed Em Out isn’t cleansed. 2H Choppa suffer terribly from tank challenge and have no great ways to remove it, basically reducing this lucky rotation by 30%. I play it occasionally and it needs some tweaks to Bleed Em Out or an ID equivalent.

The reason why WLs are scary for most is that they get an extra GCD of burst with Pounce, AA, KD, then pull, now their 3 second window starts, at the end of which they have you to 50%, another AA, and can execute or dip if they don’t. The mobility and pull being part of the burst cycle is a problem. The reason people don’t complain about mSH burst is because they don’t have the AA/Pounce damage to couple with the burst cycle (~3 secs). The Pull and KD (in the air) and you have a ~5 second burst window on WL, which is a big part of the problem.

A WH is considered burst because of BAL timing, more so than a WE (most don’t rock WB anymore). The WH offhand has armor debuff proc (another balance issue) and helps their own burst.

A Slayer because ID ticks coupled with their normal rotation turns into ‘Sustain Burst’, as well as Guard damage being undefendable if derived from Ravage based attacks. This and they have great AoE to remove Challenge.

The aSW makes this all the more scary because of the crit increases on a target, which completely optimizes the burst window for its partner. They do very respectable burst damage themselves because of +crit/crit damage tactics. BTW, the Beastlord Init buffs still stacks with their normal init buffs (prove me wrong). Also, the SW epic weapon is offhand and reduces armor (again a balance issue that helps their burst).

TL;DR ~3 Seconds is the time box for burst windows, WLs get ~5 with pull/KD and Order has more ST burst than destro. A good burst window is ~4500+2500 of damage within that 3 secs. GL testing Marauders though - I haven’t seen any hit the burst windows of Order, even with Impale, etc.

[Foofmonger]

Destro needs more ST burst classes to be honest, while maintaining their AOE balance, which is somewhat equal atm across realms. I would personally improve WE/WH (prob not a ton needed here, more QOL stuff, i.e. Witch Brew critting), improve Mara ST burst, pull, and some Choppa utility (adding damage dot to Chop Fasta, improve Bleed Em Out) to make it on par with Slayer DPS with ID and go from there. Id fix both Slayer/Choppa 2H trees and adjust the mechanic to be slightly less punishing.

I wouldn't mess with mSH AoE or give it more ST. My reasonable list is within this thread and wont swing the balance pendulum.

Anyway, these are all moot. There is only enough people bandwidth to do one class over time...

Out of curiosity, do you have a rough kind of metric for how you quantify good vs bad ST burst? I'm one of the few people who thinks Mara's burst isn't poor, so I'm curious to see what people think is current burst (X damage) over a period of time (Y timestamp) to actually see how the Mara burst compares. I'm happy to provide Mara numbers/screenshots for certain time periods (1.5, 3, 4.5, 6 seconds, whatever). I can do far more than Secrets did to this shaman though.

Agree that the numbers from the vid were not that impressive. Burst for me is classified as during the time stamp of a KD (~3 secs). Some classes have front loaded burst, some timed, etc. or sustain that is high enough.

Good burst is ~4-5K per GCD (total 6k or greater for 3 secs). A 2H Choppa example would be,

GCD Window 1: Bleed Em Out (final tick) ~1500
GCD Window 1: AA ~1700
GCD Window 1: No More Helping ~2200
GCD Window 1: Hurtin Time ~300
GCD Window 1: Yer All Bleedin Now (tick) ~175
GCD damage potential: 5700+

Add in the second GCD and you squeeze in another ~2500. So a 2H Choppa (not viable for a few reasons) can squeak out some spike damage occasionally if Bleed Em Out isn’t cleansed. 2H Choppa suffer terribly from tank challenge and have no great ways to remove it, basically reducing this lucky rotation by 30%. I play it occasionally and it needs some tweaks to Bleed Em Out or an ID equivalent.

The reason why WLs are scary for most is that they get an extra GCD of burst with Pounce, AA, KD, then pull, now their 3 second window starts, at the end of which they have you to 50%, another AA, and can execute or dip if they don’t. The mobility and pull being part of the burst cycle is a problem. The reason people don’t complain about mSH burst is because they don’t have the AA/Pounce damage to couple with the burst cycle (~3 secs). The Pull and KD (in the air) and you have a ~5 second burst window on WL, which is a big part of the problem.

A WH is considered burst because of BAL timing, more so than a WE (most don’t rock WB anymore). The WH offhand has armor debuff proc (another balance issue) and helps their own burst.

A Slayer because ID ticks coupled with their normal rotation turns into ‘Sustain Burst’, as well as Guard damage being undefendable if derived from Ravage based attacks. This and they have great AoE to remove Challenge.

The aSW makes this all the more scary because of the crit increases on a target, which completely optimizes the burst window for its partner. They do very respectable burst damage themselves because of +crit/crit damage tactics. BTW, the Beastlord Init buffs still stacks with their normal init buffs (prove me wrong). Also, the SW epic weapon is offhand and reduces armor (again a balance issue that helps their burst).

TL;DR ~3 Seconds is the time box for burst windows, WLs get ~5 with pull/KD and Order has more ST burst than destro. A good burst window is ~4500+2500 of damage within that 3 secs. GL testing Marauders though - I haven’t seen any hit the burst windows of Order, even with Impale, etc.

So totally agreed about Pounce and Pull, that makes sense, and I think it relates to what I also feel/see, which is the application of burst and it's generally reliability. To your point, the ability to pounce and then pull (without a cast time) isn't something the Mara can replicate whatsoever (unless they gave Mara instant cast pull which will never happen).

For some Mara numbers (going to not pretend like I would stack rend to fluff the numbers): Not in BIS gear, but relatively close (5 warlord/3 invader, bis would be 5-6 warlord/2-3 sov), also not really sure how to define GCD window so just going to use timestamps.

100% dummy damage:

Mid-combat: Assuming autos are already rolling - burst spike:

Timestamp 0.0 - Auto (main + offhand): 1238+830 (crits) = 2068
Timestamp 0.0-1.5 - Convulsive Slashing: 1045 (crits) x3 = 3135
Timestamp 1.5 - Guillotene - 2372
Timestamp 1.9 - Auto x2 - 1238+830 (crits) = 2068

So roughly 9,643 damage in 1.9 seconds, .4 of a second over a GCD window I think? This is of course on dummies, so mitigation has to be factored in for effective damage, and also that I don't have a 100% crit chance, but that's roughly the "maximum possible".

Now there's also more nuance here. If I'm engaging a fight I can try to go for a pull/kd combo (like the WL but way worse), but you can't pull mid-fight like a WL (and nor can you pounce). I like to try to prep with Wave of Terror at the beginning of the burst cycle. So usually its something like this

About 30ft away - Wave of Terror -2183
Make Contact - hit your first 2 autos in and then go into the burst cycle above.

Again, maybe not direct burst but it's some damage while gap closing to prep for the spike if the reaction is slow enough.

Now, if I really wanted to show "what is the max but is completely unreliable" then you'd have to factor in rend x3 dot and wave of mutilation dot, but I don't feel like thats exactly fair for a frontloaded burst discussion and is kind of padding the numbers. You already have to hit 2 GCDs woth of buffs to prep for your burst, so an additional 4 GCDs of prep is just kind of unrealistic in most circumstances (and to assume they don't get cleansed to your point).

[Illuminati]

Yeah, add in mitigation, etc. and you are probably looking at more realistic 4-5k over 3 seconds. If you had mobility/faster pull you could probably make the argument the window is readily possible.

Mara's are in a better place but I wouldn't call it burst. More like, heavy sustain similar to a Slayer (but not quite as high).

[Foofmonger]

Yeah, add in mitigation, etc. and you are probably looking at more realistic 4-5k over 3 seconds. If you had mobility/faster pull you could probably make the argument the window is readily possible.

Mara's are in a better place but I wouldn't call it burst. More like, heavy sustain similar to a Slayer (but not quite as high).

Yea I don't feel like the raw damage is the issue, but the ability to apply it is. I may make the case for shadowstep-esque parity (probably brut stance locked for balance) on the Mara and maybe a 1 sec pull cast.

[Illuminati]

Yeah, add in mitigation, etc. and you are probably looking at more realistic 4-5k over 3 seconds. If you had mobility/faster pull you could probably make the argument the window is readily possible.

Mara's are in a better place but I wouldn't call it burst. More like, heavy sustain similar to a Slayer (but not quite as high).

Yea I don't feel like the raw damage is the issue, but the ability to apply it is. I may make the case for shadowstep-esque parity (probably brut stance locked for balance) on the Mara and maybe a 1 sec pull cast.

The mobility is the broken bits that add a ball to the pendulum imbalance mobile =)

Mobility to escape, mobility to apply damage, etc. Good teams can coordinate some fun SM/aSW/WL pounce kills. Destro telegraphs the heck out of their focus's so one more pouncers would be awesome.