What Makes WL so OP?

[Bozzax]

I'll add some more reasons as to why for OP:

Burst Damage & Armor

- Medium armor DPS (current meta) with the highest frontloaded single target burst in the game.

- Extremely high frontloaded AoE burst (channel + high armor penetration).

- Basically 0 setup time for burst – unlike most other classes.

Crowd Control (CC) – The Big One

- This is THE ONLY CLASS IN THE ENTIRE GAME with CC (Knockdown / Silence) off the GCD. (SH has disarm off gcd, sure. But we can all agree, that a 3 second knockdown has more impact than a disarm)

What does this mean? A frontloaded burst class can unleash its full burst instantly from second 0 of a 3s knockdown.

Every other DPS class either:
Relies on someone else’s knockdown, or
Loses ~1.5 seconds of that 3-second knockdown before even starting their burst.

This is a massive difference in practical combat – and a core reason why the class feels oppressive.

Bugs & Odd Interactions

- Known issues still in play:

- 100ft+ ranged knockdown

- Insane pull range

Player / Pet Split

- The damage/CC split between player and pet adds another layer:

- Pull counterplay: you must CC the player (pull comes from them).

- Knockdown counterplay: you must CC the pet (but LF KD immunity makes this hard – disarm is basically the only option).

Result: you will get pulled OR knocked either way. Same applies to the detaunt.

Mobility

- Pounce gives both you and your pet a burst of movement speed after landing.

This can get you out of very hairy situations and lets you play the positioning game on a completely different level compared to almost all other DPS classes.

Design Advantages

- Avoids most drawbacks other classes face while still fitting perfectly into the current medium armor meta.

- Can run all the strong tools in one spec thanks to +2.

RoR-specific Changes

- Increased channel damage.

- Added armor penetration tactic.

- Removed condition on the damage increase.(If specced mid left)

(At least there was a stealth fix for LF procs being counted properly – so no more free flanking benefit).

With it's tools it is the perfect counter to a 321 ranged setup sure. But it's a bit much for my liking...

Heal debuff as proc something that was a stealth mostly (also chp but I think it was added later on live)

Excellent write up

[Farrul]

White Lions popularity and performance needs to be seen through the action and situation of the gameplay.

Not too much has been altered with the class and spec itself.
But overtime indirect adjustments to the game have put WL in this possition

Global cooldown increased, made it so "spamable" builds got replaced with coordinated "Channel calls" for warband play.
Slayers for a time was the stacked Order warband class, their strong Channel and raw dps output outshined the M2 dumping classes like WL/BW.
After Rampage was nerfed, and Retribution was "adjusted" the all-in-one solution White Lion stepped up by default. And was catapulted to the top performance spot by doing everything well, including having the counter-tool in an aoe interrupt when Channeled dmg drops are still the backbone of AoE stacking.
The failure of RoR balancing was when the old stable solutions to kill the proc meta in 2017 wasnt replicated and instead 2024 RoR tried to create new proc rules, leading to the situation we have now. An already strong class that has everything checked you want out of an aoe dps warband role, and then you pair it was this proc situation BW and WP can provide in a groupsetting.

WL already had acces to the Fort weapon ghetto version of being a Chosen with healdebuff aura. But it was kept in check or used previous years on an even level as Slayer/BW/WL. (also running a dps runie for the 35% healdebuff + armor debuff might be a better warband option)

With the game this year being in the era of the pug, the overall quality having continiously dwindled, less guilds running on their own, still no gameplay changes to intencivizing players to spreading out or picking their own fights instead of tailtagging. Then the action is more "blob vs blob" despite blobbing having been a thing since Live servers, its now just with worse quality and more "open casual bands"

Whitelion brings burst on demand, with Loner tactic removing the class mechanic whereas other dps need to Ramp up, WL is online after 1GCD in maximum performance mode with 25%dmg for 10sec, fully spinning with all the procs in the world and not even having to face the targets you want to mow down. You bring the counter tool in the better version of the aoe interrupt, have acces to a M2 drop, having a Snare-breaker + Charge combo and a pounce plus a defensive M1 100% parry should you ever be behind in tempo.

WL is funnily enough a class that I would predict would do better under a lower aoe target cap, due to the strong mobility you could leap over the tank frontline nad spin on the dps-line where as other classes would get bodyblocked by the tanks on the front.

White Lion is honestly Fine, its just the game that changed due to proc rules, GCD channel meta, and RvR in neglected decline for creating better largescale action

One suggestion for a smaller tweak, would be the left tree tactic that gives both AP solutions & Armor pen in one tactic, for both the filler aoe skill and channel. Seems a little much for one tactic.

A voice of reason in here? Appreciated. If you can filter out the usual noise from the shaman players who desperately want to get Wl nerfed( likely this OP is a bait pretending to be innocent). Then i agree WL is mostly fine, except pet is still bugged, critical bugs that the devs can't for some reason fix after half a year( like the one where the lion is stunned for the whole duration of the immunity).

I think the AOE of the axe attack could have a 180 cone though.

[Akalukz]

In the words of Dev's on Live when asked about OP AoE warbands. Just punt.....

Seriously tho, imo opinion, the biggest issues are these 3 1) 360 AoE 2) High DPS 2-hand weapon (AA) 3) Non speced AoE healdebuff.

[normanis]

I keep seeing comments on other threads that refer to WL as overpowered. I’m pretty new to the game.

I feel like I’m missing something. I’ve leveled a WL and an SW to 49 and 33 respectively.

In RvR i farm about 3x more kills with my scaled level 33 Shadow Warrior, and 1v1s feel much more manageable.

I have half beast lord and half redeye on the WL and he still doesn’t feel very strong. From 37-39 he felt very strong in scenarios and I was usually top damage/DB’s and felt impactful. I have yet to feel strong in solo roaming, though, which was something I was hoping to do eventually, as I prefer it over zerg vs zerg pvp in most MMOs.

Now I feel like every level 40 I encounter wastes me in 1v1, and in RvR I might get a whirling axe or two off before I die or a couple hits of damage on tanks before their wave backs off. If I try and leap in to flank a backline, I usually get wasted very quickly.

I come from playing Warrior in WoW so I’m very used to playing a non-self healing, mobile melee dps that requires a lot of support to succeed. Smart/tactful positioning, bruiser peeling for your backline, etc.

The thing to me is: they don’t seem very overpowered to me. They seem like they’re great at small skirm pvp with good healers, but this is true of slayers/choppas/marauders as well, and I don’t feel like I’m outperforming those classes. They feel super dependent on their team, and extraordinarily squishy. The pet also dies constantly at level 40.

The burst I had at 38-39 pretty much evaporated as soon as I got to the 40+ bracket and now every kill feels like a slog unless the other team got gipped on healers in matchmaking.

So what am I missing? Why is it that everyone parrots the idea that WL is OP? What makes them so strong?

mobility ,where ather dps need walk on 2 feets they just jump spam their aoe and jump back. same time slayer just start hit or die in halfway to target. (ecept u are leader and has 8 healer spaming on u heals and 2 tanks guard u - than u are ok)

[Cokhollywood]

White Lions popularity and performance needs to be seen through the action and situation of the gameplay.

Not too much has been altered with the class and spec itself.
But overtime indirect adjustments to the game have put WL in this possition

Global cooldown increased, made it so "spamable" builds got replaced with coordinated "Channel calls" for warband play.
Slayers for a time was the stacked Order warband class, their strong Channel and raw dps output outshined the M2 dumping classes like WL/BW.
After Rampage was nerfed, and Retribution was "adjusted" the all-in-one solution White Lion stepped up by default. And was catapulted to the top performance spot by doing everything well, including having the counter-tool in an aoe interrupt when Channeled dmg drops are still the backbone of AoE stacking.
The failure of RoR balancing was when the old stable solutions to kill the proc meta in 2017 wasnt replicated and instead 2024 RoR tried to create new proc rules, leading to the situation we have now. An already strong class that has everything checked you want out of an aoe dps warband role, and then you pair it was this proc situation BW and WP can provide in a groupsetting.

WL already had acces to the Fort weapon ghetto version of being a Chosen with healdebuff aura. But it was kept in check or used previous years on an even level as Slayer/BW/WL. (also running a dps runie for the 35% healdebuff + armor debuff might be a better warband option)

With the game this year being in the era of the pug, the overall quality having continiously dwindled, less guilds running on their own, still no gameplay changes to intencivizing players to spreading out or picking their own fights instead of tailtagging. Then the action is more "blob vs blob" despite blobbing having been a thing since Live servers, its now just with worse quality and more "open casual bands"

Whitelion brings burst on demand, with Loner tactic removing the class mechanic whereas other dps need to Ramp up, WL is online after 1GCD in maximum performance mode with 25%dmg for 10sec, fully spinning with all the procs in the world and not even having to face the targets you want to mow down. You bring the counter tool in the better version of the aoe interrupt, have acces to a M2 drop, having a Snare-breaker + Charge combo and a pounce plus a defensive M1 100% parry should you ever be behind in tempo.

WL is funnily enough a class that I would predict would do better under a lower aoe target cap, due to the strong mobility you could leap over the tank frontline nad spin on the dps-line where as other classes would get bodyblocked by the tanks on the front.

White Lion is honestly Fine, its just the game that changed due to proc rules, GCD channel meta, and RvR in neglected decline for creating better largescale action

One suggestion for a smaller tweak, would be the left tree tactic that gives both AP solutions & Armor pen in one tactic, for both the filler aoe skill and channel. Seems a little much for one tactic.

Thank you for this--this is exactly what I was looking for. Gave a great amount of context so that I can understand how to play the class in the meta properly and be "OP."

Cheers!

[Fey]

This is the type of constructive thread that these boards need. Personally I didn't really think that the weapon heal debuff proc was that big of a deal, until you point out that it turns into an aoe heal debuff. That kind of synergy with a weapon is poor game design imo. It turns that one item into the indisputable BiS weapon for that class.

Armor itemization and variety is one of this games strengths. But there is a point where you over do it. That heal debuff proc is too strong to be a passive weapon proc. It should be removed to make room for Rune of Nullification, Changer's Touch, and Discordant Turbulence. I'm unaware of other aoe heal debuffs off the top of my head.

[wonshot]

This is the type of constructive thread that these boards need. Personally I didn't really think that the weapon heal debuff proc was that big of a deal, until you point out that it turns into an aoe heal debuff. That kind of synergy with a weapon is poor game design imo. It turns that one item into the indisputable BiS weapon for that class.

Armor itemization and variety is one of this games strengths. But there is a point where you over do it. That heal debuff proc is too strong to be a passive weapon proc. It should be removed to make room for Rune of Nullification, Changer's Touch, and Discordant Turbulence. I'm unaware of other aoe heal debuffs off the top of my head.

I guess each to their own. These 25% incoming healdebuffs with 10%chance (individually per target) have been a way for order to try and replicate having a chosen just exsisting in the fight, which is 100% uptime and garenteed.

BW on Bloodlord has the same proc, but was almost never used as this effect is just not that great for what you are giving up.
Same for WL, this is not a new thing that WL is running this proc. Back 3 or so years if you had two aoe WLs in your city warband you would ask one of them to rin the Healdebuff proc and the other to run the Armor debuff proc version. It really is not a big deal for balacing imho.

Im not fully in the loop of the many bugs and inintented interactions on RoR atm. But if the overall gameplay is blobby, if TimeToKill is small because Challange and Bellow doesnt stack, and the fights are very quick. The naturally WL and Mara with their Burst on Demand 25% damage increase spins and interrupts to cancel eachother out, are the two main aoe dps classes you wanna stack.

[Akalukz]

This is the type of constructive thread that these boards need. Personally I didn't really think that the weapon heal debuff proc was that big of a deal, until you point out that it turns into an aoe heal debuff. That kind of synergy with a weapon is poor game design imo. It turns that one item into the indisputable BiS weapon for that class.

Armor itemization and variety is one of this games strengths. But there is a point where you over do it. That heal debuff proc is too strong to be a passive weapon proc. It should be removed to make room for Rune of Nullification, Changer's Touch, and Discordant Turbulence. I'm unaware of other aoe heal debuffs off the top of my head.

I guess each to their own. These 25% incoming healdebuffs with 10%chance (individually per target) have been a way for order to try and replicate having a chosen just exsisting in the fight, which is 100% uptime and garenteed.

BW on Bloodlord has the same proc, but was almost never used as this effect is just not that great for what you are giving up.
Same for WL, this is not a new thing that WL is running this proc. Back 3 or so years if you had two aoe WLs in your city warband you would ask one of them to rin the Healdebuff proc and the other to run the Armor debuff proc version. It really is not a big deal for balacing imho.

Im not fully in the loop of the many bugs and inintented interactions on RoR atm. But if the overall gameplay is blobby, if TimeToKill is small because Challange and Bellow doesnt stack, and the fights are very quick. The naturally WL and Mara with their Burst on Demand 25% damage increase spins and interrupts to cancel eachother out, are the two main aoe dps classes you wanna stack.

The problem becomes such that it is free, whereas the chosen one is mastery point driven and the WL's on a BiS weapon even without the proc on the BiS AoE Class for the realm. and the true 10% for 25%HD is pretty much 100% up time in RoR, if you truly watch the proc rate, for free, no need to tri spec mastery trees like the Chosen has to do which in turn limits a lot of build variety.

[wonshot]

This is the type of constructive thread that these boards need. Personally I didn't really think that the weapon heal debuff proc was that big of a deal, until you point out that it turns into an aoe heal debuff. That kind of synergy with a weapon is poor game design imo. It turns that one item into the indisputable BiS weapon for that class.

Armor itemization and variety is one of this games strengths. But there is a point where you over do it. That heal debuff proc is too strong to be a passive weapon proc. It should be removed to make room for Rune of Nullification, Changer's Touch, and Discordant Turbulence. I'm unaware of other aoe heal debuffs off the top of my head.

I guess each to their own. These 25% incoming healdebuffs with 10%chance (individually per target) have been a way for order to try and replicate having a chosen just exsisting in the fight, which is 100% uptime and garenteed.

BW on Bloodlord has the same proc, but was almost never used as this effect is just not that great for what you are giving up.
Same for WL, this is not a new thing that WL is running this proc. Back 3 or so years if you had two aoe WLs in your city warband you would ask one of them to rin the Healdebuff proc and the other to run the Armor debuff proc version. It really is not a big deal for balacing imho.

Im not fully in the loop of the many bugs and inintented interactions on RoR atm. But if the overall gameplay is blobby, if TimeToKill is small because Challange and Bellow doesnt stack, and the fights are very quick. The naturally WL and Mara with their Burst on Demand 25% damage increase spins and interrupts to cancel eachother out, are the two main aoe dps classes you wanna stack.

The problem becomes such that it is free, whereas the chosen one is mastery point driven and the WL's on a BiS weapon even without the proc on the BiS AoE Class for the realm. and the true 10% for 25%HD is pretty much 100% up time in RoR, if you truly watch the proc rate, for free, no need to tri spec mastery trees like the Chosen has to do which in turn limits a lot of build variety.

"Free" in the terms that you dont slot the armor debuff weapon choice nor the Bloodlord 5% dmg one. Dont get me wrong the WL HD proc is good to have. But id much rather have a dps runie for 35% while also bringing aoe armordebuff on demand.

And on destro you dont need all your chosen to run healdebuff, just one of them. Its really not a big deal getting it slotted into your warband (from experience running destro warbands/guilds)

[Drysill]

I'll add some more reasons as to why for OP:

Burst Damage & Armor

- Medium armor DPS (current meta) with the highest frontloaded single target burst in the game.

- Extremely high frontloaded AoE burst (channel + high armor penetration).

- Basically 0 setup time for burst – unlike most other classes.

Crowd Control (CC) – The Big One

- This is THE ONLY CLASS IN THE ENTIRE GAME with CC (Knockdown / Silence) off the GCD. (SH has disarm off gcd, sure. But we can all agree, that a 3 second knockdown has more impact than a disarm)

What does this mean? A frontloaded burst class can unleash its full burst instantly from second 0 of a 3s knockdown.

Every other DPS class either:
Relies on someone else’s knockdown, or
Loses ~1.5 seconds of that 3-second knockdown before even starting their burst.

This is a massive difference in practical combat – and a core reason why the class feels oppressive.

Bugs & Odd Interactions

- Known issues still in play:

- 100ft+ ranged knockdown

- Insane pull range

Player / Pet Split

- The damage/CC split between player and pet adds another layer:

- Pull counterplay: you must CC the player (pull comes from them).

- Knockdown counterplay: you must CC the pet (but LF KD immunity makes this hard – disarm is basically the only option).

Result: you will get pulled OR knocked either way. Same applies to the detaunt.

Mobility

- Pounce gives both you and your pet a burst of movement speed after landing.

This can get you out of very hairy situations and lets you play the positioning game on a completely different level compared to almost all other DPS classes.

Design Advantages

- Avoids most drawbacks other classes face while still fitting perfectly into the current medium armor meta.

- Can run all the strong tools in one spec thanks to +2.

RoR-specific Changes

- Increased channel damage.

- Added armor penetration tactic.

- Removed condition on the damage increase.(If specced mid left)

(At least there was a stealth fix for LF procs being counted properly – so no more free flanking benefit).

With it's tools it is the perfect counter to a 321 ranged setup sure. But it's a bit much for my liking...

This is the one side of the story..

WL is also THE ONLY CLASS IN THE ENTIRE GAME with CC skills (Knockdown / Silence / Pull) on 15sec cooldown even without using them, when the pet dies. No other class has a skill that didn’t use on cooldown. Also, if the WL uses pet-dependent Tactics like “Pack Synergy, Speed Training”, they are also useless for 15sec.

In WBvWB fights the pet dies so fast, even before reaching the first target. That’s why most WLs prefer Loner tactic, sacrificing all CC skills.

All that feeling about WL is OP, it only derives from Pounce, which in RoR-changes it is nerfed. In live it had AoE damage on landing and no cooldown (maybe with a tactic, don’t remember).

Considering Mara, did you know that:
1. Has AoE knockdown
2. Has higher survivability that all other mDPS
3. Has Self-Heal
4. Has Wound debuff, like moral damage ignoring armor-toughness mitigation.
5. Has lower Burst but the same DPS as WL
6. His Pull laser-beam can’t be killed
7. His CC abilities go on cooldown only after using them
8. He gets the sov +2 too, like all classes.
9. Avoids most drawbacks other classes face while still fitting perfectly into the current medium armor meta (copied from post but fits here too, after all no info provided)

Every class has its unique perks and drawbacks.
Presenting only the perks while ignoring the drawbacks is just a trap
Presenting only the perks while ignoring other’s classes perks is also a trap
Don’t fall in.