Azygous wrote:
1.Yea I know CS hits for nothing without the pet given the description . You still have Sundering chop to bypass armor, morales and all your other abilities when your pet is dead. You can resume CS when its up again+the 50% damage boost from your pet's death+25% damage boost from flanking+15% damage from the flanking tactic -dunno if it stacks- does help so it's not doom and gloom if your pet dies. When you have 2 WL is even more of a hassle for the mdps to run after 2 pets while ignoring their target every 10 -15 seconds.
Correct me if I'm wrong but pets get group heals, right? Also if your pet dying an issue try out Calming Presence -even if it may be garbage- to heal it and spam the pet heal. You can't have all your favourite tactics if you're in a serious premade fight,right? You can also hamper the pet killing effort by send it to the healer in the backline to waste the time of mdps focusing on it. I doubt mdps always snare your pet before bursting it.
As for the summoning time, a 2sec cast on the move is nothing. It's not like a SH summon where you have to be stationary to summon it. You can do it while moving to a target etc.
2.Dropping a target is all about the burst not sustained damage. Non-burst damage is the opponent's healing teammates desire and WL is all about burst. You knock the guard then burst. Who cares if it's every 15seconds -worst case scenario-? Premade fights are all about timing and coordinating the burst. If it's every 15 seconds then so be it, after their party member drops the other team starts focusing on other priorities rather than 1 or even 2 pets.
3.The AP is an issue for slayers as well. However, you have pots, AP Aura, AP buff from an IB, etc . If AP is that much of an issue then your group isn't set up well. Slayer's Gardruns warcry for the AP consumption reduction has a CD of 40 seconds -60s but since it lasts 20 you can consider it 40 in cd.
4.And yes you can run off when your target is almost dead and get out of being focused to leave your pet to finish it -in a small scale situation not a premade one-. Anyone who's been on the receiving end of WLs or SH pets that respect no physical boundries have noticed that. I think you're just trying extra hard to make it sound like the WL is in a bad spot compared to a 2h slayer.
If the picture you're painting is true then how come almost every order premades runs a WL instead of a 2h slayer if they were comparable and equal?. Why not run 2slayers: Skaven and giant. I doubt they do that coz of the outgoing healdebuff when focusing a mdps target after punting its guard away in a premade..
The Giant slayer tree needs reworking and I wish they didn't start nerfing skaven -much deserved but I think SL was overly nerfed in WBs given its tiny range and mainly affecting the front line of tanks that you need 7 on top of you to get the full effect compared to chop fasta but that's another issue- before they made changes for Giant .
The 2h Choppa is in a good spot coz of the CD increase on the target, outgoing+incoming heal debuff (outgoing hits almost as hard as a finisher) and the group autoattack speed buff not to mention two 2h choppas one can run Chop fasta+2h hitta tree and the other can run the incoming heal debuff +hitta tree to good effect if they can't secure a mara.
First of all, this isn't some kind of a personal attack but it feels like your view of the whole situation is skewed and you're having a knee-jerk reaction to SL being nerfed. I had a RR78 Slayer on live (before Warp/Doomforged) and I can understand how you feel. But nerfing SL doesn't take away a group spot from Slayers, it really doesn't and I don't think anyone will be thinking about running double WL any time soon, there are too many flaws in that strategy. What it does mean is that Slayers are no longer
mandatory for a group comp and it opens up group compositions a little bit. But it certainly doesn't mean they won't get a spot.
I agree with you on Giant Slayer needing a buff (hence my posts in this thread) but Skaven/Trollslayer is still in a decent spot. But if Giantslayer gets buffed to the point where you're running two Slayers, well you can read my reasoning on that at the bottom.
1. You're looking at it from a wrong perspective. WLs as a burst class have windows in which you want to and can do the most amount of damage to actually kill something. When a guard gets punted, when a healer is disabled, when a coordinate morale dump happens, etc. If your pet is dead during that time you're much less effective. Sundering Chop is nice but not a lot of WLs spec very high in Axeman right now, so you'd want to be using the abilities which you did spec for. Most of the time you won't want to waste too much AP trying to apply pressure without a pet, it's just not nearly as effective (unless you're in a specific situation where the target is nearly dead, where squeezing out any kind of damage will help).
About tactic slots: using calming presence would likely mean dropping revenge in your tactics since they have contradicting goals, the situation where you're running both is non-sensical. Calming presence works but the problem isn't that the pet doesn't get healed, it's that saving it is difficult, it's very succeptible to burst (low hp, not a lot of armor, low avoidance, no detaunt, can't be guarded, etc). Even if it doesn't die and stays on low hp the pet needs to get away from the combat, which again, nerfs WLs damage. It's sort of like having a mobile punching bag with you that you NEED to have for your burst and utility to work but dies very quickly. It can't react or move on it's own and most of the time you have to move with it unless you have a target away from the focus of the fight. And if they have ranged DPS it's very difficult to save it.
As you point out the lion is a huge benefit and a source of damage as part of WLs career mechanic. But it can get shut down easily, which makes it very much a double-edged sword. Having to use tactic slots as crutches to help maintain your career mechanic just feels inappropriate (even if sometimes needed).
2. Sustained damage is required for burst to do any work. In any game worth a damn, including WAR, sustained and burst damage go hand-in-hand when it comes to organised play. It provides pressure and is the baseline from where the spike comes. If you never pressure them, they'll never use their resources or feel the need to be defensive. Burst and sustained damage are both needed, that's why Slayers are a mainstay in groups as they apply immense sustained damage.
3. Slayers have AP issues as well but at least they can combat that by slotting a tactic at the very least, WLs don't have one. There's a reason why people see the career as an AP starved one.
4. I thought the point of your rant was a premade situation and organised group combat where Slayers would no longer get group spots because of how WL overshadows them after the nerf. A solo pet won't achieve much in a premade group of 6, which is the point of these posts. But yes, a pet is nice to have when solo, WLs are very good at soloing, Slayers are not. They are much better in groups where they get spots alongside WLs. Do you want a buff to how well Slayers can solo? Kali14 has a lot of ideas.
Your logic is infallible at the end there - let me try and understand what you're saying (not trying to put words in your mouth here): If the Slayer as a career is in good shape, why don't we see two Slayers in a group comp over a Slayer and a WL?
Not seeing double Slayer in a group doesn't mean Slayers aren't worth having in a group. It just means
two Slayers aren't worth having because of a simple fact - this game was built around synergies and groups made out of different careers should be stronger than racial groups. It doesn't always work that way, in the case of WP/DoK, which happens when one career in an archetype overshadows the others, people end up running two. In the case of Slayer/WL they work immensely well together because of the synergies between an outgoing HD and armor debuff, sustained damage and burst and completely different toolsets when it comes to utility (WL has catch, slow and is mobile, needs AP, Slayer has a hard KD but needs someone to fetch targets and keep them slowed, can provide some AP). It's a match made in heaven.
If you want to run double WL you suddenly need an inc HD, which would automatically mean dropping a WL for a SW, BW or even a WH (or perhaps running a WP with the new changes, but I'm not sure how well would a melee healer deal with healing pets). These classes don't synergise that well with a WL (perhaps a SW but LS got nerfed recently so not sure how viable they are in a 6 man) and we all know WHs are not in a good spot right now.
Running doubles of careers just doubles you up on utility/types of damage and ends up working against you, that's why you don't see it often. If we saw 2 Slayers something would be (even more) wrong with the MDPS balance on Order, as they would clearly be too strong (same goes for the Choppa).
But again, I agree with Giantslayer needing to become more viable, especially with Skavenslayer nerfs. Different specs being competitive is just very healthy for the career and the game.
