At the end of the day, I think there is an ultimate fundamental "issue" going on. I am not trying to make a point or debate or say where I stand on these, but I will point these out as more "facts" that I see.
- Balance is built around premade vs premade (larger than 6 vs 6).
- Mara > WL in a Warband setting or even in 6v6. He has more overall tools and when supported has better sustained DPS where as if you kill a WL pet, he is not as useful.
HOWEVER
- Mara really requires a full group (heals + tank) to be more useful as WL, where as WL is the only MDPS class that can solo or PUG play and can dominate RDPS due to pounce. Doesnt REQUIRE guard to be useful, since he has the highest mobility of all MDPS classes and in many cases can ACT like RDPS due to WL pet + pounce. (Since RVR is a RDPS meta - this leads to significant advantages the WL has over every other MDPS class).
- WLs pounce breaks the normal "meta" of the game(tanks/melee frontlines, RDPS/healers in back. WL can skip the frontlines and go right to the back, which wouldnt be a problem EXCEPT they have the ability to kill unguarded squishies in just a few GCDs which forces the tanks to fall back to guard the pounced upon healers.)
- The argument that "You only see WLs because of Shaman/Squig" doesnt seem to be true IMO. Even if you removed Run Away, Wl would still be JUST as popular, if not more, because pounce would be that much better.
- The Mastery Trees of both Mara and WL are flawed in that all the "best stuff" comes from tier 2 Mastery, rather than tier 3 (armor debuff, Burst - aka Cull the Weak/Guillotine, Brutal Pounce)
- Both have good damage, CC, mobility, really lacking nothing.
Now for my opinions.
- the areas that should be addressed IMO are the Mastery Tree and the "breaking of the meta via pouncing over tank walls".
This would tone down Mara for group play, as well as WL. Which is needed IMO.
- Trying to compare WL to Mara and saying "see its fine" is stupid. Mara is OP. So all your saying is "well its not AS OP as this other OP class" - this does NOTHING to address if WL is actually OP or not. What you SHOULD be doing is comparing WL to all other MDPS classes (Slayer/CHoppa/SH/SE/Mara) of which, its the 2nd best one by a mile....
- SO what I See is: Mara needs scaled back, and WL needs scaled back to be inline with the other classes.
This can be addressed via adjusting the Mastery Trees to make it "cost" more to get the best stuff - hurting both Mara and WL at the same time - bringing them both "inline" with the other MDPS Classes.
I have made a proposal on this you can see it for yourself:
viewtopic.php?f=95&t=21511
