Disrupt vs magical class, nerf/boost classes or rework disrupt in general?

[Nekkma]

This game is, and AoR was, based on people playing in groups with healing and damage mitigation provided by other group members. To be able to kill anything in such a setting, damage and debufffs need to be fairly potent. However, alot of players find themselves in situations where healing and damage mitigation from other group members are not provided. Consequently, these players get blown to smitherines in a matter of seconds, e.g. unguarded mdps in previous T3 range dps meta.

On live, the go to mitigation ability was TB. Here, it is presently going full dodge/disrupt. These types of abilities, or rather a reduction in spike damage, were needed on live and is needed here if the game is going to be playable for people not running in proper setups.

The problem is, as we saw on live, that increased defences make it very difficult to kill an organized group (the last 6vs6 I participated in on live lasted for 45 min and resulted in one death). This means that it is neccessary to strike a balance between the interests of organized and unorganized players.

Now to my opinion on the present situation with disrupt. I do not like full avoidance based on luck. I would much rather have a system which reduces damage taken like TB on live, increased mitigation from resists or just reducing damage numbers in general than full avoidance based on a roll.

An additonal problem, perhaps, is that renown abilites in the present iteration would feel more or less pointless if dodge/disrupt was removed or nerfed.

In summary, personal damage mitigation is needed if one thinks that mdps should be somewhat playable without guard. If one thinks that mdps should require guard then present disrupt rates can be reduced quite alot as guard, HTL and other skills is enough. Regardding the design of damage mitigation i very much prefer a reduction in damage than full avoidance.

[Tesq]

well i add there is one interesting thing,

in live dodge was bug and worked only frontally as parry while only disrupt was 360 degree; ironically this would be better balance and fit better in the currently format as it will allow to nerf willpower def contributin (so nerf healer only disrup) due disrupt being 360 degree while not nerf ini/wep skill and still have a standardized system...

[Hastykrasty]

The fact that parry is 180 degree and dodge/disrupt is 360 is right and has its reasons:

First things first, you can parry only in front of you sure, but you are also in melee combat and it's not so easy as some depict it to "simply moving to the side". As a mdps/tank you can be snared/punted/KD/staggered/rooted by potentially more people and you are easily under focus, then the designed target doesn't stay still, but he moves too.
Furthermore it follows the concept of risk/reward gameplay, sure you are in danger, but is also granted you the possibility (not the certainty) to avoid the first of your opponent's defence (parry/block) IF you manage to win the "position war" with your opponent, which improves the gameplay. In melee lets say that "it takes two to tango".

On the other hand, rdps/casters are safe from the melee mess, since they have range from their side. Casters don't benefit from AA and they have longer cast times, but they are rewarded by having significant higher base damage plus the possibility to hit from a safe position and to have a different type of damage (spiritual/ele/corp) with lower mitigation. This also follows the concept of risk/reward, so to balance this, the defence check is on 360 degrees.

It makes perfectly sense under this point of view.
I agree with Darosh, I see the problem only with healers.
Also Khrum's suggestion intrigues me.

[Gakin]

Ok some mass orvr thoughts.

Disrupt is fine now, hold the line is key spell here. You can move slow in tight formation, or run on full speed on enemy. Enemy can bomb face to face u, or try to split and focus fire, or get some tanks in front for punt. Nerf disrupt, and mass pvp become brainless no tactic rdd pewpew. Sorcs and bw take top zone kills all the time, most good order wb runs like 6+ bw, and burns even through hold the line.

[Telen]

Spoiler:

The fact that parry is 180 degree and dodge/disrupt is 360 is right and has its reasons:

First things first, you can parry only in front of you sure, but you are also in melee combat and it's not so easy as some depict it to "simply moving to the side". As a mdps/tank you can be snared/punted/KD/staggered/rooted by potentially more people and you are easily under focus, then the designed target doesn't stay still, but he moves too.
Furthermore it follows the concept of risk/reward gameplay, sure you are in danger, but is also granted you the possibility (not the certainty) to avoid the first of your opponent's defence (parry/block) IF you manage to win the "position war" with your opponent, which improves the gameplay. In melee lets say that "it takes two to tango".

On the other hand, rdps/casters are safe from the melee mess, since they have range from their side. Casters don't benefit from AA and they have longer cast times, but they are rewarded by having significant higher base damage plus the possibility to hit from a safe position and to have a different type of damage (spiritual/ele/corp) with lower mitigation. This also follows the concept of risk/reward, so to balance this, the defence check is on 360 degrees.

It makes perfectly sense under this point of view.
I agree with Darosh, I see the problem only with healers.
Also Khrum's suggestion intrigues me.

Easy to keep 1 melee in 180 but 2 with a brain and one is bypassing it the majority of the time.
Magic has higher mitigation but again no way to bypass. A melee against a squishy will just from base weapon skill usually have them below what magic mitigation is, debuffs are higher and thats before taking into account armour bypass abilities. This is the reason armour stacking was a no brainer on live as melee would hit you with far less mitigation unless you were a tank.

[ragafury]

I find it hard to discuss this without anybody providing numbers, and I don't mean screenshots like: lul I was hit by everything or kek 17 disrupts in a row.
but that's kinda burden of proof of the rdps players.

rework not necessary, good core concept, avoid is important.

if willpower is the issue: nerf disrupt granted by willpower and may give it a bit of disrupt and a bit of healing crit per point, so wp isn't just a nice sidestat for healers.

if deft defender is the issue: make it more expensive so rank III is overall expensive and rank IV is very expensive and are commitments to defensive builds and not just a very good bang for the buck abilities.

nice bonus: strikethrough for renown, mentioned it in multiple threads / discord, would anyway be smart so you have choice in char development and you can tailor stuff better to your needs / builds.

maybe rotation setups need a deeper look, maybe some stuff like willpower debuff etc. of the more stationary RDPS classes has to be undefendable so it's easier to apply and not whole rotations are gimped.

[Darosh]

The current iteration essentially introduced defensive checks for rdps comparable to those of mdps

Mdps can just bypass avoidance entirely by moving to the side.

Provided a mdps gets onto a target and the target being CC'd in a meaningful and intelligent manner, or is using a wireless keyboard/mouse setup that is ran with a makeshift potato battery and happens to die upon mdps impact.
Now surely the above differs greatly from format to format, environment to environment and is dependent on the level of play, but even in the best case scenario a mdps doesn't have an uptime comparable to rdps, especially in ORvR ~ the change did even the odds in that (one, very specific) regard,for better or worse.

Now, as per the rest of my initial post, if you read between the lines:
If competent players clash, regardless the scale and environment they clash in, rdps (caster more so than prdps) have an issue. I dunno tho how one could potentially change it to suit the entirety of the population ~ if pugplay/farm is concerned, and if it is considered the standard, things work out just fine. If a solid groups exploits it, well, as others have written - alluding to live - things go bonkers rather quickly.

So its up to the higher ups to make their mind up and pick a focus (format, scale, yadayada); whatever the focus is and whatever change is being made, it should reward - not break - teamplay and at best incentivise it, imho.

[tazdingo]

significantly increase dodge, disrupt and parry gained from INI, WP and WS and remove the associated renown abilities completely

maaking stats outside of your main dmg source actually matter was imo one of the best changes the ror team ever made, encouraging true build diversity and personal specialization within classes, BUT the renown abilities with their flat, unmitigatable bonuses completely ruin all of this. complete nullification should not be so easy to acquire - a class choosing to stack WS or INI in high numbers over their main stats is making a significant investment, whereas someone putting their renown points into free avoidance in lieu of the small crit modifiers they could otherwise afford is not

leave defender as is as it's not tied to any stat (though i would be all for init/tough = block)

[szejoza]

Deft defender is okayish for other than heal classes, it's far from being OP (rdps and mdps get at least some defence chance, tanks become tanky but that's their job)
Imo I can see 2 options which were already pointed out before:
- give strikthrough passives that can be bought with RR
- reduce disrupt chance from willpower so healers even if stack deft defender with lots of willpower will have no more than necessary disrupt (I don't know the numbers here, but I bet there are healers than can provide info)

[Raefar]

The only problem I have with all this is everyone keeps thinking of how the current disrupt effects BW and Sorc but disregard dot classes like Magus/Shammy/AM.

I think most of this could be fixed with just placing a soft cap on disrupt.