SLAYER after patch 18/12/2025

[georgehabadasher]

Numbing strike + Rampage gives my 90%+ parry BG 20-30%.
Don't look at skill/tact in isolation from the broader view of the class.
I don't understand the crying over the 25% armor/resist debuff on yellow.
Anyway, 95% of SLs aim to stay on red and possibly drop rage if necessary (maybe not everyone noticed, but SL/Choppa detaunt now removes rage even with PT/WR tactics, which is extremely OP).
After playing many scenarios against SL, I rate it as very strong. Of course, I'm not talking about solo qq SLs who are surprised that they die without a tank and heal within 3 seconds.
In good hands, it's a machine.

But for some reason you haven’t played your slayer or choppa since the patch.

[ravezaar]

Numbing strike + Rampage gives my 90%+ parry BG 20-30%.
Don't look at skill/tact in isolation from the broader view of the class.
I don't understand the crying over the 25% armor/resist debuff on yellow.
Anyway, 95% of SLs aim to stay on red and possibly drop rage if necessary (maybe not everyone noticed, but SL/Choppa detaunt now removes rage even with PT/WR tactics, which is extremely OP).
After playing many scenarios against SL, I rate it as very strong. Of course, I'm not talking about solo qq SLs who are surprised that they die without a tank and heal within 3 seconds.
In good hands, it's a machine.

I dont want to be rude but you really should play the class before u comment

[Gunlinger]

Slayer before the patch was in a strange place already. After the patch it is still in the same strange place, with the addition of a more over complicated playstyle.

The core of the old Rage mechanic was clear.
- green rage: your damage is below operating value, like an engineer without the turret buff stacks.
- yellow rage: you have your damage buffed to normal state. +25% dmg to all your abilities. 75% dmg to exhaustive attacks. NO DEBUFF!
- red rage: you overextend your damage bonus to +50% to all abilities but you pay a price for it. Exhaustive attacks only deal +50% damage.
Your Armor and Resistances are lowered by 50% too.

The original Slayer mechanic once involved a tactic that would grand 3 stacks of accumulated rage to be consumed on using an exhaustive blow in the 2H build.
With that you played the safe route, stayed in yellow and had no debuff.
The unsafe build involved the Power Through tactic that kept you in red, flattened the bonus damage to 50% and required harder support.

Now you are unsafe as soon as you enter yellow rage. -25% armor and resistances for 25% dmg bonus. The joke here is that this 25% dmg bonus is considered the Slayers NORMAL DAMAGE! That is not buffed 25%. The 50% dmg plus from red rage is in truth the 25% bonus value.
So YES, -25% armor and resistances in YELLOW is a big mistake.

The NEW NEW mechanic now introduced variations in the rage costs of Exhaustive blows. It kinda feels like the balance team tried to turn the Slayer mechanic now into something similar of the Warrior Priest mechanic. But there is a big problem to it.
- The Slayer has no influence on the generation of rage, since rage is gained passive over time.
- Basic Slayer attack abilities lack a rage point generation value.
- Exhaustive attacks already COST ACTION POINTS.

You are already limited by the AP costs of Exhaustive attacks. Now you have to deal with their different rage costs on top of it.
If this system is supposed to work, Exhaustive attacks would need to have no AP costs. And basic attacks would need to build rage points
dependent on their AP costs.

So much to that.

Rampage was put back onto the gcd, depletes rage now and it's avoidance bonus that is listed as 100%, is just misleading, since you can not ignore more that 50% of the block and parry value, that the target has.
Rampage can now run for 20 sec. But considering that you now reset your rage back by 50 points when you use it, makes this change come with a sour taste.
And the biggest impact the Change has, is that it takes you now even longer to reach red rage and be in your max dmg range where Retribution does its full potential dmg and where you be able to Incapacitate.

Inevitable Doom, the Slayers's unique skill that was considered its ICONIC skill, was double hit. Short temper has no more use to it and the damage it does is now way to low. It's random run time and AP cost always limited ID to be placed to only 2 or 3 targets at best.

Over all the changes to Slayer have a negative impact.
If i had to put into words what happened i would compare it to a modern game release.
They have build the changes for the Chopper and then just poorly ported them over to the Slayer.

There have been so many good ideas for slayer before the patch. Many people tried to reach out to the balance team before and especially during the time the changes went onto the PTS. Those tries all got ignored.

And now we are in a state where the warband AOE build is kinda like before, just that it now does even less damage and that you are over all weaker.
And then they say BUT YOU GOT A NEW STRONG 2H BUILD.
The ''new strong 2H build'' has an overcomplicated play style. You can not even concentrate on what happens around you, because you have to focus on the Rage bar at all time to not mess up your timings.

After this patch i really hope that the range dps patch will not come THAT FAST. Because i fear the day when they ravage the Engineer too.

[Bozao]

Slayer before the patch was in a strange place already. After the patch it is still in the same strange place, with the addition of a more over complicated playstyle.

The core of the old Rage mechanic was clear.
- green rage: your damage is below operating value, like an engineer without the turret buff stacks.
- yellow rage: you have your damage buffed to normal state. +25% dmg to all your abilities. 75% dmg to exhaustive attacks. NO DEBUFF!
- red rage: you overextend your damage bonus to +50% to all abilities but you pay a price for it. Exhaustive attacks only deal +50% damage.
Your Armor and Resistances are lowered by 50% too.

The original Slayer mechanic once involved a tactic that would grand 3 stacks of accumulated rage to be consumed on using an exhaustive blow in the 2H build.
With that you played the safe route, stayed in yellow and had no debuff.
The unsafe build involved the Power Through tactic that kept you in red, flattened the bonus damage to 50% and required harder support.

Now you are unsafe as soon as you enter yellow rage. -25% armor and resistances for 25% dmg bonus. The joke here is that this 25% dmg bonus is considered the Slayers NORMAL DAMAGE! That is not buffed 25%. The 50% dmg plus from red rage is in truth the 25% bonus value.
So YES, -25% armor and resistances in YELLOW is a big mistake.

The NEW NEW mechanic now introduced variations in the rage costs of Exhaustive blows. It kinda feels like the balance team tried to turn the Slayer mechanic now into something similar of the Warrior Priest mechanic. But there is a big problem to it.
- The Slayer has no influence on the generation of rage, since rage is gained passive over time.
- Basic Slayer attack abilities lack a rage point generation value.
- Exhaustive attacks already COST ACTION POINTS.

You are already limited by the AP costs of Exhaustive attacks. Now you have to deal with their different rage costs on top of it.
If this system is supposed to work, Exhaustive attacks would need to have no AP costs. And basic attacks would need to build rage points
dependent on their AP costs.

So much to that.

Rampage was put back onto the gcd, depletes rage now and it's avoidance bonus that is listed as 100%, is just misleading, since you can not ignore more that 50% of the block and parry value, that the target has.
Rampage can now run for 20 sec. But considering that you now reset your rage back by 50 points when you use it, makes this change come with a sour taste.
And the biggest impact the Change has, is that it takes you now even longer to reach red rage and be in your max dmg range where Retribution does its full potential dmg and where you be able to Incapacitate.

Inevitable Doom, the Slayers's unique skill that was considered its ICONIC skill, was double hit. Short temper has no more use to it and the damage it does is now way to low. It's random run time and AP cost always limited ID to be placed to only 2 or 3 targets at best.

Over all the changes to Slayer have a negative impact.
If i had to put into words what happened i would compare it to a modern game release.
They have build the changes for the Chopper and then just poorly ported them over to the Slayer.

There have been so many good ideas for slayer before the patch. Many people tried to reach out to the balance team before and especially during the time the changes went onto the PTS. Those tries all got ignored.

And now we are in a state where the warband AOE build is kinda like before, just that it now does even less damage and that you are over all weaker.
And then they say BUT YOU GOT A NEW STRONG 2H BUILD.
The ''new strong 2H build'' has an overcomplicated play style. You can not even concentrate on what happens around you, because you have to focus on the Rage bar at all time to not mess up your timings.

After this patch i really hope that the range dps patch will not come THAT FAST. Because i fear the day when they ravage the Engineer too.

That's exactly it, the mechanics combined with the difficulty of executing the moves within the time limit ruined the class.

[storm]

Maybe they will lower armor tallies and pots even more to justify their nerfs.. Just blanket nerf everything even though every class is different.

[Speedyluck]

roll a WL or leave for good.

[Roguibu]

Slayer is now a mess. the nerf to survivality is too much.
Rampage now is worst than before the patch.
Determination tactic should be reverted. i tried for 2 days in sc and roaming and is like i wasnt using it, its effect is prety negible.
Power trough tactic was also nerfed. now in yellow makes nothing.
Short temper now is uselles. seriously, we have like 3 atack skills for this tree, one has 20 sec cd, the other 10sec, and the spamable is uselles. how can we make use of this tactic?
Breaking point was better before. make it to +10% crit when 2h or something
cleft in twain rework is good, but it should give 20rage at first and another 20 if you use a exhaustion atack. Its too dificult to make preasure to kill a healer, and with normal ( not exhaustive) atacks dmg nerfed its nerly imposible to kill a decent healer or a kiting ranged before you get punted away.
On wb play Slayer is now more of a burden to the party healers and tanks than anithing else because we are now even more squishi and our aoe dmg has been nerfed hard with the -50% dmg nerf of ID , and the destroyed short temper tactic.
right now is sad only 4 or 5 people plays slayer. meanwhile in the destro there is choppa overbooking.
pls do something dont let this awesome class to rot for another 3-4 years.

[normanis]

i didnt feeled better than wl when played as slayer. died like before
p.s maby revert back to patch where slayers and choppas get parry from weaponskill?
p.s.s hard to feel changes when fight is over and u just entered red zone. maby rage gain was balanced around 9 aoe cap not around 24?
p.s.s reckles gamble should deal bigger damage back byt also make u enter red zone faster

[Rostangello]

The most shameful update and killing of the class to zero! No other problens in game.For what fight X-realming? let's kill the two-handed slayer! Destro monkeys are crying, it hurts their nose! Why balance magic attacks? enter penetration as the second parameter, so that the magician classes also have to share points and think about what to invest in... why all this? let's kill the two-handed slayer! Once again! Destro monkeys are crying again.
Next time, dear developers, just remove the two-handed weapon from the slayer, let him fight with his hands! You made the class unplayable! Some skills and tactics are completely inappropriate now! Applause for you shame!

[CountTalabecland]

From what I have played thus far the self-heal on rage exhaust tactic is now mandatory. Constantly exhausting rage to try to heal back what you are losing to class armor/resist reduction is what you spend most of your time doing.

Also probably wise to use your last available tactic slot on something defensive. With Ancestral Inheritance or the regen/self-heal (not great you are constantly dumping any rage) from AoE tree, x4 reflexes, and x4 deft defender, you will survive somewhat if you play like a shadow warrior and stay around the edges of the fight. Exhaust tactic heals you on rampage and detaunt, which feels alright because you don't have to be in melee to get a heal, but aren't I supposed to be dealing damage rather than worrying about healing lol?

If you run in like a true MDPS and try to play that way you will instantly die.