Do BW cause lack of diversity in order WB

[catholicism198]

Yeah, Squigs have it too, 1 hit=1 second, 2=2seconds, etc.
It was recently nerfed for the second time.

You mean where it was balanced to be able to be group cleansed, or when it was balanced to work the same as Shatter Limbs, seeing as it's easier to apply it to people who are most impacted, healers, via Pounce?

No one uses Stop Drop and Roll, but yes your point stands about people wanting to play fun classes; that's why destro tanks are prevalent.

Forgive me if I'm off base, but I don't see the point of this thread past page 1. BW is taken because it's the most effective, viable class for wb. If you'd like to create a balance proposal for BW, you may do so; and once order have viable warband specs for other classes, we'll start to see them more prevalent.

I've seen a BW use it before- he was part of a premade though.
For the most part, BWs have the same build and rotation as a Sorc and is they (BWs) are fine as is.

Destro tanks are fun? Blackguard is fun, but its damage is garbage.

Whether Shatter Limbs is balanced with Indigestion is debatable- it all depends on whether or not their AE/ground coverage is the same.

[dansari]

I would argue the current meta doesn't spec high enough in immolation to take stop drop and roll on a regular basis seeing as you extinguish your main debuff to get an rkd. Nova is going to be much more useful.

And yeah, my point was regarding how destro tanks look aesthetically; I kinda went off topic.

[dansari]

So you gonna tweak another order classes to make viable in Wb and keep BW OP ?

What do you consider to be OP about BW?

[adamthelc]

Sorcs are good so I'm not going to cry about how much better BWs are.

There is one annoying thing though. If you look at all of the BW mastery abilities they are ALL pretty good. Some are better so they will get more use than others, but what ability can you really point to and say "that is never worth using". Even most of their mastery tactics seem pretty decent. The only meh talent I can think of is the Sear heal.

I think BWs are fine, but they do have an embarrassment of riches.

[catholicism198]

You say that as if Ignite has a 30cooldown.
It's so easy to reapply.

No one is saying Sorcs are weak, they're just very boring in comparison. You don't need many for a reason.

[ragafury]

Do BW cause lack of diversity in order WB

issue is not with BWs being too strong, but with other order classes being mediocre at best in terms of raw DPS.
Engi and Slayer are not in warbands because of there top notch DPS but for the utility they bring.
Slayer has Shatter Limbs and enlarges the mediocre frontline consisting mostly of KotbS / Kotbs or Kotbs / SM or Kotbs / IB x 4.
Engi is basically used for Magnet + that he also can apply range dmg. if you run more than 2 slayers or 1 engie, it's a setback for the setup imo. already.
DPS runie if proper supported can be a thing. (WW SM).

the rest of the order DPS classes are mediocre, mildly said, at best or mostly untested.


the drain utilities order got recently are distributed over 3 classes while Destro has them combined in one class, marauder, which is when stacked, in my book, pretty much a hardcounter to BWs if you have the space to push for them.
the utility in terms of CD increaser is unified under melee SH, which is a tanky beast with good frontloaded burst.
eng / magus are somewhat arguably even, depending on opposing setups, one or the other is in a better spot.

The current state of the orvr with a heavy reliance on dps aoe as well as instant aoe morals leads to that the optimization of war bands tends to focus on these dps classes in the main and other classes second .

You have basically the same issue on destro, while on destro the issue is, other classes can be useful while doing there asisst jobs to make the "true DPS classes" shine and bring reasonable utility and DPS.

if you would build a morale drop centered composition, you would bring marauders, marauders and even more marauders.

here is a quick setup so you see what I would go for when centering around M2 drops.

tanks:
4x chosen
3x BO
1x BG 2hd (optional, can be replaced by BO)

healers:
3x Heal Zealot
4x DoK
1x Heal Shaman

DPS:
1x DPS Zealot
5x Marauder
1x SH
1x Magus with Rift (if you don't plan to push keeps, can be replaced by a marauder)

you have now 5x - 6x Great Fang, 3x 1200 dmg Bellow, 4x Raze, and 4x AP ritual to constantly support the drain.
as outside of bomb dmg steroids you have Crimson Death, Howl, PD, on top of that Healdebuff AOE and stacking armor Debuff AOE and on demand aoe initiative debuff.

As CC you have AoE staggers, ranged silence, aoe knockdown, ST knockdowns en masse, a super punt for the enemy warband leader, rift and winds.

The thing that is common these threads is the reasoning behind why the other classes are less desirable and that is clearly that order classes as a main are similar except when it comes to BW which is a clear king in aoe dps both moral dump and standard rotations .

The price for that good rotations, the good morale etc. is that BWs have to go pretty close to there targets to get this dmg done and there m2 actually dropped.

this is countered to a certain degree by loose warband formations, positioning, and the potent destro frontline.

over the course of the last year conq got released which bolsters Tanks to soft capped HP levels, which makes it pretty hard for BWs to take down, right geared tankwalls with a healthy amounts of wounds stack and 2x Winds Jewels.

you than have on top class tools that also make it pretty hard to land the required follow up dmg.

- CHM on BO
- Savin Me Hide on BO
- NSP on BG
- BS on BG
- TR on chosen

and multiple resist buffs (chosen, BO (if he runs it), shaman and minor ones granted by eg magus.

if you compare it now to sorc, which can play more from behind and has access to Wind Woven Shell, which can be cycled if necessary; Sorc can simply range bomb, and play from afar, till the class hits PN on M4.

so the tradeoff BW does is better dmg for a usually more frontline centered positioning, which is a high risk high reward style of gameplay and no potent defensive tool as WWS from sorc as an example.

The big question is how to adjust the BW to give space for other classes without affecting order / Destro balance.
Personally my thought would be to follow the soc model where aoe dps class with moral pumps don’t get access to m2 moral .

As I have pointed out, sorcs spec a more potent M4 variant, which is now thanks to faster morale gain rates reachable again while maintaining a still positioning relavant but less "all in style" of gameplay.
You could argue maybe that sorc got gutted a bit with the changes to CF! back in mid 2017, but still, maintains a dominant position in destro warbands and is one of the best range bombing DPS classes in the game, which has respectable burst.

I never found myself on Destro "chasing" BWs, but often to "chase" or "follow" a bomb sorc around to put CC on her.

so the solution to the core problem is not to blatant nerf BW, but to check and reevaluate if certain DPS classes of order are good enough to be run in a warband / justify there slot.

Again, on destro you have the same issue.
if it does less range DPS than a sorc = garbage
if it does bring less utility and DPS than a marauder = garbage

SH, Choppa, Magus, DPS Zealot justify there spots by bringing said utility.

This would still leave main standard damage delivered by BW but choices would need to be made for M2.
Just now order warbands don’t need to chose.

from BWs PoV it's in my opinion necessary to have a m2 nuke to do meaningfull dmg and blow holes in bad positioned Destro warbands to achieve meaningful dmg and especially to a more broad frontline not only consisting of tanks but also consisting of tanky DPS classes like marauder and melee SH which artifically enlarge the said frontline.
especially if you now again take into account that the way the BW is playing centered towards the own warbands frontline; and destro having access to tools that counter magical dmg very potent and close distance very quick it's imo more than fair.

Question is is this stopping diversity or is it something with classes ?

Order is in some regards superior and in other regards trash tier, while destro is overall average which some really good tools.



chosen > kotbs, chosen handles guard dmg better, chosen has almost the same level of support, chosen has silence on disrupt; besides the gimmicki, not really achievable solar flare, there isn't much chosen is jelly if looking towards kotbs in large scale.

BO > SM; huge survivability via CHM, respectable DPS, respectable support vs WW and absorb bubbles and resistance debuff + AA enhancer. otherwhise the tools are identical.

SNB IB as good as SNB BG; SNB BG / IB is lackluster overall. 2hd IB is non existent, 2hd BG is now very strong, Rebounding Hatred makes the class viable for warbands with a single slot in my book and gives destro more access to unique debuffs (Hastened Doom, Crimson Death, Howl (also ofc on SNB) and strong ST dmg to kill a target and a super punt to get rid of enemy WB leaders. I saw CD hitting for 1k already paired with a BO in party, and my BG doesn't use a subju or higher level wep. SNB IB can be used to guide a slayer into the backline very efficient since they have good synergy with each other.

Choppa as good as Slayer; but Order is imo more prone to CC than Destro cause of the Frontline issue; slayer is imo harder to utilize, this again favors destro pugs (SL needs to be placed properly, GTDC can just be spammed and will interrupt a lot of spells like HTL, AOE Heals, channeled bombs etc)

Mara > WL (Kappa); Mara combines drain, CC, and AoE DPS, WL has a pet which dies in bomb fights. Outside of an asisst train the class is worthless in largescale, and if you run an asisst train you lose the critical mass which is required to tame the zerg imo.

SH > SW by far atm.

Magus is overall as good as engie

WH is better than WE since he brings utility, both are acceptable from what I heard, though I haven't tested it myself.

DPS Zealot and DPS runie work similar but also very different, runie needs testing, DPS Zealot is pretty damn potent in WBs as my old guildmate has proven multiple times

WP > DOK, by a good amount, but not gamebreaking

AM > Shaman, but not by far; is still think the pump is superior and made a huge difference with the blurgh scalers; Direct Heals > Hots any given day in largescale.

Zealot is as good as RP;

Conclusion:

I think the realm imbalance which is atm current state of the game is not caused by bias or bad intentions but simply because that this is a open / free project and the dev work is volentary.

I doubt BW is overfunctioning, in my book other classes are underperforming or too niche on order.
so the conclusion for order is the next logical thing, stack the not underperforming class and support it.

It's not like order has lost there teeth, they still have tools etc.
but variety and comp flexibility is def. a destro thing.
premades don't bother that much with that fact since they usually somewhat flexible in building comps.
this flex issue is mostly a thing which cripples pugwarbands.

an RoR related issue:
there are no huge balance rollouts which balance overnight the realms close to perfect, but a steady progression towards the goal mainly caused by the nature of the project (volentary work).

If this aims again towards the instant morales / dmg morales or is some kind of sidewinder:

can only repeat myself.
enjoy the game when you start replacing all morales with defensive bullcrap nobody needs.
a) you will face more zerging in the zones than there is already cause you have 0 potent tools to get rid of it, more numbers = even more autowin than it is atm.
b) have fun in funnel situations which will occure even more in forts, which were super fortified on live if you check the old youtube videos, it's almost impossible to break a good keep defense in the current form of the game, have fun doing that on small stairs with pugs and huge bodyblock and some crappy PvE peasants running around.
c) even if you change the morales to dmg over time, they will lose there popularity as soon you have a defensive competitor on the same spot; why should you run a glorified icespike if you can have 10 second no snare -50% cast time with FM or -20% flat dmg on sorc, or 100% block on a tank for x seconds. dot's ain't killing ppl, burst does, pressure is on the DPS classes by default.
d) dragged out fights to the max
e) pugs don't benefit from that at all, pugs break from normal bomb dmg, there is no reason to use a DPS or defensive morale at all vs pugwarbands, they just die, you don't need to tank them heroicly for 30 seconds if they get dumpstered head first into the trashcan after 8-15 seconds from normal centered bomb dmg.

[Acidic]

Thanks for the text wall. Will attempt to read though it fully later.
But the point on the BW M2 is to me the break point on meaningful dps, this in addition to thief standard rotation is where the things deviate , as they have both standard damage and moral there is little downside to stacking BW in the same way that a Destro warband can not stack socs.
To me pulling that from a BW and dropping it to another class might force more diversity

[dansari]

Thanks for the text wall. Will attempt to read though it fully later.
But the point on the BW M2 is to me the break point on meaningful dps, this in addition to thief standard rotation is where the things deviate , as they have both standard damage and moral there is little downside to stacking BW in the same way that a Destro warband can not stack socs.
To me pulling that from a BW and dropping it to another class might force more diversity

There's literally no point to this. Double Mara drain is effective at countering m2 coordinated drop. Choppa is faceroll easy at countering coordinated morale drops by randomly picking DPS out of a crowd. Etc etc

[nat3s]

Destro aoe dps is much lower than order BUT destro have 2 viable classes for this (Magus/Sorc). Order has the BW only so it kinda justifies it doing much higher aoe dps to counter. I think the solution is to bring BW down to Sorc aoe levels and bring engi up to aoe magus levels.

That's perfect balance on paper, 2 aoe classes each that do similar dps, instead of BW having to be op to cater for no other real choice for order.

[Acidic]

Thanks for the text wall. Will attempt to read though it fully later.
But the point on the BW M2 is to me the break point on meaningful dps, this in addition to thief standard rotation is where the things deviate , as they have both standard damage and moral there is little downside to stacking BW in the same way that a Destro warband can not stack socs.
To me pulling that from a BW and dropping it to another class might force more diversity

There's literally no point to this. Double Mara drain is effective at countering m2 coordinated drop. Choppa is faceroll easy at countering coordinated morale drops by randomly picking DPS out of a crowd. Etc etc

No surprise that I see things a bit different. I am not talking here about removing the M2 from order so the discution on counters is void, I’m simply stating that the classic bomb setup where one class has both the standard damage and moral affects the choice/desirability of the class.
The distributing the instant aoe m2 to another class could help make choices required where they are not now