Aurandilaz wrote: Mon May 11, 2020 2:57 pm
latest hot take on why Order is how it is (from a filthy xrealmer who has +80 chars on both sides);
I blame the trinity of Order ezmode classes;
BW
Engi
WL
New players ask what toon to make, "roll engi"; why - good dmg, long range, good self healing, decent utility. Why not? Lot of roleplay community around engis, lot of easy keep defences, lot of easy ranged snipes - just sit back and shoot something from 180ft while the targets detaunt ends at 100ft range.
New player asks "I want to do high dmg" - "well roll a BW" , highest AoE dps in game, always wanted for warband, stupid easy kills from ROF spam. M2 bomb, insane high AoE melt dmg, even a goddamn self cleanse + self armor buff, own AP regen just in case, root just in case, AoE knockback just in case, same ranged ST nuke spec as Sorc while only maybe -10% behind in potential peak dmg burst. I leeched my own Conq gear on BW back in the day by just standing behind pug wbs, doing RoF + proc + proc + proc + proc, using my own HOT pot to stay alive, and stealing most of medals from friendly warbands because my ROF did more dmg than 2-4 dps players from any specific WB parties, and doing it as AOE attack from range without any need to target anything. Lot of BWs around, always few dozen in every keep defence, crowding the walls with the Engis. Rain of freenown when getting to a fort defence, spam that ROF and post your latest skillscore about how amazing your ROF placement was when it comes to melting 24 pugs who keep dying without even getting close enough to fort room where they would die to someone elses AoE.
White Lions.
Sure, some say they are OP, but honestly they nowhere close to OP now. They used to be more powerful than their current state, still salty over losing my own CS burst last october or so. CS burst is now barely 2-4k crit dmg in 1 GCD, it used to be 4-6k in the past with just one ability. ROR took some old live endgame values, such as 1500 armor debuff, and slapped them to WL/Mara. That 1.5k was minor worry in WAR endgame in 2013 where everyone and their alts had minimum of 4-6k armor on even healers. Then same 1.5k armor debuff was slapped to ROR, except classes here were using Deva (2016), Anni/Ruin (2017), Conq (2018), and unless you were a tank, there was high chance that your light armoured squishy class had 0 armor, after this totally balanced melee range class with 65ft gap closer pounced after your ass and executed the usual Pounce+FO+CS combo in 2-3sec timestamp, often resulting in 4-10k dmg done, and an almost guaranteed kill unless target was guarded or heavily healed.
Anyone playing Destro for past years knew that a WL pouncing on a squishy target was pretty much almost guaranteed death. So, with that in mind, lot of players either avoided solo roaming on rdps, or rather focused on playing mdps where being able to parry few hits might just save you from death. During the peak of Guardian "rebalancing", you might have seen 10-20 WLs roaming the zones, and 0 Destro left roaming (January-March 2018). The pet spec got buffed to such levels that you could pretty much win the fight by sending your pokemon to deal +5k dmg in 3sec due to LF dmg addition to pet and add your own +10k burst within same 2-3s timestamp. The more armored the WL player was (wounds + toughness), the higher your pet would hit (players aimed for 800-900 str, 400-500 WS, +500 toughness, pet gained more STR+WS from player tough+wounds).
Ofc due to Guardian WL, I also stopped bothering with trying to play as Destro solo, since fighting 1 Guardian WL required a team effort to take down, and decided to go with the tide, and enjoyed the spec as it was stupid easy to pretend to be afk and watch as your pet alone shreds some WE to death in 4 sec of combat.
Eventually Guardian is "reworked" to current levels, where its bit meh compared to its past glory. But years of WL bullying has left its mark on Destro players DNA, meaning the few rdps still are extremely careful around WLs, or old time players still stick to their melee mains over considering rdps (who are arguable weaker than Destro melee). Add to the mix Torques Disrupt patch (lasted almost a year), where every DOT could be disrupted against and landing 9 ranged attacks with AoE into blob would against all odds somehow result in 9 disrupts. So yeah, it was probably bit tiresome for most Destro rdps players, who either quit, or went with the tide, and rerolled mdps/tanks/heals.
Ranged Squig/SW specs were gutted in 2017 due to M2 complete removal from game + close range tactic being "fixed". The remaining Magus/Sorc rdps suffered from the Disrupts + WLs overperforming/balanced issues.
Then you can also add Choppa 1st stage GTDC-wave, when it was a 65ft pull in 2018. So Destro avoids ranged, and forms a meleeball. Tanks+melee work together as a ball. Destro dominates open with melees, Order dominates anything that can be funneled with rdps.
Order keeps doing their own ranged stuff still just fine and without having to fear being oneshot by WLs (even later pouncing msh meatballs are nowhere as deadly as peak WLs).
Sadly cities are not same as keep defence, so years of one side favouring melee and avoiding rdps (Destro), triumphs over the side that plays like its trying to defend a keep 24/7.
.t clearly biased xrealmer
