Return of Reckoning

Ummagumma wrote: Mon Aug 27, 2018 2:43 am

Sanao wrote: Mon Aug 27, 2018 2:29 am You should consider looking in to what Agonizing Wound does.

Well sure, let's see...

Agonizing Wounds...it says here that it does 177 damage at a cost of 35 ap, 5 foot range, and it ignores armor if behind the target.

Now, Torment...177 damage at a cost of 35 ap, 5 foot range, and it ignores armor if behind the target.

That looks like it does the same thing. That's weird considering the amount of crying I'm seeing over witch elves while no one is mentioning witch hunters. Is Order trying to open up a salt mine? It looks that way.

Perhaps you should consider looking into what Torment does.

soliticks wrote: Mon Aug 27, 2018 3:18 am

Ummagumma wrote: Mon Aug 27, 2018 2:43 am

Sanao wrote: Mon Aug 27, 2018 2:29 am You should consider looking in to what Agonizing Wound does.

Well sure, let's see...

Agonizing Wounds...it says here that it does 177 damage at a cost of 35 ap, 5 foot range, and it ignores armor if behind the target.

Now, Torment...177 damage at a cost of 35 ap, 5 foot range, and it ignores armor if behind the target.

That looks like it does the same thing. That's weird considering the amount of crying I'm seeing over witch elves while no one is mentioning witch hunters. Is Order trying to open up a salt mine? It looks that way.

Perhaps you should consider looking into what Torment does.

I'll explain to you why that is. First let's start with mechanics. A Witch Hunter must use a finisher to proc his blessings. A Witch Elf simply has to attack to proc his Kisses. You can imagine how often one will hit vs the other. Now let's look at the mechanics of the two. A Witch Hunter builds up accusations and spends them on finishers (such as Burn Away Lies). Now here is where the two become so different. While a Witch Hunter is forced to use finishers to proc his blessings, a Witch elf has no need to do that. So basically, a Witch elf never has to use a finishing ability if she doesn't want to. This is where the two classes diverge so heavily. Most Witch Elves slot a tactic that gives them extra crit chance with the amount of Blood Lust they have. Since they don't need to ever use a finishing move, they are able to literally use Pierce Armor (100% armor pen), and then spam Agonizing Wound forever (100% armor pen). Do you see the difference now? Witch Elves are rewarded for spamming an ability that does the highest possible damage per gcd. Now let's compare that to the Witch Hunter. Let's say they have a standard build with Burn Away Lies. The Witch Hunter finishers are mitigated by armor. So unless you are on a squishy target, it is a huge dps loss vs simply spamming Agonizing Wound. Allowing this kind of gameplay for Witch Elves opens up their viable targets to just about ANYTHING except sword and board toughness build tanks. This is why Witch Elves will often double the damage of everyone else in the group with a vast majority of the killing blows in any typical scenario. Compare the killing potential of somebody like Slaa (Witch Elf) vs another good Witch Hunter (Nadril). It's incomparable. Since nearly anything is a viable kill target for a Witch Elf, they scale with a Guard much more efficiently than the target-limited Witch Hunter.

Sanao wrote: Mon Aug 27, 2018 2:52 am That took a turn.

No reason to derail the thread with this. Back to the regularly scheduled White Lion debates.

soliticks wrote: Sat Aug 25, 2018 12:56 pm Hi guys, I just logged in and studied the White Lion changes a bit. This will not be a number crunch. It will be a few days before we can figure out how much damage all these changes equate to. But let's get the sad news out of the way: Guardian spec is gone.

Although Guardian wasn't viable for either 6v6 or warband play, it was undoubtedly one of the most powerful duel specs in the entire game. With that being said, try not to get too angry for the game being balanced around 1 v 1. At the end of the day, people are still people. Nobody likes being killed in a duel so completely. You'll notice that classes that excel in group play, such as the Slayer, Choppa, and Marauder are rarely called OP (at least proportionately to the Guardian White Lion). The reason? They don't necessarily kill people 1 v 1. It's time to accept that in their hearts of hearts, that's what people care about (despite the insincere blabber they regurgitate daily about "team-based play").

Now with that being said, let's take a look at what the White Lion has become as of today. I think a good place to start would be our three new stances. They are now called Hunter's Craft, Axeman's Craft, and Woodsman's Craft. The bonuses to them are similar to what you have become accustomed to. Hunter's Craft will give your lion the ability to debuff armor. Axeman's Craft will give you the familiar 5% crit chance bonus, and your lion gains the ability to "distract your enemies with its roar". I believe this means an interrupt on a 10 second cooldown (lot of potential here if timed correctly). Since it's basically a taunt, your pet gets a 30% damage boost, and even Sundering Axe is "improved" by it. Finally, we have Woodsman's Craft. For all intents and purposes, Woodsman is now our Guardian tree. This "stance" increases your toughness and grants your lion the ability to basically aoe and debuff enemy autoattack speeds. It's also worth noting that individual pet attacks (that are not the special attacks of the three stances) only exists in the Woodsman's stance (i.e. bite). I call these three "stances" because there are now certain abilities "tied" to these three buffs. This is partially what they mean by becoming "analogous" to Marauders.

Now to put it simply, the Woodsman (Guardian) tree reflects the Marauder's Monstrosity tree pretty closely. It is now our aoe tree for warband play. There are a few key differences though. For starters, it doesn't have the survivability that the Marauders have. When Marauders switch into their Monstrosity stance, they are basically immune to ALL armor penetration. This basically means that weaponskill means nothing to them. On top of that, their abilities used in this tree heals them. This is what makes Monstrosity Marauders so unbelievably tanky. White Lions do not get either of these. Instead, we get a tree that can "maybe" do more aoe damage. For starters, a tactic named Spirit Strike empowers ALL of our Woodsman abilities with spirit damage. Now whether this beats out the Marauder's passive 50% armor ignore tactic remains to be seen. In any case, the rest is pretty similar to Monstrosity: aoe damage, morale drain, interrupt, a cone knockdown...you get the idea. Basically think of it this way: Bouncin Squig Herders retain their roaming capabilities, Monstrosity Marauders retain their roaming capabilities, White Lions do not. You get the idea. That's called balance.

Now let's get into the really interesting stuff. I'm thinking you guys didn't roll, and continue to play, a White Lion because you wanted to join the zerg and do aoe dmg. So let's take a look at our traditional Hunter/Axeman build. To their credit, not much has been taken away. We did lose Primal Fury though. It is now core, but it no longer gives a flat 25% damage increase. Instead, you get 200 strength and toughness for 10 seconds on a 1 minute cooldown. Now let's look at what we did get. We now have the option of grabbing Thin the Herd as a viable choice. It is no longer an outgoing, but an incoming 50% heal debuff. BUT, both Thin the Herd and Pounce are respectively 13 point abilities in the Hunter and Axeman trees. So it is now basically a choice between the two. It can possibly be included in a 6v6 build though (where pounce isn't AS abused). The other two big things that Hunter/Axeman did receive was Brutal Pounce (knockdown) AND Leonine Frenzy. It is worth noting that we can't do much during the knockdown. Since our main burst abilities (Coordinated Strike and Cull the Weak) are locked into the Axeman stance dance, we have a 5 second lockout from switching to Hunter to use Brutal Pounce. 3 second knockdown vs 5 second stance lock. Sundering Chop spam is about it.

Here's the kicker: there has been no changes to our pet liability. They will still be targeted and killed (now in 1 second instead of 2 without Guardian toughness). So Brutal Pounce and Leonine Frenzy, the only two things that we got out of this, will be difficult to use against any group that knows what they're doing (or even just random aoe from a disrupt free magus and w/e else). Remember that pet guard that we didn't have enough points to spec into as Guardian? Protector of the Pack is now core. We now have the option of making our pet last 2 seconds longer, and half dying in the process (but this time, in full dps gear).

Conclusion: The changes are an overall disgrace to balance. While Savagery/Brutality Marauders still have the option of going defensive with Monstrosity stance to survive focus fire, Hunter/Axeman White Lions cannot. While Savagery/Brutality Marauders can run in a traditional melee train with a Guard and be at 100% effectiveness, White Lions still lose all their damage with the pet death that happens in the first two seconds of the confrontation. While Monstrosity Marauders still get to roam in their warband specs as unkillable, armor-penetration ignoring, self-healing machines, Woodsman White Lions are just as squishy as their Hunter/Axeman counterparts. While Savagery/Brutality Marauders have the option of stacking only strength due to their 50% armor ignore tactic, and having the option to stack their secondary stat defensively (initiative/toughness/armor), White Lions are still forced to stack Weaponskill as their secondary stat and becoming glass cannons. "Analogous" indeed.

Ummagumma wrote: Mon Aug 27, 2018 3:46 am

Sanao wrote: Mon Aug 27, 2018 2:52 am That took a turn.

No reason to derail the thread with this. Back to the regularly scheduled White Lion debates.

Oh right, white lions were discussing why stacking toughness and wounds to make them tanky AND do incredible damage at the same time wasn't overpowered. I think that's what's being discussed.

Also...white lions are medium armor wearers while witch elves and witch hunters are light armor so the latter should be doing more damage than the former.

larsulu wrote: Mon Aug 27, 2018 3:48 am

soliticks wrote: Sat Aug 25, 2018 12:56 pm Hi guys, I just logged in and studied the White Lion changes a bit. This will not be a number crunch. It will be a few days before we can figure out how much damage all these changes equate to. But let's get the sad news out of the way: Guardian spec is gone.

Although Guardian wasn't viable for either 6v6 or warband play, it was undoubtedly one of the most powerful duel specs in the entire game. With that being said, try not to get too angry for the game being balanced around 1 v 1. At the end of the day, people are still people. Nobody likes being killed in a duel so completely. You'll notice that classes that excel in group play, such as the Slayer, Choppa, and Marauder are rarely called OP (at least proportionately to the Guardian White Lion). The reason? They don't necessarily kill people 1 v 1. It's time to accept that in their hearts of hearts, that's what people care about (despite the insincere blabber they regurgitate daily about "team-based play").

Now with that being said, let's take a look at what the White Lion has become as of today. I think a good place to start would be our three new stances. They are now called Hunter's Craft, Axeman's Craft, and Woodsman's Craft. The bonuses to them are similar to what you have become accustomed to. Hunter's Craft will give your lion the ability to debuff armor. Axeman's Craft will give you the familiar 5% crit chance bonus, and your lion gains the ability to "distract your enemies with its roar". I believe this means an interrupt on a 10 second cooldown (lot of potential here if timed correctly). Since it's basically a taunt, your pet gets a 30% damage boost, and even Sundering Axe is "improved" by it. Finally, we have Woodsman's Craft. For all intents and purposes, Woodsman is now our Guardian tree. This "stance" increases your toughness and grants your lion the ability to basically aoe and debuff enemy autoattack speeds. It's also worth noting that individual pet attacks (that are not the special attacks of the three stances) only exists in the Woodsman's stance (i.e. bite). I call these three "stances" because there are now certain abilities "tied" to these three buffs. This is partially what they mean by becoming "analogous" to Marauders.

Now to put it simply, the Woodsman (Guardian) tree reflects the Marauder's Monstrosity tree pretty closely. It is now our aoe tree for warband play. There are a few key differences though. For starters, it doesn't have the survivability that the Marauders have. When Marauders switch into their Monstrosity stance, they are basically immune to ALL armor penetration. This basically means that weaponskill means nothing to them. On top of that, their abilities used in this tree heals them. This is what makes Monstrosity Marauders so unbelievably tanky. White Lions do not get either of these. Instead, we get a tree that can "maybe" do more aoe damage. For starters, a tactic named Spirit Strike empowers ALL of our Woodsman abilities with spirit damage. Now whether this beats out the Marauder's passive 50% armor ignore tactic remains to be seen. In any case, the rest is pretty similar to Monstrosity: aoe damage, morale drain, interrupt, a cone knockdown...you get the idea. Basically think of it this way: Bouncin Squig Herders retain their roaming capabilities, Monstrosity Marauders retain their roaming capabilities, White Lions do not. You get the idea. That's called balance.

Now let's get into the really interesting stuff. I'm thinking you guys didn't roll, and continue to play, a White Lion because you wanted to join the zerg and do aoe dmg. So let's take a look at our traditional Hunter/Axeman build. To their credit, not much has been taken away. We did lose Primal Fury though. It is now core, but it no longer gives a flat 25% damage increase. Instead, you get 200 strength and toughness for 10 seconds on a 1 minute cooldown. Now let's look at what we did get. We now have the option of grabbing Thin the Herd as a viable choice. It is no longer an outgoing, but an incoming 50% heal debuff. BUT, both Thin the Herd and Pounce are respectively 13 point abilities in the Hunter and Axeman trees. So it is now basically a choice between the two. It can possibly be included in a 6v6 build though (where pounce isn't AS abused). The other two big things that Hunter/Axeman did receive was Brutal Pounce (knockdown) AND Leonine Frenzy. It is worth noting that we can't do much during the knockdown. Since our main burst abilities (Coordinated Strike and Cull the Weak) are locked into the Axeman stance dance, we have a 5 second lockout from switching to Hunter to use Brutal Pounce. 3 second knockdown vs 5 second stance lock. Sundering Chop spam is about it.

Here's the kicker: there has been no changes to our pet liability. They will still be targeted and killed (now in 1 second instead of 2 without Guardian toughness). So Brutal Pounce and Leonine Frenzy, the only two things that we got out of this, will be difficult to use against any group that knows what they're doing (or even just random aoe from a disrupt free magus and w/e else). Remember that pet guard that we didn't have enough points to spec into as Guardian? Protector of the Pack is now core. We now have the option of making our pet last 2 seconds longer, and half dying in the process (but this time, in full dps gear).

Conclusion: The changes are an overall disgrace to balance. While Savagery/Brutality Marauders still have the option of going defensive with Monstrosity stance to survive focus fire, Hunter/Axeman White Lions cannot. While Savagery/Brutality Marauders can run in a traditional melee train with a Guard and be at 100% effectiveness, White Lions still lose all their damage with the pet death that happens in the first two seconds of the confrontation. While Monstrosity Marauders still get to roam in their warband specs as unkillable, armor-penetration ignoring, self-healing machines, Woodsman White Lions are just as squishy as their Hunter/Axeman counterparts. While Savagery/Brutality Marauders have the option of stacking only strength due to their 50% armor ignore tactic, and having the option to stack their secondary stat defensively (initiative/toughness/armor), White Lions are still forced to stack Weaponskill as their secondary stat and becoming glass cannons. "Analogous" indeed.

mara monstro are not unkillable as you believe, either in 1v1 6v6 or wb. monstro is a proc on mara attacks, which is means if your attack get parried/blocked you dont have the armor/hot bonus.
with these changes WL isnt anymore a easymode class and now you need more " skill" to play it, like mara.
just wait before complaing about "nerf" or changes about WL. we will see in the future if is good or bad.
cheer