DPS WP in a Warband setting
Posted: Tue Apr 29, 2025 5:39 pm
Greetings. I've been playing a DPS Warrior Priest in an organized warband setting for the past few months, having gotten my character to RR 73. A few comments have come to mind regarding the current warrior priest implementation in this setting on multiple levels. First of all, before proceeding any further, I'd like to establish a few things regarding credentials on this topic. I readily admit there are far more experienced and veteran players of this class archetype than myself on the server, however before posting this I've made sure to first talk to them and find some common ground on the topics I'll be bringing up in this post. I've received the signatures of the following DPS WP players, lending their credibility to the suggestion:
Halcite
Yoluigi
Silentsnorlax
Tiji
Brutehammer
and multiple non-veterans!
None of the signatures here are below RR 80, and the highest is a DPS WP one-trick player with a whopping RR 93 and perhaps a decade of experience with the class. Our hope is that this makes for sufficient credentials to have the suggestion taken seriously.
========================================================
There's been plenty of math thrown around in the past few days, that show that DPS WP (and DoK for that matter) lack a significant amount of aoe burst potential compared to most other dps classes. There's numerous arguments that I'm sure will be and have been made, regarding the aoe scale of Smite and so on, but I think it's extremely important to note that the current meta is leaning towards high burst and lower TTK. This is in part because destro classes have significantly better morale pumps and more accessible morale drain effects, which in an open RVR chaotic scenario means that warbands rightfully focus the classes that can achieve the most amount of pressure in the tightest window of time, allowing them to make use of opportunities for offensive plays and force their opponent on the defensive as efficiently as possible.
Within this sort of meta, a class that relies primarily on a very wide aoe that stacks a fairly damaging, but slow to come online, DoT in the form of Guilty Soul seems a little out of place. There've been many veterans that have been getting good results on warrior priests in warbands, but the reality is that due to the lower pressure of smite, it seems to only achieve results when hitting lower geared players (aka pugs), making it a good pug farming tool, and then as soon as you would enter a more difficult fight with more geared and skilled opponents, you will immediately start feeling the limitations of the WP. What are these limitations?
Things working against the WP:
1) Low inherent weapon skill ensures that the AoE warrior priest becomes progressively more ineffective against better geared players, to a larger degree than any other dps class. You might argue that there is a weapon skill tactic available and a separate armor penetration proc tactic, but unfortunately these don't come into play because:
2) Your tactics as a DPS WP are LOCKED IN. You have absolutely no space for deviating from the following formula: Divine Fury, Fanaticism, Empowered Smite, Guilty Soul. And one might argue that with the help of Whispering Winds, you would be able to remove empowered smite, for armor penetration tactics, however-
3) Even if you get over the problem of having low armor penetration (which the game does not make easy for you even with the relevant tactics), smite's relatively low intensity pressure output still makes it insufficient. Perhaps at this point one might make an argument for soulfire, however; Soulfire's damage is fairly negligible, its made inconvenient via the cast time that makes it interruptible and gives it a setback effect and it doesn't stack guilty soul, so in most cases using it in an aoe situation is in fact a DPS loss versus using another smite.
4) Add to this that WP's gearing options are torn between having credible defensive stats to survive and trying to fix the low armor penetration option, and bloodlord 6p, becomes your constant and most efficient companion until you can save up for a 10k victorious ring that will finally give you something that looks like a proper upgrade and it feels like WP is a class that has multiple, multiple things working against it when it comes to aoe damage warband play.
The conclusion is that this is a class that has slow, consistent and mediocre aoe pressure that is unusually highly variable based on the amount of armor/gear the target has, with some abilities effectively having an anti-synergy with the rest of its kit. Math has shown that WP deals up to 50% less pressure than pure DPS classes depending on the target, and it seems to be a rather extreme "tax" for being a hybrid class.
The Solution
The aim is to increase the output of the class at least slightly, with the purpose of ensuring it contributes more to an organized warband setting and operates a little closer to the potential of some of the more favored DPS classes. Bridge the 50% gap at least a little.
I would single out Soulfire as the problem here. DPS and Shield WP are both identified by having Righteous Fury builders and more powerful abilities in the form of Righteous Fury spenders. In this case, the aoe DPS WP does not seem to have a credible aoe damage spender, given Soulfire's ineffectiveness, and while I would say there's multiple gaps that feel like problems with the playstyle; there is a sense that there are so many of them that you couldn't possibly hope to address it all in a comprehensive manner and not end up creating more of them due to oversights.
My suggestions for reworking Soulfire:
1) Make it instead into an effect that radiates direct spirit damage every 1, 2 or 3 seconds in a 25 foot radius, spending some amount of righteous fury over that time and giving the Warrior Priest (and DoK, perhaps) a meagre 10-20% speed boost during it (or a 10-20% aoe slow effect, if speed enhancing abilities are anathema). This ensures that it helps in stacking up Guilty Soul, it naturally plays together with Smite, rather than against it and it gives a form of mobility to a class that sorely lacks it, as well the mobility being weaker than equivalent options of pure MDPS, satisfying the "hybrid tax" that seems to be the design philosophy at play. Or;
2) Make an AoE version of Hammer of Sigmar, concentrated on, say, a 25 foot cone, or something smaller or just equivalent to what other melee dps tend to have for their channels or big damage moves and have the damage of this ability be increased by Guilty Soul. This can be done either by replacing Soulfire for a new ability, or baking it into Empowered Smite as a direct change to Hammer of Sigmar with a damage penalty to the ability in exchange for making it AoE, and in this option you may choose to remove Soulfire or keep it, and trust me when I say it will make no difference. Preferably, an ability such as this should either be spirit damage or have innate armor pen in the ability for the reasons explained above.
Thank you for staying with me so far. I hope the suggestions will be taken into consideration in the coming balance patches.
=======================================================
P.S Please understand that this topic is made under the pretense of the current meta, and is valid in the event that the current meta is how the game will continue forward. Discussion about whether or not the entire state of the game is good / bad is off-topic, as is voicing your frustrations about how your favorite class has been changed over the course of the recent patches. I am also not looking for advice on which class I should be playing instead of WP; this is the Suggestions and Feedback forum, and that is sole function of the thread - to provide feedback and suggestions. Thank you for understanding.
Halcite
Yoluigi
Silentsnorlax
Tiji
Brutehammer
and multiple non-veterans!
None of the signatures here are below RR 80, and the highest is a DPS WP one-trick player with a whopping RR 93 and perhaps a decade of experience with the class. Our hope is that this makes for sufficient credentials to have the suggestion taken seriously.
========================================================
There's been plenty of math thrown around in the past few days, that show that DPS WP (and DoK for that matter) lack a significant amount of aoe burst potential compared to most other dps classes. There's numerous arguments that I'm sure will be and have been made, regarding the aoe scale of Smite and so on, but I think it's extremely important to note that the current meta is leaning towards high burst and lower TTK. This is in part because destro classes have significantly better morale pumps and more accessible morale drain effects, which in an open RVR chaotic scenario means that warbands rightfully focus the classes that can achieve the most amount of pressure in the tightest window of time, allowing them to make use of opportunities for offensive plays and force their opponent on the defensive as efficiently as possible.
Within this sort of meta, a class that relies primarily on a very wide aoe that stacks a fairly damaging, but slow to come online, DoT in the form of Guilty Soul seems a little out of place. There've been many veterans that have been getting good results on warrior priests in warbands, but the reality is that due to the lower pressure of smite, it seems to only achieve results when hitting lower geared players (aka pugs), making it a good pug farming tool, and then as soon as you would enter a more difficult fight with more geared and skilled opponents, you will immediately start feeling the limitations of the WP. What are these limitations?
Things working against the WP:
1) Low inherent weapon skill ensures that the AoE warrior priest becomes progressively more ineffective against better geared players, to a larger degree than any other dps class. You might argue that there is a weapon skill tactic available and a separate armor penetration proc tactic, but unfortunately these don't come into play because:
2) Your tactics as a DPS WP are LOCKED IN. You have absolutely no space for deviating from the following formula: Divine Fury, Fanaticism, Empowered Smite, Guilty Soul. And one might argue that with the help of Whispering Winds, you would be able to remove empowered smite, for armor penetration tactics, however-
3) Even if you get over the problem of having low armor penetration (which the game does not make easy for you even with the relevant tactics), smite's relatively low intensity pressure output still makes it insufficient. Perhaps at this point one might make an argument for soulfire, however; Soulfire's damage is fairly negligible, its made inconvenient via the cast time that makes it interruptible and gives it a setback effect and it doesn't stack guilty soul, so in most cases using it in an aoe situation is in fact a DPS loss versus using another smite.
4) Add to this that WP's gearing options are torn between having credible defensive stats to survive and trying to fix the low armor penetration option, and bloodlord 6p, becomes your constant and most efficient companion until you can save up for a 10k victorious ring that will finally give you something that looks like a proper upgrade and it feels like WP is a class that has multiple, multiple things working against it when it comes to aoe damage warband play.
The conclusion is that this is a class that has slow, consistent and mediocre aoe pressure that is unusually highly variable based on the amount of armor/gear the target has, with some abilities effectively having an anti-synergy with the rest of its kit. Math has shown that WP deals up to 50% less pressure than pure DPS classes depending on the target, and it seems to be a rather extreme "tax" for being a hybrid class.
The Solution
The aim is to increase the output of the class at least slightly, with the purpose of ensuring it contributes more to an organized warband setting and operates a little closer to the potential of some of the more favored DPS classes. Bridge the 50% gap at least a little.
I would single out Soulfire as the problem here. DPS and Shield WP are both identified by having Righteous Fury builders and more powerful abilities in the form of Righteous Fury spenders. In this case, the aoe DPS WP does not seem to have a credible aoe damage spender, given Soulfire's ineffectiveness, and while I would say there's multiple gaps that feel like problems with the playstyle; there is a sense that there are so many of them that you couldn't possibly hope to address it all in a comprehensive manner and not end up creating more of them due to oversights.
My suggestions for reworking Soulfire:
1) Make it instead into an effect that radiates direct spirit damage every 1, 2 or 3 seconds in a 25 foot radius, spending some amount of righteous fury over that time and giving the Warrior Priest (and DoK, perhaps) a meagre 10-20% speed boost during it (or a 10-20% aoe slow effect, if speed enhancing abilities are anathema). This ensures that it helps in stacking up Guilty Soul, it naturally plays together with Smite, rather than against it and it gives a form of mobility to a class that sorely lacks it, as well the mobility being weaker than equivalent options of pure MDPS, satisfying the "hybrid tax" that seems to be the design philosophy at play. Or;
2) Make an AoE version of Hammer of Sigmar, concentrated on, say, a 25 foot cone, or something smaller or just equivalent to what other melee dps tend to have for their channels or big damage moves and have the damage of this ability be increased by Guilty Soul. This can be done either by replacing Soulfire for a new ability, or baking it into Empowered Smite as a direct change to Hammer of Sigmar with a damage penalty to the ability in exchange for making it AoE, and in this option you may choose to remove Soulfire or keep it, and trust me when I say it will make no difference. Preferably, an ability such as this should either be spirit damage or have innate armor pen in the ability for the reasons explained above.
Thank you for staying with me so far. I hope the suggestions will be taken into consideration in the coming balance patches.
=======================================================
P.S Please understand that this topic is made under the pretense of the current meta, and is valid in the event that the current meta is how the game will continue forward. Discussion about whether or not the entire state of the game is good / bad is off-topic, as is voicing your frustrations about how your favorite class has been changed over the course of the recent patches. I am also not looking for advice on which class I should be playing instead of WP; this is the Suggestions and Feedback forum, and that is sole function of the thread - to provide feedback and suggestions. Thank you for understanding.