Return of Reckoning

The priority of balancing in Return of Reckoning is set around group play, meaning any number from 6 all the way up to large scale fights in RvR. However, if we can improve balance for smaller numbered fights without negatively affecting group balance, we are willing to do so. Hence you will find a couple changes to Witch Elf and Witch Hunter specifically aimed at that. The nerf to Sacrificial Stab is aimed also at group play.

- Shadow Leap: Cooldown now resets on Killing Blow instead of resetting on stealth.

- Shadow Prowler: Now has a maximum duration of 30s. When you are hit 10 times while in Stealth, you will lose Shadow Prowler.

- Witchbrew: Duration reduced from 60 to 30 seconds.

- Sacrifices Rewarded: Internal cooldown increased from 3 to 6 seconds.

- Kiss of Doom: Now reduces the damage of your Kisses by 50%, but heals for 200% of the damage dealt.

- Sacrificial Stab: Armor Penetration now scales with Bloodlust from 20-40-60-80-100% with 1 to 5 Bloodlust. Now always snares the target for 40% for 5 seconds. Base damage reduced from 131-175-220-262-307 to 131-161-195-228-262 damage for 1-5 Blood Lust.

In groupplay, the WE already greatly underperforms vrs WH, with it's finishers doing waaaayyy less damage. Sac stab only does 1k damage or so with str cap, while the WH equivalent does around 4k. Burn heretic does much more damage and does spirit damage compared to blade spin. This change will only exacerbate that

Are you sure sac stab needs a nerf for group play? It commonly hits players with my BiS WE for around 1.5k in total, and the most Ive ever seen it do is 3k in total with the lucky 2x crit and full procs on a zero toughness slayer. WH accusation does a lot more then this, each tick can be more then sac stab and the target commonly even dies before it's big hit ha

Perhaps taking a sludgehammer approach to the WE isnt called for and more moderate nerfs are in order? Can sac stab be left alone, and we can see how WE does with the other massive changes to the class 1st? The nice snare is what WE gets in exchange for the massive damage reduction compared to the WH equivalent, I really think it should be left as it is, it's an expensive skill to spec into

It was the common consensus, mirrored from my experience, that it was the solo def WE that was an issue, and the DPS spec WE for organized play was just an inferior, albiet serviceable WH that trades a lot of damage for some utility.

Can WE also get flowing accusations from the WH? WH has gotten some big WE stuff(Improved pain..), and with WE's great defensive tactic getting mega nerfed, maybe the WE can get something nice

" It commonly hits players with my BiS WE for around 1.5k in total"
i just looked at some combat parses today and the last sac stabs were all around 3k in total.
are you sure your bis we commonly hits for only 1.5k in total?

I fight WEs very often on my WH and always study combat log. Theirs hits of 1.3k and above are incredibly rare, only if WE is a glass cannon. You can check my armory through Killboard.

guessgap wrote: Mon Jul 27, 2026 1:06 am " It commonly hits players with my BiS WE for around 1.5k in total"
i just looked at some combat parses today and the last sac stabs were all around 3k in total.
are you sure your bis we commonly hits for only 1.5k in total?

Yeah, I am.

To get to 3k, you need a 2x crit, and a WE typically has around 40% crit BiS. So that is under a 25%(16% chance to be precise) chance of a sac stab being a 2x crit getting to that 3k, on the crit rng alone. If someone builds anti crit, which is common, the chance of that is even lower. If someone builds toughness, that ofcourse lowers it as well.

While people on here with little experience use data to try and compensate for their ignorance, realistically, its around a 16% chance of 2x crit, which is quite rare, and if the WE didnt use sac stab and jsut double agonizing wounded and they both crit in a row, the outcome is often the same

100% agree. Regarding the mirrored mechanic, I just feel that everything clicks perfectly on the WH thanks to Flowing Accusations. The entire execution feels fluid because you're constantly comboing abilities instead of repeating the same rotation.

With Flowing Accusations, a WH can do some crazy things. Even Incendiary Shot isn't a finisher, yet it's a 30 ft builder. You're doing much more than simply spamming AW + Witchbrew.

I think it's time to mirror some of the tactics as well:

• Flowing Accusations
  Prolonged Confession

The Path of Suffering on the WE has almost no finisher synergy with the class mechanic. Outside of Witchbrew, there are no finishers that actually reward you for building Blood Lust. There is essentially no synergy in that mastery tree.

It's not even worth using Whirling Blades on WE because there simply aren't enough worthwhile finishers to spend your mechanic on. Witchbrew is on a 10-second cooldown, so you're left sitting on Blood Lust. A 33% chance from Whirling Blades is simply nowhere near as good as the guaranteed 50% chance to refund two Accusations from Flowing Accusations.

We've been saying for years that WE gameplay has become spam Agonizing Wound. With the finisher range reductions, that's even more true now.

There is almost no reason to use the only remaining core single-target finisher, Puncture, because it's now 5 ft. It consumes five Blood Lust, requires melee range, and provides so little value that it's simply better to press another Agonizing Wound instead. A single AW outperforms spending five mechanic points on Puncture when both abilities require the same range.

So the gameplay has basically become:

Spam Agonizing Wound → dump mechanic into Sacrifial Stab
Spam Agonizing Wound → dump mechanic into Witchbrew.

That's it. There's very little depth compared to WH, where you have meaningful choices like Absolution (30 ft), Burn Heretic, Trial by Pain, Exit wound and the synergy created by Flowing Accusations.

I honestly don't see the reasoning behind reducing Puncture to 5 ft. Anyone looking at the numbers will realize that, when both abilities are used in melee range, pressing another Agonizing Wound is often a better choice than spending five Blood Lust on Puncture. That change removes decision-making instead of adding it, and pushes the class even further toward a one-button AW spam playstyle.

Krima wrote: Mon Jul 27, 2026 1:41 am I think it's time to mirror some of the tactics as well:

• Flowing Accusations
  Prolonged Confession

Don't forget you have Frenzied Mayhem we don't have and it is a sort of a mirror to these two tactics

abezverkhiy wrote: Mon Jul 27, 2026 2:36 am

Krima wrote: Mon Jul 27, 2026 1:41 am I think it's time to mirror some of the tactics as well:

• Flowing Accusations
  Prolonged Confession

Don't forget you have Frenzied Mayhem we don't have and it is a sort of a mirror to these two tactics

Bingo!

Frenzied Mayhem... for what exactly? On a class that loses more and more viable finishers with every patch?

FM is honestly a weak tactic. It's only 25% more damage on finishers, while you can simply run Taste of Blood or Flanking, which provide 15% increased damage to everything. In practice, FM is effectively only about a 10% gain over ToB or Flanking, and only on finishers.

It's one of the most overrated tactics for the WE.

You know where Frenzied Mayhem would actually perform well? On a Witch Hunter. With the number of finishers they have and the synergy provided by Flowing Accusations, it would be an excellent fit. Meanwhile, WE has fewer worthwhile finishers every patch, making FM less valuable over time instead of more.

+1

Plenty of things would perform well on a witch hunter. But after this patch the best part that is left would be his hat.

Nevermind, we lived through many stupid nerds, will live through this one too.

Plus, there's another thing coming which I can't name as it would put me in breach of server rule 1.7 (Advertising/Soliciting).

Stop this nonsense fellas WE's, WE a long time ago should be nerfed. Start with pounce is for me extreamly op, she got also strongest 21sec dot in game after BAL, which reduce tough and buff WS plus magic damage, the most OP ABSORB TACTIC in game higher than even SM's absorb tactic.
WH have only BAL, which dont have burst potential (its hit around 400-500 per tick) !