Return of Reckoning

Hello guys,

i am thinking to reroll to a BM which will be first time for me.

Could you sum up in a few points, how does the class fare in pvp in general these days?

Mind you, i am a new player.

Ty!

BW is a bit of a rough class as new player. They are fun in low and mid tier but once you hit t4 you will notice that they are falling behind the other dps a lot. That wont really change with end gear. The disrupts are high, draftback damage all the time, no real escape abilities in a squishy cloth armor and not that great damage either to justify all these downsides. Prepare to die in seconds from melees in t4.

Read
viewtopic.php?f=15&t=61135
and
viewtopic.php?f=15&t=61125

As new player you are better of choosing Magus or Engi. If you want an easier to play class then Chosen or Knight.

I started as SW because i like ranged dps classes and wanted to play for Order. Aw you probably know sw is getting gutted soon enough so i wanted to find a semi decent alternative which would keep the fun of playing for me. Guess then BM isnt that choice either and for order the only viable ranged choice at this point is engi. Way to go gms, GGs on ur class balancing.

Take a look here for somewhat current AoE gameplay
Or take a look how elite solo roamers peform here (its outdated, now its gonna be harder)

Your regular experience will more likely look how Lumpi describes tho, however its not class issue but rather player issue. Also i strongly dont recommend magus/engi for newcomer, those both have high ceilling for organised play and majority of players play those two classes horribly.
I'd support the advice to start on an easy tank, like kotbs/chosen or easy healer rp/zealot or book/chalice wp/dok. Learn general combat first then play whatever you like. Less frustration

ArkeosGR wrote: Mon Aug 03, 2026 8:38 am Hello guys,

i am thinking to reroll to a BM which will be first time for me.

Could you sum up in a few points, how does the class fare in pvp in general these days?

Mind you, i am a new player.

Ty!

It's a very good class, but you have to put a lot of work into making sure you can play it right. Ive seen rr90~ BWs that suck, and others that are amazing and always great to have on my team. I dont think BW is casual friendly at all

IMO, play what you enjoy and any class can do very well if played well, SW will probably still be great

In SCs and roaming, mos things have very little disrupt, and magic damage is amazing because its resists are capped so low and debuffable.It also bypasses amelee DPS's m1 parry/dodge 100%

Kyouaku wrote: Mon Aug 03, 2026 12:34 pm

ArkeosGR wrote: Mon Aug 03, 2026 8:38 am Hello guys,

i am thinking to reroll to a BM which will be first time for me.

Could you sum up in a few points, how does the class fare in pvp in general these days?

Mind you, i am a new player.

Ty!

It's a very good class, but you have to put a lot of work into making sure you can play it right. Ive seen rr90~ BWs that suck, and others that are amazing and always great to have on my team. I dont think BW is casual friendly at all

IMO, play what you enjoy and any class can do very well if played well, SW will probably still be great

In SCs and roaming, mos things have very little disrupt, and magic damage is amazing because its resists are capped so low and debuffable.It also bypasses amelee DPS's m1 parry/dodge 100%

As an 82 BW, I can't recommend someone rolling one. Also, please do not listen to this feedback. Disrupt rates are incredibly high. Even with about 19% strikethrough as BIS (best in slot/max gear) - about 1/4 of your spells are getting disrupted. And FORGET about even trying to hit a dealer.

If you're looking for a RDPS, DPS AM is probably your best bet. They're incredibly fun to play, have high kite capabilities, and fit into most roam/skirmish groups. A lot of their abilities have strikethrough built into them, and they even have a strong tactic (10% reduced chance to defend against).

DPS shammy I hear is fun. But don't bother rolling an engi, magus is just better on all fronts (even against high disrupt rates because they deal magic damage rather than physical, and are getting significantly buffed this upcoming patch)

Wish you the best!

Tulrs wrote: Mon Aug 03, 2026 1:28 pm And FORGET about even trying to hit a dealer.

Yes, never ever hit dealers. Really a bad idea!

nocturnalguest wrote: Mon Aug 03, 2026 11:51 am Take a look here for somewhat current AoE gameplay
Or take a look how elite solo roamers peform here (its outdated, now its gonna be harder)

I think these two videos are really misleading.

The AOE video: When you watch closely on the damage numbers you can see that it is not the BW putting out big numbers. It's his warband rolling over them while he is putting his fluff on them. The only good damage numbers come from the m2 which you have to build up first. A slayer or choppa can probably do better.

The solo video: That's an old one from a VERY gifted player. I think it is from before the time they made that disrupt changes. It's also before the WE pounce and mdps patch. He would probably die to most of these WEs today due to that pounce and disrupts.

btw: this was his WE video and that was even before the crazy WE changes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WVzvjyMV2Ro

lumpi33 wrote: Mon Aug 03, 2026 2:15 pm I think these two videos are really misleading.

The AOE video: When you watch closely on the damage numbers you can see that it is not the BW putting out big numbers. It's his warband rolling over them while he is putting his fluff on them. The only good damage numbers come from the m2 which you have to build up first. A slayer or choppa can probably do better.

The solo video: That's an old one from a VERY gifted player. I think it is from before the time they made that disrupt changes. It's also before the WE pounce and mdps patch. He would probably die to most of these WEs today due to that pounce and disrupts.

btw: this was his WE video and that was even before the crazy WE changes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WVzvjyMV2Ro

I partly agree, but there are nuances - for example word "really" is exaggeration. They are misleading indeed tho, they show extremes, regular BW wont reach results Bombling posted, they wont be zergsurfing so well with 7 people, regular BW will not kill 3-4 enemies solo in a row, regular BW will have 0 kiting skills or focusfire bombs so properly. But its important to look into extremes, they show what class is capable of if pilot is trained.

It doesnt matter who exactly putting numbers. WL wouldnt be so devastating not being paired with BW. You build such group with reason. Also there is no fluff, its a pressure and what you exactly need to look in that clip is movement, group coordination and how well bombs are timed and placed. Thats what will differ regular clueless BW who still thinks its a ranged and not actual melee class and just ignominiously dies like a dog casting annihilate in a wrong spot. Thats what you need to see in that clip. Slayer/choppa are actually much worse for all this 200v200 zerging, they are much better at smaller scales and truly shine bright in highly organised content as prearranged 12-24 fights and cities.

As for solo video, surely its gonna be harder for BW, yet not impossible. What you need to look at at this clip is movement and absolute perfection of GCD management. Each WASD, each GCD is optimised to a point that there is just not a single action which could be done better. Disrupt and pounce has very little to do with how amazingly proper kiting is represented in that clip. You can think or tell in this regard whatever you want, but i tell you, if Second try that now, he would still succed with all the changes anyways (but for a fair note, it would surely take him more efforts).

lumpi33 wrote: Mon Aug 03, 2026 2:15 pm The AOE video: When you watch closely on the damage numbers you can see that it is not the BW putting out big numbers. It's his warband rolling over them while he is putting his fluff on them. The only good damage numbers come from the m2 which you have to build up first. A slayer or choppa can probably do better.

Pardon me for jumping in here, but I do find it interesting and would like to hear more, please.
I was personally under the impression that Choppa had the better layered aoe burst combo a couple of months back, with Choppa doing Frontal AoE DoT + Stomping + Bring it on. After my mindset started working in these aoe layering bursts I then started experiementing with what Slayer, Sorc and finally BW could do.

I dont know if I fully agree that BW is not on top of Choppa after the time I spent with all 3. BW layering Flamebreath DoT, Flashfire triggering and letting it run down to 4seconds remaining of the 6seconds internal cooldown to let the exsisting FF be ready to be consumed and an other one on your next aoe GCD triggering a fresh way makes for some decent aoe burst with double Fieryblast, chance to trigger Exploisive force on each, while Flames of Rhuin and Funnelpower triggers on potentially each hit. Its not as garenteed as Choppa, but I think its close aove or below depending on RNG.

Im more than willing to hear arguments against and get convinced othervice, I just think theres more to my numbers and why I outperform most other dps in the warbands I join (mostly Merci during NA or Openose in EU on tuesdays) Outside of that our guild 6manish on EU often have way less killdmg involvement but frontpage of killdmg from our skirmish reports, that to me only really means that we dont punch as many target or as often as the warbands, but when we do, our damage matters and its leathal. As for calling BW aoe dmg fluff, I dont actually disagree. the numbers are pretty low, especially annihilate and flamebreath. The real thread comes from the FF burst window layering and the minimorale drops from Explosive Force.

Maybe I simply didnt edit the video correctly, but its actually 9 clips as EU primetime 6ishman rvr and 9 clips from NA warband pugging 24man discord. and its mostly me having Flashfire management, if you hyper focus on my buffhead FF icon through out the video you might see how most of these killsprees are done with flashfire ticking down to 4, getting consumed, retriggering and consumed again. Few cases in this video where I **** it up myself.
I do understand looking at just the damage numbers, it really doesnt seem impressive though. Im not impressed either probably why it took 2months to gather 20ish clips that were montage worthy. For pugstomping ill say BW is fine, for anything competitive, nah probably skip BW. But 2026 is year of the pug, so theres that.