War Priest of Sigmar - Detailed Balance Analysis

[darewa]

@alsozara

Eh it’s fine how it is. Also much easier to keep track of how many stacks you’re at without staring at your buff bar. Getting 40% heavy attack damage just for using l1 once in a horde seems highly unnecessary.

Maybe, but its simply not working as described currently. Should either fix or re-balance. IMO making it worked as described (a very strong power buff to sniping elites while you are dealing with a horde) is the most interesting, and fits with the class. If that means it should be nerfed to something like 5% per stack/7 stack cap, then so be it.

As a general thing, I don’t see how WPoS getting +40% power on a Heavy by doing a light first is all that must stronger than a Zealot getting +30% on both attacks, along with any other attack combination he does as well, whether he’s fighting a horde or not.

@alsozara

Huh? How is 15% crit chance on a career that lacks many steroids (and thus GREATLY benefits from increased SS uptime) bad? Y’all are sleeping on this talent hard. I wouldn’t even be surprised if it turned out to be a better average dps increase than rising judgement to boot.

15% crit chance assumes you kill 3 elites at the beginning of battle and then continue to kill another every 12s. Bit of a shaky thing to base your strategy on. If it was 20s then I’d consider it a lot better. As it is you kind of have to beg your ranged characters not to kill elites a lot of the time as a melee career, and even in melee whether you get a killing blow on elites is highly up to chance.

@alsozara

Not every talent needs to be super appealing for QP. I will be extremely surprised if coordinated teams can’t make great use of prayer of might. Even just as a personal buff it should easily let you hit meaningful breakpoints.

A small buff to them to make it more universally interesting isn’t going to imbalance the class.

In particular the problem with stagger power is that because it’s a 100% binary condition there is a good chance it literally does nothing for the rest of the team. And is anyone actually going to bring up an excel spreadsheet upon joining the game and seeing that WPoS has +stagger aura equipped (after Fatshark fixes the game to let us see skills)?

[alsozara]

@darewa

Maybe, but its simply not working as described currently. Should either fix or re-balance. IMO making it worked as described (a very strong power buff to sniping elites while you are dealing with a horde) is the most interesting, and fits with the class.

I’m gonna have to reread the exact talent description because it never occurred to me it would work the way you suggest just from reading the talent. When I used it first it worked exactly how I’d expected. Maybe that’s just me being used to FS jank and subconsciously translating when I originally read the talent description.

@darewa

15% crit chance assumes you kill 3 elites at the beginning of battle and then continue to kill another every 12s. Bit of a shaky thing to base your strategy on. If it was 20s then I’d consider it a lot better. As it is you kind of have to beg your ranged characters not to kill elites a lot of the time as a melee career, and even in melee whether you get a killing blow on elites is highly up to chance.

Yes we know there are overtuned careers that can go around stealing all the elite kills from you if they want. That’s really an issue with other careers, and some people playing for green circles rather than focusing on enemies the big melee boy hasn’t already got comfortably engaged. It’s a good talent regardless and I’ve been running it for a while now. It’s far from trash, and on higher difficulties there are generally enough elites to go around anyway. Would be nice if the condition was widened to include special kills as well, but otherwise it’s a more than fine talent.

@darewa

A small buff to them to make it more universally interesting isn’t going to imbalance the class.

Sure, but I also don’t think you need to arbitrarily hand out buffs just because something isn’t that valuable in QP.

@darewa

In particular the problem with stagger power is that because it’s a 100% binary condition there is a good chance it literally does nothing for the rest of the team. And is anyone actually going to bring up an excel spreadsheet upon joining the game and seeing that WPoS has +stagger aura equipped (after Fatshark fixes the game to let us see skills)?

I hate this argument. There’s a wide variety of enemies in the game, each with different levels of stagger resistance for different attacks, with 4 characters in your group, each with a range of different attacks with differing stagger strength. It’s impossibly unlikely that 25% stagger strength isn’t hitting some kind of stagger breakpoint, quite probably for several people in your team. Yes not knowing up front what those are is indeed what makes it a less desirable talent for QP, even though the reality is that it is almost certainly increasing the overall amount of control your party has (again so many different values to consider, you are definitely hitting some break points regardless of whether you specifically aim to).

Again, not everything has to be brainlessly beneficial for pubs. It’s a good talent you can build WPoS himself around, or in a coordinated group build for an insane amount of CC.

[darewa]

@alsozara

I hate this argument. There’s a wide variety of enemies in the game, each with different levels of stagger resistance for different attacks, with 4 characters in your group, each with a range of different attacks with differing stagger strength. It’s impossibly unlikely that 25% stagger strength isn’t hitting some kind of stagger breakpoint, quite probably for several people in your team. Yes not knowing up front what those are is indeed what makes it a less desirable talent for QP, even though the reality is that it is almost certainly increasing the overall amount of control your party has (again so many different values to consider, you are definitely hitting some break points regardless of whether you specifically aim to).

That’s fine for things like damage or cleave. For those it doesn’t matter whether the player knows they’ve reached a breakpoint or not, they’ll get the benefit regardless. The problem is that for stagger, if I reached a breakpoint where I can, let’s say, stagger a stormvermin out of a heavy with a dagger push attack as Battle Wizard, how will I know that? Do I go test all of my attacks in the middle of a game and see what works? Do I intentionally do something that would normally be wrong and lead to my death (pushing a stormvermin that will not be staggered and then kill me because I didn’t dodge)? Utilizing improved stagger requires you to intentionally know of and alter your strategy because you can suddenly do something you couldn’t do before.

Incidentally, increasing both stagger and cleave would be another sensible change to this aura.

[alsozara]

Which, as I stated, is why it’s not a great QP talent. Again though I don’t think that’s an issue.

If he got a cleave increase I’d rather see it go on the half push cost talent in the first row, seems like it would fit better there.

[darewa]

re: Sigmar’s Executioner

Did Cata Festering Ground with bots, so I should have far more elite kills than average compared to parties with players or lower difficulties.

82 elites killed, 27 mins (= 1770 seconds) long. Even if the elites were spaced out perfectly that’d be only be 984 seconds of uptime. Now granted you don’t need it up while just roaming around, but then a lot of your elite kills are also done while roaming. During hordes it was very common for me to not get more than 1 or 2 stacks at a time and to lose all stacks entirely. For most intents and purposes it’s an ability that is only reliable if you aggro a patrol. I stand by it needing at least a 20s duration. Heck, if we want the ability to be usable for sub-legend difficulties then 30s duration is probably needed.

Compare to WHC, who has +5% crit rate passive and grants the whole party +5% crit rate basically all the time because elites and specials are always dying fast enough for wild fervor to trigger. So if WHC can effectively have a constant +25% crit rate distributed across the party (which if we’re talking about maintaining swift slaying is better than granting himself +25% crit rate) I don’t see why WPoS has to be stuck getting an average of like +3% crit rate over the course of a level.

Sigmar’s executioner also sucks vs. monster. God I wish I had Rising Judgement for the Rat Ogre. Getting +24% damage on the heavy of Holy Hammer is just so good. It’s almost like a guaranteed crit on your best attack.

[alsozara]

I mean, I also wouldn’t object to it getting a duration increase. I just don’t think it’s as much of a non option as people claim. I find even a single stack makes noticeable difference to my SS uptime with great hammer. For a class with no attack speed boosts I find that helps quite a bit, especially since the benefits of attack speed are wide reaching. Because of the usual horde rotation for great hammer rising judgement feels kinda meh for it in a lot of situations. Unless I’m playing with bots then I’m only really focusing the boss if there’s nothing else around it for me to be clearing (in which situation it will likely be annihilated by other team members in no time anyway).

Admittedly for any weapon other than great hammer I probably wouldn’t pick it, but I’ve been enjoying it if I just wanna spend most of my run using great hammer, which I do, because it’s a fun weapon. As also stated before, widening the proc condition to include specials would be nice, since it’s not uncommon for you to kill disablers.

[Saryk]

@Octo

Though, they did seem to figure out not to release something as broken as SotT

On one hand, true, and kudos to them because they overachieved on this one. WP is, to me, a very good baseline for what the state of the game should be.
On the other, they still haven’t bothered to do anything about her being broken, and haven’t shown any intention to.

@darewa

Haven’t tried divine excoriation because needing even more stagger isn’t my thing when I’m playing with the two handed hammer.

I have the impression that that 2handed hammer has an insane base push strength, does anyone have numbers on that ?

@darewa

Stagger conditioned on fury is also a lot worse than damage or health gain, because you can’t really control when you need more stagger whilst you can always use more damage and health.

It’s basically the sister’s push, but with no cooldown and only when furious. It’s fun, but indeed would be more useful with more useful uptime of fury.

@alsozara

Huh? How is 15% crit chance on a career that lacks many steroids (and thus GREATLY benefits from increased SS uptime) bad? Y’all are sleeping on this talent hard. I wouldn’t even be surprised if it turned out to be a better average dps increase than rising judgement to boot.

I run opportunist on the Holy Great Hammer and don’t really feel like I need more attack speed. I don’t even know if I have 5% attack speed as a property.

[Abazigal]

Useless is a good word to describe the feeling of this career.

Yes of course you can clutch some times in hordes and you are litteraly invincible vs simples hordes but :

You are full melee, i suppose there is some feats that compensate that but all of theses are meh

Your ulti doesnt protect you from control, even with the left perk, you’re just immune to flamethrower/ ratling stagger.
Its one of the biggest issue I have with this career, you’re supposed to be a lifesavior, a tank, but your lack of mobility paired with the lack of real immunities makes you feel like less savior than a tank, and with near to 0 damages you feel totaly useless to your team.

I would like to have a real panic button which can realy save a mate in dire situation.

Example to illustrate my arguments : Sienna is caught by a gutter runner in a middle of a horde, there are too many bodies blocking the path i cannot reach her ( far from 5-10m meters ) and i dont have my fury meter up.

• If i use ult on her, it will not release Sienna from the control, she will continue to take damage, and i
  will continue to struggle , trying to reaching her while trying to not die.
  *If I use ult on me, i will be able to reach her without caring of my health but by the time I make my path, she will be probably dead due to the rat gunner + horde arround.

And thats the entire problem of this career, supposed to be a tank but no real control/immunes except versus minor rats that every career in this game can handle.

The real threats is not slaves but elite packs and specials and you ult is 50 % useless against special, providing no control protection. And 50% useless versus elite because of your lack of burst and panic burst ( like grail knight or slayer )

In my opinion, Viktor should get at least :

-10% movement speed bonus passively
-Total immunity to control ( specials, monsters etc ) with the ultimate, on a perk or native.

It will make him at least a really good support tanky by having a panic button who can nullify a threat once per 70 sec while managing a horde or a monster.

[Riku]

@Saryk

WP is, to me, a very good baseline for what the state of the game should be.

if his fury were better i would 100% agree, while everyone bashes sister of thorn, i think many careers are infact way overperforming, on what the game should be…
most encounters with elites aren’t actual fights but, press F to delete stagger and or get oneshot from range from infinite ammo careers, where is the fighting the skill. how many times have i seen people get wiped from just a bunch of trash enemys and a few elites just because their get out of jail ults arent up.

[Saryk]

@Abazigal

Useless is a good word to describe the feeling of this career.

Bro I’m sorry but no. Anything but useless. I fear the game has accustomed you to this :

@Riku

most encounters with elites aren’t actual fights but, press F to delete stagger and or get oneshot from range from infinite ammo careers

---

@Abazigal

I would like to have a real panic button which can realy save a mate in dire situation.

Perhaps press F on WP ? There is no better panic button than “I’m invincible”.

@Abazigal

near to 0 damages

His damage is good if not a bit above average. His elite killing is good. I don’t know if we’re playing the same game anymore. Sure, if you compare to coruscation BW or to moonbow SotT or hag WS or to shade, the damage is gonna be kind of low. It’s not WP’s damage that’s low, it’s the others’ that’s bonkers.
WP is fun to play as and fun to play with. If SotT joins the game, 3 people are not having fun - 4 if I’m the one playing her.
One is good for the overall state of the game, the other one doesn’t incentivize you to learn to play. How many salad elves have I seen joining a game, get downed a dozen times, dying twice, eating up all the healing, having taken over 2k damage over a Legend mission ; and be rewarded at the end with all green circles and 45k damage, which is more than the rest of the team combined (WP 23k, FK 9k, IB 7k).

[Kitten]

@Saryk

On the other, they still haven’t bothered to do anything about her being broken, and haven’t shown any intention to.

I mean, they still haven’t done anything to things like Shade and Zealot. We’ll be waiting forever.

On topic; I think he’s a really good Tank/Support with a lot of damage potential, and a fun ramp up to that damage. Still haven’t even tried him on Cata+, but in high density he does well because of Shields and his Ult.

His Passive Talent row is really good. Comboing AoE Stagger buff with Handmaiden may even make Mainstay worth using.

The space you can make with him is really good. He’s definitely on the level of FK and IB.

@Saryk

I fear the game has accustomed you to this

People trying to get things balanced up again. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

[Saryk]

@Abazigal

If i use ult on her, it will not release Sienna from the control, she will continue to take damage

Your ult prevents the damage. That’s the point, mate. And at the end, when it bursts, the assassin is yeeted off of her.
In that scenario, you ult her, she takes no damage, she keeps an assassin and parts of a horde busy for 4-8 seconds, while you deal with it in the same way any other character would : with your left and right mouse buttons. After the 4-8 seconds, she’s free, she’s fine, she’s cleared off a horde thanks to the ult blast, regroup, ???, profit.

[Octo]

@Saryk

On the other, they still haven’t bothered to do anything about her being broken, and haven’t shown any intention to.

They nerfed Radient Inheritence about 6 months ago, but I agree more should be done. Her nerfs in the Tournament Rebalance Mod are a good reference point for where she should be in power, in my opinion.

[Saryk]

@Saryk

Fatshark, the Grail Knight was a good release. The Engi character was a good release, though the weapons were too much. Now this SotT is just broken in all regards. Please don’t make Saltzpyre and Sienna even worse. Stop the crescendo now, hold the reins. A new career sells regardless of its power, this is a coop game for crying out loud. I’ve spent my last Cata game asking myself “what’s the point ?” when the elf just killed everything before I could get to it.
This is not the “”““coop””“” experience I’ve been playing for countless hours, and not one I want to play for many more.

I need to thank FS on this one. Feels like they heard me.

[darewa]

@Saryk

Your ult prevents the damage. That’s the point, mate. And at the end, when it bursts, the assassin is yeeted off of her.
In that scenario, you ult her, she takes no damage, she keeps an assassin and parts of a horde busy for 4-8 seconds, while you deal with it in the same way any other character would : with your left and right mouse buttons. After the 4-8 seconds, she’s free, she’s fine, she’s cleared off a horde thanks to the ult blast, regroup, ???, profit.

It’d be nice if the ult consistently killed hookrats though. Spent like 5 mins trying to clutch Screaming Bell finale as WPoS and that was what finally got me.

It’s really nice knowing an assassin is around and just ulting and then letting him pounce though. Did that once.

[Abazigal]

You fear the game yes, even in vanilla all tanky/hybrid are way better to deal vs elites and specials.

My example was not the best with the gutter runner, but it work vs every other special which are immune to the stagger in the end of the ultimate.

I main kruber grail knight and viktor witch hunter and i see no reason to choose WP over WH nor Grail knight kruber in a team to try hard.

In this game, the best defense is offense, its better to have mobility, fast clearing weapons and burst than a passive career for being good at be passive vs trash that every career even bountyhunter can handle pretty easily when you know how to dodge and push.

Why every grail knight play exec sword ? Because its the fastest and by extension the safest way to get rid of specials and elites. Is safer to kill one chaos warrior in a sec or two, instead of putting 4 headshots in 3 seconds but…Wait no 4 seconds because now, a skaven approaching…Wait, now i must kite…

Take Kruber’s career foot knight for example, i can get rid of pretty much any special with arquebus in a sec. I can os many specials and elites with crossbow or delete elite before they reach me with dual pistols when playing Witchhunter.
Thats why Grail Knight is very fluid and well balanced, because the lack of ranged lethality he get is balanced by enough power to deal with the other threats that are elites and bosses.

I dont ask more damage specialy even if i complain about it, i just ask for more specialisation and not a jack of few trade but master of nothing career. So more options to delete elites or special, in a defensive or offensive way is good to me.

[Saryk]

@darewa

It’d be nice if the ult consistently killed hookrats though

There was a suggestion to increase the stagger power of the shield bursting to similar levels to Merc’s or WHC’s shout.
I think that’d be too much, but on the other hand I agree it’d be nice if it released the player from a Hookrat consistently, not even necessarily killing it. Already works fine for Leeches and Assassins.

@Abazigal

Why every grail knight play exec sword ?

Except not all GKs play exec… I play GS and 2h Hammer.

@Abazigal

Is safer to kill one chaos warrior in a sec or two, instead of putting 4 headshots in 3 seconds but…Wait no 4 seconds because now, a skaven approaching…Wait, now i must kite…

You’re using theoretical scenarios in an odd way. One could argue charging an Exec heavy leaves you open to an approaching skaven. The game is extremely organic and there isn’t really a describable specific scenario - or rather you can always make something up to serve your point. Kind of like toddlers inventing rules for the game they’re playing.

@Abazigal

Thats why Grail Knight is very fluid and well balanced, because the lack of ranged lethality he get is balanced by enough power to deal with the other threats that are elites and bosses.

I would argue that WP has enough power to deal with elites and bosses and hordes and even specials. Only exceptions are blightstormers and flamerats in the open (flamerats are extremely easy to handle if you abuse a level’s geometry), and ratlings if you don’t run a shield (and even then I agree at times you can’t just run up to them, the shield just makes them less of a nuisance). Incidentally, GK has the same weaknesses.
What GK has is more power (perhaps too much, but that’s another debate) to deal with elites and bosses, and that’s fine because he otherwise brings close to no utility to the team. He has his quests which are nice, but in the scenario you described above of Sienna getting pounced by an assassin and you being overwhelmed, I doubt there is much more you can do as a GK than as a WP.

[Licious-D]

I agree that the carreer is fun and has a good choice of builds, limited only by the fact that you can only use hammers. WP having low boss damage woud be fine, as he does truly excel at horde clearing, CC and support, but his passive is a bit too random. I do also think that it triggers at times where it is almost not needed anymore, and WP not being able to “smite” Monsters kinda fells… wrong.

Some suggestions:

1. Charge up his passive by killing and dealing damage, or simply reduce the amount of killing it takes to make it more readily available at times where it might be needed.
2. Give WP the ability to smite monsters-> extend his passive 30% damage bonus against CW and Wargors to all monsters.
3. Give his active ability the option to use it offensively against monsters, as in: when it activates, you get your passive ability bonus against the monster you used it on at the cost of it now providing its defensive boost.

Otherwise, the carreer is fine and loads of fun.

[OrsonMaxwell]

@Abazigal

and i see no reason to choose WP over WH nor Grail knight kruber in a team to try hard.

Well, don’t

@Abazigal

Why every grail knight play exec sword ?

The premise is wrong. I for one don’t.

[TmanDW]

You just have to be around dying enemies to charge the passive; you don’t need to deal the killing blow. You don’t even need to attack them at all. You just need to stand in the frontline and it doesn’t matter if it’s your teammates lawnmowering the enemies; passive will still charge. Indepently from the difficulty, you can very consistently have the passive up during every horde & ambush.

You don’t get the boost against trickling ambients, but that doesn’t matter anyways. It would be nice to have it up during monster fights, but on a non-monstrr killing career it’s not a huge deal either. The passive is actually up mostly while you need it most, usually.