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Class Imbalances
Hypodermica
Member Posts: 154
Before I start my rant I'll say this.. I have not reached 40 on any of my toons. 21 is the highest. That, in itself does take away some of the credibility from my rant. I'm just being honest and this is just one angle of a damn good game so.. take it in stride and don't let it deter anyone from trying it out.
I have a 21Shaman and I have to admit I am overpowered. I feel soooo bad for the Witch Hunters who painstakingly sneak around our whole warband to take me out in the rear of our spectacular RVR battles. Between the hots, heals, absorbs, and huge morale heals... along with the 50% damage reduction you get from your detaunt.. they have ZERO chance of killing me. It's not unusual for me to survive long periods of time with 2-3 people attacking me. Sure, I can't kill them but as a healer it's all about surviving while your friends come to the rescue and chop them into pieces. Now, I've been told that a 40 shaman has no such luck but I've heard otherwise if you have the proper gear setup and good timing on the heals/hots and DoT/HoT's. Fine, so for the first 1/2 of the game... anyone in T1-T2 (and a bit of T3) will fail against my overpowered Shaman. Why am I complaining? Because I've been on the flip side.
I decided to make a Witch Elf. I was a complete failure in RVR up until level 10 when I FINALLY (1/4 through the freaking game) was given the sneak ability. But, this is not enough. First of all... you get sneak for 30 seconds, then you have to wait another 30 seconds to use it again. So, you can't sneak in, kill, and sneak out. Impossible.. all you can do is detaunt everyone in a small circle around you (totally never touches ranged classes) and hope to god you can run away and find a healer before the multitude of Dot's takes you out. You have ZERO healing... unless you use potions which are not very helpful if you don't want to make them yourself or blow gobs of gold on buying them in the AH.
As if this isn't enough... being so squishy and having such limited hiding abilities... even if you go in for the kill on their healer (which to me is the ultimate goal of a WE, support to take out ranged and moreso.. healers) you will not kill a healer with 1/2 a brain. Like the shaman, the Warrior Priests and Archmages can kite you, heal themselves, bubble and they rarely take damage. What's worse is that the knives you weild have such horrible range.. the slightest lag WILL keep you from doing ANY damage. It's like you are always out of range. I have a wonderful high-speed cable connectoin and have NOTHING running aside from the game.. my box is seriously sick. 4gigs ram, crazy vid card, Raid 0 Sata drives..etc. The only thing you can do is throw a knife and hope it slows them down but you have no stuns 1-10 at least.
I wore a full set of T1 RVR lvl 9 blue's and a shoulder piece that I put a +14 str tailsman in it. I drink +24 Strength 60min potions and I'm very stealthy and good with all the best spots in the maps. I have installed various Add-ons to see my bars better and to see the buffs running on my enemies. The list goes on... my setup is about as good as it gets. Yet, I can't take enemies down quickly. I went with a mostly DPS build thinking that at level 10 my stealth would make my Wounds/Toughness/Init not so darn important yet I did manage to make a very few choices in gear to improve those skills. I've spent countless hours from level 5-11 learning allt he best tactics.. re-aranging my bars... everything... and yet WP's and Archmages own me like no tomorrow. They heal so much, I don't make a dent and they eventuallly just kite and kill me. Sometimes I see this and at 50% life I use my detaunt (50% damage reduce) and try to flee. But they have dots running on me along with an insane range attack spell that hits me with lightning and other crap.
All I can say is this.... I know perfect balance is impossible and that's okay... I completely accept this. But, the balance is so far off (especially when attacking healers) that It's to the point of complete frustration especially when you take into account all the time I've spent getting advice, watching videos, choosing my character, reading forum posts and all the countless hours I've spent in T1.
Lastly, my shaman is also overpowered. I hate the nerf bat too... and I know the game is new but it's very frustrating.
Thanks for reading, hope it wasn't too whiny. 
Comments
Not too whinny but things are what they are.
A few months ago WE were doing ok, pushing out alot of dps in a short time and people complained. I have a 40 WE and she is in the corner of my login unused.
Theres one or two things on we Ill comment on, one is "No healing" skill bathing in blood with heal u for every kill made, its a lvling skill, I used to use it to grind out mobs with next to no downtime.
As a we in pvp I never looked for a way out, I looked to use up my AP and kill as much as I could, i never got healed much, all i ever hoped for was a rez.
Things change in T4 .... alot
Keep at it
Good post! I've never played Shaman or Archmage, but have played many other classes including Witch Elf. I too tend to play thru the beginning of T3 then roll a new toon. I just really enjoy the T1/T2 rvr so far. Eventually I will continue on thru T3/T4 but for now I'm content in T1/T2.
The WE I played thru the beginning of T3 was GREAT fun. Same as you, I've played long enough to know the good hiding spots and take advantage of that. IMO the WE shouldn't be able to tear down a healer 1vs1 that to me would be OP since typically most fights aren't 1v1. My experience with WE is to get in, do as much dps as possible till your bar gets down to say 20%, then get out. This may only be several seconds but we all know what a WE can do in that time which can be devistating!
For me I'd select a target before going into the fray knowing I would need to get out quickly. Sometimes you can drop em, sometimes you can't. But the key to WE for me is to know when to get out. Some say WE is typically a suicide mission, knowing you will die when you enter the fray. Rather I'd suggest it's better knowing when to get out, get heals, then get back in. Much more dps in the long run compared to having to wait to respawn and run back to the battle.
I half expected you to get on here and whine about getting owned in RvR, but I know what you mean. I've played a AM, DoK, and a Zealot and I can honestly tell you that Healers are the most powerful classes in the game. They have better survivability than tanks by self healing, and they can deal out respectable DPS.
Mythic states that the classes are balanced for team based play, yet you feel like adding ..."except for the healers, and a select few classes who have it really good against most classes."
I started my MMO days with DAoC and my indoctrination to PvP and MMO's in general was through Mythic and their team based balance RvR system. It's all I knew and I supported it for the longest time. Now, I see that I was wrong and that team balance is a bad idea and here's why. You cannot control how another player plays their class or what class they play. You also cannot control the population on your side, or the skill of the players. So the best thing to do is to make every class balanced individually. I say this a lot, and I wish people would do it, but imagine a 6 man team of all DoK's or WP's. That'd get Mythics attention on what's OPEd.
I agree with this, but would add that most powerful is different than overpowered. Any class with heals should be able to defeat a non-healing class 1v1.
IN the end the grass is always greener I guess.
I said the same thing about my runeprest, I believed he was way too weak in PvP. Everyone else thought I was crazy or didnt know how to play my class (Only one of which is true)
Torrential: DAOC (Pendragon)
Awned: World of Warcraft (Lothar)
Torren: Warhammer Online (Praag)
I think healers are way too powerful period......The most enjoyable scenarios I have played are when there are either no healers or maybe one a side.......Often you have to dedicate 4-5 people to a WP to kill them, even using focus fire.......I havent made tier 4 yet eitehr but in tier 3 I almost think WAR would be alot better off with no healers......Ive had several scenarios where Id see two choppas fighting a BW and the BW is taking almost no damage because the heals are so strong......
As for the WE I liked playing one but the class is too squishy for close melee combat.......Like you said you have to be so close to do any damage and they are such an easy kill......I noticed in almost every scen either my WE or another was always the most killed.......Like the OP said the stealth is OK but even if they make it to the healers unnoticed the WE/WH probably is not going to take a healer down and usually they are an easy kill.
Hey all. Thanks for the responses here. I want to add that I love this game and I'm not here to bash it or tell anyone it's not a good game. I highly suggest anyone who's thinking of trying it, to give it a go! You will LOVE RvR! You'll never do PVE again! lol well.. maybe not that far.. :P If anything, I just wanted to hear your thoughts so that I know it's not a problem with ME that I need to fix. It sounds like a few of those who have played healers from T1-T2 feel they are moderately over powered and that the very close range WE's are underpowered (at least in T1 if not further down). The bottom line is that maybe by discussing this, someone with some clout might work out the imbalances (or not, if were singing off-key to the rest of the players).
Just to recap on a Shaman... let's say.. he's 3 ranks into T2 at level 14.
To defend himself a shaman has the following:
1. 157hp heal + another 180hp over 8 seconds. Low end heal+hot in one. (Gork'll Fix It) 1 second cast time.
2. 1,700hp HoT over 15 seconds, instant cast. (Ey, Quit Bleedin')
3. 376hp DoT/HoT that does damage and heals you at the same time, Instant Cast(Bleed Fer'Me)
4. 647hp Abosorb shield. Instant cast, lasts 9 seconds, wait 11 seconds and you can re-cast.
5. 50% Damage Reduce to a target, runs 15 seconds, can be-rescasted every 15 seconds. instant cast (Look over there)
6. +100 to all resistences. Instant cast, lasts 1 hour. (Mork's Buffer)
7. 840hp instant-cast morale heal. You get morale if you just heal yourself so this option is always available. (Divine Favor)
8. 25% Damage Reduction passive tactic. Any time someone hits you, they have a 25% chance per hit of having their damage reduced by 25%. This DOES stack with the 50% damage reduce de-buff!! That's 75% damage reduction! (Whazat behind you?!)
Now, I didn't count the fact that Willpower and Intelligence have a major factor in how much MORE you can heal. Imagine a T2 Shamon decked out in willpower/wounds gear which is readily available throughout the game. Those are only BASE #'s for the heals. I'm too stupid (and lazy) to see what kind of healing per second and try and match that against the highest DPS'ers empire can dish out at rank 14. But, they would have to take their calculated DPS and reduce that by 50-75%!!! lol
Well, there you have it... that's why shaman's and their comparitive empire counterparts are nearly unkillable by Witch Elves. I think this all changes at level 40. I'm sure a sneaky Witch Elf can destroy a WP or Archmage. That's the price we pay for being squishy and having a timer set on our sneaking ability.
This response is to Witch Elves. Before I say anything about that class, let's look at what we know.
We know healers are more powerful than other classes and take longer to kill than even tank. We know that if there are more than 1 healer, the others will heal the healer being beat on. We know that while you're beating on the healer, who is healing themselves, and possibly being healed by other healers, the majority of their team will be beating on you in return. We also know that if the healers are in the back, they're likely out of range or out of sight of your healers, so you'll die, no questions asked.
So I ask this. Who in the hell designated WE's as caster/healer killers and why do you keep following that persons advice. I mean, let's use what we know here and use our heads. Do you know why I didn't die even once the last scenario I played on my WE? Because I used what we know about our opposition and played my class within the confines of what we know and what the WE can do. Just because we can stealth, doesn't mean it's our job to sneak behind enemy lines to "attempt" to kill a well guarded caster/healer.
I rarely die in scenarios, no matter what class I play, and no matter what level I am, because I put survivability first. The longer you're lying down face first in the dirt, waiting for that 20 sec respawn timer, the longer you're out of the battle. It takes less time to run from a sure death to regroup with the rest of the team, and get back to the battle than it does to respawn and run back. Therefore you optimize the the time you're fighting, in return serving your team better than if you were able to take down one of the enemy in exchange for your life.
I don't expect people to agree with me, or even people to understand me. It takes a lot of skill to succeed in this game and good strategy to ensure wins in scenarios. Unfortunately, I've learned that most people don't have any skill and prefer to not work as a team and when they do so happen to be working together, it really is them mobbing it up with the others.
Back to the healers. I fought in a scenario against 7 WP's yesterday. We lost so bad it wasn't even funny. We had everyone on our team beating on 1, yes 1, WP and he wouldn't die. Why? Because he was able to heal himself long enough (30sec) until his other WP friends got to him and mowed us down. A team of healers is just unstoppable in this game, contrary to any other game out there. DoK's are no different, but the difference is that Destruction players on my server aren't exploiting the OP classes. But anyways, I've talked long enough.
Witch elves i have complained about my now lvl 30 witch elf since i started t3.
I mainly focus on the bright wizzards cause they do insane damage but if i sneak and ihit them with my 3 sec silence i can usually take them down within 5 secs if they don't move no matter the healing there getting.
My healer was gimped a little at lvl 21 but now that i am lvl 27 shaman survivablity in scenerios is much higher even though i did get 2 shoted by a slayer when i was 24. yes i am over powered bigtime i took on 3 slayers recently and they all left me alone cause they couldn't kill me i was spaming my grp heal with an increase crit on heals tatic on 10% more i can now keep my whole grp alive for a long time if they stay in range i don't need line of site for it and constantly crit heal for over 1100 on those with low life
I have a mage lvl 37 and talk about fragile they come after me before the healers with all my dots i can down a party of five fast and with my aoes i am constantly top 5 dps even if i die 10 times
But i have found that all aliance healers are much better than mine one helaer a rune priest keep two parties alive by himself and i want to know how can 1 healer heal everyone 9 other people and when you try and take him down he just spam his heals and barley gets below 75% with 5-6 people constantly hitting him.
i think most people aren't useing there detaunts in PVP is my opinion but i will agree that healers are overpowered.
Tenbwen
This response is to Witch Elves. Before I say anything about that class, let's look at what we know.
We know healers are more powerful than other classes and take longer to kill than even tank. We know that if there are more than 1 healer, the others will heal the healer being beat on. We know that while you're beating on the healer, who is healing themselves, and possibly being healed by other healers, the majority of their team will be beating on you in return. We also know that if the healers are in the back, they're likely out of range or out of sight of your healers, so you'll die, no questions asked.
So I ask this. Who in the hell designated WE's as caster/healer killers and why do you keep following that persons advice. I mean, let's use what we know here and use our heads. Do you know why I didn't die even once the last scenario I played on my WE? Because I used what we know about our opposition and played my class within the confines of what we know and what the WE can do. Just because we can stealth, doesn't mean it's our job to sneak behind enemy lines to "attempt" to kill a well guarded caster/healer.
I rarely die in scenarios, no matter what class I play, and no matter what level I am, because I put survivability first. The longer you're lying down face first in the dirt, waiting for that 20 sec respawn timer, the longer you're out of the battle. It takes less time to run from a sure death to regroup with the rest of the team, and get back to the battle than it does to respawn and run back. Therefore you optimize the the time you're fighting, in return serving your team better than if you were able to take down one of the enemy in exchange for your life.
I don't expect people to agree with me, or even people to understand me. It takes a lot of skill to succeed in this game and good strategy to ensure wins in scenarios. Unfortunately, I've learned that most people don't have any skill and prefer to not work as a team and when they do so happen to be working together, it really is them mobbing it up with the others.
Back to the healers. I fought in a scenario against 7 WP's yesterday. We lost so bad it wasn't even funny. We had everyone on our team beating on 1, yes 1, WP and he wouldn't die. Why? Because he was able to heal himself long enough (30sec) until his other WP friends got to him and mowed us down. A team of healers is just unstoppable in this game, contrary to any other game out there. DoK's are no different, but the difference is that Destruction players on my server aren't exploiting the OP classes. But anyways, I've talked long enough.
Alright, I agree and disagree. I agree that alternative methods/styles/strategy is always good. Thinking outside of the box is good. Having skill is good.
But, WE's are designed designed to take out spell casters. You talk about how untouchable the healers are and the solution is simple. Witch Elf. The idea of sneaking about is why we have the sneaking skill. Giving us the ability that drops healing by 50% and having the abiliity to silence is all a set of tools given to us specifically for the task of getting behind the line and dropping those powerful healers. The trade-off we pay is in our skimpy armor, low health, low self-healing, and generally low survivability. I can't count the numerous WE guides out there that iv'e seen where they specifically say that your team-oriented duty is to get in behind the line and take out healers so that you can support your own team!
Sure you could focus on other classes with descent success. You can offset the squishiness and low survivability by going with gear that boosts toughness/wounds/etc. You will do this at the sacrifice of your damage output. I don't think anyone here is saying that the WE's role isn't static. You can take a few different paths. Healers can be DPS'ers and tanks can exhange tanking for DPS. The problem isn't the choice, it's that one choice is broken/imbalanced/badly designed.
What you offer is not a solution, but a work-around. No offesne, and I do agree with a good majority of what you are saying.
Now to wrap up what you said about healers. Yes, you could quite literally get a group of your buddies together, make a healer party and own anything and anyone. They can hot-swap roles between DPS/Tank/Healer with great ease. A healing/dpsing wall of indestruction.
Sounds like my "warrior-priest" when i first tried WAR i went to the first battle ground i could find. Already at lvl 2 i was both out dpsing and outhealing everyone. at level 10 i got a 4 hit combo that heals me while i attack. took down a lvl 15 chosen and his (warlock floatingcircle thing) friend. I don't know if things changed but i know i'm not coming back til i get a challenge lol and they nerf alot of the classes.
I agree my WP were off the scale in power back when I played the game.
In the beginning people wanted AMs and RPs before WPs because people actually believed that those two classes healed better and the WP had poor heals because they were so dangerous in combat too. Oh boy that opinion changed later on in the game.
I remember soloing lvl 40s marauders as a lvl 31 WP just out in the lake in T4 and basically just hunting anything and only worrying about the Pre-nerf WEs and enemy healers. And I am at best a mediocre PvP player.
I liked playing a fun healer, but maybe mythic overdid it.
"You are the hero our legends have foretold will save our tribe, therefore please go kill 10 pigs."
Try killing another healerclass and you won't feel that owerpowered... none of you will have the DPS to kill the other... if I go 1 on 1 with another healer it usually ends up with both of us giving up and leave eachother alone.
in t4 i get owned by everyone unless they are a few levels below me.
all healers are way over powered..i have been in scenarios where no one has died because the heals were too good on both sides, thats not fun. i have many a time been bashing away on a disciple of khaine for 5 minutes with no results..its making the game pointless when you cant kill anything.
Didn't Shaman's just get their damage skills buffed in the latest patch this week?
all healers got there damage adjusted up now they can heal and do more damage.
Tenbwen
Healers are very powerful, that is true, but they are far from OP. I know its hard to kill a healer by rolling your face on the keyboard, but im pretty sure thats intended. I might even be tempted to agree that the dok or sigmar is a bit over the top, but honestly the shaman?
Shamans are VERY easily killed, they have pretty much the worst defensive stats of all classes in the game and their healing is not any better than say a dok/sigmar. Its actually worse cause it a) requires AP which can be drained, b) they have fewer and slower groupheals and c) worse healing tree.
So to kill a healer simply drain his AP, slap a incoming heal reduction on him, and for good measure a outgoing heal reduction. There are also abilities that destroy hots while wailing on a player(for extra damage), silence, stuns, knockdown, stuff that makes him take damage if he heals himself etc. Really its very easy to kill a healer with the right tools. Now a healergroup is a bit different, here you absolutly have to have a healreduction, bestcase something that hurts people healing the afflicted. Then again, get more than 4 RDPS classes on a healer and he is pretty much instagibbed, burst damage will take down healergroups.
What most people complain about is that they cant just creep up to a healer and off him with their WH/WE, what they usually dont get is that its not a 1on1 situation in most cases cause the healer they attack gets also AE heals, direct heals, and hots from the other healers, maybe even a guard from a tank turning it into a 1vsx situation which you wouldnt even notice unless your checking their buffbar.
Also if you want to kill healers you have to spec that way, WH for example have access to two -50% healing debuffs that actually stack with each other. Marauder can have a channeld attack that has a 50% chance to dispell a hot and do damage + a debuff that makes the healer resist 25% of all heals cast on him, certain tanks have a tactic that makes it impossible to detaunt them etc.
Also lvl 10 is not 1/4th of the game, are you insane? Thats not even 1/100th of the game. So yeah, dont worry about the healers, they are pretty much where they are supposed to be, provided people use the proper skills vs them instead of just smashing a button hoping that things will die.
Last tip for WE/WH, get friendly with a rdps(non sorc/bw) class and have him focus targets that you jump. If you specced into your healreduction that will make pretty sure you kill the healer.
P.S.: Shaman doesnt even have a true AE heal, doks/sigmar both have a PBAOE heal that affects ALL friendly targets instead of just those in your group. That alone makes them fall behind in keep sieges where we have multiple warbands, some silly heal that affects 6 people isnt going to make that much difference there.
I have to say i disagree Shaman are overpowered not only when i see someone comming to attack me do i drain half there strength and 50% less damage from detaunt i also suchk there ap to me with a spell and people wonder why its hard to kill me sometimes then i applay my shield to absorb most of the incomming damage.
Are shamans overpowered YES all healers are unbalanced most tank classes have no chance of killing me 1vs 1 4vs 1 makes little difference.
Tenbwen
As someone who really likes playing my Shaman and has done so from level 1 - 21. I can say, that at least within those levels... the shaman hits the point of being OP by level 12.. maybe 14. With the introduction of the bubble and everything else on top of that. Things get even worse at 16 when you get the new abliity.. you can cleanse yourself of poisons and debuffs. You become unstoppable. Please see my prior post outlining the vast number of abilities that make the shaman overpowered.
Just a little background. I LOVE playing the healer class and I've done so for many years in many MMO's. I have an extensive working knowledge of how this class operates throughout various games with various types of game mechanic.
Also, who says there is no "1 v 1"? Are you serious? There absolutely is 1 vs 1. While running to a BO someone can catch you... WH's hiding near the warcamp.... waiting to snipe people out, helping his team to cut off the supply of fresh recruits who are on the way to a keep.... you are hanging out at a keep, watching for incoming enemy WB's when suddenly someone sneaks up you or nukes you...the list goes on and on. Hell, give me 2 vs 1 and I can use one guy to drain hp and give it to me with Hot-DoT's and the other guy is just disabled from all the dps reduction...
Now, you give no reference to the various Tiers of a shaman. Should one assume you are talking about level 40 only? If that's the case you could be completely correct because I simply have no experience beyond 21. BUT, I can speak for the FIRST HALF of the games levels!
I have to preface this by saying I have not played a destro past lvl 15
I have however played everything but the Runepriest and Shadowwarrior on the order side to at least 20.
Each of the characters has their strengths and weaknesses. Now my personal take on games is not min/max or being ultra powerful. I do not max out every faction, finish every pq or collect every quest reward. I am playing for fun and hate to grind. I also at times have the attention span of a 3 year old. That being said, as War is heavy into PVP, the issues of class balance have come up from a playability point of view.
Warrior Priests.- Great to play. Fairly solid. Good in groups of 2 with tank support. Take a long time to kill things but good surviveability.
White Lions - Ok class with weak armor and a pet. Said to be great at later levels for being able to pull people to you out of groups. Personally haven't played one past 22 before losing interest.
Swordmaster - decent damage . Didnt find them enjoyable.
Ironbreaker -tons of fun. Only downside is you need a cart for your potions.. Or a buddy that likes to play a healer.
Archmage - when I read the post on shaman it made me think of this guy. Hard to kill even though he is squishy and fun to play when you have tank support. Stopped playing him because I got tired of being a mostly unprotected healer.
Notice we have a certain lack of healers in general on the order side. My friends and I each have 2 that we have been trying to level simply for support purposes.
Knight of the BS - Fun to play, kind of goofy looking. Still play this guy. He again needs a cart for his potions.
Bright wizard - they were better before they were changed. Still if you have a healer to keep you up you are a decimater of worlds.
Slayer - my favorite character so far. Then again my play style fits the character. I will die happy as long as I kill you first. There is not a cart big enough for the potions this guy needs.
Engineer - my current highest level at 34. Tons of fun on the grenader path. Easy kill most times if more than one tank comes for him. Still I will dot you up and leave you burning in napalm before I go down.
Witchhunter - the reason I started playing the game. Good character but you have to be willing to die. A lot. Damage could be upped a bit for these guys in my opinion.
Now the destro I played I have to say in comparison with the order seem to be set on easy. Having played so many order characters in the 3 areas I found that each of the destro I started seem to have easier quests, more quests, better written and thought out quests and generally had a higher power level .
Squig herder - solid player, meals on wheels if you get up close but seems stronger than the WL and SW in my opinion.
Witch Elf- they were insanely powerful before. Since the last nerf they seem a lot more in balance.
Choppa - seems somewhat tougher than the slayer. Just my opinion there after having played both
Casters on the destro side seem insanely powerful but when you compare them with the BW they do not seem so bad.
All in all I think that the devs do a fair job of keeping things in balance. If you think something is too powerful you might just want to try a different tactic in how you are reacting .
Okay, I made my first FRAPS video to show you how OP a Shaman is. Before you watch keep this in mind:
A. From the patch, I lost my UI settings and add-ons. I am not accustomed to the default setup and my add-ons help me out big time. (I can see buffs better, watch HP/action bars much better, etc)
B. I haven't played my Shaman in over a week.. possibly 2 weeks. I'm rusty.
C. I'm used to my WE's setup because I've been solely focussed on her for a month now. :P
I'm not making excuses, just saying that if I was in the right mind and not thinking about camera angles for Fraps and all the other crap listed above, I would have survived all 3 of them. I made so many mistakes and it's not as good as I usually operate.
HERE is the video on youtube. Make sure you watch it in HQ.
I'll make more after the emergency server maintanance. Also, if you want I can show you my perfectly geared WE unable to even DENT a WP or Archmage.
Let me tell you something now, and this is from experience.
Chars that are OP now will be replaced with other chars who are the new OP class..Which in turn will be replaced with different chars who are OP..Etc etc.
When they have been around the block with the chars, the next step is to release NEW chars which are OP.
They will claim that this 'balancing' is in response to the players feedback.
Their previous MMO DAoC is still doing this lol.
Here's some feedback for you Mythic...You stink.
I never played DAoC and actually I rather enjoy Warhammer. I think a little patience is in order here because the game IS new and I don't know what Mythic's priorities are. I don't have the big list of "stuff to fix" that sits up on the chalkboard in the programmer's cubefarm over that the Mythic headquarters. I suspect that moment some guildmaster gets all his guildmates together and says "Okay, you are ALL going to re-roll shamans. I want no less than 100 shamans" and then that GM takes his massive warband's of shamans and pretty much rapes everything in the game... then.. someone will come and say "Okay, enough is enough, this is now a priority". Imagine how unstoppable a mass-healing, battle-rezzing, DPS / debuffing and tanking Shaman warband(s) would be!!
Suggestions to balance Shaman:
1. Make the bubble "party only". It stops damage, lets your HoTs run and allows you to cast your biggest, slowest heal uninterrupted. Too much power. Otherwise, keep the bubble but drop the mechanic where it stops spell interruption.
2. Drop the detaunt / dps debuff from 50% to 25% when fighting in RVR/Scenarios. Don't worry, 25% is a lot still and it STILL stacks with the passive 25% debuff that has a 25% of activating with EVERY hit you take.
3. Take one of those ability DoT/Hot's and turn it into a DoT only. Cmon, we got a bunch of HoT's do we really need one that's a HoT AND a DoT?
That alone should keep the shaman from tanking more than 1 person and it would give those poor Witch Hunters a chance.
The only other thing I can think of is some minor adjustments in the numbers. Why not step-up the 50% debuff? With each level it increases by 5% till it caps at 50%? I dunno... might be a bit more smooth for the transition into T3/T4.
I don't think that Witch Elves or Witch Hunters need to be un-nerfed. I just think it's the healer classes that are OP so far. If we brought them down a bit, the WE's and WH's would become more effective. With my twinked out lvl 10 WE I have no problem with slayers (though it's usually a very close battle) and I have no problems with the ranged guys. I will never expect to have the ability to take down a tank class. They are supposed to take a huge whallop of damage and you shouldn't be able to drop them. The White Lions and Witch Hunters should be a pretty even battle along with Slayers. Low armor types such as healers and mages (who stay in the back anyhow) should be easy if they aren't being watched by their teammates.
Overall, I don't think death should be so hard to find for a Witch Elf in this game. Afterall, every healer has a GREAT battle-rez that they can use over and over and over. I don't think people should be so unstoppable when they are so easy to bring back to life!