Pet

• Low Survivability

• Lion estimated to have 2,000 health at level 40. This generally boils down to 2-4 hits before lion perishes in a PvP setting.
• Lion has low armor, low toughness, low resists, low parry, low initiative, low dodge. Even with the appropriate training (Trained to Threaten) or tactics (Full Grown), the Lion is remarkably fragile, and dies even if it isn't explicitly targeted, with the amount of AoE around.
• Lion is difficult for healers to target in a group, should they be so inclined.
• No benefit from master's renown or equipment means pet stays the same as the collective T4 population rises in power. Survivability suffers as a result (enemy armor penetration, strength, ballistic skill, intelligence all rise, lion's toughness remains low).
• White Lion's pet heal is so weak as to be inconsequential.
• Lion gets no benefits from wards, and takes excessively high amounts of damage in endgame dungeons as a result.

• Speed and Movement
  
  • Pet Speed is erratic, post 1.2, with even a 'speed training' buffed pet moving slower than normal, taking extended amounts of time to reach the target.
  • Pet takes curious paths in charging a target (ie. Not a straight line), sometimes taking two to five times as long as it should to reach the foe.
  • Pet cannot keep up if kited, making it unable to use attacks, skills or Fetch so long as the enemy player keeps moving. Speed Training tactic fixes this, implying a simple 10% innate speed boost would likely resolve the problem.
  • Pet gets no apparent benefit from Feline Grace, making it particularly vulnerable to roots and snares.
  • Pet's channeled attack in Trained to Kill makes it stand still, which allows a PvP enemy to move away from it, easily gaining distance from the pet while avoiding the damage that should result.

• Attacks
  
  • With the inability to rise in power as it's opponents get superior renown ranks & equipment, the pet's attacks falter. The pet gets parried and blocked an excessive amount, which makes it's utility and viability that much worse.
  • Reports (unconfirmed) that pet autoattacks after 1.2 are being delayed a great deal or stopping entirely while pet is using skills.

• Trainings
  • Pet skills are disappearing regularly, post 1.2, leaving the pet unable to use special attacks.  Seems to occur frequently when entering combat, summoning pet or leaving combat, requiring the 'Trained to _____' to be reapplied.
  • Trained to Hunt
    • AoE autoattack debuff is rather ineffective and does not stack with Fey Illusion.
    • AoE swipe is fine.
    • 'Bite' is bland and could use utility.
  • Trained to Threaten
    • Training buff is a little subpar, as the training makes the lion a tank, but doesn't give it the stats to handle the kind of damage that it will take in T3-4. The positional critical hit bonus is fairly unexciting.
    • Leg Tear is good, but due to movement problems listed above, doesn't work on a kiting opponent, which makes the skill ironically ineffective.
    • The armor debuff is okay, but could perhaps have damage added.
    • The threaten needs a more effective PvP application.
  • Trained to Kill
    
    •  As with TTT, stat buffs from the training fail to make a notable difference to one's playstyle.
    • DoT and standard attack lack any utility.
    • Channeled pet attack roots pet in place, allowing enemies to move out of range & get a headstart on pet.

• Pet Use
  
  • Pet must be summoned several times over the course of any serious battle. This can be as often as every 17 seconds, given the pet's low survivability. The class suffers for the time spent trying to maintain it's companion.
  • Pet AI is erratic, post 1.2, with the pet returning to the master or running off erratically.  Crippling to the point that lion can't be sent off to attack a distant target, and is sometimes problematic even when kept at the master's side.

Effectiveness

• AP Exhaustion -- White Lion has the most expensive attacks in the game, for a melee combatant. We have no attack skills that cost less than 30 AP, where the larger body of other MDPS have regularly usable melee attacks that cost 25 AP.
• Damage Output -- The White Lion has less damage on every one of it's attacks as compared to it's mirror. Naturally, the pet is intended to compensate for this, but the issues under 'Pet' at the top of this post mitigate that.

• Utility
  
  • As compared to Marauder's ~20 utility skills, the WL has 2 without pet and about 8 with.  Half the amount.
  • So long as our utility is mostly tied up in pet, our class suffers doubly for it's low survivability, see above.
  • WL lacks utility for acting on it's role as an MDPS.  WL is the only MDPS lacking a disarm (which is crucial for killing melee healers, among other things), sporting only a snare, knockto and a pet based silence & stun (with all the drawbacks -including high chance to be defended against - the pet dependency inherently brings)
  • Redundant Skills
    
    • Hack, Baiting Strike and Sundering Blow are all spammable attacks for 30-35 AP that do the same amount of damage.
    • Coordinated Strike, Phantom Blade and 'Pack Assault' are simply 'big damage' skills that are largely outdated at level 37 when the WL gains Tearing Blade.
    • Nearly 1/3rd of the WL skills simply do damage with no other benefit.
    • Class Role - Very narrow in application. 75% of the class skills don't see regular use either because they're poor, they lack utility or because we have another skill that does the same thing better. Virtually every WL falls into the same Loner Axeman build due to a lack of options. Others (Guardian spec) can get by despite the pet, not because of it.

Skills

• Core Skills
  
  • Summon Lion - Skill is solid post-1.2, but the product of the skill still leaves much to be desired.
  • Nature's Bond - Too little, too slowly, as heals go.
  • Submission - Frequently blocked and disrupted.  There is speculation that Submission is int-dependent.
  • Feline Grace - Skill does not affect pet, leaving it rooted and snared. Skill is bugged, and does not (reliably?) grant the 10s of immunity to the White Lion.
  • Fetch - Strictly worse than TE in 1.2. This is because it has a prerequisite (Pet being alive) that requires a 1s time investment to be met. It's easier to counter, takes longer to activate and requires far more micromanagement (and arguably a tactic) for equal results.
  • Morale
    
    • Level 4 Morales, all - Believed to be rather poor and unexciting as a whole.

• Mastery Path: Hunter
  
  • Hack - Standard attack skill. Redundant alongside Sundering Chop and Baiting Strike. AP cost too high?  Rather bland.
  • Coordinated Strike - Skill is bugged. Believed that pet's share of damage is not granted if pet has recently activated an ability. Skill is not particularly effective as a damage skill at high levels.
  • Pounce - 1.2 seems to have added .5 to 1 second delay before skill fires.  Landing placement erratically placing White Lion as far as 30 feet from the target.
  • Lion's Fury - Damage is fairly low considering cooldown and prerequisite. Skill is not particularly effective as a damage skill at high levels.  Remedied by tactic, of course, but we're too dependent on tactics as it stands.
  • Whirling Axe - Somewhat redundant and unexciting as a capstone ability for the White Lion's AoE tree.
  • Tactic - Lionheart - Post 1.2, skill remains grayed out, demanding a curse on the target even when the tactic is equipped.  Skill must be spam-clicked to be used.

• Mastery Path: Axeman
  
  • Overall - Tree seems built around having lion drawing the enemy attention and the WL attacking. However, lion is incapable of tanking in tier 3 and onward, and plethora of positional attacks are baffling, to put it simply.
  • Blindside - Damage leaves something to be desired. Positional requirement somewhat baffling, as skill doesn't offer anything to compensate for the drawback, as compared to similar skills.
  • Shattering Blow
    
    • Damage is rather low.
    • Debuff is weak
    • Positional requirement is perplexing.
    • Tooltip fails to let player know when the strength debuff occurs.
  • Primal Fury - Odd positional requirement, again, as skill doesn't offer anything to compensate for the drawback, as compared to similar skills.
  • Thin the Herd - 50% less outgoing healing is strictly worse than the more common 50% deduction to healing recieved.  Positional requirement seems unnecessary. It's restricted to working on healers, but doesn't work on disciple melee heals (ergo: works on 2.5 classes out of 12)
  • Tactic, Blindsided! - Utterly useless post 1.2, cripping the White Lion in matchups it should rightly be able to win.
  • Tactic, Threatening Distraction - Has no PvP usage, and minimal use in PvE. Replace, please!

• Mastery Path: Guardian
  
  • Overall Concept - For a tree built around having an effective lion, the numerous pet issues are compounded (re: pet speed, pet being delayed while channeling attack, pet survivability, pet's chance to hit). Tree has perhaps the most interesting skills of the three mastery paths, but falls down in execution.
  • Baiting Strike - No PvP application without tactic
  • Throat Bite - Pet often fails to use this ability in a timely manner (may be tied to mobility issues listed above).
  • Force Opportunity - For ability with high cost (40 AP) and requirement (parry) the damage is low, buff is short & not terribly effective given pet's lack of burst.
  • Brutal Pounce - Pet often fails o use this ability in a timely manner (may be tied to mobility issues listed above).
  • Leonine Frenzy - CC immunity of ability is nonexistent.
  • Tactic, Stalker - No Pvp application, and unnecessary for PvE. Replace, please!
  • Furious Mending - Benefit is so minimal as to be inconsequential.

Aesthetics

•  Graphics & Art
  
  • Lack of variation between armor in T2 and onward.
  • Lack of 'kilts', as many believe the class should not wear robes via. IP.
  • T4 mailcoat with straps crossing over breastplate does not dye completely, leaving sleeves blue.
  • Distracting clipping issues with robes & legs.
  • Distracting clipping issues with unhelmed WL of many hairstyles and most shouldergear.
  • Distracting clipping issues with both unhelmed & helmed WL of many hairstyles & endgame shoulders. ('Lionhead' shoulders)
  • Trophies and medals are flipped from top to bottom on endgame shoulders. ('Lionhead shoulders')
  • Lion color is random and lacks customization.

Issues added in 1.2

• Pet skills are disappearing regularly, leaving the pet unable to use special attacks.  Seems to occur frequently when entering combat, summoning pet or leaving combat, requiring the 'Trained to _____' to be reapplied.
• Reports (unconfirmed) of pet autoattacks being delayed by more than a few seconds when pet is using skills.
• Pet Speed is erratic, post 1.2, with even a 'speed training' buffed pet moving slower than normal walking speed, taking extended amounts of time to reach the target.
• Pet AI is erratic, post 1.2, with the pet returning to the master or running off erratically.  Crippling to the point that lion can't be sent off to attack a distant target, and is sometimes problematic even when kept at the master's side.
• Pounce - 1.2 seems to have added .5 to 1 second delay before skill fires.  Landing placement erratically placing White Lion as far as 30 feet from the target.
• Tactic - Lionheart - Post 1.2, skill remains grayed out, demanding a curse on the target even when the tactic is equipped.  Skill must be spam-clicked to be used.

Quite simply the best write up I have seen to date, thanks for putting it together.

I have a simple solution though - make the pet survive much longer and boost the run speed by 10% by default. Whether the lion takes stats from the owner or is just immune to 90% of the AoE flying around it doesnt matter.  I think a lot of issues would go from "vritually game breaking" to "annoying" if we had more than just cookie cutter loner to run with.  Personally I would be quite excited by the prospect of using an elemt of the guardian build - to actually get a stun for example - if I could count on the pet being alive for more than 3 seconds if there is a pit of shades or enervating mist in the general vicinity.

Every WL I know is desperately waiting on the C&C team to give it the attention it has needed since beta.

Yeah, that's a very comprehensive writeup.

I think it's really important to note that AP costs were not addressed in Mythic's recent attempt to increase the average time to kill. As much as the change hurt every class, it is particularly harsh to the White Lion.

I really like your assessment hashmalum and only have a few comments about it.  One thing I think should be emphasized more is that so much of our utility is tied to the lion that going loner is very problematic.  However the mechanics of the pet are so screwy that going loner is almost a must in any large scale combat.  I couldn't even use the pet on the new scenario because it just wasn't able to keep up on the steps.

This class is about 75% of what it should be because the lion is such a pain to use.  We lose alot of options and variety because of the lack of survivability and bad pathing.  Either fix things so the lion is not essential to playing the class or buff the lion so he's worth keeping at our sides.  

Lion hard to target by healers.

Group heals effect lion now I believe, I've seen it get healed while I'm getting healed as well

Low damage and high AP cost of our damage skills.

Our lion damage and the fact it's attacks cost no AP are probably what's causing us to have high AP/low damage attacks.  The problem with this is pet survivability and the lack of growth for loner spec WL.  The only way to justify our current costs/delves is to fix the lion.  Conversely if the lion can't be fixed then our abilites need improvement.

Fetch and the changes.

Adding on my two cents, fetch is absolutely horrible now.  I was helping hold destro at their WC as we locked a zone.  I got fetch to work twice, both on opponents 30ft or less away from me because the lion could not get out to 65ft with all the AE, CC and bad pathing.  I ended up summoning about a dozen pets total for no result.  During that time a marauder made atleast 6 solid pulls while exposing himself for much less duration then what I had to do.  Too many things have to fall into place for fetch to be effective.  I don't want to summon someone half way across a map, but the lion is too slow and the targeting is such a pain that I can't justify exposing myself to the casters to try and get a pull off.  The range needs to go up to 100ft, change the skill so a spirit lion races to the target and snatches them to us or add in some immunity/speed boost/adjusted LoS check.   Heck, just make fetch an exact copy of TE with a different color tentacle that looks like a lion tail.  Anything to make this skill useful because as it stands it's just not worth trying to make happen.

Lvl 4 morales.

Our t4 dmg morale (blade and claw) does 1200 ae while most other AE or single targets are atleast 2400.  Mar also do 1200dmg but they have a 7sec stun.  If you look at all the other T4 morales there is not a single one as poorly designed as blade and claw.   Addtionally a pure heal morale is worthless, while the last morale is nearly the same as the default morale we get for free.  All of these need to be looked at and adjustted to something worth speccing to.

Threatening distraction

I'd like to see 160WS/init added to this to give reason for it in PVP and to boost WL dmg to match tree design

Stalker

Here I'd like to see 160tough/init to boost our tanking so the lion can do damage, also useful in PVP.  Please note these two items have mirrored stat boost to marauder tactics.

Pet Pathing: post-1.2 the Lion now has extreme difficulty traversing unpathable terrain.  And by unpathable I mean tables, stairs, chairs, craters, bridges, ledges, corners, hills, slopes, trees, bushes and rocks.

Basically the only things they currently CAN navigate through are keep doors.

Pet Survivability: post-1.2, the Lion dies in one hit to any T4 siege engine.  Not to mention the usual random AoEs or single mage bolt.

Pounce: post-1.2 it will no longer hit a moving target, and no longer moves you into range for white hits.

Slashing Blade: Slashing Blade has become the WL's new basic attack, as it does better single target damage than Hack, Sundering Chop or Baiting Strike.  Because of this, it has made Hack and Slash a required tactic (to compensate for SB costing twice what Demolition costs Mara).  If they want to drop 40 off the delve and 25 off the AP to make it a clone of Demolition, I'm all for it.

Hack: Lowest delve attack in the game.  It has a lower delve than the tank hate building basic attack, and has no other effects.  Even with Hack and Slash, this skill still isn't worth putting on the bar (because then Slashing Blade costs only 25 AP, is AoE, does more damage, and triggers Tearing Blade if you have it slotted).

Pack Synergy: post-1.2 I had to pull it off my bar.  The Lion is impossible to keep standing except at keep defenses, where you can park it inside the wall somewhere so nobody can attack it.   I've currently filled the slot with Hack and Slash, the new required tactic.

Flashing Claws: the only 10% to parry tactic which doesn't have a secondary effect.

Fetch: post-1.2 is incapable of fetching a moving target, as they will easily outrange the break distance before the lion comes into contact with them, even with Speed Training slotted.

Pack Hunting: post-1.2, the only viable stance is Trained to Hunt.  Pack Hunting is the WL's double-contribution tactic, which is REQUIRED for it to keep pace with the single-target dps of any of the other mdps classes (except post-1.2 WE, who now only have the finishers for double-cont; the loss of stat contribtion to kisses and ES has put it behind the other mdps classes).

Tearing Blade: post-1.2 the removal of the stacking has caused it to reset itself, making it lose 2 of the 3 ticks (in other words: it adds 100 non-criting, non-scaling damage to Slashing Blade and Sundering Chop).  While it's still an acceptable tactic, because Slashing Blade and Sundering Chop are the WL's only viable basic attacks (so it basically applies to "all" WL skill attacks), it needs to be reworked so that when it reapplies itself it doesn't change the tick interval.

Whirling Axe: post-1.2, compared to Slashing Blade w/ Hack&Slash and Tearing Blade- it is AP inefficient, range inefficient, and damage inefficient.

The changes always seem to be the same. Why doesn't mythic listen to what White Lions are asking for and just change them.

-Pets need triple the amount of HP, and gain 30% of player stats.

-PvE tactics need to go

-New graphics for everything (armor kilt)

Very good list of issues and well articulated.

Please add the issue with Submission:

Submission (detaunt) has an extremely high rate of failure as it is very frequently blocked and disrupted.  Using it in a group of 5 enemies shows it only affecting 1/5 quite frequency with the rest disrupting/blocking/etc.  I believe this has to do with its reliance on INT to be effective.  Consider changing this to work based on a different stat or give it a flat percent chance of working regardless of the opponents block/disrupt.  There is very little point in using this or having it as a WL ability if it is largely ineffective due to it's reliance on stats which are not increased for a WL.

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Feilong wrote:

 

Please add the issue with Submission:

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Great Write up 

I would also suggest from a art stand point  that WL armor color needs to match your  own or the ability to turn off the random color.  Im not a big fan of summoning a pink armored lion :-)

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Devilhawk wrote:

 

I would also suggest from a art stand point  that WL armor color needs to match your  own or the ability to turn off the random color.  Im not a big fan of summoning a pink armored lion :-)

 

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Added the random pet colors under Aesthetics.

Overall, I'm just trying to get all the issues in one place, ideally so the devs can get a good look.  Suggestions are fine in general, I like to make them from time to time as a creative exercise, but here, they kind of become clutter.

Very nice compilation.

Just my opinion and basically what I said on the 1.2a thread, it's going to be hard to convince mythic to buff the pet run speed because in theory, it should be exactly as fast as the targets. It sprints when you sprint, it charges when you charge, so making it faster than the enemy without having to use either ability will bring it on par with the horrible charging bonedancer pets in daoc. The real trouble is that speed is all in theory and the reality is that pathing is so buggy that even though they should be just as fast as a player, it's not even close. However, a speed buff would just be treating the symptoms rather than treating the disease. Now I don't see them fixing all of the pathing any time soon (although seriously, can we get Tor Anroc fixed? The pet just disappears off the face of the earth on the destro ramp) but there are other issues that have been mentioned that could take care of a huge portion of the pet's gimp chasing.

1. Make feline grace apply to both the pet and the player. Has been mentioned before and is a great idea.

2. Make pounce effect the pet as well. A big reason that the pet gets behind is because the player can fly from target to target so as long as mythic agrees that the lion should be able to keep up, then we should be able to agree that the pet should pounce as well.

3. Make the pet move while using focus attacks. The point was well taken about how the pet's focus attacks make it stop and since players' focus melee attacks can be used while moving, it doesn't seem unreasonable to do this change.

I know that everybody has their hearts set on a free speed buff, but I think these changes are much easier to sell to the devs and they would help at least as much as a 10 or 20 percent speed buff if you think about all the number of times you get rooted, you pounce, or the thing uses a focus attack in battle.

An excellent write up. Here's a couple more general design philosophy questions to use as a guide, so as not to get lost in the details:

1. If the pet is suppose to be an 'in their face' melee companion, why does it die so easily?

2. Why does the spec line designed to focus on the pet make the character tougher, but not the pet tougher?

3. Why does the spec line designed to focus on the charater make the pet tougher, but not the character?

4. Why is the spec line where the 2 must work together the only line with no tricks / distractions / utility?

Thanks.

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Randomize wrote:

 

1. Make feline grace apply to both the pet and the player. Has been mentioned before and is a great idea.

2. Make pounce effect the pet as well. A big reason that the pet gets behind is because the player can fly from target to target so as long as mythic agrees that the lion should be able to keep up, then we should be able to agree that the pet should pounce as well.

3. Make the pet move while using focus attacks. The point was well taken about how the pet's focus attacks make it stop and since players' focus melee attacks can be used while moving, it doesn't seem unreasonable to do this change.

 

I know that everybody has their hearts set on a free speed buff, but I think these changes are much easier to sell to the devs and they would help at least as much as a 10 or 20 percent speed buff if you think about all the number of times you get rooted, you pounce, or the thing uses a focus attack in battle.

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When you reach T4 something will become apparent:

-  There are too many places to count where the pet will lag behind even when you are not pouncing (or charging), sadly these include places you want to go often such as scenarios (Grovod for example) and most keeps/fortresses.  This also includes the new Twisting Towers scenario - run down the outside lion will be at least 2-5 seconds behind you.  In Howling Gorge last night within the course of 5 minutes I had to stop what I was doing and run 40 yards to whatever the invisble object my pet was stuck on 4 times.

The pet cannot outrun a player, therefore it cannot catch up to me.  This effectively means for the pet to be at my side (where it should be unless I send it off somewhere else) I have to stop what I am doing and wait for it. 

We should not be at this stage in a games development where we are settling for half a solution - the pet pathing and AI requires fixing as does the run speed.

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Sorceren wrote:

When you reach T4 something will become apparent:

 

-  There are too many places to count where the pet will lag behind even when you are not pouncing (or charging), sadly these include places you want to go often such as scenarios (Grovod for example) and most keeps/fortresses.  This also includes the new Twisting Towers scenario - run down the outside lion will be at least 2-5 seconds behind you.  In Howling Gorge last night within the course of 5 minutes I had to stop what I was doing and run 40 yards to whatever the invisble object my pet was stuck on 4 times.

 

The pet cannot outrun a player, therefore it cannot catch up to me.  This effectively means for the pet to be at my side (where it should be unless I send it off somewhere else) I have to stop what I am doing and wait for it. 

 

We should not be at this stage in a games development where we are settling for half a solution - the pet pathing and AI requires fixing as does the run speed.

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I'm all for fixing the bugs but there'll be a problem if the pet can chase down somebody who's trying to prekite. People will complain and I would complain about it too; The pet can snare and having the thing on permaspeed would be beyond antagonizing.

But yeah, it is really annoying having to wait for the lion to catch up. Maybe a "heel" ability that would teleport the thing to your side would do the trick? Anybody who's played the druid in DoTA knows how nice that is

If I have the pet out my pet is always on perma speed, they just don't function well enough with out it. AI on the pet will never be good enough with collision detection in this game and extra speed is what is needed. Just sucks to take up a tactic just to make the pet function. I mean you dont see a tactic for making a marauder arm be able to keep up with swings or a tactic that makes a caster able to focus enough to cast its spell or a healer using a tactic just so that he knows how to use heal spells. Unless they take out collision detection which they never will the pet will always be a step behind. no amount of coding will ever make it so, every game on the market now has mobs in it that do not path right unless they ignore the game world and if pets did that everyone would complain about line of sight etc etc.

an intelligent player will always take better paths than a pet AI will and speed gives back the "intelligents" to you as a player that is commanding the pet.

 excellent write up, cheers+5 for your work,

not adding pet speed would be fine if the pathing , attacks, etc.. were addressed. with charge and the speed tactic fetching mounted players are well... were, easily dispatched.  if we could at least get one aoe knock down... and a snare thats not moral based or pet based, ...perhaps a knock down added to pounce????, with a slightly longer cd would be sufficient. getting rolled as a group of 10 by a few marauders and chosen spamming disarms and aoe knock downs is well.... a very offensive swear word. white lion is on its way to being useless once slayer is released.. i really dont want my time leveling this fun class to be wasted. its hard not to notice mythics legendary red rocket for the destro counterpart of WL... or the entire force for that matter.

Instead of giving the pet a run speed buff the best option would be to force him to be at your side at all time inless you tell him to attack. most of my issues is he gets lost but if he was locked to me at all times no matter what it would keep him from getting lost.

Pet has some serious issues during lag, large rvr battles forts you name it. He gets lost and its better to run without him.

New Fetch.

range isnt a big deal especially since it brings it more inline with the merauder. issue is still pet having to run to the person which if they run away when they see the pet it will never work. As it stands i would rather not have fetch and get something else maybe some sort of CC.

Pounce.

very slugish. taking much longer to go off then it used to and if your pouncing someone who is moving you end up missing half the time because of how long it takes.

Slashing Blade.

I belive is the frontal cone ability. Similer to Demolition but Heavy Ap cost and dmg isnt great. More effective to just pounce on them. its cool that its instant with no cool down.

I agree with virtually everything the OP said.

The War Lion (I believe) really needs an innate 25% run speed bonus.

The War Lion should draw 50% of ALL stats. If I have 1k str. my lion has 500 str.  If I have 800 wounds, my WL has 400 wounds and so on and so forth.

Secondly.

Get rid of the PVE tactic please! No other class has speccable tactic that are only useful PVE and designed for PVE.

And Force Opportunity should keep its effect(I love, with Pack Synergy, Leonine Frenzy critting heals for around 550) but remove the parry. We are a 2h class that has a very low innate parry chance.........Remove the parry from the attack and it actually, combined with the 10% crit from TTH, is a very useful ability for us Guardian WL's. With Pack Synergy the pet crits freaking hard on some attacks.

Theoritically, my pet can crit for around 450 with bite and 550 with Leonine Frenzy at the same time.

Also.

Please make Leonine Frenzy either last 20 seconds, or reduce the cooldown to 20s. Our main form of damage should not be that short on that cooldown as a guardian WL. We should be a threat for most of the fight.

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GotEvil wrote:

 

Pounce.

very slugish. taking much longer to go off then it used to and if your pouncing someone who is moving you end up missing half the time because of how long it takes.

 

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Glad to see I'm not just crazy. Sad to see that it's something wrong with the game and not just my connection being laggy

ADDED IN 1.2

• Pet skills are disappearing regularly, leaving the pet unable to use special attacks.  Seems to occur frequently when entering combat, summoning pet or leaving combat, requiring the 'Trained to _____' to be reapplied.
• Reports (unconfirmed) of pet autoattacks being delayed by more than a few seconds when pet is using skills.
• Pet Speed is erratic, post 1.2, with even a 'speed training' buffed pet moving slower than normal, taking extended amounts of time to reach the Target.
• Pet AI is erratic, post 1.2, with the pet returning to the master or running off erratically.  Crippling to the point that lion can't be sent off to attack a distant target, and is sometimes problematic even when kept at the master's side.
• Pounce - 1.2 seems to have added .5 to 1 second delay before skill fires.  Landing placement erratically placing White Lion as far as 30 feet from the target.
• Tactic - Lionheart - Post 1.2, skill remains grayed out, demanding a curse on the target even when the tactic is equipped.  Skill must be spam-clicked to be used.

To sumarize the class is broken, fix it or well soon have no more WLs on WAR and most of the WLs player will probably cancel theyre subscriptions.

Althought SW are probably weacker tham WL overall, WL is the only class that has a completly broken mechanic since the pet has absolutelly no use leaving us whith almost no options of customization (basically use loner or youre doomed)

The WL visuals is also broken, our end game armor all look exactly the same, DP is equal to sent whitvh is identical to some blue gear, conq is identical to anihi whitch is very similar to T3 armor and looks like crap.

Adam mate please take these topics note into consideration when trying to solve Wls issues. I sincerally believe the game needs 1 update entirely focused on fixing WLs

Low damage and high AP cost of our damage skills.

Our lion damage and the fact it's attacks cost no AP are probably what's causing us to have high AP/low damage attacks.  The problem with this is pet survivability and the lack of growth for loner spec WL.  The only way to justify our current costs/delves is to fix the lion.  Conversely if the lion can't be fixed then our abilites need improvement.

On the other side, squig herders  have pets and reasonable AP costs for their abilities.

I wanted to bump this topic, as the word of mouth suggests that WL is getting some attention within the next month.  I'm hoping that Mythic realizes that this isn't a class that needs a few minor changes & can be called 'done'.  I tried to make my bump constructive by compiling the post 1.2 complaints.

The WL was one of the last classes added in open beta, and was on OB for such a short time that it couldn't be fully playtested.  I think this is evident enough in how the class (particularly the pet) scales over levels.

The big issue, and this isn't something that can be remedied with a simple patch, is that the WL is a class that feels like it starts off at 80% capacity, and our tactics, mastery, etc, all go towards compensating for what we're lacking.  That isn't to say we're a bad class.  WL can be very effective.  But our class feature is more detriment than asset, and we made a lot of sacrifices in AP costs, base ability damage and utility to get it.  It just doesn't pay off as it should.