RA re-design details

[Sodom]

New Herald page devoted to the RA re-design in Frontiers. Salient points:

• "Free" Class Special RAs. Instead of the very powerful ten and fourteen point class specific RAs of the old system, the new system will grant each class a free RA at Realm Rank 5. Most of these will be on a ten or fifteen minute timer based on power.
• "Free" Abilities based on player level or spec level. Additionally, some classes will receive what were former RAs that are deemed to be essential to their nature automatically as they reach certain levels and spec levels.
• No RA will have a timer longer then 20 minutes, and in most cases, timers will be in the 5-15 minute range. With the reduction in reuse time will come a commensurate reduction in power.
• Homogenization of Class RAs. The RAs previously known as "Class Special RAs" will now be available to classes in other Realms that share the same archetype. For example, Druids, Healers, and Clerics (all sharing the healer archetype) will each be able to purchase redesigned Bunker of Faith.
  

[Sodom]

Warning: Inflammatory Post Incoming!

The RAs previously known as "Class Special RAs" will now be available to classes in other Realms that share the same archetype.

Which, in absence of any other realm/class balancing announcement, means Mythic is kicking away Alb's crutches and taking away our primary means of being competitive.

[Zutroy]

well that's it, we're screwed

who wants to reroll a hib?

[Caohmin]

No kidding, Zut. I think they are bringing about the imbalance that existed before the introduction of RAs, which RAs were supposed to address.

So they're redesigning BoF and giving it to all 3 realms. Great. Our tools that made it possible to win sometimes will be diluted and handed out like candy to the other realms.

It's hard to stay positive about these upcoming changes, especially if they nerf Determination. It was the one RA that made playing a main tank worthwhile. I can still remember the early days when we would RvR and tanks were nothing but RP cows. I'm not going back to that.

[Zutroy]

ok, now that i've got that initial knee jerk reaction out of the way it's time to rant.

When I was on mid MLF, I hated BOF/SoS - it was the only way an alb group could beat us with even numbers. It was extremely frustrating trying to chase down a caster while they ran around at speed 5 kiting you or to have your entire group of tanks beating on a cleric that won't go down.

But, that was only once every 30 mins and the alb group had to be pretty good to begin with. Most of the time when albs used BoF or SoS it didn't matter since they either got mezzed or spent that time attacking the wrong targets.

Sure it sucked to get beat by a good group just because of RAs, but on the other side, how fair was it to all the albs we ran over because they didn't have it? We wiped 2x and 3x or size in albs regularly thanks to insta mez/stun and the ability of our tanks to kill a caster in under 2 seconds.

Mids right now have no good group RAs (except maybe ichor, which really only gets used against hibs since they have GP) and can still totally dominate in RvR. If mythic allows every realm to have the same RAs, there's no way alb is going to be able to compete given our classes.

Can you just imagine what a tank heavy mid group would be like with SoS? Or how about an MoC-chanter hib group with BoF?

[Axecleaver]

I agree completely. Right or wrong, they used RA's to balance realms. If they're planning to, as Sodom puts it, kick out our crutches... they better come up with some mighty fancy realm balancing equations to make up for it.

As usual, I don't think they thought this through. If this happens I would expect mid to jump back out on top almost instantly. You could roll the baddest caster group ever, complete with BoF, SoS, and GP. Ya plus conc-based endurance, insta mez and insta stun, and all the other goodies that mid gets. Ridiculous.

[Lifesbane]

i like how in one of the points they talk about bringing more diversity to rvr templates then in the very next point they talk about Homogenizing the RA's...interesting.

anyways:
"Free" Class Special RAs. Instead of the very powerful ten and fourteen point class specific RAs of the old system, the new system will grant each class a free RA at Realm Rank 5. Most of these will be on a ten or fifteen minute timer based on power."

okay, so the rich get richer - given RR5 isnt really considered teribly high RR, the ones that have it already are going to have a bigger advantage over the ones that dont (and get it for free), making it even harder for the ones that dont to compete. IMO this is just going to make it that much harder for low-RR peeps/non hardcore rvr'ers to compete...at least before clerics could get BoF at RR2, or mini's could get SoS, which would help even the gap a bit against the high RR'ers...im not a fan.

""Free" Abilities based on player level or spec level. Additionally, some classes will receive what were former RAs that are deemed to be essential to their nature automatically as they reach certain levels and spec levels. We will publish a full list of these along with the other specific Realm Ability changes in a few weeks."

this could help alleaviate the problems i just mentioned, but im not sure...does this mean i get MoC for speccing ice? or for being lvl 50? doesnt really seem like an RA if thats the case, more of a class ability.

bleh, idunno
/rant off

[Caohmin]

As a pbaoe caster, MoC could be considered one of the 'essential' RAs, so maybe you will get it if you spec to a certain level. That sounds like a good thing if it does work out like that.

[Kirin]

omg.. this spells rouble.. im sure theyll come up with something

[Bolldar Bloodaxe]

OMG I agree with Zutroy lol I think we are stuffed when they remove these RAs since they did prop up our inferiority in every other sense.

[Rosslyn]

My very first feedback form ever included a short novel about how RA's were used at least to some extent as a quick and dirty way to get closer to realm balance.  The point was that if they homogenize the RA's across realms, they should probably re-open the can of worms that is realm balance.