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Endgame Fox PvP: Walie's Take
Hello all and welcome to my take on the state of endgame fox PvP. For those of who don't know, I have been playing fox almost exclusively since 76 cap, and thus I believe I have a good sense of the relative state of the class from cap to cap.
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To prevent this post from coming across as negative, I want to first highlight what I like about fox this cap so far:
Positive Feedback:
- Fox has decent damage output
- The Volta Dagger Set compliments the strengths of fox well
- The performance gap between old and new foxes is highlighted by the increased length of fights
These three things make the veteran fox player very happy in this new cap. Mastery of the ranger is more rewarding than ever as your mobility allows you to dash around fights unlike any other class, while also having clear weaknesses that make the game challenging.
However, there are a few things that inhibit the fox player from being able to play the class the way it is designed, while also being effective in PvP. I say this because of the current state of the Volta Dagger Set vs. the Hawken's Talon Set.
In my mind, the fox is designed to dash in (ik pretty obvious, bear with me) and do high burst damage to a target. In theory, if the target is not expecting this damage, it will most likely die. In order to play this playstyle, I argue that the Volta Dagger Set is the best set that suits the classes strengths. However, I find that the proc on the set, although useful, pails in comparison to the health buff from Hawken's Talon.
I find that nearly every fight I go into as a fox, I am doomed to do less than any other dex class because of my lacking of the health buff (Hawken's Talon proc), and thus lack of damage output over time (time being alive to do damage).
That being said, I understand that walking the line between making the class a one-shot unstoppable machine and a balanced class open to counter-play is extremely hard with the fox (I felt like this was needed so when I state my wishes for change it doesn't seem ungrateful for the job Cinco has already done, which is honestly very good). This is because the burst damage should be enough to kill a healer or damage dealer, but not enough to be unbeatable.
Leaving that aside for now (we will circle back to it later), there is the secondary issue of the with fox this cap, that being the Evasion buff. I know this has been talked about quite enough since foxes release, but I promise to have a different take on it than most.
Right now, the duration of the fox buff is 10 seconds, with a 15 second cooldown. That means that 2/3 of the time fighting as a fox is spent with bonus dodge chance. However, due to the increased length of fights this cap due to higher health pools and lower damage relative to that health, foxes are almost always doomed to die 12-13 seconds into a fight.
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I would like to highlight that having the "unroot" on a buff is actually good for the identity of the class. By having the class vulnerable to stuns, it helps solidify its role as an assassin, which I am all for.
Thus, in terms of the skills at the foxes disposal, I believe that fox needs either 1, more damage to be able to kill other classes within 10 seconds, or two, a lengthened Evasion duration with a proportionally longer cooldown for it to survive fights longer.
Thus, I believe that the issue at hand with relative fox balance at endgame is two fold, one, the Volta Dagger Set could use tweaking to make it a more viable option in PvP, OR two, the evasion buff needs working with to either make the duration longer with a longer cooldown, or more damage put into the skill kit to better allow the fox to do damage (damage buff on fury?).
Coming back to the issue of fox balancing, I believe that the best way to tweak the Volta Dagger Set to be better with foxes without making it exploitable by other classes, is to buff the proc. Now although all classes can use the proc, only the fox can hit it consistently within every fight. This is because fox is the only class that has two dashes, a pull, and two slows to better jump on top of its opponents. This allows a fox to get off tons of autos which makes the proc much more easy to use in battle.
Thus, by buffing the proc to perhaps give a 2-2.5k temporary bonus health (I suggest this because the mechanic is already in the game with Hawken's Talon) I believe it would make fox much more balanced while having the rest of PvP classes remain relatively unchanged.
Thank you to all those who read this, and I hope for a possible response from Cinco, even if it is that he is unwilling to make changes (which I would totally understand).
Cheers,
-Walie
