Solving Ze Bird Problem

[whisperwalk]

[1] I am not sure where you got your facts but bears gain 48% dodge from buffs. Third grade math maybe... 48 > 45 ... not to mention the bears armour buffs and health pool.
[2] Please never refer to a class with the smallest health pool as a tank again
[3] So with your new range balance rule, let's pair a bird against:
a bear - if beckon lands they do less than 50% normal damage, as well as coming into the range of crushing blow further decreasing their damage.
a fox - when ever the fox charges or pulls successfully, the birds damage is less than halved as well as becoming vulnerable to all of the foxes heavy damaging skills.
a rhino - when a rhino charges the bird loses over half its damage, while being stunned.
It would honestly make much more sense if the bird's damage was decreased at far distances when the opponents can't touch him, once the low armour bird gets in their range that's when damage is needed most.

1) A bear does NOT gain 48% dodge from buffs, they gain 18% from evade and 14% from taunt. Two skills total 32% dodge, and losing to a single bird skill. Your third grade math. Birds have a defensive skill exceeding the skill of actual defensive classes. Is that not overpowered? AND they're not even in the tanking business. Birds are devastating due to their high damage output. Does the game need them to also be untouchable?

2) You can call it whatever you want, but rhinos ARE tanks in PVE due to summon skill, double heal, and high armor. They are not "true" tanks like bears but they mimic the function of a tank. Rhinos can't tank at one-hit-kill bosses or PVP due to damage being absurd high, but they play like tanks everywhere else. Otherwise, how do you explain the rhino's collection of pure defensive skills?

However, it is true that rhinos should get at least 100 more hp to be on par with birds. 400 hp is just devs getting carried away.

3) A bird that deals less damage at long range is a novel idea, but would result in contortions during PVE. Instead of taking down enemies from a distance (like a good ranged player), the bird is forced to go near the mobs (to avoid 50% penalty), and kiting be damned. It just doesn't feel like a bird anymore. As for PVP pairings, a bird has various 12m skills to weaken the enemy to sub-50% health, a knockback skill, and roots. The melee penalty can be sidestepped easily by running 1m out of range. A good bird should never be standing still anyway.

I'm picturing the melee penalty to only apply at dagger range, not the sword range of bears.