True, my GM says Thanes are fine and he is a famous one that plays a lot.
I also saw many good melee Thanes and they are copletly fine, a very good hybrid.

Also why Thanes should get more WS while every other classes have the same WS as a Thane?
(not talking about heavy tanks or paper tanks since its their role to have high WS to kill others fast, except savage whose role is to one-shot people)

This game is very, very, very, very, very, very, very, unfriendly to Solo/Smallmen so usually as a VW you end up asking for a grp while no one takes you.
Typically people just ignore you or say that they need BL or a real melee DPS that doesn't die from a pixie fart, which is very sad, so you have to wait for guildies to get a grp running.

Also if you do some statistic work like typing /who thane or /who valewalker you'll see the real numbers. Everyone that is not an idiot knows people like playing OP/good classes.
So if you do the /who thing you'll see how popular Thanes are. Usually they outnumber any other melee class, while VW is the most unplayed Hib class.

VW is an incredibly strong class if played right. That goes for solo, smallman and 8v8 if you run a setup that suits them.


Thanes can do pretty good dmg with some pretty great spiking capabilities. That said, they are lacking group utility. I very much doubt endo chant is enough.
Templating issues could be fixed with a 10% spellpiercing buff. It's really hard to give them some other new ability that wouldn't make them ridiculous solo though.

Adding something cool, like a short stun/snare to Doomhammer, short snare to insta PBAE etc could be amazing and even balanced for group play, but has the risk of making kiting way too easy when playing solo etc.

Stuff they could (and should) do however, is move the AoE energy debuff to hammers and make the current castable one single target and possibly instant (especially taking the slam nerf in mind).
Making the dmg add a grp buff and/or adding a DD portion the the current energy debuff proc and making it a grp buff could also work.

Edit: Also fix the hammer line!

 

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^^^^^^I like those suggestions

Well I'm not saying VW is a sucky class. Very good at solo. Sadly this game is group oriented, so there is no point discussing how this or that class good at solo.

When I used to run on hib with some 8 pug man, sometimes leader or others suggested not to take VW because they can't be BLs and die too fast.
Sometimes people even replaced them with Champs right after some "Champ LFG" message in chat.

I run 8 man almost every evening and guess what? I see VW in other 8 mans for like 1-2 times in a week. Sometimes even 0.
That never happend to a Thane. No one was ever complaining about having one in a grp. Because they are viable in a grp and can't be 1 shotted like a VW.
Everyone says "VW is fun to play". Fun? Then why I don't see then a lot in rvr?! All I see are Minsts, Friars, Necros, Wizzies, Vamps and some others like hib casters with baseline stun.

There's a difference between an 8man and a full group btw, just saying

 

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I'll be waiting from your thane PoV from the island.

Or anywhere else, actually. I'm really looking forward to see how your powerful thane makes up for what your group would get having a mage instead.

I wish blademasters hade a Knight advocating for us.

 

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It's not my video, but thane1-2.mkv some 8v8s on island with me in it. Thane has more synergy in setups with 3-4 melee, and is ok in hybrid setups with three casters (BD, RM, SM). The versatility to pull or push with good spike dps makes up for the slightly lower overall dps. As is, if a Mid group is caster heavy, it will be 3-4 casters (1-2 SM, RM, BD), and there is no point to having just one caster unless it's a BD, or two casters unless it's BD and Thane.

P.S. I accept your apology.

 

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Are we talking about a solo vid with the only 8-man fight being against a low-medium rank hibernian pug ? Very impressive. Really.


Also which apology are you talking about ?

If multiple RR11s with the lowest being RR6 is low, then I guess it's low-medium. Also if a group has multiple guild tags visible, then yeah I guess the Mids were a guild fighting a pug. If you want to ask him for many more unrendered clips, go ahead. Guilds that play American time are just worse than random IRC pugs, and the only footage worth showing against one of the more consistent guilds (Warriors of Hades) was the vent rant about the bad Sorc that broke his own SoS by casting shields. He could have rendered the actual fight, but it was a faceroll anyway, and the vent yelling/ranting was the only entertaining part of it.

 

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