Never said anything about balance being bad some was stating that arsenal is the only merc spec that can do very well and has the least shortcommings out of the 3 merc specs because ppl keep stating mercs as a class were fine. if there was any balance checks to be made 3 key super easy things to focus on -Sorc healing-resource management -Bodyguard- output/resource management -Carbonize lockout

Are you basing stuff off of the past or something pyro tech can't even match the levels of old AP silly tanks in dps gear do more damage with firestorm.. Nice to know a crappy 30% slow has actually saved your life that's news to me. I'm not exactly sure what patch your living in but IQs dot damage is nothing amazing since it got nerfed and lost its surge on dots. As for veng juggs, please explain how its worse to spend an extra point in the skill full tier instead of masterful tier.

That 70 % slow is only useful and realistic in a 1v1 which in themselves are rare or start out fair, funny enough its better for chasing over running away . IQs slow is trash at 30% and everyone knows it sure you can spread it if u manage to pull it off.. Yes........ the spec that takes the longest to build supercharge and has base crappy internal/elemental damage to begin with, any other dot spec will have a far easier and better time "melting" a non shadow tank over IQ unless ur a pyrotech. As for the suit foe talent that is my point IQ lost one of its special talents and now its put into the utility points section with nothing in exchange. It is just as bad as leth because it cannot be used in quick succession carbine burst has no cd. As for the threat drop yup that's very true its way better under heavy focus fire.

No its not a suffering from a dcd issue Mercs can survive now while it's lacking we can actually stay alive to have a significant impact. No merc should ever be getting killed extremely fast unless they mess up their cd order or get stuck in a very uneven match.

Stop saying mercs please, yes 2 other specs exist. Arsena/Gunnery is fine and has always been the least fugly duckling out of the fugly duckling group of the 3 merc specs. As for the kiting factor of mercs in general it varies heavily, as arsenal it depends if you're actively hitting a target with blazing bolts/boltstorm or netted the person trying to eat u alive. Outside of those we don't actually move faster than anyone aka the other 2 specs realistically suck at kiting. IQ and Assault they have literally nothing special over arsenal anymore even its rng threat drop is worse in the past they used to be able to cleanse themselves and gain 30% periodic DR for 12 secs. They even used to pump out more overall dps with all dots running etc. Now all they have is operative tier dotspread and very annoying heat/ammo management limiting overall deepz. Bodyguard/Combat medics just outright lose in comparison of what they're trying to compete agasint not even kings and queens of burst anymore. So it's just Arsenal that does well and that's largely due to the fact that it somehow avoided the mass surge nerf to dps specs across all classes/specs

Its very relevant they get back 8 force every second and it bumps up to 11 force any time they use consuming darkness for 10 secs. And for some reason beyond me you fail to add in the fact that the 8 force per second is always constant unless for some unknown player bad error occurs and and a sage uses consuming darkness without a simple stack. to get the weary debuff im also not talking about sorcs as a base class its soley surrounding the healing spec which has superior energy managent not just because of the CD/vindicate remake but the utility providing within the tree which makes it basic for the spec.

Just want to point out this same argument was made when sorcs were having there force management re tunned about mercs and scoundrels having a cd ability to regain resource and using diagnostic scan or medshot to continue out putting heals (crap tier) while sorcs had to spend an entire gcd to regain a large amount :rolleyes:What ppl still fail to see is that sorcs are not bound by the fast middle low tiers of energy regain along with the fact that they have a higher energy pool and the highest energy regain out of the 3 classes. This lets them push healing at any time with no drawbacks or worrying about energy management . This was an issue even before consuming darkness became a thing as it used to be off the gcd now we have consuming darkness that simple ends up being too strong. ENERGY MANAGEMENT is possibly the most important and one of the biggest differences between a good healer and a great healer outside of kiting and target swapping, triage etc. You can out skill out play out w/e but when playing in those real tough games where both sides are pretty much even a direct stop on outgoing and incoming hps is energy. Sorc healers are incredibly flexible healers when it comes to style/gameplay healing they have a mix of everything. They aren't as restricted and ability stressed as mercs due to energy. They don't have the set up and tedious management that ops require. When u take a class like this and give them better burst and sustain then the other 2 u end up with broken stuff. They were always meant to imo have the best energy regain. not the top hps output But since a great deal of sorcs don't want actual healing %s on abilities to go down then energy needs to go down 1 or the other needs to get toned down. Really don't need to buff merc heals output on abilities and while ik i would love another real dcd outside of energy shield its no where near as bad since rocket out came into play. Operatives honestly need nothing its all just being skewed thanks to sorc heals. The only real class change that would need to happen at the same time of sorc heal changes if it did ever happen would be a nerf to carbonize for pts/vgs by giving it a static barrier debuff or drastically increasing the amount of resolve it fills or even yet they could shift its focus to a more defensive tool instead of offensive by reducing the damage dealt to carbonized targets by 75% or higher so even though you may get double or tripled carbo it isn't going to mean a death sentence.

Op healers need nothing they have a clear distinct weakness instant burst healing as it should be. Things simply need to change for sorcs. If they were to "buff" ops up to sorc lvs and mercs up to sorc lvs things would be so over tunned it wouldn't even be funny. The only and only thing that operatives could use is possibly a bit of interrupt immunity with stim boost that would last x amount of time not the whole length of stim boost. The best thing to tone down sorcs without touching any of their healing %s is a nerf to force management its far to easy, a direct nerf to that is a direct nerf to overall hps output overtime at least for ppl that have no concept of energy management which a great deal of the newer and even some older sorcs.

This^ for guardians not sure if it would become to strong but focus or vigilance could use the old guardian leap talent in vigilance that would give them the DR portion as well when used on a friendly.

Slingers lakc any sort of meaniful healing and dont have dcds like sents that outright break focus fire such as camo or gbtf which they need as melee. I honestly believe that if slingers and snipers were to get kotlo probe something dangerous would be born. Otherwsie unless they have a healer and or tank its not super hard to take them down just from passive dots and such another funny thing that a lot of ppl may not realize is that roots are very very strong vs slingers when trying to lock them down.

Leth isnt bad but i don't really think its amazing vs anything in a 1v1 that has a purge as it will screw up the rotation and put them almost near immediately on the defensive side.

Alex and DarthRaika are defending sages if you're wondering what I meant by defending Ppl keep stating sorcs are easy to use and hard to master and say a bad sorc is their favorite thing to see which is incredibly silly to say when any other bad player behind a different class is going to do far worse then said bad sorc because their toolkit and overall healing as madness or corruption is overtunned plain and simple that is exactly why we seeeee so many sages and sorcs as madness or corruption. That has nothing to do with balancing a game around inexperienced players. Sorcs are fine in higher tiers of play where both teams have tanks and healers with proper guard swaping focus target swapping etc , they simply aren't the top dog when it comes to dpsing in that area. I'm implying the whole toolkit is too strong currently for madness, everyone knows lighting burst and even sustain are a joke in pvp outside of polarity shift. Madness has top tier and easiest to apply cleave and passive damage in the game along with the strongest self healing having dark heal as strong as it currently is in the dps specs with how easy force is between all specs especially as madness due to its strong passive self healing. As for corruption never said anything about lower the amount of dark heal for them just dps spec as I know the majority would have a temper tantrum, what needs to be done is implement some sort of force management for corruption currently because currently its practically nonresistant, this would have no impact in pve what soever as healing sages and sorcs are already over performing in that area since 3.3. There are really only 2 reasons sorcs and sages were not the fav for tos and rav when it came out and that being they had no 30% aoe DR talent and they had light armor could literally get loloneshot by most mechs on a majority of the bosses while it was 1000x easier on a merc because of hydraulics, sorcs had actual survival shortcomings as a class even worse off compared to melee maybe not shadows tho poor shadows.... What ppl seem to want though oddly enough is taking away sorcs utility such as barrier, phase walk, suppression, force mobility, etc and I strongly believe that is a bad bad idea from the start of the game sorcs always had good to great output in dps or healing be it as a full specc or hybrid but they always always lacked reasonable defense options on top of being the squishiest class in the game. Now that they finally have that utility to stay alive bioware felt like it was a great idea to over tune corruption and just go crazy which spilled over into madness that already used passive self healing as part of its defensive toolkit and now has access to a very strong and very efficient with no real set up requirement heal.

Arsenal would have to spec into suit foe protective field and energy rebounder imo to take on a sadness sorc otherwsie its very possible has the burst and sustained and in a legit 1v1 net can easily be a death sentence. Only thing I would worry a bit about is heat as the merc would need to be healing them self with mostly 2-4 stack tracer locks. Utility points make and break a fight for arsenal in 1v1s. Ppl need to stop thinking arsenal sucks because it really doesn't its damage output is insane and if they give up mobility they have the same toughness most combat medics spec for. Not to mention they have the best heat of the 3 specs and strong healing if used with tracer lock stacks.

Its funny how ppl still defend sorcs even in the state they currently are if you take a inexperienced class that's not a sorc and put them agasint a inexperienced sadness or corruption sorc the sorcs have a far better chance of winning its the main reason why we all see so many :"bad" inexperienced sorcs today its crazy easy to get results on at higher tiers its a different story but again they are far from lacking they only start running into issues when its up agasint a sniper/pt/mara/sin/arsenal with tanks and heals. The easiest places to do a quick fix for this is simple lower the healing output on dark heal for dps specs and at the very least so corruption sorcs won't have a fit, implement some sort of resource management for corruption that alone will have a direct hit on total hps output

All to a degree mostly cause its the person playing the class. Most annoying class for me will forever be sins/shadows personal grudge towards them. Jugg/guardians that know what intercede and guardian leap are and actually use it properly. Sent maras that use dcds proerply know how to stick on a target and use pre/trans for teammates. Know what trauma is. Sins and shadows that know how to lock down targets and properly disengage as well as time their burst. Sages sorcs- Honestly going to just pass this one because in the past it was the ability to kite and when to barrier even bubble along with proper positioning but ya...so pass.. VG/PT proper use of cc and dcds otherwise nothing special to me tbh Mando/Merc same as PT just lacks proper tools and output (heal spec) to do it as well. Proper net timing. Op/Scoundrel Management of hots under pressure and cc and ability to kite and disengage. Slinger/Snipah know how to cycle dcds and separate guarded targets. Know what trauma is The "respect" portion though is really just based on the player tbh not so much the class in my eyes.

This change honestly makes no sense kinda reminds me when they troll removed ranked warzones.

Sorcs and sages have always had a spot in the top dogs classes of pvp they were simply in the same boat as sins tho and HAD to play a hybrid to even think about being competitive as literally for a good while their 3 core specs sucked but they were always a thing. Before ranked it was the wrath proc chain lighting rekt face hybrid which got nerfed but still crazy strong. and heal through anything with a guard sorcs. Then during ranked warzones with smash monkeys pryo pts and op healers you had bubble stunning sorcs the worst thing in the history of swtor. Worse then concealment at launch imo Then in ranked arena when lighting and balance actually got buffed they were ok ish but still better hybrids with balance/heals aka skank heals especially op in yolo. after that the actual full specs starting actually being awesome but osrcs have always been a thing from the launch of the game. Classes/specs that had always blocked sorcs from being the best in the past for their given role were MM snipers aka Lighting couldn't compare Leth snipers Sadness couldn't compare and op heals in general corruption couldn't compare

Yup is this is why sorcs should never be the hardest hitting healer the way they heal is very very easy to apply in all situations. Hardly anyone ever takes that into consideration. While I really disliked the flavor of forever op healers from the past it was much easier to actually beat some on a sorc or merc simply due to how they healed it was mostly the higher end players that would crush ppl along with having a guard. On top of the fact that surgical probe was far to strong and had no set up requirement like it does now with next to no real energy management .

All sorcs mandos and ops with literally just mandos having a significant difference specs because they're able to reduce the cast time and increase the power of medical probe by 100%. The only actual prob wrong is dark heal heals for to much and costs to little force in the dps specs one of the 2 needs to be changed. Another major thing is a great deal of ppl don't know what and when to apply trauma slingers and sents have it along with each tank ac that can aoe spread it with lower duration compared to slingers and sents, I'm not actually sure if slinge/sent trauma stacks with tank ac trauma someone should test that. Even the intended purpose shows in the dps specs of what healing was suppose to be like for those 3 acs. Dark heal resurgence and static barrier are meant to be middle of the table. Dark heal has no cd decent force cost, resurgence small hot and static barrier fake hp absorb. Merc mostly gunnery as IQs insta cast is a joke. Arsenals tracer lock makes it so each time a stack is gained 2 stacks for each tracer fired it reduces activation time and increases healing of next rapid scan by 20% at 5 its instant. This is intended to give the option to be defensive and bursty have seen 16k heals from this without giving up raw dps potential like IQ. Then they have emergency scan which is a nice insta cast burst heal if it crits similar to sages force mend just that it can be used on friendly players which is a big deal. Lastly crap tier kolto shot but its a thing. Operatives were meant to be higher sustain then the other 2 in the off healing department its why they gave all specs the beloved probes. Between probes and Kolto infusion it gives them more up time to actually spend gcds killing someone as the heals are very passive once applied. they also have diagnostic can crap tier as well, but its a thing. The only difference between leth and concealment in off healing is that leth can make it instant cast after rolling the actual healing % is not stronger compared to arsenal mercs and IQ mercs.

More ppl prob check dulfy instead of the forums is my guess.

Thats really in depth ty for both replies, but I'm still confuzzled here. My question then when a failed proc/s happened wouldn't the the filler being used be between slash or master strike and later in time saber throw, or is that when leap came into play and u would use that to get a higher damaging filler in if u lacked the resources to try and proc again instead of saber auto attacking as a baseline filler instead of going for more? So the fun part if I get this and the part that would define a good sent between a top tier one was when you had that failed proc and dealt with it pretty much with what u had available and coming ip in terms of resource and generators then made the most out of it again based off of resources my thing is though it was a negative impact in general though what if you had a sent that got better procs than yourself and they understood how to effectively make the most out of failed ones as well. Would lose out simple because of rng within the spec and not something like lucky crits or up time etc. I guess it really didn't matter though because the dps lose wouldn't be significant enough to cause something like an enrage or prevent something from dying and really only apply to something like pvp. Either way i think i understand now why ppl liked that play style I still don't like it, but i can understand thank you for the info. and ignore the above somewhat as Its semi rambling of me attempting to understand for myself. With all that said though i have a question how would you implement the old watchmen into the new watchmen including the new move force melt if it were to be brought back to that old play style?

I think if they made it so ppl couldn't push cora out super fast bump her hp up and if they did so should make the bird double enrage much faster along with putting out its abilites/debuff 2x as much. Then not being able to just rez everyone after the bird wold be a somewhat big deal as well. Doing the first 2 things though imo just from repetition and making it longer would make the fight more difficult imo not exactly sure what to add in terms of another mech. A for Rutabaga (ruttgaar) I would actually add a mech to have himself healed any time ppl damage him and then give him a mini enrage if a friendly player is killed for 10 seconds when he kidnaps someone to stress the importance of stopping. Back to the cora and pearl part I would actually add turrets that can be attacked to deck guns that have a long cast time of maybe 20-30 seconds that need to be dpsed down or they will stun the player with the highest aggro towards them most likely a healer for 5 seconds wouldn't be able to cc break it but could cc immunity it with abilities. Like you said though that fight was a massive disappointment compared to the block that MB was

I really don't see how that's dynamic or skillful when you're fishing for a random filler and it being all dependent on resources if you have a failed proc. I literally just see this as the class having shortcomings based entirely off rng and from what I understand based off what you wrote that shortfall is the dynamic and fun part of watchmen right? Well ok then I still disagree with that if anything the current resource management would support that kind of old sporadic (random to me) play style because even then with the proc system depending on your focus/rage you would be locked into certain moves anyway or have to saber strike. Also it seems like the biggest thing for that style to work with what anni currently has would be no range leap Thx for the detailed post though on why ppl considered that old play style dynamic and such On a side note Arsenal and vigilance did indeed have crappy damage the only difference was that the procs were on far more crucial moves compared to watchmen cauterize the thing is I personally don't see how that's dynamic when you fail to proc an ability then gauge your resource and filler it with something else how exactly is that different compared to having it fixed and then using a filler based off of what resources are after using said completed proc. Is it the randomness factor that"s enjoyable?

All 3 work tbh Fury for multiple burst periods with protection agasint it from other classes mostly coming from dcds Decent sustained damage and good sticking power they also have some cc immunity in their rotation which can be used to get in extra damage or push harder on a target. they have the lowest in combat dr of the 3 specs. Annihilation- Very high sustained and able to dot spread on closer targets has decent burst windows on crits with annihilate and zerk burns but requires ramp up time for the entire spec to get going. Has weak ish self healing gets better with more targets that its able to spread dots to. It's sticking power is pretty much dependent on utility skills unlike fury which has obliterate if rooted and in range special to the discipline . Anni has the highest in combat dr of the 3 specs if they have their bleeds rolling. Carnage- Has the highest possible burst window in the game and also the hardest time getting it off vs a person that notices you actually are carnage as it is feared and will mostly likely be stopped if possible. Good sustain and surprisingly amazing aoe if that's needed, sticking power for them just like anni mara is ok but primarily based off of utility skills . Combat is 2nd of the 3 specs in terms of in combat damage reduction. As when and what to use them for I would say all 3 for regs are fine personally found fury to be the best in regs it's also my top pick for yolo que. Anni works incredibly well in group ranked depending on the comp, don't suggest using this in yolo though. Carnage works well in regs as well most ppl if they know nothing about carny won't stop ur burst windows , it also does pretty well in yolo if you intend to blow someone up. Devastating in group ranked with proper support and cc help from teammates As for utility point selection t I personally take no matter the tree though are Skillfull tier- Brazen overwhelm and will bounce between inexorable and unflinching determination or maiming reach Masterful tier- Relentless and Defensive roll Heroic tier- Unbound with 1 point left to take whatever.

It's a fun map objectives wise if anything I kinda think it would have been better as some kinda installment in the early Ilium days. The prob is like a previous poster stated its actually encourages staying out of combat to be ready to take points get mods and generally moving around faster sents/mara are huge on this map in terms of getting around.