Gametype - Arena Name- Grimsblood Class - Sage Category - Overall Damage(Sorcerer/Sage) 2575914 (Balance....Super Cheese) I also noticed that in the same match a couple other players set records: Name - Frado Class - Commando Overall Damage(Mercenary/Commando) - 1752353 (Gunnery) Name - Ismarald Class - Sentinel Overall Damage(Marauder/Sentinel) - 1698133 (Combat) Name - Klokholm Class - Vanguard Overall Protection(Powertech/Vanguard) - 1028026 750k+ Protection/Damage(Powertech/Vanguard) - 1028026 P / 1112895 D

Soooooooooooo, what exactly are you saying? You advocate DCD changes for the class, but admit the DCDs are good. You then say that as a Marauder, you must die to be good? Forgive me if I do not follow. Let's talk about light vs heavy armor. Gear level being equal, there is ~5% difference in damage reduction. Some fun facts. Head, Chest and Legs contribute to more of your armor rating than say a belt. I am sooo sick and tired of medium vs heavy being a thing. This isn't WoW guys. Cloth, Plate and all that crap don't matter. Watchmen gets Blazing Ward....5% damage reduction. Combat gets Saber Screen.....6% damage reduction AND 6% melee and ranged defense. Concentration gets Concentrated Defense....10% increase to Defense chance (Granted, not as good as the others, but it is there). Vanguards. Let's see, no consistent passive damage reduction within Tactics. Unless you want to count Nightvision Scope (3% defense chance). Plasmatech gets some fun stuff. Assault Frame....15% reduction to periodic effects (this would only work against DoT classes). Insulated Augs.....5% Internal and Elemental Reduction (Yellow damage, white damage is golden). Jugs. Rage only gets one thing....Enveloping Rage. Increases your damage reduction by 5% after you use one of two abilities. This effect cannot occur more than once every 8 seconds. It lasts for 6. The two abilities to trigger have a 12 second CD. Each one every 8 seconds definitely messes up the rotation. Vengeance....there is Brawn, 20% damage reduction for 4 seconds tied to your leap.....I don't really count this is consistent and passive. It is more situational. Deafening Defense....this is where things lean towards our heavy armor breatheren....5% damage reduction at all times and a few situational boosts. So, at the end of the day, one heavy armor spec pulls ahead of the medium armor specs. It pulls ahead by about 5%. Are we really complaining about 5%?! What's 5% of a 10k hit? .... 500 damage.......Like really? is that what balance has come too? Moving on to DCD's......The only class that compares to Sentinels for DCD's are Guardians. Vanguards have 2. A heal and a 25% DR that last 10 secs. Sentinels can have a 20% DR that last 30 seconds and returns damage. Shadows get 200% Force and Tech resistance...situational...that is easily outclassed by Guarded. Shadows also get Deflection....50% defense change....Well...Saber Ward is 50% Defense change AND 25% force and tech DR. Like come on....Guardians is where it comes to splitting hairs. Guardians have to either time their DCD's (Reflect and Blade Turning). Saber ward then compares with Sentinels. In closing, the only class that competes with the Sentinel DCD's are Guardians. The DCD's between the class are used differently. The only reason people view Sentinels as glass cannons or squishy is because they have to be in your face and the common meta is to focus them. Pro tip, ANY CLASS the team focuses is squishy.......Our DCD's are in a good place. Stop trying to make us an OP class.

First off, I like the idea of this thread. However, I had to lol a bit at the Soa changes you proposed. Not because they are bad or anything. The changes are how Soa was at launch, for the most part. The repair the mini-pylons is new and a cool idea. Missing a pylon on the way down almost guaranteed your death when you hit the bottom. These days you can miss all of them and not really care. The ball lightning attacks....those used to do double damage (apparently there was a bug where there were actually two stacked on each other for each one...I just think it was an over tuned damage thing). Those things used to one shot sages through Force Armor. There used to be an add in the mind traps for you to fight.......they took it out. Standing under a pylon on the last floor could kill you. As far as killing in 2 pylons, meh...that's just a enrage timer thing. It also would be incredibly difficult for most groups to be able to put that kind of burst dps out. Something like 30% health in 30 seconds........would be interesting in out people handle that. Also, you can't forget the missing platform mechanic! Randomly the fight would bug and there would be missing platforms. You were simply not capable of making it to the second floor! Good times, lol. I guess what I am saying is there is nothing really new for your Soa ideas, they nerfed out all of the mechanics already. In another year HM Revan will be a roflol stomp missing 50% of the mechanics too. Welcome to SWTOR! (Gosh, I sound like a dick.)

We all have our vices <3 We never had phenomenal healers. I dps'd and remember switching to heal for a Dreadful run and out healing our healers in lesser gear. This is not to say that they were bad. Just not god tier, if you will. We never had an issue healing given normal circumstances (Looking at you 16 Man NiM SnV Council fight....ugh most over tuned untested piece of crap fight ever. Whoever had the idea to make the mechanics in that fight....well they are a few fries short of a happy meal). I would like to add that our tanks were pretty good. I personally feel that our Kephess kill was tanked cleaner than any other guild to date. Again, here they tanks were not god tier. Hell, how does one even rate a tank that high? With dps, it is easy...numbers are higher. At the end of the day, I think our strengths were our structure and drive to be the best. Like most guilds, we had ups and downs. We were just able to remain relevant from EC till DF/DP. It is that raiding community that I miss.

No, we do not. Part of us went into Zorzs. The rest of us stopped. There might be a member or two scattered somewhere, but we do not play as a group anymore.

I like this idea that your bring up. I can speak to the comparison between Ace and Severity in their prime. Severity would have taken it hands down. We were not very good back in NiM EC. Probably just a hair above our lowest. NiM EC inspired us to restructure and commit to actually making a world first a reality. Back then, Ace was better. But not by leaps and bounds. Just enough to get Kephess first. I want to say we were like 3 or 4 to get him. I don't remember back then too well. Lol.

First off, sorry I have not responded sooner. I do not log into the forums that often. That is completely fair. But remember, this game is F2P. All of that story content and SP can be handled without subbing. What do we get for subs? We get the multiplayer content. We are the ones that keep the community alive. Someone playing by themselves is not going to get into any of the action that an MMO is supposed to proved. They can simply be bots running around. Where does this leave the rest of us that play the multiplayer aspects of this game each and every day? We are not the ones that this game is being made for and yet we pay for it to happen....(dare I say Obamacare?! I really shouldn't have, but I just did. Let's just forget that....but not.) I couldn't agree more.

I am not sure if you will respond to this. I was just browsing through this thread and came across your comment. The bolded part really stands out to me. I feel that as a progression raider, you should know better. The entire point of getting better gear than what you currently have is so you will be prepared for the next level. NiM's "should" bridge the gape between SM and HM for the next tier of content while providing a top level challenge for the HM equivalent gear for its tier. Where a current tier's HM gear would become entry level SM gear for the next tier, NiM would provide the entry level for the next HM tier. Of course, this model can be adjusted for different factors (things like maybe NiM only allows access to the next tiers SM, ect). But the core idea remains the same. For instance, take HM's. Since we are no longer getting NiM, that means once we acquire the "current tier's" HM gear, we will be able to faceroll the HM's and they will not be a challenge. Therefor, we should not increase the gear, correct? You are telling us that an op should not drop better gear than what is required to beat it. That is entirely wrong, IF you are planning on having more difficult raid content at a later date. If Bioware wants to phase out NiM's, they should simply remove them. If they allow them to stay in the game, then they should provide a reward equal to their difficulty. The do not. Not when you can faceroll EV and KP for the best rewards in the game. That also brings up the point of removing EV and KP's NiM. Those NiM's were stupidly easy, BUT wasn't the idea that they didn't want people farming those for gear? I could be wrong, but isn't that what everyone did when those were the Priority Ops? The entire approach to the raids in this game has been contradictory. People may hate EC, but it was really a step in the right direction. The op tested each member of the group and punished you for messing up. That's why people couldn't out gear and out level that op. This idea of making things easier and handing out loot to everyone is ridiculous! People want the loot so they have the "best." Everyone wants to be the "best." No one wants to put the effort in to it. They assume that if they are handed the gear, that will be the "best" and be able to do all the content. The gears only purpose is to act as a gate for harder content and to provide a sense of accomplishment. They gear is MEANT to be used IN THE RAID. Not doing dailies or flashpoints or decorating your house. This game doesn't know where it wants to go. It is trying so many different things that it does not take the time to slow down and get the basics right. This focus on single player story and all the people saying that is what they play SWTOR as( a KOTORIII) are destroying this game. This is not an RPG. This is an MMORPG. It is meant to be played with other people. Group content is sort of required for this genre. It is about community. You don't log in to raid, you keep logging in to experience this content with your friends. That is what keep players coming back. This game started hemorrhaging players when the content became easy (NiM EV/KP) and when the group content was bugged. Players simply didn't have enough reliable content to sink their teeth in to. There is a reason why Blizzard does so well. It has felt like SWTOR has been trying to reinvent the wheel. Turns out, they made a smooth wheel turn in to a rectangle. If they want to make a story driven single player RPG, please go make KOTOR III. I will buy it and play it. But this Single player "MMO" hybrid thing they are doing is pitiful. Forigve me, I will stop rambling and ranting. I know I am everywhere in what I am saying. I just feel like there are so many broken aspects to this game that have been in it since launch. I feel that it has been the leadership behind this game that have allowed them to remain this way. Inexperienced leadership. There is no shame in recognizing this and taking steps to learn and make a better game. There is a lot of shame and disappointment when you refuse to accept help and knowledge.

It is true: 1) Thermal Tolerance: If the damage is less, than it is possible for a tank to just not swap. Also, having the second tank taunt during a really long cast is not engaging. That is like telling a dps to push his offensive CD when he needs to do more damage. 2) Cores: can be ignored. Missing them does not punish you. I skipped cores last night because the dps wasn't meeting the check for the fight. On top of that, cores do not need to be tanked or killed in certain orders. You do not need to open them up to damage in any way. You just switch a target and dps. There is no raid damage during this phase for healers. There are no mechanics for tanks. The health pool on the cores is not tuned enough to force your tanks and healers to put out damage. 3) Adds: Kiting a group of adds around is not that engaging, although it is something. However, the damage they put out will be more than the boss if you pull the bosses damage down. The next argument we will see on the forums will be "why do ADDS do more damage than the boss!?!?!?! PLS NERF." I will give you like 1/3 of a point for the adds just because they hit so hard. 4) Panels: Sooooooooooooooooo, clicking on a panel when you have ~30 seconds to do so is an engaging and challenging mechanic? REALLY!? Really dude? Come on! That's like saying clicking on your class buff is a engaging mechanic for raids -_- 5) Burn phase: I can give a point here to it being engaging. But, do you nerf the damage in the burn phase if you nerf the rest of the boss damage? The burn phase isn't that hard if your tanks know how to taunt the boss or if your healers know how to heal. If they don't, people will start to die which can push the adrenaline up and engage the others. Personally, this fight was never engaging before. I went into it the first week it was launched in 16 M HM and we one or two shot it (memory is a little fuzzy) and just sort of ignored it. It was more a waste of time than anything else. But that's just me. I think the fights need to be looked at as a whole. Xeno doesn't require complex mechanics. Xeno requires your healers to heal ONE target and your tank to rotate CD's. Those are the basic jobs of those two roles. They are simply forced to do them. If they don't...then you wipe. I think that is fair. If you don't do your work, should you get paid?

I'm going to tag in here and talk about EC. It was by far my favorite op. I enjoy this one because it forces the group (tanks, heals and dps) to mind mechanics in every fight and if you do not, you end up wiping the group. It forces a strong mechanic check for every player in the raid. I like to be challenged and work with a group that can rise to that challenge. If your tanks knew what they were doing, the damage they were taking wouldn't seem so off. Not trying to be a dick, just realistic. Fearful is a great first thing to look at. If a tank gets fearful and hits Zorn...that is a LOT of EXTRA damage going out. Fearful is applied slightly before Toth leaps. Also, cleanses. The Zorn tank will require cleanses or he takes huge DoT damage (also anyone within a certain range of him...not sure what that range is these days). The last thing to look at are the tanks swaps. Usually it doesn't get looked at, but the stomp/pound the bosses do is a huge burst of damage during a transition when healers are not focusing. This issue only comes out when you are not over leveled and over geared for the fight. You have to let the Zorn and Toth separate before you tank swap. Use a gap closer, immediately taunt between GCD's. Remember, when doing EC in HM or NiM, there are a lot of little things going on that each role needs to be a where of at any given time. This operation forces each individual to be on point. That's a mechanic man. Don't stand in the purple. I believe it was already mentioned, but I just wanted to reinforce...it is a dps issue. You get caught with the DD timer and not pushing the phase to the bubbles. DD happens on a timer. The bubbles happen based off of a %. The fix is to just have 1 dps hit the other tank for a bit (so you have 3 on one tank). You tried to break the fight. The only reasons breaking the mechanics was available was because we were over-geared for the fight. You will never be able to break that fight like you are used to when it is "at content level." And trust me, this fight is a lot easier than it was at launch. This game is a lot easier. Just because you are 220/224 does not mean that there will not be challenges. EC is one of the only instances where you can not get by on gear. It forces you to be a better player. Groups still used to wipe to this when they were 10 levels above and multiple tiers of gear above the content.

I would like to make some sort of comment here about how you ARE a casual, but that really doesn't address this thread. If they reduce the damage output in this fight, then there is nothing for anyone to be engaged in. The mechanics already don't punish you. The only thing that does is the damage the boss does to a SINGLE TARGET. Two healers should just be pumping heals into a tank. A tank should also realize how intense the damage is and begin to rotate CD's. Since you usually have 2 tanks, both tanks should rotate CD's. The answer to this fight is to "push your buttons people!" Play your class, enjoy the challenge and then get the reward. The reward is not something that you are entitled to, it is there to prepare you for the next level of content (yeah, yeah...we don't have a next level in the foreseeable future).

I am surprised no one has mentioned Infiltration/Deception Shadow/Assassin...literally 4 buttons for the actual dps. Rest are CD's and gap closers that all the other classes have as well.

How long did it take you to wind up and get into the old rotation? How tight was the Focus generation? They simply turned Force melt into a higher damage replacement for Force Leap. This frees up leap to be a positional tool, smooths out the rotation and with the crit changes zen now does a lot more damage.

Ok. Has there been any work down in calculating the DPS gains from crit Relics vs Power? Also, the same comparison done for classes with auto-crit talents?

I am on myphone, so no fancy editing for me. I have thought about the crit option too. But to be honest, I don't remember what crit relics are available or if there are crit adrenals anymore. This new crit/surge thing changes the way we have to approach relics/adrenals/CD'S usage imo. Is there a DR on crit? If so, what is it? Would running 2 proc relics with a crit adrenal and praying for a Zen window with inspiration and the crit buff and the sage one be ideal ( ot necessarily asking, more like throwing out an idea newer idea or way to think of this)? If I remember, the difference between mainstat augs and power was like .03? Or some small like that. Mainstat (or "mastery" .....I guess) would be more beneficial due to its contribution to crit.

I understand that. My point is two fold. If a process relic does not proc during the Zen Window, how much dps would you loose as opposed to being able to trigger a click relic? If your proc relic process when you have to reposition or deal with a mechanic, how much dps will you loose (how many times of missing that 6 second window before a click you becomes more beneficial)? Now factor in the changes to crit/surge. Zen is giving us a LOT more now than it was before. Stack damage increases that are % based is a good thing. Stack all your damage and power values into a that % window will increase its effectiveness. Because of the changes, I am thinking that a click relic might win out on every live fight for Watchmen where a process will win on a dummy.

Yah know, I just had a thought. We still have click power relics, correct? They may be the much better choice for Watchmen now vs the proc. Someone would have to run the numbers, but the on demand power with the crit/surge from Zenith may make things interesting. At least for fights with controlled burn phases.

I don't think I would be going too far in saying this game is at its most balanced point, right now, for dps. However, I think with the changed to crit/surge, there is room for some specs to come up with interesting usages of CD's and stuff to add more dps to that spread.

Soooooo, according to him 240 dps difference between 9th and 17th? That's some good balance if you ask me. 240 dps is stupidly marginal at our levels now. My guess is we will be picking for which spec better suits the fight.

The Watchmen rotation has been cleaned up a LOT with these changes. Mobility has increased too. You don't have to use leap as a focus generator over a gap closer. Our positioning will get faster which means more uptime on bosses. The priority list is smooth and I have already found a couple tricks to increase dps. The class plays like it used to back at launch. Only difference is we have abilities that are only for gap closing/positioning and we have 3 different dumps/fillers vs 1 (or 2, if you count strike). With the content being everything, Sentinels will be on top. I haven't ran the numbers, but the whole critical thing....it applies to Zenith too I assume?

What you are asking for is for every spec to be good at everything. Simplistically, you just want a slight different rotation with different animations but doing the same thing as the others. If you want that, I guess you don't have to pick an AC? Specs are supposed to be different for a reason. Each has a different focus. Their are strengths and weaknesses. If one spec becomes too strong in everything, then you have something that breaks the game. Go look up the launch hybrid build for Sages or the old Hybrid Builds for Slingers. Both specs were strong at single target, sustain and AoE. Those specs are gone. I miss them, but they were very strong.

This. They just sucked the fun out of playing sentinels when the level cap raised to 55. This idea to make Watchmen easier and then completely change they way Zen Functioned for Combat. Not to mentioned the sweeping changes that were made to make procs easier to handle for ALL classes. Takes the skill out of the class. THEN they decided to give a SINGLE TARGET DOT spec an AoE DoT SPREAD? Like wut?! You want AoE, go to Focus. You want quick burst, you go to Combat. You want High Sustained damage, you go to Watchmen. Instead of making each spec strong in one area, they decided to try and make each spec OK in all areas. I get on my sent every now and then or watch old YouTube videos of raids. I get all nostalgic and want to play again. Then I log in and read and get depressed.

.... apples and oranges man. EV and KP mechanics are childish. I do not mean that the OP is faceroll easy because of gear or experience. EAch fight in EV has about 3 "mechanics" to deal with. All of which have bee reused and become a standard for the other ops. 1st fight you move out of red circles and stack/hide. 2nd fight you stack and then move. 3rd fight you kill adds and press the same button until you win. 4th fight you only attack one add (spoiler alert, it is possible for one person to kill more than 1 add in the allotted time). 5th fight, Dps..run to side...jump down....repeat. Throw in an add or two you have to handle. Once you get to the end, it is a matter of the tank having to actually do something and position the boss. Also, a lot of you are forgetting that we have new abilities already and we will be getting newer ones. Has anyone ever considered how they will effect the old ops? Wandering Mend from the Sage gives an "AoEish heal" and gives elemental damage reduction.....a lot of damage in EV is elemental and group wide......HoT heals on the Sages Salvation too. Remember when we had to stack and wait at SoA? Now we don't. How about the raid buffs we have? The burn phase for the first boss? Pop raid buffs, phase = easier. Also, I assume we are getting ALL the old fights from EV to SnV bumped to 65 (I am not sure if they have said all or just certain ones), what about gear? Where are all the pieces going to come from? That is a lot of bosses...we may even have the option of skipping fights or entire instances. Because lets face it....EC still has mechanics that will destroy your face. Groups couldn't complete HM after that cap was raised to 55. Take away our level advantage and that becomes one of the hardest, if not the hardest, operation in the game. Does anyone remember 16 Man NiM Firebrand and Stormcaller BEFORE the nerf?....yeah.

So, by your definition, an unskilled player is someone who does not know what buttons to hit next. You then want a minimum dps requirement that you can check yourself to see if you match the requirements for the raid. Would you like a mechanics check to see if you can complete those too? Like maybe some incredibly large red letters in the middle of your screen or giant red circles underneath you? This may come off as incredibly critical, but the point here is that Operations are meant to be a team exercise that challenges you. You wipe, you try again. You keep trying until you figure out what is needed to complete the fight you are on, then you are on to the next. Ever wonder why the majority of the players that play this game prefer the story aspect (ie why they are pushing that content out and benching new ops)? Why the ops are not played as much as other things...? It's because all of the people that were good at raiding and enjoyed competing left the game. They realized how bad the raids are in comparison to other games. I shouldn't be able to walk in to a current tier raid with half my gear at the EC level and the other half at the TFB level and pull ~3.8k HPS .....sorry, thats waaaay more then is needed for SM with OLD gear. I mention this to put the content in perspective. Bioware is transitioning into a VERY casual game. YOU are asking for them to hand feed you the boss kills. At what point should they stop making things too easy? That is what you have to ask yourself. Personally, I am interested in breaking EV and KP at 65. Anyone remember Jarg and Sorno NiM? They damage scaling was stupid and they messed that up. Let's see if they do it again.

Dread Master Bestia Fenrir - Gunslinger - Hybrid - Severity Gaming - 2962 http://www.torparse.com/a/544247/20/0/Damage+Dealt Dread Master Tyrans Fenrir - Gunslinger - Hybrid - Severity Gaming - 3342 http://www.torparse.com/a/544247/24/0/Damage+Dealt