Does this mean that classes that saw minor changes in 2.5 (like shadow/balance) should not expect any changes in the near future ? Just checking ...

Yes I think it is a very good idea. Kind of like the brother skills in LOTRO ...

Of course. I myself hate my ideas minutes after I post them. Just putting ideas out there. The developers are professional, and they will easily figure out how much of these are trash OK here is another: Shadow strike consumes all dots on the target, dealing x% of the remaining damage on the consumed dots (instantly). x could be like 30 (or 50 ?) Not sure how it impacts pve, but found the idea to be an interesting mechanic for pvp.

While its true that a lot of them are talented to break roots, there are whole trees (both the dps shadow and dps sage trees) which do not have a root breaker (well shadows have resilience which has a longer cooldown, and phasewalk which might be useful for other, objective oriented gameplay). But you are right, a better solution might be a more reliable root breaker (like countermeasures/surrender) given to these trees as well. Otherwise, its just not fair, more so because these affected classes (dps shadow/sage) are light armor classes.

In fact a simple solution for pvp would be to allow MS to apply root only when unremetting is not active. A root while not CC immune, I think, is fair.

Don't really like the root on MS. Combined with unremitting, this forces a target to eat the full MS, which beats the point about it being a heavily backloaded channeled ability imo. DPS sages would be the worst hit by this, since apart from immaculately timing their CC, they got no escape from a possible 6-7k crit. DPS shadows would be next - and as usual, agents (both ops and snipers) are the least effected because of cleanse and cover respectively. I would have prefered a 30 or 50 % alacrity boost to MS on Zen proc, it would give good burst, benifit PVE as well as PVP and still give good pvp players a chance to avoid the damage, even though its much harder. In general the philosophy seems to be to allow DPS classes to be able to use all their DPS skills in a PVP scenario (root on MS, uncleansable dots for balance, etc), which is not something I totally agree with. The point of channeled abilities and dots is that they can be avoided, otherwise why not make them instant ?

Ok here is another idea (copying over from the idea of breaching shadows in infil tree). When force technique does damage, builds breaching shadows. At 3 stacks, - the next ability with activation time activates instantly and costs no force (so mind crush, force lift and phasewalk), and consumes all stacks (So reduce the cooldown on mind crush to 7.5 secs for balance) - next melee ability costs no force and does 10 % more damage per periodic effect on the target, and consumes all stacks. In any case, a bump.

Totally agreed. So many posts have been made about this, but they refused to even acknowledge it in their answers. I know they didn't have to, but they could have taken the chance to explain their side of the story, but I guess balance shadow is simply a low priority ? Possible, since it is likely the least played spec nowadays (atleast in pvp). Even the KC changes, I see many people liking it but to me it seems a very bland (lazy ? standard? ) solution. The issues involved might be lot more complicated than I see of course, but somehow this feels similar to the 2.0 shadow changes (removing shadow strike because of usability concerns). Please don't take the easy way out: no more passive buffs to force technique, whirling blow, FIB targets, force regen etc. At the very least make them active/proc, so that it allows balance/madness to use more abilities and makes it interesting to play.

Not happy with this. The only way to undo (or atleast nullify) the crazy big changes you made in 2.0 in the first place is to make crazy big changes. I get the feeling that even if changes do come in 2.5 to balance/madness, they will probably be minor, and may not adrdess the playstyle concerns I (and a lot of us) have. I really hope that is not the case. Also once every 6 months is not continual, more like semi annual. Please consider making quicker (even if not perfect) class changes.

For me the issue is not the comparison of balance/madness to other specs/classes, but more the comparison of balance/madness as it is now to how it was in 1.7. The spec i had so much fun with for over a year is no longer fun to me, and that's my problem. I know that is not something they might care about, but that's how I feel anyways.

Surprised about the exclusion of the balance/madness engagement/depth question from the top 3. This gives them a chance to completely ignore one of the most vexing issues for any balance/madness player. In general in any game, I would give the top priority to engagement/depth of the specialization over anything else, but others may disagree with me here. Anyways I hope they do take notice and address it, because that is more game breaking than performance/viability/dps/survivability to me.

I think that's what oaceen is saying. 2.0 was definitely a step (if not a thousand) back for us, and they probably are aware of it already. So it is important to point out exactly why the spec feels boring now as compared to earlier. Mentioning lack of infiltration tactics, twin disciplines and regen from force supression would be a step towards that direction.

Hmm, that is true. We should focus on ( and expect responses on ) controllable force regen, controllable burst and pvp utility, that would automatically alleviate the boredom issues. I think KBN nailed these issues very well. The point I was trying to make in my earlier post was that there was a change in skill cap (and arguably, the playstyle) of the bal/mad spec in 2.0. If balance shadows were released at launch with the same level of complexity as now (say, like gunnery commandos) I wouldn't have bothered mentioning the boredom, etc (probably wouldn't have played it). Basically the change in skill ceiling/playstyle (which is unacceptable in an mmo, imho) makes us feel like its boring now (as compared to earlier). This might be intentional/unintentional consequence of their other changes in 2.0, so I thought was worth mentioning.

That is one of the reasons they gave for changes to balance/madness in 2.0 though (in their class dev diaries). They felt that balance/madness was complex with SS/Maul proc, so they moved it out of reach. So what I am trying to say is that complexity does seem to affect their design/balance decisions (similarly they felt combat sentinels pre 2.0 were too simple, and based some decisions around that etc).

Really well framed questions. I completely agree with the way the balance/madness questions have been framed (with more focus on complexity/depth and pvp utility than on dps). I also think lambaste (penultimate tier talent point in the tree) is completely useless, and would like to get their intention/design concept behind that. Also the balance tree feels totally alien to the shadow class (no buffs to signature abilities like Shadow/spinning strike, project, resilience or stealth). I would have liked something on phasewalk in there, but I guess thats a tradeoff we have to make since we have only three questions.

Necroing this thread, just because of the pathetic state balance shadows are in. Here is what I could do (not sure if I am repeating suggestions in this thread already). My vision for balance shadow has been primarily a dot based spec, that feeds its dot damage from its melee and force abilities. So here is the idea: melee abilities proc 'buffA' and force abilities proc 'buffB' that aid burst and survivability respectively. Universal Changes: SS proc standard for all shadows (without the 30 % damage boost). 1. (Burst Solution) Shadow Strike, Spinning strike (100 % chance) and all other direct melee abilities (20 % chance) apply 'BuffA' to you, increasing the critical chance of the next 6 dots by 30 %. 10 second rate limit. Might have to change numbers to buff/nerf it 2. (Survivability Solution) Project (60% chance) and all other direct force abilities (20 % chance) apply 'buffB' to you, increasing the healing done by the next 6 focused insight heals by 400 %. Rate limit 20 seconds. (I hate to get another defensive ability/cooldown when we have heals built into our tree. I would much rather see them buffed.) - Also bring back instant force lift 3 (Force regen) Consuming 'buffA' and 'buffB' charges restore 3 force. In addition using phase walk applies both buffA and buffB outside the rate limit. There is good synergy. Also there is no requirement to use SS/project for people who do not want to use them (buffsA and buffsB can easily be obtained by other means) so no complexity change, but there is also amazing burst and survivablity potential. Anyways. hoping for quicker fixes from BW.

I think they should at the very least acknowledge serious playstyle issues, if not class balance issues. I don't even feel like logging to my balance shadow right now, its just not fun at all because of the (near dramatic) change in playstyle after 2.0. I don't agree with changes to some of the other classes in 2.0 (e.g .watchman sentinel), but at least I can still login have some fun with them.

Though I don't think its going to happen, I have to support this on principle. Any game updates (be it arenas or fluff like cartel market) do not make sense when my main (balance shadow) is broken at the roots.

First of all thanks to Xinika and Kbn for taking this up. As a die hard pvp balance player pre 2.0, my biggest gripe is of course the pvp usefulness for the balance spec. But more than that, its the boredom and the absolute lack of feel/flow in the spec. There are other gimped specs in the game currently, but none so mind numbingly boring and as the balance shadow. Also I agree with phasewalk being the wildcard/third question. I do not see them replacing that ability, but maybe we can pressure them enough to make it more useful, especially for dps specs.

Yeah, my point about spinning strike and crush spirit was needless in that post. What I was trying to point out in my post was that I liked the single saber animations a lot better on my balance shadow (minus spinning strike). Definitely not viable, etc. Do you guys think the buffs to force technique (inc rippling force) were to bring it in line with shadow technique? Right now they do almost the same damage, shadow technique triggers 3 times less often, but with clairvoyant strike (atleast in theory) it will trigger only only 1.5 times less often. Considering that shadow technique is internal damage, the dps of both turns out to be near equal. This ensures that both balance and infil shadows get the same use out of battle readiness. Not sure if I messed up the numbers somewhere, but just trying to understand why force technique was buffed so much.

Was making an experiment the other day (inspired from other threads on this forum). I was playing a balance shadow with single saber ! I was surprised I did very decent. I lost quite a bit of damage on double strike (though I like the single saber animation for double strike better, so I was having fun with it), and lost spinning strike (but maybe because of crush spirit I didn't miss it). Just making a point

Yeah, phasewalk is decent. It has severe usability issues, (and I would have preferred an aoe skill instead, but its too late now). I can live with phasewalk if it gets some improvement so as to make it more versatile.

Yeah its their game, they are entitled to do what they think is best. However, I am sure they realize the purpose of these threads is different. Changing a playstyle, that a group of players liked, based on reasons like 'complexity' and 'usability' feels... odd? unnecessary? . I understand the removal of Force lift or WW, the reasons cited were acceptable there: we would become OP with instal FL. I do not agree with that reason (I don't think its OP), but I can see why they felt it needed to be done. Complexity and usability though, I did not understand. And of course most of us don't like dev bashing. They did a great job with agents and knights, shadows are somehow the oddballs. I am sure they want to fix it as much as we do. We just need to keep reminding them that for some players, this is a big deal

Some great points in the post above by Majspuffen, hope they read it. Also to AP's statement that balance tree should feel part of the game: I agree, but I would say it needs to feel part of the shadow AC too. Right now it doesn't. I agree that the balance 1.7 was a very interesting spec, but I also agree with AP that it needed 3 points from another tree (infiltration tactics) to be complete. This was bad, maybe, from a design perspective. The solution then would be to incorporate infiltration tactics inside balance (make it a baseline, as suggested by many), not remove it altogether. Also, AP's comments about complexity. Why on earth then would KC get access to shadow strike ? Wouldn't it increase the complexity of KC ? Worse, it does nothing for KC's rotation, does't synergise with the KC tree in any way whatsoever (unlike SS for balance 1.7: SS was valuable burst, but more importantly it contributed to meaningful roleplay as melee ranged hybrid). It seems you somehow decided that KC has to be the harder spec and balance the easier. KC in PVP has to watch for atleast 4 procs (surely its a lot more involved when tanking in PVE), balance has to watch for a grand total of 1 proc. Also there is no risk reward payoff. If done correctly, combat/watchman sentinel, lethality op can pull of amazing burst in a short time for eg. There is nothing like that for balance 2.0. Its very linear (only one way to react in any situation, no way to control the damage-time curve). From a player's perspective, it just feels a poorly done spec. And as others have said about complexity, many other trees are more complex. Even the trees you remarked as easy (combat sentinels) are arguably more complex than balance 2.0. I remember a statement from one of your developers way back(dont remember who) saying that its better in the long run to have a harder rotation/gameplay (It was in context of commandos losing some damage/induction on grav round I think). I think that applies very well to balance 2.0.

Not necessarily. There are plenty of ways to bring SS into balance without changing the infiltration tree or bringing Infiltration tactics back to the bottom tier. there are some suggestions in this and the other thread which could work. Also, nice metaphor Even if not SS, any core shadow AC ability that makes use of the double bladed saber would be good (whirling blow as it is on live doesn't count). Its bad enough carrying a saber on my sage without using it, I do not want the same thing to happen to my shadow. I really like your suggestion about spinning strike. I would be really happy if they let it in, even if we don't get shadow strike. There are many ways to make the spec interesting, its just the intent that is required. Anyways, I am getting tired of making so many posts without hearing any word from them in return lol.