shameless self-bump

yeah, i just hope bioware does =/

THE FOLLOWING IS VERY LONG AND KIND OF WORDY (i found it hard to illustrate each situation as a stream of bullets so it is written as chunks to emphasize the totality of each detail), I HAVE THOUGHT HEAVILY ON THE FOLLOWING SUGGESTIONS AND BELIEVE THEY ARE WORTH READING, IT IS DENSE SO READ CAREFULLY FOR IF YOU SKIM IT YOU WILL LIKELY MISINTERPRET IT. I THANK YOU IN ADVANCED TO THOSE THAT TOOK THE TIME TO READ MY THOUGHTS So, this is a "constructive" criticism thread since bioware doesn't know how to take a list of everything they did wrong and figure out a solution. (ill try to be as constructive as possible). First i will list off flaws, then in the last half i will propose fixes to these flaws (as someone said so beautifully, do biowares job for them) First off, cool story, w/e, bioware did that right at least (people will debate, who cares its just a story). Classes look cool so silly visual appeal stuff is nice, i think everyone loves the crew skill system, some imbalance but you say your trying to fix that. Galactic trade market is ok, frustrating that when your comp comes back from a mission you have to reset the filter. now on to the stuff that matters: throughout this post i will use examples from classes but will not include every single situation of every class and every talent tree that the point pertains to, this would take to long: 1. Shared abilities amongst advanced classes: First off, shared abilities amongst advanced classes. Many abilities that are granted to both advanced classes are balanced to one on the ac's but either serve no function, or a much stronger function to the other. An example of this is energy shield. This very nice damage reducer that lasts for a healthy amount of time, great for the powertech, completely overpowered for the mercenary, the reason for this will be later described in the pvp section. 2. Similar mechanics in every class: 6/8 classes in the game have some way to knockback enemies. While this normally would not be a huge issue it arises many issues in pvp, again to be later discussed. 8/8 classes have a stun that is usually 4 seconds and is on a 1 minute cool down. 4/8 classes have a root ability (with certain talents) 8/8 classes have some way to reduce incoming damage for a certain period of time Giving basic mechanics such as knockbacks and stuns makes class diversity based on how many buttons do you have to press to do damage and is not longer based on how do you use survival/offensive cooldowns and position/maneuver yourself to take down enemies. 3. Imbalance of ranged to melee classes and lack of raid utility for each class: There are 5 melee classes and only 3 ranged classes, yet most people can agree that both pve and pvp fights heavily favor ranged classes. If you look at class population you will see 40% of the population contains only 2 classes, mercenary and sorcerer. This causes heavy competition for gear in PvE and provides limited options for people who like different types of ranged dps. I for one LOVE the play style of flanking, not afraid to get in the thick of the battle, but still to much of a sissy to get in melee range, but there is no class like this because you are either melee, 30m away ranged, or a healer. As for raid utility, very few classes actually have a buff that is desirable in operations, for this reason the classes that do have that ability are suddenly the most demanded class, this causes classes like assassins to be on the bottom of the totem pole while marauders are on the top when it comes to guild recruitment and raid assembly. 4. Similarity in melee classes: i have played every single class in the game for a decent amount aside from my marauder which is only lvl 12. I do not find myself thinking "man i really like the play style of the sins, its so unique to all the other classes" instead, i find myself thinking "man... lot of sins running around... guess i should play a dps juggernaut... you dont see many of those... gear will be easy" the only thing that makes the melee classes unique from each other is one or two abilities since every melee class has some way to close a gap on a 10-20 second cooldown. i have illustrated examples here (ignoring difference in resource since it really makes no difference, one class uses a free move to regen resource while the other uses a move to generate resource): = Sin and ops: deception is similar to concealment in that you press 1-2 buttons waiting for another 1-2 buttons to be available to use via proc or tactical advantage. Madness is similar to lethality in that you have a bunch of dots and attack waiting for your hard hitter to be ready (cull and crushing darkness) = Juggernaut and powertech: a rage juggernaut will use 1-3 abilities waiting for smash to get ramped up into a huge nuke, powertech will use 1-3 abilities waiting for flamethrower to get buffed to hit as hard as death from above. Juggernauts (vengeance) will weave in between rage spenders and sundering assault to slap on some dots and hit moderately hard, powertechs (pyrotech) will use a dot that is stupidly similar to shatter and then spam 1 ability that applies a weak dot (similar to force scream and impale) while waiting for rail shot to proc. = Marauder and ops: annihilation is similar to concealment in that you apply strong dots and then proceed to hit for 1k on other moves. only major difference is that ops have stealth and marauders dont. 5. Similarity in ranged classes: All 3 ranged classes have a knock back and 2 out of the 3 have a rooting ability (if talented). their methods of defense are strikingly similar, ambush is like rocket punch and the sorcs talented shield pop that blinds is just like the snipers flashbang type move. With these defensive similarities we can move onto how they deal damage and compare them: = Sorcs and mercs: arsenal is very similar to lightning in that you spam one move that takes 1.5 seconds to cast and wait for this one move to trigger or buff other abilities = sorcs and snipers: madness and lethality are similar in that they cast 2 dots and spend the rest of their time channeling (for sniper they spend more time spamming rifle shot until cull and series of shots are off cooldown, same principal tho, dot... and wait till they run off) 6. Healers: Healing is fine for PvE, some balances are needed for how easy it is for certain classes *cough sorc cough* to be able to be the jack of all trades... and be a master of every trade.... especially in pvp.... but that is for later... amirite? 7. Difference in resources: Great idea, but horribly imbalanced. It is clear these resources were balanced assuming the IA and BH would always maintain maximum regeneration. Heat and energy function in a way that enables bh's and ia's to burst down enemies faster than it is possible to burst someone down as a warrior or inquisitor because all of their abilities deal more damage per gcd. 8. Gear dependency: In both pve and PvP gear plays 80% of the role in effectiveness while knowledge and skill only play 20%. Gear scales way to steeply from blues at 50 to rakata gear. Same thing with PvP gear, due to the expertise mechanic, someone with no pvp gear going against someone with 600ish expertise gear will be at a 24% offset just from that one stat, then you consider the bonuses of better weapons and other stats and you will probably be at more of a 35-50% offset from someone with pvp gear. While i agree that players should strive for gear, it shouldn't become so important that the game can no longer be enjoyed until you grind for 5 weeks to finally level with other players (and then you get out your rage on the fresh 50's)... we saw this happen with rift's pvp gear, and their fix was highly appropriate and reasonable, but this will be discussed later, amirite? mhmmm... 9. PvE: I have not done a huge amount of PvE, but from my understanding most people enjoy it until they run out of content... so more content amirite? i have fixes for this that ties in with gear, stay tuned! 10. PvP (particularly focusing on the imbalance of ranged and melee) (i apologize in advanced to this wall of text, it is difficult to describe the entirety of the situation in mere bullets): the only appropriate way to illustrate this issue is with a fry from futurama meme with the caption: "not sure if troll, or really stupid". here is a list of issues that will later have proposed fixes: = The only way melee classes have a way to close a gap larger than 10 meters (ignoring stuns) is to either use charge (12-15 second cooldown), force speed (20-30 second cooldown), grapple (45 second cd), operatives... lulwut? best thing they have is vanish... --- Sorcs can create a gap larger than 10m by using force speed (30 second cd) or overload (20 second cooldown) --- Mercenary's can create a gap larger than 10m by using jet boost (30 second cd) or rocket punch (9 second cd if talented, but honestly who isn't arsenal?) --- Snipers can create a gap larger than 10m by using cover pulse (30 second cd) or using an ambush knockback if talented... which most snipers are (15 second cd) --- the above is only looking at knockbacks that the ranged classes have, this is ignoring their roots that can be used at any range! while for melee their roots/slows, asside from the 31pt talent in madness for the assassin, must be used within 10m. It is also later illustrated that ranged classes have enough methods of damage reduction to give them mock heavy armor. = Every map is clearly designed to give ranged a heavy advantage (platforms with walls to provide line of sight from people up to 30 yards away simply by stepping back 2 feet and platforms that are very narrow providing the capability to knock some one so far they they are out of the game for 30 seconds) = voidstar and huttball both have area's of thin elevated platforms that enable people (6/8 classes) to use their knock back or two (if you are the 2/6 classes with a second option for a knockback) in voidstar this is a minor issue and only causes slight frustration, in huttball this becomes a major issue. I find myself as a juggernaut to be aligning myself with enemies appropriately to ensure that i get knocked back farther onto the platform instead of off it, but then a smart players realizes all they have to do is quickly side step randomly and suddenly they have the perfect angle to send me flying into fire, slime, or a big pit that puts me out of the game for 30 seconds or until i can find someone to charge to. During this time of not being where the ranged are i am simply target practice unless i run under the scaffolding to gain line of sight from them, but to get back up i must wait for charge or run up the ramp to continue to be target practice until i can get within 10m. = Because advanced classes have shared abilities with the other advanced class there is imbalance. It makes sense for a powertech, being melee, to have a damage reduction defensive cooldown since to do damage he must enter the mosh pit of tracer missile and force lightning, but when brave souls like myself charge a bounty hunter (after angling myself correctly to not get screwed over by their 2 knockbacks) to stop them from healing or spamming a move that can crit for over 2.5k i find that they can reduce the damage i deal by 25%... similar to my own ability as a juggernaut. So here we are, both wearing heavy armor, both having the same defensive cooldowns, yet one has more CC and can attack from ranged. Looking at sorcs, they seem a little more balanced except that they can cast a shield every 20 seconds that absorbs at least 2k damage... average that out that and it is 100 less damage per second... which basically gives them heavy armor, and they have more cc than melee, and can attack from ranged. Looking at the sniper. because they can sit in cover for 90% of the game i cannot charge them and have to run up ramps while getting nailed by them just to start to attack, assuming i do not die by the time i reach them. So lets pretend i manage to charge a sniper and we're both at 100%. the sniper has the option to use 2 of the 4 following abilities: 2 knockbacks, 2 stuns. pretending he is braindead and decides to use non of them he can freely cast moves that hit just as hard as mine, and due to ballistic dampers, he is basically wearing heavy armor, same as me. Other than my one knock back on a 1 minute cooldown he can freely cast moves that deal the same amount of damage as mine. Let's not forget that the sniper is able to dodge everything for 3 seconds and use a shield that absorbs about 1k damage. the only defense i have verse a sniper is to use saber ward, but any half competent sniper going 1v1 with me would flash bang to waste 8 seconds of that saber ward. there are other issues amongst melee vs melee but those are trivial compared to melee vs ranged. _____________________________________________ Proposed Solutions: 1. Shared Abilities amongst advanced classes: Easy fix to this is to give 0 defensive/offensive cooldowns to classes until they hit 10 and choose and advanced class. Until they choose an advanced class they can still have simple damage dealing moves, but no longer provide new abilities that are shared amongst the 2 advanced classes after level 10. You may give the same ability to each class if it seems like both can use it while maintaining balance in pvp and pve situations. But it is critical that you look at each ability that each class has and think about whether or not that class actually needs the ability. The main thing to keep in mind is that not EVERY class needs a move that reduces damage taken, and if they do make it more diverse like spell reflects or shields that only absorb a certain type of damage to provide counters to on particular damage type. This will ensure players use skills in certain situations against certain enemies and that players learn how to counter them to provide more interesting play. 2. Similar mechanics in every class: = First and foremost, it is absolutely moronic for every class to have the exact same cc (slight variation for warriors)... a stun on a 4 minute cool down. Making every class have the exact same thing basically nullifies the utility of the spell, since everyone has it no one has to think about what this player has up his sleeve, they know they will be stunned at some point during the fight and know how to prepare for it. 90% of the time this stun is used when the enemy is walking over a fire pit or casting a big ability and so it functions more as an interrupt or a root. With this said you could easily have 3 classes have an interrupt that locks down all casting or special moves, so that the only thing you can use during the 4 seconds is the basic filler damage. 3 classes could keep the stun and 2 classes could have a root. This provides variety in pvp utility and can provide raid utility to more classes if you allow the special interrupts to be used on certain boss abilities. = It is nonsense to have 6 classes able to use knockbacks especially with the way warzone maps are designed. I understand that you wanted to ensure every class had a way to stop enemies from wailing on them in pve and pvp scenarious, but giving out knockbacks like candy on Halloween is not the way to do it. Knockbacks make sense for the fragile ranged classes, mainly a sniper and sorcerer. Mercenaries where heavy armor so giving them a knock back and then some is clearly imbalanced. Fixes to the issue of ranged not being squishy enough is later addressed. It makes even less sense to give a knockback to a melee class like the assassin and the juggernaut. Sins only use their knockback to abuse huttball terrain or as an interrupt against a sniper/rage warrior. And warriors only use their knockback to abuse huttball terrain, interrupt snipers/rage warriors and to reset the cooldown of their force charge to use it to get to someone more important or to generate rage. I propose that only snipers and sorcerers get to use knockbacks and reduce the cooldown to 20 seconds for both classes. = The only class that should ever have a true rooting ability limiting movement by 100% are ranged classes, and the only classes that should be able to break this root are fragile melee dps (operative and assassin). So my suggestion is to give the ability to root to snipers, sorcerers and healers 21pt ability in healing tree and make it have a 10m range with a 20 second cooldown. I know i say there should be diversity amongst classes, but there is very little u can do to diversify a rooting ability other than making some classes have an aoe root and others a single target root... you figure it out. = Every melee class needs some way to catch up to a ranged class that is over 10 meters from them and a way to get ranged within 10m.... to stay within 10m... So i propose every melee class has some way to catch up to a ranged class within 10m that is on a cooldown that allows it to be active 30% of the time or something along those lines. This is what i recommend for each melee class: --- Warriors have a charge which solves the issue of closing large gaps, as for keeping them within 10m how about force scream staggers that target reducing movement speed by 70% for 2 seconds? --- assassins have force speed which can close a large gap but cannot skip platforms like the warriors charge can, for this reason i propose the duration is reduced to 1 second and the speed boost is increased to 200% and the cooldown is reduced to 15 seconds, this enables them a very small burst that gets them an extra 10m. As for compensating their inability to be as mobile as warriors i believe force pull should be allowed to be use by all assassins and not just darkness spec'd assassins. --- for operatives i think the slow they have now is perfect and functions fine as a short root when talented, not very OP in my opinion. As for closing a large gap the operatives unfortunately have virtually nothing. My solution is to give them a blink type ability on a 20 seconds cooldown that ports them 20m forward and breaks any movement impairing effects, as for direction and ability to go through objects, that is for bioware programmers to figure out to ensure people don't bug through a planet and have a tea party with Earhart. --- Powertech are in the same boat with assassins, however i do not believe it makes sense to have the tank spec be the most mobile... there is no reason why the person who can take a beating should be more mobile than the person that can't. I propose that jet charge is removed from the tanking tree and instead becomes an ability similar to the warriors obliterate except have the range be 15 meters and have it knock the target forward 5 meters and slow the target by 30% for 2 seconds with a 30 second cooldown, just to make the move interesting and unique to the class. To compensate for the tanks, they can talent into increasing the range of jet burst by 7.5/15 meters. Powertechs get to keep grapple, that is their counter to terrain disadvantages. = To foreshadow later sections: add diversity to defensive cooldowns amongst the classes. No ranged class should be able to reduce damage taken by 25% for 12 seconds... However, they should be allowed to avoid the next melee attack against them. Basically ranged need short strong defensive cooldowns. Melee need cooldowns that reduce damage taken that can last for a normal fight duration like 30 seconds and they need them frequently, we risk our neck diving into the ranged lines which ALWAYS makes people go "hurrrrr enemy nearby bleeeeeooooooooooooooo target acquired, commence tracer missile spam now". Look at any warzone scoreboard, you will see melee constantly doubling the deaths of ranged classes simply because we are on the frontline. There are a few ways you can fix the melee issue particularly in PvP, but these will be discussed later in the PvP section 3. Imbalance of ranged to melee classes and lack of raid utility for each class: First lets get raid utility issues out of the way. Every class need to have something about them that makes them desirable in a raid or flashpoint. Marauders are fine, they already have a party wide cooldown with some neat effects. Im not going to tell you what to give to each class, but a few examples are debuffs to the boss that buff damage, short temporary buffs the allow the raid to nuke down certain stuff, raid wide defensive cooldowns that reduce damage take. The key here is to make it a perk, and not a requirement to have each and every type of raid buff, but to make it useful enough to make raid leaders go "yah it would make x easier with y or z". Now on to ranged and melee imbalance: = There are 5 melee classes and 3 ranged classes. Yet many fights have proximity aoe's that make melee have to stop dps to avoid gimping their overall utility. Either copy what WoW did in which certain passive buffs would have an increased effect on melee so that the time they did spend on the boss they did more damage than ranged to offset for their having to move out of range of the boss, or somehow design it so that ranged dps has to move around and stop casting also. = Anyone here play warhammer and miss the shadow warrior's flanking stance? i do.... i propose this: --- Somehow modify the operatives and assassins shared tree to make this spec have a 17 meter range for most abilities so that we can finally have a mid ranged flanking class for those that find eternities of entertainment with being that carrot on a stick for melee and a thorn in the side for ranged. How do you do this? look at warhammers design for the shadow warrior flanking stance... In a nutshell it make your ranged abilities have a medium range... like 17 meters, but encourages you to slip into melee to get off a powerful dot or something. The way warhammer designed it was to be 80% efficient at range and 100% efficient to dip in and out of melee range, they also made this class very squishy and a lot like a ranged class kiting a melee class, but they balanced it by making most abilities physical so that you had a bit of a damage boost on squishier ranged classes since they could still attack from farther, but the disadvantage vs melee since they would have heavier armor so if you didn't stay within that magic range they would tear you to pieces. This also balances some of the melee dps by giving them the option to dps at a range outside of boss aoe's... perfect amirite? i dunno... throwing it out there as a dream hoping the bioware gods like it... 4. Similarity in Melee Classes (before you rage, these are suggestions that add a new function to each class, so of course damage will have to be re-modified to ensure balance, i will not be concerned with where damage gets redistributed for the sake of keeping this less than 34857384 pages): As stated before the melee classes play far to similarly to be able to reasonably say you have 5 unique melee classes. What you have is 5 melee classes that all fight in the same way that differ by one mechanic, charge, stealth, and ability to have weak dps when over 10m away. So with that said, you now have 3 melee classes... doesn't sound like a lot does it? not much variety there. So here is what i recommend (looking only at damage rotations, ignoring any sort of pvp or raid utility): = Juggernauts... Looking at vengeance, pretty good tree... not much to it though, you simply rotate through 3 rage consumers, 2 rage builders, and one proc'd free move. Why not implement a ramp up system? remember the swordmaster from warhammer? Just like that... Sundering assault can be the basic ability. From there you could have impale, force scream, and smash be the middle moves that permit their own finishing move. Impale would allow the use of ravage, and ravage would be balanced to root the target for the duration to help players get the entire use of it in PvP. Force scream would enable the use of Shatter. And Smash would turn sweeping slash into a circular AoE instead of a conal AoE enabling easier aoe and removing tedious positioning. You could do something similar to the rage tree... but i dont feel like describing how to do that... you figure it out. = Marauders... i personally think they are fine, that have 3 different specs all that have very different play styles and fury is a perfect mechanic for them, balancing between the 3 tree's is needed though since its annihilation or dont play a marauder. = Assassins... the only reason you gave them stealth is so that they can sneak through stuff and get close to a healer before being detected. Their opener is a serious joke and when im not in 1v1 combat i never use it because i dont want to run up the resolve meter on something stupid like 500 damage and a 1.5 second knockdown. Best fix: Give them openers, maybe give them an option in deception to allow the maul proc effect to apply while in stealth so that they can open up with a real ability giving them value in stealth. Same can apply to madness, give them a real stun to use as an opener to give them time to ramp up and cast their dots. And for darkness? not much u can do since all bosses see stealth from 50m away... = Operatives... tactical advantage was a cool idea, but it's basically the combo point system made stupid... Every operative will use TA on lacerate or cull... no variety in it... Why not make tactical advantage 3 stacks and give an ability usable at 3 stacks that buffs an abilities effect based on the special move. For example: --- Win button: "you activate your win button to increase the effect of your abilities" - - - Shiv: Your next Shiv deals an additional 300 damage over 3 seconds, with each tick of the dot applies one stack of tactical advantage - - - Backstab: Your next backstab ignores armor - - - Cull: your next cull increases the crit chance of your next 5 dots by 100% - - - Kolto Infusion: Heals for an additional 100% of it's effect over 6 seconds = Powertechs... hard to fix... you made them so spammy it's disgusting... only thing i can think of is to give them more abilities that have a shared cooldown and apply different effects, for example: --- The most interesting ability: "You don't always use this move, but when you do, you use it wisely" - - - Move 1: your next flame burst will automatically critically hit - - - Move 2: your next flame burst will heal you for twice the damage done - - - Move 3: your next flame burst deals half damage, but vents 40 heat 5. Similarity in ranged classes (again, these balances are suggestions that could change playstyle which requires balancing of damage, i will let bioware do this part since i dont want to go on for pages about how to fix each abilities damage): Not much to say here with the epic 3 ranged classes that were designed. Main thing is that for the survivability of each ranged class, they have WAY to much cc. Mercenaries have heavy armor yet have the shortest cooldown CC. The issues of the CC and armor will be adressed in the pvp section, i just wanted to make sure it was brought forth as an issue, in this section i will primarily propose fixes to making the damage dealing playstyle more unique. Here is what i reccomend for each class: = Snipers... They can deal insane amount of damage for little to no set up time. On my sniper i simply enter cover, find a sorc, 3 seconds later i crit for 4k... this may be the strategy that bioware wants to implement, but it imbalances situations in pvp and pve. --- as a sniper in pve, the fight will be very boring since you are out of range of aoe's and sit in cover for most of the fight, i propose more interesting combat by implementing these changes: - - - Keep ambush the way it is except increase its energy cost to 60 (talent it so that marksmanship can reduce it to 40), then increase the damage and energy cost of every other move by approximately 10-15%. This allows marksmanship snipers to have that upfront nuke that they want, but limits their normal dps so that they can stay a pop damage class while being balanced in both pvp and pve scenarios. - - - Lethality is fine, the energy cost of the abilities to they damage they deal is perfectly balanced. Sniper have about a 8 second ramp up time before they can unlock the full potential of cull and this is perfectly balanced - - - thechanges to marksmanship and the design of lethality enable snipers to choose 2 paths, pop and down period (skyscraper on a farm type damage), or down period into a pop into a down period (wave like dps) - - - The engineering tree is a joke and a horrible design, this tree needs a major overhaul and ill let you guys figure that one out = Mercenaries... Let me first illustrate a rotation before i list the fixes: TM, TM, TM, unload, heat seeker missile, TM, TM, Rail shot.... After that first rotation it simply turns into Tracer missile until unload, HSM, and rail shot are off cooldown... FUN CLASS!!! --- Easy solution to make the mercenary more interesting: - - - Tracer missile/powershot no longer have the stupid heat signature mechanic but instead reduce tracer missile damage by 10% per stack up to 5 stacks with each use. At 5 stacks you can activate heatseeker missile which will exhaust the charges (which no longer has a cooldown, is available at level 10, and will knock the target back 10m if the target is within 10m) and will grant the mercenary a buff that enhances unload damage and makes it uninterruptable (stacks up to 2 times). Each use of unload (triggered at 2 stacks) will apply one of 3 buffs that enables you to active an ability that will modify your next rail shot in the following way: - - - - your next rail shot stuns the target for 5 seconds (this particular ability has a 1min 30sec cooldown) - - - - your next rail shot causes your next 2 tracer missiles to not apply the debuff - - - - your next rail shot allows the use of one more rail shot within 5 seconds and that second rail shot applies a buff that reduces ranged, tech, and force damage taken by 80% for 5 seconds (this ability has a 45 second cooldown) --- the hope in implementing this change to mercenaries is it controls their sustained dps of tracer missiles that crit for 2.5k and gives them a unique twist to use about every 30 seconds. This provides interesting ramp up style play similar to the proposed fix to juggernauts, but spread out over a longer period of time --- This same mechanic could be implemented into pyrotech... but u guys can figure that out = Sorcerers... First off let's get serious, reduce their damage by 10-20%. Then this is my proposed fix: --- Sorcs are to spammy, you either spam a move and let it proc other moves... just like what the mercs do... or you put up a dot... and spam one move.... and wait for it to proc another spell.... so this is what we do: - - - some players like a spammy class.. fine! we will allow one class to be spammy, but we will give it an interesting mechanic to bring to raids and warzones. Allow the sorcerer to have a mechanic similar to the mage in Rift. Allow the sorceres to built corruption with each use of an ability so that after about a minute of casting nonstop (also note that corruption will not drain until 5 minutes of non casting, it goes away on death and resets when you engage pvp combat) you let them do this: - - - - Unleash your corruption to allow all of your spells cost no force for the next 20 seconds and have a 20% increased chance to critically hit (its nice for healer to amirite?) 6. Healers (remove trauma from pvp... stupid idea, reasons provided further in the discussion): Looking only at PvE healing, it seems relatively balanced, however, sorcerers have a clear advantage with bubbles that can be cast very frequently and provide them with the ability to be able to quickly save players from death while the operative and the mercenary don't. I feel every healer should be able to do this so i propose these changes: = Merc... rapid scan now applies a shield that absorbs 1000 damage if used on a target below 30% = Operatives.... surgical probe now instead of re-granting TA when used on a player below 30% health instead will automatically crit when used below 30% = I havn't healed enough on both characters to give further suggestions... leave that to the rest of the swtor community i guess 7. Difference in resources: This is primarily an issue in pvp, but i will address it here. Its really simple, class that use energy and heat mechanics have had their abilities balanced assuming they would use their filler enough to maintain the maximum regeneration window. This never happens in pvp... so here is my suggestion... its really simple, pathetic this isn't how it was designed in the first place: = Both heat and energy now have maximum energy regeneration when at full to 50% (or non to 50%... just pretend heat is like energy for the sake of argument) So this widens the window from 40% = Instead of causing the player to regenerate less energy while below 50%, instead decrease the damage they do while below 50% (allow this damage nurf to be activated after 1 second of breaching 50% so that you can still combo a casted move with and instant cast move without having to overcompensate how much energy you have before using the abilities) = Make it and interval like this: --- 100-50% = 100% damage 100% healing --- 49-30% = 70% damage 90% healing --- 29-0% = 50% damage 80% healing = this stops the player from spamming hard hitting moves knowing the enemy will die by the time they run out of energy but still enable them to hover at high energy so that they can execute 2-3 moves back to back to still have some burst advantage (due to the wider window) 8 + 9. Gear Dependency (primarily for pvp) and lack of end game content: First off: IT'S OK TO COPY SOME THINGS FROM WOW AND OTHER MMO'S!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! PvP gear makes fresh 50 pvp a very unpleasant grind. This happened in Rift too, this is how they fixed it, which i suggest bioware do the same: = They made every rank of gear provide a static 35% reduced damage taken by players and then the power came from the stats that followed the gear --- Bioware should first make expertise only reduce damage taken by players... increasing stats, damage done, and reducing damage taken makes pvp gear FAR to powerful against fresh 50's. --- For the above reason, trauma should be removed from the game, pvp gear is still valuable for healers because they will die in a heartbeat without it, even in rakata gear. --- Give us a 50 pvp blue set of gear that has green item stats but has enough expertise to reduce damage taken by players by 30% and then have battlemaster and other sets give 30% also. Allow this blue gear to be purchased pre level 50 so that those that like pvp a lot can buy themselves the set before being forced to face the onslaught of battlemaster players. --- This balances it out because no longer can a skilled player be crushed by the common idiot that happens to have battlemaster gear, while it still gives that common idiot the upperhand due to weapon damage and stats on armor --- As for PvE gear, make it so that accuracy is more important of a stat to clearly separate pvp gear from being almost as useful as the epic pve gear. Make it similar to wow's strategy for PvE gear. --- Additionally, to add more content allow both pvp and pve players to be able to get some way to buff their gear by a slight amount, like make super epic augments only achievable through rare drops on nightmare mode operations or obtainable by high pvp rating (once that comes out) (also feel free to actually.... u know.... add more content) 10. PVP (focusing on class balances and not so much on content): I think anyone who has spent at least 20 hours pvping can agree that it is HORRIBLY imbalanced, by far the worst balance i have seen in any game besides rifts warrior (which got fixed): = First, lets get melee balanced in on or two of these ways: --- 1) One way to balance melee in PvP situations is to somehow give them an ability that reduces the damage they take scaled to the amount of enemies near them, this allows 1v1 fights to still be balance but also allows melee to delve into the ranged lines and not die before they can get the sniper to 50%. --- 2) A different fix would be increase line of sight capabilities in terrain and allow the perches that range dps frequently sits on to be closer together to enable ranged on ranged action. A good example of this is the node "The Codex" from the warfront "The Codex" in the MMO "Rift". this place enabled a perch for ranged classes to rain destruction but they were vulnerable to other ranged on the other side and the melee dps could easily duck under the perch to gain LoS from the ranged... probably one of the most balanced maps of pvp i have ever seen. --- 3) And last and probably the best fix is to reduce the effectiveness of armor, let epic light armor only reduce 15% of incoming damage, medium 20%, and heavy armor 30%. Then if you are a melee class allow a passive ability to be gained when you choose a melee AC to increase the benefit you gain from armor by 50%, so now assassins sit at 22.5%, operatives and marauders sit at 30%, and juggernauts sit at 45%. And tanks are still balanced by their additional 60% (maybe make it 50% instead) so that an immortal juggernaut will be sitting at 60%... yah now you feel like a tank amirite? Now to balance assassins vs vengeance juggernauts you can simply allow sins to use more internal and elemental damaging abilities to penetrate armor while still restricting juggernauts to kinetic, energy, and weapon damage. This enables balance amongst melee v melee and melee v ranged. = As far as ranged vs ranged pvp, i do not have enough experience playing ranged classes in different MMO's so i will not voice my opinion for i have very little to base it on = Healers in pvp are clearly imbalanced for the following reasons: --- In pvp most of the time the healer gets a heal off and then immediately has to run away LoS enemies, so healers that have a stronger single target heal will naturally succeed in this area (sorcerers) --- While running to cover or away from a slowed melee player the healer will use as many instant cast abilities to increase their survival - - - Sorcs have a very powerful shield and a good HoT with upfront healing - - - Mercenaries have kolto missile (heals for nothing), a decent HoT (from a casted ability), and kolto shell (heals for nothing), and a decent instant cast heal on a 21 second cooldown (doesn't heal as much as the sorcs absorb) - - - Operatives have a good HoT (lol sort of good... its nothing special), and surgical probe (heals for nothing) --- While being under heavy fire and not having time to get to cover the healer must now stand there and take it while they try to get a heal off, if the dps isn't half retarded they will use their interrupt during this time... so now we look at what casted heals each class has: - - - Sorcs have 3 casted heals, a channel, a fast expensive heal but still heals for a good amount, and a slow casted bigger heal - - - Mercenaries have healing scan (heals less than the sorcs good heal at the cost of .5 second faster cast time), and rapid scan (heals less than healing scan, but is a 1.5 second cast, has a 9 second cooldown, no cooldown when special move is activated) - - - Operatives have kolto injection (heals less than the sorc heal at the cost of a .5 second faster cast time), and kolto infusion (heals less than kolto inject, 1.5 second cast time, requires tactical advantage to be active... so it never gets used because surgical probe is instant and free) --- Knowing that interrupts stop the player from casting the ONE ability for 4 seconds we can then analyze each healer. - - - each healer is about equal when it comes to mobile healing if you look at every single option they have for healing on the go - - - the Sorc has 3 casted heals leaving them 2 more to cast while they get interrupted - - - the merc has 2 heals to cast, if the dps has half a brain they will interrupt the slow one, leaving the merc one heal on a 9 second cooldown to cast when interrupted - - - the operative has 2 heals to cast, if the dps has half a brain they will interrupt the slow one, leaving the operative one heal to cast that can only bast cast twice before needing to gain tactical advantage in some way --- As a finishing note for the imbalance of healers in pvp, the sorcerer has a larger bank to use when healing so they can heal for longer under heavy stress while the merc can last about half as long and the operative lasting ~70% as long as the mercenary (because the mercenary has that epic healing cooldown) = Hutball is a horrible warzone --- Take the game type of huttball and put it onto a different map, if you cannot figure out why players hate huttball so much and how to fix it then you deserve to have this game die within months like warhammer did. = Most of the other points presented in the PvP section of problems of that game were brought forth have already had solutions proposed in earlier sections of solutions. ______________________________________________________________ This concludes my problems and suggestions for the fundamentals on making this game a fun experience and not Mass Effect star wars edition. I may have left out things in the suggestions section that i said i would have adressed earlier in the problems section.

i know that feel bro, if it makes you feel better this games fundamentals are so flawed it would take the devs years to fix

oh and horrible pvp that is made for ranged classes to get off to melting ants (melee) with magnifying glasses (snipe, tracer missile, force lightning)

Impossible to balance 8 classes? I lol'd while it is hard to find a perfect balance, every mmo i have played has done a better job than bioware. They do not play their own game and it is obvious, every ranged class does just as much damage as melee while in melee range, getting beat on by melee. deadzones and interrupts that actually lock down casting for 4 seconds is a stupidly easy way to balance the classes, but bioware can't have this because then it would be to much like a wow clone and bioware wanted to be the special butterfly. Bad game is bad, but wow is no better and all other games are dead, so now we wait for gw2

ITT: we list off every stupid thing in the game that should have been fixed during beta or just never implemented in the first place. Ill start: -Huttball (notice a trend of every ranged class loving huttball and every melee class hating it?) -Ranged classes with no deadzone -Spells that just don't feel like going off, even after the "fix" -The interrupt system, only that one spell for 4 seconds? makes sense...... -Trauma... simply just dont have pvp gear enhance your healing... if you're rocking out PvE gear in warzones... your still going to be eaten alive by those who wear pvp gear -Knock backs for every class except operatives and marauders -Stuns for every class on the same short cooldown (theoretically you will be stunned at least every minute... you will be stunned more depending how many tanks are on the opposing team) -designing classes damage assuming that they will keep their recourse at the maximum regeneration level -PvE fights that are unfriendly to melee classes. No one who wants a successful operation group will bring melee dps unless they can bring something to the raid (only marauders) -Not allowing every class to have something beneficial to bring to a raid (basically only marauders get to do that... making them the most wanted class... but only one, to much melee (more than 1) gimps the raid) -balancing classes based on pve, this is apparent in pvp when every melee classes damage is to low to survive in the *****torm known as pvp. -designing ranged classes to be able to pump out full dps while being wailed on by a melee class... basically making the class divide look like this: melee with a -10m range, tanks, melee with an up to 35m range (going up to sniper range) -resolve (lol diminishing returns? makes to much sense... besides were bioware and wanted to be innovative and hipster-like... which entails ignoring perfectly good mechanics of previous mmo's) -needing to stay facing the target until the animation of the ability goes off as opposed to when you activated the ability, this mainly effects melee classes... lol melee... getting the shaft in yet another way -"mirrored" class abilities not being perfect balances -Ilum (what a joke, i dont even understand how bioware thought that would fly with the obvious stronger interest amongst the public in rolling empire) -Expertise (buffs damage and reduces damage taken... makes pvp as a late 50 to frustrating to actually enjoy, but hey... it's one way to ensure people pay attention to your vast PvE content...) -medal system... shafts all pure melee classes, supports all dps/tank and dps/heal classes -Mvp system, i get mvp for getting the simple offensive medals, then spending the last 5 minutes of the game running through fire spam healing myself to get all the healing medals, on the score board i look like a pro player when in reality im just abusing the medal system -the fact that this list is so long... depressing... anyone else got anything? post it here and rofl as bioware does nothing because they could care less since they are still enjoying their WoW accounts

I agree, best way in my opinion is to have the bleeds scale off the abilities damage. Perhaps 30% is a little high, but the general consensus is that Jugg dps is low already, so this change would be good.

Cone attacks are harder to get off and require a lot of tedious movement, no other tanking class is required to use a cone to generate threat. Circular AoE's have a wider spread making it easier to hit more people with it. Why should an ability on a 30 second cooldown generate massive amounts of threat? it's not even an aoe, and single target threat is not an issue, i know this i've done flashpoints with jugg tanks at 50 (on my sin). Worst comes to worst we just let the tank have 2 gcd's before we start dps. I do not need to play the class to 50 to understand the flaws, i have played enough mmo's to identify what and why thing's are an issue. By having retaliation reset the cooldown on smash you could get your AoE threat earlier on, hell, you could slap it onto Quake... then you'd have it at level 12! Also, how is my fix complicated? its simply a damage reduction to balance out the aoe damage buff.... It's a lot simpler than lower the cost of an ability, increasing the threat of one, and decreasing the level in which you acquire an ability. 2 < 3 .... Occam's razor amirite?

amirite? IMO if they actually played their game before releasing it... it would have never been released. Rage thread go:

Do not listen to this false, Marauders have more defensive cooldowns than juggernauts and heavy armor makes no difference when the marauder can heal himself for 10% every 30 seconds in addition to 2% every couple of seconds. Maruaders virtually wear heavy armor for this reason. Unless you are specced immortal juggs will be as squishy as assassins, but then why would you care about damage? Juggernauts are tied for worst class right next to sins (dps sins, lolololol darkness is op) But really. if you want to deal damage do not roll a melee class, bioware did a very impressive job at making every map and every ability and every encounter and every everything lean towards ranged. Roll a sniper, i've literally sat in cover and never used a knockback and just fired snipe into a marauder... he died, i didn't... only reason is that melee is broken, and will never be fixed due to the fundamental design of the game

I'm a jugg, have an alt of every class over 20 except marauder but my friend has played a marauder a lot so i base a lot of information off of his testimonials. Both juggs and marauders have the highest skill requirement of every other class, i can honestly say this playing every class. With this said the only difference between marauder and juggernaut is one provides defense for his teammates while the other provides offense for the team. Take your pick, just keep in mind juggernauts have a major stigma as being unable to deal decent damage (partially true, we do need little buff by 10%). Also, the heavy armor and medium armor differences are negated since marauders have an incredibly overpowered defensive move that last up to 30 seconds and only has a minute cooldown.

http://db.darthhater.com/skill_calc/sith_warrior/juggernaut/#::e3f2e7fdfe5f4ef5e2f20ef7: the last 10 points u can really throw anywhere depending on what you notice is a problem area... the main thing about this spec is all about priority: sundering assault ravage shatter impale smash force scream vicious slash assault (notice how force choke and force push aren't in that list?) and make sure you dont go below 5 rage, you always want to keep at least 5 rage so u can always be able to use shatter when it's ready... very strong move

That's just him knowing his class bro... my friend did 470k as a marauder, i've seen reports of every class pulling that much and more... dont be so surprised, me as a 35 juggernaut vengeance spec pulled 320k, i've done that much as a powertech at 25 and almost pulled 300k as a sniper at lvl 20, remember this is w/o 50 abilities, and 50 gear, only bolster buff

Just last night on my lvl 35 vengeance warrior i pulled 320k damage (i grouped with a healer) my other friend who i respect as being highly skilled in pvp plays a marauder, the first time he broke 300k he was 35 and did 340k, he also grouped with a healer... marauders and juggs are both the hardest class to play in the game, and yes, i have played every other class (only class i havn't gotten past 20 and pvp'd on is the maruader). What it all comes down to is do you want to provide defense or offense for your group, (also juggs do less damage in pve than marauders). Juggs can taunt and reduce enemy damage going towards teammates, marauders can buff and heal other teammates every 30 seconds or so.... take your pick P.S. juggs heavy armor is negated by the marauders dots that heal them and their extra defensive cooldown.