subrosian
-
Posts
372 -
Joined
Content Type
Forums
Blogs
Events
Articles
Downloads
Gallery
Posts posted by subrosian
-
-
It's simple.
When Bioware initially designed the class, they built it around stealth. The OP was a stealthy class that would slip out of the shadows, devastate their surprised foe, and slip away. It was a classic "rogue" character and it was implemented around the idea of team-on-team combat.
When the game actually went live, what happened was that players weren't the team-focused, world-PVP loving, crazy-battle people Bioware imagined. Instead they were exactly what we should have expected: FPS players who saw "Star Wars", and whose ideal PVP game is about twitch gameplay.
You can see it on the PVP forums - they don't like stuns, they don't like rotations, they don't like knockbacks, kiting, pocket healers or teamwork. They want a game where they run around and beat on other people, and those other people die.
So Bioware had to fix Operatives, because they were a 1v1 dominating class in a game where players had become obsessed with forcing 1v1 "wail until you're dead" combat.
-
So how'd they "fix" Operatives? Did they redesign the class from the ground up? Nope, they cut DPS. And as gear goes back up and Operatives are regaining some of their burst? They cut their DPS again.
The problem is obvious: we have a class built around stealth entirely, who now doesn't do enough damage with those out-of-stealth abilities. Operatives, even attacking from the ideal position, are being forced into long combat that the class has no abilities to deal with.
-
And that's the issue. Is Bioware clueless? Well... draw your own conclusions. The people who made the nerf decision clearly don't understand the core of the class. Rather than say "okay this isn't a stealth class anymore, because we don't want short "got the drop on you" fights, and so we have to redesign because that is what concealment is built around... they're instead just cutting the DPS to the point it isn't getting the drop and winning... but not giving it to the tools to be viable elsewhere.
-
No, I knew what you were trying to say. But again, it doesn't matter and you are missing the point. Let's say combat logs come out, and Op DPS is far below that of Marauder. GZ and co. realizes they were wrong, next patch they buff Op DPS up to near Marauder level. Is the game now "balanced"? In GZ's eyes, yes. In the eyes of everyone else, no, because Ops still offer far less utility and are actually a handicap in many fights because of how they work.
What changes? Not much. People still will not need/want Ops for DPS and will only take them because there are no other options and/or as an act of charity because they are guild members.
It doesn't matter what the numbers say. Numbers are easy to adjust. What matters is what a class offers.
Bingo.
There's an issue of utility that needs to be addressed. Unless Operatives are made to provide some kind of unique debuff that benefits the entire raid, they will continue to be cut, because everyone else offers DPS plus something else.
A 16-man progression guild will run Snipers instead of OPs because rotating raid walls are powerful, and ranged DPS has higher uptime and survivability.
An 8-man casual guild will run Snipers instead of OPs because they don't have enough melee DPS slots available, and sacrificing a Mara's Lust, Jugg's sunder, or Sniper's raid wall doesn't make any sense.
-
Erm...no.
People that don't want to have Operatives in their raids just know the class better than you apparently do. Raids decline Operatives because any other class can do the job better with less effort.
Let me expand on this because people who don't raid, or think they're "pro" like to rant on this L2P nonsense without understanding the issue. Come 1.2 when fights are forcing 2-tanks, the raid comp starts with:
- Tank
- Off-Tank
- Healer 1
- Healer 2
Of the 8 spots, 4 of them are filled already with melee (tanks) and healers. Assuming I want to put 2 people on each token for ideal gearing, we wind up building out the raid something like this:
- TANK - Juggernaut
- TANK - Assassin (DPS gear, off-tank)
- HEAL - Operative
- HEAL - Sorcerer
Now I hit my DPS, I want 2 ranged and 2 melee, using my remaining tokens so I can gear smoothly.
- DPS - Marauder (Lust, Raid Heal)
- DPS- Powertech (strong DPS, additional off-Tank)
- DPS - Sniper (raid wall, strong PVE DPS)
- DPS - Merc (strong AoE, mobile rDPS)
If the raid wants to keep even gear distribution, you have to compete with a Sniper, Powertech (switch OP healer for Merc healer), or Merc. You cannot compete with ranged DPS, their numbers are too high due to the fights favoring ranged (higher DPS uptime, lower damage taken). In addition, Snipers bring a raid wall, something you can't offer.
That leaves the PT, who does more DPS than you, has more survivability and can off-tank if a 3-tank situation arose, or the group preferred to have the Assassin go DPS. You can't compete with Assassin DPS in that situation either, as all three of their specs (with DPS gear) are strong.
The Mara is completely untouchable, with Lust, a raid heal, and generally excellent damage, what are you offering that would make them replace a Mara with a lower DPS class?
-
Therefore the only spots available to Operatives are in 16-man Operations. Why? Because a 16-man can run 4 IA slots like this:
- Sniper
- Sniper
- Healing OP
- DPS OP
This works well as you generally want to run 2 Sorc Healers (due to the strong AoE) and this puts a rez on a melee who will avoid having an oversaturated Sniper slot.
-
So that's it. If you want a raid spot with any competitive guild, there is *maybe* one in a 16-man run like I have found.
-
Is it that dire?
Lethality is strong. If you are a world-progression level player in a 16-man operation, you will find a role to fill that is as a DPS generator. But let's be clear: that's all you are. You aren't the guy with Lust. You aren't the raid wall. You aren't the mDPS who can taunt off and take a stack of debuff, or the unbeatable melee AoE threat generator.
You are a fragile, immobile, complicated to play niche class that exists solely for DPS. If that's for you, enjoy, I play that role and I play it well, but it's easy to see that it's a fundamental reason the class isn't being played right now.
And frankly, Concealment being made unplayable in the name of PVP doesn't help our cause. If there is a fight where dots are ineffective... say fights built around nothing but large groups of mobs that need to be AoE'd down, and high damage / low health enemies that need to be burst... we're going to be sitting there going "I can't concealment and I can't lethality... uh-oh".
- Tank
-
Stop complaining about Concealment damage in Operations, its a spec for burst and hard hitting instant attacks. There is no sustained damage to it,
This would only be true if all of the abilities functioned in PVE. They don't. Our abilities require immobilization, stealth and being positioned behind the boss - the first two of which don't function in PVE, and the last only works on some fights, some of the time.
Lethality provides significantly more damage over boss fightsYet significantly LESS damage than the Sniper spec of the same time, because of the down time of moving, the problems generating TA with Shiv, and the energy-vs-TA issues.
- Mobility; No gap closer or speed boosts, Lethality compensates this lack by having better variety between ranged and melee attacks.You need to remain within 4m to Shiv or you cannot Cull. Being able to dot at 10m does not change anything, as you still need to move to avoid most AoE.
've been very succesful in PvP as Concealment and PvE as Lethality. I'm well aware that the vocal minority are on the forums complaining, But you're making Operatives look much worse then they are.No, we're not.
You have no idea how bad the issue *actually is* because the raid content is currently easy. As the raid content gets harder, the fact (yes - fact) that all Operatives are being carried is going to become an issue. At best our DPS is 5% behind other mDPS, which means roughly 1% of the bosses health in an 8-man.
That's the *ideal scenario*. In reality, we're currently sometimes as much as 30% behind other DPS. That's HUGE, in an 8-man that's the difference between a 6% wipe and a kill.
You people are the reason raids decline Operatives.No, the lack of damage, utility and survivability is the reason some raids don't take Operatives. I'm a former pro-gamer, I'll have a raid spot regardless of what I play. The average player who just says "hey I enjoy an Operative, this looks like fun", they will be punished at 50 because their DPS will not be remotely competitive.
At the same skill level they'd be getting offers from Hard and Nightmare mode guilds if they rolled Marauder.
-
Funny as I see 20% comments are on lethality (which is a great spec especially when mobility and range is involved ... better than assassins)
If you don't want to try lethality than go medicine. Operatives will have two choices for PvE and two for PvP ... like a lot of AC really.
1. Lethality is not "better than Assassins". As someone who has actually raided as every spec of *both toons* I am compelled to point out that Assassins are, at rough estimate, 30% better than Operatives. Force Speed lets you get into (and out of) melee quickly. Force Cloak allows you to throw off SOA balls (among other things). Recklessness lets you get powerful burst OR let you channel for a bit at 30m. The energy regen mechanic on Assassins is completely forgiving, letting you use 100% of your Force on burst without worrying about Adrenaline being off CD.
And that's not even getting into the actual abilities of either DPS tree, which are vastly different and both functional, doing far more damage, with far less setup, than Lethality. The worst complaint of Assassin DPS is that sometimes Maul doesn't work right... compared to Concealment *never working period because two of our main abilities don't work in PVE*
2. You're completely ignorant of how raiding works if you think you just switch role on a whim. A DPS doesn't arbitrarily switch to healing, or vice versa. That'd be like saying an Assassin DPS nerf would be acceptable because "you can always go tank"... uh, unless your raid already *has a main tank and recruited you to DPS*.
-
oh hey cool yet another OP thread moved off the PTR.
Thanks for listening Bioware! Great job on listening to your customers! FRAAAAAAAAAAAAK It took me 4 months of complaining to get you to listen to Medics being broken, it took you until 1.1.5 to grasp that Medical Therapy should actually function, why I expect PVE OPs to be listened to I will never understand.
HURK HURK. PVE OPS? NO ONE PLAYS THOSE, AND WE'LL IGNORE THE FEW WHO DO UNTIL THEY GO AWAY.
-Geoff.
-
As of 1.2, concealment is the PvP spec and lethality the PvE spec (just like vengeance is the PvE spec and rage the PvP spec for juggs).
It's not acceptable to take the only true melee tree of Operatives, the one many people *took the class for in the first place* and say "oh yeah, not intended for PVP, k thnx bye". Even if it were, it ignores that it would be *easy to make Concealment function in PVE simply be creating PVE-only effects for our talents".
SHIV - does X damage, applies a stacking armor debuff to non-players.
SOME TALENT - reduces the CD on Shiv by 1s, Shiv does +2% damage to non-players.
It's clearly possible, as some abilities already have one function in PVE and another in PVP, such as taunts. I would like a developer to actually respond to this idea as it would provide a fix for Operatives in PVE content.
-
our abilities are being balanced around a 6 global opener in PVP. I demand a dev answer on how they plan to address PVE, where we don't lose a few hundred dps on a burst, but instead several thousand DPS over the course of the fight.
Why do we not have a PVE-only move to give us a competitive rotation? Stab-time, 30 energy, 3K damage, does not affect players. It's not that hard. Fix it. It had been FOUR MONTHS and we eat constant PVP nerfs. Where is our PVE fix?
-
DO NOT CONSOLIDATE INTO THE BACKSTAB THREAD. THIS IS A PURELY PVE DISCUSSION.
What are you planning to do to make OP DPS viable? We are the only melee dps without a PVE gap closer. Two of our big damage abilities are not functional in raids. The changes to Backstab will lower our DPS by several thousand over the course of a boss encounter.
Lethality has no way to generate TA without getting into melee, and needs to waste TA to maintain stims despite Cull being the only means of generating competive DPS. What is being done to fix this in 1.2? How do you plan to make OPs competitive (getting carried to a clear is not the same thing as being competitive... so no your imaginary all OPs internal team that does your testing means jack)?
IN PVE OPS ARE UNDERPOWERED. When are you planning to address raiding Operatives and stop punishing us because of PVP balance?
-
what planet do you live on? Least utility?
Stealth. doesn't work in raids
Stealth on others. doesn't work in raids
CC doesn't work in raids
Droid CC doesn't work in raids
Stun doesn't work in raids
AOE stun (breaks on damage) doesn't work in raids
Interupt sometimes works in raids
Healing can't do in PVE DPS spec
Battle rez.
oh oh oh wait. No kncokback means that we have no utility, sorry.
So that's it, we have a rez, which sorcs already have as far more desirable ranged DPS. Meanwhile Maras bring lust, a group heal and damage immunity to the table. Juggs have an armor debuff, etc... and all other mDPS have better mobility, higher sustained DPS and more survivability.
-
Guys quite seriously the operative atleast in this patch alone didn't get THAT nerfed.
Pyrotech Powertechs tho... GOD.... Their resource management problems got doubled their main damage dealer got halved. Can you get any worse than that? I mean thats atleast a 30% dps decrease..... Compared to use operatives got swung with a pillow....
The OP nerf is massive for PVE. Conc is literally gone from PVE with these changes. Merc and Sorc healers were brought doen to OP levels, so you are all in the same boat of being frustrared. Conc has to compete with freshly buffed Juggs, Maras and Sins.... and it alresdy loses dps time due to the lack of a gap closer.
-
Currently they are the best 1v1 class by far, however, that doesn't mean that they are currently the best class for objective based warzones >.>
I agree their ability to kill BM geared players 1v1 with the other player having almost no ability to fight back was a bit OP, but they should not just be blindly nerfed either with no buffs or added utility to compensate.
The frustrating thing is that this is a massive PVE nerf because we lose so many Backstabs, Acid Blades and the poison debuff over the length of a 6-minute fight. Even if we replace with Overload Shot into our rotation, we have still lost several thousand DPS over a 6-minute fight.
They clearly are making changes based on PVP burst without even thinking about the PVE rotation. We get forced into Lethality simply because it does more sustained dps.
-
With the Medicine buff and Sorc / Merc nerfs, OPs are now great healers. The change to Lethality makes it competitive as it solves the energy problem in the rotation.
Conc gets nerfed, because its fairly obvious why a class built around killing full health targets quickly out-of-stealth can't be allowed, especially with ranged DPS being nerfed.
-
My Operative was the first toon I got to 50, and frankly, until I hit Ilum I found it to be amazing. I'm not sure how anyone could complain about sub-50 Operatives... the fact of the matter is that the stealth classes are some of the best for leveling, because you get the option of skipping mobs that are normally a PITA, and the ability to sneak past the waves-and-waves of trash that you don't want to get stuck fighting.
-
Its silly to play the exact same story line twice to experience both classes. A long or hard quest should be implemented and upon completion you choose the other AC.
Why would they hand you something that someone else had to work for? So, if I have a 50 Sorcerer and 50 Assassin, you think you're entitled to cheapen my effort by getting both for the effort of leveling a single toon?
And yes, what you get *does* take away from me, it's not a single player game.
-
Now i have to be honest and say that i have no clue about the damage output of a mara, The only one i have faced so far is a complete idiot. There simply arent that many on my server it seems.
Good Maras have high sustained DPS and strong survival CDs. This combination makes them imbalanced because they completely ignore class dynamics in warzones. Maras just have to think about overall tactics, unlike every other class they don't have a specific "bad fight" or "fight length" to shoot for.
Being completely removed from the metagame is dangerous, and it encourages serious PVPers to run heavy on Maras as they are the "counter" to every other class. It's like playing rock-paper-scissors-shotgun.
An dps specced assa simply has nothing. Little armor, Not that great damage. Which you would think the less armor you got the more damage you do.Deception Assassins are in an awkward place right now in PVP. They aren't an out-of-stealth class and their best DPS abilities are built on staying alive... with a class that doesn't really like to stay alive. Part of the reason Darkness has become prominent is because of that problem.
The bugged abilities just exacerbate the situation... but the Mara is also a problem, as right now it's a hard counter to non-Darkness Assassins. If you don't play Darkness, you won't survive comps that run Mara-heavy.
-
The dps difference is not significant enough to give up the survivability.
The DPS spec for Sins is bugged right now, Deception is literally unplayable in PVP because our most important DPS abilities will start animating and then fail to land, due to the game checking positional requirements after the animation completes, rather than at the time of cast.
As far as DPS using Dark Charge while in Darkness spec, they don't have a choice, if they run Lightning Charge they can't guard, do less damage and lose the option to use their ward. Lightning Charge doesn't provide a significant DPS bonus unless they're talented heavily into Deception or Madness trees.
-
Either way... I'd say 1.2 shadow tank and assassin tank specs will lose that ability to have both high end damage and high end mitigation. And you take away either and my Vanguard will have just another class to mop into his bucket.
good day sir.
Assassins aren't being touched in 1.2. The so-called "imbalance" of Sins / Shadows running in DPS gear while Tank-spec'd would be self-corrected by more Gunslingers and Snipers forcing mitigation on ball carriers... instead people roll Sorcs / Maras and wonder why tank gear is undervalued.
Oh, and Vanguards are being nerfed hard, so, that may impact your plans slightly.
-
as every rep side char,trooper was done after imp and was rushed so imp side have all perfect,no bugs and every animation better than rep side.
i could say that devs favor the imp side but for madure people this is absurd so iprefer choose that imp side was done with time first and then rep side was rushed for the game start and wasnt ready
Then why did Smugglers get the correct healing, but Operatives didn't get any benefit from Medical Therapy (an extremely important talent that increases the healing of Kolto Probe) until 1.1.5? Why do DoT / HoT talents work correctly for Smugglers and incorrectly for Operatives? Why do the stealth talents work correctly for Shadows but incorrectly for Assassins?
...your "Empire was done first, Republic was rushed" theory is full of holes.
-
you must be new to MMOs, this is what always happens regardless of how the dev communicates. People always twist whatever they say so they can play semantics games and "win" the inaginary debate.
-
Was just curious. I saw the part about Mercs in a dev quote, but was interested to see what was actually being said about Pyro.
The internal rumbling (and it's not just because people are whining on forums, it's a concern coming back from their own testing) is that Sorcs and Arsenal Mercs get "easy damage", basically the amount of damage they can do while "playing wrong" is too high, even though the overall damage isn't out of line.
They want to move damage off of Tracer Missile onto other abilities, so that the "bad" Mercs will do less damage, while the "good" Mercs will be unharmed. Your class won't get the OP treatment, but it will get changed.
Maras are being nerfed straight-up, as the damage at the tip-top skill levels is just too high. Chances are, to be frank, that there is only a single Mara per server who is playing at the level we're talking about... but it's still something that has to be done because some top players are rerolling Mara because of it... it's that powerful.
As far as tuning to other classes... I'm not going to talk about what's happening with the Sorc too much mainly because people start flying into a blind rage the moment you tell them about it... yeah they will be "reworked" or whatever PR term Bioware is going to use, but they're not wanting to talk about it publicly too much.
-
I'll say this, don't panic, I was surprised by how much they're doing internally to test all of this and how much they're consulting some really, really experienced designers in this kind of thing. The amount of work that is being done on class tuning is impressive, you're not getting the raw end of the deal, and when the combat log is introduced I think you're going to be surprised by how far public perception is from reality.
-
There are savants among us whose "gut feeling" mathematics are due to an innate ability to calculate. "Scientifically verifiable data" is only necessary when presenting your findings to others, and that only applies to a few theorycrafters.
Many theorycrafters only craft for themselves, or a few select others.
All of my theorycraft has been private, and while I won't reveal names, over the years I've helped quite a few guilds in world races. I was also involved in what later became the GCN homebrew community thanks to my reverse-cryptography, but that's not something I'll discuss publicly these days.
I will say, the best theorycrafters don't publish their work, and you would be amazed at the tools some of us have that the public doesn't even know about. None of us are ever going public, there's no reason for us to - and I think most of us have gotten to a point where we're frustrated with how people use (and abuse) our data.
-
There's a problem with this, though. Those spreadsheet guys, when armed with the facts, do amazing things for the community. You can't be both a theorycrafter and a 'gut feeling' guy. Any theory as to the inner workings of the game mechanics when presented without the actual facts is worthless without the capacity to cross reference it with scientifically verifiable data.
I'm not just a "gut feeling" guy, I come out of the economics discipline, particularly interested in small group decision making, game theory and information gathering processes. The "spreadsheet guys" don't have the mathematical background to do the kind of analysis they want to do.
If you want good information, wait for the combat logs and analyze the logs against how the players were spec'd who created the logs. By studying aggregated and specific logs, with proper filtering, you can find the best way to spec for specific encounters, as well as the best spells to use, timings, etc...
I have tested hundreds of spreadsheets over the years in various MMOs, not a single one of them ever produced statistically valid data. Save yourself the trouble of bad information, anyone who says "my spreadsheet..." is wasting your time, and doesn't have the math background to do what they say they're doing.
-
Link?
Not a link-able (nor free) source. Wait for the 1.2 and 1.3 patch notes if you need confirmation, it's coming.
To all those who are pissed
in Combat Styles
Posted
Please explain to me how all 12 of the Maras in the last Huttball I played could be in the top half of the DPS scoreboard. I'll wait.