Ajjantis
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Posts posted by Ajjantis
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The issue is that we're not in a position to make these judgments accurately. I know for certain that (a) they have a metrics system in place to gather extensive data so that they can make decisions based upon solid information (b) player perceptions of, well, everything will be radically off.
In other words, you can't really argue about comparative DPS potential, for example, because we just flat out don't know. I take that more as an indication that Op and Scoundrel players need to adjust and find a new way to get up to where they're supposed to be since given the substance of the closest thing I have to real data, they can't be as bad off as you think they are.
You cannot acknowledge the benefits of metrics while in the same breath claiming to know what class deals the least damage - it's a paradox, because acknowledging the former means acknowledging that you cannot know the latter.
Certainly some people PERCEIVE that the Op deals the least damage, but that does not mean such a thing is true. It may be that most players haven't discovered yet how to maximize them, however.
I will place more stock in something which is connected to hard data than in something which is not.
For that matter, consider this: If decisions are being correctly made based on the data, I would expect to see decisions made that don't line up with the perceptions of some players. This is especially true if instead of figuring out how to make the designed functions of the class work properly and to the right level of effectiveness, players fell back upon something which in addition to propping them up without having to figure out the aforementioned allowed players who HAD figured out how to get the most out of the class as designed to gain results well above what they should get. I would not expect this to be an issue most people would see, and that they'd be surprised by the change.
And that's what we see. I mean, really, once you acknowledge the inaccuracy of perceptions, what would you expect out of a metrics based approach?
I do enjoy the back and forth with somebody who is logically looking at this stuff. Once again i fully agree with all points.
I just cannot take BW's word that they are balancing things based purely metrics. If operatives were so massively overpowered that they needed such a large damage cut, how in the world did their "metrics" not pick it up before release. Why did it take 6 weeks for them to roll out the nerf? How did their metrics not notice the huge imbalance with consumable stacking? Why would the operative nerf be announced barely a day after the 50 bracket was introduced with no more consumable stacking?
These are just some of the many wonders I have whenever someone brings up the "metrics" statement.
Maybe this is why there are no combat logs. Damage meters would actually show us where classes stand in relation to one another and they wouldn't be able to sweep everything under the "metrics" rug.
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Yet, whether or not it's been posted on the forums is meaningless. That is not the driving force behind this game's balance - not remotely.
What's entirely possible is that a select group of players were getting there, and it's almost like preemptive medicine - getting rid of the problem before it impacts the population at large. This isn't about the perceptions of players, but rather the reality of data - and there will always be a gap between those two, though the size can vary.
Once again putting complete faith in Bioware when they have already shown how they handle class balance. Take operative for example. If they would have properly looked at numbers and released a well thought out nerf, they wouldn't have nerfed the out of stealth damage of the already lowest DPS class in PVE. That alone shows that they did not thoroughly test out their numbers before releasing the nerf, they simply wanted to shut up the people crying.
I fully agree with your thought process of the proper way of doing things. I simply don't agree that Bioware on the same page as you.
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If and only if the hybrid specs were generating numbers within guidance ranges. If they're above that, they MUST be brought down. You don't nerf something that's inside the proper range because it's more powerful than something else in that range (unless, maybe, it's at the very high end thereof and is imbalanced against many things) nor, certainly, something under that range. But if something is simply yielding better results than anything is supposed to, it must be brought down.
While sometimes it's an option, you cannot always buff out balance issues.
If they are above the numbers within guidance ranges... I know what you're trying to get at, but I don't believe I have ever seen a post complaining about assassins/shadows being too strong or surviving too long. I know in game I feel kind of bad for how fast they die considering their output generally isn't anything above what other classes are putting out. They are actually one of the few classes I am not worried about dealing with in pvp.
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Because they don't base balancing decisions on forum stuff. They have number - they actually get to look at what is REALLY happening instead of what people say is happening, and they can make decisions based upon that. In this case, something must of popped in their numbers that wasn't quite right. The fact that the hybrid specs were apparently flat out better for all purposes than the pures should tell you something about the nature of this.
If they made these changes based on what people were asking for, they'd make one bad change or wild over-correction after another. The following things are true:
1: Just because people aren't asking for it doesn't mean it's not needed or should not be done
2: Just because people are asking for it does not mean it's needed or should be done
A rational person would look at the situation from the viewpoint of, "What can we do to make not playing a hybrid better", instead of "Lets just kill the hybrid spec to force people away from doing it".
As we have seen when it comes to BW's patches, they do without thinking.
Some big examples:
-Slicing (yes it was OP) : Nerfed into being absolute trash.
-Ilum : Dont need to explain, fairly obvious.
-The massive knee-jerk nerf to operatives due to forum whining.
How you can try to rationalize their decisions honestly offends me.
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oh boo hoo.
sorry that you still get easy mode, but just not quite as much of an easy mode.
that's so sad.
I like how everyone automatically assumes that people against nerfing pvp gear are wanting it to stay strong simply because they want to continue to crush noobs.
I personally have no desire to ever set foot in a raid, or do much pve at all, this means that I will never get columni/rakata gear. A common trend that I am noticing is that top PVE gear(raid gear) is actually quite amazing for pvp. Due to the soft cap on expertise, mixing in raid gear with your pvp gear yields better results. So what happens if they decide to cut expertise usefulness in half (Exaggeration? Keep in mind this is BW). Suddenly raid gear will trump battlemaster gear soundly.
Please understand that not everyone wants top end pvp gear to be awesome because they like stomping noobs, but because without it, they would be forced to raid to stay competitive in PVP.
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What overnerf? Your own numbers prove a 20% reduction in burst, which you said you were for.
No surprise, once you discovered you couldn't ez mode stealth around and kill people in the space of one knockdown, it's suddenly an "overnerf."
Plenty of Ops heal, and a few will discover the lethality tree for the very first time, and fewer still with actual PvP skill will do just fine as concealment post-nerf. Most will quit, and re-roll sorc, then be disappointed again after discovering sorc isnt a super class, the forum just has mostly bad whiners. The mmo circle of life.
Yes indeed, I was initially okay with this nerf. It didnt sound all that bad to me. After trying it, obviously my mind has changed. Popping relic and opening on a geared sorc (used to be my easiest class to kill) for 3.5k is pretty crappy.
The hit to the damage alone would have been more than sufficient to quiet the operative haters, but the armor pen coupled with it is overkill. All of my attacks have had a noticable hit to the amount of damage they put out.
Being able to chain our 4 second stun after our knockdown simply puts us at the same level of other classes. Sorcs for instance can chain their long stun with the 2 second backend stun from their whirlwind.
In regards to our other trees, lethality is completely countered with cleanse. And our healing tree is subpar to merc and sorc.
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So like every other class? So far I've seen this twice and people are making it sound like it's the end of the world when so far every class can stun lock and I laugh at people that sit there and desperately try to fill out someone's resolve bar that fast.
Yep, pretty much no different than any other class, minus having gap closers. Dunno why so many operatives are so excited.
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Shouldn't be a deserter buff unless they place premades in their own queue, IMO.
Yeah, relighting the match lol.
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I know plenty of scoundrel/operative healers who are able to A) heal an operation and B) consistently pull high numbers in WZ's often higher than Sages/Commandos. It's not the skill tree, it's the player.
Obviously dude... I didnt say it was unplayable, only worse than sorc and merc. I play a healing operative too and I regularly am leaps and bounds above other players. But put me in the shoes of a merc or sorc healer with equal gear and suddenly the huge disadvantages of an op are now gone.
We have by far the worst defensive cooldowns. You talk about mobility, we dont have a knockback or force speed. When a melee is on us we have to take it lol. Not to mention we have 1 heal that effectively generates TA to use our other heals. Guess what happens when it gets interrupted (permanently by a smart melee), you have to rely on a hot tick.
It is obvious to anyone who plays an operative that our healing and lethality trees are subpar to other classes.
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Good heals, good mobility, stealth. I find it really funny that most Operatives/Scoundrels have solely relied on one of three skill trees available to them. There was a HUGE amount of information before and, especially during, beta. You could have made a decision before choosing to make that class. Also, last I checked, you can still use your attacks on a boss, minus the stuns you feel are necessary to use in order to kill someone.
That is because our healing tree is very sub par to the other 2 healers in pvp, and the lethality tree is completely negated by 1 ability, cleanse. So it should come as no surprise why operatives/scoundrels, for the most part, went conceal.
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It is safe to say that those worrying about an overnerf were indeed correct. With 677 expertise, before the patch my opener without buffs would hit for around 2200-2400 on light armored wearers. Log on to test it out this morning, with the red buff and relic, I see my opener just hit mr. sorc for 1800. But dont worry, with buffs running it will atleast crit for just about 4k.
Other ops/scoundrels may be seeing different results, but I am talking about targets with equal gear. But even if we talk about ganking fresh 50's, I think its safe to say the days for hitting for over 5k are over. And before any "you shouldn't be able to hit for 5k anyways" nonsense gets posted, keep in mind that they placed in a 5k hit medal for a reason, and op/scoundrel are(were) the niched burst class.
I was initially for this nerf, as I did not find it fun, or skillful, to be able to kill equal geared players within 5 seconds. Unfortunately with this overnerf, I fear that this spec will now join our other 2 in being underwhelming and undesirable.
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In my opinion, there is little to nothing BW can do to even out populations besides allowing faction transfers. Myself and many friends that I play with fully regret not rolling republic at this point in the game, seeing as though faction imbalance will ultimately cause the game to die in the future.
The one thing that is stopping us though is the long amount of time we have put into our imperial characters. I am sure this is why so few of the vast imperial swarm are reluctant to reroll aswell. Sure they could add incentives such as +20% xp/valor gain if you move to republic. But this is not going to be enough to coax people into weeks upon weeks up leveling/grinding to get back to where they were, im sure they would rather just quit the game.
If faction transfers were added, even if you had to pay something like 10-15$ for it, I am positive you would see an enormous difference in the population balance on most servers.
Thoughts?
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Best pvp healer would be between the sorc and the merc. The merc has a lot of survivability, the sorc has a wider variety of heals and better utility.
I would steer clear of operative healing till it gets a buff. The hots are "decent", but you only have 1 long casting heal and it is extremely easy to continuously interrupt, leaving you without the tactical advantage available to use the rest of your healing skills. You also have no knockback and very poor defensive cooldowns.
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Just wanted to get some opinions on this. All healers are given a long cast (3 second untalented) and a fast cast (1.5) that heals for less.
What I cant fathom is why Operative/Scoundrel quick heals must be tied to tactical advantage. It would be extremely helpful in pvp to be able to cast a quick heal whenever my big heal is interrupted (like the other healers are able to). As it stands now a player with a brain is able to permanently lock me out of casting my heal spells (except the mediocre hots), by simply interrupting 1 skill.
Would be awesome if they removed the TA requirement on this skill, seeing as though Operative/Scoundrel is already at a disadvantage versus the two other healers when it comes to utility and cooldowns.
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First OPeratives were hiding behind the "It's levels 10's and the buff-stacking!". 50 brackets, implemented and adrenal stacking removed - Operatives continue to backpedal.
Not backpedaling, buddy. As I said a few posts ago, I am not against the nerf. I just believe they went about it the wrong way. I think what needed to be nerfed was the bonus we get from *criticals*.
As shown in this video (where the dude only shows his critical opener, twice, and a critical backshot), when every single attack crits, you kill people fast.
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Still take 14k damage in 3-4 seconds with 400 expertise as a shadow tank.
I wont argue with that at all. You're in light armor. If I opened on you with red buff / relic and Opener, shiv, backstab, lacerate all crit. You're very likely going to be taking 10-12k damage. Granted im at 670 expertise.
Verses a commando or warrior type with 600 expertise, however, I would be hard pressed to push 10k if all 4 of my attacks crit. Unfortunately thats not what usually happens. Its a very sad moment when you have a red buff and open with a non crit of 1600 damage followed by 1200, 1600, 1200.
Don't get me wrong, I am for the nerf. But people legitimately need to stop taking videos like this seriously. Everyone remembers the time when the operative/scoundrel pops out on them and crits everything and obliterates them, but they never remember all the many times when that doesn't happen.
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Interesting video.
-Look for players with little to no pvp gear / sub 14k hp.
-Open, backblast, reopen. (Make sure to only show kills when buffs are maxed and every attack crits
-Move to next clip of the same vs more undergeared players.
Man look out! This class is waaaaaay overpowered.
People leaving wz is now out of control.
in PvP
Posted
I can guarantee that the amount of leaving would go significantly down if queuing solo didn't put you against a premade to get stomped repeatedly.
When I am with my premade, we win 9/10 games. Why? Because it NEVER pits us against other premades. When I queue solo, I am almost exclusively put against premades. The only times that I am not are when the premade is put on my team and we crush the soloers.
When I solo queue and my team gets crushed horribly at the start of the game by a premade, the leaving begins and there is nothing to do to stop it.
Should there be a deserter debuff? Maybe
Should there be separate queues? Definitely