Mercenary T'green <Fatality> T3-M4 Some of the fights are not much to look at due to adds spawning, last finger triggering after Brontes died or Calphayus getting his bubble back at 30000 health etc ... the tank also decided to pull Nefra while I'm on the phone standing right at the instance entrance. Grob'thok - 3420.09 (single target only) Not sure about Grob'thok, it seems there should be a section for non-meter padded ... although I don't really care, I just personally don't feel very positive about meter padding in general. Just wanted to put that opinion out there. Corruptor Zero - 3585.76 Bestia - 3094.72 Tyrans - 3383.17 Dread Masters - 3133.69 Cheers!

What is frustrating is no actual balancing since 2.0 and the disappointment you sowed after (finally) admitting to pure DPS being overtuned. Assassin Tank fixes in 2.5 are long overdue and appreciated, but tanks are not the only role that alre badly balanced. As you already acknowledged in another post damage dealers and especially healers are pushed into certain classes and the messiah that was 2.5 to many now just exploded for many raiding players. Where is the fix to pushback for Mercs and Sorcerers? The general adjustments for Marauder & Sniper superior DPS and insane Orbital Strike efficiency? When I look at DfA and OS and compare the two, knowing that they should fulfill the same purpose for the two different ACs I have to wonder whether the Dev team either all play Agents or not at all. Bloodthirst stacking was fixed, which is good and at the same time the go-to spec of the prime melee class got buffed! I can't even palm my face as hard as I'd like to right now and I'm certain I'm not the only one. Operative healers in both PvE and even more so PvP are still going to dominate in terms of pretty much everything, be it throughput, resource management or mobility. All of these problems are very obvious and not new. Balance wise nothing has changed since 2.0 and five patches later one of many issues is adressed, which is a terrible record by industry standards.

No. They said instead of hybrid tax they give the pure dps ACs more utility in form of Predation, Bloodlust and Ballistic shield. Now the gap in utility is still the same and there's a hybrid tax on top of that which is unfair to everyone playing anything but a tank, healer, Marauder or Sniper. And with the current NiM content being full of bosses with harsh enrage timers (well, now that we've geared up Asation and Darvanis don't matter anymore, but Dread Palace will) you won't be at your possible personal best unless you play one of these ... and in turn you'll start being a liability to your group. How many 1% or even 0% wipes have there been at the pre-nerf DG or post-buff TfB wiping you at 4%? Guess what, that would've been a kill with 1 Marauder and 3 Snipers instead!

I'm here pointing you and everyone else to it ... the quotes are just taken because they caught the readers eye and it was easy to make catchphrases out of them. Other than that, a DPS Sorcerer under preassure will heal once with his instant self heal and once with his absorb shield and no more after that because every other heal would have a cast time on top of ridiculous cost inefficiency. For Mercenaries this would be even more horrible because they have no instant abilities outside of an AoE heal (that is balanced for AoE healing and thus sucks when used on one only yourself) and the shorter cast time heal has a cooldown ... and it's not hard to imagine that Mercs would've gotten a similar response on the same topic. The "heal to full" part is rather funny and quite stupid to use as an answer regarding defensive cooldowns. It is used over and over as a meme because it is just simply ridiculous. And they do admitt that Sorcerer survivability is suboptimal! Which lowers your value as a damage dealer, since you're supposed to deal damage ... another class takes up as much space in your group and wouldn't have this problem, but it wouldn't be fair to compare anything else to those two ACs. So first they admit a problem and then they tell us that they just don't give a damn. The "make them pay for trying to kill you" is so funny because with no defense worth mentioning (& that doesn't stun you for the duration) any defensive playstyle might seem a little hard to pull off. Well, what do we have here? A statement that contradicts itself in more than one way. 1. Sorcerers are not supposed to be easier to shut down than Snipers, but they clearly are! 2. Most of all ranged healing and damage abilities have an activation time and this is the root of the problem. 3. What exactly is there to be careful about? Not getting interrupted? Not getting cast time pushback on group damage in operations? You as a player cannot influence either. 4. LoS actually does not work in favor of the player that has the longer activation times. Translation: Learn to play. Plain and simple ... and rude. Now this a lot of people have ignored because it's overshadowed by the answers before that were so completely devoid of quality and the fact that this change should've happened in 2.3 at latest! Yet, it's a really good answer, thought through, truthful and comprehensive. No. Assassins have Force Speed and 10 meter range on all major abilities and Guardians have Force Charge and Saber Throw. And I'm pretty sure none of that has any effect on defensive capabilities, which was the point of the question. And? Inquisitor classes also have twice the base defense chance and Guardians wear heavy armor as well, not to mention that the PTs long range capabilities don't deviate in quality but only quantity actually - it is a melee class through and through. Snide and useless since there is no perception problem. Statistics and the combat logs we player collected are not subject to perception, they are what the game really is: Numbers. And numbers don't change just because you look at them differently. And the playerbase did cry out loud when PT Hybrids were doing insane dps on PTS back in the day - and they were nerfed ... together with full Pyrotech for both ACs which seems to be the root of the problem. And they know hybrids are the problem ... and you know how easy it would be to fix any hybrid shennanigans if you just wanted to? Have all the cool stuff in the different trees require the specific stance and you're good to go. It was done with Assassins a while back and if they would've changed AP's Flamethrower the same way we wouldn't have this conversation now. And the only thing that 36 point Pyrotech spec might outperform is a Deception Assassin in PvE! While this is true for AP, Pyrotech clearly got nerfed for both ACs and Mercenary Pyrotech was in even more dire need of attention before. A sign that points into the direction of "they don't know what they are doing". So Annahilation and Rage Marauders don't have an armor debuff and they can't use their executes either (latter part is also true for MM and hybrid Snipers). Tell me ... how am I not supposed not to think that I'm getting bullsh*itted here? Because you damn well know this is nothing but a steaming pile and while not as catchy as the "perception problem" one of the things that people disgusted most about these answers.

So, what did you find out about Bodyguard, Corruption, Madness, Deception, Darkness, Concealment and Pyrotech specs then? Any obvious things popping up during your observation? Any aprropriate course of action being initiated on this fine Monday?

No. Fool us once ... Children learn at a very young age that it's probably not a good to make show and tell experiments with anything that involves heat, sharp edges or hights and then repeat it becaus it might actually work if you just try the same thing over and over. Toddlers are just to damn smart for that.

With the current path taken I really don't give a damn. When 3.0 is due Wildstar will be out to solve all our issues.

Lovely ... so what exactly happened with the boatload of data they must have accumulated between 2.0 and now? And what exactly is the purpose of having a PTS? Looking for bugs only and ignoring any other data that might be found there? And isn't 2.4 the most major content patch for each and every regard of the game? It's not just Arenas, but also a new operations tier and balance is as almost as screwed up for PvE as it is for PvP.

I don't think that nerfing energy costs or management is the right way. A simple reduction in throughput - especially for recuperative nanotech - and everything will be all right. A very brief cooldown for Surgical Probe, when not used on a target below 30% HP in return for a slight reduction of Kolto Injection cooldown might fix a lot of PvP issues as well.

You could possibly calculate the absorb by regression using other heals (which gives you the healing power) and character level. There would be a margin of error correlating with the number of heals and not all absorb shields might be fully depleted, although at least for nightmare operations this is generally unlikely. At least for juggernaut tanks this would work great since the barriers have a static value and at least the Sonic Barrier is almost always used entierly. It could still be used as a tool for meter padding by placing bubbles on every raid member whether there's group damage or not.

I'll trade for Flashy! ;>

The difference is simple: the other two classes have 3 fully functioning skill trees that already outperform everything else in their own niche.

Annihilation/Watchman is pure irony here as it's the only damage dealing spec that actually heals others and it belongs to a pure class. You Commando guys have to pick up the slack once Bioware's done giving everyone else the finger. The questions from the page before look really good to ask right now, but a lot can change and you should rather ask "when can we count on seeing adjustments?" instead of "are you doing anything besides taking smoke breaks?". And of course a lot can change until the Commando questions are actually answered.

With the global +15% Surge talent that makes critical chance uniquely strong for Bodyguards, why not give Mercenaries a more unique way to regenerate resources than to cover the tried and proven Operative Version. I would prefer to see something that works the same way, but with an unique twist to add more flavor. How about: Kolto Coolant 0/2 Every critical heal builds one stack of Kolto Coolant. This can only happen once every 1.5 seconds. Once 4 stacks are reached you will vent 8 heat over 2 seconds, during which no new stacks of Kolto Coolant may be gained. This would also interacts nicely with multihit heals (Rapid Shots, healing residue effects) and Kolto Shell. In addition some adjustments to the following wouldn't hurt. Emergency Scan cooldown - could be reduced by using other skills eg. Rapid Shots and/or Kolto Missile. Power Surge stacks and cooldown. Thermal Sensory Override stacks and cooldown. ps: I stole your name, because it's really spot on for what this kind of talent does. :>

No need to "wait and see" ... they waited around since RotHC was released and the most meaningful balancing change since then was a "+15% movement speed" adjustment for juggernaut dds. The term FotM was used in many other MMOs, but we might want to adjust that to "favorite of the year" to match Biowares balancing efforts.

Die Op Rot (hat btw auch in Loom schon Op Rot geheißen) - welche all die Erfolge geholt hat - bestand bei Loom aus den selben Mitgliedern wie jetzt bei Fatality. Alle bei den Kills anwesenden Leute waren durchgehend in der Raid Gruppe aktiv. Loom -> Fatality war schlicht eine Umbenennung auf Wunsch des ehemaligen Loom GM, anders als Seven Stuck was eine Fusion war. Der Unterschied ist also dass die eine Raid Gruppe schon in ein und derßelben Form existiert hat und die andere überhaupt nicht. Das sieht man auch sehr schön an den unteschiedlichen Bekanntmachungen und Screenshots in denen man die Raidmember sehen kann. Ein weiterer Hinweis wäre natürlich auch der Eintrag in dem spreadsheet der eindeutig Fatality heißt, mit dem Hinweiß "formally Loom". Siehe hier.

Wir haben gar nichts gerechnet, das tracking spreadsheet wurde im Post verlinkt und wird von der Gilde suckafish zusammengetragen und editiert. Ambassadors hat derzeit noch keinen Titel-Run geschafft laut dem spreadsheet, was uns einen Rang höher setzt, weil wir den Content was Asation angeht komplett haben und sie nicht. Seven Stuck gab es zu Asation noch nicht und die Gilden aus der sie eben bestanden waren vor der Neuformiereung bei weitem nicht so stark wie jetzt in S&V.

Nightmare mode requires optimized hard mode quality loot and it also drops higher quality items right now and whoever can battle the encounters wouldn't need anything dropping in hard mode anyway. There will be no issue at all here - if anything some players that need small improvements (a few enhancements here and there e.g.) will find NiM more accessible after lockouts are seperated. How so? Dread Guards nerf was ... unlucky and massively over the top (Teamspeak went haywire when we saw what magnitude the HP nerf had ... and how incoming tank damage got cut down by the same amount), but they also were not tuned to be in line with the rest of the Asation bosses before. A separation of lockouts wouldn't change anything. Since NiM isn't just another mode to farm, but the one you get all the hard mode gear for, so you get a chance to complete it in the first place. NiM gear right now is just fancy stuff to show off and to make it gradually easier to run NiM again and again after you completed it - there's nothing in the game that actually requires you to be in full Q75 gear. About future SM & HM operations ... there is nothing wrong with rewarding previously successfull players when it comes to content that will be probably rather easy to begin with.

Like a russian ballet dancer. On coke. Haven't thought of this, but it seems like a quite valid complaint now that I think of it.

When there are things to ask such as heat costs for any and all our damage over time effect or why Pyrotech sucks so much in general. Why there's no armor debuff (our only utility) for Pyrotech when the other two classes that come with it can apply it no matter which spec they choose. And how does one justify a much more unforgiving resource system but less damage compared to those other classes which I don't want to name here. And for Pyrotech going back to the old 4p would an outright nerf - not that it matters a lot with the state the spec is in right now. I personally have no issue with more damage on Rail Shot and heat neutral cost instead of effectively regenerating some heat.

With the new and improved difficulty of nightmare mode operations this should've happened yesterday.

Odawgg. But it doesn't matter if the right questions are asked, which are simple enough and come down to: - Bodyguard? - Pyrotech? - Fusion Missile cost? Each followed by the question: "Are you kidding me?"

At fist I was certain that this is just trolling, but somehow I fear you might actually think any of your suggestions might actually be anything but a terrible gamebreaking idea. The argument about bolster not working that well for PvP alone should be enough of an answer and end this discussion.

As far as I know Bioware hasn't mentioned anything at all about tomorrow. Good to hear, while I personally don't really care about the ranking I find it a little arrogant to proclaim world first kills that are obtained by taking short cuts. 24 hours! I for one have stocked up on lubricant and kleenex for improved and prolonged stroking, so it can come.* You still seem to have plenty time to find a possible substitution till then ... got no specific ideas on how to resolve this problem, at least none that will draw attentions of the moderator staff. * 'it' of course is the patch!

Quite the opposite, the faster you get through the more flashpoints you can complete in a given timeframe and most of the experience comes from completing certain goals - this does include the bonus boss and finishing the dungeon. But anything that isn't vital to those two things can be skipped easily.