It was bugging me, so here you go: https://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?p=9774653#edit9774653 towards the bottom "The following Tacticals have discrepancies in their tooltips but function as intended. Refer to the patch notes for correct descriptions: Energized Blade Tactical B-0 Differential Targeting System Tactical Ruthless Interrogation Tactical Acid Lash Tactical"

Count me as the opposite here, I'm resubscribing BECAUSE of the difficulty bump. In terms of normal content I've noticed almost no difference but I can now turn my attention to soloing things like Aurora Cannon and feel like thats actually an accomplishment now rather than just a part of a weekly chore. Having more content push folks towards grouping is only beneficial in my mind. We as a playerbase have a tremendous amount of experience and wisdom to pass on to the folks who came after us. 4.x & 5.x left no-one wanting to learn, SM Ops were a chore. People fled at the sight of Manaan, EC, Rav, ToS, Nathema... etc. The games difficulty hasn't even increased all that much. Folks still run solo tank/healer SM EVs. We've lost a level or two on synced planets and the incredibly large crutch which was healing companions has been nerfed. And that isn't even a big deal. The Aurora Cannon boss has a lifetap with massive self heals, so you can't exactly outlast that fight... however... basically all the other heroics can be soloed by a tank companion/healer player or vice versa at need, and a hell of a lot are still playable with dps companion/dps player. If you're having difficulty with the removal of the healing companion crutch then my advice to you is this: Change how you play. Instead of having the companion heal for you, try healing for the companion. Instead of healing a DPS companion, try healing a tank companion. Gear up, get set bonuses (some of which are SPECIFICALLY designed for solo players >>> The Preserver, Taskmaster & Victor spring to mind) choose your tacticals wisely, switch out what you use depending on what you need. Instead of looking at this as a chore, look at it as a way to improve your play. Because god only knows the average skill of the playerbase has declined precipitously since Makeb & SoR, and most of us here in this thread would be happy to help you improve if you'd but ask for help instead of demanding crutches. As it pertains to the Iokath sentinels, wasn't that declared as bugged and/or not WAI by the devs a couple weeks ago?

The high-ilvl buffs actually raise your stats to a similar point to how we were geared in the last expansion. I for one am enjoying the return of more difficult encounters. Its been a blast getting to see old mechanics make a return from the trash heap of irrelevance they were relegated to. Bear in mind as well, this is the beginning of an expansion. Get your tacticals sorted out, learn how the new abilities affect your rotation, stop using Serendipitous/Retribution for synced content, get your set bonuses in order, optimize your i306s. Theres a lot still to do to reach where we were at.

To let you guys know: A known issue from the onslaught launch is that the tooltips for Acid Lash and its pubside equivalent are incorrect. Acid Blade damage is actually double. (+100%) Hopefully a fix has been targeted for this next patch but know that what the tactical is actually doing is this: Laceration/Sucker Punch refreshes the duration of Acid Blade/Flechette Round, causes Acid Blade/Flechette Round to tick, and additionally increases the damage of Acid Blade/Flechette Round by 100%.

I'd like to add something about difficulty as well. When I personally want a "harder" experience. What I'm looking for isn't an increased DPS check or a higher health pool. What I'm looking for is more engaging mechanics. Once upon a time swtor had a mechanics called "interrupts" which, if not used, would frequently result in character death, dismemberment, stuns, or excessive hp depletion. Nowadays no-one cares about interrupts in anything except hard mode and NiM encounters because the penalty for missing an interrupt is too minor. This is one example of a mechanics which increased difficulty and made the game 'harder' that I'd like to see return. Not an inflation of health pools or a dramatic increase in baseline dtps, but a return of "you screwed up so now take damage" mechanics.

Gearing diversity is something which is great when it promotes choice. Here's the problem, amplifiers do not promote choice outside of certain specific pieces (mods). Quoting jambalayabungee from a different thread, below are the currently known amplifiers. As you'll note as you read through the benefits for mods are pretty good, no game changing effects but they will slightly impact the way you play. The problem is the damage increasing and DR and healing effects. There are functionally 2 categories of attacks which are better than EVERYTHING else. Anything that affects the Force or Tech class of damage/healing: "Tech Wizardry, Force Sensitivity, Medtech, Force Harmonization, Tech Aegis and Force Protection." They're just flat out better than everything else offered in this category. If you get rid of them then Armor Pen might become the next best, then Periodic Intensity, then AoE damage... etc. All that those bonuses are is a direct increase in damage output. Nothing else. They don't interact with the manner in which you do damage. You can't increase the number of dot ticks you'll hit someone with over the course of a dot. AoE damage is not going to become rotational unless theres a deeper underlying problem with that classes balance. (Sorc -> Recklessness) Increasing your threat generation isn't a "fun and interesting" mechanic. Threat is a non-issue for tanks, adding in increased threat modifiers to DPS that have to be re-rolled is punishing players for getting better gear by increasing their chance of dying. Adjusting your companions threat modifiers is fine, adjusting your own is not okay. Companions don't affect other players, you do when you play in groups. Imagine whats going to happen if a player with 5 4% lifesteal enhancements goes into a warzone and proceeds to tab-dot and AoE 8 other players. Now couple that with a healer also healing them, these amplifiers are a vehicle to cause horrendous imbalance amongst all the group content types SWTOR currently has to offer. As was mentioned previously, allowing for a 15%ish flat damage increase for all players locked behind an RNG wall is a nightmare for balancing content. Do you now balance everything assuming that all players have the maximum DPS increase? What about those players with damage profiles which are not fully Force or Tech and who gain (still significant) more marginal benefits from the % damage increase gear? Do you balance for 10%? 5%? at what point does the content become trivialized before you even acquire the new tier of gear? When do you replace gear that rolls with a 1.5% damage increase modifier? If all amplifiers were more like the mods category gearing wouldn't have all these questions attached. As it stand this is the WORST. GEAR. RELATED. IDEA. to ever grace SWTOR. Worse even than command crates. Quoting jambalayabungee from a different thread with the lists of currently known amplifiers & effects. ARMORINGS / HILTS / BARRELS defensives: Reinforced Armor : reduces dmg taken from weapon attacks Aural Resistance : take less aoe dmg Periodic Defense : armor against dots Tech Aegis : defense against tech attacks Force protection :well, protection against force XD Fortuitous redoubt: absorb shield when you parry dodge or reflect En garde :reduce dmg taken on first attack out of combat Shield reflection: healing: Force harmonization : more force healing medtech: more tech healing residual Revovery : direct heals leaves an HOT on the target Overward: overhealing gives an absorb shield on the person healed Aural rejuvenation : more AOE heal Readied Healing: increase healing of your first direct heal out of combat Periodic healing : increase periodic healing offensive: armor pen : kinetic or energy dmg ignore a portion enemy's armor Periodic Intensity : increase dmg by periodic effects Aural Command : do more AOE dmg force sentitivity : more force dmg tech wizardry : more tech damage First strike : more dmg dealt by your first attack out of combat weapon expertise : more wp dmg MODS: Durable Coating reduce durability lost on gear Presence Stim Longevity : stim last longer Diplomacy /archeo /bio / gathering /treasure hunter/ UW trading ... expert : + success rate Bargain haggling : repair cost less Featherweight: reduce damge taken from falling Frequent flyer : reduce cost traveling influencal: comp gain more influence power napping : more rest xp rate Mount speed : increase mount speed ENHANCEMENTS Life Stealing :heal the caster for a % of damage done Kwikpacs (lol) : reduce the cooldown timer for health packs Soothing Haste : your heal -gives movement speed boost Hardiness : regenerate a small amount of Heal per second while stunned/ incapacited Threat generation Snaring crits : your crits slows Heal Magnet : more healing received Juiced Meds: increase the effects of health pack Calming Companions: reduce threat of companions towering companions : more threat of companions Combat invigoration: health regen in combat Critical mov : your crit give you mvt speed Overkill: applied a % of dmg dealt beyond what is needing to kill an enemy to an nearby enemy! stealth detection : improves SD rolling heals : heal your caster when your periodic effect crit (dot?) jailbreaking : lower the cooldown of your stun breaker Strong legged : reduce slow on you defensive healing : Hot on you when you use a defensive selfish healing : you heal yourself for more SHELLS (All pieces but weapons and tacticals): Adventuring bounty - more creds and xp from quests starship bounty (gsf) increases xp and reknown flashpoint bounty operation bounty potent slicing/..crewksills critical rates, mission + critical rate ... EDIT: Legacy Experience (increases legacy experience from all sources) EDIT: Unlucky: "Sometimes youre just unlucky.Rumor has, being unlucky enough reveals a special reward" ??? EDIT : Competitive Bounty : increase the reward gained from PVP EDIT: Resourceful :improve your gathering from resources nodes

I'm pissed off, am I not a person? Folcwar's pissed off too, is he not a person? Darev isn't happy with this system, is he not a person either? There's three out of the population who sub and play PTS. I'm certain there's more.

Problem is, its not a trivial damage increase. At minimum its 9 pieces of a potential 1.5% damage increase. 9x1.5 is... lesse... carry the ****ton and... 9x1.5 is 13.5 so its a potential 13.5% damage increase just for getting lucky. Thats a lot of damage. If it capped out at 1.5% damage increase total people wouldn't be as pissed off. If it capped out as not affecting damage in the slightest we would be offering constructive criticism on how to improve the system as it exists. As it stands now this is simply an unacceptable new layer of RNG on top of an already RNG gearing system.

The one point I'll disagree on is tacticals, I think having an AoE, Sustain and Burst tactical is an okay way to implement tacticals. Each has a reason for use (PvP, AoE, PvE). Inasmuch as the set bonuses go though? Restoman is right on the money. Give us a set bonus for PvE which is focused on increasing our damage. Give us a set bonus for PvP which is focused on increasing burst and Defensives. Add in utility bonuses for Mounts, Gathering, Run Speed... etc. Open World stuff. And just get rid of amplifiers. They aren't worth hanging on to. Not in their current state.

Hybrid Specs are gone, never to come back. If you want those back then thats a whole different rabbit hole to go down as it pertains to skill trees. Adding RNG DPS modifiers to your gear just creates imbalance between gearsets and throws the idea of higher ilvl being a better DPS increase/END increase... etc out the window because now you have to calculate if losing a flat 1.5% damage buff is worth gaining 10 extra mastery which (spoiler alert) it ain't. This also negates the idea of vertical progression as now you need a constant source of gear to re-roll as well as a constant source of credits to use to re-roll, and the better ilvl gear may not actually be better to use. This is basically a credit sink version of WoW titanforging. I don't really feel like I should have to explain why that system is complete and utter crap. That information already exists. Make the bonuses situational such as featherweight or resourcefulness and most people won't care that much. Keep **** like Tactical Wizardry and Armor Pen in and we'll get riled up when our performance gets layered behind walls of RNG.

Eh, not considering this pay2win because you can't directly buy credits from the CM is a technicality. Personally, I think the amplifier system is completely and utterly screwed up. First point of contention I have is this: The damage bonuses do stack, without any amplifiers I got a 31k crit stealthed backstab. With amps I got (tech wizardry and armor pen) a 38k crit backstab AFTER trading away around 1.5k crit rating for alacrity. The bonuses definitely stack and are a noticeable dps gain. Heres a quick parse I made to demonstrate. http://parsely.io/parser/view/447826/0 First is with AoE VS, ignore it. Second is no amps Acid Lash tactical, Fourth is amps Acid Lash tactical. Second is 1.4s GCD, Fourth is 1.3s GCD. I crit for more on fourth parse than second simply due to amp bonuses. I feel that damage boosting amplifiers have no place in this game. Especially when they break down into specific subtypes of damage. My second point of contention is that basically every class has a "dot" spec and a "burst" spec and the amplifiers you can get subdivide the damage bonuses to attack type (F/T/Weapon) as well as damage type Energy (armor pen)/ Internal (periodic). Wasn't one of the stated goals for this expansion to make sharing gear easier between characters? This completely negates that stated goal as you now need up to 3 sets of gear per class with each set focusing on the different damage types you deal, Armor Pen is good for Arsenal for example while Periodic would be better for IO. Weapon Expert would be better for IO while Tech Wizardry would be better for Arsenal... etc etc... Third point of contention is this: Crew Skill specific bonuses are terrible for similar reasons to the above. A well-rounded crafter will have all the crew skills covered on different characters. There is NO POINT then in having armor with Bioanalysis Potency on it as that will benefit one character while the others make no use of it. And why even have crew skill bonuses for missions regardless? If you have one armor set for crafting you're going to be wearing it on the character you're currently playing which bypasses the benefit of having the other characters running missions while they are not logged in. TL;DR The amps system needs a LOT of work. P.S. Things like featherweight are bonuses that I do like, they don't affect competitive gameplay in a significant manner but they do have a noticeable impact on gameplay in non-competitive content like heroics, exploration or datacron hunting. P.P.S. Threat Gen as an Amplifier HAS TO GO AWAY. Don't ship that in live of you're going to get a slew of very pissed off tanks, healers & dps posting on the forums. Threat Gen for companions is fine, Threat Gen for players is unacceptable. Either positive or negative generation.

How would gaining set bonii and new tacticals not provide a damage increase at the synced content? The only stats which are synced down are power, mastery & endurance (maybe defense?) so they only effect the bonus damage and health of our characters. Tacticals and Set Bonii haven't interacted with those stats... well... ever I think. This also isn't like 2.0 or 3.0 as the operations won't become solo-able or close enough to. Each of the operations will remain relevant, as they do now, and will simply have different gearing targets. The challenge for players who want to help will remain, the challenge has basically never been gear related with these old operations but is 99% either mechanics or someone who just isn't willing to learn how to play their class. Downscaling operations actually opens up a lot more opportunities for people who aren't geared up to the current level cap to help out as they will most likely have passed the gearing targets for something like EV or KP very quickly upon reaching level 50 or 51. I can understand the feeling of not feeling powerful anymore with the idea of downscaling, but in contrast to now I don't see this as different from the status quo. Right now the old operations are scaled up in difficulty with each level cap and they take a near-identical amount of time to clear. They don't pose any threat in SM, and you quickly bypass the recommended gear for HM. Similar to how downscaling functions. Either the ops are upscaled (which, don't kid yourself, has always just been a numbers tweak) or we get downscaled. Same effect though, equitable amounts of time are required to clear. If your complaint is that the content is not difficult enough and does not pose a challenge then I'd phrase that in a manner which doesn't attack the baseline idea behind the content. i.e.: "I feel like the content is not difficult enough and I would recommend reducing the bonus damage we can currently acquire as well as increasing the damage done by the operations or further reducing the healing potential of the classes in synced content."

The question I would pose in response is how is the current content any different? Scaling content down just means that your Bonus Damage and Health are capped. Thats it. Crit, Alacrity, Accuracy... these are all your gearing targets. Sure your health is lower, but the incoming damage is lower as well. Sure you're doing less numbers, but the enemies have less numbers as well. This isn't like other games where you're scaled down and lose access to abilities and the like, a level 75 will have access to their entire kit while synced down as well as all the utilities. All this is is balancing the content such that they don't have to rebalance it every level cap increase and they can instead spend that effort on other things. Basically: playing at a scaled level is functionally identical to playing at level cap in this game with one caveat: stat rating increases have no effect on mastery, power or endurance while synced. If they can solve the issue of secondary stats not functioning while synced or create a solution that eliminates the problem then we're all good. Dev time is freed up and the operations remain at a constant balance state while we play our classes exactly as it is now save with lower numbers (equal in relation to the content). The community will adapt, we already know that different numbers are good on different bosses (i.e. Soa is utter **** for DPS while TFB give significant uptime) and the community will arrive at good relative numbers for these bosses with a little adjustment. TL;DR Numbers are pointless aside from relation to the content and the content isn't "new and exciting" when its scaled up to level cap with each expansion as none of the mechanics change, its just scaling in a way which creates more work for the devs and ties up more development time.

Berserker is a general set which increases your damage dealt by 5% while increasing the damage you take by 10% (or decreasing your DR by 10% or something)

I feel the bigger issue right now is the lack of competitive DPS boosts on class-specific sets. Inasmuch as healing and/or tanking sets go, the general set bonuses are okay (not amazing but not terrible) Inasmuch as DPS sets go... nothing compares to the Berserker set at the moment which is a damn travesty. Edit: And with only 7 possible set pieces and sets giving the desired effects at 6 pieces we can't "mix and match" as we were led to believe. More sets are fine by me if we have lower numbers of pieces required for the bonus. i.e. if Berserker was a 6piece, but tactician (increases dps by 1%, +1 stack TA) was a 2piece then I could also toss in toxic haze refunds TA cost and that might approach similar levels of DPS gain. But please, just get rid of the berserker set altogether, its just too good for other sets to compete with.

Can we just get rid of this "the numbers are all wrong" fallacy right now? Numbers are numbers, its how they are in relation to the content thats what matters. Whether you do 10k DPS to a target with 1mil, or 1k DPS to a target with 100k DOESN'T MATTER. Proportionally its the exact same kill time. Scaling up or scaling down will have the same kill time. What bioware is trying to do is to create systems which will function in perpetuity so they don't have to devote as many resources to rebalancing the older operations with a level increase and I for one am 100% behind that.

Non-crit dependent heals is something I can get behind, but I also want to push the idea of lowering the maximum crits on heals should the baseline numbers get buffed. For a long time we've had really, really strong heals in basically all content which makes tanks feel like containers for aggro and incoming healing, lessens the survivability of dps without babysitting, and totally screws over the vast majority of regular PvP warzones. Now would be an excellent time to reduce the effect of crits on healing, reduce healing in general to be a little less potent, reduce incoming damage slightly to compensate and make hp actually feel like a resource instead of a 'oh, whoops, thats gone now' thing.

I'm sad. Returning to Operative feedback though: Set Bonuses. Debilitator is good for PvP, does not impact PvE content... like... at all. We'll sacrifice this one to the PvP gods and move on. Healing Haze is apparently equitable healing to Kolto Waves for healers, will not impact Operative DPS. Healers get a cool toy. Tactician is... nice to have the 1% back for keeping at least one stack of TA. Gives a little more leeway on burst windows, smooths rotations out a bit if you screw something up. Does not otherwise significantly impact DPS. It's... okay? Kinda fun sometimes? But not something which is going to see significant use. The AoE one is good for AoE. As it is supposed to be. Set Bonii wise, nothing class specific impacts our DPS as much as using the Berserker set. Is this intended? Where are the good old: "reduce energy cost of Shiv by 5" type of bonii which increases sustained damage by allowing for higher damage/higher cost abilities to be used rotationally or semi-rotationally? Or just the flat out: "Your class is amazing, feel awesome and do more damage" type of set bonuses? Currently we can only mix and match the 2 piece with another 4 piece. Or have a 6 piece. And currently no set bonus makes switching from Berserker for a class specific set worthwhile. I think that should change, personally.

But Snave, I want a defensive buff. Can I have one?

If the devs are willing to make that change, I'd love it. I just have extremely low faith in anything good being done to our beloved class at this point. Pessimism has won out over the years.

But if thats the price we need to pay to shift to a non-gcd-defensive playstyle, thats a price I'm willing to pay. Even if the payoff comes half a year or more down the line.

Oh, simple really. I'm sooo very tired of Operatives having to spend GCDs on defensive abilities. Nerfing roll creates an opening for operatives to gain oGCD defensive abilities that are not omniboost. Game-mode wise we're fine. Reality wise too much of our defensive capabilities have been shuffled onto roll for too many years now. I'd like to receive some of the stupidly absurd abilities some of the other classes have been receiving over the past years. i.e. Responsive Safeguards... etc.

You've got my brain rolling, so here are some ideas for clickies: Tanks: Gain an absorb shield equal to x% of your maximum hp Increase your damage reduction by x% for 10s Increase your Damage Dealt (significantly) while causing you to take constant damage equaling an arbitrarily large numeric value to prevent DPS from taking this relic over 30s DPS: Deal x damage in a 5 meter AoE around you Reduce your crit damage to 25% while increasing your chance to crit to 99% (no autocrit crit chance rollover, would make classes that do extra things on crits a little more interesting, if any still exist) Immediately regenerate 20% of your classes resources while also giving you 5 stacks of a damage increasing buff which increases your damage dealt by 5% per stack, remove 1 stack per ability use Healers: Immediately heal yourself and any friendly targets within 5 meters by an arbitrarily large amount Lose 20% of your health to regenerate 20% of your class resources and increase your alacrity by 15% for 10s I dunno about heal stuff, but there are definitely ways to make clickies an interesting facet of gameplay instead of functionally passive.

I miss the days of walking around with the old 30s triggered relics. Pretty sure we had a "do x damage every 10s with y% proc rate" relic as well back in the 1.0 days. Personally? I'd love to get rid of the power/mastery autobuff relics. They remove a gameplay element from fight optimization and turn it into twitch optimization as as you've said you've only got 6s to make use of the buff.

Some Concealment Feedback. I'm biased, I never liked Volatile Substance, so I'm not a huge fan of how 2/3 of the concealment tacticals revolve around that one ability. That being said: Explosive Cells: its a nice AoE damage boost. It does what it is supposed to. Volatile Strike: I"m guessing this is meant to be the 'give your class more burst' tactical. Its theoretically good but fails in one primary respect: This tactical loses all effectiveness when Volatile Substance explodes from any of your poison damage abilities. To recap: Acid Blade (6s dot applied from Backstab, used rotationally), Corrosive Dart (damage boost when energy allows), Noxious Knives (AoE) and Toxic Haze (AoE) all do poison damage and all will set off Volatile Substance. At least two of these poison effects should be present relatively frequently (CD and AB) as well, since the tick rate is quick on those dots you don't frequently get to use Veiled Strike before the dot has ticked and blown your VS up. I think this tactical needs to be changed, a good example might be: Blowing up VS makes your next Veiled Strike an autocrit. Similar result, easier to access effect. Acid Lash: I really like the idea of this tactical. Unfortunately its currently bugged and Laceration does not refresh the duration of the Acid Blade effect. This is an excellent tactical though, I hope it gets fixed quickly as it synergizes with already present passives in the concealment tree to make the class feel a little more than it was. Excellent idea whomever came up with this one. Recap: Explosive Cells is fine, no WOW moments. Volatile Strike contradicts the playstyle of the class and should probably be adjusted to fall more in-line with how the class currently plays. Acid Lash is currently bugged but I'm eagerly awaiting its fix.