ArchingBeast
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On 6/10/2023 at 1:46 AM, Jerba said:
I would like to reaffirm that this bug is still present. We see it every week and waste at least 20 minutes of our raid night working around it. This is not an isolated issue; it affects every raid group that frequently wipes on bosses, and it is incomprehensible how this bug has been in-game for over a year and is being ignored.
In the hope of getting it fixed, here is all the information we know about it.- This bug was introduced with Game Update 7.0. It was present on 7.0 PTS (during R-4 testing, this was before R-4 Anomaly was pushed back to GU 7.1) and it arrived on the live servers with 7.0. Many players say it started with 7.1 because they only started raiding again during 7.1 (when R-4 Anomaly was released to the live servers) but it started with 7.0. For example, we have seen this bug on PTS 7.0 in R-4, and on live 7.0 in the Terror from Beyond operation.
- This bug ("seeing dead players") is closely related to another bug ("stuck at 90% in loading screen"); they always appear together.
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For this bug to happen, the following conditions must be met:
1. The player must be in a group (either a 4-player party or an operation group; this does not matter) and
2. The corpse (death location) must be more than 135 meters away from the respawn point (area start in operations, medcenter in flashpoints). - After every wipe, there is a small chance for the bug to occur. In other words, it can occur after the first wipe, or it can occur after 5 wipes. The longer the raid goes on, the higher the chance that this bug happens. At first, it will only affect a single player, then the longer the raid goes on, the more players are affected by it.
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Typically, this bug affects at most 3-4 players in a 8-player group; in other words, these players will sometimes have dead players in the group, and they'll get the 90% stuck loading screen. Everyone else is not affected; they can play normally. Those players might show up as dead to the bugged players, but on their screen, everything is normal.
Note that a player might see other dead players, and they can show up dead for someone else. In other words, there is no dichotomy between bugged players and the dead players.
Note that the dead players are the same for all bugged players. They might not show up dead at the same time, but across several wipes, it will always be these 3-4 players that are the dead players; everyone else is always displayed correctly.
Also, during different raids, it is always different players getting the bug, so we can rule out any hardware or software issues tied to certain players. -
Specifically, if player A has the bug, and player B is one of the "dead" players, the bug can be 100% reproduced as follows: Player A must release to the respawn point before player B.
On the other hand, if you do it in reverse order (player B releases before player A), the bug is guaranteed to never happen.
To understand this, we must consider the release not as an atomic action but as two actions: 1. player is revived, 2. player is teleported to area start. So to reproduce the bug, player A must be out of awareness range of player B while the revive happens (1). -
My theory is that the root cause is as follows: Ever since 7.0, the game may enter a state where it loses track of certain group members. In other words, on the server side those players are still in the group, and the client UI shows them in the group frame, but somewhere in the internal memory, the game no longer considers them to be a group member.
This has an impact on the characters' "brain state" field (lucid, stunned or dead): Usually, this field is replicated if a character is inside the awareness range (< 135 meters) or if they are a group member, it is always replicated, without any distance checks.
If my theory is true and the game no longer considers them to be a group member, the character's "lucid" state change is not replicated when they are outside of awareness range, and they'll stay in the "dead" state.
This theory would explain why this bug is range-based, why it can be worked around by stunning the player, and possibly also why the "stuck in loading screen at 90%" bug only happens while grouped. - Note that this bug is not isolated to operations, it can occur in flashpoints as well. For example, we encountered this bug in the Esseles flashpoint when wiping on Ironfist. This happens very rarely, since you usually don't wipe in flashpoints, and frequently, the medcenter will be inside of awareness range of the boss room. In the case of Ironfist, the medcenter is in a different level and you need to take an elevator to get to the boss, that's why this bug can happen there.
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When we say "a player shows up as dead", we mean the following: The player has a gray nameplate and they'll show up as 0 HP in the group frame. However, when targeting the player, you can see that they are at full HP in the target frame as well as the tooltip. In addition, you can see that the player is moving around, though their movement may be laggy or the character animation might bug out, since dead players are not supposed to be moving.
When attempting to resurrect the player, the server will respond with an error "player is not dead". When trying to use an ability on the player, the client will refuse to activate the ability since the player is dead; the rare exceptions are a Sage's Force Armor, and AoE abilities.
Specifically, the bug is that the game client considers this character to be in the "dead" state, while the server considers the character to be in the "lucid" state. - Note that if a character shows up dead, this bugged state will persist across areas; they will stay dead even when both characters leave group and exit area, the character will still show up dead in the next area even when ungrouped.
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We are aware of three workarounds (when a player already shows up dead, aka the healer forgot to be the last to release to area start):
1. The "dead" player must die again and then release to the respawn point (or be resurrected by another player) while the player with the bugged client is in awareness range of the corpse. That way, on the client the state correctly changes from "dead" to actually "dead" to "lucid". For example, the player can enter an exhaustion zone where they die, or they can jump down and die from fall damage. Or they can aggro an enemy and /stuck.
2. The "dead" player must be stunned while in range of the player with the bugged client. That way, on the client, the state changes from "dead" to "stunned" to "lucid". For example, the "Titax Strike" ability in Nature of Progress stuns the player and fixes the bug, as well as the "High Voltage Line" ability in the same boss room. Also, activating the "Recovery Jetpack" by falling down in the Lady Dominique boss room stuns the player. When dueling, any of the class abilities that deliver a hard stun (4s) or a soft stun (8s) will work, while knockbacks or roots do not work. Also, Cybertech Electro-Stun Grenades can be used even by players with a bugged client since those are AoE. Previously, it was possible to duel players in R-4 Anomaly as a quick workaround but ever since dueling was removed in 7.1.1, we now have to resort to workarounds #1 or #3.
3. The player with the bugged client must restart their game, either by Alt+F4ing (causing a disconnect) and restarting, or by cleanly exiting and restarting. Going to character selection or server selection is not enough; they must quit the game. On restarting, each group member's "brain state" will be correctly loaded from the server.
However, note that each of these three workarounds is only temporary. On the next wipe, the client can once again enter a bugged state. -
As mentioned before, the other bug ("loading screen is stuck at 90%") is closely related to the "dead players in group" bug:
Whenever a client has entered the bugged state (aka they have been seeing "dead" characters), the next time the player enters a loading screen while inside a group, the loading screen will get stuck at around 90%. The game window does not freeze, it is not at 100% CPU usage, the loading bar just stops moving. It is as if the client enters an invalid state from which it cannot recover, and then stops loading the area.
Note the two preconditions: 1) The player must enter an area load screen (exiting to character select does not count), and 2) The player must be inside a group (does not matter if it is a party or an ops group).
For example:
- A player has a bugged client inside R-4 Anomaly and exits area while grouped → stuck at 90%
- A player has a bugged client inside R-4 Anomaly and travels to their stronghold while grouped → stuck at 90%
- A player has a bugged client inside R-4 Anomaly, leaves group (starting the 30s timer), then exits area → area load goes through
- A player has a bugged client inside R-4 Anomaly, leaves group (starting the 30s timer), then exits area, then accepts a group invite and travels to a different area → stuck at 90%
- A player has a bugged client inside R-4 Anomaly and logs out to Character Select → they load into Character Select
- A player has a bugged client inside R-4 Anomaly, logs out to Character Select and logs onto a different character → they load into the other character
- A player has a bugged client inside R-4 Anomaly, logs out to Character Select and logs onto a different character, then accepts a group invite and travels to a different planet → stuck at 90%
In other words: Once the client is in the bugged state, even switching to a different character does not help. Even disbanding the group and joining a different group with different characters does not help; the next loading screen (while grouped) gets stuck.
You can't wait it out either; like you could be playing normally for 2 hours after the operation ended, and you would switch areas normally without being in a group, then eventually you group up again and will always get stuck in the next loading screen.
The only workaround is to restart the game client. -
There are two other bugs which occur since 7.0 and might be related.
The first bug occurs as follows: A player is inside an operation, then they have a disconnect or they Alt+F4 and restart the game. They are able to login within 1-2 minutes, so they should load into the operation, right where they left off. Instead, they will spawn outside of the operation (e.g. for R-4 Anomaly, they'll load into Mek Sha in front of the operations entrance). However, to their group members, they show up as being inside the operation (when moving the mouse over the group frame, the tooltip will say they are inside R-4 Anomaly). Once they enter the operation, everything appears to be normal. However, exactly 20 minutes after they logged in again, the player is automatically brought to character selection due to inactivity. In other words, even though they've been actively playing, the inactivity timer is erroneously started and never reset. This bug happens very rarely, e.g. once a month, but often enough that we can easily identify when it happens (= spawning outside of the operation after a client restart and group members see them as being inside the operation).
The second bug occurs as follows: A group leader invites another player into an operation group. In chat, they see the message "You have invited ... to join your ops group." but even though they accept the invite, the group leader sees no chat message "... joined the ops group." and they don't see the player in the operations frame; the slot shows up empty. The other players in the group can see the newly joined player. As a workaround, one of the other players has to move the "invisible" player to a different slot in the ops group, then they'll show up to the group leader as well. We have seen this specific bug a single time before 7.0 (sometime during 3.x/4.x), but ever since 7.0, it appears regularly. It is rarer than the first bug but also frequently enough to identify it.
It would be great if these two bugs can also be fixed, or maybe they are caused by the original bug and will automatically disappear when the original bug is fixed. However, they are not nearly as annoying as the original bug.
I hope that with this additional information, you will be able to identify and fix the bug. As mentioned above, it is very frustrating, it costs us a lot of time in every single raid, and not just our group but every raid group during progress (aka during frequent wipes).
If you are unable to identify the bug, I ask that you make it easier to work around the bug, e.g.:
- Allow players to once again duel inside of R-4 Anomaly (and inside other operations), so we can stun other players. or
- In every boss room, add a mechanic for players to easily stun or kill themselves without aggroing the boss. Specifically in R-4 Anomaly, make it possible to use the elevator to return to area start (where there's an exhaustion zone to easily kill oneself), or add an exhaustion zone in all taxi tubes. or
- Create a new item with the following "On Use" ability: Stuns yourself for 1 second. Does not create resolve. Cannot be used in warzones/arenas. Cannot be used during combat. Has a 30 second cooldown. Alternatively, create a chat command similar to /stuck that activates the same ability, or at least causes the server to send the correct "brain state" for all group members.
Any of these three workarounds would be a huge relief. Please add one of these workarounds ASAP. We really enjoy the game, specifically operations, but this bug is killing our motivation to progress on bosses.
Note that this bug was included as part of the 7.1 Known Issues (even though it first appeared in 7.0, not in 7.1), but you forgot to carry it over to the 7.1.1, 7.2 and 7.2.1 Known Issues. Adding this bug to the current known issues would be a great sign that you are aware of this bug.
Here are some more threads about this bug:
- R-4 Boss: IP-CPT Feedback Thread (March 2022)
- Other players staying dead in the ops frame after rezzing (May 2022)
- Players Show as Dead in Ops Frames [Not Fixed on PTS] (June 2022)
- Endless loading and dead player in operation group (August 2022)
- R-4 Anomaly Bug Collection (September 2022)
- Dead Players in Operation Frames R4 Vet Mode (October 2022)
- Dead Bug and Infinite Load Screens (December 2022)
- any chances to fix game breaking stuff? (January 2023)
- Infinite loading screen and Dead people in raid (January 2023)
Bumping this again, as this is probably the most comprehensive, universal description with the best-founded theory on the matter. You ain't gonna get more detail and info than this apart from video footage thats in the thread already, too.
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2 minutes ago, JackieKo said:
Hi there,
Can you give us specific locations where this is occurring? We would also like details on the camera angles being used as well.
Thanks!
I have screenshots of different locations and instances where this occurred. where would i drop links to these screenshots?
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The Random Charge Legendary has been redesigned and renamed to Overcharged Cells. It now does the following:
- Priming Shot / Vortex Bolt, Thermal Detonator / Assault Plastique, and Healing Scan / Advanced Medical Probe generate 3 Supercharges. This effect has a rate limit of 15 seconds.
please clarify if this rate limit is alacrity-affected or not. if it is not, the i URGE you to change it to be ASAP, otherwise it will be a hard nerf to IO, which uses Detonator every 13.5 seconds or so, making it have a hugely diminished rate of gained super charge, and ergo strongly nerfed damage.
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The Random Charge Legendary has been redesigned and renamed to Overcharged Cells. It now does the following:
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5 hours ago, ArchingBeast said:
I understand that you wanted to even out the choices a little more, but theres still a few issues with the current state, apart from the obviously still bugged/unupdated draining center mod:
a) Annis power is not bound to it's DPS. Anni has such a universal utility arsenal that it outperforms many specs on this point alone. One of these is the massive healing, which with the projected DPS output of the Draining/Bleeding center combo will increase to even more mad levels (In fights where constant Healing is needed, 2 Anni Marauders heal about the same amount that a poor healer does, without sacrificing any DPS or GCDs, and thats on live). Therefore, Anni, if anything, needed less heals than before, or the class needs to be severely punished DPS-wise for the extra survivability.
b) The original feedback was aimed at the supposed "smoothing" these changes archieved. In my eyes, the opposite effect has rung true, with the class playing super weirdly if played on top DPS (Drain/Bleed), having much more Rage than necessary (Juyo/Bleeding), or just about not managing a stable rotation for barely more DPS that the "safer choice" (Juyo/Blood Fury, compared to Juyo/Bleeding). It is easily fixed though
My suggestion would be to move the extra rage Bleeding Center gives to Blood Fury.
This would archieve the following:
- Juyo/Bleeding Center combo would not drown in much rage that the Debuff from Battering Assault runs out, yet still be a safe and easy option, basically as before.
- Juyo/Blood Fury combo would archieve a stable, if more difficult rotation with actual DPS reward for the risk
- Draining/Bleeding Center combo would be punished DPS wise for the increased healing, since with less Rage, Berserk would be up less due to less Slashes producing Fury stacks.
Please, continue to closely monitor our feedback. As the community probably spending the most time out of everyone with these classes and mechanics, we want them to be the most polished, balanced and fun they can, and much of our feedback, including this post, intends to archieve exactly that. Thank You
Neophyte
An Addendum: After some testing on the dummy with different scenarios and setups, the rage gain on bleeding center renders blood fury useless, even with the buff to its damage. the extra rage from bleeding center is worth a lot more, giving you more slashes and rupture ticks than the Blood Fury DPS is worth. Again, a likely solution would be to move the Rage Gain to Blood Fury. Bloody Fury is an inherently more risky playstyle, and it should be rewarded.
Neophyte
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5 hours ago, ChrisDurel said:
Hi, thanks for your reply. I will try to answer a few of these as best as I can.
When picking Draining Center, their DPS was too high. The other choices did not bring their DPS nearly to what it was with Draining Center. PTS evens this out a bit more.
And you can still build Centering / Fury stacks with Force Melt / Rend, when choosing the Juyo Melt / Rend mod choice instead. The functionality is simply now spread across multiple mod choices to not make one a clear winner in all situations. Draining Center was giving great burst in addition to adding stacks of Centering. Rotationally, if you choose Juyo Melt on PTS, you can still play the exact same way you could previously (Zen right before Force Melt), you just won't get the 4x damage on Force Melt anymore, but you will build stacks at exactly the same rate.
As far as Force Fracture, this was never intended to wholesale replace Cauterize in operations, it is simply a more burst option if you like it. It has been improved to be more competitive, but it is not supposed to be equal to the others in terms of damage output.
I understand that you wanted to even out the choices a little more in terms of strength, but theres still a few issues with the current state:
a) Annilations power is not bound to it's DPS. Anni has such a universal utility arsenal that it outperforms many specs through this alone. One of these ultilities is the massive healing both to yourself and the group, which with the projected DPS output of the Draining/Bleeding center combo will increase to even greater levels (In fights where constant Healing is needed, 2 Anni Marauders heal about the same amount that a poor healer does without sacrificing any DPS or GCDs, and thats on live). Therefore, Anni, if anything, needs less heals than before, or the class needs to be punished DPS-wise for the extra Healing.
b) The original feedback was aimed at the supposed "smoothing" these changes archieved. In my eyes, the opposite effect has rung true, with the class gameplay being clunky and unsatisfying if played for top HPS (Drain/Bleed), having much more Rage than necessary (Juyo/Bleeding), or just about not managing a stable rotation for barely more DPS that the "safer choice" (Juyo/Blood Fury, compared to Juyo/Bleeding). [edit: testing on the PTS after the bug fix of Draining Center shows that every combination of these Mods deals pretty much the same DPS]
This could probably be easily fixed with the following simple suggestion:Move the extra rage Bleeding Center gives to Blood Fury.
This would archieve the following:
- Juyo/Bleeding Center combo would not drown in so much rage that the Debuff from Battering Assault runs out, yet still be a safe and easy option, basically working as it does on the live servers.
- Juyo/Blood Fury combo would archieve a stable, if more difficult rotation compared to Juyo/Bleeding with an actual DPS reward for the risk.
- Draining/Bleeding Center combo would be punished DPS-wise for the increased healing, since with less Rage, Berserk would be up less due to less Rage-consuming producing Fury stacks in a given time window.
Please, continue to closely monitor our feedback. As a member of the part community that's probably spending the most time out of everyone with these classes and mechanics, we want them to be the most polished, balanced and fun they can be, and all of our feedback, including this post, intends to archieve exactly that. Thank You for considerating.
Neophyte
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7.1.1 Feedback: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly
The Good
- The intention for the healer changes is the right one, but it remains to be seen how the numbers turn out. fights like hateful entity, nahut, izax (esp.omnicannon) and mutant trandoshans (esp. ultimate hunter) are all fights that greatly rely on the operatives ability to single-handedly bring the group from almost dead to fully healthy, a rebalance for these fights and mechanics is definitely needed.
- The opearative dps and dcd changes are welcome, i especially like the AoE DR handling as its unique and creative
The Bad
- The changes to marksman are a sidegrade, they do barely anything. Marksman needs a sizeable damage buff, it is by far the worst spec in the game right now. Even Arsenal performs better right now. This is truly not enough.
- The mods to Severing Slash do nothing for any spec of the Assassin. it sits in the same tier as Shroud, and as such is never taken because shroud is so strong. Any buffs or changes to Severing Slashare are thus meaningless.
The Ugly
- Why would you ever nerf Lightning like this? The nerfs to damage are massive. MASSIVE. It can't be understated. The only thing needed to keep people from hard casting Halted Offensive its cooldown increased by 2 or 3 seconds, so there is no window to hard cast it before Thundering comes off cd. This would also decrease Lightnings single target DPS output to similar realm as IO, Virulence or Madness. Whatever you are trying to do with lightning, this is not the way.
- Advanced Prototype is decently-ish strong in PvE, its a good class to provide the group with an Armor Debuff, and has its uses baked in, as its a PT spec. AP is also madly (and arguably too) strong in PvP with some of the strongest burst ingame, and the unique ability to global other players. So a good change to soften its PvP strength a bit would be to shave off some damage from its burst abilities and put the on the fillers and Sustain Damage parts of the class, to keep it where it is in PvE, right?
Well, what you are trying to do will completely go the other way, massively decreasing its sustain (nerfs to magnetic blast, retractable blade DoT, and for some reason the Energy Burst burn, that was never an issue to begin with and barely used in either PvE or PvP). Not only that, but you also decided to give the AP a new tactical that, for whatever reason, increases AP's burst potential. I don't know what you are expecting this to do, but it will make Ap only worse, less good in PvE, even more powerful in PvP. Please, please reconsider these changes.
What's missing
- Now that the operative has its AoE DR added, the merc also needs something, it is simply too weak in that regard. Something similar to the operatives solution added to Chaff Flare for example would do the trick.
- Please, take a good look at the scenarios in Ops that produce high incoming AoE damage. Some of these are virtually imposible to survive without the operatives incredible group healing potential. Something like the Omnicannon dealing 140% of a players lifepool in damage is simply not survivable once the operative is nerfed. The Hateful Entity will also be much more difficult than it already is.
To finish this post, I'd like to say that i very much like the general road taken in terms of balance decisions. However, the road ahead to where i expect your target to be is still long, and some proposed steps are sadly in the wrong direction. Please, carefully read the feedback provided to by us players you and act on it. Most players that do provide good feedback care about this game very much and only want the best for it.
Thank you.
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There are some unlisted changes to Mercenary DPS on the PTS as of right now.
Innovative Ordinance
Relentless Ordnance went from 3-5% bonus elemental damage on bleeding targets
Slow Burn went from 25-30% bonus damage on Thermal Detonator burn (0.1% dps increase)
Arsenal
Tracing Residue went from 5-10% bonus Tracer Missile damage
Hopefully more on the way.
(etc)
This is very important feedback to the dev team, there are many things i did not touch on in my post, but that are certainly worth mentioning
Regarding the alacrity breaking the proc timing/rotation, its also worth mentioning that, although to a lesser degree, arsenal also suffers from this proccing issue of having a tracer be done casting about .1-.2 seconds before the proc is up again, needlessly punishing the already difficult task of keeping up with the proc timing, which is very important when optimizing ticks of "Primed Ignition", which gets most of its ticks by Blazing Bolts, is a vital part of the spec.
I also want to stress that most of these changes are easy to implement, needing only a small adjustment to a value or condition. This comparatively low effort would go to a great deal in making these classes significantly more pleasant to play, regardless of output.
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Good work, these are good suggestions for balance.
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Hello to the SWTOR Developer Team!
This is the announced follow-up to my post a few months ago, where I asked you a few questions regarding design and balance choices for the Mercenary DPS specs. As a lot of time has passed since, and the class has seen changes on the PTS, this post is intended to stand on its own. Therefore, I may reiterate some points I already made over there. I also planned this to be much bigger, however some of my concerns I wanted to bring up were already adressed to more or less satisfying degrees, hence I am abled to keep this a little shorter and more consice.
After some testing of the original state of the mercenary when 7.0 launched, aswell as the PTS 7.1 state, I, with the generous help of many other people, have reached the conclusion that the Mercenary/Commando DPS specs are universally underpowered. However, since the process of writing this post, the PTS has seen changes to both specs. As such, will start of by reviewing the current changes on the PTS before diving deeper into the issues of each subclass as well as overarching issues with the entire class, and will close with my recommended changes. I will list all changes at the end. Please mind that I will only keep using the Imperial side terminology going forward to streamline the writing process and as it is more familiar to me.
The Status Quo on the PTS
Arsenal
The reduction of heat cost for Blazing Bolts and Priming Shot work very well. They bring heat management down to a level that is sensible. You can now go to town much more intensly without being harshly punished for having used a single tracer too much or in the wrong place. Well done.
The changes to the new Tactical, „Gyroscoping Stabilizers“, are also welcome, making it an actually effective choice for AoE-heavy scenarios.
The buffs to the „Riddle“ and „Target Tracking“ passives, although a step in the right direction, are far to little to bring Arsenal into any proximity of the strongest specs. Even compared to other ranged specs (that tend to do worse than Melee generally, on dummy and in raid), Arsenal is still only abled to compete with IO and Marksman in single target conditions and being far outdone by IO once multiple targets are introduced. This is not enough.
IO
The buff to Serrated shot damage is a step in the right direction, however far from enough to make a huge difference. It manifests itself as a DPS increase of around 200-300 DPS. Newly added to that is the change of the „Incendiary Ignition“ choice, which sadly also results in more of a sidegrade than an actual buff, as it only results in just under 200 dps extra on average. While buffing sustained DPS is the right choice of action for what the class needs, the amplitude is lackluster.
Sadly, the New Tactical, „Magnetic Resonance“ is utterly useless. The additional elemental damage it deals is about 4000. four. thousand. To put this into perspective, „Energized Charges“ doubles the number of ticks of the DoT applied on the target und Super Charged Gas (SCG), with every tick dealing about 9k damage on average. Needless to say, Energized Charges outperforms it in any situation you can think of. In fact, I find this so hilariously out of proportion that I desperately hope that this was an oversight or faulty code.
What Issues the Merc is currently dealing with
Arsenal:
Arsenal plays very smoothly with the changes to heat management. The only thing it lacks really is sustained output. Looking at the damage spread of a typical parse, a few things become clear: First of all, the spike and overall damage of heatseeking missiles is below Rail Shot. Rail Shot is buffed highly by both meta legendaries, while heatseeker is mildly and indirectly buffed by only one (random charge). The extra crit chance and damage by the premier choice for sustain, „Customized Warhead“, is not enough to make it keep up with the spikes rail shot is capable of. I find this very disappointing for a signature or flagship ability that looks as cool as this one does.
Second of all, the crit rates of blazing bolts, tracer missile and are all awfully low. Given that these two abilities are the two most impactful abilities, making up around 65-75% of all abilities when counted by global cooldown (gcd) cost, crit rate is obvously a massive factor.
IO:
A very similar problem is also befalling the IO, its sustained damage is below acceptable levels, although unlike Arsenal, its capability to output very high damage in just a few gcds via the SCG DoT, combined with its most powerful instant abilities chained together, is still decent. This is also very apparent in the damage spread, with the supposed „main DoTs“, i.e. Serrated, Incendiary, and Burning from Combustible Gas Cylinder (CGC), make up only around 25% of the overall damage. This is the clear culprit that keeps IO from doing decent sustained damage.
Defensives
DPS is not the only issue the class has. Even when sporting heavy armor, it is one of the weakest classes when dealing with AoE Damage taken, the by far most common type of damage taken encountered by DPS and Healer players in the most difficult PvE encounters. To illustrate this further, I will compare the Mercs defensive Cooldowns (DCDs) against AoE damage to the Sniper and Sorcerer, the other ranged specs:
The Sniper is easy to describe, with „Entrench“ being a 60% AoE Reduction, which can be used every minute for 20s of runtime, with the ability to instantly reset its CD and gain extra Damage reduction (DR) in the process via „Imperial Preparation“. I don't think that need to go into the Sniper DCDs further to show that its well equipped to deal with AoE.
The Sorcerer is a little weaker, sporting only light armor with a passive DR choice in the tree and some small self heal for madness. However, its DCDs are short in CD and provide either a shield for 40k damage overall, self heal or 25% of Damage reduction via „Cloud Mind“ a choice often taken in the tree. Through these short cooldown DCDs that all mitigate spikes of damage, the sorc is also decently equipped to deal with incoming AoE Damage. On top of that, the Sorc posesses the single most „screw you“-ability this game has to offer, Force Barrier. It sports a very long CD and requires you to do nothing, but a its very potent way of dealing with any incoming damage that has a value associated with it.
The Merc in contrast has 2 abilities that are directly abled to mitigate AoE damage, those being Energy Shield and Kolto Overload, with 2 minutes (about 1.5 depending on damage taken frequency) and 3 minutes cooldowns respectively. Reflect and the resists diversion provides don't work on AoE Damage that is non-avoidable by movement, i.e. not delivered through a void or ground effect of some sort. The extra 6% DR from the tree and heavy armor sadly don't do enough to mitigate frequent AoE damage as it exists in encounters like Apex Vanguard, Titan 6, Zorn & Toth, Tyrans and Dread Concil, among many others.
General:
One overreaching issue that very much hurts the performance of the Merc are the choices of the Combat Style Tree. The choices both Merc DPS classes get lack noticeable behind most other classes in power and/or impact. Comparing again to both Sniper and Sorcerer, both of these classes have a DPS choice in the LVL 27 tier. While that tier ranges in usefulness depending on spec and the power of the defensive choice in the same tier, the main difference is that it exists.
The Merc gets Explosive Dart, an ability thats now even useless for IOs, as it has lost its DoT-spread capability. You never take, let alone use this ability, ever. And it blocks a spot where a potentially impactful choice could be.
Unfortunately, even the main damage choices at level 23 and 39 are very lackluster compared to other classes.
To illustrate: The Arsenals premier lvl 23 choice is a little less cast time and energy use for its spam filler, while the Sorc evolves its cleave ability Chain Lightning into a single target cast that is worth hard casting for 2.5 seconds, so large is its damage. The IOs best lvl 39 choice that strongly buffs the tiniest DoT the class has to a point where it only makes up around 3-4% of all damage dealt from around 1-2% last update, meanwhile the Pyrotech gets a new DoT on Rail Shot that now makes up a whopping 9% of all damage dealt by the class. It takes no degree to see the huge difference.
What further compounds these issues is the very tiny amount of Raid Utility compared to most classes. Raid Utility are all things that benefit the raid group outside of their own ability to deal damage or mitigate damage taken. Raid Buffs like Bloodthirst, soft and hard stuns, enemy or ally pulls, group shields, etc.
Here again, a comparison to the other ranged classes paints a very clear picture: The sorc by default has a hard stun, a rooting knockback, an allied pull, and the ability to give static barries to other players, as well as, off healing It can also spec into a very potent raid buff and a soft stun.
The Sniper has a rooting knockback, a root, an AoE accuracy debuff, with the ability to spec into an AoE shied for allies.
The merc has a soft stun, a non-rooting pushback, and off-heal by default, with the weakest raid buff and stealth scan as options in the tree. These utilities are rather weak in comparison. For what its worth defensively and utility-wise, the merc has no business dealing as little damage as it does.
Lastly, to be a little more viable, the Merc has to drop one more thing that made it stand out against the other ranges: the ability to move while channeling. The default Kolto Surge is just that weak on Merc that dropping movement liberties is the only option.
Last update, the Sniper was obviously bound to stand still to deal maximum damage through the entrench-buffing set bonus, but it is still very bound to staying still in cover. The Sorc last update also was rather stationary with either lots of casting in place or channeling for Madness. The mercs, especially the IO, were the most mobile in comparison, which offset the fact that even last update, its defensives for AoE were the weakest for AoE damage taken.
This constraint, while not further detremental to the core issues of the class, still rob it of its identity as the mobile class. The IO can cope just fine, however its channel, Unload, becomes almost useless, which i very much dislike. Arsenal however, is now bound to stay in place a ton more, making it even more vulnerable then as it already is.
Conclusion
If we add these facts up, what does the merc have? Sub-par DPS, underqualified defences to deal with a lot of damage taken in a raid, crippled movement, and an assortment of raid utility that leaves a lot to be desired. Most choices in the tree are only minor buffs or side grades, especially in places where game changing DPS options should be. All in all,
there is no reason to bring a merc DPS into a raid.
Suggested Changes:
The following changes have been mathematically calculated to keep Merc in line when compared to other ranged classes. They aim only to make merc viable again, not over-powered in comparison.
Arsenal:
the following passive changes are mostly to bring Arsenal as its currently on PTS closer to standard sustained dps of most ranged classes:
Increased the critical hit chance bonus from Riddle / Rotary Cannon from 5% to 15%
new passive to replace Explosive Dart (lvl27): Deadly Tracing – increases the critical chance of tracer missile by 10%
the following Buffs are redesings for the lvl 39 choices to promote different choice for different situations:
Tracing Residue – Heatseeker Missiles apply a residue on the target, increasing you Tracer Missile damage against your target by 10%
Customized Warhead – Increases ther Critical Damage of Heatseeking Missiles by 10%. Additionally, Heatseeker Missiler will critically hit automatically. This cannot occur more than once every 30 seconds.
IO:
The following changes aim to increase the amount of damage the DoTs deal, without touching the quite strong burst too much. They are designed to be equal in DPS increase. However, the first choice is intended to be a little more exciting in nature (like many other new choices for other classes) while the latter is a little less so for easy of implementation. again, both provide a very similar DPS boost.
new passive to replace Explosive Dart: Volatile Ignition – Every time Combustible Gas Cylinder is reapplied on your target, it forces your Incendiary Missile Burn and Early Ignition Burn to tick. (ticking works like Cull)
alternatively
Periodic Criticality – Increases the Critical Chance and Damage of all your Damage-over-Time effects by 15%
Defensives:
Merc needs quite powerful means against pulse AoE damage taken. As such giving it very potentA oE DR for a short time will give it what it needs. An alternative is reintroducing permanent AoE reduction, however I strongly advise against reintroducing permanent AoE DR.
Chaff Flare – Reduces your Threat towards all current enemies, increases your Area-of-Effect Damage Reduction by 60% for 10 seconds (Arsenal and IO only), provides interrupt immunity for 6 seconds, and grants 2 charges of Decoy. Each charge of Decoy intercepts and absorbs an incoming Force or tech attack. Each time you absorb a Force or tech attack in this manner, Decoy loses 1 charge. Lasts up to 10 seconds.
Alternatively:
Gyroscopic Alignment Jets - You vent 20 heat when stunned, immobilized, knocked down or otherwise incapacitated, and when this happens your next tech ability used within 10 seconds deals 10% more damage or healing. Additionally, for the Arsenal and Innovative Ordnance Combat Styles, increases your Area-of-Effect Damage Reduction by 30%
Movement:
Swap either Trauma Stabilizers or Afterburners place with Thrill Of The Hunt
alternatively
Make Thrill Of The Hunt always passive for IO and Arsenal, and replace it with a modified version of the old "Jet Rebounder" utility:
New lvl 64 right side passive: Jet Regeneration: Jet Boost deals 30% more damage. In addition, Jet Boost reduces its active cooldown by 1 second when you take damage. This cannot occur more than once every second.
Thanks
This project has taken a while, and wouldn't have been especially possible without these awesome blokes:
Rekui for his unending calculations and just for being the IO guru
Supertigar for discussing and challenging my plans
Cliff for providing me great insight into the PvP state of the Merc
Marlone
Aero
and the awesome people of the SWTOR Theorycrafter Discord for their endless reservoir of ideas
Thank you for reading and your consideration.
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i can only second this. this needs more exposure.
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Hello to the BioWare Team!
My name is Neophyte, and I love playing SWTOR, and especially Mercenary/Commando DPS, in higher class (master mode) raids. Now, with the current update, I, and many others in the raiding community feel like that the Mercenary/Commando DPS subclasses are underpowered. We take for evidence of said lack of DPS the following two Sources. First off, the current Operations Dummy Parses, so the amount of time it takes a class to kill a 6.5M Operations dummy with shattered armour applied. These can be looked at and analysed over at parsely.io. Adding to that, we also have the complete dataset of all operations parses uploaded to parsely in story mode and veteran mode operations, with DPS ratings of different the different parent classes compared on IxParse.com. These two datapoints we take as hard evidence that both DPS specs of the class need to be buffed.
However, I do not want this to be a one-sided exchange. I feel like the best feedback we players can give is feedback that corresponds with, and builds on, the teams vision for the class and game, where the players can for example provide suggestions that may not be apparent to the team, but fit their ideas for the class. As such I'd like to ask a few targeted questions as to what the teams philosophy for the Innovative Ordnance (IO, Assault Specialist on Pub) and Arsenal (Gunnery) DPS subclasses, as well as Mercenary defensives and utilities in their entirety, is.
For the sake of simplicity, I will only keep using the Imperial side terminology, as its the one im most familiar with. I am also in active correspondence with other Mercenary players, both PvE and PvP focused, and together we had lots of discussions about the class and class specs.
I plan to bring both sides together, our thoughts as to what needs improving, together with what the Balance Team have in mind for the class, so that both sides collectively may lead to reasonable solutions in a future forum post I will write, that will discuss all the players thoughts as well as Your philosophy and will field my proposed changes to the specs, which will mostly tackle the new ability tree choices.
With that said, here are the questions I'd like to ask you. None of which should contain any bias or judgement on the game's state, so apologies if they may come off as having such, English is a second language for me.
- How seperate do you think the Burst (Arsenal) and the DoT (IO) should be in terms of damage output in different scenarios? Right now, the IO is probably the DoT spec with the best ability to burst, with a deadly combo of instant Abilities together with the incredibly strong DoT via Super Charged Gas (SCG), while Arsenal has very few damage spikes for a burst class and at this moment needs to optimize ticking a DoT induced by the tactical choice, in theory lending itself more towards sustained damage output. Do you think this is an optimal relationship between the two specs?
- Compared to the other ranged classes, how mobile do you think the Merc should be? With the sniper inherently needing to stand still, and the sorc mostly casting/channeling and currently using one of its two movement abilities to increase dps, should the Merc be the most mobile ranged spec in the game?
- What do you think should be the philosophy with defensive cooldowns (DCDs) of the merc? Right now, the Sniper deals with damage via staying in cover and having mostly two small DCDs with short cooldowns to deal with damage spikes, while also potentially being abled to skill into lasting, powerful damage reduction DCDs. The Sorcerer deals with damage similarily, mostly via passive Damage Reduction through built up stacks, while also having short, powerful damage reduction tools, self healing capabilities and a singular „screw you“-ability for all damage types that have a value attached to them. The Merc deals with damage differently, using mostly his variety of lasting DCDs with long cooldowns, with little passive resistance (aside from the fact that its the only ranged DPS with heavy armor) with little to actually deal with short spikes of damage thats non reflectable, especially if its of the AoE type. Is this what you believe should be the way the Merc plays out?
- How do you view the Raid/Group Utility the Merc brings to the table? Right now, it fields a raid buff (that is rarely used on the DPS classes), some off-healing abilities and a soft stun. This lacks very much behind the Sniper that can field a group shield, a variety of passive defensives that are very useful in tons of fights and a targeted root, and the Sorc, which has has extricate, can choose a raidbuff and can potentially bubble an entire group before or in a fight, ensure survival in some situations. How do you evaluate the balance of these raid utilities?
- Do you think some classes should be inherently weaker than others? Right now, the Arsenal has a fairly low entry point in learning it when starting out, as its very straight forward. Should this also mean that the ceiling of the class should as such also be accordingly lower?
I and many others would very much appreciate an answer, with details very welcome. I will write another forum post with my proposed changes in the near future, and I hope I can count on your insight to refine and narrow down my suggestions.
Thank you.
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apex is not as powerful because the extra supercharges from concentrated fire increase the frequency of scc/scg availability, which is hugely influential in how much damage you deal.
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1.3s = 2374 or more if you have the apex predator set, it benefits from the extra alacrity. if you are still playing with concentrated fire, 1.4s or 663 alacrity is the way to go.
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For practicability, I will refer to the Ability in question as RP in the following.
Title. When I use RP in conjunction with my full-auto, it sometimes (around 10-20% of the time) does not have the intended effect of making the ability free, yet it still goes on cooldown. I dug around in my combat logs through StarParse and found something quite interesting:
https://gyazo.com/6d49c580618bb938bfb585f04c408838
https://gyazo.com/cc595b1dfd8fc2f2d06b450eae4d3069
These two pictures show how RP is supposed to work: the ability is used, the player receives a buff, when the following ability cast is over, the buff is removed.
https://gyazo.com/6a34a885434930afa3fbc3ff9c88c17e
This picture shows, how it looks when the ability is bugging out. The buff is applied and removed within a 1000th of a second (less than a tick!).
I have had this bug happen to me aswell when using RP + Boltstorm. I have not seen it on RP + Successive Treatment, but I'm pretty sure I can replicate it there aswell.
I want to garner this some attention and I think just a bug report ingame is just not enough. This bug, while not very well known (even all the NiM-players I know did not know about it until I told them), has been in the game for a while it seems: http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=865104
It is potentially game-breaking, as it can inflict terminal damage to the fragile AS/IO energy economy, and as such stop entire boss attempts dead in their tracks when every ounce of damage is needed, and it happens too often to me to just roll with it and write off the failed boss attempts as a rare ocurrence.
Thank You
Game Update 7.4b coming the week of January 22nd
in General Discussion
Posted
What about this? Any updates, has the recent update done anything? Theres nothing in the patchnotes.