Exertim
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Posts posted by Exertim
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Lol @ the people saying rage is for baddies. In a premade vs premade setting, Rage/Focus Marauders/Sentinels puts out tremendous pressure on the enemy team's healers due to the nature of its heavy aoe damage. With coordinated DPS trains and switches, Rage is flat out an amazing asset to any well coordinated PvP group. People always say "lol rage smashes" but they somehow forget the 3.5k-4k+ Force Screams along with the ranged Force Crushes that go along with it.
For those of you that played WoW Arena season 9 around patch 4.1, you can probably compare Focus Marauders to Frost DKs: insane constant pressure while being relatively frail.
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As we don't have a combat log available for parsing, it will be difficult to pinpoint exact stat weights. Until then, we're just using theories and eyeballing information. As it stands, I've been going the route of STR>110% accuracy>surge/crit>AP as Watchman/Annihilation spec. For those of you that played WoW, accuracy above 100% is essentially Expertise in this game. Also, since parry is frontal and back, it makes reaching the expertise cap even more important. Having that one Cauterize/Rupture be dodged or parried means our overall DPS takes a fairly big hit.
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Exact same class. The only detriment for being a Sentinel over a Maurader is your Blade Storm has a wind up and projectile travel time whereas Force Scream is instant with no windup or travel time. It's not a huge deal (especially if you plan on not playing as Combat/Carnage) but it's there.
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Not to toot my own horn but I did kind of write the book, so to speak.
Anyone who says Marauders are terrible, underpowered, or have no place in an Ops group 1) are completely and utterly retarded, 2) have no idea how the class works, and 3) took one look at the forums, saw all the "Marauders Suck" threads and said to hell with it.
You people have yourselves to blame for this.
Marauders (and, to a point, Juggernauts) are the only class that can actually provide maximum sustained DPS. We don't have a huge burn phase where we wait for things to regen. We go at it, we go at it hard, and we get **** done. Rage generation is constant and insured through Blood Frenzy and Empowerment. We build and spend while other classes spend and recharge.
On top of that Bloodthirst and Obfuscate are both incredibly, incredibly useful. Any "high-end" raid guild that doesn't bring a Marauder is missing out on those and, therefore, should not be considered a "high-end" raid guild simply because they're purposely leaving out two exceptionally beneficial abilities.
Yes, melee DPS suffers from movement -
Annihilation - Short fuse makes managing Fury laughable. If you have problems staying on the boss you can Predation (and also help the group) or use your amazingly more efficient close-range Charge.
Carnage - Defensive forms gives a whopping 15% in-combat movement bonus. It's incredibly noticeable.
Rage - Obliterate. 'Nuff said.
- and close range AoE damage. The AoE healing available from Sorcerers, Mercenaries and Operatives is absolutely insane. Melee groups up, Sorcerer drops Revivification, Mercenary drops a Kolto-bomb and Operatives hot up. That's on top of Shii-cho's damage reduction (Rage), Defensive Roll (Carnage), and bleed heals (Annihilation), Shii-cho and Juyo's bonuses from Defensive Forms AND Saber Ward/Cloak of Pain/Undying Rage/Medpacs.
I'm the head of my guild and the head of my raid group. My 8-man Ops team has me. From what I've heard thus far of the difficulty difference in 16-man content I'm heavily debating bringing 1 - possibly even 2 - other Marauders for an extra Obfuscate and Bloodthirst.
It's not that Marauders/Sentinels are bad at PvE but more that that melee in general are inferior to ranged DPS at the moment when it comes to PvE DPS. I have yet to talk to any serious HM/Nightmare mode guild that doesn't stack mostly ranged DPS; a few brings one token Marauder/Sentinel for Bloodthirst/Inspiration, but that's about it. It's as if the Bioware developers have a fetish for punishing melee players in this game while ranged suffer almost no drawbacks.
For example, Soa (the only fight in EV that matters, regardless of difficulty setting) places mind traps at the worst possible set locations for melee, causing us to lose considerable DPS uptime as we have to lug it to a mind trap then swap back to when his shield drops. This is made even worse due to the fact that you're unable to charge Soa in phase 3 (the burn phase), which means we lose our only gap closer (and one of our focus building abilities if you're Annihilation/Watchman). Meanwhile, ranged (mainly Gunslingers/Snipers - Sorcerers will have to shuffle around a bit for Force Lightning range) can plant themselves in one spot the entire fight and never suffer any losses to their DPS uptime on mindtraps or the boss.
I think people are jumping at the wrong issues, really. As a class, we're fine - Bioware just needs to review future fights so there's not such a heavy bias towards ranged DPS classes.
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not after patch 1.1
As for reasons why Biochem isn't good
1) Diplomacy - Only yields Companion gifts or Medical Supplies - Gives you Light or dark side points which is a pain, I personally do not want to go below rank 5 dark over and over again to be able to farm more medical supplies, and due to insane prices of missions on the Auction house it is a complete joke.
2) Expenses and rewards - I have spent well over 700k+ on trying to reverse engineer ONE blue implant that I have created from green, and nothing. The only other benifit I have from going Biochem from the start is the Rataka stims and medpacs. An extra 30/20 stats without being used is the least we could have. It saves us consuming our "profits" from crafting blue stims/adrenals.
I personally farm all these mats (using grade 5 which is a pain in the arse to get) and give them out to my guildies for free. Now I dont know if other people do or not but this helps alot.
3) "Profit" - if people were to all get reusable stims, adrenals, medpacs then shortly there would be no demand for the crew skill At all. Everyone would have one medpac for eternity and we would not be able to make enough money to make the profession useful other than for the stims.
Artifice for example - can make Colour Crystals, which will always be popular and in demand for the colours (magenta/white for example). Cybertech can make a summoning device, Synthweaving can make higher level armor (maybe not as good as tier gear) but its a start.
Im happy with the changes that they are making to Biochem it might be better having an extra +15% health, but majority of whine is from the PvPers and people don't seem to understand how much of a sinkhole Biochem can be. Every crewskill has its pro's and cons.
The OP asked why as a min-maxer. Pretty much all of your points made aren't relevant.
1. I didn't even level Diplomacy. The Rakata stim, adrenal, and medpack don't require anything from it.
2. People have said that some T3 prefix artifact quality implant is supposedly BiS for every class, but I have yet to see one that's better than what I already have (even with the added bonus of an augment slot): the Rakata implants.
3. Credits are useless in this game. There is literally nothing to spend your money on outside of respecs, repairs, and maybe the 1.5 million credit mount. I'm quickly approaching 5 million credits right now that's just sorta floating around.
So really, as a min-max player, there are absolutely zero downsides for going Biochem even after the supposed medpack nerf in the upcoming patch (which is actually a buff if you're a tank, by the way).
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I play a Sorcerer/Vanguard in addition to my Sentinel and the ability delay seems to affect Marauders/Sentinels far more than any other class, most likely because of how many instant casts we utilize (especially as Watchman/Annihilation). It's gotten to the point where I'm surprised when a skill actually doesn't get delayed.
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The people calling Marauders/Sentinels underpowered in PvP are bad at this game. I can understand if you think we need tweaks in the PvE department (although it's more of an issue with encounters being melee unfriendly in general rather than a class issue) but we pretty much wreck face in PvP at the moment.
If anything, Bioware's completely terrible ability delay garbage is what is breaking this class.
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Damn man, how are you guys so good? I was pretty sure this boss was impossible.
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I realize that this is a trolling thread but you could have at least used Armstech instead since it's in a worst position than even Synthweaving.
lol useless credits
lol useless 126 rating schematics
edit: PS, I have Biochem on all 3 of my characters and I still feel that it'll still be too overly powerful even post patch.
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I love the hyperbole, like people are saying no new content. No one is saying to not release new content...no one. What is horrible for an mmo is end game content that doesnt work, releasing more content doesn't fix that. Put out quality content, not more that doesn't work.
Imagine for a second: a multi-million dollar game developer with multiple different teams that work on separate tasks. Like, for instance, one works on bug fixing and the other works on creating new content.
No wait, that would make too much sense, obviously these studios just lump everyone into the same pile so whenever they set forth to do one thing, everything else gets sidelined.
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Inb4 WoW haters
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so you saying youve completed nightmare modes?
your a better player then me then coz i cant get past bugged bosses
You realize that the only reason 8man nightmare mode Soa hasn't been killed yet is because mind traps have an unintentional large amount of HP (200k) on nightmare mode, right? And it's being fixed in next week's patch.
Not releasing additional content for a new MMO is a horrible decision, especially as more of your playerbase is beginning to hit max level.
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For HM and Nightmare mode ops? Hard to say, especially since your DPS in general is viewed to be inferior (but no one will know for sure until a combat log is released for parsing) as well as being melee.
Everything in HM EV before Soa is a joke though so /shrug
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Nerfing Biochem is unfair.
I already feel disadvantage as a Sniper compared to an Operative, Mercenary or Sage because I see them able to solo any Heroic 2 with ease.. Bounty Hunters are 3 button wins and a heal, Sage bubbles and pops heals, dots enemies, heals companion and self then rinse and repeat. An operative doesnt worry about healing and damage when Tactical Advantage seals the deal for them to run thru any Heroic 2 by themselves.
What evens the playing field so a DPS focused character can solo Heroic 2's? the answer is Biochem.. our only answer to actually being able to heal oursleves and our companions because lets face it, were already disadvantage PvE wise compared to healers including groups.
nerfing Biochem is a slap in the face, maybe if Armstech was worth it I would have stuck with that and made myself and companions weapons but its garbage, its not worth it and instead of buffing it to keep it on par with biochem.. biochem has to take a nerf?
medpacs/stims and adrenyls are the only advantage a DPS focused character can rely on PVE wise.. if thats the case why not give all DPS classes a healing companion to start? my sniper has to wait til end of hoth.. like cmon Bioware.
another tick adding to my "im not paying for another month" rountine.
bioware is good at this already.
If you feel that your class is lacking in survivability compared to others when leveling to 50 then you ask Bioware for a buff to your class survivability. Balancing classes around tradeskills would be a horrible mistake.
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Oh, it's still there. Just in translated form now:
BiochemAll Energized, Exotech, and Rakata adrenals and stims now require 400 Biochem for use.
The Exotech Medpac is now named “Exotech Med Unit.” Its overall healing has been reduced and is now in line with similar level medpacs, and it temporarily increases the maximum health of its targets. Use of this item now requires 400 Biochem.
The amount healed by Rakata Medpacs has been reduced. This item now additionally increases maximum health briefly. Use of this item now requires 400 Biochem.
Cybertech
Wynz-Tek grenades now require 400 Cybertech for use.
Wynz-Tek Grenades have had their damage reduced to bring them more in line with grenades of similar level.
The Wynz-Tek Firestorm grenade’s damage has been reduced to bring it in line with grenades of similar level. It now deals damage every 3 seconds over 12 seconds.
As I said before, this largely changes nothing.
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They nerfed the Medipacks but left the Adrenals and Stims intact. The other crew skills still didn't get a buff and are still inferior to biochem and cybertech even once this patch hits (by a large margin).
In other words, 1.1 accomplished pretty much nothing in terms of balancing crew skills.
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Credits have been useless for a long time now, actually.
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Yes, but this is a Bioware game. Every Bioware game since BG1 have always required strategy. If you have the right strategy, then things become easy.
This is fine and all but literally every hard mode and nightmare mode boss in EV (as well as Rancor) is simply just a gear/dps check. There are no new mechanics introduced in the higher difficulties, just a tighter enrage timer and higher boss damage/HP.
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You can really tell who is new to the MMO genre by some of the replies in this thread.
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You guys are saying "kite" and "don't kite" like it's an option. We've yet to beat this guy on NORMAL mode, and we're loaded with EV gear, with sages having 16k hp. He runs all over the place, and my taunt is greyed out. We dps like mad but because we're all running around our dps is reduced and we get him to 25% or so before he enrages.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Our raid makeup (all friends, so this is who we have):
Guardian
Shadow (dps)
3 Sentinels
2 Sages (1 heal, 1 dps)
Commando (healing)
Tell your DPS to DPS harder. There's not much to really be said. Your makeup is fine for normal mode Rancor. In fact, we did a run with friends in our last normal mode Rancor and had a really unorthodox raid comp: x3 tanks (Guardian, Shadow, Vanguard), 2 healers, and 3 DPS (myself on Sentinel, Sage, and a Scoundrel) and still downed him before his enrage.
As far as I know, he was changed and is currently untankable in your typical "tank and spank" scenario.
Make sure your Sentinels have 100% DPS uptime on Rancor. There's really no reason not to outside of swapping to food adds or the 50% adds. I was able to stay on him forever even when he was after me. Just have your melee run through him and continue DPSing at max melee range behind him when he pauses to swipe.
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This 100%...
Also, min/maxing has nothing with being a good raider (I usually notice the opposite) and it has nothing to do with being part of a hardcore raid guild taking down bosses. Good raiders outperform every time!
Your reasoning is completely ludicrous. Here, I'll make an example that most people in this thread can probably relate to:
If two similarly skilled players are DPSing, which one will be doing more DPS under these circumstances?:
1. The one with Biochem adding additional stats to his character compared to the player using the blue version. Keep in mind that this player also has a superior +ATKP adrenal to use during burn phases when your Sentinel pops Inspiration.
2. The player with the inferior stims/adrenal.
There really is no argument to be made here. The min-maxer, assuming equal skill to the non min-maxer, will always win. The argument you *CAN* make, however, is that you don't need to have the Biochem bonuses to down a boss, which I completely agree with. As I said earlier, an MMO is entirely about choice: if you don't like your guild imposing requirements, then join a different one.
I'm all about efficiency so I try to play with like-minded individuals. This really shouldn't be a hard thing to understand.
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So basically what's going to happen is the one artificer left on the server will have the pattern to craft the Magenta Adegan Crystal and start charging several million creds for it, then you'll all complain that it's unfair even though YOU chose to all go for the flavor of the month, 'best' crewskill.
Bad example. Unless you have a fetish for hot pink lightsabers and/or blaster fire, the Magenta crystals are all outclassed when compared to your Columi and Rakata color crystals. Also, credits in this game is insanely easy to acquire; I *wish* that I had something to spend my 3.5+ million credits on.
Any guild that requires you have a certain profession is not a guild anyone should be in. I am a guild leader, and I think this is a ludicrous expectation and completely unhealthy for the guild. We need a diverse group of skills available to us - yes, we need stims and health packs, etc, but we also need someone to craft the epic drop patterns from Ops too. If all 16 of you in the Ops group are biochem and the pattern to teach a cybertech that mass group thing drops, oh wellThe problem here is there is not a single schematic that I have seen from normal/HM EV and Karagga is better than what we already use (or even close to it). I highly doubt anyone will be scrambling to drop Biochem for 124/128 rating schematics in an instance where bosses drop 136 and 140 rating items. The fact that these schematics make items that are BoP makes the situation worse; if the items made were BoE, then at least you'd at least make some money off of them via the GTN.
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When I found out that to make my level 48 recipes I had to have 3 rare drops that only come from hard flash points or operations I pretty much decided that I had wasted two weeks maxing artificer. I'll probably drop it and take up biochem. It's the only trade skill worth anything.
Trade skills in this game are broken beyond definition. I wish they had not put them in at all, at least I would not have wasted a bunch of time and resources for nothing.
Assuming you're talking about the alloys, they aren't very rare. In all honesty, the only thing worth making for Artificers right now is the relic (the lightsabers are outclassed by daily hilts). I would make that before dropping it and leveling Biochem.
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As I said earlier, no one knows where the actual token drops. Soa drops thel 136 weapon on hard mode EV but the token? I'm assuming it's not even in the game yet along with the belt token.
Edit: And if Soa on HM really does drop Columi tokens, then I must be blind. I've seen the actual weapons drop, but not the token (8man HM).
enrage issues in all HM's?
in Flashpoints, Operations, and Heroic Missions
Posted · Edited by Exertim
There is zero reason to take a melee dps over a ranged dps unless your back is to the wall with no other options left. HM FPs in general (just like operations) tend to be melee unfriendly.