Hey guys. I've seen a lot of posts about "nerfs" to Advanced Prototype. In reality, AP was nerfed only on PTS. For 2.0, we initially made some errors in AP's balance, which we later corrected on the PTS. Players coming to 2.0 straight from the live game will not see any nerfs to Advanced Prototype. Some damage has been moved from some skills and put into other skills, but AP is not getting nerfed from the live game to 2.0. In fact, like every other skill tree, AP is receiving the appropriate amount of damage increases to see it hitting new targets at level 55.

Rain of Fire (for Powertechs) erroneously improved Unload briefly on PTS. This was corrected. Rain of Fire (for Mercenaries) still improves Unload on burning targets. Unload has not been nerfed.

The heal granted by Into the Fray is in no way dependent upon your Reactive Shield. Into the Fray increases the duration of Reactive Shield by 3 seconds. Entirely separate from that effect, Into the Fray also makes you regenerate 2 energy cells and heal for 2.5% of your total health when suffering direct damage from area effects.

This is good feedback guys, and I think you're hitting on some relevant points. We're going to look into this.

Before misinformation abounds, no further changes beyond what I already posted are slated to go in for Mercenaries/Commandos in 2.0. More specifically, Cell Charger and Terminal Velocity are fully intact. I also want to dispel any theories that finalizing 2.0 means that we're "done" with class changes. Quite the opposite. The deadline for 2.0 is a big deal, determined by forces far, far beyond my control. The class changes that are going in for 2.0 are the best that we could manage in the window of time given to us. It by no means demonstrates us being "done" with class changes. Classes are the kind of thing that can be iterated on forever, so at some point we can't hold off a major update (let alone a digital expansion) because there's more stuff we want to do for classes. It only stands to reason that those plans will carry on to the next update. We're also discussing the viability of introducing class changes without relying on major updates (like 2.1, 2.2, 2.3, etc). There are a lot of factors at play and this is still an internal discussion, so no guarantees, but know that we'd love to be able to get class changes to you guys as quickly as we're making them.

No, it doesn't work like that. Prior to 2.0, you need 5 stacks of Heat Signature in order for your HSM to deal +25% damage. After 2.0, you will need only 1 Heat Signature to achieve the same +25% effect. Also, Tracer Missile only ever applies the 1 Heat Signature. Heat Signature no longer stacks, it reduces armor by 20% all at once, and it lasts 45 seconds. What this change does is remove the "build up" at the start of a new fight. There are still "build up" mechanics in the Arsenal tree, but none that affects the TM and HSM relationship. The effect is marginalized by longer fights, but it should be noticeably more awesome in short fights (soloing, non-boss fights, and PVPing). Also, I triple checked this, but HSM does about 16% more damage in 2.0 than it did prior to 2.0 (from a coefficient of 2.39 to a coefficient of 2.77). I believe this change went undocumented. In any case, HSM won't be getting any stronger than it already is, which is very, very strong by the way.

I definitely have a team that supports me, brainstorms with me, and tests with me, but I do all of the design, implementation, and balance for all of the classes by myself. It is a daunting task. The following changes are going out in 2.0 and won't be making it onto PTS. Bounty Hunter Mercenary -Electro Net: This ability now applies its effects instantly instead of waiting for a projectile to finish traveling. Arsenal: -Tracer Missile: The Heat Signature applied by Tracer Missile now lasts 45 seconds. In addition, the Heat Signature effect now reduces armor by 20% and no longer stacks. Furthermore, this ability now fires a faster-moving projectile. -Heatseeker Missiles: This ability now deals 25% additional damage if the target is affected by your Heat Signature. In addition, this ability now fires a slightly slower-moving projectile, ensuring that the Heat Signature effect-checking will work properly if fired off immediately after a Tracer Missile. -Light 'Em Up: No longer affects Heat Signatures applied by Tracer Missile. Trooper Commando -Electro Net: This ability now applies its effects instantly instead of waiting for a projectile to finish traveling. Gunnery: -Grav Round: The Gravity Vortex applied by Grav Round now lasts 45 seconds. In addition, the Gravity Vortex effect now reduces armor by 20% and no longer stacks. Furthermore, this ability now fires a faster-moving projectile. -Demolition Round: This ability now deals 25% additional damage if the target is affected by your Gravity Vortex. In addition, this ability now fires a slightly slower-moving projectile, ensuring that the Gravity Vortex effect-checking will work properly if fired off immediately after a Grav Round. -Gravity Surge: No longer affects Gravity Vortices applied by Grav Round.

There's too much here to comment on, but I noticed a lot of people repeating "the bubble is getting nerfed. BW already said so." So I figured that could use some clarification. We're currently undergoing a lot of class rebalance for a future major patch, so it's an understatement to say that things aren't locked down yet. However, the problem with Backlash (Lightning's incapacitate on Static Barrier) is mostly that it can be applied to any target, making an entire team of allies stun-bubbled. Since this is such great utility for the Lightning Sorcerer, we don't want to change the effect of Backlash, but we are considering making the Backlash effect only apply to the original caster - so you only get a Backlash when you put your Static Barrier on yourself. That's just the current idea. We don't have any plans on making Static Barrier or Backlash worse than it currently is for the Sorcerer that uses it. We're aware that even this change lowers the amount of group support Lightning offers, so that's something we have to figure out before we can pull the trigger on Backlash. I wish I could tell you guys more, but there isn't enough locked down yet. Rest assured, it's not as simple as "too good - nerf. Next."

Issues like these are bugs with the offending control ability, not with Unremitting. When you encounter this, please submit an issue describing the enemy you are fighting and the ability it is using.

Thanks for the report, Venjirai. I'll take a look at this and see what's going on.

I haven't checked your math, but your logic is correct. In the current game, the way our math works is that multiplicative mods are summed in their entirety and then applied, such that if you received a 33% damage bonus to Unload, and then received a 25% damage bonus to Unload, you'd receive a [1+0.33+0.25=1.58] damage increase to Unload, NOT a [(1+0.33)*1.25=1.66] damage increase to Unload.

Hi Phasewalker. I wanted to drop in to tell you that these abilities aren't broken. Considering your small sample size, your numbers are actually quite accurate. I'll go step by step as to why that's the case, but if you're a TLDR kind of reader: operation training dummies have armor that gives them 35% kinetic and energy DR. The tooltip says that on average you deal 1804 kinetic damage with Tracer Missile, and you found that on average, your Tracer Missile inflicts 1410 kinetic damage. You include that this is with 5 stacks of Heat Signatures and with High Velocity Gas Cylinder running. In this test, you ignore 55% of the target's armor rating. 20% from Heat Sigs + 35% from your Cylinder. Operations training dummies have 5814 armor rating (not visible to you), which translates through our armor formula to about 35% DR. With your setup, you cut that armor rating down by 55%, effectively turning it into 2616 armor rating. [5814 * 0.45 = 2616] 2616 armor rating translates through our armor formula to 19.5% DR. Therefore, an average Tracer Missile would deal 1804 kinetic damage, and a target with 19.5% DR would take 1452 kinetic damage. [1804 * 0.805 = 1452] This is only 3% different than the 1410 you reported, which given your small sample size is well within expectations. The same methodology above applies to your Heatseeker Missiles. The tooltip says they deal an average of 2194 kinetic damage. Since the target has 5 Heat Signatures, that HSM deals 2632 kinetic damage. [2194 * 1.2 = 2632] Cutting through the same 55% armor rating as before, the target still has 19.5% DR, meaning that on average, your HSM inflicts 2119 kinetic damage. [2632 * 0.805 = 2119] This is only 1% different than the 2145 you reported, which given your small sample size is well within expectations. All tooltips in the game show damage dealt, not damage inflicted after armor. Our tooltips do not show you the damage the ability will inflict after the target's armor. I hope this clears things up for you guys. To the best of my knowledge, these abilities are still working as intended.

Hey guys, I'm not seeing this internally, but after looking at the script, I did notice that the Barrage buff is removed prematurely when you are NOT dual wielding. In other words, as long as you're dual wielding, Barrage is working as intended. If you are only wielding a single blaster, it does appear that Barrage ends prematurely. So keep both blasters handy for maximum effectiveness! Just in case you're single-wielding though, we've fixed this bug for a future patch. Thanks for reports.

I wanted to pop in and say two things: First, I appreciate threads like this, and good job for putting it together. Second, please be careful using training dummies for DPS tests and comparisons. As contrary to our intentions as it is, training dummies are not as of yet the fully reliable DPS testing resource we want them to be. This is because they cannot dodge or deflect attacks at the moment. For Operatives, that fact doesn't have much of an impact. However, if you're going to look at Marauder and Sentinel DPS numbers and go "wow, we're nowhere near that," keep in mind that they gain a significant benefit from attacking a target that cannot defend due to their dual wield mechanic. Targets with a 0% defense chance will take significantly more offhand strikes from dual wielders than is typical. On the subject of training dummy dodge and deflect, we have a fix for it that will show up in a weekly patch in the near future (don't know when off the top of my head). So, keep up the cool thread, but keep a level head about dual wielders on training dummies.

This, to put it nicely, a kind of self-centred suggestion. That said, it's an easy conclusion to come to when you're the well-informed, knowledge-gathering, systems-minded forum-going type of player. But, believe it or not, that's the minority of any gaming audience. I know it's hard to believe when you look around and all you see is similar knowledge-gathering and knowledge-sharing forum-goers, but that's still the minority. Most players have their accessibility and understanding of the game damaged when they get a free respec. For most players, this is a jarring and unwelcome experience. We don't want to have to give out respecs at all, which is why it is only limited to when it's technically essential to making your character not break. I know that's not the answer you want to hear, but it's still the answer.

The "you get a free respec" system is automated. It happens when skill tree structure changes. We don't do it by hand. If Shadows got a free respec, then there's a bug in the system and we'll investigate. Thanks for pointing that out. Sorry you feel that way. I wasn't trying to be mean. I answered RuQu's real questions and had some fun with his "not real" question: Maybe "/facepalm" would have been more appropriate?

If it's what I think it is, there's a known issue that healing flytext overlaps, so when all three heals go off at once, you just see one (even though there are two more behind it). You can confirm this by checking how much health you actually gain by comparing your current health before and after using Death Field.

That is correct. However, I'll repeat, the reduction in Grav Round damage was made to address how much damage Grav Round contributes to your total rotation - not to address how many times you press the Grav Round button. Players have run off with the idea that we're trying to eliminate Grav Round spamming, which is not the case. My goal has been to eliminate how effective Grav Round spamming is if it's all you do. An effective Gunnery rotation still utilizes Grav Round as both a "build up" ability and a "resource dump" ability. That hasn't changed, nor was it my goal to change that. What has changed is that competitive DPS now comes from utilizing all of your key rotational abilities instead of leaning so very heavily on just Grav Round. I hope that's more clear now.

I know that as an individual, it's easy to rationalize this line of thinking, but understand that we cannot make everyone happy. If we made judgement calls for who to give respecs to, and a class did not receive a free respec after a change, we'd be accused of "neglecting" that class (just like in this thread!). If we made judgement calls for who to give respecs to, and a class did receive a free respec after a change, we'd be accused of admitting the spec got "gutted," to use your words. And why wouldn't players think that - we just handed them free tickets to go elsewhere, right? The only fair, honest, and logical way to give free respecs is to base them on technical necessity. Or, Commando skill points weren't refunded for the reasons I've already given and elaborated on. Also, devs get standard-issue troll resistance when they join the biz, just FYI.

Glad this is an addition that you like. We ultimately felt that "no in-combat res" was a bad way to differentiate class utility. And like you said, there was so little talk about it, I was curious if anyone noticed. Unfortunately, there may be a lot of level 50 Commandos running around not knowing that their trainer has something new to give them if they'd only give her a visit. Spread the word.

Free respecs are only given when the structure of the skill tree changes, such that if you were to log in and NOT receive a free respec, your character would be broken. For example, if you used to have 3/3 in a skill box, and we changed that skill so that it now required another skill that you didn't have, or we changed it so that it only had 2 points and you now had 3/2, you'd have a broken character. And that would be bad. We don't give out free respecs based on an arbitrary judgement call as to how many changes were made; we give them out so your characters will continue to work. Hope that makes sense.

For clarity, the purpose of the change was to address the issue that Grav Round, on its own, was responsible for too much of your overall DPS. In other words, using totally made up numbers, if all you did was mindlessly spam Grav Round, you could still achieve something like 85% (again, totally made up) of your total damage dealing potential. Not only was it bad, it wasn't fun (for the target or the caster). When things are bad, not fun, and yet they're still effective, they become high profile candidates for tweaking. What we did was lower Grav Round's damage and increase Demo Round's damage. I don't know what the net result is off the top of my head, but we feel it's much, much closer to a "rebalance" than an outright "nerf." And in case you're worried, if it turns out to be more of a nerf than a rebalance (which we don't want to be the case), then we'll fix it. But even then that'll probably be in ways that don't directly affect the damage dealt by Grav Round.

What would you put in its place? We might not replace it with anything (or at least not any time soon), but I'd still like to hear suggestions.

We're going to look into this. Thanks for the heads-up.

DFA's total damage was not changed in patch 1.2, but it ticks more frequently and deals less damage per tick. The overall damage and DPS dealt by DFA has not changed. The only balance adjustments made to DFA are the ones you see in the patch notes (starts faster and has a smaller radius).