Assassin VS Operative?

[CHammer]

First of all, this is not a nerf thread. I simply wish to express in a reasonable, genuine, mature and responsible manner my current thoughts on the above two classes.

 

I play an Assassin, I currently have 11 pieces of Champion Gear and my Valor Rank sits at about 49 currently. I had a 2600 rating in WoWs Arena (so not great, but not bad either) and if you Google my real name, you'd also find out I have competed in multiple countries internationally at a very popular FPS. The only reason I included those, was to provide a decent level of credibility to those who think I'm just another gamer whinging about the game.

 

Now that, that is out of the way, I (and many other Assassins particularly) would like to know what (if anything) is going to be done about Operatives? This thread is NOT a 'nerf' post as already stated, but it seems to me currently that the Operative is a superior version of the Assassin. Which is fine, I have no issues with this if this indeed the way they are meant to be.

 

I know there are ALOT of 'nerf operative' threads, and would like to know what BioWares stance/thoughts are on this? I do think they need a 'fix', but not to the extent where they need a nerf - although I realise the difficulty in balancing them without doing so.

 

I guess, what I'm trying to work out for myself is whether or not I should reroll an IA -> Operative to 50 and PVP with it or continue with my Assassin? If Operatives are performing and operating the way BW intends them to, then it is honestly fine - it's not a big deal, I'll just level an Operative to 50 and PVP with it, but in their current state I cannot continue playing an Assassin as my contribution as one is detrimental to my teams success. Why have a Deception Assassin when they can take an Operative?

 

Thanks to all those who read and respond appropriately and responsibly. I do not want to get Operatives nerfed (or Smugglers for that matter).

 

If I am to take PvP seriously in this game (which I love by the way), pending class changes from Bioware, it seems that my Assassin has been a waste and that an Operative needs to be rolled.

 

I would like other peoples thoughts on this - other Deception Assassins particularly.

 

Thanks

Edited January 11, 2012 by CHammer

[Aethyrprime]

In a sea of OPness the balanced class will always suffer. Assassins are just the unlucky balanced class atm. :/

[domonx]

look up "acid blade" you'll see how much of a joke assassins are compare to operative.

[flooble]

IMO, one of the biggest 'problems' assassins have is their name and peoples predispositions on hearing that name. They really don't fill a stereotypical sneaky 'assassin' role in game.

 

 

It's very rare to see a scoundrel vs shadow thread, simply because of the naming, the expectations are different.

 

 

 

 

As to the topic? I'd bet an assassin and a healer would rock an operative and a healer. Game's more than 1v1 imo.

[Rawrie]

 

 

As to the topic? I'd bet an assassin and a healer would rock an operative and a healer. Game's more than 1v1 imo.

 

no way lol. Lets say OP bursts Sin to 1/2 of sins HP> restelth and switch on healer> then back to Sin>back to healer, meanwhile OPs healer dps/controls one of enemies cauz he doesnt need to heal cauz most of the time their enemies would be in Stuns and other CCs. ezpz

 

Or the easier way just nuke the sin's healer, that wouldnt be a problem he wont come out of CC for a single cast lol

Edited January 11, 2012 by Rawrie

[Silverspar]

IMO, one of the biggest 'problems' assassins have is their name and peoples predispositions on hearing that name. They really don't fill a stereotypical sneaky 'assassin' role in game.

 

 

It's very rare to see a scoundrel vs shadow thread, simply because of the naming, the expectations are different.

 

 

 

 

As to the topic? I'd bet an assassin and a healer would rock an operative and a healer. Game's more than 1v1 imo.

 

Unfortuantely, there's a PvP medal for soloing people in PvP

[flooble]

no way lol. Lets say OP bursts Sin to 1/2 of sins HP> restelth and switch on healer> then back to Sin>back to healer, meanwhile OPs healer dps/controls one of enemies cauz he doesnt need to heal cauz most of the time their enemies would be in Stuns and other CCs. ezpz

 

Well sure, if you ignore all cooldowns and the team is afk, that might work.

 

 

PS: Assassins have stealth too

 

 

 

Edit: It's still MORE than a 1v1 game.

Edited January 11, 2012 by flooble

[Macheath]

Operatives deal alot of damage. And if that was the only necessary prerequisite to put together a great PvP team, then perhaps there would be no need for Assassins. That is not the case, however.

 

Assassins are chalk full of utility that Operatives simply do not possess. An AoE knockback (Operatives don't get any knockbacks), a 30 meter stun, a ranged snare which can be kept up 100% of the time, Force Speed to close gaps and increase mobility, Force Pull if specced correctly, and others.

 

The Operative is a damage dealer and healer, but receives little in the way of gap closers and overall utility. By contrast, a properly played Assassin is impossible to kite, and of course has a tank flavor instead of healing. Once the initial burst damage is done by both classes, the Operative can be kited by good players, but the Assassin can never truly be kited. Both provide their own flavor of group utility, one in the form of CC and Guard, the other in the form of heals.

 

Now, I believe that if they plan to leave the Operative's burst potential as high as it is, then perhaps a small buff to the Assassin's own burst potential is in order. But I also think that would be a mistake on BioWare's part. For literally years, BioWare was promising us longer PvP fights than most mainstream MMOs, where one class could not kill another in a matter of seconds. The Operative is the epitome of their failure in this regard, as the burst potential of this class is almost enough to outright kill a squishier class before the Op's initial stun wears off (taken to extreme levels due to many stackable consumable buffs.)

 

I believe the entire system needs adjusting, lowering the damage dealt by most classes across the board (as I said earlier, this may have a lot to do with consumable buffs) and also looking at how mitigation/avoidance/shielding works (currently, most damage types bypass many defensive stats, making those stats next to useless in PvP) to help increase the survivability of various different classes. It will be no small or easy task for BioWare to fix their PvP, as healing will likely also need to be adjusted, once some of the other issues with consumable buffs and mitigation stats are addressed.

 

-Macheath.

Edited January 11, 2012 by Macheath

[ReFlexionn]

 

PS: Assassins have stealth too

 

.

 

SHHH, not everyone knows that

[Rawrie]

 

PS: Assassins have stealth too

 

 

 

 

Yeah, but the dont have 5k openers, and about more than 1v1- Thanks Cap!

Edited January 11, 2012 by Rawrie

[flooble]

Yeah, but the dont have 5k openers

 

.....So?

 

 

Oh I see, you're tunnel visioning the big flashy yellow numbers. Good luck with that as a tactic.

 

 

 

 

 

That original edit was for the poster in between us, didnt want to double post

[Thorzz]

Unbreakable will > Forceshroud forces them to vanish if they get the opener considering they even have vanish off cooldown, out of stealth your one of their biggest fears that is if you know how to play the assassin / shadow.

 

You got spells to get them out of stealth when they vanish the spells are named:

Lacerate and Overload

 

Deflection is another counter to OPs/Scoundrels.

 

While you think assassins might not have a similar damage output that is true for the first 3 seconds of the fight, after that the OPs/Scoundrels are pretty much cornered.

 

If im really lucky i can do upto 18k in 5-6 seconds as a Assassin relying on my cooldowns.

Recklessness,Power stim (biochem), Warzone buff and Relic you could throw a Expertise potion in there also but it's not really needed.

 

Also as biochem you can get the rakata medpack which heals for allot, again it's the professions that make the classes extremly powerful and not the actual class itself.

 

That beeing said with your cooldowns up as a Assassin if you loose to a OP player it's a L2P issue regardless of your wow rating etc (WOW was never considered a good pvp mmo amongst proper pvpers, besides the LOL i had 2,6k+ arena rating in wow crowd is pretty huge and just shows how "hard" that achievement was,Blizzard implemented arena for Esports, just look at how many that are actually sucessful in that.)

 

Oh and edit:

 

Assassin contribute more to the team than a Operative as far as i know the ammount of people in Warzones now currently is 8. Here's just some stuff the Assassin can do

 

Assassins:

Guard: This is if not the best spell in the entire game very close to it. OPs/Scoundrels dont have that.

 

Aoe Taunt: All enemies within 15 meters Player targets deal 30% less damage when attacking anyone other than you. Lasts 6 seconds.

Very good defensive abilities:

 

Force Shroud: Removes all hostile removable effects and increases your chance to resist Force and tech attacks by 100% for 3 seconds. Does not break Stealth.

 

Deflection: Increases your ranged and melee defenses by 50% for 12 seconds. Requires a melee weapon.

 

Force Cloak: Uses the Force to vanish from sight, immediately exiting combat and entering stealth mode. For 10 seconds, you become virtually undetectable, but all healing done and received is decreased by 100%.

 

Force Speed: Increases movement speed by 150% for 2 seconds. Does not break Stealth.

 

While most of these are really great defensive abilities they are also very strong offensive abilities, in huttball with the ball if you get to the topledge with all your cooldowns, there's no stopping you scoring.

 

In fight vanish; Vanishing in combat while fighting healers doing a spike leaves you with 3 interupts a stun, a interupt and another stun which leaves the healer completly useless for a long period.

 

Guard: Said spell also protects people from OPs/Scoundrel's no OPs/Scoundrels will be able to burst down a guarded target.

Edited January 11, 2012 by Thorzz

[zqsd]

Well, i think we should summarize the balance problems vs those two classes:

 

- Operative does more burst damage than assassin. While assassin's burst has nothing to be ashamed of, it's still subpar compared to the operative's one.

 

- Operative has medium armor, assassin has light armor.

 

- Operative can dispell debuffs.

 

- Operative can heal himself, assassin can not. Before everyone jumps on me saying those are crap heals well, i'll tell you this... Next time you go behing a wall to hide and heal yourself before going back in battle, just don"t do it; instead wait to get out of combat (this can take up to 30s), regen life and finally go back to fight.

Then, only then, you will know what "crappy heal" means, welcome to the world of assassins where stealth class can't heal, which is normal imo.

 

- Vanish version of operative is the easy vanish mode, since it's also raising run speed, while it does not for the assassin's vanish.

 

 

So basically there is a problem because this is a one sided match when comparing the 2; operative has better survivability AND better burst damage; this is the perfect case of balance problem.

Edited January 11, 2012 by zqsd

[Rawrie]

That beeing said with your cooldowns up as a Assassin if you loose to a OP player it's a L2P issue regardless of your wow rating etc (WOW was never considered a good pvp mmo amongst proper pvpers, besides the LOL i had 2,6k+ arena rating in wow crowd is pretty huge and just shows how "hard" that achievement was,Blizzard implemented arena for Esports, just look at how many that are actually sucessful in that.)

 

oh thats just cant be truth if you suggest to use unbreakable will on the opener. If you use it you wont get out of the cc for a long time and ur healer is doomed ggbb

[Delolith]

Deflection is another counter to OPs/Scoundrels.

 

 

Lol no it isn't. I made the same mistake and was brought down to reality pretty harshly by a member of this forum.

 

Resilience/Deflection don't work on Operative attacks.

[Astarica]

There's not much point to compare utility or whatever else to a class that can pretty much take out a guy from full health when stealthed. Even if the Operative spontaneously explodes after his opening burst took out a guy, he is still ahead in most circumstances (especially if the guy he took out was your healer). Sure Operatives are not really that great once out of stealth but it is not hard to take out a guy with your first stealth and by then you're already ahead. I'm not even sure why Assassins are compared to those guys, since Assassins pretty much have no DPS option that requires stealth. We use stealth mostly as a way to sneak up on likely target without being noticed or hit in the face as we charge up. If the other guy isn't attacking you, there is relatively little difference whether you stealthed up to him or just walked up to him.

 

Operatives might be a one trick pony but when your one trick is to kill a guy with very high probability, you only need one trick to break even. I assume they'll have their stealthed opener damage nerfed some and get more utility/whatever to make up for the fact that they don't seem to do too much once out of stealth. They seem to have five different ways to kick me down once they're out of stealth, but they can't kill me either.

Edited January 11, 2012 by Astarica

[pedley]

You don't actually mention in your post what your not happy with?

 

Firstly you mention what you have accomplished in previous games you have played which is great but this is a different game, with new mechanics not seen in the other mmorpg uve mentioned.

 

Now you mention why would a team take a assassin over an operative;

 

Operatives have burst sure but in the competitive arena that's about it.

 

Our healing is poor as we don't speced into it, and our resource goes fast if we attempt to heal any one for a more than a few seconds, its also incredibly easy to lock down our healing as our second heal requires additional resources from ta.

 

We can be taken out from.fights very easily in hutball there is no sprint or charge abilities, so if we get a poor position getting pushed off ramps means we are out of a fight for 30+ seconds. A decent team can also keep an .operative out of a fight for a long time with appropriate cc, knockback. Also if we.get rooted we cant use our snipe or any cover moves.

 

Our peeling moves are limited to 10m range, and have no stealth peals if Target is in combat, no pushes, no pulls and no mitigation to offer our team m8.

 

I have not listed here things like stealth or vanish because these things as an assassin you also have.

 

But you do have taunts and guard to help ur team mitigate damage, you do have a sprint to escape ontop of vanish or to close a gap/get over a fire pit.

 

Your range attacks are not effected by any root on you.

 

I would also like to point out that kills and total damage in a warzone also mean little, I personally have done 400k dmg 100k healing in hutball and my team still lost 6 - 0.

[Thorzz]

oh thats just cant be truth if you suggest to use unbreakable will on the opener. If you use it you wont get out of the cc for a long time and ur healer is doomed ggbb

 

Hence why said forceshroud right after, most op's will try to restun directly after you break their first cc. and if your implying that a Operative can kill a guarded Merc healer in that duration i think you need to look again.

[Rizzit]

First of all, this is not a nerf thread. I simply wish to express in a reasonable, genuine, mature and responsible manner my current thoughts on the above two classes.

 

I play an Assassin, I currently have 11 pieces of Champion Gear and my Valor Rank sits at about 49 currently. I had a 2600 rating in WoWs Arena (so not great, but not bad either) and if you Google my real name, you'd also find out I have competed in multiple countries internationally at a very popular FPS. The only reason I included those, was to provide a decent level of credibility to those who think I'm just another gamer whinging about the game.

 

Now that, that is out of the way, I (and many other Assassins particularly) would like to know what (if anything) is going to be done about Operatives? This thread is NOT a 'nerf' post as already stated, but it seems to me currently that the Operative is a superior version of the Assassin. Which is fine, I have no issues with this if this indeed the way they are meant to be.

 

I know there are ALOT of 'nerf operative' threads, and would like to know what BioWares stance/thoughts are on this? I do think they need a 'fix', but not to the extent where they need a nerf - although I realise the difficulty in balancing them without doing so.

 

I guess, what I'm trying to work out for myself is whether or not I should reroll an IA -> Operative to 50 and PVP with it or continue with my Assassin? If Operatives are performing and operating the way BW intends them to, then it is honestly fine - it's not a big deal, I'll just level an Operative to 50 and PVP with it, but in their current state I cannot continue playing an Assassin as my contribution as one is detrimental to my teams success. Why have a Deception Assassin when they can take an Operative?

 

Thanks to all those who read and respond appropriately and responsibly. I do not want to get Operatives nerfed (or Smugglers for that matter).

 

If I am to take PvP seriously in this game (which I love by the way), pending class changes from Bioware, it seems that my Assassin has been a waste and that an Operative needs to be rolled.

 

I would like other peoples thoughts on this - other Deception Assassins particularly.

 

Thanks

 

 

 

THE ONLY THING YOU NEED TO DO TO BEAT OPERATIVES IS POP FORCE SHROUD IN TIME.

 

With this you will beat 90% of Operatives/Scoundrels

 

If you play against pro Operative, he will vanish at 50% hp to oneshot you, VANISH WITH

HIM and avoid the fight he will be angry panda very angry panda. If you have nades

pop a pyronade once YOUR at 50%HP, vanish with him& pop blackout, wait for dot to

kick him out, overcharge->recklessness, schock->discharge->assassinate = kkthxbye

next one plx. Most Operatives simply do not expect a dot on a melee dps assa.

 

Playing against Operatives equals to chess in fastforward mode and you will always be

the winner if you know his moves.

[DhampirNova]

First off. I play a level 50 Operative. I hate pvp in every game except this one. Just getting that out of the way.

Well, i think we should summarize the balance problems vs those two classes:

 

- Operative does more burst damage than assassin. While assassin's burst has nothing to be ashamed of, it's still subpar compared to the operative's one.

Not true. While an Operative does have high burst, if the target is not poisoned, my damage has dropped to nothing. I can't proc multiple lacerates in a row without poison. Operatives rely on the poison to keep up the damage. We run short on energy easily too. I've had some assassin's hit me for 3-4k 4-5 times in a row no problem. How is that any different from my 4k hidden strike, then 2k, 2k, 2k lacerate/backstab/shiv ? Oh wait. I knock you on your ***. IMO the stun on EVERYTHING in this game needs to be lowered.

 

- Operative has medium armor, assassin has light armor.

 

- Operative can dispell debuffs.

Only some. Most debuffs such as Socr's lightning **** and dots, we cannot. I don't know how many times I've ran away from a sorc trying to debuff myself only to die anyways.

 

- Operative can heal himself, assassin can not. Before everyone jumps on me saying those are crap heals well, i'll tell you this... Next time you go behing a wall to hide and heal yourself before going back in battle, just don"t do it; instead wait to get out of combat (this can take up to 30s), regen life and finally go back to fight.

Then, only then, you will know what "crappy heal" means, welcome to the world of assassins where stealth class can't heal, which is normal imo.

You must be joking. The heal costs 25 energy. We have 100. Energy regenerates extremely slow. If I go into a fight to kill someone, I spend that energy. If I have to run away, its a good 20-30 seconds before I have the energy to cast that heal 5-8 times (which is what it takes to heal myself to full FYI). I usually wait to get out of combat to use the normal regen thing. And yes, they are crap heals. 1500ish in our dps spec with a 3-4 second cast time.

 

- Vanish version of operative is the easy vanish mode, since it's also raising run speed, while it does not for the assassin's vanish.

Only if talented. Though any smart Operative would get it. Again this is where people need to think. If you don't want someone to vanish out put a dot on them.

 

 

So basically there is a problem because this is a one sided match when comparing the 2; operative has better survivability AND better burst damage; this is the perfect case of balance problem.

And no. Operatives don't have better survivability and better burst. I'd say its pretty even, depending on who gets the jump on who. Isn't that the point of stealth?

 

You know I just realized I don't care. When Diablo 3 comes out this game is history for me.

 

 

But I hope I did help shed some light on things.

 

Edit : Also wanted to add Operatives get zero knockbacks, sprints, leaps, ect. We have stealth and vanish. Take away our burst and you have to give us something.

Edited January 11, 2012 by DhampirNova

[flooble]

Clearly a lot of people here haven't tried to kill a guarded healer whilst taunted, or tried to kill a tank with a healer.

 

 

If you survive the operatives burst, and with a good team-mate you will....they ain't got much left to worry about.

 

Those big hitting bursts are much less scary with the mitigation that can be stacked against it.

 

 

 

Anyway, if you're hell bent on talking about gibbing stragglers, carry on. I'll continue to fear tanky/healer combos a LOT more than some one trick pony/healer in the wider metagame

[Astarica]

The counter for the Operatives don't make much sense unless you play the game thinking an Operative is going to sneak up on you the whole time. In that case you got to be a pretty paranoid individual. It's easy to talk about how you should counter the class but honestly people don't go into a WZ with a specific anti-Operative strat in mind because there are also 7 other classes that can mess you up. Sure you may have an idea of what works but you're not always going to think 'if Operative do this and then I got it' because you need to deal with more than Operatives in a WZ. So most of the time the Operative will get the jump on you and he will pull off his awesome combo.

 

The only effective defense against them is hoping your ally stuns them the moment the Operative exits stealth (this stops his burst and pretty much neutralizes the class), or that someone's AE caught the Operative. If anything, the buff to Wither is likely to hurt Operatives more just because now you'll see more Assassins speced to use a low CD and annoying AE which means there are that fewer places to hide for a stealth class. Still, you can't rely on having two guys to take care of one guy, even if the enemy is rather weak once his trick fails.

[zqsd]

Lol no it isn't. I made the same mistake and was brought down to reality pretty harshly by a member of this forum.

 

Resilience/Deflection don't work on Operative attacks.

 

Deflexion works but only 50% of the time of course.

[Astarica]

Deflexion works but only 50% of the time of course.

 

I don't think you can dodge/parry if you're stunned. I have popped Saber Ward before gettign stunned and it sure doesn't look like I'm parrying anything. It'd make sense from a logical point of view that you're not deflecting anything when you don't even have control of your body.

 

If Saber Ward works while stunned (better yet usable while stunned) there will be a rather easy to deal with the Operative burst, but I'm pretty sure it doesn't work like that.

Edited January 11, 2012 by Astarica

[Thorzz]

I don't think you can dodge/parry if you're stunned. I have popped Saber Ward before gettign stunned and it sure doesn't look like I'm parrying anything. It'd make sense from a logical point of view that you're not deflecting anything when you don't even have control of your body.

 

Unbreakable will > forceshroud > deflection